The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  McCall got up from the sofa and walked into his bedroom. He opened the top drawer of the bureau and removed the shoebox. He took off the lid and picked up the picture of Elena with a glass of wine in her hand, toasting the camera. He set it on the bureau, propped up against the wall. He shuffled through the few photos in the shoebox and took out a picture of Serena Johanssen, the one he had been given by which to recognize her when he’d become Vladimir Gredenko. It was a college snapshot of her with her brunette hair cut very short, the smallest of smiles on her lips. He set the photograph beside the one of Elena, propped up against the wall, and stepped back and looked at them.

  There was a special place in his heart for his ex-wife Cassie. He had once loved her very much and she was the mother of his son. That place was sacrosanct and no other romance or passion ever touched it.

  He looked at the pictures of the two women who had mattered the most to him in his life. One of them for a long time, the other very briefly. The two women he had truly loved. Both of them killed, a year apart, by the same assassin, code name: Diablo.

  The same assassin who was linked to Borislav Kirov and to Alexei Berezovsky.

  McCall smiled at the two young women in the photographs.

  Diablo was so dead.

  * * *

  Dolls nightclub was jumping at 2:00 A.M. The dance floor was packed. They’d finally got the kaleidoscopic ball to spin properly and spill its rainbowed colors over the dancers. Katia was dancing with a twenty-something hotshot who was doing his best to impress her. She smiled and nodded. He wasn’t getting anywhere, but he was certainly getting his money’s worth around the dance floor. He didn’t look like he was propositioning her.

  McCall could see obliquely into the alcove, but could not be seen from it. Borislav Kirov was holding court at his table, as usual. A lean, swarthy young man sat on his left. Danil Gershon’s replacement. He was quiet and calm and his eyes looked through the crowd he could see through the alcove entrance. A man who had guarded important people before. At the head of the table Samuel Clemens leaned forward and shook hands with Kirov. Closing the deal. A new Dolls nightclub would soon be opening in Fort Worth, Texas.

  More young women to be exploited.

  More profits for Alexei Berezovsky.

  McCall climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  He tried the first door on his left. It was unlocked.

  Borislav Kirov’s office.

  It was nicely furnished with antiques. There were two more Rustam Sardalov paintings on the walls. The one above the desk was a hawk-faced man playing a violin that was disintegrating into a brilliant blue background. McCall liked it. He fired up Kirov’s old Mac on his desk. It was slow. McCall looked up at the Sardalov painting on the opposite wall. There was a woman’s face taking up most of the canvas with horses galloping on either side of her head through cascading water, as if she was being hit by a tsunami. The woman was screaming. Two tiny white horses were galloping down her tongue to get out of her mouth.

  Kirov’s warning to all of the girls.

  Open your mouth about anything that happens in this club and you will scream, McCall thought.

  The Mac pinged. McCall punched in the password “Sardalov” and went to Kirov’s e-mail. McCall had been listening in on the bug in the alcove downstairs, but Kirov had not mentioned any travel plans to anyone. He would have a confirmation if he was flying anywhere tomorrow. Sam Kinney had said: “Whoever the intern was talking to is going out of town tomorrow. Some big deal.” McCall scrolled down Kirov’s in-box until he got to a travel agent. He double-clicked on the message. There it was. American Airlines flight #106 from JFK the next night, overnight to Heathrow in London, then American Airlines flight #6481 from Heathrow at noon to arrive in Prague at 3:00 P.M. in the afternoon. Kirov had a confirmed reservation at the Ventana Hotel on Celetná near Old Town Square.

  McCall heard the footsteps coming up the metallic stairs through the ajar office door.

  He got out of Kirov’s e-mail, closed the program, put the laptop onto sleep. He had three seconds to exit the office, step into the first room on the other side of the corridor and shut the door.

