Chapter 19 Beacon
BEACON
“Come on, let’s call it a night,” said Bishop. “Dagger will alert us if there are any updates.” We’d been on the third floor of the command center for hours, waiting for word on whether Reaper and Hornet had found Vasiliev. It could be hours more before they did.
“Right.” I pushed back from the monitors, stood up, and rolled my shoulders. “I left my tablet downstairs. I’ll go grab it.”
“Hang on, I’ll go with you,” he said at the same time his mobile buzzed with a call.
“I’ve got it. I’ll only be a sec,” I said when he held up a finger as if to say I should wait.
I took the stairs down to the second floor in the dark.
The command center was on standby. The screens were dark, and the only sound in the room was the steady hum of servers.
My tablet was on the table by the window, where I’d left it earlier when we’d gone upstairs to watch the overhead images as they came in.
I picked it up, tucked it under my arm, and turned for the stairs.
A movement past the window stopped me before my foot reached the first tread.
A figure wearing a dark coat was moving fast on the lower path. It was a woman. My God, it was Anna.
I opened my mouth to call Bishop when I looked beyond her to the water.
A small boat without running lights was nosing up onto the shore.
Its bow was already on the sand, and its stern was still in the shallow ice at the edge.
A man was standing up inside, one hand on the gunwale, and he was swinging one leg over the side to step out.
One man. Alone.
I dropped the tablet and was out the door before it hit the floor. I raced down the stairs to the lowest level of the boathouse, then took off in a full run.
“ANNA!” I screamed her name, but she was already too far ahead of me to hear it. “ANNA!” I screamed again.
The pines thinned ahead of her, and she broke out of the trees onto the shore before I was through the birch, and by the time I cleared the last of the pines at the treeline, I was still ten yards behind her.
My knee gave out.
“Putain,” I muttered when it went sideways under me on the next stride, and I came down hard on the frozen ground. My good arm hit first. The cast on the other one hit second, and pain shot up into my shoulder.
Shouting echoed as I got to my feet and readied my weapon.
“Anna Hyde. We meet at last.”
“Vasiliev. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but the only happiness meeting you will bring me is sending you to hell, where you belong. But first, tell me why my family had to pay for your crimes?”
“You think this is about you? You think I had a choice?” He cackled. “Or that it ends with me?”
“You’re wrong. It does end with you. Tonight, you answer for Mikhail. His son. My children. The thirteen. And Horatio.”
His voice came again in a sinister laugh. “I would like to take credit for Horatio’s death. I was so disappointed that another of his enemies got to him first.”
Vasiliev pulled his gun and raised it.
“NO!” I screamed, racing toward them.
Vasiliev’s head snapped toward me, and his gun came with it. His arm was straight, and his finger was on the trigger. I was ten yards from him, and soon, my name would be added to the list of every other person he’d taken from me. And then, he’d kill Anna too.
My gun was locked on him. I didn’t care if I died as long as he did too.
Before I could pull the trigger, a shot cracked the air behind me, and the top of Vasiliev’s head came apart.
As I watched his body crumple to the ground, my own legs went out from under me. I went down onto the sand, and a sound ripped from my chest. It was a wail that had been locked inside of me, and I could not stop it. I sobbed and sobbed.
For my babushka.
My father.
My mother.
My grandfather.
Horatio.
Amelia. Eleanor. And Edgar.
For the thirteen.
My sorrow for their loss kept tearing from my chest and my throat, as all the tears I’d never shed trailed down my cheeks and onto the sand.
I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.
Arms came around me from behind. They pulled me up off the ground and held onto me.
“I’ve got you, kitten. I’ve got you.”
Bishop.
He didn’t tell me to stop. He didn’t tell me it was over. He didn’t tell me I was safe. He held on, and he cried with me.