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

called in for any news, no one had seen the damn thing. After almost three hours of scouring the streets, Harry had to admit it to himself. The van had gotten away. And with it, the only woman he had allowed himself to care for in more than five years.
    Angry and tired, Harry looked around to see exactly where the hell he was. His eyes had gotten bloodshot and dry from staring intently for the van. Although he possessed a rudimentary understanding of the roadways and an inherent navigational sense, Harry hadn’t been paying much attention to anything else.
    Glancing out the passenger’s window, he immediately recognized the Maritime Museum sitting just in front of the west basin of Fisherman’s Wharf. Out the window on his side was the impressive ten-story Ghirardelli Square shopping complex. During the day, the place was a phantasmagoria of tourists, shoppers, salesmen, and street performers, but at three o’clock in the morning, it was deathly still.
    Looking in his rear-view mirror, Harry caught sight of the fishing fleet—taking off from the east basin on their daily trip under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a picturesque, romantic sight—completely at odds with the way he felt. Harboring no idealistic illusions, Harry looked away from the misty, heroic image—just in time to see a van disappear behind a building on North Point Street across the square.
    Callahan stomped on his accelerator, the powerful, pre-emission car engine hurling the vehicle forward. Harry screeched around the corner onto Van Ness and took another hard left on North Point. By then the van was way down the line, all the traffic lights with him. Harry poured on the speed, trying to get close enough to get a good look at the other vehicle. At this distance, he couldn’t be sure if it was the same one which stole Suni.
    A red light slowed him just as the van took a left on Stockton, but not for long. Harry simply slowed until he could check down Leavenworth in both directions, then roar forward again. Just let someone try to give him a ticket for running a light. Callahan would punch his ticket permanently.
    When he got to Stockton, the van was no longer in sight. Harry raced ahead, checking Beach and Jefferson as he passed. Seeing nothing but a few cars moving, he screeched onto Fisherman’s Wharf proper, his eyes darting back and forth to take in everything. His tenacity paid off. The van was parked down at Pier thirty-five.
    It was only then that Harry started to consider why the trio of terrorists had taken Suni. He slowed the car down and approached the pier cautiously. As he passed between the row of piers on the waterfront and the dozens of closed-up seafood shops and stalls, he considered calling in the cavalry, who would bottle the thirty-fifth pier up tighter than a pair of wet designer jeans on Orson Welles. Then he thought better of it. The three men who took Suni were willing to pepper an apartment building with lead—these weren’t the run-of-the-mill crooks who took hostages because they saw it done on Kojak.
    One man had a much better chance of slipping in and getting the drop on them without the hostage’s head being put on the block. Harry cut his lights, turned off the car’s engine, and silently rolled toward the motionless van. Holding the wheel with his right hand, he had the Magnum up and ready with his left. The dark van began to take distinct shape in front of him.
    Quickly looking to his left, he saw a variety of pleasure crafts, outboards, yachts, and cabin cruisers, bobbing in the early morning waves. With this quick glance, Harry noted that only one ship revealed any life. It was the seaworthy yacht three-quarters of the way down on the right side. There were lights on below deck and the distant sound of music and laughter.
    Callahan brought his attention back to the van. He just saw its dark side out the windshield as the car slowed to a crawl. Harry pulled it even closer to the water and let it slow completely