Chapter 11 Beacon
BEACON
Itold myself I was going there to finish the conversation.
That was the lie I’d been assembling since Lyra had kissed my cheek in the great room and told me to get some sleep.
I’d said I would. I’d gone upstairs. The room Henry had given me was on the second floor of the main camp, and I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at my boots long enough to convince myself I wasn’t going to do what I was already doing.
Then I put my boots on and went down by the kitchen stairs.
I left the crutch against the wall by the door. My knee would pay for it later, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to show up at a man’s camp, leaning on a piece of aluminum.
Three small lanterns marked the path through the trees. The cold hit me the second the outer door closed behind me, and I welcomed it because I needed to focus on something other than the reason I was walking to Ohkwari at ten o’clock at night.
The camp sat in the clearing, with a strip of warm light showing under the door. I climbed the two steps to the porch and grabbed the handle.
When it eased open, I stood on the threshold.
Blackjack was standing near the center of the main room, with a gear bag at his feet. His hair was still damp at the temples. He’d changed into a Henley that was stretched taut over muscles I longed to map with my tongue.
Inside, it was larger than I’d expected. In the main living area, there were two chairs angled toward a stone hearth. There was a low table between them, the kind of space that invited you to stay.
To the left, a small kitchen ran along the wall, open to the room. It had a farmhouse sink and a stretch of butcher block counter. A round table with two chairs sat at the edge of it, close enough to the fire to be warm.
A door on the far wall stood partially open onto what I assumed was the bedroom.
Through the gap, I could see the glow of a second fire.
The whole space was topped by a vaulted ceiling that made it feel less like a shelter and more like something that had been here long before any of us and would outlast us all.
“Come in out of the cold.”
I stepped inside. He shut the door behind me and flipped the latch.
“I didn’t come here for what you think.”
“I hear you.”
“I mean it,” I insisted.
“I know you do.”
He didn’t move toward me. He stood with his back against the door, hands loose at his sides, and waited. That was worse than if he’d put his mouth on me the second I was through the door.
“I came to tell you that what happened on the plane can’t happen again. Not while we’re working so closely. Not while every operative in that boathouse is looking to the two of us to run four lanes of an investigation that gets us all killed if we get it wrong.”
“All right.”
“Arrête. Stop. Don’t just agree with me. Argue.”
“You walked out here on a bad knee, with no crutch. If you meant any of that, you’d have waited until morning.”
Putain.
He was right, and I couldn’t tell him he wasn’t.
He pushed off the door and crossed the room, and I watched him come because there was nothing worth looking at in this camp besides him. He stopped an arm’s length away.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Katarina.”
I sat, but not because he ordered me to. “The top strap is too tight.”
“Tell me if this hurts,” he asked as he loosened it. “Better?”
“Yes.”
He stayed where he was, crouched between my legs with his palms on the arms of the chair.
“Tell me the rest of what you came here to say.”
“That was all.”
“Katarina.”
How could his simple utterance of my name make me want to do everything he told me to? Was it because his eyes were the color of whiskey and they hadn’t moved from mine since he knelt in front of me?
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I confessed.
“Neither do I.”
He raised his hand, traced my cheekbone with his thumb, then he kissed me.
Not the way he had in the stateroom when he’d taken rather than asked. This was different. His mouth didn’t claim mine without consent. This kiss was mutual.
I fisted the front of his Henley and brought him closer.
With one arm behind my back and the other under my elbow, he brought me to my feet, then moved us so I was up against the wall. He used his knee to spread my legs, then rested it tightly between my thighs.
His mouth trailed from my lips, down my neck, and he slid his hand under my sweater. His palm was warm on my bare skin, and he spread his fingers to keep my body flush with his.
I pulled at his Henley until it came free of his waistband and got my hands on the skin above his belt.
“Katarina,” he groaned as he lifted me in his arms. He shouldered open the bedroom door, carried me to the bed, and set me on the mattress. The Hudson Bay blanket was turned down at the corner as though he’d been expecting company.
