Forgotten War by Don Bentley

Author:Don Bentley [Bentley, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

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• • •

Fifteen minutes later, my teammates and I were sitting in a conference room, waiting for our host. Though the polite assistant who’d met us at the door hadn’t termed the meeting as such, audience was the word that kept tumbling through my mind. Perhaps because our accommodations were fit for a king.

The road leading from the unmarked gate had rambled for one hundred or so meters before making a hard left to duck behind a thick grove of live oaks and mesquite trees. After disappearing into the foliage, the road underwent a major improvement. Gone was the folksy gravel. In its place was a length of sparkling black asphalt, well maintained and large enough for two vehicles to comfortably pass each other while traveling in opposite directions.

The road’s condition wasn’t the only change.

Now that they were sheltered from prying eyes, the grounds also underwent a startling metamorphosis. While the property still retained the feel of a rugged Texas ranch, all inferences to a typical hardscrabble homestead vanished. The multiple buildings dotting the rolling hills more brought to mind a conference center or a high-end hunting lodge than a family dwelling. The wide length of asphalt wound past a brick building housing a pair of alert-looking guards, several barns, horse pastures, and two different corrals—one populated by milling quarter horses and the other set up for barrel racing.

Once we’d left the ranch behind, the incline steepened, leading to four additional buildings located on a large hilltop. Two of the structures seemed to be garages or shops while the third was a dwelling. The final building was half again as large as the others. A paved parking lot boasted an assortment of vehicles—everything from the obligatory pickup trucks to a BMW M3.

A wooden sign with burned lettering labeled the structure SB Ranch.

I parked in the indicated visitor spot. Then we made our way to the building’s entrance, where a young woman was waiting for us among a quartet of Adirondack chairs and a solitary firepit. After verifying my identity with a quick peek at my license, she’d led us to the conference room. I’d declined her offer of refreshments, but Jason had asked for coffee while Dee had settled on a glass of sweet tea. After fifteen minutes of twiddling my thumbs, I was beginning to wish I’d ordered something as well.

Like tequila.

“Is this gonna be like Shark Tank?” Dee said.

“Is that a Shark Week spin-off?” Jason said.

“Maybe I should do the talking,” I said.

“That would be a fine idea.”

The person who’d voiced the last statement spoke in an instantly recognizable Texas twang. Though he’d spent the last several years in semiretirement, he’d run for President as an Independent back in the eighties. A run that had garnered a respectable thirty percent of the vote. But Samuel G. Blackwood had still seen the writing on the wall. Rather than parlay his newfound fame into political currency, he’d stoically accepted the will of the American people. Leaving DC, Sam

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