Chapter 20 Blackjack
BLACKJACK
My round caught Vasiliev before he could fire on Katarina. He dropped off the side of the boat and into the water. I was already moving when she collapsed onto the sand at the same time.
It took me nine strides to reach her. I went down behind her on one knee, set my gun on the sand beside me, pulled her against my chest, and wrapped both arms around her.
“I’ve got you, kitten. I’ve got you.”
She leaned into me, and I held her.
She was sobbing, and her whole body shook with it.
She hadn’t cried once since I’d met her. Not when I pulled her out of the rubble at Minerva’s headquarters. Not outside of it when the dead were taken out on stretchers. Not the morning when she found her grandmother. I’d been waiting for it and worried it would never come.
I don’t know how long I held her. I would all night if she needed me to.
Then I felt her shivering against me.
I gathered her into my arms, lifted her, and stood. She put her arm around my neck and pressed her face into my shoulder.
As I started up the path toward the main camp, Lyra and Henry were running down the shore toward us.
“Bishop? What—”
“I’ve got Katarina. She’s not hurt.”
I glanced back over my shoulder. “Anna is okay. Dagger has her.”
More of the team ran past us toward the shore. They didn’t ask, and I didn’t stop.
I carried her up the path through the birches and onto the porch of the main camp, where the front door was standing open.
Inside, the fire was low in the hearth. I sat down on the sofa in front of it with her in my lap. She didn’t lift her head off my chest. She was still crying. I brushed her hair off her face and held on.
For a while, I just held her. Then I let myself think.
Vasiliev was dead. There was no way he could’ve survived the shot that hit him. Now that Lyra and Henry were with Anna, Dagger and the rest of the team could take care of Vasiliev’s body and the boat and Anna’s weapon. By dawn, there’d be no trace of what had happened tonight.
These were all things I knew how to handle. It was Anna’s involvement that I couldn’t wrap my head around.
The front door opened behind me. Lyra approached first, sat beside us on the sofa, and stroked Katarina’s hair. She turned into it briefly, then rested her cheek where it had been on my chest.
Henry came in behind her with Ann, who was wrapped in a wool blanket. He guided her to the room’s second sofa.
When Julian came in last and shut the door behind him, I was somewhat taken aback by his presence. On the other hand, he and Anna seemed to share a special bond, but it wasn’t my place to question it.
He sat in the chair but didn’t remove his coat.
The room was quiet for several minutes, then Anna spoke.
“There are things I need to tell you.”
“Anna.” Henry’s tone was soft and his words soothing. “It can wait until morning.”
“It can’t. I’m sorry.” She looked from me to Katarina, then Lyra, and lastly, returned her gaze to Henry. “I’ll explain, but to do that, I have to start at the beginning.”
Lyra stood, joined her mother on the sofa, put her hand on her mother’s knee, and waited.
“You all know Julian as the man who has looked after Onteora since our family was forced to flee to Switzerland. That’s true, but it’s not the whole of it.
Julian, Horatio, and I met when the three of us worked for MI6.
We were so young at the time, not that we thought so then.
We’ve been in one another’s lives for a very long time. ”
I glanced at Julian, who was expressionless. That he was former MI6 made it unsurprising.
“After Horatio’s death, Polina and I worried about this property.
More than anywhere we’d ever lived, Onteora was the place that meant the most. We couldn’t bear the idea that whoever was responsible for Horatio’s and Mikhail’s deaths, along with Pavel’s and Amelia’s, might try to destroy it.
While we didn’t think anyone would be able to trace it to us, it wasn’t a risk we were willing to take.
“Julian had recently retired from SIS, but was still serving as a consultant to MI6.” Anna turned to him, and he nodded once. “I contacted him, asking for his help in finding someone who could watch over it. He volunteered.” She glanced at him again, and this time, he spoke.
“You were reluctant to take me up on it at first, but I wore you down.”
“He convinced us that he and his wife would be quite happy here.”
“And we were,” he murmured.
“Wife?” Katarina asked.
