The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  “Yes.”

  His voice was stronger now, McCall noted. Getting over the terror. He was still alive. His balls hadn’t been chopped off. This maniac was going to let him go.

  “If you deviate from this path for any reason, I’ll know it. Just like I knew you were going to rape Karen tonight. If you come back into the city, I’ll know it. If you go back to your old apartment, I’ll know it. I’ll find you and I’ll kill you. Still with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it like you mean it.” McCall’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “Because I mean it.”

  “Yes.”

  Stronger.

  McCall said, “Good.”

  Carlson mustered enough courage to ask: “Who the hell are you?”

  There was a pause, and Carlson froze, as if remembering his yes-no orders and realizing he might have just said good-bye to his manhood.

  McCall said, “I’d say your worst nightmare, but Eastwood does that line so well. I’m the man who’s going to kill you if you break our deal. Do you really understand that? One word, yes or no, convince me.”

  “Yes,” Carlson said, and McCall was convinced.

  He took the knife away from Carlson’s balls.

  “When I cut the bonds to your wrists you can bring your arms down, but you can’t try and tear through the duct tape on your ankles until I’m gone. Okay?”

  “Yes.”

  McCall stood and lifted the knife up to where Carlson’s wrists were bound to the broken steering wheel and slit the tape. Carlson brought down his arms. He turned his head. McCall moved out of the shadow so that Carlson could see his face. He was too afraid to speak. Just looked at McCall with wide, wild eyes.

  “I’ll be taking the Japanese knife with me,” McCall said.

  “Don’t you want to know if I’ll do this again?” Carlson asked.

  Not really defiance, more like a real question in his voice.

  McCall didn’t stop as he walked back to the Chrysler. “None of my business.”

  “Why was Karen Armstrong your business?”

  McCall turned back. “Because she had no way to stop you. I did.” He hefted the Japanese cutting knife in his hand, looking at Carlson’s flaccid penis and balls. “I should just cut them off, save us all a lot of trouble, but we’re miles from an ER and you really would bleed out.”

  The terror came back into Carlson’s eyes. Reflexively his hands went down and covered his genitals.

  McCall climbed into the Chrysler, turned the key in the ignition, and drove through the gates. He didn’t bother to get out and close them again. He was sure the wrecker’s yard was broken into all the time. Junkies looking to stash dope, teenagers looking to screw somewhere nightmarish, homeless people looking for some kind of shelter.

  He glanced up once into the rearview mirror. Carlson stood naked and shivering in the night cold, looking vulnerable and terrified and alone.

  After that McCall didn’t give him another thought.

  Until much later.

  CHAPTER 37

  He sat at the coffee table in his living room in front of his laptop. He had a glass of Glenfiddich beside him. He inserted the black flash drive into the USB slot. A couple of seconds later the file came up on the screen. It said SERENA JOHANSSEN at the top in small lettering and TOP SECRET—FOR CONTROL’S EYES ONLY. That meant Control, Jason Mazer, and a Control named Davidson that McCall had never worked with, but knew by reputation. McCall didn’t know how Brahms had obtained the file. Didn’t know if he’d figured out how to bypass all of the firewalls and Company protocols while sitting in his cramped office at his computer, of if he’d taken a trip to Virginia to physically break into the system there. That was unlikely. Brahms’s days of stealth and covert infiltration were over. But he could still surprise you. He could have walked into Control’s office and hacked right into his computer while waiting for some tea to be served for them by Emma, Control’s curvaceous British assistant. McCall suspected it was the former. Brahms could hack into any database around the world right from Lexington Avenue without breaking a sweat. And he would want to stay near Hilda, if she was in the hospital in New York.

  McCall opened the file.

  And read.

  And remembered.

