to get to you. Whatever you are going to do to this asshole, not only does he deserve it, but it’s not you who’s responsible; it’s whoever sent him. Find out, Reece. And don’t feel one ounce of pity.”
“Did you see the prison tattoos? This is going to take a bit of work.”
Reece and Liz secured the Russian to the plane’s Israeli stretcher with wrap upon wrap of riggers’ tape and maneuvered him through the hatch and up to Thorn’s cabin. Steps offered access to a spacious yet rickety deck adorned with a basic black Weber grill showing its age next to a handmade picnic table. Liz opened the door, allowing Reece to take stock of his surroundings. It was a humble structure by necessity, quite literally cut from the wilderness. Each and every piece had been flown in or borrowed from the surrounding environment. The result looked more like a trapper’s cabin than an escape for one of the wealthiest men in Montana, and that was just what Thorn was after. The main room hosted a small kitchen, one round table, and an old iron wood-burning stove. A loft with a narrow staircase overlooked the gathering area, and a short hallway led to two guest bedrooms. Tall trees surrounded the refuge, filtering the late afternoon sunlight and leaving the room in perpetual shadow. It was perfect.
“Let’s get him in a chair. I’ll take it from there.”
CHAPTER 51
Community Agricultural Project, Moldavia, Romania
THE SUN WAS SETTING as Hanna Hastings leaned against the fender of her Renault pickup, making notes on her tablet. The harvest was going well, despite a lack of modern combines. The single machine they had dated back to the 1970s and had already broken down twice. What these farmers lacked in technology, they made up for in resilience. When the machinery malfunctioned, the most skilled mechanics of the group would go to work on it, despite a complete lack of replacement parts. While those repairs were taking place, the community came out and continued the harvest with hand tools just as they’d done for centuries. These were hard men and women from a harsh land; they reminded her of her family in Montana.
Windswept hills provided fertile soil but droughts threatened to ruin crops and crush wills. Hanna had received a grant to dig a well, build a basic irrigation system, and introduce the local farmers to modern seeds and chemical fertilizers. The results of their efforts were paying off. This year’s yield appeared to be the best that anyone could remember, despite a relatively dry summer.
Hanna was a horticulturist and crop specialist with a master’s degree from Utah State University. She had been born in the United States after her family had immigrated to Montana and, as the baby of the family, she had always rooted for the underdog.
She was only eight years old when she found her first cause. The ranch hands had moved some cattle to a fresh pasture and a newborn calf had been separated from the herd. They quickly discovered the oversight and reunited the calf with the herd, but her mother would not claim her. The calf was dehydrated and weak when Hanna first became aware of her plight. Caroline drove her to the feed store in Winfred, where she used her allowance to buy a nursing bottle and a large bag of milk replacer. She also made a deal with her father: if the calf survived, she would never be sent to auction. Jonathan reluctantly agreed; he’d never been good about saying no to his youngest daughter. She named the calf Patches and nursed her back to health in a hastily built pen. Patches regained her strength and was soon able to rejoin the herd, living a long life and having many calves of her own. Those calves earned thousands of dollars in revenue for the ranch, which Jonathan dutifully placed into Hanna’s savings account. One of the family’s favorite photos was a snapshot of Hanna sitting inside Patches’s pen with her legs crossed, bottle-feeding her rescued calf.
It came as no surprise when Hanna turned down a potentially lucrative career with a seed company and chose to work for an NGO educating farmers in developing countries. She was currently helping modernize the farming practices of one of the poorest countries in the European Union. She stayed in touch with her family through email and Skype and planned to return to Montana for Christmas.
Her father always joked that Hanna was the bleeding heart