Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men

by Dane Hartman

  Desperately, he scanned the floor for his Magnum. It was nowhere in sight. He looked for someone to help him. All the children were scattered around the floor, watching in horror. He hoped the campus security forces would arrive in time, but he didn’t count on it.

  “The girl,” he heard himself say to the knife woman in a hoarse whisper. “Suni. Where is she?”

  The knife woman smiled even wider. “You’ll never know,” she swore.

  Harry charged her. But his body would not respond properly. His legs wouldn’t go where he told them to, and they buckled at the knees with his first awkward steps. Nearly blind now and desperate, his arms flailed out for protection. He swerved to the side and slammed against the information desk counter.

  His hands grabbed the lip to keep him upright. It was important to him not to die on his knees or on his face. All thoughts of possible defense were gone. He couldn’t think straight. He didn’t even look as the woman slowly, triumphantly, approached him, her knife raised.

  Harry held on for dear life, blinking, and as he blinked, his fading vision began to clear somewhat. He saw a fleshy form on the other side of the desk. He saw that figure moving in a jerky, intense fashion.

  He stopped blinking and tried to focus his eyes. Dimly he saw the outline of a little girl take shape. It was the same little girl the information woman had used as a shield. The child who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, had a look of purpose on the angry little face above her neck, which was still dripping a little blood. Below her neck were her thrusting hands. She was beneath the desk lip, out of the attacking woman’s vision, pushing something big and unwieldy at Harry. It was his .44 Magnum.

  The Seppuku Sword woman stopped just behind Harry’s bent back. Her hand was high above her head, holding the knife in an almost ceremonial, sacrificial fashion. She looked at Harry’s helpless form with a savage satisfaction, then opened her mouth to scream and plunge the knife downward.

  She managed to get out the scream, but the knife stayed where it was. At the last second, Callahan whirled around, the huge revolver held close to his chest, the barrel pointing right between the woman’s eyes.

  Her yell of triumph switched to one of surprise and horror. It masked the sound of Harry pulling the trigger back once. The last thing the woman saw was the barrel of the .44 growing huge, like a broiling black sun spreading out to engulf the entire sky.

  Only Harry saw the flash in the middle of her head and her face suddenly turn into a mockery of symmetry. It looked like a realistic portrait suddenly hit with a can of red and gray paint. The colors splashed out from the head, ripping off hunks of flesh and bone as they spread. Finally there seemed to be a hole in the portrait, which had suddenly seemed to jump far, far away to leave a smoking, dripping gap, as if the canvas had been doused with corrosive acid.

  Harry felt pools of liquid and drops of tissue on his own face. He imagined it looked like a piece of modern art and found that very, very funny. He fell to the floor, laughing. He laughed until he couldn’t do anything anymore.

  C H A P T E R

  S e v e n

  God winked at Harry Callahan. This was done by disrupting his unconsciousness with clear glimpses of what was happening to him. At first he heard crying and felt himself being lifted. He heard a clear voice say, “Take his gun, take his gun.”

  His head fell to the side, and he thought he opened his eyes immediately, but he saw he was in an ambulance along with the little girl who had saved him. She was sitting next to his stretcher while faceless men—their backs to Harry—tended to her cut neck. There were tears on her cheeks, but she smiled bravely at him.

  He tried to smile back, but his facial muscles were having none of it. The darkness descended again, accompanied by more crying, coughing, sneezing, grunting, and the general hubbub of activity. The one clear voice he heard this time said, “You can’t bring him in here. We don’t have the facilities. Its too crowded already.”

  He felt himself being lifted again. This time when he opened his eyes, the little girl was gone, and he could see Lake Michigan sweeping past the window. He felt a hand on his wrist. “His signals are strong,” said a voice. “Who do you know who might be able to treat this kind of thing?”

  Callahan was strangely upset at the answer. All the other voice said in reply was, “I know just where we’ll be able to bring him,” but the enunciation of the sentence’s “Ts” and “r’s” were slurred.