  * * *

  They left the Church of Our Lady Derzhavnaya just before 5:00 A.M. It was still dark, but there was a flush of violet in the east starting to drive out the night. Serena wore the black dress. The shoes had low heels and fit her nicely. The leather jacket was a little big on her, but that was okay. It did the job McCall wanted it to do. He had already picked out the car he was going to steal, a VAZ Lada 2015, probably a 2002 or 2003, in black, rusting in places. The doors were unlocked. Serena climbed into the passenger seat. Her eyes were hollow with fatigue and her face pinched with cold, but she seemed stronger and more alert. McCall pulled out the wires from the ignition and touched them together. The old car started immediately. He drove away from the curb through the sleeping town. He adjusted the rearview mirror to give him one last look at the Church of Our Lady Derzhavnaya before they turned the corner. He thought about their becoming one in the chapel. He didn’t regret it. Not for a second. He was just very surprised it had happened at all.

  The VAZ Lada had about half a tank of gas. McCall pulled off one of the country roads into what looked like a Shell station about forty miles outside of Tver Oblast. Instead of SHELL the sign said SHELF, but it had the Shell symbol over the pumps.

  First point of vulnerability.

  McCall didn’t want to stop, but he needed enough gas to get to Moscow and the oil and water levels were low. He also wanted to put more air into the tires. If he blew out a tire they’d be sitting ducks at the side of the road somewhere. It was early; the station had just opened. No one came out of the low building. No official-looking black cars or Army trucks pulled in. McCall filled up the tank. He’d noted a can of oil in the trunk. He topped up the oil and used the water nozzle. He slammed down the hood and pumped up the air in the tires. Then he walked into the low building. A big, heavyset Russian was behind the counter. McCall still had the money he’d taken from Gredenko’s body. He paid for the gas. The Russian manager of the station was barely awake. Their conversation consisted of very few words. McCall walked back out to the VAZ Lada and slid behind the wheel. Serena was awake and the Kedr submachine gun was in her hands. McCall fired up the car and pulled out of the station. Serena slid the Kedr back into the big pocket of the overcoat, which she had over her lap, and closed her eyes.

  They were just over half an hour into their run to Moscow when McCall saw flashing lights up ahead on the two-lane highway.

  Second point of vulnerability.

  Cars and trucks were slowing in front of him. A roadblock. It might not have been for them, but McCall wasn’t taking any chances. They were looking for a man in his forties with a young woman in her twenties or early thirties. McCall could have put Serena in the trunk, but to leave her in darkness again, curled up into a fetal position, was unthinkable. And if they stopped him, and decided he fit the description of the man they were looking for, they’d open the trunk anyway. His Gredenko ID would seal their fate. In retrospect, he should have kept his Christian Hyvoneh ID. It would have been a risk to carry it along with Gredenko’s wallet and ID papers, but he could have shaved off the beard, washed the black dye out of his hair, combed it into its natural waves, and would look different enough from their fugitive description to give them a chance. But if that second ID had been found on the train, they’d have been trapped.

  Serena had her eyes closed, her head back on the seat rest. When he braked and slowed she opened them, looking ahead.

  “What is it?”

  “Roadblock.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Change of plan.”

  McCall swung off the two-lane highway onto a country road that merged into the misty darkness ahead. There was a flat field on one side, groves of trees on the other.
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  “We’re not going to Moscow?”

  “There’s another city where we can pick up the bus to Yaroslavl. Kostroma. It’s farther to drive, but the bus trip will be much shorter.”

  And he knew how to get there.

  On those long walks in Alexander Park in Pushkin, McCall had memorized the small towns and the roads outside Saint Petersburg. He didn’t know the back roads into Moscow, but he had a map in his mind of the labyrinth of country roads that would get him to Kostroma. He’d also studied bus schedules from the Moskovsky Train Station in Moscow, bus schedules from Bogolyubovo, Ivanovo, Rostov, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Vladimir, and Vologda on the Golden Ring of cities on the Volga. He glanced at the Rolex Yacht-Master on his wrist: 6:42 A.M. They wouldn’t make the 7:20 A.M. bus from Kostroma to Yaroslavl. But there was one at 9:10 A.M. they might just catch.

  “Try and get some sleep,” McCall said. “You only drifted off for half an hour in the church. I’ll wake you if there’s trouble ahead.”

