Dirty Harry 10 - The Blood of Strangers

by Dane Hartman

  Then they turned and by the time Harry reached the landing—and he didn’t want to risk quickening his pace—they were standing in front of a door that resembled all the other doors along the fourth floor corridor. It too could have done with another coat of paint.

  The bodyguard knocked. The door came open, cautiously at first, a man peeked out, then they were permitted to enter.

  Harry continued down the hallway till he stood in front of the door. He pressed his ear to it. He heard voices which he could not initially make out. He feared that the conversation might be conducted in Spanish, then recalled that the visitors would be no more likely to know Spanish than their hosts would Arabic. English was what they would probably speak and English it was. Unfortunately, as soon as the words were distinct enough to be understood, Harry was interrupted.

  A man in a windbreaker, his mouth invisible behind its upturned collar, was standing opposite Harry, separated by several yards of threadbare carpeting, with what looked like an automatic.

  Harry did not know exactly what this man expected, but he wasn’t inclined to stay where he was and find out. He threw himself to the floor a fraction of a second before a sizeable hole appeared in the door he’d just been standing in front of. There was more noise from the splintering of wood than from the detonation itself which led Harry to conclude that his assailant was using a silencer. Not that this knowledge would do him much good. He’d be just as dead if he was struck by a bullet that came soundlessly as by one that didn’t.

  The assailant, perhaps regretting his hesitancy in firing, came running down the hall. At the same time, the occupants of the room—undoubtedly disturbed by the shot that had torn a chunk of wood out of their door—appeared, a half dozen of them bristling with arms.

  “Que es esto?” someone called out.

  There was a response but Harry was not interested in it, being too preoccupied with the business of getting out of the Avila Hotel reasonably intact.

  With his attackers thrown into confusion, Harry enjoyed a temporary advantage. He exploited it as much as possible, rushing down a corridor that lay perpendicular to the one he’d just traversed. The only difficulty with this route was that it culminated in a dead end. There was a window there, with a sick pinkish light emanating from it, and nothing else.

  Harry kept low, zigzagging in expectation of the fire he would soon draw. And he did all right. The bullets sent a considerable amount of plaster cascading down around him, covering his head and shoulders, but failing to do him harm. There was no chance to return the fire; by the time he would have gotten his gun out, he would have been dead.

  This whole affair was producing an enormous din. The staccato of automatic fire in such confined circumstances was bad enough, but besides that, everyone was shouting and yelling with great fervency. There was no doubt that this racket would awaken even the soundest sleeper. Even in the best of times, voices carried through the walls and down the airshafts in this place.

  As Harry approached the window, he realized why there was so much pink light. It was coming from the neon sign that advertised the name of the hotel. He hoped there was something beyond the window to break his fall because there was simply no other alternative than to jump out of it. Fortunately, it was open, letting in the stifling summer night air.

  He didn’t think, he just hurtled himself through the narrow opening the frame of the window provided. The crackle of gunfire followed him.

  Anticipating a free, if rather awkward fall of four floors, Harry was gratified to find that he’d landed on a rusting fire escape. His acrobatics had exacted a price, straining ligaments that weren’t designed to be strained and leaving unseemingly bruises on his flesh that were accompanied by a sharp pain.

  But he could hardly pause to consider the extent of his injuries. Immediately, he was on his way down the fire escape, leaping from one step to the next, and as before, keeping low so as to give his enemies as small a target as possible. He registered the inquisitive, if slightly accusatory, looks he drew from many of the hotel’s residents who were at their windows seeing what all the commotion was about.

  There were now gunshots ringing painfully off the railings of the fire escape. The result was a kind of demented symphony—a succession of wild and improbably discordant notes.

  The loud metallic clatter of boots above signaled to Harry that he was being pursued, that these lunatics were not going to settle for just firing down on him from any fourth floor window.

  The fire escape did not reach the ground, there was a large gap—almost seven feet in height—separating one from the other. It wasn’t a jump that would break one’s neck, but it would surely break an ankle.

  Harry dropped down and discovered he was now in danger of being shot by another party. He realized Kayyim’s second bodyguard had been left sitting in the Seville.

  He was firing up at the fire escape as Harry was in flight down it. As yet he had achieved nothing from his efforts.

  Very quickly he adjusted his aim, taking account of Harry’s new position. Harry had only the darkness to protect him. Given the multitude of neon lights and fluorescent signs in the vicinity, that wasn’t a whole lot.

  Conscious of how exposed he was, he drew in close to the wall of the hotel, and dropped to the ground. Flush against the four stone steps that led to the hotel’s entrance, Harry levelled his Magnum at the bodyguard who was a shadowy form in the near-distance.

  The footsteps on the fire escape sounded much closer. The terrorists were still shouting unintelligibly and shooting though their bullets were coming nowhere near Harry. It might be that they kept shooting simply because it was a habit with them and made them feel they were actually accomplishing something.

  No sooner had he sighted his weapon, than the bodyguard disappeared. Harry couldn’t see where the hell he’d gone. All at once, though, Harry heard him cry out in Arabic. That was enough. He turned the Magnum in the direction of the voice and fired, thinking maybe he’d get lucky.

