The Right Hand (5 page)

“Finnegan’s Irish Pub?” came a pleasant female voice with a hint of an Irish lilt.

“Stedding—four, two, seven, four, two, one, one,” Clay answered.

He waited for the inevitable clicks and pulses that turned the line secure on the other end. Thirty seconds later, Stedding’s gruff voice filled his ear.

“I was wondering if you might remember to check in this time.”

“How you doing, Steddy?”

Clay wasn’t sure what Stedding said in response to that, but it sounded like
“Psssh.”
Clay could feel the frown seeping through the line. “Get on with it, then.”

“Oh, did I catch you at a bad time? I do apologize, boss.”

“I’m not your boss, and it’s invariably a bad time to catch me. So do me a favor and give me your report.”

“Right, boss, right. Here’s what I know and here’s what I need. Adromatov is dead. The three guys who killed him are dead. And the two guys who tailed me from there are dead.”

Clay pictured Stedding rubbing his temples.

“Maybe it’d be easier to tell me who’s alive.”

“Ahh, Steddy. You have a sense of humor after all.”

“Psssh.”
That sound again.

“I think Nelson’s alive, but I’m not sure how long that will be true. The girl he was trying to find is alive. I’m pretty sure of that.”

“What girl?”

“Eighteen-year-old Hungarian nanny named Marika Csontos.”

“The nanny story, huh? Nelson thought it was real?”

“I do, too. I’m going to find her.”

“Your assignment is to find Nelson and bring him back.”

“If Nelson was closing in on Csontos and he went missing, doesn’t it follow logically that she might be worth something?”

There was a pause, and Clay hoped it indicated that Stedding was thinking about it and wasn’t just involved in more temple rubbing. A Skype account would sure have come in handy, but Stedding wouldn’t be caught dead on a camera that could be recorded.

“You want to change the goal of your mission, that it?”

“I want to add a goal to my mission. Find the girl, find Nelson, bring ’em both in from the cold.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not asking permission?”

“Let the record show I went through proper channels.”

“What record? There are no records with us, Clay.”

“Even better.”

“Take care of yourself and report back in twenty-four.”

“Ahh, you care about me, Steddy. That’s so—”

But the line went dead in his hand.

In the garage behind the dacha, he struck gold. He was hoping for a truck or at least a compact car, but he knew these would be easier to track if their theft happened to be discovered by the caretaker. Instead, he found better: an old motorcycle, a Spoykin, twenty years past its manufacturing date, under a dust-covered sheet. The bike hadn’t been touched since at least the previous summer. And if he replaced the general shape of it under the sheet, it would be a long time before it was missed.

A gas can on the floor of the garage provided a full tank. The key had been left carelessly in the ignition, and when Clay turned it, the engine sputtered to life.

After the excitement of the morning, it was this kind of luck Clay needed.

The rain bit into him, spitefully cold and as relentless as a conquering enemy. Fuck. Why’d he have to find a motorcycle? A fucking motorcycle? There couldn’t have been a goddamn Mercedes in the garage? A Lifan? A truck? Anything with windows and a roof?

He had been on the road traveling east for five hours. His tank was disturbingly close to empty and he hadn’t seen a petrol station for hours. And yet the sameness of the cold, of the evergreens lining the road, of his single headlight beam illuminating a yellow cone of pavement in front of him, settled his mind and allowed him to think.

The stepbrother had to be the answer. Marika Csontos had a stepbrother who was attending Far Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok—as far away from Moscow as was geographically possible inside the country. She had heard what she’d heard and knew she needed to flee without looking suspicious before her secret was discovered. She would’ve been terrified, hearing this official pour out his state secrets as if he were sitting in a confessional, terrified he would look into her eyes and know her secret—that she understood everything coming out of his mouth. Maybe she’d called her stepbrother and he’d told her to come. She certainly hadn’t called the agency she worked for. That much had been made clear in Zhedenko’s office. Maybe Benidrov, the loose-lipped Kremlin official, had caught wind of her phone call and put two and two together and she’d fled before he could correct his mistake.

