Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men Read online

  EAST MEETS WEST

  IN A BLAZE OF FURY!

  From the hills of San Francisco to the towers of Chicago, a savage struggle for power rages between Japanese and Chinese mobsters, expert killers with hand, sword, or gun. Then they kidnap Harry Callahan’s beautiful, part-time lover. Enter the dragon, Dirty Harry—Magnum blazing!

  THE PAUSE THAT KILLS!

  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 sank 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 middle of a 9mm gun barrel across a bedroom.

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

  Inagaki stared bulging eyed at him for a split second before making his move . . .

  Books by Dane Hartman

  Dirty Harry #1: Duel For Cannons

  Dirty Harry #2: Death on the Docks

  Dirty Harry #3: The Long Death

  Dirty Harry #4: The Mexico Kill

  Dirty Harry #5: Family Skeletons

  Dirty Harry #6: City of Blood

  Dirty Harry #7: Massacre at Russian River

  Dirty Harry #8: Hatchet Men

  Dirty Harry #9: The Killing Connection

  Dirty Harry #10: The Blood of Strangers

  Dirty Harry #11: Death in the Air

  Dirty Harry #12: The Dealer of Death

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  Copyright © 1982 by Warner Books, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books, Inc., 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10019

  A Warner Communications Company

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 0-446-30049-7

  First Printing: August, 1982

  DEDICATION

  To Christopher Kelly Browne,

  who has the soul of a teddy bear

  but the mind of a grizzly.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  For Larry Hama of Crazy Magazine, who warned and informed me.

  For F. Jacques von Schneden and his brother, who packs a .357.

  For Kevin Kelleher, a.k.a. Mort Duck, the Phantom of San Francisco.

  For John Butler of Hansen & Co., Gunsmiths, who smiled patiently.

  For Anthony F. Slez, Jr. and family.

  For Barbara, Chris, and all the other dark mysteries.

  For Melissa, the light at the end of the tunnel.

  DIRTY HARRY #8

  HATCHET

  MEN

  C H A P T E R

  O n e

  By all rights, Jay Kuong Chien should have died with the rest of them. When the Japanese kid came into his uncle’s store and pulled the VZ61 machine pistol out from under his coat, Jay should have been sitting on the stack of Chinese comic books next to the curtained door on the back wall. If he had, it was certain that he would have been killed with his uncle and the one store patron in the first sweep of the gun’s ten 7:65mm bullets.

  As it was, the ten-inch Czechoslovakian auto-pistol spit out the rounds in little more than a second, three hunks of lead perforating the owner’s chest as he stood on the platform in the middle of the right-hand wall, five bullets stitching across the periodical-lined walls, and the last two thudding into the back of a patron. Jay’s uncle hopped up as the rounds punched him. He opened his mouth to shout, but his lungs gave out at the same second his legs did. He crumpled behind the cash register, his eyes still open.

  The patron stepped forward, surprised, then terrified as the searing pain in his back spread throughout his trunk and he fell helplessly forward. He felt further pain as his forehead collided with a shelf on the back wall just before his entire body went numb. As he closed his eyes and died, his weight pulled the shelf down after him. He slammed belly first to the floor, a shower of Chinese magazines raining over him like a multicolored shroud.

  Without pausing, the Japanese youth with the Czech gun hefted the three-pound weapon, pulling out its empty clip even before the last of its spent, ejected shells clattered off the wall behind him. He slid another full clip into place and strode quickly toward the curtained back door. Moving forward, he heard the front door swing open and jangle the hanging metal wind chime. He knew it would be another Japanese youth with another gun. They were covering the store too well for it to be anyone else.

  It was a small, thin establishment filled with the stench of black newsprint and red death. On the plank lining all four walls were the latest newspapers and magazines imported from the Orient. On the wall shelves were the Chinese-language American papers as well as monthly and back-issue periodicals. Crammed in between the reading material was blank paper, ink pots, pens, art supplies, and other gimcracks Jay’s uncle thought were necessary.

