The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  * * *

  It had taken McCall twenty precious minutes to climb up the steep slope of the hill. Some of it had paved stairs that had helped him, but they petered out and he was climbing up a path overgrown with foliage. He was east of the dense copse of trees where the stone wall meandered in and out. It was the best place for a sniper to set up. It was protected by trees, the stone wall would steady the barrel of a sniper’s rifle, and if any eyes were on this side of the hill from the roofs of the chateau—which McCall thought unlikely—they would never see the assassin.

  McCall circled on around until he was directly behind the copse of trees. He watched where he walked. The ground was strewn with small, loose rocks and tripping over them, or even kicking one of them, could be fatal.

  He moved into the trees.

  He stopped and looked directly ahead, then scanned to the left and right. He didn’t see Diablo. But he knew he was there. McCall walked forward, quickening his pace, the clock in his head counting down to zero. Far below he saw movement in front of the chateau. Limos arriving and people moving back and forth and the media with their cameras and video teams and the Secret Service and Control’s agents trying to cover everyone at once. It was a madhouse, one McCall didn’t have to be close to to see in his mind.

  He had no idea who Diablo’s target was. It could be the President of the People’s Republic of China, or the Prime Minister of India, or someone in the American contingent, the secretary of state or the vice president. It didn’t matter who it was.

  McCall wasn’t going to let the assassin carry out his mission.

  And then he saw him.

  The man was compact, dressed in black. His hair was dark and long. He was virtually invisible in the darkness. He knelt at the stone wall with a sniper’s rifle resting on it. It looked to McCall like an AWC M91. He could see the shape of the MARS nightscope at the top of it.

  McCall knelt and untaped the Circus Faka throwing knife from his calf. He threw off the taped ends and held the knife tightly in his right hand.

  He straightened and moved silently through the trees toward Diablo’s motionless figure.

  * * *

  Durković was torn. Which of them to kill first? The secretary of state was his assignment and he would take care of business, of course. He saw the secretary had stopped to exchange a greeting with Xi Jinping. Secret Service agents hovered, but there was a spirit of camaraderie and the secretary of state was in no mood to be hustled inside. Diablo had a clear shot at him and would have for another five seconds at least. That was all the time he would need. No wounding or maiming with this target. A clean kill shot. The assassination would cause instant pandemonium and Durković wanted to be moving back to the empty oil pipe as soon as he’d packed up his breakdown rifle, which would be another seven seconds.

  He moved the MARS nightscope back to the President of the United States.

  A fifty-million-dollar bonus on the night.

  He lined up the crosshairs on the president’s head.

  His finger tightened on the trigger.

  * * *

  McCall was two steps away from the assassin in the darkness. The moonlight through the branches of the trees created thin spars of light across Diablo’s back. McCall had not made a sound, but the assassin suddenly stiffened and swung around.

  McCall lunged at him with the knife.

  A split-second too late.

  Durković smashed the M91 rifle barrel across McCall’s head, then slammed the rifle stock into his solar plexus, doubling him over. McCall blindly lashed out with the knife, stabbing it into Durković’s right shoulder. The sharpened and honed blade cut through the fabric of his jacket and deeply into his flesh.

  The wound appeared to have no effect on him whatsoever.

  But he dropped the high-powered rifle onto the ground.

  Durković caught McCall’s wrist in a viselike grip and twisted. The knife went flying, hitting the ground beside the stone wall. McCall, still bent over, kicked the assassin in the balls, which only seemed to stagger him for a moment. McCall threw himself backward. He fell to the rock-strewn ground, pivoted on one leg, and was up on his feet before Durković could come at him.

  McCall saw his face for the first time. It was angular, a stubble of beard on it. His eyes were wild with rage. He was breathing in heavy pants, as if the kick to the nuts had taken a lot of oxygen from his lungs.

