Read Online The Equalizer by Michael Sloan - Free Book Online Page A

Saint Petersburg, probably forty degrees. They walked down the Nevsky Prospect to where the magnificent Dom Knigi book building stood on a corner, its windows ablaze with light.
    â€œThis used to be the headquarters for the Singer Sewing Machine Company,” Control remarked.
    â€œWhy is there so little traffic?” McCall asked.
    The wide boulevard was almost empty. This wasn’t right. It bothered him.
    â€œIt’s late,” Control said. “You’ll find the brief at your hotel. Her name is Serena Johanssen. She infiltrated a terrorist cell operating here in Saint Petersburg. But she was compromised.”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œYou don’t need to know that. They’re going to take her from the Kresty Prison outside the city to another location where she’ll be interrogated. We don’t know where. We don’t know when this will happen, but sometime in the next six months. Her interrogation will be brutal. She may be buried very deep. We need her extracted.”
    â€œI looked up the word ‘ferret’ in the dictionary,” McCall said. “It’s an animal that lives in the dark. You throw me down a hole to find someone, take something, destroy somewhere, then hope I find my way out of the dirt back up into the light.”
    â€œYou’re the best we’ve got.”
    â€œThe sky isn’t dark,” McCall said.
    â€œOf course it is.”
    â€œNo, it’s a very deep blue, almost black, but not quite.”
    â€œIt’s predawn.”
    â€œBut when we started walking there were lights in the stores and the buildings.”
    McCall looked down the attractive boulevard. Now there was no traffic at all. He looked up. There was a figure standing on the terrace of a building a hundred yards away. He was silhouetted—but against what ? There was no moon. McCall turned back to Control. He was facing away from him, looking up at the Dom Knigi building. There was a thin trickle of dark blood oozing down the back of his neck. McCall reached for the Sig Sauer P227 pistol on his right hip.
    The holster was empty.
    â€œControl!”
    â€œWhat is it?” Control asked. “What’s wrong?”
    He turned back to McCall. His face was streaming blood, out of his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He had a twisted smile on his lips. Then he pitched forward. McCall caught him, bringing him gently down to the sidewalk, looking up.
    He caught a glimpse of the assassin standing on the terrace, holding a high-powered rifle. But now there was a red sunset behind him, bathing him in blood. He couldn’t see the man’s face. He wasn’t tall, but when you hold a sniper rifle with a MARS scope you don’t need to be tall or strong or fast. You only need to be accurate. The assassin disappeared into the crimson smear of light behind him. McCall looked down at the dying man in his arms.
    He wasn’t there. There was a child’s doll in his arms, stringy brunette hair stained with blood, painted eyes in a ceramic face. The face was cracked and fractured and the little fissures kept on growing, splitting the face wider apart.
    The sound was barely audible.
    McCall awoke in an instant, senses alert. He was bathed in perspiration. His breathing was erratic and he quieted it and remained very still. He heard nothing. What had the sound been? A creak on the hardwood floor of his living room? An elbow inadvertently nudging an ornament on a shelf? A hand picking up some of the M&M’s from the glass bowl? It had been insignificant, but that small noise had risen up through the layers of his nightmare like a swimmer desperate to reach the surface.
    McCall’s left arm ached. He touched the old bullet wound just above the shoulder bone, where the bullet had gone through the fleshy part. It had left a ragged scar, because it hadn’t been stitched up properly. He looked at the bedroom window. It was gray outside and threatening rain. The bullet