Free The Right Hand by Derek Haas Page B

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