  He got lucky.

  There was a shriek of immense pain, followed within a second by the sight of a figure pitching backwards and collapsing into a heap on the sidewalk. Somewhere glass shattered with a stray bullet’s impact, and the sound resembled, almost exactly, the scream of the stricken bodyguard.

  At that moment, several rounds peppered the stone surface of the stairs close to Harry. It was all he needed to change his location. He broke into a run and flattened himself under Kayyim’s Seville. Kayyim’s Seville would never be the same. While it was composed of bullet-proof glass, the chassis itself was not armored and it began to register the impression of several rounds intended for the man lying sprawled underneath.

  Raising his eyes, Harry saw that there were still men on the fire escape, maybe three or four, it was hard to tell. Two others had leapt to the ground. In their arms were some formidable looking weapons, possibly Soviet-made AK47’s. In the partial dimness, it was impossible to say for certain.

  In the distance, Harry could hear sirens but whether that meant the police were on their way to the Avila or to some other emergency in this barrio—for there probably were emergencies in this area throughout every long hot summer night—Harry could not say. He could only hope.

  Three times he fired on the knot of men perched on the final rungs of the fire escape. One man, hit, catapulted off and came down head first. A second waited and jumped. The third, struck in the shoulder, toppled back but was caught on the railing and hung there. Blood and sinew dripped from the wound while he groaned with extraordinary pain before lapsing into unconsciousness.

  The sirens were growing louder and there could no longer be any doubt that the police were approaching. The firing abruptly ceased; the terrorists—those of them still alive—either rushed back into the hotel through the lobby or returned inside by way of the fire escape. In no time they were gone. Behind them they had left three dead men. Probably without I.D.’s.

  Not only would Harry have great difficu
lty in explaining his presence here at the Avila Hotel to his counterparts on the LAPD, but he was risking his cover as well. He decided to disappear like his opponents. There was no problem losing himself in the crowd that was gathering in the street to survey the battleground that was now free of gunfire.

  Without attracting any attention, Harry got into his car and negotiated it out into the heavy traffic. He guessed that in much the same manner, Kayyim would conveniently vanish from the scene. With his kind of money, he would not want to suffer the indignity of explaining to the police what he was doing at the Avila either.

  C H A P T E R

  F i v e

  It was much too bright, and certainly much too early, when the wake-up call came. Harry shook his head groggily as consciousness returned, and he recalled the events of the previous night at the Avila Hotel. It had been worth the trouble. He had proven, to his own satisfaction at any rate, that Kayyim was definitely linked—perhaps as a paymaster—to terrorists in this country. What kind of terrorists exactly, whether they represented the Alpha Group or a Puerto Rican liberation organization or some other political faction, remained a mystery. All he could say for sure was that they had no hesitation about resorting to arms at even the slightest provocation.

  He was vaguely apprehensive when he appeared before Kayyim half an hour after waking. But there was nothing about Kayyim’s behavior to indicate he held any suspicions regarding Harry. In all the confusion last night, it was unlikely that anyone had gotten a good look at him or had associated him with the man who guarded the Libyan by day.

  However, there was no way for him to ignore the fact that this morning he had only one personal bodyguard. “I am afraid he is indisposed,” said Kayyim to account for the missing man.

  Connelly, who’d come down from San Francisco to handle Kayyim’s visit, assured him that additional men would be provided to make up for his absence.

  Turning to Harry, Connelly said, “Stay close to him. I want you up there on the podium with him.” He even went so far as to introduce Harry to Kayyim, using his alias.

  “Mr. Turner, I am so pleased,” Kayyim said, reaching out his hand. There was no hint of insincerity that Harry could detect in his voice.

  Because of security considerations, demonstrators protesting Kayyim’s donation to the state university system were shuttled aside and kept behind a police barrier. There they paraded with signs denouncing Qaddafi and the rectors who had agreed to the establishment of an Arab-American chair.

  In the middle of the campus green, a special stage had been erected the day before. Several hundred folding chairs were set out in front of it. City and campus policemen were everywhere but the dominant sound was the babble coming out of walkie-talkies.

  Way to the rear, there was an area measuring no more than twelve feet across for the press. It was there that Ellie Winston was directed, with a free-lance camera crew hired only a couple of hours previously. Her boss hadn’t been particularly happy to hear what she’d done, but on the other hand, he conceded that she might be on to something, and in any case, Kayyim was news, no matter what else happened with Harry Callahan and his ongoing investigation.

  At quarter to ten the scrupulously chosen audience, consisting mainly of city officials, trustees, and professors, filed onto the campus. With a minimum of confusion they took their seats and waited. And waited.

  Not until the security people had completed one final tour of the area were Kayyim and his hosts permitted to mount the podium.

  There were almost as many plainclothesmen on the podium as dignitaries. For this occasion, Kayyim chose to wear traditional dress: a keffiyah over his head and a long white flowing robe. There was no question he had a flair for the theatrical.

  Once the dignitaries had all seated themselves, the Provost rose to address the carefully screened audience. His remarks were practically inaudible until a technician adjusted the microphone. Even then, he had some difficulty because of the uproar the demonstrators were making at the other end of the campus.