  Callahan didn’t know why that upset his sleep as much as it did until he felt himself being unloaded again. This time his head was looking up when his eyes opened. Three concerned faces looked down at him, each face attached to a body which poked and probed at him as they pushed him down the medicinal-smelling white hall. Each face was Oriental.

  Harry tried to speak, but no words emerged. His lips wouldn’t even part. He saw the ceiling change from a white one with fluorescent lights to a dull gray one with a trapdoor. He had been pushed into an elevator. The three men stood near his head and shoulders as he felt himself going down. Figuring that there was nothing he could do, Harry closed his eyes and let whatever was going to happen, happen.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw Suni clearly. Her face was peaceful, but covered in sweat. Her lips were slightly parted, but her eyes were closed. Her nostrils flared occasionally, and the thin strands of dark hair across her face rippled with each exhalation. Harry didn’t know how long he was looking at her before he realized his eyes were open and the vision was real.

  With abrupt, painful clarity, the world returned. His head jerked up, causing a throbbing pain to course up his neck and engulf his brain. He lowered his head again, his teeth clenched.

  “That’s right,” said a calming voice. “Take it easy. The full effect of the drug will not wear off for many minutes yet.”

  Harry turned away from Suni’s face toward the sound of the voice. He saw a large, unlit lamp above him, then his vision drifted down to settle on the face of a gray-haired man with a mustache. He looked like a vice-principal at a Japanese high school. He was wearing a shirt and tie, but with a white lab coat over them.

  Harry licked his lips. “Who are you?” he croaked.

  The man shrugged. “No harm in you knowing, I suppose,” he mused. “I am Dr. Izo Gosha.”

  Harry closed his eyes and smiled painfully, trying mentally to push the drug’s residue from his muscles. “The head of the Seppuku Swords, I presume,” Harry grunted.

  “Merely their American representative,” the man said humbly, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Please. Do not resist. The effects will diminish of their own accord.”

  Harry relaxed, feeling a sheen of sweat across his face. “What did you inject me with?” he slowly inquired.

  “No injection,” said Gosha. “The blades were covered with a paralytic agent. One nick and you should have become dazed and then unconscious, giving much the same impression as a fainting spell. You were much stronger than we supposed, however.”

  Harry snorted. “Why not just put poison on the knives and get it over with? Why not just shoot me down?”

  “Oh, no,” the doctor said. “We couldn’t attack with guns. There were too many outsiders about.”

  Harry laughed. “Come on, Doc,” he said derisively. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Oh, no,” Gosha repeated reasonably. “The Seppuku Swords are based on a system of honor. We detest the use of unnecessary violence.”

  Harry’s laughter was cut short by the memory of the two dead Chinese at the wax museum and the woman at the institute holding the knife at the little girl’s throat. “You sure have a funny way of living up to it,” Harry said.

  The doctor leaned in to Harry’s metal operating table on wheels. “Our soldiers are young and eager to prove themselves.”

  “Your soldiers are bloodthirsty and eager for thrills,” Harry corrected him.

  Gosha seemed to consider this for a second. “They can be difficult to control in
the field,” he said, as a compromise. “They will do anything necessary to succeed in their missions,” he then added in defense.

  “Like raping and choking an innocent girl?” Harry suggested lightly, his eyes still closed, his nose aimed at the ceiling.

  “Sexual assault breeds fear in the enemy’s ranks,” Gosha announced. Harry opened his eyes, looked at the doctor and then pointedly looked at Suni. “Oh, no,” said Gosha a third time. “The other was Chinese.”

  “That makes it all right, then?” Harry asked. “I can think of easier ways to die.”

  “Your death will not be easy, Inspector Callahan,” another, stronger voice from behind Harry suddenly said. He shifted his head back to see an upside-down version of a muscular young man in the doorway of the wide room. “The girl in the wax museum was Chinese,” the young man repeated with intensity. “So she was not innocent. She was lovers with the Thunderfist. This was a double condemnation. She deserved to die.”

  As he spoke, the man swaggered over to the operating table. Harry’s eyes followed his approach. Once the man had finished his declaration, Harry raised his head to drink in his facial characteristics. “Do we know each other?” he asked lightly.

