The Right Hand

by Derek Haas

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who did the firing?”

  “No. I have thoughts, but I would have needed more time to figure it out.”

  “What were your thoughts?”

  “I knew the Snow Wolf was most likely an analyst rather than a field op.”

  “Snow Wolf?”

  “His Russian code name.”

  “How did you know he was an analyst?”

  “He shot Stedding but didn’t wait to see him dead. A man can live a long time with metal in his chest, especially if he has information he feels compelled to share. A spy in the field would have put bullets in the head, not the body.”

  “I see. What else?”

  “I knew he must be high-level within the Agency, someone whom Stedding would have trusted when he reached out for information as to where the division heads were meeting. Someone who had probably been there a long time.”

  “You’re right. He was the head of EurOps. Or was until last week. His name is Alan Fourticq. Stedding reported directly to him.”

  “I see.”

  “I was to take his place, so he conspired to have me killed. Was going to use Russians to do it…that way he could cover his trail after it was done. He would probably have headed the investigation himself.”

  “He’s been in bed with them for years.”

  “Yes. We’re now learning to what extent. May I ask you something?”

  Clay nodded.

  “You knew about this from the nanny? Marika Csontos?”

  A hint of pain creased Clay’s face. He nodded. He didn’t want to ask for fear of receiving an unfavorable answer, but he was compelled to ask anyway. “Do you have her?”

  Adams read his thoughts and lowered his voice as if they were standing inside a funeral home. “She called and mentioned Stedding while we were still trying to figure out exactly what the hell happened. Someone in EurOps responded in a way that must have spooked her. When our men arrived at the location of her phone, she was gone.”

  Clay bit down his disappointment, his frustration. She had believed in him, and now she was more alone than she’d ever been. Without money, without friends, without a soul she could trust.

  Adams waited for him to speak, and when he didn’t, he offered, “I’m sorry.”

  It seemed to bring Clay back to the moment. “Yes, me too.”

  “What about Fourticq?”

  “Well, that’s messy. He’s gone to ground.”

  “He’s had a long time to concoct a contingency plan.”

  “Yes. Which brings me to you.”

  Clay looked up.

  “It would be useful for Fourticq to be eliminated quietly, rooted out from whatever rock he’s crawled under and exterminated. The Agency doesn’t want to open it up across the field, a full assignment with dozens of agents and handlers poring over God knows how many files. Everyone would rather it be done…well, off the books.”

  “The left hand can’t know what the right hand is doing.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have a handler.”

  “Consider us reunited. You will report directly to me from now on.”

  “Wouldn’t you want to delegate—”

  “We’ll get to that eventually. But I want you close to me, in my purview. I’ll find you the right case officer for the ground work, but make no mistake, I’ll oversee your work personally.”

  Clay thought it over. Did he have a choice? What was he going to do after this? Unlike Fourticq, he had no contingency plan in place.

  Clay stuck his hand out, and Adams shook it. “I’ll find him for you. But I’m going to need a couple of days to find someone else first.”

  Adams measured him, then nodded.

  A helicopter’s rotors started to beat down on them from above.

  “Whatever you need,” Adams shouted over the roar of the blades. The helicopter landed, and they both climbed aboard.

  Clay stood outside the St. Vitus Cathedral, watching the door. He had spent the greater part of the last twenty-four hours fixed to the spot, watching as tourists entered and exited in groups or alone, talking in huddled clusters in English, German, French, and Czech, or taking pictures in front of the spires. He did not see her, and he saw her everywhere.

  Every girl with dark hair, every faded jacket, every half-walking, half-skipping girl, he saw her. A clump of girls spoke Hungarian and he saw her. A young student walked around a corner, passed him, disappeared as quickly as she’d come, and he saw her.

  Bells rang out, low and terrible, for Sunday Mass, and Clay went inside. It was his last chance; he was already pushing it. His new handler would lose patience quickly. He did not see her, and he saw her everywhere.

  He watched as men and women dipped their fingers, knelt, and crossed themselves before finding seats among the pews. Clay didn’t kneel. He took a seat in the back row, and his eyes drifted around the interior of the cathedral, its marble columns, its arched ceilings, the crisscrossed patterns high above him, the life-size statues affixed to the columns, the ornate altar at the front. Then his eyes found the stained glass behind the altar. Nine scenes were depicted, three scenes each for three people: a woman named Barbara being tortured and about to be beheaded; a man, Adulphus, riding in a boat reading the Bible, then being named pope; and finally Elisabeth.

  It was a dull representation, the same one depicted in countless paintings of Mary, the mother of God. She stood with a halo around her head, her index and middle fingers pointed up toward heaven, robe around her; all that was missing was a baby in her arms. The scene was made of yellow, orange, black, and blue glass, cut into incongruous shapes, and there was absolutely nothing special about it. It was numb and flat and pointless and futile and stupid, stupid, stupid. A little girl’s memory had romanticized it. Even had Marika come here, she would have entered, seen the stained glass, and felt only disappointment.

