Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men

by Dane Hartman

  “Hey!” he yelled. “We just dropped somebody off. We don’t do pickups!”

  Harry pulled out the 9mm automatic with one hand and grabbed the guy’s shirt front with the other. “The keys,” he said, no question involved.

  “In the ignition,” the driver replied in a small voice, his styrofoam cup dropping to the ground.

  Harry raced to the driver’s side, pulled open the door, threw the gun on the passenger’s seat and twisted the key. The sleek, low Cadillac ambulance started up and Harry jammed it into gear. The vehicle screeched out the hospital lane and roared up Columbus Drive.

  Harry checked his watch. It had stopped sometime last night. He checked the open sky. It was about three-thirty. If he was lucky, he just might beat the traffic and make it clear sailing to the airport.

  He was not lucky. As soon as he got on the open road, the ambulance radio crackled. “Car seven-one-niner,” came a voice. “Car seven-one-niner. See the woman Madison and Clark.”

  Harry pulled the mike up to his lips while keeping an eye in the rear-view mirror. “No can do, dispatch,” he said. “Have an emergency at the airport.”

  “God damn it. Cletus,” the radio voice barked back. “You don’t make the assignments, I do!”

  “An emergency, boss,” Harry retorted. “A cop pulled me over and told me to follow him.”

  “That’s a likely excuse, you miserable goldbricker,” the radio voice wailed. “You get to Madison and Clark on the double!”

  “No can do,” said Harry.

  “I’ll call the fucking cops on you!”

  ‘You do that,” Harry concluded. “Take this job and shove it.” He threw the mike onto the floor, the dispatcher’s voice crackling on.

  As Callahan looked back to the road with a slight grin, he saw a dark sedan coming up fast from behind. All his humor left him. Old Doc Gosha must’ve done some fast talking. With the summit meeting set, the town was probably crammed with Nihonmachi soldiers from all over. And these guys knew Chicago a lot better than Harry did.

  Harry picked up speed and set the lights to flashing and the siren to wailing. Sure enough, even though he couldn’t see what nationality the occupants were, the dark sedan behind him picked up an equal amount of speed. Just as the ambulance passed the Natural History Museum on the right, another car screeched onto Columbus from Lake Shore Drive. As it squealed behind the other sedan in a cloud of dust, Harry could see its CB antennae waving at him from the trunk.

  The bastards were communicating, Harry realized, and working to cut him off at the pass. The most likely route to O’Hare was to Eisenhower Expressway, which connected to the John F. Kennedy route that went right through the airport. Harry saw no way he could pull that off now. It was the direction all the soldiers expected him to go in.

  Soaring by Grant Park, Harry suddenly wrenched the wheel all the way over to the left, sending the ambulance skidding across the length of the road and wavering like a jelly bean on a table’s ledge. The tires burned rubber, and Harry fought the wheel like a sea captain in a storm until the vehicle righted itself and shot down the left-hand street.

  The two sedans were not so skilled. The first one took the left, braking as it turned. The second car tried to make the turn at full speed, smashing into the first car’s side head-on. The first car pushed off the road and rolled across the brush end over end. The second car hardly paused. It stalled slightly, but its momentum kept it going to the left until its engine caught again and it picked up steam.

  Harry crossed the Michigan and Wabash intersections with little trouble because of his siren. The second car had neither the siren nor the lights on its side. It tried to run a red light only to have a taxi shave off its rear end. Both autos screamed in wrenching, twisting rage. The taxi swerved completely around in the intersection—the cars behind stopping just in time—as the Nihonmachi pursuers swerved, but didn’t straighten, only to smash into the side of a bus idling at the curb.

  Callahan took another quick left on State Street, then pulled the wheel right just as two more cars, ones that matched the First Union City getaway vehicles perfectly, leaped onto his tail. Harry didn’t like the looks of this. These two cars were sticking to his bumper like bears to honey. There was a lot more horsepower under their hoods than it first appeared.