  She reached up, turned his face to her, and kissed him lightly on the lips. Then he looked back to the hazy road ahead, a blue-black thread with the flat fields still on one side and the trees moving in a sudden wind on the other. In his peripheral vision he saw her settle back down into the seat, Gredenko’s coat around her, and close her eyes.

  McCall drove all the way to Kostroma in silence. As the roadmap in his mind unfurled, he took the various turns, driving through sleepy little villages with names he couldn’t even pronounce, through more farm country. There were no more roadblocks. The sky lightened slowly as if the dark was reluctant to leave. The sunrise was shot through with a vivid orange, which soon gave way to a hazy gray. The sun struggled to get through. The murk clung to the fields and the trees and the roads. But it got brighter and brighter. McCall glanced over every few minutes at Serena. She was asleep. No murmuring, no REM, no nightmares. She seemed at peace.

  It was just before 7:00 A.M. when McCall saw the Ipatiev Monastery on the other side of the Kostroma River. The sixteenth-century walls, tower, and belfry were magnificent, having survived two Polish wars. The seventeenth-century cathedral beside it was imposing. All he remembered about Kostroma was that it was supposed to be, in fairy-tale legend, the birth place of Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, granddaughter of the Russian Santa Claus, Grandfather Frost. McCall drove into the city proper on the UL. Shagova, got lost on the UL. Krasnye Ryady bordering one of the beautiful parks, but kept the image of the map in his head. He finally pulled into the Kineshemskoe Shosse at 8:58 A.M. and parked the car in the bus terminal parking lot.

  Beside him, Serena stirred. She threw off his overcoat and stretched. McCall saw their bus standing in front of the terminal building. Passengers were getting on board.

  “Stay where you are,” McCall said. “If anyone approaches the car, slide into the driver’s side and reverse out. Don’t try and pick me up. Just get out of here.”

  She nodded. Instructions from a senior Company agent. There was no need to acquiesce. McCall pulled Gredenko’s overcoat from her lap, got out of the VAZ Lada, and shrugged it on. He felt the weight of the Kedr submachine gun against his right hip. He jogged into the bus station. He had more than enough of Gredenko’s money. The fare to Yaroslavl from Kostroma by bus was forty-three rubles, or less than a buck and a half. He bought two tickets. The young man in the teller’s cage barely glanced at him. He was reading a book on a Kindle Fire. McCall moved out of the terminal and looked at the crowd climbing onto the bus to Yaroslavl.

  No avoiding this point of contact.

  Boarding the bus would be the riskiest part of Plan B. But the Russian authorities did not know they were traveling to Yaroslavl. And they certainly didn’t know they were going by bus, or they were boarding that bus in Kostroma.

  Still McCall didn’t move. He didn’t see anyone paying him the slightest attention. He motioned for Serena. She climbed out of the VAZ Lada and ran over to him. They walked up to the front of the bus. The driver examined their tickets. He gave McCall the smallest of smiles. Not a father and daughter. Not the right body language. Lovers, perhaps. Not quite May-December. May-September. McCall smiled back, a secret understanding between men of the world.

  He and Serena climbed onto the bus. There were two seats toward the back. McCall would have liked it better to be nearer the front and the bus door, but the seats were nearly full. If the bus came to a halt at a roadblock, McCall would have the Kedr sub out of his coat in an instant. He would not fire it on the bus. But it would make sure no one rushed to the door to get off before them.

  They settled into their seats.

  Fifteen minutes later the bus to Yaroslavl pulled out of the bus station.

  Serena had the window seat. She looked out, but McCall wasn’t sure what she was seeing. Not the beautiful city around them, or the heavily wooded countryside as they headed toward Yaroslavl.

  She was looking at freedom.

  Her breathing was slow and easy. Her eyes shone with hope.

