Chapter 17 Beacon
BEACON
“Hey,” Blackjack said when I rolled over to face him. “How’d you sleep?”
“Better. I’m trying not to overthink what will happen today.”
He kissed my forehead and got up first. I pulled the quilt over my shoulders, knowing I wouldn’t go back to sleep but shutting my eyes anyway.
“Coffee’s ready,” Bishop said a few minutes later.
I crawled out, put on his flannel shirt and a pair of socks, then padded out to the kitchen.
“Breakfast here or at the main camp today?” he asked.
“It will make Anna happy if she can feed us.”
“Zero six thirty. We better get moving.”
We showered, dressed, and were on our way out the door fifteen minutes later.
Anna was at the stove like she always was in the morning.
“There you are,” she said without turning. “Sit.”
Bishop pulled out a chair. I went over and kissed her cheek.
“Where’s Babushka?”
“Not down yet.”
“That’s unusual.”
“She was so tired last night. She barely made it through dinner. Another ten minutes, and I’ll send Bishop up to get her.”
Bishop smirked. “She’d love that.”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t she?”
Anna set a plate of eggs and bacon in front of him and another in front of me.
I checked my mobile. It was zero seven hundred. I doubted my grandmother had slept this late in thirty years.
“I’ll go up,” I said. “Let her wake up to me instead of him.”
Anna smiled. “That would be kinder.”
“Stay,” I said to Bishop, who had half risen. “I’ll only be a minute.”
I knocked on her door. “Babushka, Anna has your breakfast ready.”
I waited and knocked again, and when she didn’t answer, I let myself in.
The fire had gone to coals, and it was warm in the room. Her braid lay on the pillow over her shoulder, the way she wore it at night. She had turned her face to the window, and she was smiling.
I went to her and sat down on the edge of the bed.
Her hand was cold and stiff when I took it.
“Oh, Grandmother.”
I pressed her fingers against my cheek, the way she used to press mine against hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t come looking for you sooner.” I lowered our hands to my lap and kept hers wrapped in both of mine.
“You were ready, weren’t you? That’s what yesterday was about.”
I smoothed her thumb with mine.
“You asked us to meet you in the meadow, and you put my hand in Bishop’s. You told him to take care of me. You told me to let him. That was you saying goodbye, wasn’t it?”
I could see her there. The soul knows, my darling granddaughter.
“I should have known. You were so quiet at dinner. Anna thought you were tired. I thought so too.”
I brushed her hair from her forehead and brought her hand to my cheek again.
“I told Bishop I loved him last night, and he said he loved me too. He said he’d wanted to say it first, but I beat him to it. I’m glad I did. That way, he knows I really meant it.”
I bent and kissed her forehead.
“I wish I’d said it to you every day instead of some of them. I said it enough, didn’t I? Even if I didn’t, you knew.” I ran my finger over her hand. “Wait. Where’s your ring?”
I turned my head and saw it on her nightstand, next to the lamp. I’d never known her to take it off. Ever.
I reached for it and saw a piece of paper folded under it. I held the ring in one hand and opened it with the other. For my Katarina, it read.
I shook my head. “You knew it was time for you to go. You knew, and you didn’t say goodbye in a way that I could recognize it. Did you think I’d try to talk you out of leaving me? I wouldn’t have. I would’ve known you were ready.”
I closed my fingers around the ring. The metal was cold, and I held it in my fist until my palm warmed it. Then I slid it onto the third finger of my right hand, where she had worn it. It fit perfectly.
“I would’ve told you that I’d build Orenda and that I hoped the rooms you and my grandfather planned to fill with children would be filled with mine and Bishop’s.
I would’ve promised. I would also have promised that I’d take care of Lyra and Henry and Anna the same way you always did.
And if you’re still here, if you can hear me, I want you to know that you can go.
I know you’ve been waiting a long time. Go find your husband and your son, and tell them I love them too, even though I never got the chance to know them. And my mother. Tell her too.”
“Katarina, tell your grandmother that Bishop has designs on her bacon and I’ve given up trying to stop him,” I heard Anna say from somewhere down the hallway.
“Goodbye, Babushka.” I kissed her cheek one more time.
“The two of you, honestly. Your babushka is turning into a lazybones in her old age, and you. I don’t even know what to say about you. Polina, I tell you now, my patience is—”
She stopped in the doorway.
“Polina?”
Anna came around the bed and sat on the other side of my grandmother’s body.
“Oh, my Polina. No, darling. No. No, not today. Not today. Don’t you do this to me.” She pressed Polina’s hand to her mouth and kissed it like I had. Her shoulders shook, and tears streamed down her cheeks.
Mine were still dry.
“I was not ready for you to go.” She stopped and caught her breath, then began again, quieter.
“But I am being selfish. I had you all these years. It’s time for you to be reunited with Mikhail and Pavel and Horatio.
You’ve waited long enough, and so have they.
You hug them for me and tell them how much I love and miss them. ”
“Katarina?” Bishop’s voice came from behind me.
I looked over my shoulder and reached for him. “She’s gone.”
He sat beside me on the bed, put his arms around me, and rested his head against mine.
I closed my eyes, imagining it was my babushka giving me one last hug.
Across the bed, Anna was talking to her like I had.
She was telling a story about a summer they had spent at Onteora before Amelia was born.
Her voice broke, but she kept talking through it.
She mentioned a dress she’d borrowed and never returned.
She said Polina had known the whole time and had never asked for it.
The smile remained on my grandmother’s face as if she were still here, listening to her sister-in-law talk.