  These things did not concern the two Japanese boys. They headed right for the door in the left corner of the back wall. As they approached, they did not notice the wrinkled, smudged comic book atop a stack next to the curtained doorway. They had no way of knowing that this was Jay Kuong Chien’s regular seat. The seat he occupied as the store’s official “lookout” man.

  As Jay had no way of knowing that this, of all nights, was the one when he was really needed. It was nine o’clock on a cool Monday evening in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was the slowest night of the week for the establishments that catered to the tourist crowd as well as the places that entertained the area’s twenty-five thousand inhabitants. So Jay’s uncle saw no harm in letting the eager, capable young man spend his last minutes on duty among the gamblers in the back. Especially since he was going out on a late date with his girl right after.

  Seconds later, Jay’s uncle saw nothing, period, ever again. He died with no way of signaling the men inside the smoky, dank back room. He had no electric warning system in his store, no button under his desk, no buzzer in the back. His was a small gambling operation that used Jay as a combination lookout and bouncer. He was well equipped for both roles. As a black belt in karate, working up to the second “Dan” or level of proficiency, Jay seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and limbs like greased lightning.

  Blind luck had saved him from the first attack. That and his skills saved him from the second. The thick soundproofing had kept the noise of the double store murder from the ears of the intent gamblers in the back room. Jay was watching the men ply their near-professional skills around the one large table as the door behind him burst open.

  He reacted instinctively. As the new hail of bullets slashed across the room, Jay Kuong Chien dropped and rolled. The door flying open was the only signal he needed. He tried to adapt to the sudden situation as he scrambled for cover.

  The first Japanese youth had stuck a twenty-round clip into his VZ61 so there were more 7.65mm bullets burrowing into the walls, furnishings, and gamblers. His partner in murder was fanning the room with an Ingram MAC 11, its thirty-two 9mm bullets messing up whatever the VZ missed. Since both guns were so small, their accuracy wasn’t the best, but with the wealth of targets in the small enclosure it hardly mattered. Cards, chips, coins, bills, and pegs flew toward the ceiling as several men did a macabre death dance out of their chairs, blood gouting out of their bodies.

  Those who weren’t hit immediately scrambled for the one window, situated high up the back wall. It emptied out into a garbage-strewn courtyard between three buildings. The gambler who reacted the fastest got to the window
first. He hesitated before the dirty, opaque beige-colored glass for a millisecond, but the weight of the desperate men scrambling behind him pushed him right through the glass. The bullets did not kill him. The long shard driving into his chest as the others barreled over him did.

  The first gambler was bent double over the windowsill, a piece of glass wedged in his chest, as two others tumbled out into the small courtyard and what they thought was safety. As they leaped to their feet, they saw three blank walls and another Japanese youth standing in between them. In his arms he cradled an Israeli Uzi sub-machine gun. The Chinese on the right saw the small, vicious machine cut down his fellow just before it was turned on him. The left gambler tried to leap toward the courtyard’s entrance to his left. The Uzi chattered, installing five spears of metal from his face to his waist. The 9mm shells destroyed his head and internal organs. With a horrid wrenching sound, he twisted in mid-air and fell, his blood splashing after him.

  The right gambler had a choice. He could dive back into the gambling den or charge the Uzi holder. He charged. The Japanese swung the eight-pound Uzi to bear and decorated the gambler’s front in crimson as he stepped casually to the side. The gambler saw the gun buck as a gigantic invisible hand clamped down on his insides. Then a wet, hard fist smashed into his face and he felt nothing. He didn’t even feel himself land face first on the hard courtyard ground next to the indifferent Uzi user.

  The third Japanese youth in the courtyard cautiously approached the back-room window. He heard the snorting crashes of the two other automatics from inside, so he didn’t want to get caught by one of the errant missiles. All he could see from his vantage point was broken furniture, still crimson-coated bodies and scurrying yellow ones. In the three seconds since the Japanese pair first broke in, seven men were killed.

