Chapter 5 Blackjack
BLACKJACK
Doc and Gunner came through the ballroom doorway first. Tabon, code name Razor, was right behind them. I was headed their way before they’d gotten five feet.
Three years, I’d worked for these men. Three years of operations, training rotations, and deployments that had given me the first real structure I’d had after leaving the military.
Doc had hired me on Kingston’s recommendation and never once treated me like a package deal with my brother.
Gunner had run my tactical certification and told me afterward that I was the best he’d seen from the Ranger pipeline in five years.
Razor had pulled me into a bar fight in Lisbon that ended with both of us bleeding from the forehead and laughing about it in a cab.
Doc crossed the room and gripped my hand.
“Thanks for coming,” I said.
The handshake went longer than either of us would normally allow. He let go first. His eyes moved from my face to the board behind me. “You’ve been busy.” He gripped my shoulder. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m good. Focused and driven.”
“As always, Blackjack. It’s who you are.”
“I appreciate you showing up so fast.”
“We want you to understand that we’re not here to interfere or take over. K19’s resources are available on your terms.”
Gunner was already studying the blast photographs on the board. He hadn’t greeted anyone else. The photographs had his full attention, and I recognized the focus. He read the charge placement the same way I had, except Gunner had been doing this since I was in high school.
Razor found me while Doc was being introduced around the room. He pulled me into a hug that I hadn’t expected and didn’t resist.
“You look like hell,” he said.
“You should see the building.”
“I intend to.”
Beacon hadn’t stood when they walked in. When Doc approached her, she shook his hand and asked a single question. “What do you know about the people who did this?”
Doc looked at Gunner. Gunner looked at Razor.
“Enough to fill a couple of long afternoons,” Doc responded.
She raised her chin. “Then, what are you waiting for?”
I shook my head and tried to hide my grin. She’d said those same words to me after her shower when I didn’t move fast enough for her.
“Pretty girl,” Razor muttered.
My brows flared. “Pretty fucking badass,” I said under my breath.
“Love ’em like that. Come on, introduce me.”
While Beacon was eager to take a deep dive into what the K19 team knew, they were anxious to see the bomb site.
“There are some tests I want to run on the blast residue, and it’s lookin’ like it might rain this afternoon,” Gunner told her.
Not only did she relent, but she surprised me when she didn’t say she wanted to go along.
“I’ll run them over there,” Kingston offered.
“Aren’t you going with them?” Beacon asked when they left.
“I was thinking we should take a deeper look into the people on the board.”
“Good idea. Where should we start?”
“How about with Sundance and Cassidy?”
“Is that really her code name, or are you fucking with me?”
I chuckled. “Swear to God.”
“Poor girl.”
“You won’t say that when you meet her.”
I glanced over her shoulder and saw she had Sundance’s dossier pulled up on her screen.
“They’re twins.”
She looked up at me again like I was kidding. “Does she look like him?”
I didn’t pay a helluva lot of attention to guys’ looks, but Sundance’s stopped women when he passed them on the street.
His eyes were this weird blue-green color that was so unique that people always asked if they were contacts.
He had a perpetual tan, like a guy who surfed or was out on the water every day, and he was built like most of us were. “Why? You think he’s hot?”
Beacon studied his image. “Not really my type.”
I pulled out the chair, swung it around, and sat on it backwards. “So, what’s your type?”
The way she stared at me, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear her answer or regretted asking the question. She returned her gaze to the screen and ran her finger down Sundance’s cheek. “I prefer when I can see a man blush. With him, you’d never know.” She looked at me. “Like now.”
“I am not blushing,” I said, laughing.
“Yes, you are,” said Mercury, pulling up a chair on the opposite side of the table. “So, what are you talking about?”
Beacon turned her laptop around, and Mercury fanned her face. “Yes, well, he is quite handsome, isn’t he?” Her eyes scrunched when she looked from the screen to me.
I held up both hands. “Don’t ask me. He’s definitely not my type.”
“C’est un soulagement, n’est-ce pas?” she said to Beacon, who shrugged.
“Je suppose.”
“What did she say?” I asked.
Beacon cocked her head. “You don’t speak French?”
“Nope.”
“She said she thought you were gay.”
I snorted. “She did not.”
“She said it was a relief that the boy was not your type. Happy?”
Mercury smiled and shook her head at me, then rested her arm on Beacon’s. “I need to check in with Mama and Aunt Polina.”
