The Equalizer (55 page)

“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.”

“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.

“You ever beat him?”

“I let him win sometimes.”

“Pick your pilot carefully. Control can't know about it.”

“Control and I don't have breakfast together. He doesn't play chess. At least not civilized games in the park. Just the ones with agents' lives. I don't report to him on a daily basis. If he needs me, he knows where to find me. Just like you.”

He made some more moves against the Computer Wizard.

“Do you want to know why I'm going to Prague?” McCall asked.

“I figure it's something personal.” Granny glanced up. “I look at you, McCall, and I see myself with a conscience. Emotions. Regrets. That's the difference between us. You'll go and do what you have to do in Prague. Whatever it takes. If you live, that would be good. If you die, I won't mourn. That's the way you should be. But you can't be that way.”

“No, I can't.”

Granny went back to his chess game against the computer.

“Going to wish me good luck?” McCall asked.

Granny didn't answer.

McCall walked away through the trees.

*   *   *

McCall sat at the bar in the Old World Tavern on Celetná Street in Prague opposite the Ventana Hotel. It was crowded even at 6:00
P.M.
, smoke hazing through the small tables and around the long bar. Lots of tourists, but the majority of patrons were young locals, boisterous and vibrant; this was a great city to live in. There were several televisions, most of them showing soccer games. The one above McCall's head had on the local news. McCall was sipping a Glenfiddich, watching the front of the Ventana Hotel. He thought back over the past twenty-four hours. He'd taken a helicopter to the Danbury Municipal Airport. There'd been a Gulfstream 450 waiting on the tarmac. The pilot's name was Hayden Vallance. He was tall, mid-forties, a hard face, the demeanor of a man with few friends and fewer enemies. He was quiet and soft-spoken and without any emotion that McCall could detect. He figured him for a mercenary. He'd shaken McCall's hand, told him his name, asked for ID, which McCall had given him. His
real
ID. Then they'd boarded the Gulfstream. It had taken off twenty minutes later, bound for Prague. They'd flown over the Atlantic and refueled in a small airport outside Manchester, England. During the refueling Vallance had said nothing to McCall. They'd landed at Vodochody Airport outside Prague that afternoon. McCall had picked up his one small suitcase and waited for the steps to unfold from the Gulfstream to the tarmac. Vallance had stepped out of the cockpit. He'd offered his hand. McCall had taken it.

“Granny says good luck,” he'd said, and that was it.

McCall had checked into the Hotel Leonardo in the center of Prague Old Town. He'd registered under the name of Christian Hyvonen, mainly because he'd kept that passport and it hadn't expired yet. He'd rented a colbalt blue Pontiac Grand Prix and driven to Celetná Street. He'd found a parking spot on the side street bordering the Old World Tavern. He was dressed mainly in black, slacks and poloneck, with his dark gray tweed jacket and Nike V2 black and blue running shoes. He had the Beretta in the sleek, customized holster Kostmayer had left for him on his right hip. He had a small Ruger SP101 .357 Magnum with a 2.5-inch barrel in the waistband of his black jeans in the small of his back. He had a Circus Faka slim throwing knife taped to the back of his right calf. It weighed ten ounces, was 12.1 inches long, and its throwing distance for accuracy was ten meters. He'd decided he was well armed enough to step into the Old World Tavern and order a Scotch.

Up on the TV screen above his head the picture behind the female news anchor switched to a chateau about forty miles outside of Prague. This was where the big Trade Summit Conference was going to be held. None of the heads of state had arrived as yet, but it wouldn't be long, and the security preparations were underway. McCall knew enough Czech to understand that the security for this conference had been stepped up, adding tracker dogs and U.S. intelligence to the Czech troops and
Policie
Č
eské Republiky
. McCall didn't expect to see Control or Kostmayer or any other Company agents up on the screen, but he had a picture of the activity that was going on in his mind. He'd been part of those security blitzes before. He didn't know if there'd been any terrorist chatter about the conference, but even if there hadn't been any meaningful threats, the United States government was not taking any chances. And calling in Control and the agents at his disposal was bringing in the best.

McCall had flirted with the idea of getting in touch with Kostmayer to let him know that he was in Prague. That his presence there could very well have to do with their Summit Conference. The Company had tried to infiltrate Borislav Kirov's Dolls nightclub in New York with an undercover agent because Kirov might be linked to terrorists. They probably didn't know his boss was Alexei Berezovsky. Berezovsky was running an elitist assassination business. The leaders of the Western world, along with China and India, were going to be at this Summit meeting. And Borislav Kirov had arrived in Prague less than twelve hours before the conference began.

A little too much coincidence for McCall's liking.

But he had no proof that Kirov was here to facilitate an assassination. For all he knew, Kirov was in Prague for talks to open a Dolls nightclub in Old Town. Besides, for selfish reasons, McCall didn't want Control to believe he'd come in from the cold and was running a Company mission, albeit on his own. Even if McCall
could
get in touch with Control, what would he be able to do? McCall had no intel to give him. He would just be on a more heightened alert, and McCall was certain he was already operating on a very high level. No unauthorized person was going to get onto the grounds of that chateau.