Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men by Dane Hartman Read Free Book Online

right between the MAC man’s scapulas.
    The MAC man flew forward, his back a tangled, bloody mess, and splattered against the open front door which caught him like an outstretched hand. The power of the .44 bullet combined with his own speed kept him flat against the door as it stretched as far as its moorings would let it go, and snapped back. Like a hand, the door threw the dead MAC man so that he landed on the street with a sodden thud.
    Harry changed his view so that the .44’s sights converged on the back of the Uzi user. The wounded man was dragging himself painfully toward the passenger door so Harry had more time to nail him. Waiting until his aim was perfectly aligned—just before the Uzi user pulled himself into the van—Harry pulled the Magnum’s trigger.
    His hammer clicked onto a spent shell.
    Harry didn’t even bother to curse himself as he reached toward his pocket for a speed loader. Then he cursed himself. The speed loader was upstairs in his tweed jacket. All Harry was wearing now was an open shirt and his pants. He had been so rattled by Suni’s scream and subsequent kidnapping that he forgot to get his extra rounds as well as neglected to count his shots.
    All this went through his mind as he was charging for the dead man’s dropped submachine gun. If he could reach it before the VZ man got to the driver’s seat or the Uzi user could muster enough strength to shoot back, he—and Suni—might still have a chance.
    Just as he got to the rear of the vehicle, the motor gunned into life. The vehicle leaped forward, crushing the dropped MAC 11 under its rear wheel. Harry reacted instantaneously. Forgetting the gun, he grabbed the rear door handle, twisted and pulled.
    He saw Suni lying unconscious on the van’s floor. He saw the back of the VZ user’s head behind the wheel. And he saw the Uzi user twisted in his seat, the gun pointed back at Harry.
    The weapon rattled with power, the bullets searing by Harry’s face. He actually felt them whipping closer and closer in the space of a second until it seemed sure that the next bullet would smash into his skin. At that moment, the Uzi clicked empty. Harry wasn’t the only one with reloading problems.
    But before he could take advantage of the situation, the van picked up sudden speed, ripping the rear door handle out of Harry’s hand and sending him tumbling to the road. He dropped his Magnum and rolled to the curb as the vehicle streaked down the street.
    Callahan forcibly stopped his cushioning roll so he could get a look at the van’s license plate. As he assumed even before he did it, the plate was removed. As he looked, the van took the corner with a screech, letting centrifugal force close the door Harry had opened. It quickly disappeared behind the buildings.
    Even then Harry didn’t call it quits. He raced into the underground garage, jumped into his car, grabbed the police radio at the same time he was jamming the keys from his pants pocket into the ignition, and started everything up. He was putting an All Points Bulletin (APB) out on the van at the same time as he was wrenching his car out from between the two compacts and tearing out onto the street.
    As soon as he had dispatched all the pertinent info, he threw the radio mike down and scrambled in his glove compartment for the extra speed loaders he always secreted there. Ever since the corrupt Lieutenant Neil Briggs caught him without extra bullets, Harry had made a point of sticking speed loaders all over the place. As it turned out, he hadn’t needed his .44 to get Briggs—the brain behind the “Magnum Force” of vigilante cops. He had finished him off with the bomb he had taken out of his mailbox.
    As Callahan scoured the streets for any sign of the van, he wished he had had another bomb to hurl at the kidnappers. His newly loaded Magnum was certainly doing him no good now. For all intents and purposes, the van had disappeared. As thoroughly as Harry checked and as often as he