The Right Hand

by Derek Haas

  “We’ll have to ditch this cop car and find a…” he started. It was then that he noticed that Nelson’s face had turned chalky and his breathing shallow.

  “Fuck,” he spat, leaned over, and moved Nelson’s hand from where it was plastered to his side. Blood had soaked his shirt, and when Clay moved the cloth out of the way, it leaked in spurts from a small hole.

  “Can you move?” Clay asked.

  At first, Nelson gave him a slight shake of the head, but it turned into a nod as the wounded spy’s mind worked out the alternative.

  Clay opened his door, then quickly moved around to the passenger side. His mind was racing…who should he call? Steddy? A doctor? He reached in and prepared Nelson to move, but the smaller man balked.

  “Okay, we’ll give you a minute here, but then we gotta move. That hole ain’t good, and if you’re dripping on the inside, this is gonna get a whole lot worse.”

  Nelson’s eyes wandered but then cleared. He forced his lips to work, though his words sounded as if they were coming from the bottom of a well.

  “Marika?”

  “She’s safe. I found her and she’s safe.”

  Nelson smiled weakly. “Ask her…” He coughed and then groaned. “Ask her about atoms…ask her…” but his eyes clouded, and only one long exhale finished the sentence.

  Clay sat down heavily on the pavement next to the car. He knew he should be moving, his inner voice was screaming at him to move, dammit, but he felt extremely, bone-crushingly weary all of a sudden. It was as if he’d been driving, driving, driving, full steam, pumping his legs, soundlessly, thoughtlessly, churning, grinding, pumping, and then the juice had run out and his legs had cramped up and he’d felt he could never take another step in his life.

  He looked at the blood on his fingertips, and something about the color, about the texture, about the smell snapped him back to life like salts under the nose of a boxer.

  Ask her about atoms…

  What the fuck did that mean? A bomb? A dirty bomb?

  He didn’t know, but he knew the question was important. It hit him there. He had been so focused on finding the girl, on getting her to safety, on completing his mission, that he hadn’t followed up on asking her what she knew. What had that Russian government bastard told her? What secret was she harboring inside?

  Ask her…

  He would. He would pick himself up off this cement slab before any nervous residents walked by, before the Russian police or FSB or any number of government agencies figured out which police car had been taken and located it on their GPS system like a homing beacon and snatched him before he could get back to Marika and figure out his next move. He had parked down in the basement, so GPS would be useless, but could he be sure?

  Ask her…

  He reached past Nelson’s body and pushed in the cigarette lighter. In a few more minutes, he’d make sure this car burned so hot, they’d need weeks to identify whose body was left inside.

  Chapter Nine

  CLAY PURCHASED a cell phone from a mobile store called RUSH on the outskirts of Moscow and hoped it had enough starter charge in the battery to connect one call. He wasn’t going to sit around looking for an outlet.

  He needed a shower and a shave; he was starting to stink, and he was sure he looked more like a beggar than an intellectual playwright, should someone in a uniform ask to see his identification card.

  He took the metro out to Izmailovsky Park, passed the flea market with its myriad stalls of useless Communist-era crap, and headed into the park proper. He walked to a tree where he still had a bar of reception, rested his back against the trunk, and dialed a number from memory. After he got through the passwords and protections, finally Stedding came on the line, sounding as though he had just been awoken.

  “You’ve single-handedly destroyed any goodwill the president had amassed over five-plus years of improved US-​Russian relations.”

  “It’s all hokum-smokum anyway. They never stopped hating us.”

  “You’re right about that. But there are two dynamics going on here, reality and appearance. Unfortunately, appearance tends to be equally important these days. Where’s Nelson?”

  “One of those good-news, bad-news situations, Steddy.”

  He heard Stedding sigh. He seemed to be hearing that a lot these days. Clay continued, “I did get Nelson away from the Russians, but he’s dead now.”

  Clay waited. Stedding took his time before answering. “His body?”

  “I burned it.”

  “Did you, now?”

  “Don’t be miffed, Steddy. It’s unbecoming. I tell everyone how stoic you always are, and—”

  “What of the girl?”

  “I have her tucked away.”

  “Which safe house?”

  That question nettled Clay a bit. He wondered why Stedding would want to know, but his handler brushed away his own question.

  “It doesn’t matter. I have to check in with some people, and I will get back to you with further instructions. No more seat of your pants. No more making it up as you go along. The reins are going to be a little tighter on both of us, I’m afraid. For how long, I don’t know. How will I reach you?”

  “Tell me when you want me to check in.”

  “Eight hours from right now.”

  “Done.”

  He pressed the End Call button and glanced around. The park was starting to fill with Muscovites who looked as if they just wanted a few hours of sunlight on their faces.

  He found a green metal trash can on the way out, pitched the cell phone in, and kept walking.

