"What's a damn sight more interesting," McCall put the phone back in its cradle, "is that both the Company Director and the Deputy will be in Moscow in just over a week for a NATO-Russia summit."

"You think the mole will contact his associate while in Moscow?"

"I think the mole will be contacted by his associate," McCall said, a glint in his eye.

Mickey picked up on the hint and let a smile roll across his face. He glanced at his watch, "So you'll be back before then?"

"I'll probably meet you in Moscow."

"You know, Isra hasn't reported in again yet."

McCall shook his head. "I know, and it has been bothering me. But we have to trust that everything is all right. If we send someone back now and the mole is keeping tabs on us, it will raise suspicion."

Mickey plopped himself onto the couch. "I wish we could just mow down the bastard on the way to work or something."

McCall simply nodded in agreement. "That would indeed make it simpler. Anyway," he grabbed his bags, "the taxi should be arriving any minute now. Listen," he turned back toward Mickey, "call me as soon as you hear from Isra. And," he pointed toward the spare bedroom where Bräuchle was sleeping, "keep your heads down."

"Don't I always?" Mickey smiled innocently and shrugged his shoulders.

McCall heard the taxi pull up and he picked up his two small bags.

Seven hours later, he embraced a fatigued-looking Scott at the airport. "Scotty, she is just getting the jitters – you know, your mother had the same wedding day nervousness."

"Dad!" Scott pleaded, "She broke it off! Completely! She said she doesn't ever want to see me again!"

McCall grabbed his bags off the conveyer belt and walked with Scott out to his car. "Did you get in a fight?"

Scott rolled his eyes. "Yeah, but it was no more than usual." McCall looked at him questioningly. "I mean," Scott added, "we have little disagreements here and there but that's just the way we have always been - nothing serious."

"What was it about?"

"It was so stupid – just color schemes for the wedding. She thinks I'm not helping out enough."

"Maybe she thinks you aren't serious enough about the wedding."

Scott looked at the ceiling, "Come on, I'm working on three full arrangements plus the one for the wedding – how can I concentrate on my music if I'm planning for the wedding every second of every day? I mean, I try – I really do, but she just thinks – I don't know what she thinks. Anyway, she packed up all her stuff while I was rehearsing with the symphony and when I came back, she was gone. She hasn't called, written, anything. All she left was a note that said it was over. That was four days ago."

McCall slipped into the seat next to Scott and sighed, rubbing his strained temples, "She just disappeared? Nothing else, just a brief note?"

"That's it, Dad – all there was."

"Well, you're right to be concerned. Four days is a long time to go without contact, but realistically, she is probably just teaching you a lesson."

"I called Yvette – they've really become close after meeting last year – and she said she'll call me the second she hears from Tina. But so far . . . ."

McCall tried to smile heartily for his son, "Listen Scotty, you need something to get your mind off this whole affair for a while." McCall would not tell his son this, but he was mildly worried. Tina was not the type of woman to just run out – but getting married did strange things to people. McCall wasn't sure if he could handle another personal problem in so many days, but he mentally gritted his teeth and turned on the charm. "Why don't we go to the theater tonight? I'm sure there is a good show somewhere in Tucson."

Scott shook his blond head, "No, I just don't feel up to it." He silently drove the rest of the way to his house, quietly picking up his father's bags with one hand and unlocking the house with the other. Once inside, he slumped on the couch, head in his hands for the millionth time in so few days.

McCall scanned the room; the windows and shades had all been drawn. McCall could feel the house's darkness sinking into his bones. The room's light curtains were shut, giving the living room an atmosphere of a squalid hospital. The musty smell emanating from the yellow curds of cottage cheese that had obviously lain on the coffee table for at least two or three days did not add to the room's quaintness. McCall picked up the cottage cheese with a disgusted look on his face, one hand reaching for the over-flowing garbage. This was no way for the boy to be living. "Scott, really, it has only been four days. What have you done to the place?"

Clothes, magazines, books, and other odds and ends were scattered about the main den. Scott had obviously been living out of the room since Tina had left, not bothering to clean up, probably after a hurricane of anger and frustration had taken hold of him. Scott did not answer his father, sullenly flipping the television onto the local news and staring at it with blank eyes.

