The Right Hand (7 page)

C
LAY DROVE
the commandeered Mercedes to the nearest parking lot—at some sort of factory in a town with too many consonants in its name—and stole a nondescript gray van. He drove it to the next parking lot and repeated the process twice more in a shell game meant to buy him a day or two of anonymity, if he was lucky. Stealing a plane would have been nice, but piloting one was always something he thought he’d learn to do someday in the future. Why did Russia have to be some damn massive?

He got lucky with his last steal—a fairly new Lada hatchback with a Russian road map in the glove box. If he pushed, he could make it to Vladivostok in three days while keeping off the main highways, at least for the next thousand miles. He hoped for a bit of leeway as new agents were brought up to speed on him—this man who kept dispatching his pursuers. He hoped they wouldn’t figure out where he was going. He hoped Nelson hadn’t yet confessed to the existence or location of the stepbrother.

Off the main motorway, rural Russia might as well have been trapped in the nineteenth century. Roads weren’t paved, endless farms rolled by the window, and towns were little more than a couple of communal buildings. If he was lucky, he’d find a gas pump, if not a station. He located shady, secluded spots where he could sleep for a few hours during the day and tried to drive mostly at night, pinching just enough petrol and food to avoid attracting attention.

Traffic was minimal during the night. He stumbled upon an unmarked military base of some kind, and congestion picked up as he negotiated his way around jeeps, trucks, and transports, but if he looked suspicious in his little beige Lada, no one seemed to notice. At least the excitement temporarily broke up the road’s relentless monotony. Soon the military machinery faded behind him and he was back alone on the road. Once he misjudged his spot on the map by a good thirty kilometers, but he kept the dash pointed east and soon picked his way back to a listed road. He knew he needed to report in to Stedding at some point, but he felt he was making progress without sounding any alarms, and he didn’t want to risk a break-in if he didn’t have to. His scent, he hoped, had disappeared from the hounds charged with hunting him.

After three days of bumping along back roads, praying that a sudden storm wouldn’t muddy things up, he jogged back to the main motorway that headed into Vladivostok. The sun was out and felt warm on his face.

Clay’s stomach cramped, and he realized he hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. He was narrowing in on Vladivostok from the north but wasn’t sure how far he had to go. When he saw a small motel with a few cars in front, he eased into the lot. Smoke was curling up from a stovepipe affixed to the roof, and he could smell meat cooking. His stomach made some noise, presumably to voice its approval.

Inside, the motel was dark, with a low wooden ceiling that barely cleared his head. A small desk to the right must have been for reception, but it was unmanned. Two long wooden tables stood a little farther into the room, with benches on either side, occupied by simply, inelegantly dressed customers. The smells of eggs, potatoes, butter, and roasted beef mingled with cigarette smoke and formed a wreath around his head.

An overweight man wearing what looked like a smock gestured from a kitchen door to a seat at the end of the second table. The man spoke Russian with a flat, hollow accent and said something along the lines of “Please, sit,” but Clay wasn’t sure he’d interpreted it correctly. He moved to the indicated seat and sat down heavily. A plastic bowl was immediately filled with soup, and Clay nodded at the family staring at him before digging in. He was expecting something bland and was surprised by the flavor; extreme hunger has a way of making everything taste gourmet.

A girl of no more than six sat closest to him. She stared brazenly, watching as he dipped his spoon again and again into the bowl. Her mother pulled her in tight to her side, a hen protecting her chick. Her father sat across from her; he was a big man with a curly black beard and eyes spaced too far apart.

“You’re a traveler?”

Clay nodded as he scooped up another bite of the soup. “Driving to Vladivostok.” He could feel two tables’ worth of diners straining to hear what he had to say.

“Wonderful. It is nice to see men traveling these roads again. We live in Ussuriysk.”

Clay kept shoveling the soup into his mouth. He didn’t want to be impolite, but he wasn’t keen to make conversation, either. His soup bowl was whisked away when he finished, and a plate of meat and potatoes replaced it. There was not a green vegetable or a ripe piece of fruit in sight, but he didn’t mind.

