Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men (15 page)

The revelation had all the effect of a cool wind on Callahan. When the inspector did not speak, Tetsuya continued.

“Her captivity is the only reason we had to rob the bank. If they did not have her, we could have raided one of their dens. As it is, they threaten to kill her if I do not relinquish my post and allow the Seppuku Swords to control the Nihonmachi underworld. Do you have any idea how much power and money I would be giving up?”

Harry had some idea. Enough money to set his army up with the most modern of sub-machine guns. Enough to send the teenage hatchet men all over the country to fight with the Chinese. Enough money to buy the loyalty of soldiers so they’d be willing to go on suicide missions and commit hari-kiri on demand. The Seppuku Swords were not asking Inagaki to leave his post; they were banishing him from his lifestyle, his corrupt being, his entire way of life.

“The disembowled feline was a warning, yes,” Inagaki continued. “It is what they intend to do to Suni. I have until our summit meeting on Friday to decide. Then the two factions will meet to decide whether it will be war or peace.” The Japanese looked directly into Harry’s eyes. “You have less than forty-eight hours to find and free my sister.” Inagaki looked down and shrugged. “It is a reward for surviving the robbery.”

Harry smiled. “You cannot do the work of one Anglo round-eye?” he asked, letting derision creep into his voice.

Inagaki became philosophical. “The sight of a Japanese face would scare leads away. An American face will only create curiosity and perhaps derision. And if the Ronin make any move against the Swords, it will mean immediate torture and death for my sister. The others will not be expecting one lone white man.”

The Japanese rose, signaling that the meeting was at an end. He stepped down off the platform and went to the wooden panel his wife had disappeared behind. When he pulled it open this time, at least twenty gang members were standing in her place. They looked at Harry like a pack of lions at a Christian.

“Find my sister,” said Inagaki softly, “and I’ll let you leave Chicago alive.”

The gang boss closed the panel behind him. Harry was left alone with the still dribbling corpse of Ryoma.

Callahan got his gun from a guard on the way out. The four men accompanied him down in the elevator and out into the street. Even then, Inagaki had not finished with him. The gang members had some final words.

“Don’t bother calling the cops on this place,” one said.

“By the time they arrive there will be no evidence of our existence,” said another.

All four left to go back into the building. Harry had to hand it to them. For pure, vicious, amoral style, Tetsuya Inagaki and his boys took the teriyaki. But they had given him what he wanted. Information, a deadline, and room to breathe. Suni had to be alive or her brother wouldn’t be walking on eggshells. Now all Harry had to do was find her among 224 square metropolitan miles of Chicago.

His search was enormously aided by the package waiting for him back at the Sheraton. It was a small, soft package wrapped in bag paper. It was about the size of a football and Harry could feel right through it. Unless they were making bombs out of cotton now, it had to be something other than a booby trap. Harry brought it up to his room, lay it on the bed, picked up the phone, and asked room service for a steak and a baked potato with a side of beer.

He opened the package. Inside were the dark red leg warmers Suni had been wearing the night of the kidnapping. Inside one of them was a note.

“The girl is in terrible danger. You can help her if you come to the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute tomorrow at three
P.M.
Meet me in the Near Eastern Antiquities Collection. I will know you.”

Harry held on to the note and the warmers for many minutes. He stared at the note and thought. He looked out his hotel window over the Chicago River. When room service finally showed up forty-five minutes later, he told them to leave the food outside the door. He sat and thought for at least fifteen minutes more. He painfully pieced together the whole insidious plot. The first time he thought he had some sort of solution to the intrigue, his theory fell apart like a house of cards. The second chain of events he hypothesized also didn’t hold water. It slipped through his fingers.

Finally he pieced together a series of incidents that made some sort of outlandish sense. It wasn’t much of an explanation for the twists and turns in this case, but it was the only one Harry had. He filed his explanation for all the events in the back of his mind as he retrieved his dinner from the hall and dug in. Afterward he took a shower and went to bed. As he drifted off to a solid, solemn, dreamless sleep, he remembered the words his old partner Chico Gonzales—the one who went on to be a teacher—once quoted him.

