The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  McCall had his backpack on the chair across the table from him. He was nursing a vodka, so his breath would smell of it. He lit up a Belomorkanal cigarette and tried not to cough his lungs out. They made the Camels he used to smoke feel like they’d had three filters on them. He waited. Gredenko ordered chicken Kiev. Volsky ordered a steak. They both ordered Beluga vodkas. Then they ordered Russian appetizers, Deruny Ukrainian potato pancakes.

  McCall waited. Drank another vodka, smoked three more Belomorkanal cigarettes. The potato pancakes were served at the window table. Gredenko and Volsky ate them ravenously. They talked quietly. Both were very calm.

  Then Gredenko got up and walked to the back of the restaurant. One thing McCall had noted during his surveillance was that Volsky did not follow his boss into the men’s room. Gredenko passed McCall’s table without once glancing at him. When the door swung shut on the men’s room, McCall got quickly to his feet, grabbing his backpack off the chair, shouldering it. No one had gone into the bathroom before Gredenko. That had been always a variable. If someone had been in there, they would have either become collateral damage, or McCall would have had to wait for them to leave. He got lucky.

  He walked into the men’s room. Gredenko, still in his long overcoat, still wearing his fedora, zipped up and moved from the urinal to an old enamel sink. He glanced into the mirror, dismissed McCall, and washed his hands. Then perhaps the merest trickle of instinct touched him. He half turned.

  It took McCall two steps to reach him, a second to wrap his arm around the man’s throat and another two seconds to break his neck. The notorious Arbon, the Devil, a man feared by so many, his face etched into the nightmares of his victims who had survived, was reduced to a slack corpse in five seconds.

  McCall locked the men’s room door. He shoved Gredenko’s body into a stall, sitting up, took off his overcoat and the fedora and stuffed them into his near empty backpack. Gredenko’s black trousers were identical to the ones McCall was wearing. He took Gredenko’s wallet and ID papers from the pocket of his trousers, transferred them to his own pockets. He checked the wallet and found a wad of Russian rubles in one thousand, five hundred and one hundred denominations. Gredenko didn’t have a smartphone. Old school. In fact, he didn’t carry any kind of cell phone. McCall had expected that. He’d never seen him use one. McCall took the Rolex Yacht-Master II in blue with a thick silver band off Gredenko’s left wrist. He took off the Breitling Chronomat 44 GMT that had been Christian Hyvonen’s watch and replaced it with the Rolex. He shoved the Breitling into his pocket. Then he heaved the dead man over his shoulder and moved to the one window in the men’s room. It was narrow, but McCall had climbed in and out of it a dozen times in preparation. He opened the window to a biting wind. He heaved Gredenko’s body across the sill and then heaved again. It fell with a thud down into the alleyway behind the restaurant. McCall climbed out after him and jumped down.

  The alleyway was deserted. Another variable, but in the five-plus months that McCall had walked the back route behind the restaurant he had never seen a soul there. He heaved Gredenko up onto his shoulder again and ran with him three buildings down to the empty lot overgrown with weeds and strewn with garbage. Also deserted. He had never seen anyone there, either. He ran to the coal door, unlocked the padlock, opened the door. Inside, it was the size of a small closet and empty. He stuffed Gredenko’s body into it, shut the door, and snapped the padlock back into place. Then he was running back to the Stroganoff Pushkin’s men’s room window. He tossed the Breitling Chronomat 44 GMT watch into an overflowing Dumpster and climbed through the narrow window back inside.

  McCall jumped down, closed the window, and looked at his new Rolex. One minute and thirteen seconds. He was a little behind schedule. He pulled Gredenko’s long back overcoat out of his backpack and laid it on a towel stand near the sink. He put the gray fedora beside it. He took scissors from a small kit in the backpack and trimmed his beard until it matched Gredenko’s perfectly. He darkened it and took the gray out of it. He took a glittering diamond earring, an identical match to Gredenko’s, and fixed it to his right ear. You would never know his ear was not pierced unless you looked very closely. From out of the backpack he unwrapped a hairpiece. It was black, like his hair color, like the color of Gredenko’s hair. McCall faced the mirror over the window and carefully put the hairpiece into place. He combed his hair over the new bald patch and now his hair matched Gredenko’s exactly. He took out a small plastic contacts case from his pants pocket and removed two contact lenses. He carefully put them in, blinked, looked at himself in the mirror.

