The Right Hand (18 page)

He bumped the cabdriver out of the way, leapt behind the wheel, threw the sedan into gear, and took off after the BMW.

The driver ahead of him was skilled and in a superior vehicle, but Clay would not stop. The BMW jumped the median and bolted for the highway that ran parallel to the Vltava River. Clay forced the cab to make the same move and heard a crunch as his suspension raked the median.
Hold on, cab,
he thought.
I won’t stop if you won’t. Luck favors the persistent.

He launched himself onto the highway, heading north, and weaved in and out of traffic, gaining on the BMW.

The BMW suddenly zipped across the road into oncoming traffic, and Clay followed, his accelerator mashed. He hugged the bumper of the BMW, sticking to it as if they were connected with a towrope, as cars honked and shot past them on either side.
If he gets hit, I’ll run up his backside, but at least we’ll both be stopped,
Clay thought.
Then we’ll see what the Snow Wolf can do up close in a fight.

The BMW swung back over to its rightful lane, and for just a moment, Clay was looking down a barrel at twin semis flying at him, but he yanked the wheel and the cab somehow responded, whipping back to continue the chase on the correct side of the road.

 Traffic was lighter here, and, now in the open, Clay gained on the BMW. Just as he drew even with the back bumper, Fourticq tapped his brakes, allowing the cab to pull alongside, and then the Snow Wolf plowed the full weight, the full horsepower of his machine into the inferior cab.

The move surprised Clay. He should have realized that his car couldn’t gain on a BMW unless the Snow Wolf wanted it to. It was skillful, tactical driving, and Clay would’ve been impressed if his cab hadn’t hit the outside curb, flipped over the guardrail, and sent him spiraling through the air, down, down, down, until his world went black. He vaguely felt the sensation of suddenly becoming very cold and very wet.

M
UDDLED SENSATIONS.
Pain in his head. The taste of blood in his mouth. His lower half submerged and the water rising. His body took over, a deeply rooted survival instinct born on a boat his uncle owned, and he felt his body twist, his feet kick out the glass of the driver’s door as more water rushed into the cab. He felt himself slip through the opening and pull toward the surface. He had spent countless hours of his youth swimming in the dark, swimming in the current, swimming by instinct. He was in the Vltava River; thankfully, the current wasn’t strong, and the pull of the receding car wasn’t enough to suck him down with it.

He kicked and pointed and swam toward the light, and with the last ounce of oxygen rattling in his lungs, he broke the surface. The river’s bank was close, and a gaggle of Gypsies reached out and pulled him ashore. He wanted to keep moving, but his body wouldn’t respond. He was tired.

He waited for the sirens and thought of Marika.

Clay said nothing in jail, nothing in the interrogation room, nothing when they threatened him and nothing when they coaxed him. When they allowed him a phone call, he dialed a number, said nothing, and returned the receiver to the cradle. When they put him in a cell with a garrulous American, a man placed there in a subtle attempt to get him to open up, he still said nothing.

He lay in his bed at night, long after the lights went out, staring up at a dark spot in the ceiling. It had been eight days since he’d been brought here.

Stedding was dead, so this might take some time to sort out. Clay had spent years in a cabin smaller than this cell, so he had no concern for his welfare. He used the time between interrogations to think over the mission, to analyze what decisions had led him to this spot. He hoped Marika had called the number and someone on the other end had found her, helped her, believed her, and had gotten her out of Prague. He had counted seven nights since they’d locked him up, and no one had mentioned a courtroom; that gave him hope. They knew he was part of an international game that had started at the rail station, continued inside the Ambassador, and ended with him being fished out of the river. Someone would put the pieces together soon; he hoped they would think him worth saving. Accounts in a ledger. Would his assets outweigh his liabilities? It depended on how much anyone knew of his actions, of his career. He knew one thing: he wasn’t ready to turn his thoughts to escape.

The cell door opened in the middle of the night, clicking back in its track. He was trained to awaken alert, so he climbed to his feet easily. A man dressed much too formally to be a guard beckoned him to follow. They walked past sleeping drunks and petty thieves snoring in their cells and exited through a series of gates and locks that reminded Clay of the Panama Canal.

The man continued up a stairwell and held the door for Clay. He stepped onto a rooftop, the lights of the city spread out before him. Adams stood a few steps away, his hands in his pockets, waiting.

The suited Czech retreated through the door, and Adams waited to hear his footsteps recede before he spoke.

“They’re calling you the Right Hand now.”

Clay nodded. “And you did well for yourself, Michael. You look good.”

“I’m happy to be alive.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“I tried to determine what you’ve been up to for the last few years. There wasn’t much to read in your file.”

“No, I’ve worked autonomously. Just myself and my handler.”

“Andrew Stedding. Who died near the Hlavní Nádraží.”

“Yes.”

“The bullets in his body matched the ones fired into a Russian national at the bottom of the Ambassador’s stairwell.”

“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?