Chico had been badly wounded by the “Scorpio” sniper, and after his recuperation, quit the force. Chico had told him, years ago, why he thought Harry was alive and successful when so many of his partners and friends were dead. He had used the words of, of all things, a Japanese scholar of the martial arts.

Victory is for the one,
Even before the combat,
Who has no thought of himself . . .

Harry Callahan went to sleep thinking of Suni.

The next morning, Thursday, Harry spent three hours getting to the University of Chicago campus. Not because it was so difficult to find or because the roads were so crowded. Harry left the Sheraton at ten in a taxi, so he missed the morning rush to work, but he took special care in changing taxis every couple of miles to avoid being followed. Otherwise the trip was rather straightforward.

He took Lake Street to the John F. Kennedy Expressway, kept going along the Dan Ryan Expressway until he reached Route 90, and then doubled back along Lake Shore Drive until the campus appeared on his left. The place was a wild combination of soothing ultramodern architecture and awe-inspiring Gothic designs. The Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, which served as the university’s centerpiece was a mixture of the two, its bell tower rising more than two hundred feet above the ground.

Harry walked into the campus proper across Hutchinson Court to the left of the Chapel. The wind coming off of Lake Michigan gave a snap to the sunny day, but it didn’t stop the students with early afternoon classes from wearing tank tops, cutoff jeans, T-shirts, and every other manner of casual clothing. But unlike the students Harry had seen at Berkeley and other California campuses, there was hardly a sign of fadism at the University of Chicago.

He saw no “punk” clothing, no “Mohican” haircuts, no seethingly indifferent students buzzing to class on roller skates or a motorized skateboard. Here, very few of the students seemed to be silently screaming “look at me!” It was a refreshing change from the starry-eyed West Coast students.

The inspector walked down the steps and past the fountain in Hutchinson Court. From there he spent about an hour checking out the rest of the area. He circled the Law School with its glass-walled library. He went by the Enrico Fermi Institute for Nuclear Studies. He went by Stagg Field, where the first man-made nuclear chain reaction occurred in 1942. He hoped the day’s fireworks would be a little less impressive.

He checked out the Weather Forecast Research Center, the Food Research Institute, the Argonne Cancer Research Hospital, and the Institute for Computer Research. He was impressed by the length and breadth of the university. Its educational facilities seemed inexhaustible on the surface. Finally he wound his way around to the Oriental Institute. He checked his watch before going in. It was 2:07. He had about fifty-three minutes before the rendezvous to check out the interior geography.

It was a squat, rectangular building that was light and airy on the inside. He entered through one of three double doors. Before him was an open-topped marble box in which three guards sat. On either side of the box, which had a desklike fixture on its inside rim, were gatelike entrances which people had to push by. These kept them from walking in and out indiscriminately while counting the entrants as well.

Beyond that was a little open foyer dotted with circles of low, plush seats, where students could sit, read, or stare out the tall, rectangular windows on the walls. Beyond that and to the right were exhibits enclosed in glass-and-wood cases. Surrounding these were book racks, filled with literature on Asian culture.

Harry’s attention was on none of it. As he entered, essentially ignored by the men in the box, he inwardly groaned at the number of Oriental faces he saw wandering around the floor. Staring into the exhibit cases, browsing through the book racks, sleeping on the chairs, tending to the files, working behind the other desks; there were all Oriental faces. It was as if the entire Oriental population of the school and surrounding communities had turned up today at this time.

Harry wandered deeper into the building, looking up in aggravation. Around the open first floor was a simple balcony, lined with files and inset display cases. Digging through the former and looking at the latter were more Orientals. Harry could vaguely categorize them. As far as he could see, there were all types of Far Eastern artifacts and all types of Far Easterners looking at them. He thought he recognized Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Philippines, and even a Vietnamese here and there.

