The Equalizer (47 page)

McCall listened and committed them to memory.

“The oldest monastery in Yaroslavl is the Spaso-Preobrazhensky,” Granny said.

“Transfiguration of the Savior.”

“If you say so. It's on Bogoyavlenskaya Place, number twenty-five, you can't miss it, the belfry tower could be seen from Istanbul. Get there by noon for the exchange. It'll take place in the cathedral, which is closed down for renovations. Control will personally take charge of her.”

“Good enough.”

“Tough night.”

“There was no way you could have landed that chopper to pick us up. You're lucky you got it down at all.”

“You think I was agonizing over abandoning you to the Russian army and the wolves in the forest?”

“Actually they were wild dogs. Wolves wouldn't have attacked. I think you agonize over more than anyone realizes.”

“Keep that to yourself.”

“Will you be at the monastery?”

“I'll be there.”

Granny hung up. McCall ripped the receiver out and dropped it onto the floor of the booth. Better for someone coming on the booth to believe it had been vandalized a long time ago. No calls could have been made from it that night.

There was a clothing store on the corner of the square called Lilies. McCall knew it sold low-cost lines for women by prominent Russian designers. There were two of them in Moscow. He walked up to the front door, then prowled around to the back and found a narrow back door looking like something from
Alice in Wonderland
. It was small and narrow and thin and warped. There appeared to be no alarm system connected to it. McCall knelt down, took the knife out of his pocket, and jimmied the lock. He took a breath, then pushed the back door open. No alarm. People were still trusting in rural Russian communities.

McCall scavenged through the small store. He found a dress that he thought would fit Serena, simple black, coming probably down to just below her knees. He found some underwear and a pair of black shoes that would've cost plenty on Fifth Avenue or Rodeo Drive, but here were about 650 rubles, or under twenty bucks. He found a dark brown leather jacket he decided was the right size. It was unlined, but would help keep out the cold. McCall put the dress, jacket, underwear, and shoes into a carrier bag with
LILIES
on it in purple and left 2500 rubles on the counter by an old cash register, which would more than cover what he'd taken. He also took the Gredenko diamond earring out of his ear and dropped it onto the counter beside the cash register. A bonus.

He left by the back door, letting it click into place. Locked again. He stood still and listened. There was a wind rising off the Volga, which stirred the branches of the trees in the square. He heard no sharp sounds. No footsteps, no car tires, no snatches of conversations getting closer. Nothing at all.

McCall walked back to the Church of Our Lady Derzhavnaya. He got there quicker this time, no detours. No one followed him. He saw no one in the streets. There were some lights burning on the ground floors of houses. People up late, maybe students burning the midnight oil, working on their laptops, maybe older folks like the innkeeper of the Medici Hotel wrestling with whatever inner demons that were keeping them from sleep.

There was no one on the street in front of the Church of Our Lady Derzhavnaya. McCall looked over at the house behind the wooden fence. Trees obscured the windows as their branches moved restlessly in the wind, but he could see no lights. He pushed open the door of the church and closed it behind him.

Immediately his sense of smell was assailed again by the fragrant odors inside. He walked down the center aisle, looking to his left and right. Nothing moved in the shadows. Serena was no longer in the first wooden row. She was sitting on the floor near the statue of the Virgin Mary, beside the large crucifix that glowed above her. McCall noted there were beads and icons and religious books placed at the feet of the statue. They were the ones saturated with fragrance. Serena had taken off the big overcoat and it was draped over her legs. Moonlight just touched them from the ground-floor windows at the front of the church.

He set the Lilies carrier bag on the floor beside the altar.

“I got you some clothes. It's just a simple dress, but I think it will fit. Underwear and shoes. A short leather jacket. We'll get you a whole new wardrobe when you reach the safe house.”

“Thank you.”

He sat down beside her.

“Are we set?” she asked.

“We have an exchange point. In Yaroslavl. We'll have to steal a car to get to Moscow. To the bus station.”

“Are we going now?”

