Dirty Harry 09 - The Killing Connection (11 page)

The woman in the middle of the SAFE guards had stepped forward and let Harry have it as hard as she could. He doubled over, his arms wrapped around his waist. The girl moved in to kick him in the balls.

The boot came up unerringly between Harry’s legs. He watched it coming, his head down in a “oh man, I’m hurt” stance. But at the last second, he let his hands drop from his stomach and cup around the girl’s ankle. She was forced to move forward to keep her balance, pulling her almost right on top of Callahan.

Then he straightened up like a wrecking ball. The top of his head cracked into her jaw; the sound sharp enough to send a jolt through all present. After her initial strike, they thought they were going to have easy pickings.

Harry took advantage of their surprise by following the falling girl. He practically pushed the woman into the other guards behind her, clearing a space for him to break through deeper in the store. They moved away from the cop as if he were a leper and charged the front door as if the place was on fire.

Callahan didn’t mind. Their panic kept the four guards at the door pinned, making it a lot easier for him to move. The non-militant SAFE members backed away to the walls and then ran forward, leaving the back of the room to the caps, berets, and Harry. As he ran past them toward the back wall, his eyes searched for a possible escape route.

There had to be one, because as quickly as he scanned, he noted that Steele was no longer in sight either. He had probably gone the way Kim and her friend exited because they too did not leave by the front entrance. Harry hurled tables behind him, scattering the chairs as they fell. The store became an obstacle course. As he ran out of room, two of his pursuers, one man and one woman, got their legs caught in the rolling furniture. They both went down.

There were two doors on the rear wall—one to the right in the corner and one to the left near a white-washed window.

Harry chose the left door. He reasoned that behind the window—opaque or not—there was most likely a way out of the building. Grabbing the almost empty metal tray of donuts as he pivoted sharply to the left, he swung it viciously behind him, catching a male pursuer in the neck. He choked, reddened, and went down, the tray flipping over his falling head.

Having cleared the way, Harry raced to the left-hand door, seeing that it opened outward. Not worrying about a lock or taking the time to turn the knob, he bellowed and sent himself through the air. He smashed lengthwise into the door with all his power, ripping the rotting thing out of the doorjamb and practically pulling its pins out of the wall.

The door swung back, Callahan flew through, and smashed in a standing position against the back wall of a tiny bathroom.

“Kim,” Steele breathed into her ear as the two were running. “Kim, please. Slow down.”

But the girl was too excited, too thrilled at the way things were turning out. She flew in front of both Steele and her female companion, leading them down one alley after another.

It was an incredible stroke of luck that the reporter had been there to identify Callahan. It saved her the trouble of siccing the SAFE guards on him in the alley just outside the right back door—the same door through which she had hustled Steele.

Now, hopefully, the brawny guards would beat him to death. But whether he was killed or just severely mauled didn’t matter to her. She was safe either way. But to make the plan complete, there was one other loose end to cover.

She kept running, concentrating on her plan, until Steele, nervous and tired, began to stumble.

“Kim,” the redhead called, taking the SAFE leader’s arm. “We’re losing him.”

Only then did the girl slow, reaching into her pocket.

“Come on, Michael,” she admonished, taking some white powder in a little baggie out of her pocket. “You can do it. Just need a little more fuel, that’s all.” She stuck the open top of the plastic holder under his nose, and he inhaled. Seconds later, they were running again.

“Jesus, Kim,” the redhead complained, still at Steele’s side. “Now I need to rest. I’ve got to stop.”

“You’ll rest soon enough,” Byrnes promised. She led them right around a corner where the maze of alleys finally emptied into a dark back street. Blocking their way was a lone police car.

“Oh my God,” Steele moaned.

“Take it easy, Michael,” Kim soothed. “Here,” she said, handing him the bag of drugs. “Take this and run.”

“But I can’t take this!” he wailed. “What if they catch me?”

“They won’t catch you,” Byrnes vowed. “Just get some of your boys together and go to the hideout. We’ll meet you there later.”

“But Kim . . . ,” the SAFE leader whined, glancing with trepidation at the patrol car.