He rested beside me, and when I spread my legs, he positioned himself on top of me, holding his weight off me with one arm. Our mouths fused together in an endless kiss. Even when he rolled to his side, our tongues still wove around each other’s.
I’d planted one hand on his chest. I slowly moved it farther down his sternum to his belt. My fingers were on the buckle when his closed around my wrist.
He brought my hand to rest above his heart and held it there.
“Not tonight,” he whispered.
I tried to jerk my arm away, but he held tight.
“Katarina. Look at me.”
My eyes met his.
“Just be with me.”
The four words cut through my humiliation, and my will to fight dissipated.
We kissed more, touched more, but always through our clothes. I traced his collarbone with my fingertip, and he shuddered but not because he was cold. The fire kept the room warm, but it was our bodies that held the most heat.
I kept my eyes closed, wanting to remember every detail of how being in his arms felt.
Even when he drifted off, I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I never did in anyone’s bed but my own. The few times I’d tried, I’d lain awake for hours, then left before they woke.
His thumb moved along the hem of my sweater. “Sleep, Katarina.”
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in longer than I could account for, I didn’t fight it.
Bishop’s arm was around my waist when I woke.
I wanted to stay. I wasn’t going to. When he opened his eyes, we’d have a conversation I wasn’t ready for, and my grandmother was an early riser.
I eased out from under his arm, pulled the door shut behind me, and took the path to the main camp in the dark. I went in through the rear door and up the stairs to my room.
I lay on the bed until the sun came up, then showered and went down to the kitchen.
My grandmother and Anna were already in there when I arrived. Anna was at the stove. Polina was at the table, with a cup of coffee in front of her and a book open beside it.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Good morning, Katarina.” Anna didn’t turn around.
My grandmother raised her head when I poured my coffee. Was she giving me a look, or was I imagining it?
I sat down across from her and pulled Horatio’s journal out of my jacket pocket. I set it on the table between us.
She looked at it, then at me. “Is that Horatio’s?”
“Yes. I retrieved it from the safe at Minerva.”
“Is there anything useful in it?”
I shook my head. “Probably, but no matter how many times I read it, I still feel like I’m missing something.”
She reached across the table and put her hand over mine on the cover.
We drank our coffee, and neither of us said anything else.
When I arrived at the boathouse at zero six hundred, half the team was already there. Bishop was among them, facing the door, with his laptop open. He glanced up when I came in and tracked me as I went to a table on the opposite side of the room.
Twenty minutes later, Dagger set a single page beside me. “There’s an update on Eleanor’s trail. It’s short, but you should see it.”
I took it and read the first line three times. Then read it again and set it aside.
Hornet was next. He set a flagged intercept on the table, one page that needed a read. I added it to the stack.
Magnolia dropped an imagery request beside it for a contested location that needed a quick assessment.
Across the room, Bishop said something to Admiral and laughed. I wanted to look over at him, but kept my eyes on the page.
Around zero nine hundred, Bishop leaned close to my ear from behind. “Good morning, Katarina.” He kept walking without another glance.
I stared at my screen and reached for my pen. I didn’t realize I was clicking it until Kingston looked up from across the table, expression flat.
Putain.
By twelve hundred, the command center was fully staffed. Bishop and I took the front of the room.
“Some of you know this already. For those who don’t, the name of this organization is the Genesis Consortium. It exists because Minerva Protocol was destroyed and because the people who destroyed it are still out there.”
Blackjack lowered two of the electronic boards from the ceiling, and we got to work.
“I’ll start with what brought us all here—the bombing at our former headquarters, in which thirteen people died.
We believe we know the motive behind the attack as well as who carried out the orders—Nikolai Vasiliev.
What we don’t know is the full scope of what we’re here to fight against.” I paused.
No one in the room appeared to have any questions, so I continued. “Mercury was the target, and he missed. He isn’t going to give up now. That’s our immediate threat.”
“Vasiliev is the man who pulled the trigger, but the network around him is built to survive him,” Blackjack said. “Killing Vasiliev without taking Romanov apart leaves the same machine running with someone else at the top of it.” He turned to me, and I continued.