Dirty Harry 06 - City of Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

Followed by Owens, he headed around the block, thinking that there might be access to the rear of the building where the gunmen were.
    But their hope proved short-lived. For there was another building, a bank crowned by a neoclassical cupola, that stood in the way. Nor was there any alleyway by which they could gain the entrance they sought. There was no doubt that the only way to get into the building was directly through the front door; to try and do that meant exposing oneself to the steady barrage the gunmen continued to lay down.
    “What do we do now?” Owens asked, in some way relieved that their options had been foreclosed, that they, too, would have to wait for a SWAT team. This seemed to demand a military-scale operation in any case if they were to dislodge the men from the rooftop.
    “What we do now is go in by the front,” Harry said, none too pleased by the prospect himself.
    “We could get killed doing that,” Owens pointed out.
    “We certainly could.” The unspoken offer was there in his voice; if Owens wished to back out Harry would pose no objection.
    But Owens had no intention of doing so. He just silently prayed that Harry knew what he was doing.
    Harry had an idea but didn’t exactly know. He motioned to Owens, and they made another circle of the block, this time from the other side. Observing the physical configuration of the street they looked down, the manner in which the buildings were arrayed, the way in which cornices and buttresses and gutter pipes protruded, and the present position of the shadows along the surface of the adjoining sidewalk, he told Owens, “Seems to me if we stick close to the buildings, staying within the border defined by the shadows, we have a fairly good chance to avoid being spotted.”
    Across the street, pinned down on the great white marble steps, Davis and members of his entourage, alive and dead and in between, were clustered cheek and jowl with one another. Blood drained down the steps in rivulets, forming small pools in the crevices and sags that the weather and the passage of thousands of feet had produced over time.
    Otherwise, the street was deserted, pedestrian traffic having instantly come to a halt when the firing broke out. One man, unwittingly caught in the shooting, lay sprawled out in the middle of the street, his trenchcoat stained with blood, his umbrella thrown to the side; but he was still alive, wiggling slowly, hopelessely, in the direction of the intersection. No one could get help to him any more than they could get help to the people on the steps.
    A gray limousine parked in front of Cavanaugh-Sterling Headquarters (a rented limo, not Davis’ special) sustained some of the injuries intended for its prospective passengers. Windows would pop loudly as the bullets impacted. A series of jagged holes appeared across its chassis. It occurred to Harry that the gunmen were not simply failing to hit their human targets but were having some sport as well, riddling the limousine, perhaps to express their ideological antipathy to such extravagant means of transportation.
    But the fate of this limousine (very likely the scrap heap) was of no concern to Harry. He now directed Owens, proceeding quickly, maneuvering as close as he could alongside the structures fronting the street. The din at this point was quite furious, what with the incessent gunfire and the mad cacophony of sirens that signalled the approach of yet more cruisers, ambulances, rescue trucks, and police vans.
    So long as no gunman peered down from the edge of the rooftop Harry and Owens could consider themselves safe. But their luck stretched only so far. As they came near to their objective the sidewalk exploded just behind Harry and immediately in front of Owens, sending up a cloud of dust and cement fragments that began raining down on them.
    Because there was no sense in returning the fire—they could barely expect to hit their antagonists from their earth-bound position—they ran,