  To Jay Kuong Chien, the slaughter seemed to be in slow motion. To his own surprise, he reacted to the horror with calm. All his being was focused on a means of escape. Any means of escape. His friends in the room, the associates he had dined with, the acquaintances he waved to on the street, all the gamblers suddenly became meaningless pieces of meat that he had to use to stay alive.

  Jay saw the gambling table, shaking from the tearing force of the bullets and the falling weight of the corpses. He saw the men blindly charging the door and the window. He saw the Japanese cutting them down; all without getting back to his feet. He quickly judged the situation and acted immediately. He tumbled beneath the table, between the quaking wooden legs, toward the window. He kicked the table over toward the door as two more Chinese gamblers tried to climb through the broken glass pane.

  The large table blocked the Japanese pair’s view for a second. The Chinese duo blocked the third attacker’s view. Jay leaped up after the gamblers, pushing them over the still-bleeding body of the glass-killed man and into the courtyard. He used them as shields to get close to the Uzi user. The third Japanese saw the danger Jay posed and tried to shoot him, but the other Chinese always seemed to be in the way. Both men died screaming as Jay dived forward.

  His martial-art skill took over. The Uzi was pointed at Jay’s chest for a second, then it was pumping its lead to the sky as Jay pushed it up and to the side with a karate block. The next second his stiffened fingers dove into the Uzi user’s throat. The third Japanese choked and stumbled back, tears blinding his vision. Jay followed through with a vicious kick to the Japanese’s midsection with the side of his foot. The Uzi user doubled over as Jay built up all his stamina and power into a punch that slammed into the side of the gunman’s head.

  The third Japanese crumbled to the side, falling on top of his sub-machine gun. Jay quickly reached down to the unconscious body to retrieve the weapon. Just as his hands touched flesh, he became aware of the two other gunmen inside. He saw the man with the MAC 11 aim at him and the VZ holder push the gun up, reprimanding him in Japanese. Jay immediately took advantage of the situation.

  Reasoning that the VZ man didn’t want to hit the Uzi user, Jay flipped himself behind the third Japanese and dragged him upright. Using the man as a shield, the one surviving Chinese backed toward the courtyard mouth. He reached forward to pluck the Uzi out of the unconscious man’s slack fingers, but the weapon slipped out of the Japanese’s grasp before he could get to it. The solid thunk of it hitting the ground was the only sound now besides the sliding grate of the third Japanese’s heels.

  The VZ holder was sharp. As soon as the Uzi fell useless, he barked an order at his fellow. The man with the MAC nodded and ran out of sight, back through the store. Jay knew their plan instantly. It was the only practical plan of attack. The VZ man would follow him out the window while the MAC man would bottle him in the alleyway between the street and the courtyard. It was the old “suicide squeeze”—Jay couldn’t use the third Japanese as a shield in both directions at once.

  Speed was his only hope now. Speed and the luck that had been pacing him so far. He hurled the third Japanese forward as he dove for the mouth of the courtyard. As he somersaulted and rolled around the corner, he heard the Uzi user fall heavily—then the night was ripped open by renewed gunfire. He felt a sudden breeze by his ear and a small tug at his pant’s leg before the wall behind him was dotted by little dust founts which were accompanied by the sound of whining ricochets.

  It was darker in the thin alleyway, the bright illumination of the street’s hanging lanterns and pagoda-topped lights were blocked by the buildings’ walls. The walls served as a muffler for the gun noises as well. Between them and the usual din on the Chinatown streets, Jay doubted that anyone would pay any particular notice to the weapons’ reports. And those that recognized the sounds would keep far away. Anyone who lived in Chinatown was used to the noise bullets made.

