Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  The Equalizer ran down the next flight of stairs, but something told him to check the second-floor corridor. He threw open the stairway door and saw a young blonde there. She was probably in her midthirties, five-eight, reasonably attractive, with dynamite breasts and her hair tied back in a ponytail. The door to apartment 2B was open. The blonde turned back.

  “Gemma, come now!”

  But the apartment door had closed. The blonde sighed and moved back toward it.

  The Equalizer grabbed her. She struggled in his grasp and kneed him in the groin. It sent a wave of nausea through him. She tried to get past him, but he caught her shoulders, dragged her to the stairwell door, and pushed her. She tumbled heavily down the stairs, slamming her head on the last stair tread. He waited to see if the couple from 2A, up there in years, came charging out of their apartment. They didn’t. He climbed down and knelt beside the blonde.

  She had been knocked unconscious. Her forehead was bleeding profusely. He noticed two buttons on her shirt were undone. He entertained the idea of unbuttoning the rest of them, but he was working here and there wasn’t time. He caressed her breasts through her shirt, feeling the nipples harden under his fingers, then left her where she had fallen.

  He was on the first floor. He listened at the doors to apartments 1A and 1B, but heard nothing. Then he went down the basement stairs.

  He didn’t have much time left.

  The Equalizer had earlier doused with kerosene some stacked cartons beside the old furnace. He set them alight and threw a lighted match onto more debris in a corner, which erupted. He scrambled away from the exploding aerosol cans that came at him like projectiles. He tossed the kerosene can and ran to the back door to the basement. A cement ramp led up to the street where the trash cans were. He stopped in the sudden biting wind and caught his breath. Setting the fire had been trickier than he had anticipated, but it was exciting.

  He looked up.

  There were flames in the windows of apartments 3A and 4A.

  He jogged around to the front of the building and ran down Tenth Street to Seventh Street before he turned. The apartment building looked deceptively quiet. No sign of fire. No sirens of approaching NYFD trucks yet.

  The Equalizer sat down on the bottom step of an apartment building on Seventh Street. He smoked a cigarette from a crushed package of Marlboros and waited.

  * * *

  The Weinbergers had invited Norman Rosemont in for dinner. He had just finished a roast with Yorkshire pudding and mashed potatoes that was as good as the best pub fare in Manhattan. Elliott was the cook in the family. He and Mavis had told him something that had startled him, that Sam Kinney was a newcomer.

  “A very nice man,” Mavis Weinberger said, “except he says Nixon was framed about Watergate.”

  Her husband waved a deprecating hand. “Do we have any brandy for our guest?”

  “Cabinet below the bookshelves.” Mavis was transfixed by a CNN report about Cubans finding food, clothing, and shelter in El Paso, Texas.

  “So Sam hasn’t been in the building long?” Rosemont said, surprised.

  “No, no,” Mavis said. “Maybe a week and a half.”

  Elliott opened the cabinet and brought out a brandy bottle and three glasses.

  Rosemont thought he could smell smoke. He walked to the front door of Apartment 3B and opened it. “Are there people living in 3A?”

  Elliott set the brandy glasses down on the table. “No, that’s been vacant for a few months.”

  Rosemont walked to apartment 3A and felt the door handle. It was warm. He didn’t know any better, so he pulled the door open. Fire roared out of the apartment. Rosemont jumped back. Already the corridor was filling with black smoke. He ran back to the Weinbergers’ apartment.

  “There’s a fire! You need to get out!”

  Mavis was hard-pressed to turn away from her CNN report. Elliott ran over to one of the bookshelves, grabbing his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire tomes.

  “Just leave everything!” Rosemont shouted. “You can come back for your things!”

  Rosemont helped Mavis out of her chair. She picked up some scrapbooks from a side table. Elliott caught up with them. Fire had crawled up the walls of the third-floor corridor. All three of them were coughing in the smoke. They descended the stairs to the second floor.

  “You go on down!” Rosemont shouted.

  Mavis and Elliott Weinberger continued to descend. Rosemont ran into the second-floor corridor and knocked on the door to apartment 2A. It was immediately opened by Connie Hewitt. Rosemont saw her husband, Donald, looking up from a couch where a TV played.