“I don't want us out in the streets. They'll believe we've already stolen a car to get out of the city, but they'll be looking anyway. Half an hour. Then we'll make our move.”

Serena nodded. She shivered again. McCall put an arm around her. He felt her warm and soft and yielding beside him.

“Are we going to die tonight?” she asked softly.

“No.”

“You can't know that.”

“I do.”

“I've heard of this church,” she whispered. “It was consecrated to the new Russian martyrs. That statue of the Rosa Mystica was a gift from someone in Germany. From Essen, I think. It has been weeping fragrant tears since July 1998.”

McCall looked up at the beautiful face of the Virgin Mary, shimmering in the semidarkness. It was dry. He nodded.

Serena whispered, “O my Lady All-Merciful, O Mistress All-Holy, All Immaculate Virgin, O God-bearer Mary, Mother of God, Thou art my Only Hope beyond doubt. Despise me not, reject me not, Forsake me not, depart not from me. Defend me, plead for me, hear me, see me, Help me, pardon me, forgive me, O All-Blameless One.”

“Sometimes we need to be forgiven,” McCall said.

“And not rejected.”

“Where did you see that inscription?”

“Here. In the church. We're lost souls, but we still have a chance for redemption.”

“For one of us, anyway.”

She looked up at him. Her breathing was quiet and a little labored. She brought her hand up to the top of her black prison top. Unbuttoned three buttons. Took his hand and guided it inside the top, across the softness of her right breast. She rubbed his fingers over the roughness of her nipple. With her other hand she caught him around the neck and brought his face down to hers. They kissed. At first very gently, then with more passion. She took off his shirt and shoes. He took off the rest. He slipped her prison top off her shoulders, slid off the black prison pants.

When their naked bodies came together it seemed like the most natural thing in the universe. He caressed her glowing skin, at first cold to the touch, but their proximity warmed them both up. The passion was brief, fierce, not desperate, but it had been a long time since either of them had felt so much sheer longing for another's body. There were no words between them. Just the touch and the feel and the explosions of ecstasy. And then the stillness between them was even sweeter, locked together, holding on to the tender moments for as long as they could. She nuzzled her head into his shoulder. Her hair tickled him. He brushed it away from his face and held her very tightly.

He hoped it wasn't sacrilege to make love to her in this church.

He looked over at the statue of the Virgin Mary, the Rosa Mystica.

Tears sparkled on its painted cheeks.

McCall hugged Serena a little tighter.

He couldn't remember a time he'd felt so close to anyone else.

 

CHAPTER 34

McCall's iPhone vibrated insistently on the kitchen table. It startled him out of his intimate memory. He picked it up, looked at the caller ID, said into the iPhone, “Got my name, Brahms?”

“Kirov sent the picture to an iPhone registered to someone named Alexei Berezovsky,” Brahms said.

AB,
McCall thought.
Kirov's boss is Alexei Berezovsky
.

A name McCall knew well, but had not heard of or thought about in years.

An old enemy.

Berezovsky would have leaped to the wrong conclusion. The Robert McCall he knew would not go out of his way to save some innocent woman from sexual harassment. The Robert McCall he knew was a ruthless professional. And obviously still in the game. Now it made sense to McCall why Kirov had sent Daudov and his enforcers to the Liberty Belle Hotel to kill him. Berezovsky considered him a threat to whatever mission he was running.

“The suspense is killing me,” Brahms said. “You recognize that name?”

“Yes. From my past.”

“Ah,” Brahms said, as if that explained everything. “The past is a specter that casts a shadow. You can't step out from under it. It's always with you. Threatening your future.”

“Thanks for cheering me up.”

“I'm not here to hold your hand, McCall.”

McCall thought of holding Serena's hand.

Of her hand slipping out of his.

Of her running out of the church into the watery sunlight.

And the imagery that had been on the edge of McCall's consciousness drifted in from a dark shore, just for a moment catching a streak of sunlight. McCall saw it with pain and clarity.

“One more favor, Brahms,” he said into the phone.

McCall told him what he wanted.

There was a long silence.

