Court repeated himself. “We’re a CIA front.”
Hanley rolled his eyes, feigning annoyance. “Let’s go downstairs to the salon. The heater is already on; we can warm up.”
Hanley walked off. Court heaved his bags and followed, and soon they were belowdecks in a roomy but simple salon. Both men sat down on couches and Court looked around. The space was not plush or particularly modern; there was a strong smell of cleaning solvents and a faint smell of mildew, but the boat seemed functional.
Hanley explained. “The DEA confiscated this baby like fifteen years ago, a meth distributor up in New Jersey, I think. He’d souped it up, made it deceptively fast. It was in storage for a while after that, but a few years back, the DOJ requisitioned it for an operation they were running in the Chesapeake. They jazzed it up even more.
“That op fizzled, and it’s sat in dry dock in a shipyard in Norfolk ever since. I had a broker buy it a couple weeks ago and bring it here, after giving it a maintenance check. It’s got a lot of little bells and whistles that you might like.”
Court said, “I can guess. Acoustic sensors on the hull so no one slips up from below. An underwater camera or two.”
“Or five,” Hanley said. “There are more cameras on board. The feds had it wired up pretty good. More importantly, it has a pair of Volvo IPSs, 950 horsepower each. She can make forty-five knots, no problem.”
“Thatisfast. What’s it for?”
Hanley shrugged. “As you know, we’ve been staging equipment around the U.S., overseas, too, so it’s part of that. It’s for whenever we need a boat of this size in this part of the world. But more importantly, I guess, it’s for you to live on.”
Court laughed at this, but when he saw that Matt was not laughing along with him, he looked around again. “You’re serious?”
Nine
“This is your home now.” He shrugged. “You don’t own it. Pruitt Partners does.”
“Wait. Who is Pruitt Partners?”
“A subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of TerreCom Industrial Consultants.”
“Right.” Court continued taking it all in. He hadn’t had a fixed residence in many years. He’d lived off grid with Zoya in Latin America earlier in the year, but they never stayed anywhere for more than a couple of weeks.Thathad felt like domestic bliss to a vagabond like Court.
Now he had, from what Hanley was telling him, a permanent address.
But he didn’t have the girl with him.
Hanley said, “You can sail this up to D.C. in less than a day. New York in two days. But you will be based here. TerreCom’s headquarters is just a couple miles away.”
“Okay,” Court said. “So…like…I get an office there?”
“Negative.”
“A cubicle?”
Hanley shook his head with a laugh. “What are you going to do with a cubicle?”
“I don’t know whatanybodydoes with a cubicle. I’ve never had one.”
“No, kid. This is where you stay when you’re in town, but to be honest,you’ll be on the road a lot, and when you’re not on the road, much of the time you’ll be training.”
“For what?”
“For whatever.”
“Where do I train?”
“Drum Hill.”
Court had trained at over fifty facilities in the United States, but he’d never heard of Drum Hill. “Which is…where?”
“In North Carolina, on the VA border. Maybe a forty-five-minute drive from here. There’s a farm there, owned by…a guy.”