  The idea, as Harry understood it, was to make this quick. Get on and off, so that there would be little opportunity for any embarrassing incident to occur. It was only because Kayyim had insisted on public ceremony as one of the criteria for the gift that this affair had been arranged at all. That Kayyim wanted it outdoors was regarded as an unwarranted intrusion into university business. But five million dollars was five million dollars.

  Having said his piece, the Provost gestured to Kayyim. In response, there was a flurry of polite applause.

  All this while Harry was scanning the crowd. His eyes were practiced at observing any suspicious movements though to anyone else they might appear perfectly innocent. There is a difference between the man reaching in his jacket for a gun and the man reaching in his jacket for a cigarette lighter, but that difference can often be subtle.

  Kayyim had not been speaking for longer than five minutes when Harry noticed a man of about thirty-five sitting six rows from the podium. He was nondescript, with a face devoid of all expression. He was dressed in a white sportscoat and had the air of a somewhat overworked Ph.D. candidate. He was fidgeting and nervously knitting his fingers together—though it might have been because he was bored wth the proceedings, which was certainly understandable, or it could be because of the hot sun bearing down on him. Nonetheless, Harry began to watch him closely. There was something he didn’t like about the man’s eyes, the concentrated manner in which he gazed at Kayyim. To Harry, he seemed like a man on the verge of committing an act of great finality, and his squirming was nothing more than a manifestation of his nervousness.

  Now Harry listened more attentively to what Kayyim was saying. He was approaching the conclusion of his speech, and if that were the case, either the man would have to make his move or forget about it. That is, if Harry was right in assuming the man actually was preparing to do something dangerous.

  Kayyim came to the end of his address for there was another scattering of applause that gradually built in intensity. Kayyim nodded in acknowledgement and turned away from the podium to reclaim his seat.

  Harry kept his eyes on the man in the white sports coat. He was not applauding. One hand had slipped under his coat. Harry leaned forward, hoping to get a better look. But a man just in front of his suspect had abruptly risen from his chair, blocking Harry’s view.

  Then he caught sight of him again. He was fully erect, his arm extended. The sun caught a metal object in his hand and glinted off it. Harry wasted no time. He sprang from his seat and tackled Kayyim, throwing him to the stage, just as there was a muffled pop that was all but drowned out by the collective gasps from members of the audience. They might have thought Harry was the assailant.

  It was only due to Harry’s action that Kayyim was not struck. But one of the university officials, occupying a position on the podium, was not so fortunate. Having just risen to shake Kayyim’s hand, he’d placed himself directly in the path of a .38 shell that entered his chest, half an inch or so below his solar plexus.

  A surprised, somewhat dazed, expression came over his face as he lowered his eyes to inspect the wound. There was very little blood at first. It took several moments before the enormity of the damage inflicted on his vitals registered with the man. He rocked back and forth and then slowly sank back into his chair, his hands clasped together on his chest. He turned to speak to the man sitting next to him, to tell him that he had been shot, but there was so much confusion that there was no one there to listen. “I think I need to lie down,” he mumbled. Those were his last words.

  The would-be assassin, realizing that he had missed his target, managed to maneuver his way out to the aisle. Because no one was aware of what was happening, there was no one to stop him. There was a sense that something had gone gravely wrong, however, and dozens of policemen raced toward the stage, brandishing their weapons.

  The assailant seemed to understand that there was no point in lingering, that there would not be a second o
pportunity to kill the Libyan minister. People were thronging into the aisles, and so when he attempted to run, he found his progress impeded. He struggled against the human tide, ignoring the protests of those that he almost knocked over in his frantic attempt to escape.

  Naturally, the representatives of the media were falling over themselves in an effort to capture the incident on film. They spontaneously broke out of the confined area to which they’d been limited. It should have surprised no one to find that Ellie Winston was among the first to get to the campus proper with her cameramen.

  “Are you getting all this?” she kept asking, fearful that they would succeed only in documenting a panicky crowd and miss the assailant.

  But there was no danger of that. They were capturing the man on videotape in sharp focus. And how could they not? He was coming right toward them.

  After several seconds had elapsed without any additional shots, Harry realized that Kayyim was safe—for the time being, at any rate—and he picked himself up. Then, before Kayyim could utter a word, he hurled himself off the stage. Rather than try advancing through the crowd, he chose to leap from one abandoned folding chair to the next.

  Spotting the man, or more precisely, his white sports coat, Harry increased his speed. At the same time, he freed his gun and when he brought it into view, those people closest to him cowered and started running in the opposite direction.

  The assailant—in spite of his desperate circumstances—was apparently not so preoccupied that he didn’t notice the cameras that were recording his every move. Even if he should manage to escape, his face would be known to millions of people around the country come the evening news. He had not taken this into account in his calculations.

  It might not be possible to prevent his image from being broadcast, but he obviously thought that he would do something to exact a price for it. Not having put his .38 away, he had only to aim and fire it now, and in this instance, he showed none of the hesitation that had sabotaged his attempt on Kayyim’s life.