  The room was in darkness except for a nightlight emanating from a small bathroom, its door ajar. McCall could see the naked figures of a man and a woman on the narrow bed. He recognized the young woman. It was Melody. The man was on top of her. She looked at McCall. He put his finger to his lips. Shhh. The man, whose clothes were neatly folded on a chair, had not heard anyone come in. He was in the throes of ecstasy. Melody clearly recognized McCall also. Tears of shame sprang into her eyes. The man dug his nails into Melody’s bare shoulders and then grabbed her long hair, pulling on it.

  McCall took an involuntary step toward the bed. Melody shook her head, the smallest of movements. Don’t. You’ll only cause trouble for me. McCall nodded. The unspoken conversation disturbed him. But there was nothing he could do for her.

  At least not tonight.

  The VIP slumped down onto her, all done. McCall stepped out of the room into the deserted corridor and climbed back down the shiny silver stairs to the ground floor of the club. He exited Dolls nightclub through a side entrance that was normally locked. He’d unlocked it when he’d entered and made sure it was locked now when he left. He walked down the street and pulled up his coat collar against the sudden biting cold.

  Underground, where he was going, it was warmer.

  * * *

  When Candy Annie saw him she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. When she let go her face was alight with happiness. Her home in the old subway niche looked the same to McCall as it always did. Her bed was made-up, the colorful quilt pulled tight, all of her precious knickknacks neatly arranged on her bookshelves. She had jumped up from her rocking chair.

  “How did I do at the cemetery?” she asked him. “I don’t think the mark felt a thing.”

  “He didn’t. I’ve got his real lighter, he’s got the one with the tracker in it. You could make a living at this in the upworld.”

  She made a face. “I don’t want to go back to a life of crime,” she said wryly. Then she did a turn in the dress he had bought her. “I love my new dress! And thanks for the underwear! I’m not sure about the bra yet. I need to get used to it.”

  She nodded at the bras he had bought for her lying on top of a leather armchair. As she turned, the amber light from her lamps flooded through the dress, lighting up her ample breasts.

  McCall hoped she would get used to it soon.

  “I need to talk to you,” he said.

  They sat down on the Norman Rockwell quilt on her narrow bed. Behind her was Dolores and Eddie, sitting back to back on a theatrical trunk that had DOLORES & EDDIE DANCE TEAM written on it. Between McCall and Candy Annie there was a little boy and girl sitting together on a sagging bench looking at a bright round yellow moon while their dog sat forlornly at their feet.

  “How did it feel being in the upworld again?” McCall asked her.

  “It was scary. The sounds and the … bigness of it all. But Fooz was there. And you were there.”

  “Fooz was not beside you and I was a long way away in the trees. You were on your own and you did great. I want you to consider going to the upworld for longer periods. Walk through Central Park. Sit outside a coffee shop. Look at the people going by.”

  “There are too many of them.”

  “They walk by one at a time.”

  “They’re on their cell phones or shouting for cabs or preoccupied with their very important lives. No time for strangers.”

  “You won’t always be a stranger.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “We’re all afraid of things. But we face those fears. You need them in your life. To get past them. You had hopes and dreams once, Annie. I’m sure you still have them. But none of them will happen if you stay down here in the tunnels.”

  “Why are we having this pep talk?” she asked, distress in her voice. “You’ve never a
sked me to give up my life before.”

  “I’m asking you to consider starting your life again.”

  “Why now?”

  “I’m leaving New York.”

  She looked shocked. “For good?”

  “That’s not my intention. But there’s a chance I might not come back. That means no more visits, no more bringing you supplies and food and candy from the surface. No more pep talks. You’d be on your own.”

  “I have a family here in the tunnels,” she said defensively.

  “You have friends here. Bound together by despair. All I’m asking is for you to consider a life where you can breathe fresh air and be free.”

  “I can’t do it,” she whispered.

  He took her hands. “You can. I’m going to leave you some money.”

  “I couldn’t take it.”

  “It gives you an option. Maybe one morning you’ll wake up and look around your home here and decide it’s not enough. Then you’ll pack what you need and go up to the surface. Promise me you’ll think about that morning.”

