The other workshop was smaller, and there were some old woodworking tools stacked up all around it. Some of them were older power tools, but there were a lot of hand tools, as well. The discovery appealed to him, since he’d always wanted to try his hand at woodworking but had never had the time.
A path led down to the lake, and Noah followed it. There was a dock at the bottom of the flight of wooden stairs, with a small boat house attached to it. Allison had told him that he had a boat, so he walked over to the boat house and found the key that would open the door so that he could look inside.
There it was. Noah was looking at what he guessed to be a twenty-four-foot cabin cruiser, an inboard outboard that looked like it had been very well maintained. He climbed onto the boat and peeked into the cabin, which was basically nothing but a bed and a very small bathroom. There was a tiny refrigerator and a microwave oven that he guessed would pass for a galley, but there was nowhere to sit down there. Up on the deck, however, there were four bucket seats and a couple of bench seats with a table between them, and a folding top that would probably protect passengers from the elements. It was a nice boat, and he was looking forward to getting it out on the lake sometime soon. He locked up the boathouse again as he left.
He made his way back to the house, and started trying to settle in. The place was fully furnished, and everything seemed to be either antique or of very high quality, so he suspected that the furnishings may have come from the previous owners. The only things that truly seemed new were all the kitchen appliances and the big flat-panel TV in the living room.
Every room was furnished, including the extra bedrooms upstairs and the room full of bookcases that was downstairs. There were hundreds of books on the shelves. Noah glanced at a few of the titles, but most of them he’d never heard of. Still, he did enjoy reading, so he hoped to get time to check them out sometime soon.
He rummaged through a few of the closets, and found a decent stock of bath towels, sheets and blankets. Except for the fact that the dressers and clothes closets were empty, it almost looked like the owners had simply stepped out for a few minutes. The kitchen cabinets held dishes, pots and pans, silverware and everything else he could possibly need. The only thing that was necessary for him to do was make a trip to the grocery store.
That thought made him wonder about his finances, and he reached into a pocket to pull out the envelope Allison had given him earlier. He found the paper that described his bank accounts, of which there were four. Each of them could be checked online, so he grabbed the computer, set it on the kitchen table and turned it on. The house seemed to be wired for Wi-Fi, and the computer already set up for it, because a moment later it told him that he was logged on securely.
Following the instructions on the bank paperwork, he discovered that he had a fairly large amount of money available. Allison had told him that he would be receiving a bonus for coming on board, and apparently it was a doozy. He’d have no trouble stocking up on groceries, that was for sure.
That was also when he discovered that there was a hefty mortgage on the farm, one that he was apparently expected to make the payments on. The mortgage came from one of the same banks he had an account in, so he went ahead and set up an automatic payment. That way he wouldn’t have to wonder if it was paid when he was out on a mission.
Noah sat back in his chair and looked around at his new home. Only a few days before, he would have found it impossible to believe that he could ever have any kind of life for himself, but now he had a beautiful home, a fantastic car and the opportunity to serve his country once again.
FOURTEEN
Noah had a life, all right, and it revolved around some of the most intense training he had ever received. While Allison had told him she was going to speed up his training schedule, she had also made it clear that there were certain things he couldn’t skip, including working with Jackson on PT and Daniel on weapons, and a special class taught by an actual college professor on the Law of Nations, in particular where it pertained to espionage and assassination.
Physical training, for Noah, was mostly just fun. By the time he’d been in the organization for a month, everyone was trying to keep up with him on their daily runs, and he was finding new obstacle courses to put them through every day.