“You no let me work,” she said. “I sit here all day. I need to work.”
“You’ve worked hard enough to keep this place on this corner,” McCall said. “You deserve to sit back and rest.”
It was the same things they said to each other every time he went in, just like Luigi asking him if the fusilli was good and him saying it was superb as always. A ritual. He liked it. His life was pretty regimented these days. Except for the incident with the hooker and her pimp. That had broken his rhythm.
Maybe permanently.
McCall paid the old woman and she rang it up and gave him some change. Her husband, who McCall knew had fought with Americans in Vietnam against the Viet Cong, shuffled up to her and put a Parkinson’s hand on her shoulder.
“You honor us with your business, Mr. McCall.”
“The honor is mine.” He started to turn away, then turned back. “No trouble in the neighborhood?” he asked.
“What kind of trouble?” the old man asked, but his eyes said he knew exactly what McCall meant.
“Young men with vacant eyes wanting to protect you. Keep you safe. Make sure your establishment is not robbed or either of you are harmed.”
The old man shrugged. “This is New York. There are always men like that. They don’t bother us. We mean nothing.”
“You mean something to me.”
The old man smiled a tolerant smile. “We are old. We get by. We don’t need your help.”
“I wasn’t offering any.”
The old man nodded. “You once carried the troubles of the world on your shoulders. But not anymore. That is good.”
“You can tell that from my buying milk and bagging my own groceries?”
He just shrugged and shuffled off to the other end of the counter to restack the lottery tickets. The old woman insisted on handing McCall his two bags.
“Thanks. Good night,” McCall said.
The old Asian woman smiled vacantly. McCall wondered if she’d paid any attention to the conversation with her husband at all.
He walked out of the store and down his street.
CHAPTER 5
Halfway around the world, he watched Elena jump down from the passenger car platform. She took two steps toward the Lada, then stopped, standing still. Listening. What could she have heard? Maybe the wind scraping through some debris. Maybe the rats scurrying in and out of the wrecked airplane. Whatever, she was in a perfect position. He danced the red dot across her forehead and down her right eye and cheek.
Then she surprised him.
Suddenly, in an instant, she was gone.
He moved the telescopic sight to one side, then the other. Her reflexes were faster than anyone he’d ever targeted. She had dropped like a stone to the ground and rolled under the first train carriage. Now he saw her legs pulling in and fired twice, certainly hitting her right leg once. He caught the puff pink explosion before she was under the train. He traveled the sight along the bottom of the train carriages. Flash of movement. He fired again, into darkness, hating to waste the bullet on a random shot, but it would discourage her from crawling out again. He took the sight from his eye, got to his feet, and climbed quickly back through the helicopter, which swayed alarmingly. Now he wasn’t so certain the steel lines were going to hold it. He thought he should have stayed on the platform, but the idea of shooting her from a helicopter perched on power lines had been too tempting. He cursed himself for the misstep. He didn’t make many of them. Not that it mattered. His prey was wounded, and she had nowhere to run.
He climbed out of the helicopter onto the platform. The wind whipped at him. The snow swirled in front of his eyes, obscuring his vision more than he thought it would. The storm had escalated. It was supposed to blow itself out well before midnight.
He left the pelican hard case where it lay open on the platform. He didn’t have time to disassemble the AWC M91 and carry it down to the ground. He would climb back up to retrieve the case. There would be plenty of time afterward. Seconds now were precious. She was wounded, in pain, and adrenaline would be pumping through her body. She would be armed, maybe with more than one gun, but it was doubtful she had an automatic weapon with her. There would not have been one in the Lada, in case the poltisya stopped the car for some traffic violation, and he doubted there would have been one hidden in a compartment in the derailed train. So she would have handguns, nothing for him to be concerned about. He would not get that close to her.
He climbed down the steel ladder as quickly as he could, holding the high-powered rifle in one hand, letting the slick railing slide through the fingers of his other hand. He scanned the Disaster Park as he did so. Nothing stirred or moved except the wind and the rats.
He jumped down the last two steps and ran toward the derailed passenger train. He was light on his feet, not an ounce of fat anywhere on his body. He prided himself on his appearance. It was not vanity; it was correctness.
He ran around the twisted passenger car closest to the power lines platform and the hanging helicopter. She would not hear him coming. The ground was slushy and his boots made no sound. He saw the dark blood trail before he saw her body. She had crawled out on the other side, but had not been able to get up. The second shot must’ve also hit her. A stroke of luck, not accuracy, but he’d take it. It looked like he had hit her right hip. Probably shattered it. She was attempting to pull herself up onto the end platform of the last passenger car. But there were no steps on this side and it was too far above her. She had managed to reach up to the actual steel platform and was slowly, so slowly, hauling herself up, inch by inch. It was a good strategy. If she was inside the shelter of the train car, she might have a chance with a handgun. She might see him coming in the broken moonlight across the empty space between the crippled airliner and the derailed train.
But he had not come that way. He was behind her. He had hoped to have her on her back, staring up at him, eyes filled with hatred or terror or resignation. He had seen all three, and savored them. But now he didn’t have time to indulge himself. He’d shoot her in the back of the head and be done with this.