  “We met,” the man smugly replied. “On the stairs of your apartment building.”

  Harry immediately tried to leap up and wrap his hands around the man’s neck. Only then did he realize he was strapped to the metal table by the wrists, waist and ankles.

  The young man laughed. “You were falling in chop suey at the time, as I recall,” he said sarcastically. “Hardly what I would call a formal introduction.” The young Japanese stood up straight. “So allow me to introduce myself. I am Goh Nakadai, the Seppuku Sword’s first Field Lieutenant.”

  Harry groaned elaborately. “Doesn’t anyone around here have a name like Tom or Bob?” he asked sarcastically.

  “My brother’s name was Larry,” Nakadai said quietly. “You shot him in the back on the street in front of the apartments.” Harry looked into the young man’s eyes. They were burning with a hate that spanned the history of the Nakadai family tree. Lieutenant Bressler had been right; hell hath no fury like a Oriental gang member “shamed.”

  Dr. Gosha put a hand on the young man’s arm. “Goh. There is no time for that. The man is captured and harmless. The girl is still in our possession. We must prepare for the meeting. Inagaki’s treachery knows no bounds. We must be ready for any eventuality. Please, continue instructing the others.”

  Reluctantly, Nakadai looked away from Harry’s face, then abruptly left the room. Gosha looked sympathetically at the tall, bound cop. “You have killed a member of his clan,” the doctor sighed. “He is honor bound to kill you in return. I am afraid that once the summit meeting occurs, there is nothing I can do to help you, no matter what the outcome.”

  Callahan grimaced, trying the strength of the straps that binded him. “That’s all right, Doctor,” Harry said, letting a touch of sarcasm remain in his voice. “You’ve done quite enough already.”

  But Gosha felt duty bound to plead his case. He leaped up from his chair, producing a scalpel from his pocket. He held it close to Callahan’s chin. “You do not understand my situation,” he seethed. “I could have had you killed just as easily as I could plunge this blade into you now. But I did not.” That didn’t stop him from keeping the scalpel poised over Harry’s face, however. “Instead I had you brought here, away from innocent Chicago citizens, to be with the woman you so desperately sought.

  “It is important that you understand, Inspector. The situation is far graver than you could ever imagine. If the Kozure Ronin succeed in their attempt to take over the entire Nihonmachi underworld, seas of innocent blood will be spilled. Inagaki cares not for the old ways. He is only interested in power. The Seppuku Swords must be in charge. We will bring honor and control to the organization. Inagaki promises only death and terror!”

  Harry waited until the doctor had calmed somewhat. He stopped his ranting abruptly, swallowed and blinked several times. He looked at the scalpel in his hand as if it were an alien artifact, then slipped it back into his coat pocket. He sat back down heavily on the folding chair next to the operating table.

  “I’ll tell you the truth,” Harry said, once the doctor’s diatribe had ended. “I don’t give a shit about Inagaki, the Nihonmachi underworld, or the street gangs. All I care about is the girl.”

  “Then that is too bad,” said the doctor sadly. “Because she is the focal point of the entire fight. Whoever has her will be the determining factor in the war. If we keep her, Inagaki is powerless to go against us. But if he has her, there will be nothing to keep him from calling his entire army down on us. There will be many deaths, and not all of them Japanese and Chinamen.”

  Harry turned his head to look into Suni’s sleeping face. “Drugged?” he asked.

  “Yes,” the doctor replied. “On and off for three days. Once every twenty-four hours she is awakened for the intake of nourishment and the output of excrement.” Leave it to a doctor to find the “civilized” equivalent for saying “eating and shitting.”

  “She’ll have to die no matter what happens,” Harry said suddenly.

  Gosha started at the notion. “How can you know that?” he wondered.

  Harry turned his head to look at the man. “Even if Inagaki backs down this time, there’ll be no holding him back once you release her. You have no choice but to hold on to her as long as possible. But somewhere along the line, she is going to die.” Harry looked back at the sweating face of the girl. “She’s as good as dead already.”

  “It is true,” the cop heard from behind him. “We can only hope to build our strength in the interim, so Inagaki cannot defeat us once her captivity is ended.”