  Jay rolled to his feet and ran as fast as he could toward the street. It beckoned to him at the end of the alley, all soft crimson light shot through with gold trimming. The moonlight and municipal lighting was diffused by the painted, gleaming doorways, the clean, steam-dripping shop windows, and the millions of lacquered souvenirs on sale everywhere. Jay headed for the soft, fuzzy glow at the end of the alley, hoping he could disappear into the tourist crowd before the Japanese gunmen could get a bead on him.

  As he picked up speed, his heart sank. The odds were lousy. His sharp mind had already gauged the race between him and the MAC man, and even if he won, he lost. Jay was pretty sure he could make the sidewalk before the Japanese could block the alley, but the killer would be so close by then that Jay’s death was almost a sure thing. He could attack, but surprise was no longer on his side. As his martial-arts master was always wont to point out, “Karate, no matter how good, cannot fight a bullet.”

  Jay’s mind accepted this as his peripheral vision picked out a boarded door to his right. The Chinese immediately stopped and kicked sideways from a standing position. The nailed boards cracked beneath his foot. Karate could fight wood. He kicked again, sending the rotting door bouncing inward just as the MAC man appeared in the alley mouth. Jay leaped into the adjacent building’s cellar just as the Japanese fired into the thin, dark pathway.

  The 9mm bullets tore across the bricks like fingernails across a blackboard all around the doorway. Jay didn’t bother to take stock of their destruction. He was off and running again—desperately avoiding death from people he didn’t know, for reasons he didn’t want to guess.

  The light from the street only sent a dim glow through the small dirty basement windows set near the ceiling line. Jay snaked his feet out as he had learned, letting his shins and thighs hit whatever his chest and face might if he had been running flat out. He found a stairway leading up on the opposite wall and took it three steps at a time. There was a locked door at the top. Taking no chances, Jay hit it with all his strength, ripping out the lock and part of the doorjamb on the other side. The door swung open and slammed against the wall with a loud crack.

  Jay stood in the narrow, stuccoed hallway of an apartment house in front of a banistered stairway leading
up. He looked to his left. The front door was spotlighted by a bright yellow bulb at the end of the hall. Beyond it was a foyer with mail slots set into the wall next to a button and intercom system. Beyond that was the front door, its glass covered by a gauzy curtain. Jay didn’t want to chance checking out what was behind that curtain. He knew that three men had attacked his uncle’s store and back-room gambling den. He didn’t know how many might be stationed as lookouts on the street. At least a half-dozen guys could be checking the surrounding houses at that very moment.

  Jay looked to his left. At the opposite end of the hall was one apartment door, also illuminated by a yellow hall light. He heard some noise behind him. It was the sound at least four feet made. The MAC and VZ man must’ve gotten back together again. Jay had no time for subtlety. He raced to the apartment door and kicked it in.

  Once his kicking foot got back to the ground, it was following his running foot. He kept moving, bashing back the door with his shoulder after it had bounced off the wall. He raced past a little bathroom on his right and a small kitchenette on his left to stumble across a little living room off an even smaller bedroom. He headed right for a window on the left side of the far wall.

  On his way, he ran in between a young woman and her TV set. She was watching “Shogun Assassin” on the cable system. Up until Jay had burst in, she was laughing. As he sped past she was savagely digging through her purse. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her whip out a nickel-plated .25-caliber automatic and point it at him. It looked like a cigarette lighter his uncle had sold in his store, but he knew it could do permanent damage at this distance. Any hope he had for a clean getaway was ruined.

  Jay dove headfirst through the window, his arms folded in front of his face. He spread his limbs as he cleared the spinning glass to see a wide alley between blocks yawning out beneath him, Seven feet below was a row of parked cars and four feet below that was the ground. Jay twisted in mid-air so he landed on the roof of an old Buick on his right shoulder. He rolled across the rear windshield and slid over the trunk until his feet touched earth. Even before all the window glass had smashed across the car, the Chinese was running again.