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’dtracked 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 fromMilitary 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.
