Dirty Harry 10 - The Blood of Strangers Read Online Free PDF Page B

along the way.
    Harry stepped forward. “You got yourself a driver,” and turning his head resignedly to where the Coronado was parked, he added, “and you’ve got yourself a car.”
    “Who are you?” the robber demanded.
    “Harry Callahan.”
    The name seemed to make no difference to him.
    The hostages were pushed forward. Of the six, the child seemed the least frightened, bewildered yes, but hardly as tearful or as anxious as his elders.
    Just as they came within a few yards of the car—the three robbers squeezed into the middle, the hostages on the outside—Ellie Winston instructed her associates to turn their video cameras on them and to ignite their high powered klieg lights.
    The harsh glare of the lights took the approaching hostages and their captors totally by surprise. For a few uncertain moments, they were paralyzed, unable to make out where they were going; hands flew up to protect the eyes, heads turned away . . .
    No one had anticipated this, not even Harry who liked to think that he was prepared for any eventuality. But that did not mean he failed to capitalize on the situation. This was where the improvising came in.
    Lifting his .44 Magnum out from the holster strapped underneath his jacket, he raised it with one hand while simultaneously shielding his eyes with the other. The intense lights burned into his retinas. His target was practically a blur. Nonetheless, for his purposes, a blur would just have to do.
    Of the three masked figures, one was particularly exposed. There was a young woman to one side of him and an elderly woman to the other, but his head was almost completely visible between the two.
    The blast was loud and decisive. The black mask turned bright red and then disappeared from sight altogether as the robber tumbled back, falling against one of his comrades who lost his balance in turn.
    Naturally, the gunshot had the effect of sowing confusion and panic among the hostages who started running in all directions.
    This left the two remaining gunmen in the open which was just what Harry had intended. Before the second could adequately regain his balance and determine where the shot had come from, Harry had shot him too, the round catching him between his shoulder blades and pitching him back against the sidewalk.
    The lone survivor happened to be carrying the laundry bag and even under such obviously urgent circumstances, he could not bring himself to abandon it. Instead, he began to race away, hoping that as soon as he reached the crowd of curiosity seekers, of whom there were more and more all the time, no one would dare fire for fear of taking an innocent life. How he would get away with his ill-gotten gains was another matter entirely.
    Harry saw that it was senseless to pursue him—the gunman had too much of a start on him—and he recognized how dangerous it would be to try to bring him down. He was getting too close to the police barricades where the onlookers had assembled, and because there were so many of them, they couldn’t flee from the gunman even if they wanted to; they’d all crush each other. So they contented themselves with screaming and grappling futilely with their neighbors in an effort to wrest a path free.
    Since Harry could not fire at the man himself, but rather at a more conspicuous, and less risky, target—the laundry bag bulging with jangling jewelry and less noisy wallets—he aimed right for the middle of it. It wasn’t hard to hit. The round drove through the bag, puncturing a gaping hole out of which spewed bills, gold necklaces, diamond rings, and emerald chokers.
    The .44 round did not strike the fleeing man himself; there was simply too much bulk for it to go through, but it did cause some of the jewels to explode back like shrapnel. The robber staggered for a few paces as the momentum kept him going and then he collapsed under the weight of the bag.
    The police had to fight their way through the crowd to get to him. No longer fearful of being