  “There’s a fire. Leave everything in your apartment and go down the stairs. Right now!”

  Connie immediately ran back into the apartment to find Mr. Toast. Rosemont ran across the hall and pounded on the door to apartment 2B. There was no answer. He knocked louder. Behind him, Connie and Donald Hewitt came out of their apartment bringing nothing except Mr. Toast, who squirmed in Donald’s arms, trying to scratch his face. If it had been up to Rosemont, he would have advocated leaving the cat behind in the apartment.

  “Did you see Linda Hathaway leave her apartment?” Rosemont asked.

  Connie shook her head. “She keeps to herself.”

  “Go, go!”

  Connie and Donald plunged down the stairs to the first floor and suddenly stopped. Connie cried out. Mavis and Elliott were at the bottom of the stairwell. Rosemont climbed down and saw Linda Hathaway sprawled at the bottom. She was conscious, but disoriented. A dark bruise was on her forehead and it was bleeding.

  Rosemont helped her to her feet. “Did you fall?”

  Linda shook her head and staggered, unable to speak. Rosemont helped her out into the first-floor corridor. Smoke was seeping up the stairs from the basement.

  “Take her outside!” Rosemont urged, and handed her to Donald Hewitt, who handed Mr. Toast to Connie. Elliott Weinberger still supported Mavis. They all moved to the front door of the building. Rosemont knocked loudly at the door to apartment 1A.

  “Jesse, open the door! There’s a fire!”

  There was no response. The student was out most evenings, Rosemont recalled. He pounded on the door to 1B, the super’s apartment. There was no response. Thick black smoke was now cloaking the first-floor corridor. Rosemont ran to the front door and headed down the ten limestone steps into the street.

  A crowd was forming on the sidewalk in front of the building. Elliott Weinberger sat Mavis on the bottom step of the apartment building next door. Connie Hewitt was perched on the hood of a parked car, trying to keep Mr. Toast from running away.

  Rosemont noted Jesse Driscoll pushing through the crowd. “What’s happened?”

  “Fire,” Rosemont said. “It may have started in that vacant apartment on the third floor. Are there fire sprinklers in the building?”

  “Not that I’ve ever seen,” Jesse said. “Is everyone out?”

  “I think so,” Rosemont said.

  Linda Hathaway pushed through the crowd and grabbed Rosemont’s arm. The blood had congealed on her face. Her eyes were wild.

  “Gemma! She was right behind me!”

  “She wasn’t with you when we found you,” Rosemont said. “I pounded on your apartment door, but there was no response.”

  “Someone grabbed me! He threw me down the stairs! Gemma may still be in the apartment! She’s not out here!”

  “We’ll get her!” Rosemont climbed up the apartment-building stairs.

  A woman in the crowd said, “I called 911. Fire department’s on their way!”

  Jesse bounded up the front steps after Rosemont.

  Smoke had now completely enveloped the first-floor corridor. Jesse starting coughing, looking for Rosemont, but didn’t see him. He threw open the stairwell door and heard Rosemont reaching the second floor. The student pounded up the stairs and came out onto the second-floor corridor. Black smoke drifted down it. Rosemont was at the door of apartment 2B, trying to
wrench it open. Jesse disappeared into the smoke, and Rosemont heard glass breaking. Jesse came back hefting an ax that he had smashed from a glass case on the far corridor wall. Rosemont had never noticed any firefighting gear anywhere in the building. Rosemont stood back from the door to 2B. Jesse swung the ax, splintering the wood. He hefted it again, wood chips spitting out. Jesse dropped the ax. Rosemont reached in, unlocked the door, and swung it open. Both of them ran inside. The apartment was filled with smoke. Fire was blazing in the living room.

  “Gemma!” Rosemont called out. “Gemma, where are you?” There was no response. “Get to the kitchen or Linda’s bedroom. I’ll see if there’s a child’s room.”

  Jesse veered off to the kitchen. Rosemont looked through the thick smoke, seeing if the little girl was under a table or behind the couch.

  “Gemma! Gemma!”

  He thought he heard a whimper from somewhere. Rosemont ran into the smoke and saw a door leading to a child’s bedroom. He ran inside.

