46Yulia The next month zooms by in a flurry of work and departure preparations. I continue operating the cafe, figuring the extra money can’t hurt, though I do stop ordering new food supplies and limit the menu as various products run out. The cafe keeps me busy, which is good because Lucas works nonstop, frequently putting in eighteen- and twenty-hour days. In a span of four weeks, he trains Diego to oversee the guards on the compound, sets up manufacturing facilities in Croatia, finds clients for the weapons that will be made at those facilities, and purchases a house on the Karpass Peninsula in Cyprus—a country we settled on as our home base due to its warm climate, strategic proximity to Europe and the Middle East, and relatively high percentage of population fluent in either English