  He had Gredenko’s almost-black eyes.

  There was an impatient knock on the men’s room door.

  “One moment!” McCall called out in Russian, in a soft, guttural accent.

  Gredenko’s voice.

  He shrugged on Gredenko’s dark overcoat, put the fedora on his head, zipped up the backpack, carried it in one hand, and opened the men’s room door. He half expected to see Josif Volsky standing there, but it was one of the patrons. He pushed past McCall to the urinal.

  McCall walked out of the men’s room. He dumped the empty backpack into an alcove behind a statue of Lenin on a pedestal. He’d put his own gray overcoat on the other chair at his table and left it there. No one would notice it until it was too late.

  Then he walked out into the main area of the restaurant.

  He walked to the window table and sat down. Gredenko’s chicken Kiev had arrived, along with another tumbler of Beluga vodka. Volsky was just being served his steak. McCall took off the fedora, dropped it onto the table. He wanted Volsky to see the new hairline, black hair combed over the balding patch. With the close-cropped black beard and the diamond earring in his left earlobe. Volsky looked at him. Had no reaction. Took a bite of steak. This was the big test. McCall believed he had Gredenko’s voice and mannerisms down cold. If he didn’t, it was all over.

  McCall asked, in Russian, how the steak was?

  Volsky nodded. Very good.

  McCall made a show of looking at Gredenko’s Rolex Yacht-Master II watch, checking the time. He pretended to be preoccupied, although it wasn’t much of a pretense. He was—with trying to stay alive. But Volsky appeared completely at ease. He was with his boss, whom he protected and presumably loved. He did not look at McCall and see a stranger. His senses were dulled with familiarity. They did not speak again through the rest of the meal. When the bill arrived, Volsky paid for it—his usual custom. He glanced at his watch and said they should leave. The car would be waiting. McCall nodded and got up from his chair. He put the gray fedora back on his head.

  Volsky picked up the slim steel briefcase.

  The two men walked out of the restaurant.

  Outside a Citroën was parked, motor running, a driver behind the wheel. McCall climbed into the back. Volsky climbed into the passenger seat in the front. The driver pulled away from the restaurant.

  McCall and Volsky did not talk on the long journey to the abandoned automobile plant. McCall smoked more Belomorkanal cigarettes. Volsky looked out the window, lost in thought. Perhaps savoring the torture to come.

  When McCall saw the big iron gates of the factory he took in a deep breath and let it slowly out.

  Showtime.

  * * *

  Granny had narrowed down the coordinates from the fifty-mile radius Control had provided for the possible location to within a four-mile perimeter. He could see nothing on the radar below. He activated the LIDAR system he had personally installed in the chopper. LIDAR was the acronym for Light Detection and Laser Imaging and Ranging System. He used the Leica AL550-II system with an output at a factor of five over other LIDAR systems, which allowed him to fly at a much higher altitude. The higher power provided superior foliage penetration as the laser light pulses scanned the forest beneath. He knew they would have camouflaged the facility. They felt safe.

  He found the old abandoned automobile factory sprawled in about twelve acres of cleared f
orest. Granny could see the high fence surrounding it. There were two big gates at one end, and a couple of smaller exits from the facility on the other side with only one gate at each. It was surrounded by forest and the only cluster of buildings that made sense for the torture location. The helicopter had passed over some isolated farmhouses and even an abandoned school, which might have fit the bill, but Granny had ignored them. This old auto factory felt right to him.