  It was ablaze.

  “Gemma!”

  The whimper was coming from under the child’s bed. Rosemont looked under the bed. He saw Gemma’s face, her eyes wide with fear.

  “I’ve got you, Gemma! Crawl out from under there!”

  Gemma crawled out from under her bed. She was holding a purple plush Courage the Cowardly Dog by his ear. Rosemont picked her up.

  “Turn in to my shoulder and close your eyes.”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “She’s already outside.” Rosemont ran out of Gemma’s bedroom through the living room to the front door.

  Jesse came out of the smoke, coughing, his eyes streaming. “You got her?”

  “Yeah. Anyone else back there?”

  “All clear. Can we get out through the window onto the balcony with the fire escape?”

  “That way is blocked.”

  They went through the smashed front door. Immediately Rosemont handed Gemma to Jesse and picked up the fallen ax.

  “I’m going to see if my friend Sam is out of his apartment. You get Gemma downstairs to her mother.”

  “Don’t be an idiot!”

  “Just get her out of here!”

  Rosemont threw open the stairwell door. He heard Jesse climbing down to the first floor carrying Gemma. When Rosemont got to the fourth floor and came through the stairwell door, the corridor was blazing. The door to his apartment, 4B, showed no signs of fire yet. Rosemont ran to Apartment 4A. The door was unlocked and buckled. Rosemont didn’t need the ax. He dropped it and kicked in the door.

  The living room was totally ablaze. Smoke was everywhere.

  “Sam! Sam!”

  No response. Rosemont ran through the dining-room alcove and the kitchen, both burning, to Sam’s bedroom. The ceiling in the bedroom was on fire and chunks of it were coming down. Rosemont gagged in the dense smoke. He saw the shape of a man’s figure in the bed. He moved to it, thinking that Sam had been overcome from smoke inhalation.

  He hadn’t.

  He had been beaten.

  Sam’s face was swollen and blood had congealed under his nose. He was conscious, but barely. Rosemont hauled him out of bed and was surprised how light he was. For all of Sam’s robust camaraderie, he was like a husk in Rosemont’s arms.

  Something caught Rosemont’s eye on the bedroom floor. It seemed out of place. A piece of jewelry. Rosemont scooped it up into his pocket and carried Sam out of the bedroom. The old man slid, so Rosemont hauled him up over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. He staggered with him to the living room and was greeted by a wall of flames.

  Norman Rosemont was terrified.

  He put his head down and ran through the flames, his hair singeing, his face burning. He got out of the apartment with Sam still over his shoulder. He didn’t hear a murmur from the old man. He couldn’t tell if Sam was alive or dead.

  When he turned with his burden, Rosemont was greeted by another wall of flames. He couldn’t get through it, the heat was too intense. He stumbled to the wooden stairs leading up to the roof. Fire was raging up them, but no other course was open to him. He climbed the stairs through the flames and reached the top just before they gave way behind him. He leapt for the roof door, still holding on to Sam, and looked down.

  The stairs leading up to the roof had collapsed.

  Rosemont ran out onto the roof. He laid Sam gently down on one of the folding chairs and ran to the edge. One fire truck was already outside the apartment building, and another was pulling up. Firefighters were everywhere. Rosemont searched the crowd below and saw Linda Hathaway. Jesse was handing Gemma to her mother. Linda hugged her child, sobbing and shaking. Jesse looked up at the roof and gave Rosemont a thumbs-up.

  One of the ladders on the first fire truck was almost at the roof. Rosemont ran across to Sam, who was conscious, barely seeing through his left eye.

  “My right eye ain’t so good now,” he mumbled. “That’s what happens when you know Robert McCall.”

  The old man wasn’t making sense, but Rosemont didn’t care. Sam was alive. Rosemont picked Sam up and supported him to the edge of the roof. He got there just as the firefighter climbed onto the roof.

  “I got him!” the firefighter said. “I’ll take him down. Any way back into the building?”

  “No, the stairs to the roof have collapsed.”

  “Okay. Stay right here. Another firefighter will come back up to get you.”

  “Got it.”

  “Nice job.”