  He came at McCall like a bull, his arms swinging, throwing punches. No martial arts moves, no finesse, no sizing up his opponent. Just raining blows, like an old-fashioned street fight. He got in some punishing shots to McCall’s body. McCall blocked the next punches. He got in two fast Choku-zuki strikes with his left fist to Durković’s ribs, snapping his wrist at the last second, like a key turning in a lock. Then a Mawashi-zuki roundhouse punch with his right fist to the side of the assassin’s head. Durković took a step back, shaking his head as if a fly had buzzed in his ear. He showed no pain at all. He just refocused on McCall and came back at him.

  McCall’s right heel hit a rock on the ground and he stumbled.

  Durković took advantage of the loss of concentration and smashed a fist into McCall’s face. It sent him reeling. Two more vicious punches brought blood gushing from McCall’s nose and split the skin above his left eye. The fourth punch was aimed at his cheekbone. If it had connected it would have shattered it. McCall barely sidestepped the blow, barreling into Durković, trying to throw him off-balance.

  The assassin lifted McCall right off his feet and threw him back like he was a rag doll. McCall hit the ground hard. A rock split open the skin above his right eye. Blood dripped down into both his eyes now. He saw Durković’s distorted figure looming over him, blocking out the splintered moonlight. McCall tried to turn, but the assassin kicked him hard in the ribs. McCall felt at least one rib crack.

  Another kick.

  Another rib fractured.

  McCall grabbed the assassin’s leg and wrenched it up, hurling him to the ground. It gave McCall enough time to dive to where the blade of the Circus Faka knife glistened. Durković took a moment to get back to his feet. He saw McCall grab the knife and lunged at him.

  On the ground, McCall stabbed the knife into Durković’s leg and out again. It was as if it hadn’t happened. McCall didn’t think the assassin even knew it had happened. He was just filled with rage and frustration. With a bellow he dragged McCall to his feet by the turtleneck. He lashed out, gripped the Faka knife in McCall’s hand by the blade, and wrenched it free. The blade cut deeply into Durković’s right hand, but it was as if that hadn’t happened, either. He ignored the blood running hot through his fingers.

  Instead of using the knife on his adversary, Durković contemptuously threw it over the stone wall. It skittered down the steep incline and came to a rest inside the broken gazebo at the bottom. The assassin dragged McCall closer to him, his breath stinking of cigarettes. He squeezed his hand into McCall’s throat. The agony was devastating. McCall felt his knees buckle. Durković swung him around and dragged him toward the edge of the precipice where there was a gap in the stone wall.

  McCall came alive in the assassin’s grasp. He fell to the ground, swinging his foot up into Durković’s solar plexus with both hands gripping the lapels of his coat. The assassin’s own momentum threw him over McCall’s head. He crashed down, right on the edge of the rock face.

  McCall crawled forward, trying to drag himself back from a black abyss. His face was bleeding badly and his head was swimming. He threw blood out of his eyes. His throat throbbed painfully. He didn’t understand. He’d stabbed the assassin twice. He was weakened, but otherwise the pain appeared to have no effect on him.

  McCall turned, on his knees, to see Durković getting back to his feet on the edge of the steep incline at the break in the stone wall. McCall couldn’t let this bull come back at him again with fists flying. He was on the point of passing out, his ribs were fractured, and he could barely see or stand. His legs were like
lead.

  McCall barreled into the assassin before he could completely straighten up.

  He took them both over the precipice.

  They tumbled down the incline, turning over and over, hitting the gazebo directly below. Part of the fragile wooden structure splintered apart, raining wooden spars around the two fighters. They fell about six feet apart from each other. McCall turned painfully in the wreckage and saw the glint of the Faka knife. He lunged for it, but Durković leaped onto McCall’s back, like a panting, sweating, stinking dog, throwing an arm around McCall’s throat that already felt like it was on fire.

  The assassin’s feet found the ground. He reared back and thrust his knee into McCall’s back, almost breaking it.

  McCall gagged as he was being strangled.

  Darkness rushed in. His head pounded. Nausea welled up in his throat.

