She smiled. Vincent wasn’t sure if it was relief, or self-deprecation, or an admission that her last line was a bit of an understatement. But it explained why she seemed so cool all the time. Death threats were old news. He almost mentioned the fact that hospital had changed his mind on a few topics too—Iraq and torture and all the rest of it—except he’d arrived at different conclusions from what she had. Parallel experience, opposite direction. He thought Erin would like that, but he didn’t want to get too deep on their first breakfast. Save it for another time. He had some coffee and leaned back, put his arm up on the chair beside him as he sat looking at her. He smiled.

She said, ‘What?’

‘Nothing. I just realised I can sit and look at you as much as I like, and it’s not inappropriate.’

She laughed.

He said, ‘It’s a shame though, right? The breakfast after is sacrosanct.’

‘The breakfast after.’

‘Yeah. I mean the breakfast after you take a woman to bed.’

‘You’ve done a few of these, have you?’

He grinned but didn’t answer that. He said, ‘What I’m trying to say, it’s a real nice moment. But part of me’s thinking what I’m going to do to Gutierrez. Or Delroy, when I see him next.’

Erin said, ‘Yeah. Me too.’

It was another ninety-minute drive to San Luis Obispo. Erin stayed at the wheel. Vincent had never been up this way before. He’d spent time down in San Diego during his BUD/S training at SEAL school, but he’d never travelled this far north. They came up through the southwest edge of what he figured was the Los Padres National Forest—very steep terrain, greenish with low scrub. After that the landscape opened up a little, the highway cutting through gentle tree-dotted hills and every now and then a random zone of agriculture: an acre of lush green, crops staked out in tight rows. They looked out of place, like a hasty patch job on the tan landscape.

Erin said, ‘So what did you do for the Navy?’

Slight emphasis on the last word, like she knew there was more to his CV than he had told her.

Vincent said, ‘I was a SEAL, mainly. Iraq, Afghanistan …’ He smiled. ‘They spent months teaching me how to swim, and then packed me off to the desert.’

‘And how did you end up with a covering letter from the State Department?’

He glanced at her.

Erin said, ‘I saw it on Freeman’s desk. When I took his phone.’

‘I was seconded for a while. Embassy security. I basically toured around Europe for a few years.’

‘Sounds like a long way of saying “CIA”.’