A few minutes later, Anna leaned over and kissed her forehead and pulled the blanket straight across her chest.
“Sleep well, my darling.”
When she stood, Bishop and I did too.
“I’ll make the calls,” she said.
“I want to help.”
“You’ll sit down, and I’ll make them. There are things a woman my age has learned to do that you haven’t had to yet.”
“Anna—”
“Katarina. Let me.”
When we walked out of the room together, Lyra was coming up the stairs with Henry behind her. She took one look at Anna and stopped.
“Mama? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Polina. She’s gone, sweetheart.”
Lyra came the rest of the way up, and the two women embraced. Henry wrapped his arms around both of them.
“I want to see her,” Lyra said. “To say goodbye.”
“She would like that,” said Anna.
Lyra went into the room. Henry followed and closed the door behind them.
Anna, Bishop, and I went downstairs.
I sat at the table in the place my babushka usually did. Bishop sat next to me and took my hand.
“Katarina?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not going anywhere today unless you tell me to.”
“All right.”
In the background, I could hear Anna in the other room, making calls. I was glad she’d insisted. I wouldn’t have known who to contact or what to say.
When Henry came in and sat across from me, I had no idea how much time had passed. It could’ve been a few minutes or more than an hour.
“Lyra is with Anna, making the arrangements. Is there anything you want us to know, anything you’d like to do in terms of a funeral?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
He nodded once. “Anna said that there is a burial plot on the property. A family cemetery I wasn’t aware of.”
“Is it near Orenda?”
“It is.”
“That’s where she’d want to be.”
He put his hand on my arm. “I agree. I’ll take care of it.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
“Lyra wants to help with whatever she can. Let her.”
“I will.”
“Katarina?”
I hadn’t been looking at him, but I turned my head and did. “Yes.”
“You don’t have to hold everyone up today.”
“I know.”
When he left the room, I glanced at the clock. It was close to noon. “We should go to the command center.”
“We don’t have to. Everything is being taken care of.”
I shook my head. “I need to.”
“Then, that’s what we’ll do.”
Anna was in the main room, sitting on the sofa. Henry sat on one side of her, and Lyra was on the other. All three looked as though they’d been crying.
“We’re going to the boathouse for a few hours,” I said.
Anna stood and reached for me. “Good. That is what your babushka would want. She’d want you to keep moving forward.”
I nodded once, and Bishop and I left.
Bishop’s hand was at my waist on the walk down to the boathouse. Neither of us spoke.
The command center was quieter than normal when we came in. Doc got up from where he’d been sitting and crossed to us.
“Beacon.”
“Doc.”
“I’m sorry about your grandmother.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t know her well, but Polina was a special person. I see her in you.”
“Thank you, Doc.”
After he walked away, Dagger squeezed my shoulder without speaking. Givre kissed my cheek, and Kingston told me he was sorry and that he’d treasure every minute he got to spend with my babushka.
Amaryllis was last. She approached and put her arms around me. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. As we held each other, I thought about her life and mine. How similar they were, yet different. Few could understand, but we could.
I’d thanked the people who’d spoken to me even though, a minute later, I couldn’t have repeated what any of them had said. I couldn’t handle more. I came here to work. I needed to work.
I turned to Bishop, and without my saying a word, he squared his shoulders and faced those in the room. “Give us the update.”
Dagger brought his tablet over and took the chair beside mine. Bishop sat on my other side.
“The first packet cleared Treasury shortly after zero eight hundred our time. They’ve routed it to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is what we wanted.
Frankfurt acknowledged the second packet and opened a formal inquiry file.
That’s the one that matters. Once Frankfurt files, the rest of Europe follows. ”
“Vaduz.”
“Your asset put the third packet in the deputy regulator’s hand directly. We’ve confirmed your asset is clear and has gone underground.”
“Good.”
“Hellmer got a courtesy notice from the Liechtenstein regulator about ninety minutes ago. Vasiliev has people inside the bank. He knows by now.”
“What happens next?”
“Germany files the freeze request with Liechtenstein. Once it’s in, every Hellmer account is locked.”
“Understood.”
By fifteen hundred, every account associated with Vasiliev was frozen. Every dollar he’d hidden from Moscow was sitting in a bank in accounts he couldn’t touch.
I wrote a line on my notepad and drew a line through it.
The sun was behind the ridge by the time Bishop and I walked up the path to the main camp. Julian was coming out the front door as we reached the steps. He had his hat off, and his eyes were red.
“Katarina.”
“Julian.”
“Your grandmother was a fine woman. I always admired her. I’ll miss her.”
“Thank you.”
He put his hat on and went down the path toward his camp.
Inside, the great room was dim and quiet. Anna was at the front window, looking out at the lake.
“Anna.”
“My darling.”
“How are you?” I asked.
“Tired. The coroner came and took her this afternoon. It’s what they do.”
“I understand.” We embraced for several seconds, then I pulled away. “Anna, is it all right if Bishop and I don’t come to dinner tonight?”
“Of course, Katarina.”
“Thank you.”
She turned from the window and took both of my hands in hers. Her eyes went to my right hand. “Polina’s ring. She wanted you to have it.”
“I know.”
She put a hand on my cheek. “Go rest, Katarina.”
Bishop lit the fire in the hearth, then helped with my jacket.
“Come here, kitten.”
I went to him.
He walked me into the bedroom and sat me on the edge of the bed. He knelt and took off my boots, then removed my clothes, and put one of the sweatshirts over my head. We crawled in bed, and he spooned me from behind and stroked my hair.
“Sleep, kitten,” he whispered.
I did.