  The firefighter put Sam onto his shoulder and started climbing down the ladder with him.

  Rosemont took a deep breath, trying to force the night air into his parched lungs. He couldn’t stop shaking. At that moment he realized he had not taken his inhaler with him from his apartment. Maybe he didn’t need it anymore. When the second firefighter got to the top of the ladder, Rosemont was determined not to be carried down over the firefighter’s shoulder.

  “I can climb down!”

  Rosemont climbed onto the ladder. It took him a full minute to get to the bottom, where two other firefighters set him down on the sidewalk.

  Miguel, the fat super, had pushed through the crowd and was staring up at the burning building. He turned when he saw Rosemont. “Hey there, Miguel Vásquez. You’re the new tenant, right? I was in the tavern on the corner. Did everyone get out okay?”

  “Yes. Everyone has been accounted for.”

  “Jesus, hell of thing to happen! Course, I’ve been telling the management firm that we needed new sprinklers, but they could give a fuck.”

  A much bigger crowd was now being held back by yellow tape. Two cop cars had pulled up, and the officers were moving people away. The tenants of the apartment building were still together on the sidewalk. They mobbed Rosemont when he joined them. Jesse shook his hand. Elliott Weinberger squeezed his shoulder. Connie Hewitt was singing softly, some Broadway tune only meant to be heard by her.

  Linda Hathaway handed Gemma to Jesse and threw her arms around Rosemont. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You saved my little girl.”

  “Jesse carried her down the stairs and out of the building,” Rosemont stammered, embarrassed. “He’s the one you need to thank.”

  Linda broke from him, tears brimming in her eyes. “That’s not the way I heard it.”

  She kissed him, then winced in pain. Rosemont, grateful for the escape, looked at her forehead where she’d hit the stairs. Dried blood was down one side of her face.

  “You need to get that seen to.”

  “They’ll get to me. How are you?”

  His face was blackened with smoke, but he nodded. They all looked up. Fire had erupted from every window in the front of the building. The firefighters were fighting the blaze. Some of them had entered the building. Another fire truck was on its way, siren wailing. A firefighter started moving the tenants back beyond the yellow tape.

  Mavis Weinberger shook her head, clutching her scrapbooks. Tears escaped from her eyes and spilled down her old, tired fac
e. “This has been our home for sixty years.”

  Rosemont took her hand. “We’ll get you and Elliott a new home,” he promised her softly.

  * * *

  Several streets behind the fire trucks, the Equalizer stood with his hands deep in his pockets, seething. He watched Sam Kinney being wheeled on a gurney to one of the ambulances. If he made it out of the hospital, the Equalizer would have to try again. This time he wouldn’t use such an elaborate scheme, even though it should have worked just fine.

  This time he would just put a bullet in the old man’s head.

  One of the tenants had moved away from the others. The Equalizer didn’t think the old dude was looking at him, but he slid back into the shadows. It was time for him to disappear. He had streets to clean up and innocent lives to save.

  Norman Rosemont stared down into Tenth Street. He reached into his pocket and took out the piece of jewelry he’d found on Sam Kinney’s bedroom rug.

  He looked down at it and wondered.

  CHAPTER 41

  McCall worked a skeleton key into the lock on the brick building on Fiftieth Street just down from the Jadite Galleries. He moved into a darkened hallway in front of an elevator, a redwood staircase ascending to his left. He waited in the stillness.

  Mickey Kostmayer stepped out of the shadows. McCall’s gaze hardened at the sight of him.

  Kostmayer smiled ruefully. “This is where you tell me I’ve lost a lot of weight and look like crap.”

  “What happened?”

  “We carried out the raid on the North Korean prison camp. Eight mercenaries, including Granny. We got over a hundred people out, but we were supposed to be picked up by four Chinese AVIC AC391 helicopters, and only three of them made it. My guys were all killed except for the two of us. I escaped during a prisoner rebellion in the woods right outside the prison. I made it to the Yalu River at the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge. I swam across to an island in no-man’s-land, got into the port at Dandong, and picked up a truck going into the city. I was dressed in a stolen North Korean guard’s uniform. A local Company contact named Jensen got me to Beijing.”