  As the ambulance streaked across the Dearborn and Clark intersections, the new pair of pursuers made their move. Each one tried pulling up beside the long, low Cadillac. Harry pulled the wheel back and forth, weaving in front of the chase cars, cutting off their roadways. As the three cars crossed LaSalle, one started ramming and the other squeezed in between the ambulance’s right side and the curb.

  Harry pulled to the left, then cut right viciously, trying to squash the parallel vehicle. He heard the squeal of bending metal and burning rubber, then was hit from behind again. The ambulance practically vaulted through the Wells Street intersection and headed for the narrow bridge which crossed over the Chicago River.

  The rear car leaped forward to flank the ambulance’s left side as the caravan left solid ground. Callahan was now sandwiched between the two pace cars. He glanced out his window as the left car crept up alongside. He was astonished to see Izo Gosha in the passenger seat of the chase car, pleading with him through the closed window to give Suni back.

  Gosha was screaming something about it “being our only hope,” and “Inagaki will kill.” Callahan couldn’t believe the desperation which led the man to make such a foolhardy move. But then he realized that Gosha’s fate would be sealed if he ran the ambulance off the road or tried any other kind of force. He needed Suni alive, so all he could do was work on Harry’s sense of “honor and control.”

  In response, the inspector pushed the accelerator to the floor. He looked ahead in time to see two police cars heading for them from the opposite direction. There was no way out other than braking or ramming the cop cars head-on. Harry ripped his foot off the accelerator and slammed down on the brake.

  Gosha’s car did not do likewise. It slammed right into the cop cars, one headlight burying itself into each engine. The patrol cars spun out, making the top part of a giant “Y.” Harry’s vehicle skidded to the right, its superior weight smashing the other chase car off the road. Only this time there was no shoulder to roll on. The right chase car vaulted over the bridge’s guard rail and plunged hood-first into the river.

  The ambulance rammed the guard rail, but it had braked enough to stop. Harry was thrown against the dashboard and then dropped between the driver’s and passenger’s seats. All the wounds he had accumulated in the last day started yelling for attention. His side, his wrist, and his legs were all sending lancing pains up to his mind’s reception center. It felt like a master musician was playing his body with ice picks.

  The front of the car was suddenly illuminated by flames. Seconds later, Harry heard a whoosh coming from his left. He cautiously pulled himself halfway up to see Gosha’s and the cop cars engulfed in flames. Then he became aware of more light behind him. He whirled around to see that the rear door of the ambulance was open and Suni was gone from the stretcher.

  He was immediately up on his feet. He wrenched down the handle and kicked open the door. He dropped to the road to find himself staring down the business end of Sergeant Terry Inagaki’s regulation .357 Python.

  “It was child’s play to find you.” Inagaki gloated in his bedroom. “We always survey the CB channels. Poor Gosha was so rattled by your escape that he blabbed your escape route all over the airways. Poor, poor man. He must have thought no one would understand the significance of his directions. I, of course, understood perfectly. And then, when the regular police channels reported an ambulance stolen, it was just a matter of putting two and two together.”

  Suni was lying, still blessedly unconscious, on the bed. Harry was standing in the corner, his hands cuffed in front of him. For extra protection, Denise Inagaki kept the Nambu automatic trained on his chest. She looked like she knew exactly how
to use it. Tetsuya Inagaki was standing by his closet, slowly donning ceremonial garb. He already had on the baggy gray pants and pointed shoulder jacket bearing his family crests over his kimono.

  “I had, of course, suspected that they were holding my dear sister at the hospital, but I couldn’t do a thing about it,” Inagaki rattled on. “One move in that direction and they would have killed her. But thanks to you, she is free, and the Gosha clan with their Seppuku Swords are doomed.” Inagaki stopped dressing for a moment and thought about it. “The good doctor must have realized that at the end. It is the only reason he rammed the police cars. He knew his shame and disgrace would lead to hari-kiri, so he took the easy way out.”

