the back of his jeans.
“It’s just a scratch, I think.”
“Let me look.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
Reece took a seat and pulled up his right pant leg. He jumped as she touched the wound, which had been effectively cauterized by the heat of the bullet. The round had just grazed the back of his calf, leaving a half-diameter channel as it plowed its way across the flesh.
“See, I told you it was fine.”
“I’ll dress it anyway.”
“Let me get you what you’ll need, dear,” Caroline said, exiting the room.
Reece laid his own carbine on the table next to Caroline’s bolt gun and prepared to endure Katie’s medical treatment.
“Who were they?” Katie asked, her journalistic mind already working to understand the events that had unfolded.
Reece looked at the others around the table.
“Not sure. We think Russian.”
“Russian?”
Caroline returned and handed Katie a plastic tub loaded with first aid supplies.
She pulled her chair close to Reece’s and propped his leg up on hers before dabbing the wound with a Betadine-soaked gauze pad.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“My dad was a doctor, remember?”
“Does that mean ‘yes’?”
“Don’t worry, I also watched a couple of episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.”
She used her finger to coat the wound in ointment before covering it with a pad and wrapping the entire calf with several loops of gauze.
“There. Done.”
“Not bad,” Reece admitted.
Caroline nodded approvingly.
“All right, lads,” Jonathan said. “The authorities will be here soon. We need to talk. Why are Russian mobsters attacking us in Montana?”
Reece looked at Raife and then back to Jonathan, and then to Katie, Caroline, and Annika.
“I’m sorry, sir. It’s my fault. I think they were after me. I should have known better than to come here and put you all at risk. I should have known they’d find me.”
“None of that, lad,” the weathered old man snapped. “We are all still aboveground. That was nothing compared to what the terrs and Mugabe’s thugs did in Rhodesia. I’m just getting warmed up. Will they be back?”
“If I stay, they might, but let’s also not make any assumptions until I talk to the Agency. They might be able to shed some light on all this.” He looked to Raife. “Remember, there were two hit teams. One was after Raife, so unless they didn’t know which one of us was which, let’s not count out Raife being a target as well. It could mean someone knows you were with me in Switzerland.”
Raife looked at Annika, whose concern was more than apparent.
“Also,” Reece continued, “please check in with your other daughters. Have them go someplace safe.”
“It’s safe here now,” Jonathan remarked.
“Had they hit us at night with NODs, lasers, and a more capable force, stand-off weapons, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. We got lucky and we were prepared for this type of an attack. A more professional unit could have taken us; all of us.” Reece looked around the room as the severity of the situation sank in.
“I’ll call the girls now,” Caroline said, moving to a landline next to the couch.
Reece leaned across the table, his eyes intently moving between the father and son.
“There’s only one person who can tell us what’s going on and right now he’s dying in the back of my truck.”
“Give me ten minutes with him,” Jonathan stated. “We’ll see how tough he is once I wrap him in tires and start burning them.”
“Unfortunately, we can’t do that,” Reece said. “LE has got to be inbound, so we are on the clock. If they get their hands on him and he lawyers up, we’ll never get what we need.”
“What do you suggest?” the elder man asked Reece.
“Liz, how far is it to Thorn’s most remote cabin?”
“About an hour in the Albatross, why?”
“Okay. Liz and I will take Stalin out there to the cabin,” Reece said, indicating the Russian bound in the Land Cruiser. “You two get ready to meet the sheriff. Even local LE is going to put together that there is more going on here than meets the eye. I’ll call my contact at the CIA and see if he can throw up some veil of national security to stall things. In the meantime, I’ve got work to do.”
“Reece, are you sure you want to do this?” Raife asked.
Reece looked around the room. Instead of seeing Katie, Annika, Liz, and Caroline, he saw the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter.
“I think I know who’s behind this. He might be after us both for taking out Andrenov in Switzerland, but I think it’s about something even more