  A priest was saying something from the pulpit near the altar, but they were just words with no meaning. Clay rose on wobbly legs and headed toward the narthex in a daze.

  He felt sunlight on his back as the room warmed and dust motes whirled in the air around him. The sun must’ve broken free of some clouds, and now Clay understood why the cathedral faced east. He turned at the door, the stained glass now burning brightly behind the priest, Elisabeth shining—no, beaming, instilling peace, instilling beauty, my God, she was beauty, she was magnificence.

  He went outside.

  The street was empty.

  He didn’t see her, and he saw her everywhere.

  A dog padded up to him and sniffed his hand. He stooped to scratch its ears and it loped off, uninterested.

  He saw her then. She stood underneath a tree, thirty feet away. She was wearing sunglasses and had her hair pulled back, but it was her. He was sure of it. It was her. It had to be her.

  “Marika,” he called, more loudly than he meant to.

  Trembling, the girl removed her sunglasses and dropped them in the street. She broke for him and he broke for her and they met outside the cathedral, with the sun shining brightly, and he scooped her up and spun her and he felt as if he were holding something sacred.

  “You found me.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know where to go.”

  “I know.”

  “The number you gave me. I was scared.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You didn’t come back.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “I know you would have.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.”

  “Do we need to run?”

  “We can walk.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  “Let’s get you something to eat. Then I’ll call a man and we can get on a plane. We’ll have plenty of time for me to tell you how this all played out…how you fit into it.�
��

  “A plane?”

  “Yes. To Los Angeles. And a new life.”

  She was in his arms again and he heard her laugh, a sound that penetrated his skin like a salve.

  The Agency set her up with everything. An apartment in an area called Mid-Wilshire, walking distance from the shops and restaurants of the Grove. An allowance of a few thousand a month until she was on her feet. And a few pointed phone calls got her enrolled in the freshman class at USC for the following fall, after she’d had a year’s worth of English lessons. She had an affinity for languages and would pick English up quickly, Clay was confident. She said she wanted to study linguistics, and Clay saw no reason why she shouldn’t. The smiles came more frequently. He took her to Disneyland, and the smiles never left her face.

  He imagined her meeting a young man at school, someone who’d had a childhood in which he was loved by both parents. Someone who could offer her stability and friendship and intellect and humor. Someone who knew nothing of bloodshed and hiding and lies and death. Someone who would get lost in that smile and never want to climb out.

  “I’ll drop by periodically,” Clay said. “If you don’t mind.” He sat on a stool outside her kitchenette while she made coffee.

  “I would like that very much,” she said in English.

  “That sounded great!”

  She blushed and switched back to Hungarian. “Not so much, but you’re being nice. It’ll get better. Maybe you’ll mistake me for a California girl someday.”

  “I’m sure I will.” He stood. “All right, then. I think you’re doing wonderfully here, Marika. I mean that. You fit in.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m not sure when I’ll have a chance to get back to see you. But don’t worry. I’ll find you.”

  Marika suddenly looked bereft. She put a hand over her eyes, and her body shook.

  Clay didn’t know what to do. “Come on, now.” He moved around the counter and she leaned into him, let him hold her.

  “You won’t come back,” she said.

  “Marika…”

  “I know it’s true.”

  “You’ll see me again.”

  She pulled away, and he could see she didn’t believe him. But she wiped her eyes and nodded anyway.

  “I really do have to go now,” he said clumsily.

  She crossed her arms, hugging herself, and nodded again.

  He made it to the door and her voice stopped him. “Thank you, Austin Clay.”

  He turned, took one last look at her, and stepped out the door.

  At first, Laura Adams had been apprehensive, but now, as the last of their possessions was carted out of their house to the curb, she was cautiously excited. The girls had embraced the news of the move to Prague, asking a million questions, exuberant. What would school be like? Would they ride on a train? Did Prague have grocery stores or corner markets? Did Czechs play sports? Would they get to go to France and see the Eiffel Tower?

  Their spirit worked wonders on Laura. She believed that what Michael did for a living was important. Her own sense of adventure had been the reason he had courted her in the first place. She had not lost it; she was excited.

  Adams draped his arm over her shoulder. “It was a good house.”

  “It was.”

  Most of their belongings would go into storage, but they would still fill a couple of containers with furniture and ship them across the sea.

  The last of their boxes was loaded into the moving truck as their real estate agent approached. “Well—”

  “I think we’re all out.”

  “I’ll let you know when we get a bite.”

  Adams shook hands with the woman, and he and Laura headed for the car. They’d pick up their daughters from school, spend one night in a hotel, and fly out of Burbank in the morning.

  At some point, he did want to check into the LA district office before he left and see what progress Clay had made.

  Clay returned to the windowless office he’d been using all week. Adams’s assistant, a man named Warren Sumner, had helped facilitate the arrival of a crate of Fourticq’s things, every single item from his office, from his desk, from his files. A second crate covered the small apartment he’d kept, but if the contents indicated the entirety of the Snow Wolf’s possessions, the man had either rid himself of his things to cover his tracks or had lived the life of an ascetic. Neither option was encouraging.