  McCall thought about Elena Petrov. He hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over two years. Their parting had been sudden. He’d been called by Control to go on a mission in Istanbul and she had gone to Helsinki. There’d been no argument, no bitter words, no accusations. No tenderness, either. Their love affair had run its course. It had nowhere else to go, unless McCall wanted it to, and he didn’t. He loved her, but the people who loved him back became targets. He thought of Cassie and his son, Scott, whom he hadn’t seen now in years. One by one he’d cut himself off from those who could be harmed by loving him. He told himself it didn’t bother him. He knew what his life would be like when he embraced it. But the emotional isolation had got to him. He hadn’t believed anything could break it.

  Until last night.

  They’d been traveling through the countryside for half an hour. Serena was still looking out the window at her memories. He finally cleared his throat and said softly, “About last night…”

  She reached over and took his hand and squeezed it to stop him finishing his sentence. She looked at him and just shook her head.

  “It was wonderful,” she said, also soft, and leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder.

  She was asleep in two minutes.

  McCall nodded.

  He felt the same way.

  Just over two hours later the bus pulled into the Yaroslavl Moskovsky Railway Station and Bus Terminal.

  Third point of vulnerability.

  Serena had been awake for twenty minutes, but she was clearly still exhausted from her ordeal. The bus began to unload its passengers. McCall put his hand into Gredenko’s overcoat pocket, his finger at the machine-gun trigger. They shuffled down the center aisle of the bus and climbed down into the bright sunshine.

  There was no reception committee waiting for them.

  McCall took his hand out of his overcoat pocket.

  “Where are we going?” Serena asked.

  “The Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. It’s really a museum now. The cathedral is under renovation. That’s the rendezvous point.”

  There were taxis lined up outside the train station. McCall and Serena climbed into one and McCall told him where they wanted to go. He didn’t need to give him the address. The monastery contained the oldest buildings in Yaroslavl, circa 1516. It was the town’s major tourist attraction. The taxi driver turned down the UL. Svobody, past the beautiful Butusovskiy Park. Serena reached for McCall’s hand and held it tightly. Her eyes were shining. She couldn’t be calm or blasé about the handover. It was all she had thought about in her darkness and isolation.

  Twenty minutes later the taxi turned onto Bogoyavlenskaya Place. Ahead of them was the magnificent Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. It was surrounded by a thick, white-painted sixteenth-century wall, the impressive watchtowers and embattlements sheltered behind it. The magisterial cathedral and the asymmetrically ordered towers gleamed in the bright sunlight. The bell tower rose into the sky like a glistening monolith. The ta
xi drove through a large gap in the wall. There were several cars parked in a parking lot and a tour bus outside the main monastery museum building, disgorging American and European tourists with a smattering of Japanese for good measure.

  “Transfiguration of the Savior,” the cabdriver said, with a flourish of his hand.

  He figured both of them for tourists.

  He pulled to a stop. McCall paid the cabbie and he and Serena climbed out. Serena pulled her new jacket tighter around her, as if she was suddenly chilled, even though sun was bathing the plaza. McCall looked up at the bell tower with its three big arches with bells glistening in them. Above the center arch was a turret with another bell, a cross atop it. Crosses were positioned along the east and west walls. McCall was looking for movement. A flash of light.

  There was nothing.

  There were a couple of young men on either side of the courtyard. They were smoking and watching the growing crowd. Company men, McCall figured. They did not acknowledge him or Serena.

  McCall was bothered that there were so many tourists in the courtyard. He hadn’t counted on that. On the one hand, it was good cover. They were streaming into the museum buildings. On the other hand, there were a lot of innocent lives on the periphery of a delicate mission handover. McCall took Serena’s arm and they entered the melee. They were swept inside the main monastery building with the surging crowd.

  The big museum room was also white, with exhibits about the region, souvenir stalls and tea stands dotted through it. There was a large display about Minin and Pozharsky preparing their citizen’s army to sail down the Volga River to help defeat the Poles. There was an archway with lettering above it that said TREASURES OF YAROSLAVL. There was a handwritten sign that said MASHA THE BEAR—THIS WAY and an arrow.

  Only the Russians would have a bear as part of a museum exhibit, McCall thought.