Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air (12 page)

From the helicopter, the two Program men saw the car suddenly stop and Harry crawl out of the rear window opening. He stood half on the ceiling and half on the trunk of the battered car. He held his .44 above his head, and waved them on.

Carr’s men looked at each other. Unable to communicate over the roar of the rotor blades, the man with the gun made a circling sign next to his ear with his first finger and then motioned for the pilot to swoop in for a final run.

Callahan was right where they wanted him. With the copter in front and the cliff behind, there was nowhere to go. The .308 bullets would tear him in half. The helicopter dipped and came in low and fast.

The gunman held his fire until he was sure he had Harry dead to rights. The cop kept waving his Magnum until it was impossible for the copter to swerve away.

Then Harry threw down the .44, and pulled out the Mac submachine gun from under his jacket. He had had no problem fitting the seven-inch long weapon behind his back, and the Program men didn’t even see it before Harry had ripped the gun’s thirty-two nine-millimeter bullets across the front of their copter bubble.

Callahan let the slicing motion of his firing take him right off the car’s roof as the helicopter kept going, minus a live driver and copilot. Both men had had their middles perforated with lead.

If they weren’t killed when Harry shot them, they died when the helicopter dipped, spun, and smashed into the side of the cliff. From there it dropped like a crushed bug to the rock-strewn ground.

Harry threw the Mac into the back seat and jumped behind the wheel as if he were stunt driving for “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

“What . . . what have you done?” Patterson stammered, coming out of her hiding place. “What happened?”

Harry clucked in sympathy. “Another terrible aviation accident.”

C H A P T E R
T e n

H
arry stole a car near the Frisco–San Mateo line. Even with the Program’s eye-in-the-sky out of action, driving the nearly destroyed used car would be a dead giveaway. And when Harry thought of it as a dead giveaway, he meant “dead.”

He just didn’t know whether the helicopter men had had a radio link with Carr, or how much they had said if they did. More “official” government cars filled with heavily-armed agents, just doing their duty, could be converging on the location that very minute.

So Harry played it safe. He left their reject from the demolition derby in a driveway and stole a dark blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It came with plush seats, an AM/FM radio, and Denise Patterson.

“You can’t keep on doing this,” she pleaded with him. “It’s insane.”

Callahan looked at her with sardonic disbelief. Her boss tests an unstable germ-warfare mixture in the subway, orders girls to be pushed onto the tracks, sends a killer copter after them, and she’s calling the cop insane?

Patterson seemed to read his thoughts, because she quieted and looked at her hands on her lap for a moment before continuing: “What I mean is, you can’t fight the whole government.”

Harry pulled the car into an alley between the Southern Freeway and Third Street. “I don’t think I am,” he said, stopping the car and pushing open the door with his foot. “Stay here,” he told the woman, before she could question him about the statement.

Harry walked down the alley, around the corner, and into the one entrance of a corner building. He went up two flights of rickety, wooden stairs and pushed through a warped wooden door nailed to a straight metal one.

On the other side of the obstruction was a plain but comfortably lived-in studio. There was a bed which looked as if it had been stolen off a military base, an ancient card table with four rusting chairs, an orange crate with an AM/FM/Ham radio on it, and an overstuffed sofa which looked like someone’s lumpy, sagging aunt.

Lying across the sofa was a comatose figure with a bottle in his hand.

“All right, Hux,” Harry called, clapping his hands. “The ride’s over. End of the line. Everybody out.”

The BART drunk woke up, snorting. “Morning already?” he asked the ceiling.

“Morning already,” Harry agreed, taking him by the arm. “The coast is clear. You can go back on the trains again.”

“Hey, that’s great,” the drunk slurred, letting Harry get him to his feet. But then he looked around the room wistfully. “Too bad, though. Too bad. I’m going to miss this place.”

“You’ll get over it,” Harry said, shoving a twenty-dollar bill into the bum’s hand. “Don’t come back, understand? Those kids who’re trying to kill you will come here.”

“Shit,” Huxley spit. “Those kids, yeah. Don’t want that. Don’t you worry, Harry old pal, I won’t come back.”

Callahan got him downstairs and to the next intersection. He flagged down a taxi and shoved Huxley into the back seat. Another twenty went to the driver.