Clay’s clothes were soaked and heavy, and only the chattering of his teeth broke up his thoughts. The route was endless country, and his only company on the road was an occasional big rig lumbering to some factory or mine or farm. The motorcycle’s needle was now on empty; if it gave out he would have to continue on foot for as many miles as it took to steal a car. He almost welcomed the obstacle, anything to break up the whine of the bike, the vibration of his seat, his stiff legs and arms and neck, the pinprick bites of the implacable rain on his face. All that was missing was the salt spray in his mouth and he would’ve been right back on the bow of that goddamn boat thirty years ago.

A hazy light on the horizon drew him forward like a moth to a candle. He throttled the bike up a hill, and as he crested it, a small town spread before him. A snippet of a poem lit the edge of his brain like light under a closet door.
Much have I traveled in these realms of gold
…or something like that. What the hell was that from? And why did he keep flashing to his childhood? What was it about this mission that kept churning up those muddy waters? And did he really want to dig deep enough to find out?

It was too early for any shops to be open, but he could find a place to lie down under some cover until the sun rose.

He found an awning behind a garage, pulled the motorcycle over, cut the engine, and lay down on the stoop, using his soaked jacket for a pillow. He’d always been good at falling asleep.

At least the rain had stopped. The sky remained dark and gray, though, and seemed to press down, like a trap closing. Clay opened his eyes, blinking away crust.

Two Russian police officers stood over him. The nearest one nudged Clay in the ribs with his boots. Clay climbed to his feet quickly and put what he hoped was the proper amount of deference on his face. When dealing with law enforcement the world over, it’s always a good idea to be respectful, humble, sheepish. He gauged quickly that they didn’t know who he was or why he was there. Otherwise, there certainly would have been a much larger police presence. They wouldn’t have tapped him awake with their boots; instead, he’d have opened his eyes to assault rifle barrels.

“You sleep where you like, is that it?” the boot-nudger asked in a somewhat feminine voice. He wore a beard that looked as if it had been carefully plucked and trimmed. Clay thought of Curly’s glove from
Of Mice and Men
and then pushed the thought aside. He was turning into a goddamn library reference desk when he needed to be concentrating on extricating himself from trouble.

He tried to speak with a bit of a country accent, flattening his vowels and stepping hard on the
z
s and
v
s so common in Russian.

“I apologize, friends. I drove in late last night in the rain.”

“You didn’t want to stop at a hotel?”

“I didn’t see one. Forgive me. I was tired and soaked to the bone.”

“Are you a vagrant?”

“No, Officer. I am on my way to Omsk from Moscow.”

“Long way on a motorbike.”

“True.”

“What is your business?”

“I am a writer.”

“A what?”

“I write plays. Dramas.”

“What is your name?”

“Parinshka.”

The effeminate one was nodding now. “Parinshka, yes.”

His partner eyed him with suspicion. “You have heard this name, Vlad?”

Clay waded in. “Perhaps you saw my play,
Caretaker of Stepnoy
? We held the Belanshky Theater in Moscow for eleven months last year.”

The one named Vlad searched his memory and then nodded. “I have not seen it, but I understand it is wonderful.”

“Thank you, friend. I have been called eccentric, as you can guess by my appearance and my strange idea to drive a motorbike from Moscow to Omsk.” The power of suggestion was a favorite tool of Clay’s.

“Ha! It is good for Russians to remember culture.”

“The very premise of
Caretaker of Stepnoy
!”

Vlad beamed. “Will you have breakfast here, then?”

“If you will point me to the nearest petrol station, I would be much in your debt, Officer Vlad. But I will forgo eating this morning, because I slept longer than I meant and would like to continue my journey.”

For the first time, Vlad’s partner spoke directly to Clay. “May I see your papers, Mr. Parinshka?”

Clay shifted his eyes to the shorter officer and forced a smile.

“Why do you ask this, Gregor?” Vlad demanded.

“This man is guilty of vagrancy, is he not?”

“He is one of Moscow’s great playwrights.”

“Hmm…even still, your papers.”

Old habits died hard in the Russian countryside. Whereas much of Moscow and St. Petersburg had embraced the rough sort of capitalism that marks the birth of a nation, the further east a man traveled, the more “old regime” Russia seemed. A mentality that still prompted officers to ask for papers.