  She nodded, but her eyes were very troubled.

  “Why wouldn’t you come back?”

  McCall let go of her hands. He thought about spinning her a story, but she was much smarter and savvier than her sweet persona suggested.

  “I’m going to kill a man,” he said. “A bad man. A man who took from me two of the most important people in my life. But I may not succeed.”

  “He might kill you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have to do this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it the man I stole the lighter from?”

  “No. But he’s involved. He’ll try to stop me.”

  Candy Annie got up suddenly from the bed and turned away from him. Not before he saw the tears in her eyes spill down her cheeks.

  “I’m glad you came to say good-bye,” she said softly.

  McCall got up and gently turned her around. Unknowingly he echoed Control’s words.

  “I’m hard to kill.”

  He wiped the tears from her cheeks. She snuffled, then shook her head.

  “How will I know what’s happened to you?”

  “I’ll come back and see you as soon as I return to New York.”

  “And if you don’t walk in here, ever again, I’ll know.”

  McCall nodded and let her go. He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and put it on top of her bureau. There was five thousand dollars in it, all in hundreds. He’d written “Candy Annie” on it.

  “I don’t know your real name.”

  “Candy Annie is fine,” she said.

  “Think about what I said.”

  “I will.”

  She kissed him on the cheek and sat down in her rocking chair. McCall left her in the amber light rocking gently back and forth.

  He hoped she was thinking about the world above her.

  CHAPTER 39

  McCall put the barrel of the Beretta against Chase Granger’s forehead. He awoke with a gasp, his eyes flying wide open.

  “Don’t move a muscle,” McCall said softly. “Take a deep breath and count to three.”

  Chase did what he was told. McCall withdrew the barrel from the agent’s forehead. It was dark in Chase’s bedroom, thin slats of light coming through the blinds. There was a Glock .22 in a holster on the bedside table within Granger’s reach. McCall took a step back, giving him more time to orientate to the situation. Granger took his deep breath and his three count.

  “What’s the gun for?” Chase asked.

  “I didn’t want you waking up too quickly. You might’ve made an instinctive move we’d both regret. I took the ammo clip out of your Glock. You get it back when I leave. I have a favor to ask.”

  Chase Granger sat up in bed, putting a pillow at his back. He looked heavier and more out of shape without a sport jacket covering his stomach. He glanced down at his blue-striped pajamas, as if a little embarrassed by them.

  “At least they don’t have Spongebob Squarepants on them,” McCall said.

  “How’d you get in here?”

  He still sounded groggy.

  “Apartment locks are not made to resist skeletal keys.”

  “The door has three bolts on it.”

  “I picked up a nifty industrial magnet. Does wonders throwing bolts across a door.”

  “How’d you find me?”

  “There are six Company safe houses in the greater New York area. This is the closest one to Bentleys. I need to talk, you need to listen. I’m going out of the city for a while.”

  “What’s the mission?”

  “No mission. Personal business. There’s a Chechen dancer at the Dolls nightclub in SoHo. Her name is Katia Rossovkaya. Tall, brunette, very pretty. She’s a friend.”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “What part of I speak and you listen didn’t you understand? Just a friend. She has a seventeen-year-old daughter named Natalya who goes to a high school on Seventy-ninth and Ninth Avenue. They’re living in an apartment at the Dakota. You know where that is?”

  “Where John Lennon got killed.”

  “I want you to look out for Katia,” McCall said. “Follow her to the Dolls nightclub. She usually gets there right after six o’clock. Leaves about three or four in the morning. Natalya goes to school, usual hours. Katia picks her up before going to work. Natalya likes to go places alone. New York Public Library. Washington Square. Make sure nothing happens to either of them.”

  “What makes you think Control is going to sanction this extra-curricular activity?”

  “Because Borislav Kirov owns the Dolls nightclub where Katia works. And Kirov is associated with Alexei Berezovsky.”