“Take him wherever he wants until ten runs out,” Callahan told him. For a ten-spot tip, the driver was willing.

Harry went back to the Cutlass, suddenly experiencing a feeling of dread. He picked up speed as he rounded the corner of the alley, afraid Patterson might not be in the car anymore.

She was, but he wasn’t much relieved. “You can’t fight him,” she contended as he led her to the hideout, carrying the metal weapons case and a thin vinyl case. “Do you have any idea what kind of power he wields? What kind of connections he has?”

Harry nodded, pushing open the half-wood, half-metal door. “I’m learning more about that all the time.”

“He can tap into any computer in the state and get anything he wants,” she declared, marveling at it as she remembered. “He can change anything on anyone . . .”

Callahan remembered the report on Daley which the Commissioner supposedly had. He wondered how it had been produced, and where it came from. Harry brought the woman over to the bed and sat her down.

“But remember something,” he said, cutting off her paranoid scenario. “He’s afraid of you. He’s afraid you’ll tell somebody about this.”

“Of course he is.” Patterson waved Harry’s statement away. “He has every right to be.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Callahan countered. “It doesn’t make any sense. If the government is in on his Program, then all they have to do is deny any report. End of story. But what if Carr doesn’t want his superiors to know about this stuff?”

A sudden growing awareness began to dawn across Patterson’s features. “You mean,” she said in amazement, “that he wants to take over the government?”

Harry snorted. “I doubt it. But he knows damn well that if anybody responsible in power gets wind of what he’s doing, the whole Program goes right down the toilet.”

Patterson suddenly saw the hope she had lost the moment her coffee mug had burst. “So all we have to do is get to the papers,” she marveled. “But won’t that make him want to kill me all the more?”

“But he can’t do it then without creating suspicion. You’ll be alive while the government comes down hard on him.”

Patterson began to perk up considerably. “So all we have to do is wait until morning . . .”

“Bullshit,” Harry countered. “Papers don’t work on a nine-to-five shift. Let’s get this over with.”

Just then, the vinyl attaché case rang. Patterson gave a little shriek before shoving her fist in her mouth. Harry looked at the case with annoyance. Well, at least the call-transferring device Kleinman had given him worked.

Harry opened the case on the floor and pulled out the red, slim-line receiver. Any call that came in on Harry’s phone would be automatically transferred to this radio-controlled one. Even if there was a bug on the phone in Harry’s apartment, it wouldn’t pick up what he said on this one.

“Yeah,” Harry said into the condenser mouthpiece.

“Harry.” It was Bressler. “Hope I didn’t wake you.”

Callahan thought about saying something like “Does that mean you hope you did?”, but he found he didn’t want to talk at all.

“No,” he finally replied.

The Lieutenant could take a hint. He got right to the point. “The Goldfarb warrants came in. Would you mind helping out tonight?”

Harry couldn’t very well say no. He needed to be on the force’s good side if he wasn’t to become a “naked runner.” He needed all the friends and protection he could afford. They weren’t out of the Program’s shadow yet.

“Why not?” Harry mused aloud. “It’s a night like any other, right?”

“Right,” Bressler laughed self-consciously. “If you say so, Harry. When can you be here?”

Callahan glanced at the girl. She was looking at the bed and pulling on her lower lip. “I’ve got to do some quick errands,” he told his boss. “Let me meet you.”

He got all the information. Bressler himself wasn’t going to be in on it. Since the arrest was going to go down in North Beach, the control was going to the cops in that jurisdiction. Which was all the more reason Bressler wanted Harry in on it. If everything went well, then the North Beach precinct got the credit. If things screwed up, Bressler at Central Headquarters got the blame.

After Harry hung the phone up in the attaché case, he turned to find Patterson curled up on the far end of the bed. She had her legs bent, her knees up to her face, and her arms hugging her calves.

“Let’s go,” Harry said. “I’ll drop you off at the
Herald.
”

“No,” the woman said.

Harry took one step toward her.

“Even if you force me to go, I won’t say anything,” she warned him.

Harry stood his ground. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” he asked slowly. He just couldn’t conceive of such stupidity.

“No, you are!” she flared back. “Our work is too important. I can’t jeopardize it.”

“It’s not your work anymore,” Harry reminded her.