  The nightclubs of Kitai-Gorod were buzzing and pounding and thumping like baboons sending out mating calls. Electronic music filled the air with repetitive grooves that looped endlessly. Clay thought the Russians could use some of this in their torture sessions; hell, he’d crack in minutes if he had to set foot in one of these sweat factories.

  He climbed the stairs and the man in the foyer bristled when he saw him. Clay started to address him, but the man disappeared behind the curtain. An uneasy feeling washed over Clay, as though his stomach had turned to ice. Had he miscalculated this option’s viability? Had Katya realized an opportunity to exploit a desperate situation? She was in the exploitation business, for Chrissakes, and Clay had delivered his charge right into the lioness’s den. What the hell had he been thinking? His eyes narrowed and he balled his hands into fists. He would beat down every last son of a bitch in this stinking whorehouse and burn it to the ground if they so much as—

  And then she walked through the curtain and smiled so broadly, it damn near knocked him over. Three steps and she was in his arms. A bear hug around his chest, her face buried in his shirt, and she just repeated, “You returned, you returned, you returned,” over and over.

  Clay leaned down. “Did they treat you okay?”

  Before she could answer, Katya’s voice arrived behind him. “She was treated like a princess.”

  Marika nodded her agreement. “It’s true. Katya fed me and drew me a warm bath with salt in it.”

  Katya smiled. “She is nice girl. She should not be in place like this.”

  Clay paid Katya and took Marika from there to the metro station, away from Kitai-Gorod. He had his choice of safe houses, but something told him to avoid them until he talked to Stedding again. It wasn’t a matter of thinking his own government would turn against him; it was more nuanced than that. His government might have a different perspective on how to accomplish its goals. That perspective might not line up with his, and he had found it almost always better to ask forgiveness than permission.

  He checked them into the Hotel Metropol near Red Square, paying cash and using a dummy passport and credit card he’d had made on the black market. No one, not even Stedding, knew about this identity. In the gift shop, he bought a razor, shaving cream, deodorant, a toothbrush, and when he saw a box of chocolates, he bought that, too.

  Their room was small but had two beds and a nice view
of Moscow. He gave her the chocolates, hoping to produce that smile of hers, and he was not disappointed.

  “Do you mind if I shower?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Please. You smell like a barn.”

  “Will you send my clothes down to be cleaned while I bathe?”

  “Gladly.”

  He undressed and tossed his clothes into a pile outside the door. He was glad she was in happy spirits. He knew it was a reflexive mechanism, but it beat the alternative, a sullen, sulky depressed girl. She had character, and it would serve her well if she could maintain that armor of Teflon.

  He turned the water up to its hottest and let the spray pepper his skin. It felt clean and intense, as if his body were decompressing. He’d been going hard now for a long time with only troubled rest and an account bleeding red.

  His mind drifted to that boat long ago, that light that had seemed a mile away, and how he had kept kicking toward it, no matter what the waves did to try to hold him at bay. At any moment he had thought that his uncle would rise up from the depth of the sea, grab his legs, and yank him down with him, but still he’d kept kicking. The light had grown brighter, bigger, and a searchlight had joined it, flashing over the water. The yacht had turned toward the dying fire behind him, the wreckage of his boat, and the sailors inside had been conducting a search-and-rescue mission. He’d found his voice then, shouted out, yelled at the top of his lungs, and kept kicking. Marika would have to find a similar strength, a similar resolve. He believed she had it in her.

  The water in the shower cooled as the heater gave out. He cranked the knobs, stepped out, and began to dry himself off.

  Moments later, he kept the towel on as he slipped into the twin bed. He thought Marika was asleep atop the adjacent mattress, her head on the pillow, but he was wrong.

  “The hotel said your clothes would be at the door in the morning.”

  “Great.”

  She rolled over and faced him. He could just make out her silhouette in the dark.

  “May I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do you do this work?”

  He thought for a moment. He wanted to give her the truth, or at least a shade of it.

  “I was recruited.”

  “Recruited how?”

  “I enlisted in the military at age eighteen. The army. I had no interest in boats, so the navy and marines were out. I knew nothing about flying, so that took care of the air force. What I did know was endurance. Toughness. Pain. I could take any punishment anyone could dole out. And I knew a little about discipline, about secrecy, and about keeping my mouth shut.

  “The army put a gun in my hands, and it turned out I had a knack for shooting. The world was hot, and there were plenty of places the army could send a young soldier to test his wherewithal. I must’ve passed those tests, because I received orders that I was going to be put into a different program. I didn’t know if they meant I’d be moving into intelligence or cooking at the mess tent. I was shipped on a Chinook with two tons of cargo and dropped off on a base that could’ve been in any country in the world. Some men in suits picked me up and drove me to a building with no sign and no windows. That was fifteen years ago.”

  Then he added, “I guess that was more than you asked for.”

  He wasn’t sure why he had said so much, but the words had come out before he could stop them.

  “Do you have to do things you don’t want to do?”

  “I don’t think too much about wanting or not wanting. I just receive my missions and complete them.”

