The Right Hand by Derek Haas Page A

the right place, manufacturing a divine sign? He was just a kid, he told himself, just a kid imagining a world without—
    A green light shone through the window and lit Marika’s cheek.
    “Down!”
    She didn’t move, didn’t get down, but her stepbrother did. He lurched forward as though propelled by some invisible force and shielded his stepsister from the window, drawing the laser sight from her to him, and when the bullet came, it hit him square between the shoulders. She stumbled back as his weight fell on her, and her eyes widened in shock and bewilderment. The green laser found her again, running up her face and settling on her forehead. She dropped David, unable to support his weight anymore, and Clay showed his professional skills by darting to her and pulling her back toward the shadows only a half second before fresh gunfire split the window and ripped into the room.
    “David,” she whimpered, her voice choked, her eyes fixed to his body.
    “We have to move.”
    “David,” she protested.
    “Look at me, Marika.” Clay spoke in Russian, grave, hardening his words. “He’s dead. You’ll die, too, if you don’t keep up with me, yes?”
    His words jolted her as though he had tossed a bucket of ice water in her face.
    “Your car, where is it?”
    “Parking lot.”
    “This building?”
    “Behind it.”
    “Keys?”
    “I…I don’t…” Her hand absently searched her pocket and came up with a set of keys. He took them from her, then squeezed her hand. He hoped the contact was enough. He tried to will trust through it.
    “Okay, then…run with me.”
    She took one last look at her stepbrother, and the pain in her eyes was enough to take Clay’s breath away. He couldn’t have any more of that.
    “Now!” he screamed as bullets crashed once more into the room, splintering the wooden floorboards.
    When he bolted for the door, she followed.
     
    They tried to hit him in the stairwell, and it might have worked, except for his downward momentum. They opened the door on the lobby landing and swung inside, automatic weapons shouldered, but he was already halfway down that flight and he launched himself from six steps above them, hurling his full weight into them before they could pop off a shot. Marika screamed, and her cry echoed in the enclosed chamber so the sound of it masked the collision of elbows with noses, of knees with throats, of fists with temples, of heels with necks, until the echo of the scream died at the same time as the two assailants dropped.
    Clay looked up at her, now with blood literally on his hands and speckled across his cheek. “Keep moving,” he growled. He thought he saw appreciation in her eyes, but maybe he was just flushed from the kill and imagined it.
    They made it to the Volga before the next wave hit. How many fucking guys had they brought?
    “Get in the back and lie down!”
    She obeyed. He threw the car into reverse just as the rear windshield exploded.
    A car roared forward and tried to box them in, but Clay stamped the accelerator in reverse and the tires held, driving the attacker backward and giving Clay just enough room to throw the Volga in drive and launch it forward between parked cars. He might not have known how to pilot a plane, but damn, could Austin Clay drive anything with tires.
    He squeezed between two approaching black SUVs. They threatened to pinch him between them but chickened out at the last moment, and that told Clay he might just have a chance. Drivers afraid to wreck their government-issued vehicles would always be at a disadvantage to a man with nothing to lose.
    The Volga spun out of the parking lot and slid across the asphalt like a speed skater swinging wide into a turn, until the tire treads again found purchase and the car corrected from sideways to forward. Only the sea was to his right, while the city lay to his left, and three SUVs fell in behind him as three more whipped out in front of him, closing like medieval jousters. If they had