  Granny flicked a switch and incandescent red heat images glowed on the instrument panel. There were a lot of them, both inside and outside the facility. Granny checked his watch. If the timetable Control had given them was accurate, McCall should be inside the facility by now. Whether he had reached the target or not was incalculable, but it was unlikely he was still outside. Granny picked up the shape of a vehicle outside the main gates, the one that would have brought McCall there, with the heat register of a man standing beside it—the driver, smoking a tiny bright blip of a cigarette.

  There must have been thirty heat signatures in the exterior area. Maybe another dozen inside. No way of knowing who was who. But McCall had known that going in. Granny’s orders were simple. As soon as he got there, and ascertained the car that had driven McCall was there, he was to give McCall covering fire. Then pick him and the target up outside the facility.

  Granny tapped Hastings’s helmet.

  “Good to go.”

  Hastings started firing the 30 mm M230 chain gun at the targets on the ground. The Soviet soldiers scattered, firing up at the chopper. Bullets lacerated the chopper’s sides. Granny lined up the Hellfire missiles, using the AGM-114K MAC, Metal Augmented charge. Two missiles erupted from the AH-64 and blasted down into the compound. A Russian jeep exploded in a fireball that sent the vehicle fifty feet into the air. It crashed back down, a twisted, burning wreck, scattering more of the troops. The second Hellfire erupted into a low metal outbuilding, destroying it. Granny angled the chopper away as bullets slammed into the fuselage and came back around.

  Granny looked down at the monstrous shape of the abandoned factory. Heat signatures within the building were moving fast. He had no idea if any of them were McCall and the target. But he sent a Hellfire missile streaking down to the building. It erupted spectacularly.

  * * *

  The door to the interrogation room burst open and the two guards rushed in. McCall threw the table over and with it Serena to the ground, shielding her. PP-91 Kedr submachine-gun bullets strafed the interior. McCall fired twice with Volsky’s GSh-18 pistol. The guards collapsed into the doorway. McCall grabbed Serena, dragged her roughly to her feet, and pushed her toward the open door. He could hear the fireworks outside the factory. Granny had arrived, maybe a minute late, but God bless him! They had four minutes to get out of the factory on the other side.

  A moment later the entire building shook as an explosion ripped into it.

  McCall knelt down, grabbed one of the PP-91 Kedr submachine guns from the lifeless hand of guard number one. Serena had already jumped over their bodies. McCall dragged both bodies inside, slammed the door shut, locked it, and tossed the key away.

  They ran down the corridor, turned it at right angles, and came out into the huge open space of the factory spread out below them. Pale moonlight shafted through the high windows, not enough to really illuminate the gloomy interior. Most of it was in darkness. More army soldiers were running forward, submachine guns firing. McCall pushed Serena down a steel catwalk, firing back. One soldier crumpled to the ground. A second was blasted over a low railing and fell to the floor below. McCall ran after Serena, who stumbled and clutched on to the railing. There was a momentary respite in the firing. They were cloaked in darkness. McCall took a pencil flashlight from his pocket. Serena was gasping. He shone the flashlight down onto her bare feet. They were bleeding in several places, torn up by the catwalk’s protruding nails and pieces of raw metal. Nothing to be done. He couldn’t carry her. He put away the flashlight and replaced it with the GSh-18 pistol in his left hand. He still carried the Kedr submachine gun in his right. He pushed Serena on.

  Outside, when Granny made his second pass over the factory yard, they were ready for him. He fired two more Hellfire missiles, exploding in blinding flashes, and Hastings kept up the machinegun fire, but one of the Russian army soldiers had a RPG surface-to-air missile on his shoulder. He fired it with unerring accuracy. The rocket struck the tail section of the AH-64, causing it to spiral. The crippled chopper passed dangerously close to the roof of the abandoned automobile factory.

  McCall heard clatter of the AH-64 overhead.

  Much too low.

  He waited for the sound of the crash, but it didn’t happen. He and Serena had reached another catwalk that crossed the main factory floor. He had seen it on his way to the prison room and noted its position. They ran across the catwalk. Bullets strafed around them. It lit up the soldiers for brief moments, but McCall didn’t fire back. They had to reach the other side.