“Tell them I’ll visit with them soon,” she responded, closing the window on Sundance’s dossier.
Doc came in ahead of Gunner and Razor. Razor dropped into the chair next to me.
“Walked it,” he said. “The charges went off exactly where you thought. Both hall bombs took out the support on the east side, and the foundation explosive was under it. Whoever did it, knew the building.”
I agreed and said so.
“There’s more,” said Gunner. “The explosive compound they used is military-grade, Eastern European manufacture. Same compound Romanov has been using.”
“Vasiliev?” Beacon said.
Gunner nodded.
“Tell me what you have on him.”
“We’ve been hunting Vasiliev for two years,” Doc said.
“We’ve watched him reorganize his shell companies faster than we can map them.
He dissolves a structure the moment we get inside it and rebuilds the same architecture under a different name within the month.
Kremlin protection shields him at the top.
The FSB supports the personnel he sends west of Warsaw, and the immunity carried by his embassy roster puts him beyond anything our level can touch.
He moves people through that same diplomatic channel like a private courier service—operatives one week, trafficked sources the next, all of them passing through European capitals on identities he built in the nineties.
” His mouth tightened. “We’ve come close to his money twice.
We’ve never come close to the man himself. ”
“I’m with you so far,” said Beacon.
“Which brings me to the part of this you’re not going to want to hear.
As you know, whoever placed those charges had a read on that building nobody gets without inside access.
The estate is an extension of that building, and the same access goes with it.
” Doc looked at Mercury. “You can’t stay here.
You, your family, and everyone else still connected to Minerva aren’t safe here. We have to get you out of Lausanne.”
Henry had been quiet through all of it. He set his pen down. “Katarina, I’m going to propose something and want you to hear me out before we make any decisions.”
“Go ahead,” she said.
He turned to Doc. “You came here to offer K19’s resources on our terms. I’m going to ask you to offer something else instead.
We can’t take Romanov alone, and after two years of trying, you’ve confirmed K19 can’t take him alone, either.
What I’m proposing is a partnership. We share what we know about Romanov, our people work alongside yours, and whatever we build out of this room belongs to both houses, or it doesn’t get built. ”
Henry turned to Beacon. “What do you think?”
“This isn’t up to me.” She looked from him to Mercury. “Lyra, this is your decision.”
“This house was built to protect me, and what we are trying to rebuild is what my father started.” She turned to Doc.
“We accept the partnership on terms of full equality. Where we go from Lausanne is a conversation for tomorrow morning, when all of us have had a chance to rest and process what we’re facing. ”
Doc nodded and turned to Beacon. “I want your thoughts on this too.”
“My grandfather and Horatio were tracking Romanov when it was still being put together,” she began. “They were killed before they could expose what it was becoming. I want to finish the work they started. If that takes a partnership, I have no objections.”
“I have a question. Why now? Who got too close and to what?” I asked.
Mercury answered. “Eleanor. When her coercion was exposed, Vasiliev lost his source inside Minerva. He had to assume we would trace everything she’d given him over the years, map the connections she’d exposed, and use what we learned to take his network apart from the inside.
” She paused. “The bombing wasn’t revenge.
It was containment. Destroy the organization before we could follow Eleanor’s trail to whoever sits at the top. ”
Thirteen dead and four survivors. If the bombing was containment, we were loose ends. They would return to finish what the charges didn’t.
Mrs. Eggers served dinner at seven. Everyone came, including Anna and Polina. The food was good, but I doubted anyone tasted it. I know I didn’t. The general mood was subdued after our conversation.
Beacon was quieter than I’d seen her. She ate, she answered when spoken to, but it seemed like the fight had gone out of her.
After the plates were cleared, she reached for the crutch. “I need some air,” she said and headed for the door.
I gave her a couple of minutes, then followed.
She was on the terrace that overlooked the valley. Her face was tilted up, and her breath was visible in the cold air.
“You don’t have to check on me,” she said without turning her head.
“I’m not checking on you. I needed air.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “There’s other air.”
“Not as good.”
I stood beside her. The mountains were dark against a sky full of stars. Neither of us spoke for a while.
“When I was a girl, my grandmother used to bring me out to this terrace after dinner,” she said. “She’d point at the mountains and tell me they’d been there before our family arrived and they’d be there after we were gone. She said that was supposed to be comforting.”
“Is it?”
“It was. Tonight, it’s just true.”
She turned to go inside, and her shoulder brushed mine. She didn’t acknowledge it, and neither did I.