  Harry turned a final time toward Gosha. “This is your idea of justice, isn’t it?” he seethed. “Let the condemned share their final moments together.” He said it as if spitting.

  Gosha’s expression of sympathy and concern turned to a hard, disapproving frown. “Appreciate it,” he warned. “It is all you have left.”

  With that, the little man got up and walked to a rolling table at the end of Harry’s platform. He prepared an injection and returned to the cop’s side.

  “The meeting is not far-off,” the Japanese said. “There is much to do. I suggest you examine your feelings and value your remaining moments. Prepare yourself for the inevitable conclusion.”

  Gosha pulled back Harry’s sleeve and jabbed the needle into his vein. Callahan felt an immediate rush of dizziness. “You can’t keep us here forever,” he said groggily, trying to stay awake.

  “No one will find you,” he heard Gosha say from a great distance. “Japanese interns took you as soon as you were admitted to the hospital. You were not even registered. No one knows you or the girl exist.”

  The last word echoed off into a deep pool. Floating in this dark pool was a windowless van. As Harry got closer to the inky pit of liquid, the vehicle’s side doors opened and a Chinaman scrambled out, his head completely engulfed in flame. The Chinese dove into the liquid, his burning head sending up a torrent of steam. The steam cloud cleared to reveal a cat with its stomach slit open. Even though its guts trailed behind it, the cat was still alive. It howled and fell into the liquid after the Chinaman. Harry’s point of view changed until he was right over the dark, deep pool. Then it exploded in his face.

  Callahan’s eyelids snapped open, and he shook his head to clear the liquid from his face. He gasped for breath, hearing the raucous laughter of many men. When his vision cleared he could see Goh Nakadai standing beside him, a dripping bedpan in his hand.

  “Rise and shine, Inspector Callahan,” the man called derisively. “Time to get up.”

  Harry screwed his eyes shut and snapped them open again, trying to clear his face of the sleeping grit and the urine Goh had thrown. The urine had combined with his own drug-induced sweat to create an awful stink. His nightmare had also been drug-induced, but that
didn’t help Harry to shake off its effects. It was the first dream he’d had in years.

  Spitting some of the noxious liquid from his mouth, the cop managed to croak, “The meeting . . . ?”

  “Not over yet,” Goh answered. “Not even started. But Dr. Gosha isn’t here now. I’m not waiting for the outcome of the summit to make sure you get what’s coming to you.”

  Harry raised his head. Suni was still asleep on the other metal table, but between them at least eight other young Japanese stood. Beside Nakadai was one man with his left arm in a sling. By his size and the expression on his face, Harry guessed that this was the Uzi user he had wounded in San Francisco. Although the wounded man and Nakadai were without weapons, the other seven people were armed with the best terrorist weapons blood money could buy.

  “Unstrap him,” Nakadai instructed, moving back so the seven hirelings could do his bidding. One man undid the buckles at his wrists, another undid the table’s belt, and a third released his ankles. Harry saw he was still without shoes. He moved his limbs to return the proper circulation as well as to check his shoulder holster. His arm rubbed an empty pocket of leather. The .44 Magnum was probably with the shoes.

  “Get up,” Nakadai ordered with disgust. Harry saw no reason to belie the image of a stiff, groggy, submissive captive, so he struggled off the table and dropped to the floor in a crouch. Nakadai kicked him in the side.

  “Stand,” he demanded. Callahan slowly stretched, but not quite to his full height. He kept his shoulders hunched and his arms bent at his side. From that position he could finally get a clear look at where he and Suni were secreted.

  It was a deserted, out-of-service, out-of-use operating room. He stood in its center, next to one of two metal operating tables. Suni was strapped down to the other. Beside her was a rolling table of drugs and syringes. There were several stands for transfusion sacks as well as a dusty but complete oxygen setup. The unlit lamp above his table was attached to a stand. And across the room, along one wall, nine feet off the ground, was a clear section of glass which revealed a theaterlike setup. In the old days, other doctors had watched the presiding surgeon at work.