Just to be on the safe side, he found an elevator and went up to the balcony. From that vantage point he could see the general comings and goings of everyone. He moved patiently along the outcropping for forty-five minutes, trying to see which person would be his most likely contact. He followed the progress of anyone looking even vaguely Japanese.

At three o’clock on the dot, a busload of Oriental children poured into the foyer like maple syrup from a knocked-over bottle. Four harried, young, Anglo teachers, along with two Oriental helpers, did their best to contain the tour group. Harry smiled down at the scene, forgetting, for a moment, why he was there. It was at that moment that the Seppuku Swords attacked.

Callahan felt the movement before he saw it. Over his many years as a policeman, he had developed a kind of sixth sense—which was simply an acute awareness of displaced air. Sometimes it felt as if he had the cross hairs of a sniper scope on the back of his neck. Sometimes it came to him as a sudden chill. This time it was simply a feeling of movement coming from behind. It was a combination of the slight sound of cloth violently rubbing against skin as well as the sudden, unusual vibrations coming from the carpet below his shoes.

However the feeling was explained, Harry reacted instinctively. His sudden movement saved his life. If there were no one attacking he would have looked foolish, whirling around. But as it was, the incredibly sharp knife blade ripped open the side of his jacket, tore through his shirt, and left a thin, superficial scratch on the skin above one rib. His attacker, an older gentleman, wearing glasses and in a suit, swept by as Harry grabbed onto the banister for balance.

The two adversaries faced each other for a second, Harry with his back to the banister, the bespectacled Oriental man with his back to the elevator. The attacker was holding a small stiletto, hardly more than a seven-inch, slightly triangular blade which, if plunged to the hilt, would leave an unhealable hole. Harry kept his hands gripping the guard rail. He knew he didn’t have the time to get to his gun before the man attacked again. And he would need both hands to prevent the knife from plunging deep into his neck, chest, stomach, or sides, As yet, no one else on the balcony or below was aware of what was happening.

Callahan moved slowly to one side. The attacker matched his move, the blade waving slowly back and forth in front of Harry’s face. The attacker was sweating, his glasses already sliding down on his small nose. But the eyes behind the lenses showed the intensity of a person completely committed to what he was doing. Harry felt the warm dribble of his own blood across his sliced side.

He moved slightly in the other direction. The attacker moved with him, coming slightly closer. Harry crouched slightly, bringing his hands forward. The two men looked like they were about to wrestle. Then the elevator behind the attacker opened.

Harry saw it coming, a silent “Down” light illuminating the wall. The attacker was taken by surprise and unnerved. He lost his concentration, his expression grew desperate and confused, and he whirled about. Harry mentally debated with himself for a second. He wanted to know about Suni, but this man was a dedicated, purposeful killer who looked about to become unhinged in a library full of students and children. Harry didn’t know what the man would do to whomever was in the elevator.

A punch would be inaccurate and not completely effective. After a split second, Harry pulled out the Magnum and shot the assassin in the back from close range. To hell with fair play, he found himself thinking, the bastard cut me.

The attacker flew forward as if hit with a battering ram. He dove in between the two young people in the elevator to smash facefirst into the elevator wall. He then dropped to the elevator floor in a pool of gut-sprinkled blood. The two people inside swept by him and charged Harry.

Callahan was about to inform them that it was self-defense and they had nothing to fear, when he realized that
he
still had something to fear. Both people in the elevator had knives as well.

Before he could react, the one on the left sliced at his empty hand and the one on his right jumped on his gun hand. He felt a prick on his wrist and pulled it away, having to drop the .44 to break the second attacker’s grip. As he swung the empty gun hand through the air, he saw a small hole leaking red fluid on the side of his wrist. Then he brought the fist down into the neck of the first attacker, just below the ear.

The young, well-dressed Oriental man stumbled away to the side, the blade he was trying to bury in Harry’s upper arm stabbing the air. Harry lashed out with his foot just as he became aware of the second man reaching for his gun. His peripheral vision told him that his side kick had connected with the reacher’s head, pushing it right through the plexiglass banister partition.