Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  The tech ran the surveillance tape back, then froze it.

  McCall leaned in. “You can just see a little of his profile.”

  “Not enough to recognize him,” Lansing said.

  “No, but look there, at his right ear.” To the tech: “Can you blow up that frame?”

  “I can zoom in on it.”

  The tech hit a computer key and the camera zoomed in on the figure’s profile, turned away from the camera.

  “Look at his ear,” McCall said. “There’s a hole in the lobe for an earring. Now look at my right ear. I’ve never had a piercing there.”

  Detective Lansing sighed. “I already did. That’s not you on the screen. I was hoping if you saw him, you might know him.”

  “I don’t.”

  The police tech killed the image. McCall and Lansing moved back through the grocery store out into the street. Lansing took McCall’s arm. “I know you’re looking for this Equalizer wannabe.”

  “Three people in that grocery store are dead. That’s on me. It’s in my name.”

  “Don’t take this vigilante down. Let me do my job. That’s justice.”

  McCall nodded and walked away.

  “Yeah, right,” Lansing said softly.

  * * *

  Across the street, he watched Robert McCall walk away from the crime scene. From the back, in their overcoats, they would have looked identical. But he felt no strength in this man. Just because he’d advertised as the Equalizer—a white knight ready to do battle for those with nowhere else to turn—that didn’t make him a real hero. Anyone could put an ad like that in the papers and on the internet. But then you had to follow through. You had to be the real deal. And he was. He hoped Robert McCall wasn’t claiming responsibility for what had happened in the grocery store, getting all of the glory.

  The Equalizer stepped back into the doorway of a Chubbies pizza-and-chicken place and pulled the overcoat a little tighter around himself in the cold.

  He might just have to do something about McCall.

  CHAPTER 15

  Only four people in the world had Control’s private cell phone number: the president of the United States, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Control’s wife, and Robert McCall. Control was the one person who would know what had happened to Granny and Mickey Kostmayer in North Korea. McCall had called Control several times, but there had been no answer. More than that, the automated voice had said the number had been discontinued and there was no new number.

  McCall walked into the nondescript building in Virginia, one of six in a rural complex surrounded by trees, right off the highway. No company names were displayed on any of them. In the bland marble lobby McCall approached a desk and was immediately given a badge with his name on it. He was still a shadow operative as far as Harvey, the African-American uniformed security officer, was concerned. He’d been on the front reception desk since Desert Storm and knew all of The Company operatives by sight. But when McCall stepped into the elevator with another security officer, Harvey picked up the phone at his desk.

  McCall walked down the corridor on the sixth floor. He knew an operations room was behind one of the doors, with fifty analysts working at their computer stations, digital maps of the world with hot spots glowing in red on big screens. The security officer opened the far door with a key on his belt and ushered McCall inside.

  There were three small offices. McCall walked to the center one. He had expected to see Emma Marshall, Control’s assistant, sitting at her desk, looking up at him with amused eyes, her blouse always partially unbuttoned, her attitude somewhere between British irony and caustic observation. She had once told him she knew he fancied her, and he’d never denied it, but he had the feeling she thought the intern who delivered the mail, the NRA lobbyist she had been dating, and probably Control himself wanted to get her knickers off.

  But Emma wasn’t sitting behind her desk outside Control’s office.

  The young woman there was around thirty, wearing a crisp business suit, long blond hair piled up on her head. She was attractive, but with an Ice Maiden frost to her demeanor. McCall had never seen her before. She smiled at him, but the smile was the Cheshire cat’s and would disappear as soon as he’d moved out of her sight.

  “Mr. McCall. Welcome back.”

  “Where’s Control’s assistant?”

  “There was a young woman working at this desk until a month ago. I believe she returned to England. My name is Samantha Gregson. People call me Sam.”

  McCall moved past her desk.

  “You have to have an appointment with—”

  “I don’t need an appointment to see Control.” McCall pushed open the door to Control’s office.