“We grow wheat. This is my wife, Dina. Our daughters are Oksana, and Lidya is the one who hasn’t stopped staring. My name is Pavel.”

“Ivan,” Clay said, and tore into the meat. The potatoes tasted more of butter than of well, potato, but he couldn’t bring the food into his face fast enough.

“What brings you to Vladivostok?” Pavel asked happily. He shook out a cigarette and lit the end.

Clay stopped eating long enough to put a smile on his face and say, “I am a playwright, Ivan Parinshka. Just visiting the university.”

Pavel beamed. “Oleg works at the university!”

Clay felt his throat tighten, but he kept his face blank. All eyes turned to the man seated one table over, directly behind Pavel. Pavel turned and clapped the man on the back warmly. “Oleg, say hello to Ivan. He is coming to visit your university!”

The man named Oleg spun on his bench, wiped his mustache with his napkin, cleaned his hands, then stuck one out to Clay. “Pleased to meet you.”

“And you,” Clay said, and returned the handshake. He was suddenly full and put his fork down.

“Did I hear you say you are a playwright?” Oleg asked. He had dark brown eyes that shone with intelligence, a sharp contrast with Pavel’s vacant expression.

“I am. From Moscow.”

“Will you be speaking at the linguistics—?”

Clay interrupted before he could finish the question. “In what department do you teach, Oleg?”

Oleg smiled. “International Relations.”

“Fascinating. You must spend much time traveling, then?”

“Oh, yes. I stayed a few months last year on the Korean peninsula. I will be spending another few months in Japan next year on an exchange with Waseda University.”

“Wonderful,” Clay said, standing up abruptly. “I would love to talk more with you, but I must be on my way. Perhaps if I find myself with a minute, I can stop in and see you in your office, Oleg.”

Oleg looked mystified to discover that the conversation was ending and that this man could have finished his plate so quickly. Clay found the cook with his eyes and gestured for the check. The man grunted something about four hundred rubles.

Pavel stood and shook his hand. “Must you be leaving so quickly?”

“I am very tired and would like to get on with my travel. How much farther is it?”

“No more than one hour twenty minutes straight down the M60.”

Clay fished some money out of his pocket and put the bills on the table next to his plate.

“You didn’t tell me where you are speaking at the university. Perhaps I can come hear you speak?” Oleg said just as Clay began to move away.

Clay stopped and turned back to the professor. “I’m attending incognito, I’m afraid. I am writing a new play about a student. I am just attending to observe student life.”

“I see,” Oleg said. “Well, please stop in to say hello to my colleague Sergei Trushin in the journalism school. He would be delighted to interview a playwright from Moscow.”

“Sergei Trushin,” Clay repeated, pretending to commit the name to memory. “I will certainly do that, Oleg. Thank you.”

“With pleasure,” Oleg said, and turned back to his dish. Clay nodded at the family and headed for the door, ducking his head to avoid bumping the ceiling. He replayed the conversation in his mind all the way to his car but couldn’t see any mistakes in it. Still, he cursed his stomach for speaking up when he only had an hour and twenty minutes to go before reaching the university.

The stepbrother was named David Czabo. Clay hoped the difference in the surnames—Czabo and Csontos—had thrown FSB off his trail and they hadn’t found the connection Nelson had found.

He entered the biotechnology building and passed the classrooms in search of the faculty offices. The university felt modern and clean, a stark contrast to his last week out in the backwoods of Mother Russia. He was clean, too. He had called Stedding as soon as he’d found a phone on the outskirts of town. Within three hours, Stedding had gotten him a room at the fine Azimut Hotel and a closet full of clothes his size. Every now and then, Steddy liked to remind Clay how resourceful a handler he could be, and how fortunate Clay was to work with the best.

He passed several closed office doors and arrived at an open one, inside which a bearded academic sat over papers. The name on the door read
Zagrevsky.

“Professor Zagrevsky?” Clay asked as he knocked and entered.

“Yes.” The man looked up and then back down at his work immediately.

“I am Boris Antopov, with Central Ministry.”

As expected, the professor looked up. His fingers went to his beard and scratched nervously.

Clay put on his warmest smile. “Biotech division.”