  A bullet tore across the top of McCall’s left shoulder. He dropped the Russian pistol and it clattered on the catwalk and then fell to the floor below. He absorbed the pain. More bullets whined past their running figures. They reached the end of the catwalk and McCall jumped down to the ground floor, lifting Serena down beside him. He had the floor plan of the building in his head. There was a heavy iron exit door just in front of them. The moonlight here was minimal, but he didn’t dare use the pencil flashlight. He thrust the girl toward where the door was etched in his mind. More bullets crashed and pinged off the metal structures around them.

  McCall heard one of the soldiers off to his left. He swung up the Kedr sub and fired into the darkness. The soldier was hit and fell to the ground. Bullets from his own submachine gun fired blindly. One round went past McCall’s head so close he felt the rush of air.

  He looked up.

  The sound of the helicopter was receding.

  * * *

  In the AH-64, Granny fought the controls. The chopper was still spinning. He couldn’t get off any more missiles in the maelstrom.

  “Plan B,” he said into the radio.

  His copilot did not respond.

  Granny looked over and saw that Hastings was hit. Shoulder wound. Granny tapped his helmet. Motioned. We’re leaving.

  Granny angled the chopper up, still fighting for control. Another RPG screamed up at the chopper, missing it by inches. Granny angled up and over the factory building. He looked at the green-lit area below on the screen. Thought he saw two heat signatures emerge from the east end of the building. Could have been McCall and the target. McCall could not have risked bringing a radio into the facility with him. They had an appointed extraction point three hundred yards from the facility in a forest clearing, north northeast. But that didn’t matter now. Control had been very specific—if the helicopter was damaged to the extent it could not land or, if it did, might not be able to lift off again, Granny was to abandon McCall and the target. They’d take their chances in the forest.

  “Sorry, McCall, you’re on your own,” Granny said.

  Then he tried to gain height over the trees.

  * * *

  Below, McCall and Serena came to a halt. The night air was cold. The girl shivered violently beside him in her prison pajamas, her bare feet bleeding profusely now. McCall looked up and saw the AH-64 in the moonlit sky, coming out of a spiral and leveling off, but fighting to stay that way. The tail rotor was damaged. The chopper was listing badly. Granny would not be able to land and pick them up. He’d be lucky not to crash into the forest below. McCall knew what Granny’s operational orders from Control were. A moment later the AH-64 had angled over the trees and was gone. McCall put a protective arm around Serena’s shoulders and felt afraid.

  He was not sure how to get them to safety now that Granny was out of the equation.

  McCall looked around them. There was an old UAZ 3172 Soviet Army jeep parked beside the fence. McCall took Serena’s hand and they ran for it. She limped badly
and he had to haul her along with him. Footfalls pounded on cement. There were cries and shouting in Russian. Soldiers had entered the factory building. They were searching for the fugitives. Their General Palkovnik was dead. There might be a premier/major or a lieutenant in their ranks, but there was confusion and no clear person in command. They would seal off the compound, but they should have done that already, and there’d been no one to give the order.

  The sound of the AH-64 was gone.

  McCall thrust Serena into the back of the UAZ jeep. He was ready to try and hot-wire the vehicle, but the keys were actually on the driver’s seat.

  Your helicopter ride goes south, but you find a ring of keys, McCall thought.

  Win some, lose some.

  He tossed the Kedr submachine gun onto the passenger seat, fired up the jeep, and pulled away. Ahead of him Russian soldiers rounded the side of the building, throwing up their submachine guns. For a moment they didn’t fire—this could be a Russian officer driving toward the front of the factory. But as soon as McCall veered off to the right, they opened fire. Bullets slammed into the jeep. Serena slid down so that she was below the level of the seats in a heap.

  The back window blew glass shards across where she’d been sitting a moment before. Some of them rained hot across the back of McCall’s neck. The gate in the fence was right in front of him. It was slightly ajar, held to the fence by a single rusty chain.