Dirty Harry 10 - The Blood of Strangers (20 page)

In a whisper, he informed the command post that he was now on the seventh floor, that he had encountered no opposition. Although he didn’t say it, what really disturbed him was just how silent it was, as if the hostages and their captors had managed to pull off a disappearing act. But he recalled that since it was a television station, it had been designed to muffle extraneous noises.

“They’ve started broadcasting, Harry,” Bressler said. “We’ve got the Winston woman on our screens now. She’s reading their proclamation.”

“How does she seem?”

“Holding her own, I’d guess.”

“I’ll let you know when I get to the door.”

He began to advance down the final set of stairs, but it took him a while to do this as he was intent on maintaining silence. He had to be scrupulous about the sound every one of his footsteps made.

He leaned over the railing, just for a second, then slipped back into the shadows. A man was stationed on the door, a Chinese Type 66 automatic cradled in his arms. Harry waited, hardly daring to breathe, hoping he had not been spotted. But upon looking down again, he realized that he was still secure; the terrorist was undisturbed, even a little bored.

Harry drew out a four-inch “Moray” blade from his inside jacket pocket, which was where most of his small, but ingenious, arsenal was contained. Then he tossed down one of the timing devices. It made a sudden sharp noise, landing a few feet in front of the terrorist.

He raised his eyes, searching for the source of this strange object, but Harry had removed himself from sight. Then, warily, he approached the device, stooping down to inspect it. Until he had it in his hand, he might have thought it a chunk of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling.

By the time he comprehended what it was, Harry had crept down the stairs and come up behind him. He turned, ready to cry out, but with one hand Harry sealed his lips, with the other he slit his throat. The terrorist retched, then as his eyes filmed over, Harry allowed him to collapse.

He now affixed the timing device he’d used as a distraction, and a second one for good measure, to the door of the newsroom.

Softly into his radio he communicated to Bressler: “All right, I’m on six, one man eliminated, no problem here. Ready to go in two minutes, repeat two minutes, at signal, if you are ready down there.”

Several tense moments went by without a response. Harry presumed they were deliberating; this was not an easy decision to make.

Finally Bressler said, “We read you, Harry. That’s two minutes on go. You are clear for go. Repeat: You are clear for go. Signal is Zero-Alpha. Repeat: Signal is Zero-Alpha. I will give you a count of five, followed by the signal. That will begin the two minute count. Is everything understood?”

“Understood. Just tell me, how is Ellie doing?”

“She’s still reading. You wouldn’t believe how long this goddamn proclamation goes on for. We’ve initiated a phone conversation with one of the terrorists, but we’re getting nowhere with him. You ready?”

“Ready.”

“Five-four-three-two-one . . . Zero-Alpha.”

“Zero-Alpha.” Harry started the timers going and stepped away.

He took out his .44, steeling himself for the confrontation that was now less than two minutes away. Above him, a rectangular white fixture bathed the stairwell in a ghostly light. These electricians better have their act together, he thought, because if the timers went and the light remained on, he would be in a whole lot of trouble.

“You have forty-five seconds?” Bressler inquired over the radio.

“That’s right,” Harry confirmed.

“You got a vacation coming after this,” he said, maybe to buoy his spirits.

“Damn right I do. Thirty.”

“Mark thirty.”

He felt like an astronaut ready to be shot into space. Well, he might be shot, but not; necessarily into space.

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen,” said Harry. “Ten.” He stepped further back from the door and raised his .44 slightly higher in his hand. “Five, three, two, one.”

The detonations were not much louder than they’d been on top of the roof, but here in the stairwell, they seemed deafening. Harry was so conscious of the noise that for a second he failed to notice that the light above his head had gone out. The juice had been cut, and precisely on time.

He hurtled his body against the door which swept open for him.

A burst of gunfire greeted him in the darkness. Everywhere there was shouting and the rattle of automatics though it was impossible to say from where it was coming.

Harry was a shadow, a ghost, and the man doing the firing managed only to hit the door. Harry responded in kind, aiming in the direction of the fire. He heard a scream and saw a figure fall with a final, useless spasm of gunfire as his coda.

He got down immediately. The terrorists were shooting wildly, but as the police came streaming through other access points, they were hardpressed to know where to sight their weapons. Glass began to shatter as rounds impacted, inadvertently, against T.V. monitors and computer screens that were now as black as slate. The hostages were screaming and diving for cover, taking refuge under desks and editing machines.

Harry crawled between the legs of a table and beheld a man firing at random, apparently venting his frustration by firing on anyone he could see, caring little whether his victim was an officer or a hostage. In the darkness, he might hit one of his own.

Harry ended his spree abruptly by putting a .44 round in his chest. He pitched back and attempted in his last moments of life to return the fire, but hadn’t the strength. He collapsed and died.

Almost from the start, the Small Man comprehended what was happening, and cursed the fate that had taken such a deadly turn. As soon as the lights went and the monitors died, he realized that he would not survive; certainly he did not care to spend the rest of his days incarcerated. His only recourse, he believed, was to take out as many of the hostages and as many police officers as he could, and die in a truly revolutionary manner. In a way, he had always longed for such a destiny.

His first victim was right in front of him. Or at least she was until the lights were extinguished. When he next looked, he saw she’d fled into the darkness. There was no opportunity at the outset of the invasion to search for her. He had to turn his attention to the invaders. Doors were opening throughout the floor as the police came barreling in.

Concentrating on just one of these entrances, he kept discharging his Mark 1, bringing down two officers, then a third. His advantage lay in the silence of his weapon. In the darkness, they couldn’t be sure where their opponent was, and the Small Man was quick and agile enough to keep switching his position just in case.