The bullet shattered the train carriage window an inch from his face. He fell to one knee, swung the rifle up, the magnified MARS sight to his right eye. He saw the figure, silhouetted against the moonlight, rifle aimed at him. He was beyond the wrecked train about fifty yards. He put the red dot on the shooter’s forehead and fired. His head exploded and he fell back. Reinforcements for the agent-in-the-field had arrived.
He ran toward his car. There were voices shouting. Either they had a homing device in the Lada, or her Control knew the location of the backup safe house. It was a complication he had not anticipated. He cursed softly. He should have made the kill shot as soon as she’d jumped down from the train platform.
But he’d wanted to see her suffering.
More bullets sliced through the snow at his feet. He stumbled. Perhaps his foot had hit a rock hidden in the snow. It doubled him over and he actually felt a bullet scream past his ear, taking a small piece of it. He reached the Gaz-3102 Volga, wrenched open the back door, threw the high-powered rifle inside, slammed the door, slid into the driver’s seat, fired it up, and took off. He had studied the back way out of the Disaster Park on his iPhone map. It was a labyrinth of small roads, most of which led to abandoned buildings and dead ends. But the one that twisted through the maze to a major road blazed in his mind.
Darkness swallowed him up. He did not dare turn on his headlights. He looked down and saw that his left boot was torn up. That was where a bullet had hit him. He could dig the bullet out himself, no need for medical attention. He was as skilled as any doctor he’d ever come across, and more than most of those quacks.
He calculated how long it would take for her to die. Not much more than five minutes. There was nothing she could tell them. She knew nothing. He was a faceless man in the darkness with a sniper rifle. But he had not recovered the flash drive from her. Berezovsky would be angry. The mission ha
d not been successful. He would only collect a percentage of his fee. That was the price of failure. It was a rare occurrence, and it burned in his mind. But at least the target had been eliminated.
To him, that was what mattered.
He made two fast turns and pulled the Volga over into the shelter of a group of burned-out buildings. He got out into the snow, which was now almost blinding, the wind whipping it back and forth, big swirling flakes. He left the AWC M91 in the back. They would find no fingerprints or DNA on it. He punched in a number on his iPhone and pressed send.
The helicopter must have been very close by, because within twenty seconds it was descending onto the snow-laden field to his right. He ran, limping on his wounded left foot, into the field. The wash of the rotors pulsed over him. Waiting hands pulled him up into the KA-32A11BC chopper. It was one of the helicopters that the Emergency Situations Ministry (EMERCOM) had used in Kazakhstan.
Berezovsky had influence.
He watched the ground drop away. As the chopper banked, he could see the distant Disaster Park. There was a man on the steel platform beside the helicopter on the power lines. He was holding something—the pelican hard case. That would tell them nothing. If they were able to dust the railing, they would find no fingerprints, even without the snow.
He had no fingerprints.
There was some kind of a panel truck parked beside the crashed jetliner. There was another car behind it. Two agents stood there. Another figure was running from the edge of the back wasteland of the park toward the train carriages. There was a figure at the back of the derailed train, kneeling beside the victim’s body. This would be her Control in the field. His was the real failure of the night. The man could not have botched his job more completely. He was lucky his Company agent had anything to hand over to him.
But he shared in that failure. He should have taken the flash drive off her cold, limp body.
Jovan Durković cursed softly again. He slid shut the door on the KA-32A11BC chopper and it headed over the barren wasteland, then above the ribbons of jewelled roads toward his own safe house.
* * *
Control had turned Elena over onto her back in the tangle of weeds behind the train carriage. The snow was bright red with her blood. He could see how bad her leg wound was. The bullet had torn into the vastus lateralis muscle and had exited at the top of the adductor longus. It had also smashed the head of the fibula. If she survived, he doubted she would ever walk again. He took hold of her black cocktail dress, up on her thighs, hesitated. Elena was looking up at him, her breathing shallow, her words a husky rasp.
“Not the time for modesty.”
He pulled up her dress, above her black panties, exposing a hole the size of a golf ball in her right side. Blood was pumping out of it. He took the silk handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the wound, holding it tight. Elena looked up at him with pain-filled eyes.
Something else in them.
Pity.
“Not your fault,” she whispered.
Mickey Kostmayer ran up. “Sergei’s dead. Shooter took off in a small Russian car. Might have been a Volga. I didn’t get a license number. I chased it in the van, but it disappeared. There’s a labyrinth of small roads back there. I’ve called it into the poltisya. I talked to Anatoly Yakunin himself. We’ll have a police net around the park in ten minutes.”
“He won’t stay in his vehicle for long,” Control said. “He’ll be extracted.”
They hadn’t heard the noise of a helicopter above the cacophony of the storm.
Kostmayer sank to one knee beside Elena. He reached out and took her hand.
“Hey. You remember that morning in Serbia when I hustled you out of that hotel? You were so pissed at me.”
“I was mad at Robert McCall, not you. You were following orders.” She pointed behind her. “In my black bag. Over there in the snow.”