  Harry grimaced. As if getting into a head-on collision was easy, he thought. He also thought about the dozens of Kozure Ronin outside the house. They were not allowed inside while their leader and master prepared himself, so they waited to accompany him to the summit meeting.

  “Why don’t you take the easy way out?” Harry asked. “Why go to the meeting at all? Gosha’s dead. Suni is free. You have no more opposition.”

  “There is always opposition,” Inagaki professed. “I will go to the meeting to show my power, to show my dedication, and to show my conviction.” He turned toward Harry. “You, unfortunately, will not be there to see it.” He reached into the closet and threw out a few things. “You’ll be needing these to meet your Christian God,” Inagaki said sardonically.

  Harry’s shoes and .44 Magnum fell to the carpet. “After your little party at the Oriental Institute,” Inagaki explained, “the police were called to the scene. Naturally they chose me to go. And naturally I confiscated these. The bullets are downtown unfortunately.”

  “When do I die?” Harry inquired evenly.

  “When we leave,” Tetsuya answered, pulling his set of samurai swords out of the closet.

  “And Suni?” Harry softly asked.

  The Inagakis looked at Harry at the same time. “So you know,” Denise whispered.

  “It only makes sense,” Harry replied indifferently. “I asked myself over and over why you didn’t just let the girl die and eradicate the Seppukus anyway. The answer was that if she died by the hands of the enemy or even in the enemy camp, it would bring your family such shame that your peers would no longer respect you. They would not follow you.

  “But if she was freed, you could not take the chance of her falling into enemy hands again. Like you said, there’s always opposition. And what better way to display your ‘dedication and conviction’ than bring to the summit meeting the head of your sister.”

  Inagaki smiled and stood straight up, looking at Harry with new respect. He nodded. It was a royal decree. Callahan was allowed to continue.

  “This insane act will display your sacrifice and nobility. This is what you are willing to give up to become Nihonmachi ruler. You will be looked upon with great respect and honor.”

  Inagaki’s chest swelled with pride as he slipped the two samurai swords into his sash. His eyes sparkled with the dreams of conquest and total power.

  At that second, a Kozure Ronin came stumbling into the room, his mouth working.

  “You fool!” Denise Inagaki cried. “How dare you enter your master’s chambers?” She swung the Nambu toward the trespasser. Harry saw his opening and made his move. He brought both fists across the woman’s face. She sailed across the room, slamming into the stumbling Japanese. They both went down, the angle of their fall revealing a long, deep slit across the Kozure’s throat. The soldier had been garroted.

  Harry jumped for the pile of yellow flesh, plucking the Nambu from Denise’s still hands. He spun to point it at Tetsuya, who had jumped onto the bed and held Suni up in front of him, his short sword blade at her throat. It was a Mexican standoff, Japanese style.

  “What have you done?” Inagaki demanded, his shoulders shaking. “What is going on?”

  Harry held the gun straight and solidly in front of him, both cuffed hands wrapped around the butt. If it had been his .44, he wouldn’t have thought twice about blowing the man’s brains out. But he wasn’t sure where the 9mm round would go.

  “You ever wonder how I got to the Oriental Institute in the first place?” he said instead of shooting. “I’ll tell you. The Seppuku Swords called me there themselves. They sent a little package over to my hotel inviting me there. It was a trap, fine. But how the hell did they know I was in town and on the trail?

  “You didn’t tell them. You had too much to lose if I didn’t get your sister back. The Seppuku Sword kidnappers didn’t know who I was when they attacked the apartment house, so who the hell told them all about me and where I’d be staying and what I was doing?”

  “The Chinese,” Inagaki said, in the shock of realization.

  “The Chinese,” Harry affirmed. “They had the most to lose if you gained power. They had to look forward to years of bloody war as you tried to spread your influence everywhere. They wanted me in the middle so I could lead them to you.” Inagaki’s face grew deathly white. His hand gripped the hilt of the blade near Suni’s throat more tightly.