“Yes?”

“You have a student here named David Czabo.”

“Yes, yes. Fine student, David.”

“I wish to speak with him, but my assistant did not give me his living address and the office is closed in Moscow due to scheduled renovation.”

“To speak with him? What is this concerning?”

Clay’s smile spread. “Concerning ministry business.”

The academic frowned. “I see. Well, you are in luck with your timing. I have class with David Czabo in just over an hour. I will introduce you upon his arrival, yes?”

“Thank you, Professor Zagrevsky.”

The academic nodded and returned to his paperwork as though the intrusion had never occurred.

Often, Clay’s missions involved stalking prey. He could wait patiently for hours, days, weeks, hiding in the shadows, as undetectable as the proverbial white spider on a white flower. He could observe and make notes, search for weaknesses and defenses, plot the best way to intercept, confront, or control his target. Patience was never a problem for him; it was a component of his childhood, long hours looking at an endless roll of waves on that damn boat.

But stalking wasn’t an option here. There was simply no time. He hoped he had beaten FSB to Vladivostok, but he couldn’t be sure. So he had spoken to Professor Zagrevsky for a specific reason: he wanted to frighten his quarry. More often than not, frightened quarry scuttles back to its nest.

It didn’t take long to prove this theory correct. David Czabo ran like a spooked squirrel as soon as the professor opened his mouth, bursting from the utilitarian classroom corridor and out the nearest door.

Clay sprang after him, marginally concerned about the way this incident looked in front of dozens of faculty and students, but Russians come from a long tradition of keeping their eyes shut and mouths closed. The professor would tell everyone that Czabo had “government trouble” and probably leave it at that.

The kid was agile. He darted across the campus, leapt a bicycle rack like an Olympic hurdler, and stole between cars into the street. Clay wasn’t concerned. Pursuit wasn’t always about overtaking prey.

Clay hung back just far enough to let Czabo think he had lost him. It wasn’t fair, like putting an amateur into the ring with Ali. The kid tried to execute a couple of evasive maneuvers, doubling back on his trail, darting into a shoe store to watch across the street, but Clay tailed him as easily as if he’d planted a GPS chip in his backpack. After a half hour, the kid poked his head out into the street, now wearing his jacket inside out. It almost made Clay snicker. Almost.

Czabo crossed the street, ducked down an alley, and headed into one of the commonplace gunmetal-gray apartment buildings that made up this port city.

If Marika happened to be out, this plan was going to go sideways fast. Clay had been thinking about her so much since he’d left St. Petersburg, he wondered how blurry his mental picture would prove to be. It was like reading a book and having a character in your head, so real you could recognize her in a crowd, and then discovering that the actress picked to play the part in the film version is nothing close to your image. Everything you had in mind before is lost forever after seeing a new face in the part. Would he be disappointed? Would he be shocked? Would she be as plain as wallpaper? He took the stairs two at a time and then leaned back to set himself outside her door.

She was hastily packing a bag when Clay kicked the door in.

One thing registered as he first laid eyes upon her: his mental image was indeed inaccurate. She was astonishingly beautiful, even more so than he had imagined. She had wide, impossible eyes, a shade of blue that seemed to absorb light. Her hair was long and black and wild, and her lips were full and intense. Goddamn, she was stunning.

The second thing he noticed was her stepbrother lunging at him with a knife. The girl’s pulchritude threw him off his game, and he reacted too slowly. The blade caught a piece of his forearm as he defended a second late.

“Hey!” he shouted in Russian, now angry. Czabo lunged again, and this time Clay met him before he could bring the knife around, popped his wrist, and Czabo’s grip wasn’t professional enough to hang on. While the kid watched the knife sail, Clay grabbed his arm, pulled him in, and held him tight.

“I’m not here to harm you. I’m here to help!” he grunted. Clay’s arm was bleeding more than he would have liked.

Marika’s face flashed emotion: terror, anger, hope.

Czabo struggled, and Clay bent his arm a little farther, until he stopped struggling.

“Who are you?”

“American,” Clay said, dropping the accent. “There are people coming for your sister. I can get her to a safe place.”