  McCall threw his right hand up to the assassin’s throat, his thumb jabbing the hichu point where Durković’s bull neck and chest met, just below the Adam’s apple. The assassin’s trachea passed right below this point. He grunted, gasping. McCall flailed back at the same time with his left hand, finding the dokko point under the outer ledge of the earlobe at the base of Durković’s left ear. He gouged his thumb into it. The assassin’s grip around McCall’s throat loosened.

  Just enough.

  McCall jabbed both thumbs back into Durković’s eyes. He fell back and McCall squirmed out from under his crushing weight. He rolled over and climbed painfully to his feet. Durković climbed to his and the two fighters circled each other in the wreckage of the gazebo. The assassin was bleeding, unable to put much weight on his right leg. He picked up a spar of the gazebo that had two large two-inch nails sticking out of it.

  He swung it at McCall’s head.

  McCall ducked under the blow and grabbed Durković’s right wrist. He found the gaishoho pressure point, two and a half inches above the wrist, between the radius and ulna bones. He pressed his fingers hard into it. The assassin’s arm went numb immediately. McCall ripped the piece of wood from Durković’s nerveless fingers and thrust him back. Then he swung the spar at Durković with everything he had.

  The two-inch nails drove into the flesh above the assassin’s left cheekbone, embedding the wood right into his face.

  Durković staggered, staring at McCall, as if he didn’t believe what he had just done. Then the assassin simply pulled the nails out of his face and tossed the spar aside. His breathing was labored, and he limped more heavily on his right leg, but otherwise he showed no sign of the agony he must be feeling.

  McCall got it.

  This man felt no pain. McCall couldn’t remember the name of his condition, sensory neuropathy, something like that. A very rare condition. That’s why he wanted his victims to suffer and didn’t execute kill shots. He wanted to watch their agony, an agony he himself could never feel.

  Blood poured down the left side of Durković’s face where the two-inch nails had gone in. He grabbed a large piece of splintered wood and swung it at McCall. McCall kicked out and broke the spar in half. Durković stood motionless for a moment, staring at him.

  And grinned.

  Like a vision from Hell.

  McCall was nauseous and fighting to stay conscious.

  He had murdered Serena.

  He had murdered Elena.

  When Durković lunged forward to finish McCall off, he did it slowly. Even if he didn’t feel the pain, his body did, and it was slowing him down. McCall executed a Mawashi-zuki roundhouse kick to the assassin’s chest, which was the equivalent of being hit full force with a baseball bat. Durković staggered back and hit one wall of the gazebo, smashing it. It caved in more of the wooden ceiling that rained down onto both of them. The assassin looked disoriented in the plunging debris.

  McCall glanced down.

  The Faka knife had caught the periphery of his vision, gleaming in the moonlight.

  McCall fell to the ground. It might have looked to Durković as if he’d stumbled and passed out. McCall grabbed the Faka knife and crawled forward as Durković threw off more of the wooden ceiling that still crashed over him. McCall was just behind the assassin, on his right side. He took the Faka knife, raised it high, and stabbed it down with all of the force he had left into the assassin’s right shoe. The blade stabbed through the leather, through Durković’s foot, between the big toe and the next digit, pinning the assassin’s foot right to the wooden floor of the gazebo.

  McCall rolled away and grabbed the edge of one of the wrought-iron chairs to pull himself up. His ribs were aching, his throat and head were throbbing, and he could barely see through the blood in his eyes. Nausea was coming over him in waves.

  He turned back to see Durković throwing the last of the splintered wood from his body. McCall came back at him and hit him twice in the ribs on either side, short vicious blows. He heard the assassin’s ribs break. McCall got in two more brutal punches now that the vital organs weren’t protected by the ribcage.

  Durković staggered.

  He still didn’t know he was pinned to the wooden floor of the gazebo.

  The assassin grabbed at McCall’s jacket. It was as if he was moving in slow motion. McCall rained blows into his stomach and lungs. The assassin reared back. McCall swung a right fist at Durković’s face and dislocated his jaw. With a bellow, Durković grabbed McCall’s lapels, catching them and hurling him back.

