Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air

DIRTY HARRY IS GUNNING
FOR BLOOD—STALKING A KILLER
PROTECTED BY THE POWER
OF THE U.S. GOVERNMENT!

The Magnum-powered action doesn’t stop for Dirty Harry—not even on Christmas Eve. Now Harry’s after a killer who celebrates the holiday season by shoving women beneath the wheels of speeding subway trains. But when he unmasks the killer as a hit-man for a renegade government scientist, Harry himself is marked for death. With the most powerful handgun ever made in his hands, Harry must blow that scientist to kingdom come or never live to see the New Year himself.

RUSHING TOWARD DEATH

The killer came up right behind Denise Patterson just as the train rushed into the mouth of the BART station. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and with the other hand around her neck, he started walking purposefully to the edge of the subway platform.

Harry pulled out his Magnum, pointed it at the ceiling like a starter’s pistol, and pulled the trigger.

Like a thunderclap, the explosion of the .44 drowned out the din in the station. The killer turned and saw Harry. But that didn’t stop him. With all of his strength, the killer threw Patterson onto the tracks.

Harry had no choice. He jumped off the platform, onto the tracks, and raced toward the woman—and right at the on-rushing train.

Books by Dane Hartman

Dirty Harry #1: Duel For Cannons
Dirty Harry #2: Death on the Docks
Dirty Harry #3: The Long Death
Dirty Harry #4: The Mexico Kill
Dirty Harry #5: Family Skeletons
Dirty Harry #6: City of Blood
Dirty Harry #7: Massacre at Russian River
Dirty Harry #8: Hatchet Men
Dirty Harry #9: The Killing Connection
Dirty Harry #10: The Blood of Strangers
Dirty Harry #11: Death in the Air
Dirty Harry #12: The Dealer of Death

Published by
WARNER BOOKS

WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 1983 by Warner Books, Inc.
All rights reserved.

Warner Books, Inc., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019

A Warner Communications Company

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN: 0-446-90853-3
First Printing: February, 1983

DIRTY HARRY  #11
DEATH
IN  THE
AIR

C H A P T E R
O n e

T
he girl’s body was torn apart as if she were a goldfish whirling in a blender. Her flaxen hair had fluttered in the air as she fell screaming onto the tracks. Her arms looked as if she were trying to fly, as the BART car bore down on her.

There was no screeching of brakes and clatter of ancient metal machinery, as there would have been in almost any other major city’s subway. San Francisco’s BAY AREA RAPID TRANSIT system was sleek, efficient, brand new, and, in Martha Murray’s case, deadly.

As the train swept into the Fulton Street Station at over forty miles an hour, the high school girl didn’t have a chance. Despite waving her arms, she couldn’t keep her feet from hitting the ground, and the monstrous train from coming on.

At first, it seemed as if she were trying to keep her balance for a last-ditch attempt at hurling herself away from the speeding vehicle. But then her knees buckled, putting her into a crouched position, as if she were praying to the looming transport.

Her arms continued to flutter, as if she were weakly motioning for the BART train to stop or float above her, somehow. And it wasn’t as if the trainmen didn’t try. The fact was, there were no trainmen to try. BART was fully automated, which didn’t help the girl one whit. The braking process was already in effect, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the process.

All eyes were on the horror-frozen girl as the train’s lights spread across her, outlining her in a white blaze before her form slipped between the glowing orbs a split second before they connected.

Her screams were cut off by the sickening, swatting crunch of the car smashing into her. Her classmates cried out in shock and horror as her broken body was hurled forward by the blow, only to tumble in front of the moving train once again, farther down the line.

Almost all of the bystanders turned their heads from the sight, but there was enough time for one man to see the once-pretty girl’s body collapse in a flattened, torn, bloody heap in front of the braking vehicle—her eyes still horribly open. He watched with a certain perverted satisfaction as the train then went on to hit her a second time.

This time its speed had been reduced enough so that she wasn’t catapulted forward, but dragged beneath the spinning wheels. The bottom of the head BART car slammed into her chest, bending her back at an unnatural angle, and then her form was beneath the bullet-shaped transport. The sight of her ultimate fate was cut off from her friends and the innocent bystanders.

All they heard was the sound. No amount of sobbing could cover the sound of her body being shredded by the spinning technology. It was a wet, cracking, tearing noise that sent several of her classmates reeling back, their half-digested lunches splattering on the clean, slick platform walls and floor.

Along the edge of the platform were several people who fainted from shock, others who couldn’t take their eyes off the blood-flecked base of the BART, and one who surveyed the scene with a warped enjoyment.

It had started off badly. He hadn’t meant to push the pretty blond girl at all. He had initially targeted a plain, mousey, brown-haired student who clutched her books and flute case to her chest as if they would have run away if she had loosened her grip. But, in the ever-undulating throng of chattering students, the girl had been jostled aside just as he moved in. His hand had pushed soundly into Murray’s back as he timed the train’s entrance perfectly.

It was definitely a mistake, but not one they couldn’t use to their advantage. At least, that’s the reasoning he’d use with his masters when he made his report. After all, his instructions had been to choose an uninteresting victim. But the prevailing order had been even more pressing. Another had to die today.

The man made his way to one of several Fulton Street exits just as one door on the stalled train slipped open and another man in a beaten leather coat and scuffed, brown jeans stepped out. He was a tall man, his face lined, and his brown hair swept back. He had been stretched out on one of the BART’s seats, his long legs protruding into the aisle, his arms crossed over his chest, and his eyes closed.

When the tall man heard the computerized train grinding the innocent girl beneath its unfeeling wheels, he had reacted as if he had been shaken out of a fitful sleep, as if he had been expecting something like this all along.

But that wasn’t because, like the first man, he had some hand in the murder. It was because he was familiar with tragedy, horror, and death. He had long ago come to accept the fact that he was a natural magnet for trouble. When he was stirred from his rest by the sodden thumping beneath the car, he merely opened his eyes, struggled to a full sitting position, leaned forward, and said succinctly, “Shit.”

He got up, made his way across the carpeted floor to the panel beside the sliding door, opened it with a quarter from his pocket, and pulled the lever. One of the two connecting doors opened a crack, allowing him to slip his fingers in and push the obstruction aside.

What he couldn’t see completely through the car’s tinted windows was all too clear to him now. He started to move toward the front of the train when a transportation official cut him off.

“Stay on the train, please,” the official said hurriedly, not looking the man in the eye. “Please remain seated on the train.” The transport man put his hand on the tall man’s chest, feeling the greasy consistency of his jacket and the strength of the chest beyond. Then the official noticed that no matter how hard he pushed, the man didn’t budge.

Looking up, the official saw an open billfold. On one side was a badge numbered 2211. On the other was an ID labeling the pushee as Inspector 71 of the San Francisco Homicide Department: Harry Callahan.

After Dirty Harry had moved purposefully through the throng to where the stationmaster kneeled, and had seen what looked like a cut-rate dissection, his laconic expression hardened into stony determination that bordered on hate.