When his father had left his mother and him, Scott had thought, as all small children do when parents fight, that the fault was his. He was always a very sensitive boy, and his father's absence had been especially hard on him. Other children shunned him for his natural tendency toward the arts, and he further retreated into his shell. When he first became acquainted with his father again after many years of absence, Scott and Robert had more disagreements and shouting matches than anything else. Robert couldn't understand why the boy didn't see his point of view – he had been struggling in a marriage with memories that were too painful to think about, among other problems. He and Kay had grown apart with the death of their young child, Kathy, and ever after that event, going "home" was almost more than Robert could bear. After Kathy's death, being at "home" could never be the same.

Scott, on the other hand, did not understand why his father would simply leave him and his mother. He had nightmares about the night when his father left; his father had too much luggage just to be going on another Company outing. All the postcards and letters and phone calls in the world could not make up for a father who could not hug him after he lost a baseball game or played his first full song.

The years when Scott was first re-acquainted with his father were rough. After years of hostile quibbles and tension-ridden silences, they had come to a mutual understanding – even if the understanding was a little rough sometimes. McCall knew his son was still sensitive when it came to other people accepting him, probably as a result of Scott's sensitivity relating to the divorce. Scott's childhood emotions had never fully healed.

Scott took rejection hard, sometimes slumping into depression. The best thing McCall could do was try to help Scott pull out of it. He was already trying to let the pieces fall together to solve this puzzle and trying not think about another one thousands of miles away.

If Tina had left, her own nerves shaken by the thought of a lifetime commitment, something Robert himself had felt the days before he had taken the plunge, she would not have simply disappeared off the face of the earth. In fact, having dealt with all types of people over the past few years in his role as "The Equalizer," McCall was well aware that families sometimes acted brashly, trying to protect when sometimes they only damaged. He looked at his desolate son as he fingered the portable phone near the refrigerator.

"What is Tina's parents' phone number?" McCall asked blandly as he threw the curtains open and opened the windows slightly to allow a fresh, cool breeze into the house.

Scott wrinkled his nose and blinked in annoyance at the bright light streaming into the den. He was not in the mood for Arizona's bright atmosphere right now, but he didn't have the energy to protest. "It's on the counter in the red book," Scott replied, his eyes still fixed on the television's screen.

McCall thumbed through the book until he found "Winchester." He thought it was somehow amusing that Scott, ever against his father's chosen profession, would end up marrying a woman with "Winchester" as a last name. He dialed rapidly, leaning on the sill and eventually sitting down at the table, out of immediate hearing range from Scott.

"Hello?" McCall replied to the female voice he heard respond on the other end of the phone. "Hello – this is Robert McCall . . . good, good, and you?" McCall shifted to a more comfortable position in the chair. "Yes, I just flew into Tucson to stay with Scott. He's quite broken up about the entire affair," McCall's British accent grew thicker. "The house is a disaster area. I have been encouraging him to get out but so far no luck. He is a complete wreck. I worry, you know, his mother too. He is so worried about Tina; he is making himself sick. But I can't even imagine what you are going through. Still no word from her then?" McCall heard a slight pause on the other end of the line, and he allowed himself the edges of a smile, too slight for anyone looking at him to notice. "No?" he replied after a moment, only then seeing Scott standing over him with searching eyes.

Scott's gaze fell into oblivion the moment his father said, "No."

McCall continued, "It has been four days. Have you called the missing persons division of the Police? Ah, so she has done this before, yes, I see. Well, please call us the moment you found out anything – and if there is anything we can do, just give us a ring. You know the number."

McCall sighed, gently placing the phone in the receiver and looking at his son who had returned to the television. McCall walked over and put a soft hand on Scott's shoulder, "Listen boy, these things have a way of working themselves out."

Scott's anger at the situation began to take over, and he shrugged his father's hand off his shoulder, "You and mom didn't seem to be able to 'work it out,'" he said as his eyes glowed like embers. "Why did I ever think I could make it work?" His jaws clenched in fury as he fought back the tears.

McCall knew Scott wasn't really angry at him, just angry at a situation he could not solve. But McCall had a feeling that Tina's parents were covering for her, looking after their only child after getting a one-sided story. Now that they had a better picture of what Scott was going through, McCall knew it would only be a matter of time before the description got back to Tina, and hopefully, if everything went right, she would overcome her wedding jitters and marry the man she loved.

"I know it is hard Scott, I've been there - just give it some time." Robert made some tea and gave it to the man who was his son.