  It wasn’t exactly as McCall remembered it from the last time he had been there. The desk had been to his left—now it was beneath the window in front of him. The shades were up, spilling sunlight across the room. Control had always kept his office like a shadowy nook in some corner of an apocalyptic bunker. A thin green putting strip was on the plush carpet with the hole up on a raised plastic cup at the end. The putter lay to one side. Control didn’t need to practice his putting: he had a 4 handicap.

  The man standing at the bright window, talking on his cell phone, turned in surprise at McCall’s entrance. But he waved him in without hesitation, murmured something into the phone, then dropped it onto the desk.

  “Do close the door behind you.”

  McCall closed it. “This is Control’s office.”

  “That’s correct. My office. Even a shadow operative needs to let me know he’s in the building before he barges in, Robert.”

  “Don’t call me by my first name. We don’t know each other.”

  “Yes, we do,” the man said quietly.

  He was tall, six-foot-five at least, his wavy black hair streaked with gray. Probably in his midfifties, McCall judged, not an athlete, but not a couch potato. His hands were calloused, so he didn’t spend every day behind his desk. Although that didn’t mean he ventured into the field. He was dressed as Control would have been, in a dark blue three-piece suit, a red tie with small chess pieces on it, a gold watch, gold cuff links, and a thin gold bracelet on his left wrist, which Control would not have worn.

  He came around the untidy desk with his hand outstretched. “Matthew Goddard.”

  McCall didn’t shake hands.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Robert. You’ve been away from the fold for a very long time. We have a great deal to talk about.”

  “The only person I want to talk to is Control.”

  “I am the designated Control at this time. There are others within The Company, and we do rotate depending on security, tactical, and health issues, but I have been the Control of this division for some time.”

  “How long?”

  “Two years now.”

  “Then why haven’t you been my Control in the field?”

  Goddard moved back behind his desk. “I was your Control in the field, Mr. McCall, whether you were made aware of that or not. I don’t know who you dealt with directly, old son. Do you have this Control’s real name? Perhaps I can find out if he’s ever worked for this intelligence unit.”

  “Not many people know his real name.”

  “But, surely, it will be on record, if he worked here.”

  McCall felt as if he had walked into a wall. “I was controlled by a man six-foot-one, always immaculately dressed, who wore a distinctive cologne he purchased in the only store that sold it, in Mayfair, London, was ruthless and expedient, but dealt out compassion and wisdom in small doses, and even a couple of well-chosen observations on the human condition on occasion. He worked in this building, in this office, for years. His assistant was a saucy London girl who sat at that outer-office desk, and he drinks only very fine Scotch.”

  Goddard shrugged almost apologetically. “That description doesn’t fit anyone who’s ever worked here, to my knowledge. Please sit down, Robert. You were a very valuable asset to this
Company. An indispensable elitist who would not sacrifice his principles. I know you resigned under difficult circumstances. You felt The Company had betrayed you. But what are you doing with your life? We know you left Bentley’s restaurant in SoHo in Manhattan. To be a bartender somewhere else? Or is there a new profession you’ve chosen? Whatever it is, your skills are being wasted, old son.” Goddard leaned forward, his voice vibrant with suppressed urgency. “We need you, Robert. Your country needs you.”

  McCall just stared at him, then threw open the door.

  “Does being the Equalizer really mean something to you?” Goddard had to raise his voice just a little. “Or was that reaching out for some kind of meaning in your life?”

  McCall wanted to slam the door, but closed it gently behind him.

  At her desk, Samantha looked up at him with glacial eyes. “I did tell you you needed an appointment. Control is very busy today. A lot of hot spots have blown up on the board.”

  McCall ignored her as he dropped his badge onto her desk and walked out of the office complex. The security officer was waiting to escort him downstairs.

  Matthew Goddard opened the door to his office. “Put a tail on him. Make sure it’s someone bloody good, because McCall’s the best.”

  Samantha picked up the phone on her desk.