Next to him, he caught sight of Machito. Machito was half-concealed behind a computer terminal and his face contained a vast smile, for the truth was he was enjoying this last stand.

“We are showing them, aren’t we?” he called to the Small Man. “We are showing them all right!”

His voice must have given his location away. There was a spurt of automatic fire from his left, and then from his rear. He looked vastly surprised, though no less exultant, and when he opened his mouth to tell the Small Man that he’d been shot, blood frothed out. There was another shot and the left side of his ugly face vanished in blood and he toppled back to the floor.

It was then that the Small Man glanced around and spied Ellie. She was running toward a man, calling out his name. “Harry! Harry!” he heard her shouting.

They were within a foot or two of each other when the Small Man sacrificed his cover, stood up, and fired his Mark 1 three times in rapid succession.

He saw her running. He told her to get down. She seemed not to hear him. Then she gasped and began to sink to the floor. He caught hold of her and as he did his hands became soaked with the blood eddying out of her. There was so much blood, so much.

Her eyes widened, she whispered something to him, he couldn’t hear, he leaned closer. “Ellie, don’t die,” he said. But she did.

The Small Man was attempting to slip out of the newsroom. But Harry kept his eyes fixed on him and fired just once. The Small Man, his skull shattered, his brains strewn over the wall in back of him, seemed to fly into the air, but unable to continue his journey, dropped unceremoniously to the ground, Alpha Group’s final sacrifice to the cause. Whatever cause that might have been.

C H A P T E R
S i x t e e n

T
he address was in a fashionable district of the city, not far from the Borghese Gardens. It was a mild afternoon at the end of a Roman summer, full of brilliant light. The shops were just reopening after the usual protracted siesta, and wherever Harry went people were beginning to show signs of renewal after avoiding the fierce midday heat in sleep.

Against all rules and regulations, Harry had taken from the KCVO newsroom two items that would ordinarily be considered state’s evidence. One was the address book that Harry had found on the body of one of the terrorists, the second was a Mark 1 handgun that he had found on the body of another. In the confusion, the absence of these objects went unnoticed.

His colleagues were surprised by his decision to vacation in Scotland. Harry had told them that he wanted to do some hunting although it was thought that he hunted enough while he was on the job. He mentioned nothing about Rome. He made certain that his passport was not stamped when he entered Italy. He had the gun smuggled in for him by a man who was good at that sort of thing. No questions asked.

And now he was on the Via Condotti, gazing up at an ornate marble façade that must have dated back to the Renaissance. It was possible that the man he wanted was no longer here, or had yet to arrive, but that was of minor importance. Harry had time, he would just keep extending his vacation as long as necessary.

It was no surprise to find limousines, vast Cadillacs and Bentleys, parked in front of the villa. Seeing them there heartened Harry. It implied that important business transactions were being discussed within. He certainly hoped so.

He had naturally taken pains to disguise himself. No one would ever recognize him; a tall bearded man would be how people would describe him later on. Besides, there would inevitably be an abundance of suspects. His quarry no doubt had more enemies than he could count.

In an operation like this, he possessed more patience than he ordinarily would have. He waited until after dark, and waited some more until the men with the attaché cases and the bodyguards got into their limousines and drove away, and waited some more, until the entire district began to close down, and only the late night cafés were still doing business. He waited until there were very few lights on in the villa, and then he broke in through a window.

It triggered off a very loud alarm and alerted two men who immediately appeared to investigate, flicking on the lights to reveal a room full of crystal chandeliers and priceless paintings hanging in gilt frames. Seeing Harry, they asked no questions, but opened fire. Their bullets demolished an antique table and decapitated the top of what looked like a very expensive vase.

With the Mark 1, Harry put an end to their careers. The halls reverberated with the sounds of footsteps and panicky voices.

There were a great many rooms in this villa and Harry got himself lost in a number of them before he stumbled on the one he wanted.

The man was already out of bed. His face reflected not fear so much as irritation, as though Harry represented a minor nuisance he should never have had to bother with.

“I don’t know you,” he protested when Harry burst in on him. He was clad in his bathrobe. In the light from his bedlamp, he looked older than Harry had remembered, but again he’d never gotten a very good look at him in the warehouse.

“No, but I know you and that’s what counts.”

He raised the gun.

“I don’t know what you want, but if it’s money . . .”

It wasn’t money.

There was a commotion in the hallway right outside the door. Instinctively, Harry shot his eyes back.

Russell Cravitch grabbed for something, it might have been a gun, it might have been a lighter, Harry didn’t know, didn’t care, because he whipped about, muttering at the same time, “This is one of yours, you should know what it does to people,” before pulling the trigger of the Mark 1 and blowing open Cravich’s heart.

No one outside the door ever heard; the sound suppressor was that good.

D
ANE
H
ARTMAN
was a Warner Books imprint pseudonym used by two American novelists, Ric Meyers and Leslie Alan Horvitz. "Hartman" was credited as the author of the Dirty Harry action series based on the “Dirty” Harry Callahan character of the popular 1970’s and 1980’s films starring Clint Eastwood.

Following the release of the third Dirty Harry movie, The Enforcer, in 1976, Clint Eastwood made it clear that he did not intend to make any more Dirty Harry movies. In 1981, Warner Books (the publishing arm of Warner Bros., which made the films) began publishing a number of men's adventure series under its now-defunct "Men of Action" line. One such series features the further adventures of Inspector Harry Callahan. The series was brought to an end when Eastwood decided to direct, produce, and star in a fourth Dirty Harry movie, Sudden Impact, which was released in December 1983.