For the first time McCall wished that a piece of a Brahms concerto was filling it.

Brahms said, “I do this for you, our debt is settled.”

McCall said, “I know that.”

Another silence.

Then Brahms's soft voice: “I get caught, I think they still give you a blindfold and a cigarette before they execute you for treason. What are you looking for?”

“Just do this for me. I could try and break in myself, but that's riskier and I'm running out of time.”

“You'll be the death of me, McCall.”

“So far you're one of the lucky ones.”

That produced another silence, then Brahms said, “I'll get back to you. Are you going to Danil Gershon's funeral tomorrow?”

“Yes. Before I do, I'll be at your store at noon.”

“I won't have the intel for you that fast.”

“There's something else I need.”

Brahms sighed like the weight of the world was pushing down his shoulders just a little harder.

“You want me to hand over my Brahms collection?”

“You can keep that.”

McCall told him what he needed.

“See you tomorrow at noon,” Brahms said.

“One last thing. Where is Jimmy these days?”

“Ask Kostmayer. They're still tight. Anything more you need at three in the morning? I'm making a list.”

“That's it. Go home and give Hilda a big hug.”

“It's not her birthday. Get some sleep, McCall. But no dreaming.”

Brahms hung up.

McCall disconnected and jumped up.

He had a lot to do before dawn.

*   *   *

McCall waited for him at one of the red tables in the island in the center of Times Square. It was still about half an hour before the first lightening of the sky would happen. He was amazed at how many people were in Times Square at this hour. The outside tables under the red awnings across the street from him were a third full. Yellow cabs cruised by him on one side, most of them empty. McCall looked over at the Forever 21 store and the big pink Barbie sign across from it, towering stories high. He watched the advertisements that rolled all day and night on the giant screens:
AMERICAN EAGLE OUTFITTERS
and
BANK OF AMERICA
and the
BLACKBERRY Z10
. The city's pulse was never dormant. McCall was alone at the island tables except for a middle-aged man dressed in a rumpled silk Armani suit, black with thin gray stripes, with a yellow cravat at his throat. He looked like he'd just come from having tea with Noël Coward at the St. Regis Hotel. He had an iPod in his belt, the pods in his ears, listening to something that was making him happy. He was smiling. Predawn in Times Square and all was right with the world. He had an old-fashioned black-and-white notebook in front of him and was scribbling furiously. McCall couldn't decide if he was homeless or a Harvard professor. He looked down at his shoes. Adidas Energy Boost in pink with black stripes. Could have been either.

McCall was dressed in black jeans, a black sweater, a charcoal tweed sport jacket, and Nike Air Pegasus
+
26 running shoes in black with two pale red stripes. They were scuffed and almost blackened with filth.

Kostmayer had told him Jimmy's route. He lived in Hell's Kitchen on West Fifty-second Street. He would start his run on Ninth Avenue, cut across to Broadway at West Forty-ninth Street and then on through Times Square. Eventually he would end the run at Penn Station and walk home.

McCall glanced at his watch. If Jimmy was still in shape, he'd be here any second. He looked up. A figure ran into Times Square past the TKTS booth sign on the pedestrian side, glanced at the tables on the island, and immediately changed direction. He slowed his pace and jogged up to McCall's table.

Jimmy was slight, maybe five-ten, in his late forties, in a dark green running suit with Mizuno Wave Creation Anthracite/Orange Nikes. McCall knew runners liked them because they had an intercool full-length midsole ventilation system. Jimmy had wavy black hair, shot through with gray, that was pulled back into a small ponytail. His face was long and angular. His eyes were hazel, not bright. He looked like he worked for a big accounting firm, fourteenth office on a low floor somewhere toward the back.

Jimmy jogged in place at the table. If he was surprised to see McCall he didn't show it.

“If you want to talk to me, McCall, you'll need to keep up. I'll slow my pace.”

“I'd appreciate that,” McCall said, wryly, getting up.

Jimmy looked down automatically at McCall's running shoes. Dedicated runners tended to do that.