Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air (19 page)

“Where is everyone else?” Harry asked, not wanting to handle “what now” right away.

“The same place Lieutenant Colonel Edward Lee is,” Carr answered. “Gone. Either moved onto other projects, quit, transferred to another unit, or six feet underground.” The doctor considered the military man’s fate. “Poor Huck. He liked being rich more than he liked being a soldier. And, as military liaison to the Program, he could be rich.”

“He liked being alive more than he liked being rich,” Harry revealed.

Carr nodded. “It is as I suspected. I don’t want to know what you did to make him talk, but I hope he’s dead.”

“Almost everyone else is secondary to the main research,” Patterson explained clearly. “There were the cooks, custodians, clerical help, and security.”

“But no one assisted me personally except Ms. Patterson,” Carr interrupted. “So, rightfully, she shares in the responsibility of the discovery. If she accepts it.”

It was a big “if,” the way he said it. Harry felt the suddenly growing tension clear across the room.

“Was it worth it?” he demanded. He wanted to stall for time against what was obviously a quickly approaching confrontation, but he actually wanted to know, as well.

Carr looked at him blankly. “Was
what
worth it?” The scientist actually didn’t know exactly what Callahan was referring to.

“The deaths,” Harry ground through his clenched teeth.

Carr scoffed, turning his head away as if Harry had said the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. “Was World War Two ‘worth it’?” he mocked. “A lot of people died in that. But, oh, no, it would be much better if we had let Hitler take over the world rather than kill anybody.”

“Hitler didn’t push little girls in front of trains to cover his ass,” Harry stated with a scowl.

Carr was stopped by that for a second, but then he came back stronger than ever. “He would have if he had had to,” he boomed.

“Congratulations,” Harry smiled slightly. “Hitler.”

The look of triumph on the Kleins’ and Carr’s face disappeared. The twins responded by looking as if they were ready to eradicate him then and there, but the doctor maintained his civilized exterior.

“You don’t understand,” he said, always the last defense of a wrong man. “We’re living in a world that could end with the push of a button. With that kind of power at almost anyone’s fingertips, what will keep them from pressing down?”

Harry was fed up with the arguments, the rationalizations, and the misguided dreaming. “Where will the insanity end?” he asked Patterson again.

“Here,” Carr answered, holding up the syringe. “We can make enough Cellulene to keep the other powers in line. Picture it, Inspector. The cells imploding in a chain reaction. The bodies will practically disintegrate before your eyes. All that stands between us and mass production is a final test.”

The last sentence hung in the air like the sword of Damocles. Harry suddenly knew what he was doing there, and why it was so easy to get in.

“A final test,” he echoed.

“A final test,” Carr repeated. “Of Cellulene and of loyalty.” The latter word was directed at Patterson. “To see whether an individual is to be served, or the world.”

He handed the syringe to the woman.

She looked at him for only a second as she took it, then steeled herself for the long walk to Harry. Cliff Klein accompanied her, his expression just daring Callahan to try anything.

Only her outfit had changed, Harry saw. She was wearing the suit he had first seen her in at the hospital. They had just missed each other throughout the operation, but neither could deny the mutual attraction. But both had a grander mistress to serve. Patterson wanted to save the world. Callahan didn’t want innocents to have died in vain.

“He didn’t kill me,” she told him as she approached.

“He knew the only thing that would keep me from killing him was you,” Harry told her back.

She stopped five feet in front of him. Callahan didn’t move. Klein was waiting for any excuse to kill the cop his way.

“It’s the only way to test your faith, your devotion,” Carr called.

“It’s the only way he can own you,” Harry said. “You haven’t done anything wrong until now.”

“It’s his way or this country!” the doctor boomed immediately. “He only wants to save himself!”

“He’s right,” Harry agreed.

Patterson stepped forward, pushed the syringe against Harry’s shoulder, and pressed the trigger.

C H A P T E R
S i x t e e n

H
arry Callahan heard the syringe’s sound and felt the liquid clamp onto his musculature.

Denise Patterson dropped the syringe and half-ran, half-fell to the table behind Harry’s right shoulder. She coughed and choked, trying not to cry and not to throw up.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped, her head down.