“Don’t worry,” she demanded. “We’ll delay the cops. You just get going. Hurry!”

Steele raced off in a panic, his strength and fiery leadership in the bag of powder he clasped in his sweaty hand.

“I swear,” the redhead said, looking at him go. “He’s nothing without you, is he?”

“Never mind that now,” the other female said. “Let’s just keep this pig from following him.”

“You lead the way,” the redhead said. “He’ll be more interested in you anyway.”

“No, no,” Kim disagreed. “You do the talking. I’ll just stay in the back, looking available.

The redhead giggled. “Good idea. I’ll give him the old ‘who, us?’ routine.”

Kim nodded and they both started moving forward.

As they approached, the redhead could see the silhouette of a man behind the driver’s seat in the light from the street beyond. As they got closer, he slowly opened the door and stepped out. He came to the front of the car as they got close enough to see him. He was fairly young looking—with brown hair and a mustache.

“Hello, officer,” the redhead said, coming close.

“What are you two doing out here so late at night?” the cop asked, his voice flat.

“Who us?” the redhead asked. Kim came up behind her companion and hit her as hard as she could on the top of the head with a piece of asphalt.

There was a sharp, wet thunk that filled the alley followed by the soft thud of the redhead collapsing to the ground. Byrnes fell on her knees beside the body and continued slamming the rock into the girl’s skull.

“Damn dike,” she hissed as the jagged piece of black stone rose and fell in her hands, its surface oozing a liquid red. “Motherfucking lesbo. I’ll show you. I’ll teach you a thing or two.”

“Come on,” shouted the man. “We don’t have time for this. Where are the others?”

But Byrnes continued oblivious. The force of her blows was so strong that the asphalt chunk was beginning to turn to powder in her hands. She reared up, with a maddened look in her eyes, and searched the alley until she found a section of board. She smashed that into the girl until, in her fury, she broke it against the ground.

“That’s enough,” the cop said, grabbing her arms. “We can’t take the chance of being seen.”

“What’s the matter?” Byrnes spat back, breathing heavily. “Pissed you can’t rape her like all the others?”

“She’s part of the plan, remember?” he answered sarcastically. “We’ve got to get her into place before the rest of the force shows up.”

“Don’t worry,” Byrnes said, moving back from the corpse. “I know just where we can put her where it’s guaranteed she’ll be found by morning.”

C H A P T E R
E i g h t

S
o much for logic. Harry had been expecting to hit the far wall of an alley, but the toilet wall brought him up short. He saw another window, too small for him to break through, perpendicular to the larger window on the outside wall. It was just his luck that the building was L-shaped and not just square.

Now he was standing, stunned, in a bathroom, while the raging remnants of the SAFE guards picked their way around fallen comrades, tables, chairs in an assault on the john. The first one there was one of the unluckiest. He was a swift Adonis type, who had a wide, teeth-gritted grin on his face, his hands held like claws at his side. His smile disappeared when Harry slammed the door in his face.

The old door, unable to handle any more stress, broke into hunks of splinters. Dust and wood splinters spread through the small antechamber like a cloud.

The door was only a temporary obstruction. After it broke, the dazed guard kept going, smashing into the rear wall. The cop didn’t wait for the blond’s eyes to clear. He gave him a straight arm shot in the jaw, sending the man’s head through the little window. His skull squeezed through and held him upright as Callahan concerned himself with other problems.

The second fleetest of foot was a woman. She was flat on the heels of her predecessor. He kicked her right under the kneecap. Her smug grin faltered slightly when she felt the sharp pain on her leg, but it returned when the wound didn’t stop her. She took another step in triumph, but the smirk vanished completely when the leg he had kicked collapsed under her weight.

She fell to her knees right in front of him. As he looked down at her, he noticed a mop standing in a bucket of rancid water squeezed between the toilet and the wall. He lifted both just as the remaining guards came at him with the coffee maker. Two men held the container by its handles and base. Then they hurled the hot stuff at Harry just as he threw the contents of the mop bucket at them.