  * * *

  Three McMansions closed off a cul-de-sac in a quiet Arlington neighborhood. All three were two stories with an attic and a long front porch. The architecture of the middle home was modern farmhouse. An overturned bicycle with training wheels was on the front lawn, a skateboard on the porch. Rosemary pines were on one side, separating the house from the one on the left. Seventy-foot butternut trees completely obscured the house on the right. The gravel driveway went straight up to a big garage. McCall had never been to Control’s house before, but he’d seen a photograph of it on Control’s desk with his old boss standing on the flagstone path with his arm around his fifteen-year-old daughter, Kerry, and his seventeen-year-old daughter, Megan. McCall knew he’d been followed from The Company, but he hadn’t shaken the tail. If he brought them right to Control’s house, that was fine with him. He figured they were parked somewhere up the street.

  McCall got out of his rented Volvo and walked up the flagstone path. Grass strips were on either side of it. On the right-hand strip, McCall noted the grass was trampled down at either end. The front door opened just as McCall climbed up onto the porch. An attractive blonde stepped out, in her midfifties, but with effective use of Botox she looked closer to forty and was probably incapable of wrinkling her brow. She was small and compact, in a cream tracksuit with jewelery and freckles and Reebok ZPumps. Control’s wife, whom McCall had met once, was a Brazilian beauty in her fifties with jet-black hair. Behind the small blonde McCall could see a hallway. A large Wimbledon tennis picture took up one wall, with some oblong discolorations on either side of it. He noted a few towels on a chair and some cardboard under a table where mail had been tossed. He could see into a kitchen with a gleaming KitchenAid French-door refrigerator and gas-range convection oven.

  The blonde looked surprised to see him. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for James Cameron.” McCall thought this was the first time he’d ever spoken Control’s real name out loud.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know who that is.”

  “He lives here with his wife, Jenny, and two teenage children, his daughters, Kerry and Megan.”

  “I’m afraid you have the wrong address.”

  “This is the right address.”

  The compact blonde forced a tolerant smile onto her face. She leaned down and picked up the skateboard.

  “We’re the Peterson family, Tom and Marsha. I have to get my youngest son to the dentist right now.”

  “May I ask how long have you’ve lived here?”

  “Fourteen years. Your friend does not reside in this house. You’ve obviously been misinformed.”

  “Sorry to have troubled you.”

  “No trouble.” She closed the door without quite slamming it.

  McCall heard her voice shouting, “Get in the car, Evan! We’re late!”

  McCall walked down the flagstone path. The door of the garage rumbled up. A moment later a red Ford Explorer pulled out, Marsha Peterson at the wheel. A young blond boy was buckled into the backseat. McCall continued walking back toward his rented Volvo. The Explorer drove out of the cul-de-sac and disappeared. McCall stepped through the butternut trees onto the property to the right. It had exactly the same driveway, same grass strips on both sides, the house painted a dark blue with light blue trim. McCall walked up onto the porch and rang the doorbell. He had to ring it a second time before the door finally opened. A tall brunette in her late thirties stood on the threshold. She was wearing jeans, a white shirt, no shoes, and a painting smock with smears of red-violet and green, yellow, white, and deep purple on it. She held a couple of paintbrushes in her hand and also looked surprised to find a stranger on her doorstep.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you. Especially if you’re painting.”

  “No problem!” She was a little breathless, having run to get the door. “I’m painting a landscape of the trees in our backyard. We’ve got such beautiful Muskogee crape trees, a flowering dogwood, some tulip poplars, and even a Dynamite crape myrtle, and when I say Dynamite, that’s its actual name! Are you here to see my husband?”

  “No, I was looking for James Cameron. He lives next door?”

  “The Petersons live next door.”

  “You know how long they’ve been there?”

  “Oh, since God was a pup.” She turned and raised her voice. “David, honey, how long have the Petersons lived next door to us? Ten years?”