  “And your mission was to find me?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “So am I.”

  “Will I learn to shoot a gun?”

  “Do you want to?”

  Marika shrugged.

  “I don’t think we have time to train, and a gun can be more dangerous to the shooter if she doesn’t know what she’s doing. Or her bodyguard, for that matter.”

  “Is that what you are? My bodyguard?”

  “Something like that.”

  She smiled but didn’t show her teeth.

  “If necessity dictates, use your fingernails. Go for the eyes or the groin. Men have a hard time fighting when they can’t see or can’t breathe. Eyes first, then close your fist and pound him in the balls as hard as you can.”

  She giggled. “I’ll remember that.”

  “I hope you won’t need to fight.”

  “I’ve been fighting my entire life.”

  “I had a feeling we were cut from the same cloth.”

  Her breathing soon regulated and he sat for a minute, watching her shadow rise and fall in the darkness. He shut his eyes and dreamed of nothing.

  She crawled into bed with him. He knew this was a delicate moment, and he knew he had to handle it with tact. He eased out the other side and turned on the light. She blinked and got a look on her face as if she didn’t know whether she should bite the fruit or cower in fear and shame.

  He kept the towel wrapped tightly around his waist.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing is wrong.”

  “You don’t like me.”

  He shook his head. “I like you very much, Marika. You’re strong and wise and more resilient than you have any right to be at your age.”

  “But you don’t want me?” She pushed the bedspread back, revealing her naked body.

  Clay sat next to her on the bed, reached down, and slowly pulled the covers back up. They had trained him for a lot of things in that windowless, signless building, but they hadn’t trained him for this.

  “You’re a beautiful, smart girl, Marika. You have an amazing future ahead of you, one you could’ve only dreamed about a few years ago. You will learn a new language, decide who you want to be, who you want to be with, and there is a young man out there, a man your own age who will care for you and will make you laugh. He’ll bring a smile to your face just by sitting down next to you. He will open up to you; you deserve that. But that’s not me. It will never be me.”

  She sat still for a moment, and then she asked him to turn off the light. When he did, she moved out of his bed and returned to her own.

  “I’m sorry,” she offered in the dark. Her voice sounded small, tired.

  “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “I feel like a foolish girl.”

  “Don’t.”

  They stopped talking then, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought he fell asleep before she did. He was cold, but that was all right.

  Clay looked up from his plate of boiled eggs and ham. “I’m going to ask you a question I asked you before, but this time I want you to be specific,” he said over his coffee. They were in a basement restaurant adjacent to the hotel.

  She set her fork down next to her plate and gave him her attention.

  “What did he tell you? Benidrov?”

  Her face blanched. “I told you it was nonsense. I don’t remember most of it.”

  “What you remember, then.”

  “I said before. Acronyms of departments in the government I’d never heard of. Names of rivals, many names. It meant nothing.”

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  She checked herself. He saw understanding in her eyes, so he voiced her thoughts, confirmed them. “You’ve been holding something back so that if you are put into some sort of precarious place, you’ll have something to bargain with.”

  She looked down, reddening. He had touched on the truth, and she was too inexperienced to know how to hide it.

  “I’m telling you, you’re in the precarious place right now. In fifteen minutes, I have to call my contact at Central Intelligence, and he’s going to tell me what to do with you. I don’t know what those orders will be, but I can guess. I need to hit him back with something, something that will get dark men to change their plans and want to help you, need to help you. I can’t do it alone. Yo
u have to trust me with your information.”

  She pushed her plate to the center of the table and looked up. Her eyes were shiny, but no tears left them.

  “Something about a bomb? A dirty bomb?”

  She shook her head.

  “Please, Marika. I have to—”

  “There was nothing about a bomb.”

  “Atoms. Nelson told me to ask you about atoms.”

  “Nelson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Blake Nelson.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I didn’t…I wasn’t aware you’d made contact with him….”

  He could see her working something out in her mind, then that moment of discovery when she realized that all the pieces fit into place.

  “He…I talked to him on the phone. He said he could help me.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “He said he was coming to help me, but he never came.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Adams. Not atoms. Adams.”

  Michael Adams landed at the Praha-Ruzyně Airport outside Prague. They touched down on a small private landing strip just west of the main terminal, which was capable of handling G5s but not bigger jets. He had traveled with three of his fellow district heads; the rest would be arriving shortly.

  He had spent the entire flight on the phone with various handlers underneath him. His field agents were responsible for putting a lid on three Iranian scientists who were part of their government’s plans to open nuclear power plants, which were really shells for developing all sorts of bad ideas. Many governments had a keen interest in setting that effort back a few decades, none more than England, the US, and Israel, and Adams’s network was facilitating with MI6 and the Mossad. Meat in that particular hot spot was cooking, and this meeting was as much a distraction as anything, but soon nearly all of their problems would be his problems, too—almost every bit of US espionage filtered through European Operations at some point.