The Equalizer by Michael Sloan Read Free Book Online Page A

where he’d had to be quick to wipe the tears away in the fifty-below temperature before they froze on his cheeks. The wind ruffled his long black hair, which whipped like snakes around his face. He pushed it back, slick with snow. He took two steps to the helicopter on the steel platform. He realized that it was not just hanging on the fake power lines. It was tightly secured by thin steel wires. He reached out and tugged at two of them. They didn’t move. The helicopter was in no danger of crashing to the ground.
    That was good, because he wanted to be inside the crippled bird. The angle from the platform wasn’t optimum.
    He knelt down, unclipped the catches on the pelican hard case, and opened the lid. He removed the black gloves. Even though they were skintight, he liked to work with his hands. His hands were his strength. The AWC M91 .308 caliber breakdown rifle fit snugly into its foam compartments. He took out the barrel, the fiberglass stock with a Pachmayr decelerator recoil. The action was a Remington 700 BDL, fully accurized with a tuned trigger. He took out two alignment rods and the steel anchor rod. He removed a special MARS6-WPT Night Vision Scope with a black finish and extended eye relief. Its depth perception was phenomenal and it had two-color manual brightness control of the aiming reticle. He could use either a red or an amber dot. Probably red in this weather. He’d flash it on her face for a split second, so she would know . There would be nothing she could do. But it was the realization in that instant that stayed in his mind. The flicker of fear. No more than a flicker, because then her natural survival instincts would take over, telling her to hit the ground, throw herself to one side. But that Kodak moment would be indelible.
    He fitted the night-vision scope on to the rifle, snapped on the stock, loaded five .308 M 168gr HPBT bullets into the chamber.
    There was a single metal chain across the platform to the back of the helicopter. He unlatched it, stooped down, and stepped into the stricken chopper. It creaked and shifted position as he did. He grabbed for a handhold and steadied himself. For one irrational moment he wondered if this dead bird could just come loose and crash to the ground below. It had to take the weight of at least one man for maintenance purposes. He was not that tall, somewhat heavyset, weighing 240, but a Mi-38 helicopter could take up to thirty passengers and a flight crew of two. On the other hand, this park was a disaster in every sense of the word and he wondered how long it had been since any maintenance crew had been up into the chopper.
    He walked forward carefully, carrying the M91 rifle in one hand, grabbing for handholds in the padded interior with the other. There were plenty of them, where the padding in the crippled seats spewed out obscenely as if it had been slashed with a knife. He made his way to the door of the chopper. He thought it might be welded shut, but it opened easily. He sat with his back braced against the side of the door. He pushed the steel anchor rod into the floor of the chopper and secured it. He settled in and sighted along the MARS sight. He zeroed in onto the wrecked passenger train and moved slowly across the windows of the first derailed carriage. He wasn’t sure which one she would be in. That kind of intel was for the spies. She was in one of them and she would exit the way she climbed in to run back to her parked Lada.
    He saw her.
    The magnified sight made her figure jump up at him through the filthy train window. It was as if she was close enough for him to reach out and touch her. She had dark hair, was probably five-six, unless she was leaning over, if not, five-eight. He made that mental adjustment. The intel he’d been given had said she was five-foot-five. Her face was beautiful, even diffused through the murky glass. That was good. The more beautiful they were, the more exquisite their pain as it turned