  There was the scrape of a chair, then a dark-haired man, also in his thirties, with a close-cropped beard, dressed in a suit and tie, walked down the corridor from the back.

  “At least ten years,” he said, looking at McCall curiously. “I just saw Marsha Peterson pull out in her SUV.”

  McCall ignored him, looking at the man’s wife. “So you’ve seen the Peterson children grow up?”

  “Oh, yeah! I gave Marsha her baby shower for Evan, that’s their six-year-old. Gary, their teenage son, is at American University in DC.”

  “Not much time to use his skateboard, I guess. I noticed it on the porch.”

  “Oh, no, he skateboards up and down that driveway all weekend! Drives us crazy!”

  “Who were you looking for?” David asked, a little more pointedly.

  His wife turned to him before McCall could respond. “Someone named James Cameron. Do you know that name, hon?”

  “Never heard it before.”

  “I’m Candace Jameson, by the way,” she said, turning back to McCall. “I won’t shake your hand as I’ve managed to get paint on my fingers, my smock, probably on my ass, everywhere except on my canvas!”

  David glanced at her, as if mildly scandalized.

  “How long have you lived here?” McCall asked.

  “Sixteen years,” Candace said. “Before the Petersons moved in, there was a couple next door, Ginny and Paul, very sweet people, Dinks, double income no kids; they moved out and Tom and Marsha moved in with their son Gary, he was four then. Evan came later and was a real surprise, if you know what I mean! A New Year’s Eve baby!”

  David glanced disapprovingly at his wife again, then looked back at McCall. “You could talk to the Andersons on the other side of the cul-de-sac. They’ve been here the longest, twenty years I believe.”

  “So you’re all pretty friendly?”

  “In a neighbors kind of way,” Candace said. “Barbecues on Labor Day weekends, block parties, charity drives. Marsha and I go to the same tennis club. What was the name of your friend again?”

  “He’s not my friend. Used to be my boss. I must have the wrong address for him. Thanks for your time.”

  “Not at all.” Candace dazzled him with a smile.

  Her husband just
waited for McCall to leave.

  McCall walked over to his rented Volvo, slid behind the wheel, and pulled away from the cul-de-sac.

  They’d all been lying.

  The Wimbledon tennis picture in the hallway of Control’s house had been hung a little off center. The oblong discolorations showed that other pictures had been hung there that had been hastily removed. The towels on the chair and pieces of cardboard were used to move furniture around. The appliances McCall had seen through the doorway in the kitchen had been brand-new. And he knew the house had electric cookers, not gas. The bicycle that was overturned in the driveway had training wheels on it. No self-respecting six-year-old would ride a bike with training wheels. The skateboard carefully discarded on the porch was brand-new. If the Petersons’ college son still skateboarded up and down the driveway every weekend, the board would have been scuffed up on the edges. Control had told McCall that he parked his Mercedes S-Class sedan on the grass strip on the right of the driveway because so much furniture and boxes and junk were in the garage. That’s why the grass where he’d parked it in the center was not damped down.

  The next-door neighbors, Candace and David, had been the best. Candace was painting the trees in her backyard. A Dynamite crape myrtle was a deep red color, not the red-violet that was smeared on her painting smock. Her flowering dogwood leaves did not have white blossoms in the autumn, which would have turned red by now. McCall had seen enough Muskogee crape trees to know the blooms were lavender, not deep purple, and the tulip poplar’s blooms were gold, not yellow. The smock and the paintbrushes were props. McCall doubted if Candace had ever painted anything more than a wall in her house—which wasn’t the one he’d met her in. As for her husband, David, he was packing a 9mm Smith & Wesson compact pistol. His suit jacket had been unbuttoned, and the holster was far back on his hip, but the way the jacket hung on him, McCall had noted the butt of the gun. Since Candace had suggested McCall talk to the “Andersons” in the house on the other side of Control’s, he figured they would also be plants.

  He felt a chill flood through him. It was one thing for The Company to make Control disappear. It was another for them to make it appear as if he never existed.