  That name registered with Granger big time. He sat up straighter.

  “In what way associated?”

  “I don’t know yet. I intend to find out.”

  “So you’re back?”

  “I told you. Personal business.”

  “But what does Kirov and Berezovsky have to do with your trip out of New York?”

  “Need to know, Chase. Three little words you’ll come to hate. You don’t have to keep Katia and Natalya under surveillance twenty-four seven. Just keep an eye on them.”

  “My shadowing skills suck. As you found out.”

  “I’ll call Katia. Let her know who you are. You can approach her. Just do it discreetly.”

  “Is Kirov likely to hurt either of them?”

  “Kirov won’t. But he’s got an enforcer named Bakar Daudov. A sadistic bastard and a loose cannon.”

  “How do I find him?”

  “Go to Dolls nightclub. Dance with Melody. Mention my name, but make it Bobby Maclain. Melody will point Daudov out to you.”

  Granger nodded. Kept his eyes on McCall’s face.

  “How long did it take you to make me as a Company agent?”

  “First time you talked to me at the bar in Bentleys. You put on the I’m-new-in-this-area-isn’t-real-estate-a-great-life persona a little too thick.”

  Granger looked crestfallen. Like a big kid who had just found out that A-Rod took performance-enhancing drugs.

  “But you found me,” McCall said. “That’s more than any other Company agent did.”

  Except for Mickey Kostmayer, but McCall didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  That cheered Granger up. He held McCall’s gaze.

  “This mother and daughter mean a lot to you, right?”

  “They do.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to them.”

  “Good enough.”

  McCall dropped the ammo clip onto the bedside table.

  “Start tomorrow.”

  McCall walked to the bedroom door. Granger threw back the covers on the bed and stood, slamming the ammo clip into the Glock .22 and pointing it at McCall’s back.

  “Of course, I could just keep you here, make a phone call, and you can tell Control about your connection to Alexei Berezovsky.”
r />   “Oh, I took the bullets out of the clip.” McCall turned back. “Not that I think you’d really have shot me in the back. You’re not that kind of man. Keep this family safe. That’s all I ask.”

  He took the bullets for the Glock out of his pocket and dropped them on top of a bureau. Chase Granger lowered the Glock and dropped it onto the bedside table.

  “You can count on me, McCall.”

  He was so earnest it scared McCall, but he nodded.

  “I will be.”

  * * *

  Granny was sitting alone at one of the chess tables in Central Park. The white and black pieces on this one were all dragons of varying descriptions. The early morning light glowed in the trees and across the grass in soft haloes. The baseball diamond looked new and fresh as if it had just been created. There were quite a few joggers out. Some homeless folks were sitting on a couple of benches, getting ready for their day. McCall handed one of them, an older guy with a gray beard and sparkling eyes, a McDonald’s plastic coffee cup. He nodded his gratitude. McCall walked over to the chess table.

  “Do you really find a player at six-thirty in the morning?” McCall asked.

  “Usually at six,” Granny said. “NYU professor. I haven’t seen him in about ten days. Must be exams. What do you need?”

  “A pilot.”

  “Going where?”

  “To Prague.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. The pilot just has to get me there. I walk away from the plane, he refuels and flies back. No questions asked.”

  “Doesn’t Bobby Maclain have a passport?”

  “Sure, he does. I have lots of passports. But I need to bring armaments with me.”

  “When?”

  “I have to be in place by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll make a call. Be at the Danbury Municipal Airport in Fairfield County, Connecticut, by four o’clock. You can get a chopper from the heliport at East Thirty-fourth Street.”

  “How will I know the pilot?”

  “He’ll know you.”

  McCall nodded. Granny set up a mini-iPad on the edge of the chess table. McCall saw there was a Grand Master logo on it and the graphic of a chessboard. Granny started a game and moved a white pawn on the iPad. The Chess Master Wizard moved a black pawn up to meet his white pawn.