Harry ducked as the liquids met in midair. The hot coffee meeting the cold water created an explosion of water and steam.

The combination of the two temperatures was enough to lessen the scalding as Harry used the diversion to duck and roll under the water, coming up against the back wall, darting toward the right door.

To his annoyance, there were more SAFE guards there, well out of the line of the liquid fire. There were a half dozen waiting, most of them rather burly. They were waiting for Harry to come to them, but he would have none of it. He immediately turned tail and ran back the way he had come.

Coming out of the john was the woman he had just kicked, looking upset. She held the end of the mop as if she meant business. Harry went right for her as she swung the long stick.

Ducking under the pole, he lifted her right off the ground so that she went through the left window back first, protecting him from most of the glass shards. They both tumbled into a dirty alley.

As he rolled to his feet, Harry grabbed the mop from the dazed girl’s hands. But just as he stood, one of the boys tried to leap out the shattered window after him. Harry pushed the mop head into the middle of his attacker’s chest and held on as if the sweeper was a battering ram.

The mop was strong enough to stop the jumper in midflight. With a sudden, abrupt push, Harry sent him back the way he came, just in time to collide with a second jumper who thought there’d be no obstruction. He heard them collapse on the store floor.

Harry ran left to the end of the alley and turned right. The adjoining alleyway went for some thirty yards before emptying onto the street, but its mouth was filled with more SAFE guards. They must have left the store by the front door to circle around the block in time to cut him off.

Harry glanced behind him. Mop aside, people were pouring through the broken window and coming after him. He was blocked. There was no place else to go but up.

The lowest section of the wall around him was less than eight feet high. Summoning all his strength, Harry jumped, his forearms wrapping around its top while his legs scraped for a toehold.

Callahan pulled viciously, almost forcing his body up by sheer will-power alone. He felt one hand grabbing his heel just as he was able to swing his torso up and roll across the top of the wall. His shoe came off.

He slithered off the wall and found himself lying on his back on the roof of a car. He was spread-eagled, his knees and elbows bent. He looked around to see that he was on one end of a small sea of cars. He had rolled into an elevated parking lot: the kind where piggyback machines held three cars in a bunk bed arrangement over the same spot.

It must have been an overnight parking lot since Harry could see no manager, and any car behind the first row at the street’s entrance would be impossible to get out on a moment’s notice.

Another athletic SAFE guard vaulted over the wall, fully expecting to land on the ground and give chase. He was very surprised when he landed on the slick, uneven purchase of a car seemingly hovering off the ground. He slipped across the highly polished roof of a Mercedes, his chin slamming against the metal, and dropped clumsily inbetween two rows of automobiles. Harry heard some sickening sounds of contact before the man hit the dirt.

As the guard was falling, Harry sat up to pull off his other shoe. He was just in time to throw it at another guard who stuck his head over the wall. The solid leather shoe hit the man in the face and bounced off. The man, whose head disappeared, left only the start of a nose bleed on the stone.

Then Callahan got up and leaped to the next car. He kept going until he reached the center of the darkened lot. He stopped on the car roof there, and turned to face his enemy.

The SAFE guards were spread out on almost all the roofs behind him, waiting like a chess set. The man standing in the lead was a curly-haired muscular man—one who had taken off his jacket and sweater to reveal a tank top and incredible rolling muscles.

“Don’t bother trying to run anymore,” he told Harry lightly. “The others are circling the block and will cut you off any second.”

Harry responded by jumping from the center car to one car behind it, away from the street.

“Don’t bother trying to get out the back way either,” he said. “As you can see, the buildings are blocking you, and we’ll reach you before you get five feet.”

Harry casually stepped from the roof of the Camaro he was on to its trunk, then across to a Volkswagon Rabbit’s hood and onto its roof. “What do you want?” he asked, his voice rough.

“The question is, what do you want, Inspector Callahan? Did you seriously think you could assassinate Steele and just walk away?”

“Of course not,” Harry said, moving warily toward the back of the yellow car. “I’m not out to assassinate anybody. I just want to capture the one who killed all those women.”