The Right Hand by Derek Haas

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.”
    “Why should I believe you?”
    “You…you shouldn’t.” Clay let him go, and he stumbled back toward his stepsister. “But I’m all you have right now. If I’d been sent to kill you, there wouldn’t have been talking. I would have put bullets in both of you in the time it took to raise that knife.”
    The stepbrother held her defensively behind him, an instinctive protective stance Clay found admirable.
    “What do you want?”
    “Only to help her. If I found you, they’ll find you.”
    “She doesn’t know anything.”
    “I can see that isn’t true.”
    “It’s not her fault. She didn’t want any of this.”
    “I believe that, but it doesn’t change what is.”
    Clay lowered his arms and assumed his most unthreatening position. He moved his eyes to lock on to hers. He could feel his heart beat faster. Maybe it was the chase, the excitement a hunter feels when finding his target. Maybe…His arm continued to drip blood, but he ignored the pain. “Now, look. I don’t know when they’re coming, but they will come. I can get you both out of here…out of the country…someplace safe.”
    “I have my studies.”
    “Not anymore.”
    He could see the stepbrother wince as he worked this out in his mind, all of his best-laid plans shattered.
    For the first time, she spoke, and her voice matched her appearance. It wasn’t the gruff Hungarian of government agents; it was smooth and soft and guileless. “I’m so sorry, David.”
    His eyes softened for just a moment, like the moon popping out of a dull sky. He looked on the verge of tears, a young man tossed in a world he didn’t understand, as though he’d thought maybe he could hide her here in this distant city on the edge of Russia and no one would come looking for them and everything would stay the same. He could be a professor or a scientist and they could have a life together. And then Clay had shown up, carrying a stark dose of reality. They were both soft, disoriented, fragile. Clay knew to keep them talking, moving.
    “Do you have a car?”
    Czabo shook his head, but Marika nodded. It would’ve been comical in another circumstance.
    “I know I haven’t earned it yet, but you’re going to have to put your trust in me if you want to live.”
    Marika spoke. “I have a cheap Volga.”
    “It’ll have to do. Leave everything here, lock your door, and let’s go.”
    “Can we confer for a moment?”
    Clay swallowed, then nodded. “Yes, but hurry, please.”
    They moved to the window to huddle together as Clay stepped toward their kitchenette. He grabbed a hand towel and tied it over his wound as he watched them. There wasn’t much privacy to be had in this tiny apartment.
    The siblings spoke in low tones, and though Clay couldn’t make out the words, he understood the meaning. They were trying to assure each other that everything was going to be okay if they just stayed together. Sunlight filtered through the window, stirring the motes in the air, and the cone of light, falling right on them, reminded Clay of his porthole. He had been in his cabin, praying to a God he didn’t know to deliver him from this, to give him some kind of sign, and a beam of sunlight had broken through the clouds, penetrated his cabin, and shone down on his desk. It was jumbled in his mind now—had he prayed for the sign first, or had the sign come first and understanding later? The sunlight settled on a wood carving of Belenus he had picked up in Dublin, a carving he had stuck in a drawer years ago and only recently rediscovered. Had he left it on his desk? Had the sunlight really illuminated it or had it just missed the carving? Had he left it out in just