  “I made a call from the hospital,” Harry continued. “I called my man in Chinatown and accused him of setting me up. He was happy to admit it. Then he suggested that since I helped them out, they would help me out. You hear those noises outside?” Harry paused so Inagaki could listen to the distant fighting. “That’s the sound of the first Chinese-Japanese battle. And the last.”

  Inagaki grew absolutely livid, his whole body quaking. “You may have destroyed the Kozure Ronin!” he shouted, “but you will not save Suni! I will slit her throat right before your eyes!”

  Harry’s finger was already depressing the Nambu’s trigger when he saw Suni’s eyes and mouth snap open. She quickly grabbed her brother’s sword hand and sunk her teeth into it. Tetsuya screamed, dropped the blade and reared up. For a second, Harry had the man dead to rights, caught smack dab in the line of a 9mm gun barrel across a bedroom.

  But at the last possible moment, he pulled the gun up, unfired.

  Inagaki stared at him with bulging eyes for a split second before taking advantage of the reprieve. He leaped off the bed and dived through the window. Harry turned when he heard a scraping noise behind him. He looked back to see Denise Inagaki crawling out of the room. Harry let her go, too. He stood in place for a moment, looking calmly at the alive, awake Suni. His expression was divided between affection and exhaustion.

  “No one could sleep through a date with you,” she said, then started to cry. Harry walked over to the bed, sat down, and held her until her tears were spent.

  She had awakened shortly after Tetsuya transferred her from the crashed ambulance to his car. Confused, groggy, and terrified, she thought it best to play possum until action was absolutely mandatory. She explained that she knew about her brother, but had renounced her whole family before moving to San Francisco.

  “You didn’t have to let him get away to spare my feelings,” she said bravely.

  Harry smiled, his eyes veiled and distant. He gently kissed her, then led her out of the house. The yard was a macabre scene of almost a dozen Chinese lawn jockies. All trace of anything vaguely Japanese had disappeared. The Inagaki house was far enough away from its neighbors so no one heard the quiet, but deadly Tiger Claw attack.

  Harry asked Suni to wait in the car. She moved silently among the Chinese to sit in the vehicle Harry had directed her to. Then the cop turned back into the house, followed by the Chinese. Back in the bedroom, Mr. and Mrs. Tetsuya Inagaki were bound spread-eagled, side by side, on their massive bed. They were both tightly gagged, their eyes bulging pleadingly over the silencing material.

  The Chinese circled the bed without a word, their raincoats unbuttoned, their hands down, except for one man who was talking into the bedside phone. “Inspector Callahan?” he suddenly said to Harry. The inspector looked from the writhing bodies of the Japanese couple to the Chinese holding the phone receiver out. “He wants to ta
lk to you.”

  Harry took the phone. “Hello?” On the other end was the unmistakable voice of Huang Cheh.

  “I am told that you had a perfect opportunity to take revenge on Inagaki yourself, yet you let him escape. Why?”

  “Because I knew he wouldn’t get far,” Harry tiredly answered, the weight of the executioner on his shoulders. He glanced over at Tetsuya, who was looking at him in amazement. “And I knew you would put him to a death more befitting his life.” He took a second to speak directly to the Inagakis. “Yours will be honorable deaths,” he told them. “Warriors’ deaths. You will go to a land much better than this.”

  When he returned his attention to the phone, he heard laughter on the other end. “What’s so funny?” he asked as each Chinese took a razor-sharp hatchet out from under his coat and held it over a different part of the Japaneses’ bound body. Four were over the Inagakis’ hands. Four more over their feet. Four more at their elbows. Four more at their knees.

  “For the first time in all the years we’ve known each other,” the crime boss chuckled, “I know why they call you ‘Dirty Harry.’ ”

  Inspector Callahan hung up and left the house just before the Chinese chopped off the first of many Inagaki limbs.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DANE HARTMAN 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.