Kostmayer jumped up, ran to where she had dropped her bag, picked it up, brought it back. He could have opened it himself, but he knew Control wanted her to do it. Kostmayer knelt again and handed the jewelled bag to her. With trembling fingers, Elena unlatched it, rummaged inside, and came out with the silver flash drive. She turned it over in numb fingers.
“Not much to show for a night’s work.” She handed it to Control. “But it’s what you wanted.”
“Yes, it is. Did you see the shooter?”
Elena’s body was going into shock. Her eyes reflected it. Her words came out in short bursts.
“One quick glimpse. In the train window. Compact, not too tall. Angular face. Holding a sniper rifle in one hand. No hat, no gloves. He should have been very cold, but he wasn’t even shivering. That’s…” She faltered. “That’s all I saw of him.” She turned her head so she could look up at Kostmayer. “You tell Robert what happened to me.” She didn’t seem to be able to get her voice above a whisper. “No one else.”
“There won’t be anything to tell. We’re getting you to a hospital.”
“You tell him, Mickey,” she insisted.
Kostmayer nodded. “I will. I give you my word. When I find him.”
“You’ll find him. He’s your friend.”
She closed her eyes with the pain.
The wind had kicked up in volumn.
“Get the ETA on that ambulance!” Control shouted at Kostmayer.
Kostmayer got to his feet, looking down at Elena one last time. Then he ran around the first wrecked train car, putting a walkie to his lips.
There was nothing around them now, just darkness and wind and the cushion of the bloodied snow. Control gently pulled Elena’s black dress down to her thighs. He lifted her up into his arms. Her eyes cleared for a moment and held that amusement in them he’d always loved.
“You gonna carry me to safety, big guy?”
“I’m sorry, Elena,” he said, his voice thick with suppressed emotion. “I’m no Robert McCall. I couldn’t protect you.”
“Alexei brought in the best,” she whispered. “I never saw him, never even heard him until it was too late. Let Robert know.”
“He resigned. He’s not a part of The Company any longer.” He was talking to keep her mind from slipping into shock along with her body. Keep her alert. Keep her focused. “I can’t tell Robert McCall anything, even if I could find him.”
She reached up and gripped the sleeve of his jacket. Her eyes blazed with final life.
“Tell Robert. Get the bastard. For me.”
She slumped back down. The light went out of her eyes.
She was gone.
Kostmayer ran around the train car. Control stood up. His body language told Kostmayer all he needed to know. Control slipped the silver flash drive into the pocket of his coat.
“Do you know where Robert McCall is?” Control asked.
There was the briefest pause, then Kostmayer said, “No.”
Behind them a Trans Care ambulance pulled into the Disaster Park, red lights flashing, no siren.
Too late.
* * *
Robert McCall sat down on a high-backed chair in his kitchen and looked out the window at the rooftops across the street. There were two tiers of them, flat roofs, like steps coming toward his narrow kitchen window. Moonlight hazed across them. He sipped a cup of strong Irish coffee. He had ripped open the package of M&M’s and tipped them into the empty glass bowl on the coffee table in the living room. He had unloaded the groceries onto the kitchen counter, put the milk and Diet Pepsi in the refrigerator, which held eggs, butter, bottled water, vegetables, a bottle of 2005 Domaine Ramonet Chardonnay. In the cabinet over the stove were two dishes, two side plates, one serving plate, two bowls. There was a juicer on the counter. A toaster. A wooden knife rack. Nothing else. The apartment was deathly quiet. He stared out of the kitchen window at the roofs. In his mind’s eye, he saw them coming for him, stark, silhouetted figures against a crescent moon.
Coming to kill him.
To kill them both.
He hadn�
�t thought of it in a long time, and he often looked out this window.
He had felt a chill.
He got up, opened the microwave, and took out a Smith & Wesson five-shot, double-action large caliber 500 revolver. It had a stainless steel 10.5-inch barrel, gray grip handle, and fired a .500 caliber bullet weighing 350 grams at 1975 feet per second with a high recoil. It was the most powerful handgun in the world.
McCall sat down again at the kitchen table and remained very still.
He waited for the figures on the roofs to reach him.
But there was no one out there.
CHAPTER 6
The night was warm for Saint Petersburg, probably forty degrees. They walked down the Nevsky Prospect to where the magnificent Dom Knigi book building stood on a corner, its windows ablaze with light.
“This used to be the headquarters for the Singer Sewing Machine Company,” Control remarked.
“Why is there so little traffic?” McCall asked.
The wide boulevard was almost empty. This wasn’t right. It bothered him.
“It’s late,” Control said. “You’ll find the brief at your hotel. Her name is Serena Johanssen. She infiltrated a terrorist cell operating here in Saint Petersburg. But she was compromised.”
“How?”
“You don’t need to know that. They’re going to take her from the Kresty Prison outside the city to another location where she’ll be interrogated. We don’t know where. We don’t know when this will happen, but sometime in the next six months. Her interrogation will be brutal. She may be buried very deep. We need her extracted.”
“I looked up the word ‘ferret’ in the dictionary,” McCall said. “It’s an animal that lives in the dark. You throw me down a hole to find someone, take something, destroy somewhere, then hope I find my way out of the dirt back up into the light.”
The Equalizer Page 5