“There was nothing else you could have done,” Harry told her.

“Excellent!” Carr boomed, overriding them both. He came striding up, refreshed, with Otto Klein right behind. “You made the right choice,” he told the woman. To Harry, it was the first major sign that she had just made a big mistake.

“Wait for us downstairs, if you would,” he advised her. “I don’t think you’ll want to see what happens next.”

Instead of racing out, sobbing, Patterson gathered herself together and stood leaning on the table. “Excuse me, sir. I—I could take notes on the results if you wish.”

Harry looked at her incredulously. She scrupulously avoided his gaze.

“That won’t be necessary,” Carr said, then added dryly, “I really don’t think you could handle this case objectively.”

Then Patterson turned and walked away without another word. Quickly. The doctor waited until the exit door had closed behind her before returning his attention to Harry. He stood between the slavishly grinning Klein twins who still leveled their guns at Callahan’s middle.

“So, Inspector,” he gloated. “It seems that everything you came to depend upon has betrayed you. The woman, your luck . . .” He held up the Magnum. “Even your gun.”

Harry couldn’t keep himself from stepping forward, his hands squeezing into fists.

“You would still die before reaching me,” Carr promised, glancing at the bloodthirsty twins. “But at least, your death has a moral,” he continued. “Whoever has the best weapon, wins. Now America has the best weapon.”

The next sentence was the most difficult thing Callahan had ever had to say. “How long do I have?”

Carr chuckled. “As long as it takes for you to do something stupid,” he revealed, “or, ten seconds after I inject you with this.” He reached into his lab coat’s left pocket and took out another syringe pistol. When he saw the look on the cop’s face, he broke out in loud laughter. The Kleins couldn’t help but laugh along.

“Why, Inspector,” he gushed. “You don’t think I’d trust that woman with the real Cellulene, do you?”

All their mirth was cut off when the lights went out.

The room was suddenly, inexplicably plunged into darkness. Harry immediately fell onto his back. The space right above him was illuminated by the flashes of the Browning, the Magnum, and the Mac all going off at once—filling the air with bullets where he had just been.

Harry crab-crawled on his back with his arms, shoulders, hips and legs, slipping around the base of a table to his right, as the three remaining Program men scurried and shouted like frightened animals. That didn’t make them any less dangerous.

Carr’s strategy had driven him right into a corner. He had forced Patterson to reject all of her humanistic precepts, while not trusting her. He had spared Harry’s life, he thought temporarily, just in case the woman turned on him. He had it covered from every angle except the one where Patterson kills Harry and then comes back for him.

Living up to his survival instincts, Carr went right for the lights.

“They don’t work!” he yelled.

“She must’ve turned off the emergency generator!” one of the Kleins yelled back.

“I’ll get her!” the other shouted, kicking open the door.

Callahan didn’t need to be subtle. With the lights out, they were almost even, armed or not. And the muzzle flashes betrayed where they were, not him. He started tipping over every scientific setup he could get his hands on.

Added to the cacophony of shouts, running, and gunfire was the crash of delicate medical supplies. Carr howled in agony as he heard three years’ work being devastated.

“Stop it, stop it!” he shouted. “That won’t help you!”

The remaining Klein did him one better. He fired the Mac in the direction of every falling experiment. That told Callahan it was Cliff who was still in the room. The twin stood rooted near the side wall, plastering the already destroyed areas with parabellum ammo. He kept firing until the thirty-two-round magazine was spent. Then Harry scrambled to his feet and came at Cliff from between two tables.

While the twin was fumbling for his Astra, the cop downed him with a flying tackle. As they toppled over, Harry pushed the back of the man’s head against the edge of the wall-long counter.

A sickening crack echoed through the lab as Carr fired at the spot where they had gone down, smashing open a computer terminal and calculator. Kneeling beneath the slugs, Harry pulled the automatic out of the dazed man’s holster, squeezed Klein’s chin to open his mouth, stuck the barrel inside, and pulled the trigger.

He jumped up without watching a hunk of brain pop out of the top of the twin’s skull like a champagne cork.

