“Sounds legit.” Court said it sarcastically.
“Legit enough,” Hanley replied. “He’s an old friend of mine from the army, started a private facility to train PMCs during the GWOT, then lost all his customers a few years back when government funding ran dry. He’s retired, but I called him up the other day and told him I wanted to rent his entire facility.
“He was pleased, to put it mildly. Drum Hill has a grass strip, my buddy has a Vietnam-era UH-1, and he can get you from there to here in twenty minutes, and to any airport around D.C. in under an hour.”
“Tell me you’re restoring his Huey, too.”
“That’s in the works.” When Court did not reply, Hanley looked back to him. “Look, this isn’t going to be first class. You’ll have gear, you’ll have training, you’ll have logistics and intelligence coordination, and you’ll be supported in the field.”
For the first time, Hanley opened his little lunch box and pulled out a pair of beers that had been kept cool with cold packs.
“More importantly than this boat, we’ve got a contract with a charter air service at Hampton Roads Executive Airport. Bellstar Aviation.”
“They’re an Agency front, too?”
“No, but a private contractor staffed by ex–Air Force, Navy, and Air Branch pilots. They do government work, but through dummy corps and such.”
“So…they’re an Agency front, too,” Court repeated.
“That’s not how Washington works these days. Everything is contracted out. It’s not a front, it’s a…relationship.”
Court didn’t really understand how things worked around here; he had spent a grand total of about a week in the D.C. area in the past decade.
“Anyway, at Bellstar, we have use of a Hawker Beechcraft 800XP, a twelve-seat business jet. Bellstar has crews they can call up in a moment’s notice, and we have larger and smaller aircraft that can be rented.”
“Kinda like an Agency front.”
Hanley sighed. “Like any good company. That airport is thirty minutes from here in traffic, and I have an FBO employee badge for you that gets you right onto the tarmac. And you can forget that Altima you pulled up in. You’ve got a black Tahoe in the lot here at the marina. It’s registered to another shell TerreCom owns.”
“Cool.”
“And if I need you at the airport quicker than that, there’s a rented shed here just off marina grounds with something faster inside.”
Court was intrigued. “You gonna keep me in suspense?”
“A motorcycle.” Hanley opened up his phone and scrolled through something for a moment, putting on reading glasses as he did so. He said, “I don’t know bikes, but I talked to someone who does. Yeah, here it is. A Yamaha YZF. The R1M.”
It was a powerful motorcycle Court was familiar with. The sport bike, Court knew, could whip through traffic a hell of a lot better than a Chevy Tahoe.
“Sweet. Registered to…?”
“Brian Webb.”
“Who is—”
“Brian Webb is you when you’re in the States. We’re still getting your legend together, should have that all sorted in a few days, but we do have the bike in that name, at least.”
“What happened to Patrick Sanders?” The identification he carried at the moment was fake, as well.
“He just died. Burn those creds, throw the ashes overboard. Forget the name.”
“Brian Webb,” Court said softly to himself. He’d had dozens of aliases in his life, however, so his attention quickly went back to the motorcycle.
He said, “Somebody’s come into some money.”
“TerreCom has twenty-five million dollars behind it. Some Homeland Security appropriation that was shuffled out of the light and into the black. Don’t know when I’ll get more, so we have to be shrewd with our expenses, but it helps that—for now, at least—I’ve only got one human asset to support.”
Court leaned back in the chair. “So, Zack’s not healed up yet?”