“Yes, it is,” she contended. “It’s all our work. If the Program succeeds, we no longer have anything to fear from anyone. It is they who have to fear us. We’re talking about total security.”

“You’re talking total insanity,” Harry seethed. “What difference does it make whether you can destroy the world with bombs or germs?”

“It’s you who’re nuts,” Patterson declared. “You can’t fight this. It’s bigger than just you or me or Dr. Carr. It’s the future of this entire country.”

Harry stared at her desperate, proud, misguided face before choosing his words very carefully. “Fuck this country. I’m not going to stand around and wait to be killed for anything or anyone. You still think you can convince Carr that you’re one of the boys. Forget it. Even if you get to him and make him listen, he’ll smile and smile, and then you’ll be dead.”

Harry heard the subway echo of Corporal George Daley in his mind. “You’re dead, I’m dead, we’re all dead . . .”

Patterson’s harsh reply brought him back to reality. “No. I can convince him. The Program is more important.”

Callahan gave up. He grabbed his cases and slid them out of the room with two angry throws. Pulling two Yale locks off of the boarded-up windowsills, he marched backward to the door.

“You stay here and think about it,” he told her from the door. “The bathroom’s through there,” he said, with a jerk of his head. “And there’s beer and cheese in the fridge.”

He slammed the door closed, threw the clasps into place, and locked the door. He couldn’t chance losing his one reasonable escape. He’d have to keep her there until he got back, and if she wouldn’t talk, he would.

He’d tell the press everything he knew, up to, and including, her connection with Dr. Carr. Even if she were still unwilling to corroborate, the press would still report that she knew everything there was to know about the Program, thus forcing Carr’s hand.

Harry drove the stolen car like a man possessed until he reached the North Beach precinct. He handed it over to the cops there, saying he had found it with the keys still inside and no clues as to the thieves. And, since he was an inspector, no one doubted him.

Inside, he was directed to Captain Dobbin’s office. Wendall Dobbin was waiting for him on the second floor in the company of the other unit officers. The Captain, a beefy, dark-haired police vet, made the introductions.

There was Detective Manuel Rodriguez, who looked the part. He was strictly Spanish, down to the kinky, greased, short-cropped, black hair, and the pencil-thin mustache. He was short—just making it over the policy five-foot-six requirement.

Sergeant Eddie Bluth was next, a thin Midwesterner with sparse, almost white hair, and a black mustache. Add fifty pounds and he’d look like George Peppard. Next to him was Detective Rod Uslan, an athletic black man.

Since no one had seen Callahan before, except for the occasional photo in the newspaper, no one questioned his unusual outfit of a dark turtleneck, dark pants, and a long, loose raincoat.

“Look, I’m sorry it has to be tonight,” Dobbin said. “But that’s what police work is all about. We’ve got to be ready any time, any place. At least, these guys won’t be expecting us to hit.”

“These guys” were: Adam and Francis Stilino, who were a brother team of jewel thieves and smugglers; Aaron Whitelaw, their contact in the diamond district; and Avery Jessup, their fence.

“They’re in Jessup’s office at Grant and Pacific,” Dobbin revealed. “It should be fast and simple. Bluth stays down in the lobby, covering the elevators. Rodriguez covers the alley outside. Uslan and Callahan come with me upstairs. I’ll cover the hall while you two go in. Guns out, papers down—that’s it. We cuff them, get them into the cars, book them, and go home. Right. Any questions?”

There were none. Harry stretched out in the back seat of Dobbin’s nondescript tan car with Uslan next to the Captain in the front, while the other two detectives rode in a dark-green Pontiac. Nobody had much to say to each other. Harry just wanted to get the job over with and get back to Patterson. The sooner he could spill his guts, the better he would like it.

Dobbin and Uslan kept looking at each other as they drove through the well-lit night. It was obvious that the city was reveling, and it was equally obvious that the North Beach cops didn’t much like the idea of a downtown chaperone coming along.

Callahan didn’t care. He stared out the window, seeing nothing until they got to the corner of Grant and Pacific. When everyone parked and got out, it was just like stepping into New York’s Greenwich Village or Boston’s Newbury Street. Everywhere were art galleries, coffee houses, bars, and brownstones.