“Stay back!” Carr screamed. “I’ve got the Cellulene! Stay back, you hear me?”

Harry froze for only a second. He was sure the doctor wouldn’t use it unless he could inject it into the cop, and Callahan didn’t intend that to happen. He kept moving toward the scientist.

“That’s it,” Harry said without rancor. “You’ve lost.”

“Then this nation has lost!” Carr cried.

“Bullshit!” Harry cut him off. “Cellulene is just another way to die, and we have enough of those ways already.”

“No,” the doctor declared, his head shaking. “No. You can’t do this. You must let me go!”

“Straight to hell,” Harry said, standing ten feet in front of him. He emptied the Astra into Carr’s face.

The doctor slammed back against his computer, both arms high in the air—the .44 in one hand, the syringe pistol in the other. Harry dropped the gun and leaped forward, pinning the dead doctor there. With one hand, he grabbed the syringe. With the other, he kept the dying fingers from tightening.

With a fast, sharp tug, he wrenched the injector pistol with its deadly contents out of Carr’s hand. Released, the doctor fell forward across his keyboard. The computer started going wild.

Harry fell back, both elbows on the table behind him. His knees were weak and he felt a thick mask of sweat covering his face. The salt from the perspiration slipped under his bandages and stung his wounds anew.

“It’s over,” he said to himself.

The stairway door opened behind him. The silhouetted shape there was obviously Patterson. “Harry?” she called.

“Here,” he told her, getting up. He retrieved his Magnum, filled it with a speed loader and went over.

“I knew,” she said simply, explaining why she had cut the power.

“I guessed,” Harry replied. “Where’s Otto?”

Her relieved expression changed to one of confusion. “I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t see him.”

“He must have got out while he could,” Harry figured. “He won’t go far,” he vowed.

The other Klein didn’t. As Patterson and Harry came around the corner of the second floor, Otto ran out from an office, firing both the Browning and the Astra as he went—one in each hand.

“Die!” he screamed hysterically. “Die, die, damn it!”

Harry was back on the police obstacle firing range, seeing in his mind’s eye a leaping target. He pushed Patterson behind the stairway door and fired the .44 at the same time.

The Magnum was like an extension of his arm, and all he had to do was point to make it work. The lead ripped open Otto’s stomach as his side slammed against the elevator door. He grimaced in pain, dropped the guns and fell face first.

Harry was turning back to help Patterson up when they both heard the glass breaking.

They stared at Otto Klein in disbelief. The wounded twin turned over, trying to rub off a stain on his jacket front. And it wasn’t blood.

“Cellulene,” Denise hissed.

“I was going to sell it,” the dying Klein confessed. “I am—”

That’s as far as Harry let him get. He destroyed Otto’s face with another shot from the Magnum. The featureless body flopped back on the blood-soaked carpet.

Patterson was already halfway down the stairs. “Run,” she breathlessly panted. “Run. That’s your only hope.”

Harry vaulted down half the flight, pulling back the .44’s hammer. He pointed the barrel at the back of her head. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot,” he yelled. The conviction in his voice made the cliché stick.

“Harry,” she pleaded, whirling around. “It spreads. It moves on the air currents. Our only chance is to get away.”

“How do you stop it?” he demanded, the barrel still centered on her sweating, terrified visage.

“You can’t!” she screamed.

Harry shot her in the arm. She flew back down the last three steps, lost her footing on the landing, and sat hard against the wall. She stared in shock at her arm, amazed that it wasn’t blown off.

If Harry had wanted to amputate it, it would have been flopping on the floor. He had fired so that the slug would dig a shallow channel in her flesh. It was a desperate chance, but the only one he had left.

“You made it,” he accused her, almost insanely, his eyes wild. “Now how can you stop it?”

The pain, the realization that he would kill her if she couldn’t come up with an answer, and her own guilt cleared her hysteria. She was drifting into shock, but she suddenly remembered a way. A way no army could achieve once the germ had spread among them.

“Immolation,” she breathed, “by fire. This entire place has to be immolated within three minutes or the germ will spread too thin. It has to be burned while still condensed.”