“Sadly, Vivienne passed away a few years ago after suffering a heart attack,” said Julian. “But being here was the happiest and most peaceful time of our life together.”
“Did you have children?” Lyra asked.
“We did not.”
“Sorry, Mama,” she said. “Please go on.”
“When I said that we had someone who cared for Onteora, you can see now how much more there was to it,” said Anna.
“Thank you,” Lyra said to him.
Again, he nodded.
“While Polina and I agreed this was the best place for us to live when we left Lausanne, I worried about the risk of doing so. Julian assured us that, as he so often says, nothing on this lake happens without his knowledge.”
She coughed, and Henry went into the kitchen to get her some water.
“We have far stronger options, young man,” she said, raising a brow.
He smiled and went to the sideboard. “Anyone else care for a brandy?” he asked.
“I would,” Katarina said, sitting up straight. “You should all join me.”
“By all means,” said Lyra.
“I’ve got it,” said Henry when I stood to help. “Go on with your story.”
“I think it best that I let Julian explain the next part.”
Julian leaned forward. “What Anna told you is true. There’s nothing for me to add. However, what I will tell you is what she, Polina—God rest her soul—and I have been up to since you all arrived.”
“Go on,” said Lyra after Henry poured and delivered glasses, then sat beside her.
“We have been…” He hesitated.
“For God’s sake, Julian, just tell them,” Anna prodded.
“We have been actively monitoring your investigation.”
“How?” Katarina asked in a tone that sounded more curious than angry.
“We went old school.” Julian grinned, and Anna chuckled. “To make a long story short, once K19 completed the build-out of the boathouse and turned it into your command center, I planted a device on the lowest level that allowed us to hear everything.”
“You planted a device?” said Katarina. “One we couldn’t pick up on?”
“It’s quite old, to be honest. Analog, as they say. But it did the job, and we were able to stay abreast of your investigation.”
“Bravo,” Katarina said under her breath, earning a raised brow from Lyra and a smile from me.
When Julian paused, Anna continued. “Then at lunch, when the two of you were briefing Lyra and Henry on Vasiliev, I paid attention.”
Based on everything Anna and Julian had said so far, I doubted there was a time when she wasn’t paying attention, including the night in Lausanne when she and Polina just happened to walk past the room where we were discussing needing to leave the estate.
She continued. “I heard everything, including that you’d found a second journal.
” Her eyes met mine. “To be clear, I had no idea there was anything like that here at Onteora when I sent you down for the Thanksgiving dishes. I would not have withheld information just to hide the fact that we were eavesdropping.”
“Interesting word choice, Anna,” said Katarina. “Eavesdropping.”
Anna smirked. “Well, I suppose you might call it something else, but either way, it changes nothing. It was what you said about the money and the packets that went out. I knew then that Vasiliev wouldn’t let it go.
He’d act. When you said you believed you’d tracked him to Dubai and that Kingston and the other man were headed there, I didn’t believe it was him.
I knew Dubai was a feint and the money was set aside to come after us. I just had no idea when.”
She glanced at Julian.
“I agreed,” he said.
“So we watched, waited, and prepared.”
“When I saw the boat approaching, I called Anna.” He stopped and looked directly at her with an expression unlike any I’d seen from him. “The plan was to alert the team. I did not expect her to go down to the shore herself. I suppose I should have.”
Anna acted as if she hadn’t heard him. “I had thirty seconds to decide. The boat was too close. There was no time to waste.”
Katarina shifted forward on the sofa. “What were you thinking?” Up to now, she hadn’t appeared angry. Now, she was.
Anna raised her chin. “Polina and I spent our lives protecting this family, whether any of you cared to acknowledge it.”
“We did, Mama,” said Lyra. “We knew.”
“I grabbed my gun, went down to the shore, and waited.”
Katarina shifted again and pressed her body closer to mine.
“I didn’t expect Vasiliev to come alone, although that he did worked to my advantage. He brought the boat onto the sand, stepped out, and looked up at the main camp. That was when I stepped out of the shadows.”