  Clay rubbed his eyes. The forensic work was usually a job for a handler, but Adams was busy preparing to take over EurOps, so Clay had volunteered to tackle it and get a head start. Truth be told, he’d rather shake the bushes and get information directly from the horse’s mouth. But which horse?

  Fourticq’s computer had been scrubbed…there were no files that indicated anything beyond standard operations under his command. Clay read through them anyway, looking for any kind of flag. A couple of hours later, he had nothing.

  “Want some coffee?”

  Warren smiled from the doorway, holding a mug. Clay accepted gratefully.

  “Anything?”

  Clay shook his head. “He was careful.”

  Warren nodded at that. “It’s bred into us.” The younger man looked over his shoulder and smiled as his boss approached.

  “He wasn’t careful…he was cocky,” Adams amended as he poked his head into the office. “He made a mistake somewhere. You’ll find it.”

  Clay nodded. He was reminded how much he liked Adams’s style.

  “I have access to every personnel file within the Agency. If you sense he had inside help, I’ll let you look at anything and anyone you need.”

  “I’m probably going to travel to Russia again. See if I can poke into finding out who Fourticq’s contact was at FSB.”

  “I’ll arrange it,” Warren interjected.

  Adams nodded at his protégé. “Warren’s going to step into a case officer’s shoes as soon as I get my ducks in a row,” he said, and watched Clay’s face.

  Clay gave him nothing. He’d need a new handler soon, but he certainly wasn’t going to commit to anyone so green. Instead, he changed the subject back to where it had been.

  “I’d much rather get inside the china shop and toss my horns around than sit in this room looking at a computer screen.”

  “We’re opposites, you and me,” Adams said. “I’d rather look at a spreadsheet than the wrong end of a pistol.”

  “Well, now you know I’ll never be after your job.”

  Adams grinned, but Warren didn’t. Adams said, “There aren’t too many lines of work where office politics involve drafting the Russian service to eliminate your replacement.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Work for the Agency?”

  “Yeah. Someone asked me that, and I told her how I got recruited, without really answering the question.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. Because the answer is I do it because I’m good at it. I belong. I spent a great portion of my life adrift, and this job grounded me. I get an assignment and I don’t quit until it’s completed. I’ve been around long enough to know my success rate is…”

  “Unmatched.”

  “I was going to say ‘pretty good.’”

  Adams nodded, started to head out, then stopped in the doorway. “Maybe we’re not such opposites.” Warren followed him out.

  It wasn’t until he was alone again that Clay realized Adams hadn’t answered his question.

  Clay couldn’t sleep.

  Something was nagging at him, like a fly buzzing his ear. Adams had said that Fourticq was cocky and had made a mistake. But the mistake was obvious: Adams was alive and would run EurOps, while Fourticq was exposed and on the run. The mistake couldn’t be more glaring.

  The word cocky gave him pause. A cocky person, one as narcissistic as Fourticq, would not acknowledge such a mistake, because a cocky person would place blame elsewhere. It’s not my fault; I got screwed over.

  Clay rose
from the sofa and went back to the desk containing Fourticq’s belongings. He had stared at files until three in the morning and had finally submitted to sleep. Now the sun was turning the sky orange and the shadows were receding.

  A thought struck him. There were two people the Snow Wolf would blame. Adams, definitely. But in his mind, Adams would have lucked out.

  No, the person who’d proactively broken open his plot was Clay. Clay, who had found the girl and discovered what she knew and smoked out the leader of EurOps as the conspirator.

  Adams had offered to let Clay look at anyone’s personnel file within the Agency, and that meant access to every officer profile, both analyst and field. Fourticq would have had that same privilege when he held the position. Clay snatched up the desk phone and dialed a number at Langley.

  “As head of EurOps, Fourticq had access to everyone’s personnel files, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you tell me whose files he accessed the most?”

  “You got his laptop open now?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hold on. Don’t click on anything.”

  Clay could see the cursor move on the computer as the analyst in Virginia operated it remotely. The screen turned to coded gibberish. Clay could speak a number of languages, but programming wasn’t one of them. He was thankful the Agency hired tech-heads out of MIT to run computer operations, and thankful he didn’t have to rub shoulders with them very often.

  “Checking…checking…you want it sorted by…”

  “Most to least.”

  “Just their names?”

  “Yeah. The people he most often checked out.”

  “Okay…here you go.”

  Names filled the screen. The one at the top surprised him.

  The town car carrying Adams and his family pulled around to the back of the Burbank airport, through the security shack, and stopped at the private hangar used by the superwealthy and by high-ranking officials in the government. Adams had once seen a popular British action star waiting for his G5 to finish refueling, and he had been mystified at how small the man was in real life. If the actor spent five minutes with Austin Clay, he might rethink his portrayal of a spy.