The Eighty-eighth Key Ch. 34

"That's a Boy Scout's question, Frank," Harry said. "Are we standing up for the integrity of the system, trying to keep it from collapsing, or are we...?"

"And what do you think those guys would say, you know, if you asked them? That they're trying to keep the system from collapsing? That -- what is it? Immigrants, or blacks, or Jews...or whatever...are causing the imminent collapse of the country. And that they represent the best hope of preventing that collapse..."

Callahan held up his hand and shook his head: "No Frank, I think they're trying to tear the country apart from the inside, because they think the system isn't worth saving. Their political needs, the needs of this moment, can't be accommodated by our system of laws, of checks and balances. The system as it stands right now is their enemy, it's standing in their way and, as far as they are concerned, it needs to be pushed aside, burned to the ground."

Bullitt seemed taken aback by the idea, but then he rose to the challenge: "Okay, if all that's true, what does killing them accomplish -- except possibly starting an all out war, another civil war?"

Callahan sighed. "Oh, that's coming Frank. Sooner or later it will boil down to just that...because I think that's exactly what they want. They can't tear the system down on their own, so they'll get us to help them by corrupting the system from within, getting the people to lose faith in the system, and then getting the people to actively work to burn it down."

"Man, Harry, I had no idea you were such a cynic."

"It's not cynicism, Frank. It's opening your eyes to what's going on all around us right now. It's keeping in mind that history really does repeat itself, and that people really, really don't take that idea seriously enough, if they do at all. And that's why Hitler chose the same path, Frank. Why his shock troops infiltrated German law enforcement. Why his 'brown-shirts' infiltrated peace movements, and then sabotaged their demonstrations, making peaceful protestors look like willful destroyers of the republic, and then branding them as the anarchists. And the funny thing about it, Frank? He laid it all out in that little red book of his, that Mein Kampf thing he wrote when he was in jail. It was all right there, and the Germans ignored it. And do you know why they did that, Frank?"

Bullitt just shook his head.

"Because they wanted to. They hated their country enough to want to burn it all down, from the inside. And look around, Frank. Look at the freaks and hippies who want to burn it all down, then look at the guys in button down shirts and three piece suits, and listen to the anger in their voices."

"So, what are you saying, Callahan? That there's no hope, nothing we can do to stop all this from going down?"

"Politicians sell hope, Frank, every four years...just like clockwork."

"Sounds like you've given up on things, Harry..."

"I don't know anymore, Frank. There's just too much hate. Everywhere you look it's Us and Them. Battle lines being drawn, my side is better than your side. And who knows, maybe that's just a part of the human condition, how we're wired. Maybe 'peace' is really the opposite of the way people are put together..."

Bullitt continued to shake his head. "Man, I don't know. If that's true, then, well, there's no hope, is there? No way out of this mess."

Harry looked up when he heard a Huey in the distance, but then he heard another helicopter, and another...

"What is it?" Bullitt asked when he saw the look in Callahan's eyes.

"We've got company coming."

"Yeah, Rooney is coming up with..."

"At least three helicopters coming, maybe four..."

They looked at one another, then stood...

"Are the PSGs here?" Frank yelled.

But the Israelis were already coming for them, bounding down the hallway at a dead sprint...

"Rooney reports he's taking fire from..."

Machine gun fire tore through the house, then several small objects landed on the roof and everyone froze...

A moment later Harry was flying sideways through the imploding remains of the house, and then he was dimly aware of being picked up and hauled into what he thought was a bunker of some sort. He recognized Al through the smoke, realized Bressler had just saved his life -- but then Al ran back into the smoke and was gone...

The Israeli's came in carrying several Uzis and MP-5s, and a minute or so later Al returned, this time carry Frank over his shoulder. "Just like the PT course at the academy," he said through his infectious grin, and as he set Bullitt down Harry could see little cuts all over Franks face and arms...

He stood, felt light-headed and reached out to steady himself, then he took an MP-5 from the pile on a table and racked a round into the chamber...

Then he heard men running overhead -- followed by more machine gun fire -- then the pathetic return fire of snub-nose 38s.

"Fuck this," Callahan snarled -- as he made his way through the rubble for the wrecked staircase. With his back up against the wall he made his way towards the machine gun fire up the stairs until he saw three men -- strangers all -- firing at unseen targets.

He flipped the selector to full auto and the safety to off and raised the weapon to his eye and squeezed off three bursts -- and he saw three men go down.

"Frank? Are you there?" he heard Carl Stanton yell.

"Callahan here. Can you make it to the stairwell?" He heard running, then saw Carl at the top of the stairs. "You alone?"

"I know Dell went down upstairs, the Captain, too...?"

"Bennett?"

"Yeah. Pretty sure they're dead," Stanton said as he joined Harry. "What about Frank?"

"He's down here. Okay, as far as I could tell. What's going on out there?"

"Two choppers followed us, jumped us when we cleared the fog. Our pilot called for backup but they shot out the engine, we went down a few hundred yards up the hill from here."

