• • •
Divan is not there when they offload the five AWOLs at the Porsche dealership that serves as a front for his operation.
“He spends, now, much of his time ‘camping,’ ” they are told by an employee of undefined eastern European background, whose English skills are marginal at best. Nelson explains that “camping” is code for time spent overseeing his harvest camp. It’s a place that not even Nelson has ever seen.
“He flies in, he flies out,” Nelson tells Argent. “It’s not my business to know where he does his unwinding, as long as I get paid for the AWOLs I bring him.” And although Argent has a curious streak, the last thing he’d ever want would be a tour of a black-market harvest camp.
“You will please be his guests at his private residence until he should return,” they are told, and are given the keys to a dealership Porsche to make the drive. Argent’s the one who grabs the keys from the man’s hands, but gives them to Nelson, knowing the alternative would be getting tranq’d again. Shocking the monkey has apparently paid off.
“Sweet ride, but isn’t he afraid we might steal it?” Argent asks Nelson as they take to the road. Nelson laughs at the suggestion and doesn’t dignify him with an answer.
• • •
The residence turns out to be a simple A-frame cabin on a wooded bluff overlooking Lake Huron, four hours north of Sarnia. The cabin appears unremarkable and indistinguishable from all the other woodsy A-frames in the area. Argent is profoundly disappointed.
“He lives in that thing? We drove all the way here for this?”
The first hint that things are not as they seem is the butler who greets them. Argent finds it odd that a structure this small would require a servant. Then, once they enter the “cabin,” all of Argent’s perceptions and assumptions take a dramatic shift.
The angular A of the cabin is very literally the tip of the iceberg, because its ever-widening base extends underground for three more stories, creating space within the structure at least ten times its appearance from the outside. Inconspicuous windows are carved into the stone of the bluff, giving the “cabin” a glorious view of the lake, and the décor could match the ritziest of mountain lodges. Everything’s crafted from fine polished wood. The walls are festooned with the mounted heads of a tiger, a rhino, a polar bear, and a dozen other extinct species.
“So Divan hunts?” Argent asks the butler as they descend a grand staircase into the expansive living room.
The man turns up his nose, offended. “Hardly. He collects.”
There are other staff members to round out the crew. A maid who seems to endlessly dust, and a chef about as intimidating as an executioner, but who prepares a dinner for them that tastes better than anything Argent has ever eaten. Never in his life has he experienced this kind of first-class treatment or seen this kind of wealth. He concludes that for Divan, business must be very good.
• • •
They are given the white-glove treatment for four days.
Four days of leisurely living with no sign of the master of the house. Nelson, who has, by and large, been able to avoid contact with Argent except for meals, now becomes increasingly impatient. Maybe even a little bit nervous.
“He knows I was coming—he’s never kept me waiting for this long,” Nelson comments over lunch. He’s barely able to sit for the meal, pacing, looking out of the windows at the windswept lake.
“Maybe he’s just busy. A guy like him’s gotta prioritize, right?” But Argent knows what Nelson is thinking. Divan is punishing him for showing up without Connor Lassiter. Well, thinks Argent, if hanging here is punishment, then make me suffer!
Divan finally arrives later that day by seaplane. Argent watches through a window as the small craft pulls up to the simple wooden dock that extends from the base of the bluff. Like the outward appearance of the cabin, the plane is neither ostentatious nor extreme. It’s similar to other seaplanes Argent has seen traversing the lake. Apparently the only conspicuous show of extravagance Divan allows himself is the fleet of cars, which he keeps parked in an underground garage—but even then, they’re all Porsches, playing into his cover story.
Argent hurries off to brush his hair and change into some of the fresh clothes that have been supplied for him—dark slacks and starched button-down shirts. Not his style, but maybe his style needs some changing.
He returns to find himself late for Divan’s entrance. Nelson stands in the grand living room already talking to him. The man has jet-black hair, a toned physique, and wears an expensive silk suit that seems not to have a single wrinkle from his travels. He is impressive, and Argent now wishes he’d had the good sense to put on a tie.
“Ah,” says Divan when he sees him, “this must be the young man you’ve been telling me about.” Like most of his employees, there is something European in his accent that’s not easy to place, although Divan’s English is much better.
“Y . . . you’ve been talking about me?” Argent doesn’t want to imagine what Nelson might have said. Divan holds out his hand to Argent, and Argent reaches out his own to shake—but Divan shifts his hand at the last instant, and Argent grabs it wrong, making the handshake awkward, and making Argent somehow feel less than worthy of the greeting. Divan does not seem like a man who does anything by mistake, and Argent wonders if Divan created the awkward grasp intentionally to keep him off-balance.