Clay made a show of searching his pockets for his identification while Vlad apologized and Gregor’s watchful eyes never left his face. After a moment, Clay produced a small billfold and extracted a laminated card.

Sure enough, it was an up-to-date ID with his picture and the name Ivan Parinshka printed on it.

“You see,” Vlad said.

Gregor frowned. “Just a minute.” He moved a few steps away and withdrew a smartphone from his pocket. Clay eyed him and tried to show only a proper amount of anxiety. He had little doubt he could kill these two officers, but the body count on the road from Stepnoy would give away his direction of travel and might lead others to identify the purpose of his mission.

Vlad looked with trepidation from Clay to his partner. “What are you doing, Gregor?”

“I am using Google to see if this man is a great playwright or a great liar.”

“You’re— This is terribly embarrassing to me, Mr. Parinshka. You see, my partner’s father was high-ranking KGB, and Gregor wishes to be considered for FSB and so takes work very seriously. I am red with shame.”

Clay waited for what seemed an hour. The wireless connection out here in the sticks must have been as slow as an invalid.

Vlad shifted his weight from foot to foot like a schoolkid anxious to find a restroom. “You have a new play you are writing, then, yes?”

“I’m gathering ideas as we speak.”

“Oh! Ha. Hahahah. Yes.”

Finally, Gregor lowered the phone, grave disappointment on his face. “It seems your plays are better known in Moscow than out here, Mr. Parinshka. I apologize for detaining you.”

“It seems there are two Russias,” Clay said, dusting off his pants before throwing one leg over his motorcycle. “Good day, Officers.”

The playwright cover had been Clay’s idea after reading an article in the
New York Times
a few years earlier about the revival of the Moscow theater district. Russians had a proud history of literary greats, and despite generations of Communism, it was a source of national pride that had resurfaced. In the new Russia’s infant stage, the hint of celebrity shone brightly in the people’s eyes. Stedding had been against it, wanting Clay’s cover to be less flashy—a low-level government official or a shipping contractor—but Clay had held firm and had even had Stedding create websites and fictitious reviews dedicated to the emerging fame of one Ivan Parinshka. The ruse worked better than he had hoped. Never underestimate the blindness of people with stars in their eyes.

With a fresh tank of gas, thanks to a nearby petrol station, the motorcycle hummed along, settling again into the rhythm of the road. It reminded Clay of that boat again, that goddamn boat, and the endless lapping of the ocean on the hull outside his cabin’s porthole. Nine years he had spent on that boat with his uncle, from age six until his escape at fifteen. He was a strong swimmer by then, and when he had the chance, he took it. He hadn’t had much of a choice, what with the fire engulfing—

He was awakened from his reverie by a gunshot. His initial thought that his motorcycle had backfired was quickly erased by a second shot, which somehow missed his shoulder but shattered the glass of the right rearview mirror. He jerked his head around to see a pair of black Mercedes sedans closing on him, followed by a boxy Russian police sedan, a Volkswagen from the looks of it, struggling to keep up.
Shit.
That little ferret cop Gregor must’ve made some calls instead of letting it go…or more likely, the FSB was on the trail Clay had left from Zhedenko’s office and had put out a call for anyone suspicious, and Gregor had been alert enough to make the connection.

Clay cranked his wrist and pinned the throttle to its maximum point while he lowered his head and zigzagged back and forth across the road like a boxer trying to duck a cross. If they were going to shoot first and ask questions later, he wasn’t going to give them a clear target to hit.

The Mercedes pressed forward and his goddamn Spoykin couldn’t hold the distance. Why couldn’t it have been a Ducati? This assignment’s ledger was quickly dropping into the red. He pinned his knee almost to the ground and pivoted the bike off the road and into the forest. The pines were thick, but not that thick, and both Mercedes skidded into turns and followed, undaunted.

Clay bounced over loose needles, tightened his jaw, and hoped against hope that a rotting branch wouldn’t send him sliding sideways. One mistake and he’d be having his next conversation cuffed to a chair.

The sun was high in the sky now, so the shadows clung tightly to the trees. Visibility was good. Clay dipped his knee again and aimed for a tight pattern of trees, something he could squeeze through. The twin Mercedes had to give ground now, had to pick their way carefully through the trees like moose trying to keep up with a fox.