  McCall hit the wrought-iron table. A searing pain exploded through his body that was overwhelming.

  He wondered if he’d broken his back.

  The world before him was blurred and receding fast on all sides.

  The assassin tried to move forward, only then realizing that his right foot was pinned to the wooden floor of the gazebo.

  He looked down, surprised.

  McCall hit him with an Empi-uchi elbow strike in the face.

  It shattered his cheekbone.

  He followed it with a Shuto-uchi knife hand strike to the assassin’s throat.

  He fell back.

  McCall stumbled, in great pain, looking down.

  Durković tried to regain his balance.

  McCall dived to the gazebo floor and pulled the knife out of Durković’s shoe. He jumped up and ducked under a clumsy right cross and sliced the knife blade across Diablo’s forehead. Blood spurted over the assassin’s eyes, blinding him.

  He stagged, disoriented.

  McCall stabbed the knife through Durković’s forehead, driving the blade up into his brain.

  The assassin, his foot freed from the wooden floor, toppled back, smashing through the last wall of the gazebo. His body went into a series of spasms on the ground. McCall staggered back, barely able to breathe, fighting to come back from the darkness that threatened to engulf him.

  Slowly the world in front of him came back into focus.

  Durković stared up at him, his eyes no longer wild, just confused, as if he was trying to work out a difficult math problem. He focused on McCall’s face for one second more. Then he slumped dead with the knife sticking obscenely out of his forehead.

  McCall stepped out of the shattered gazebo, carefully, so the darkness did not rush back in on him. He looked down the hill. Far below, through more trees, he saw the Secret Service ushering the President of the United States, the secretary of state, and the President of China to the doors of the chateau. No one was looking up. No one had seen the fight. The gazebo was hidden by trees from anyone’s view below.

  McCall knelt down and went through the dead assassin’s pockets. He came up with ID papers and a passport. Jovan Durković. His home address was listed as Stepanovicevo in the Novi Sad municipality of Serbia. McCall thought the passport and ID papers were probably genuine. Durković had no need to hide behind a forged passport. He was a phantom who came and went as he pleased. He was never seen or caught.

  Until tonight.

  McCall left the passport and ID papers for Control to find. He’d leave the AWC M91 breakdown rifle for hi
m, too. He’d also leave the Circus Faka knife in Durković’s head.

  McCall straightened and looked down at the assassin’s lifeless body for a long moment.

  Then he turned away and wiped the blood from his face. Some of it had already congealed. He wondered if he’d have the strength to crawl back through the oil pipe to the abandoned pipeline station. He could, of course, just make his way carefully down the hill right to the chateau driveway, with his hands held high, no weapons, no threat, and wait for Control to come out of the mansion for him.

  To be debriefed.

  To admit he had come in from the cold.

  To acknowledge that he was back in the game.

  McCall walked to the other end of the smashed gazebo and down the concrete steps that led to the next level where the rusting oil pipe was hidden in the rocks.

  CHAPTER 43

  McCall’s crawl back through the oil pipe was slow because of his fractured ribs. The claustrophobia closed in on him again in the darkness. When he got to the cave-in he climbed painfully over it. He searched for the fallen Ruger .357 Magnum in the black tomb, but couldn’t locate it.

  Then the pipe began to vibrate around him.

  Gently at first, then more violently.

  McCall crawled as quickly as he could over the debris and down the pipe. He stopped as the vibration magnified, and waited.

  The train thundered by very close.

  The vibration diminished and was gone, without another cave-in.

  McCall crawled on for what seemed forever in the darkness, and then it began to lighten ahead. It got brighter and suddenly he was at the end of the pipe.

  McCall squirmed through the opening and fell down onto the concrete floor. He rolled into a crouch. He had no weapon with which to defend himself. Nothing moved in the shadows cast by the work light. It was just as he’d left it.

  He ran down the two larger pipes, into the other concrete rooms, and then retraced his steps back up to the second level.

  Kirov’s body was gone.

  McCall walked into the shadow of one of the large pieces of machinery.