Dirty Harry 03 - The Long Death (22 page)

“Just three,” the woman confessed. “A natural blond, a liberated black, and the policewoman.” The woman frowned. “The blond and your friend make up the bulk of the package. Negroes are not in great demand in the Middle East. But we can probably unload her in Japan or China.”

The woman sighed and set her footing, waving the axe from side to side. “But I could talk to you all night, Inspector,” she said. “It’s so rare that I actually get to talk about all this. You know how it is. After a hard day at work, your loved ones don’t want to talk shop.”

And after that, the woman raced in, swinging the axe with an athletic grace. Callahan wasn’t used to the awkward weapons, and his hands were stiff after the tense action of the last few hours. He successfully blocked the new attack, but he couldn’t get under her offense.

She whirled like a dervish, slamming the axe blade against the double-pointed hook with increasing force. She kept moving forward, flailing the axe in dazzling geometric patterns. Harry couldn’t get away from it. She pushed him back up against the wall, then ran backward, laughing.

“Come on,” she urged him forward. “Come on, Inspector. Don’t let a woman beat you. Come on.”

Harry looked across the room at his gun. It was way beyond reach. He looked at the littered floor of the dungeon. He saw the iron mask she had knocked open with one swipe of her arm. He saw the shadows of something inside. Harry looked at the hook in his hands. He saw his hands were vibrating. The strain of the fight was becoming too much. He dropped the hook and walked purposely forward.

The woman looked at him approaching empty-handed for a moment with disbelief, then she swung back the axe blade with a delighted look on her face. “Don’t think I won’t,” she warned.

Harry kept coming.

She grinned with all her teeth showing and lunged forward, the axe already slicing through the air.

Harry simply dropped beneath the blade, scooped up the iron mask, rose up behind her swinging arms, and slammed it on her face.

The shadows inside the mask had been those of spikes that pointed inward throughout the device.

The woman’s scream was real this time and horrible as the spikes drove through her lower lip, both cheeks, an eye and her forehead. She tried to swing the axe back, but Harry was too close to her. He blocked the free movement of her arms. Grimacing, he grabbed the back of her head and pushed with both arms. The mask sunk in farther.

Blood spurted out the mask’s macabre eye holes and breathing slits. For a second, it looked like the metal face was crying crimson tears. Harry kept pushing until the woman was bent over backward on the chopping block.

Harry reached down to the other side of the mask, the back of the head portion. As he grabbed its edge, he felt some spikes on that side too. His lips curled up from his teeth like a wolf in blood frenzy. He slammed the mask completely shut. The woman’s body jerked on top of the chopping block. She fell over to the floor, the mask slipping out of Harry’s hands and partially loosening from her head.

Harry retrieved the padlock he had shot off the woman’s initial bonds. He saw that the bottom lock section was ruined, but the top clasp was still intact. He reached down dispassionately and slipped it through the two circles on the outside of the mask. He then jammed it in place.

And still the woman wasn’t dead. She squirmed around the floor on her back like a spider with half its legs cut off. Or a worm cut in two.

Harry picked up his gun. It felt solid in his hand. The weight was what was needed. The shakiness subsided and disappeared. Harry walked up the steps slowly, ignoring the naked woman with the steel head and the mane of liquid red.

Harry retraced his steps, picking up one of the G3 assault rifles as he went. Most of the candles had died so he was cautious but not unduly so. He made it out the back door and trotted to the side of the house facing Raccoon Strait.

Sure enough, down the hill, there in the moonlight, was a dock. On the dock were three boxes. Harry moved down warily, waiting for any sudden move any leftover guards might make. Nothing happened; he arrived at the port of call without incident. He put the gun in its holster and ripped the first box open with his bare hands.

Inside was a striking blond girl with her arms wrapped around her waist, each hand in a thumbless leather mitten that tightened around her wrists and was attached to the other hand by an unbreakable wire behind her back. Her legs were bent by a strap that attached each ankle to the very top of each of her thighs. The bottom of her face was completely covered by a roll of Ace bandages.

Harry moved to the second box. Inside was Rose Ray. She was lying on her side, her arms held behind her by a single glove that laced all the way up to her shoulders. Her legs were encased similarly in a single black boot. Her mouth was covered with wide strips of silver tape that reached up to the bridge of her nose and then underneath her chin for mooring.

The third box held McConnell. Her wrists were tied to her thighs. Her ankles were tied to each side of the box. Her head was completely covered by a black hood that tightened around her neck. Harry pulled that off. He pulled off the strap over her eyes. He pulled off the cotton balls stuck to her eyelids. He undid the knot tied between her teeth. Then he pulled a sopping wet sack from her mouth. All three women were naked and all three were unconscious.

Harry looked down at Lynne McConnell. She slept in a heavy drug-induced stupor. But her face was serene. Callahan only hoped he had harassed the slavers too much. He hoped they only had had time to get her to the Cave, then go out to Madame’s for the night. He hoped they only had had time to stuff the women in these crates before he showed up.

Harry wondered what it felt like to be meat. To be worthless. To mean nothing. It must be horrible, he calmly considered. Life would become nothing more than a long death.

“I give up, Inspector,” Harry heard a quiet, soothing voice say behind him.

He turned around in the early morning darkness, moonlight reflecting off the water, making the whole environment a deep, calming blue. He saw a man who could only be The Gentleman, also known as Rose Ray’s “lawyer,” standing across the dock with his hands in his pockets.

“You have won, I see,” he continued serenely. “We have tried to stop you at every turn, but you have emerged triumphant. So I will go quietly. I figure it is Kismet. You know?”

The man must’ve known his wife was dead. But any man who could do what he did could not have seen anyone, even his wife, as a real human being.

“Did you do this?” Harry motioned to the boxes.

“We could not let the . . . uh,
them
raise a fuss if they were to awaken prematurely.”

“The ship doesn’t know what it is delivering then?”

“Oh ho,” The Gentleman said.

Harry nodded, looked down at McConnell, then pulled out his Magnum, and pointed it at The Gentleman.

The slaver’s eyes widened, his hands went out in a pleading pose, and Harry blew his balls off.

Everything between The Gentleman’s legs tore out along with sections of his cream-colored slacks and clean underwear. The mutilated package flew across the surface of the water, skipped, splashed, and then sank.

The Gentleman fell to his knees, his hands trying to stop the flow of gore out of the hole between his legs. He looked at the guts spilling over his hands, shrieked once, defecated, and fell forward.

Dirty Harry Callahan untied all the women and left them sleeping peacefully under the boxes’ packing. He looked out at the water and considered washing his demons away in it. Instead, he kicked off his shoes, rolled up his pant legs and sat on the edge of the dock.

He put the G3 rifle across his knees and waited for the ship to arrive.

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.