Now it was eerily quiet, except that sirens could be heard in the distance.

"What about Rooney? The pilot?"

"I don't know."

"Anyone else in the Huey?"

"Mrs. Bennett was with the kids," Carl said, shaking his head and holding back tears.

"Okay, you go find Frank -- and anyone else down there. I'm going to find out what's going on outside," Harry said as he ran up the stairs. He saw Delgetti slumped in a corner and ran over, felt for a pulse -- and found one, strong and steady -- so he laid him out on the floor before he ran outside.

It only took a second to see where the downed Huey was; a steady flow of black smoke was rising through the evergreens up the hill so he took off in that direction...

...and stopped when he came on Sam Bennett. He was sitting up and looked confused, but the skin on the left side of his face was badly burned and Harry could see blood under his shirt...

...so he took off for the helicopter.

And found Rooney standing be the downed bird shaking his head.

"Harry? You have any idea how much paperwork it's gonna take to cover this shit?"

Callahan looked over the scene; Elaine Bennett was sitting in the shade of a redwood with her kids -- and all just fine -- while Rooney's co-pilot was busy dousing the remains of a small engine fire with an extinguisher.

"Did you get any registration numbers on the other birds?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Rooney said as he pulled out a tiny spiral notepad. "Ready to copy?"

"Shoot."

Harry wrote the numbers down but he already recognized one of them, the LongRanger he piloted with Escobar in the rear seat -- and he was amazed at how reckless these people were, and how lucky they'd been to catch on to the teams' use of Army helicopters.

The wailing sirens stopped on the hill beneath the house so Harry started to make his way back -- just as the sound of several approaching Army Hueys drowned out everything else. He watched them circle overhead, saw Rooney wave at an officer leaning out and surveying the scene, so he jogged back down to the house. He saw firemen and paramedics standing around and called out for the medics, told them there were casualties in the house...

"Who are you?" one of the firemen called out.

"Callahan. San Francisco PD Homicide."

"We heard heavy gun fire. Is it safe?"

"Yeah. Come on up." He heard footsteps behind and turned, saw Bullitt walking out of the house, his shirt a tattered mess of glass fragments and pooling blood.

"Harry? I think I've had about enough of this bullshit. It's time. The gloves come off, and they come off right fucking now."

Their eyes met, and Callahan nodded.

*

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | and as always, thanks for stopping by for a look around the memory warehouse...[and a last word or two on sources: I typically don't post all a story's acknowledgments until I've finished, if only because I'm not sure how many I'll need until work is finalized. Yet with current circumstances (a little virus, not to mention a certain situation in Washington, D.C. springing first to mind...) so waiting to mention sources might not be the best way to proceed. To begin, the primary source material in this case -- so far, at least -- derives from two seminal Hollywood 'cop' films: Dirty Harry and Bullitt. The first Harry film was penned by Harry Julian Fink, R.M. Fink, Dean Riesner, John Milius, Terrence Malick, and Jo Heims. Bullitt came primarily from the author of the screenplay for The Thomas Crown Affair, Alan R Trustman, with help from Harry Kleiner, as well Robert L Fish, whose short story Mute Witness formed the basis of Trustman's brilliant screenplay. Steve McQueen's grin was never trade-marked, though perhaps it should have been. John Milius (Red Dawn) penned Magnum Force, and the 'Briggs'/vigilante storyline derives from characters and plot elements originally found in that rich screenplay, as does the Captain McKay character. The Threlkis crime family storyline was first introduced in Sudden Impact, screenplay by Joseph Stinson. The Samantha Walker character derives from the Patricia Clarkson portrayal of the television reporter found in The Dead Pool, screenplay by Steve Sharon, story by Steve Sharon, Durk Pearson, and Sandy Shaw. I have to credit the Jim Parish, M.D., character first seen in the Vietnam segments to John A. Parrish, M.D., author of the most fascinating account of an American physician's tour of duty in Vietnam -- and as found in his autobiographical 12, 20, and 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam, a book worth noting as one of the most stirring accounts of modern warfare I've ever read (think Richard Hooker's M*A*S*H, only featuring a blazing sense of irony conjoined within a searing non-fiction narrative). Denton Cooley, M.D. founded the Texas Heart Institute, as mentioned. Many of the other figures in this story derive from characters developed within the works cited above, but keep in mind that, as always, this story is in all other respects a work of fiction woven into a pre-existing historical fabric. Using the established characters referenced above, as well as a few new characters I've managed to come up with here and there, I hoped to create something new -- perhaps a running commentary on the times we've shared? And the standard disclaimer also here applies: no one mentioned in this tale should be mistaken for persons living or dead. This was just a little walk down a road more or less imagined, and nothing more than that should be inferred, though I'd be remiss not to mention Clint Eastwood's Harry Callahan, and Steve McQueen's Frank Bullitt. Talk about the roles of a lifetime...]