Lyra shuddered, and Katarina stood. When she approached the other sofa, Henry got up, and she sat in his place. She took Anna’s hand in hers. “And you said that the only happiness meeting him would bring you was sending him to hell, where he belonged.”
Anna studied her but didn’t speak.
“And then you asked him why your family was made to pay for his crimes.”
“Yes,” she murmured.
Katarina turned and looked at each person in the room. “And he said, ‘You think this is about you? You think I had a choice? Or that it ends with me?’”
“Those were his exact words,” Anna whispered.
“What else did he say?” Katarina asked.
“That he would like to take credit for Horatio’s death, but another of his enemies got to him first.”
“Eleanor, Edgar, and I long believed Jason Briggs killed our father, but we’ve never been able to prove it,” said Lyra.
“I didn’t agree,” said Anna. “Now, I do.” She gripped Katarina’s fingers.
“I had my hand on the trigger. I was about to fire when you came out of the trees behind him and screamed. She startled Vasiliev, and he turned his gun on her.” Anna’s eyes bored into mine.
“I was about to shoot, but Bishop’s bullet hit him a half-second before mine would have.
He saved Katarina’s life, and he also saved mine. ”
My mobile buzzed with a message from Dagger. Need to brief on boat’s contents, it read.
Given everyone in this room would eventually hear whatever they had to report, I told Dagger to come to the main camp. A few minutes later, Dagger opened the door. Doc was with him.
I stood and walked over to them. “Before you get into it, there’s something I need to brief you both on.
” I faced the room. “I’d like to introduce you both to Special Agents Anna Hyde and Julian Loxley from Military Intelligence, Section 6.
” There was really no other way to handle it, especially at this hour and all we’d been through tonight.
“We’re referred to as officers,” Anna corrected. “But then, you knew that, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
When I turned to face Doc, I knew in an instant that this wasn’t news to him.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
“In Anna’s case, as long as you have.”
He was right. She’d been forthcoming about having met Horatio when they both worked for SIS.
“As far as Officer Loxley, not as long. However, what I wasn’t aware of was the op the two were running.”
I invited the two men to join us and offered them both a brandy when I poured a second for myself. Henry stood and refilled the others’ glasses.
“What did you have to report?” I asked once we were all seated.
“The body’s been dealt with. Hornet and Amaryllis are on perimeter-monitoring duty until zero six hundred.”
“What else?” I asked.
“We searched the boat as soon as we had the area secured. There were two duffels in the footwell. Both were full of the same compound Gunner identified at the Lausanne site. Eastern European manufacture, military grade, with the detonators already inserted and ready to fire,” Dagger continued.
“In other words, Vasiliev had enough material with him to take down every structure on this property,” said Doc.
Dagger looked across the room at me from where he sat.
“He came in on the water, and he would have left the same way. Anna intercepting him at the shore is the only reason those charges aren’t on the buildings right now.
He was close enough to the boathouse to place the first in the same time it took Beacon to get down there. ”
“If he’d put the first one on the boathouse, the blast would have taken out the server stack and every camera, sensor, and alarm running off it. The rest of the property would’ve gone dark in a single hit, and he’d have had the run of every other structure with nothing watching him,” I added.
“That’s right,” said Doc. “And while I don’t necessarily agree with the methodology, the bottom line is, Anna and Julian saved this camp tonight and the lives of everyone here.”
“Full team briefing tomorrow,” said Katarina.
“Start time?” Dagger asked.
“When are Reaper and Gunner scheduled to return?”
“Early afternoon. Between thirteen and fourteen hundred.”
“Let’s hold for their arrival, pending additional updates that would require us to convene earlier.”
“Roger that. I’ll send out a notification.”
“Thanks, Dagger,” said Katarina.
After the two left with Julian, and Anna, Lyra, and Henry went up to bed, she slipped her hand in mine.
“Can we take a walk?”
“Of course,” I said. “Where to?”
“Down to the shore.”