Oliver Stark - 88 Killer

‘Reject your Jewry or you die now.’ The gun rose, pressed hard against her temple. She trembled but did not speak. He had failed. Again. His superiors would be unhappy with him. Again.

‘It is a new game I have to play now, 144002. I have to hurt them. They have children who could identify me. I need to do something that will be remembered for all time. And you are going to pay too, unless you choose differently. What have you got to say?’

‘I need food,’ said Abby.

The killer snarled. ‘No more food.’

‘Please,’ she begged.

‘My boots are dirty.’ The killer twisted the barrel of the gun tighter to her temple. ‘Every day, my father made me clean his boots. And if they were not clean, he threw them into the cellar. I had to go down into the dark to fetch them. There were no lights in the cellar. It was damp and cold and so dark. I can’t tell you how dark it was. When I was in the cellar, he would shut the door and lock it. I was in the cellar for hours. When he let me out, he would inspect his boots again. But in the dark, I could not clean them well. He would throw them down those stone steps again. Again and again, until his boots shone.’

‘Your father was unkind,’ said Abby.

‘Cruel and unkind. Yes. Now open your shirt,’ he ordered. Abby remained still. ‘It is an order.’

Abby trembled and fumbled with her buttons. He dragged her shirt open and pushed it over her shoulder. ‘You are scared to die, Abby?’ He pulled a knife from his belt and held it to her chest. She shook and swayed but refused to cry out.

‘144002,’ he said. ‘Now you must choose.’

‘No,’ she said.

‘You repent now, 144002. Reject your religion. I am here to save you. You will be one of the saved. One of the 144,000. I have to help them. It is the final time, the moment, and we must be ready. Your time has come.’

She was crying. He rested the barrel on the top of her head. ‘Can you feel how close death is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you reject your Jewry, Abby? Will you be one of our number? Reject it, as I have done. Abby? Will you?’

She looked up. She shook her head. ‘No, I will not.’

He pushed her hard and in anger. She flew across the ground. ‘You think you are better than me? I make them all reject their Jewry. You will too, when the pain is too great. I promise you, you will scream to give up your Jewry.’

North Manhattan Homicide

March 13, 11.05 a.m.

Erin Nash was standing at the entrance of the station house. She’d given up the subtle approach and was trying to stalk Harper into submission. He had studiously ignored her calls since the operation.

The NYPD had failed to capture Martin Heming. In fact, they’d let him slip through their fingers. Nash wanted the scoop. She knew from sources within the NYPD that Harper and Carney had nearly come face to face with the killer, and that Harper could give her an exclusive.

Erin had started digging into Heming’s background. He was your standard little guy with a big chip on his shoulder and some dangerous ideology to help hone and focus all his negative energy.

From reading his websites, she guessed that Heming was acting out of personal anger and perceived slight, and out of the ideological bigotry he’d absorbed through ten years of neo-Nazi meetings and ultra-right-wing conferences.

Nash also found something more interesting. He seemed to be acting out of a long-lasting resentment of his own wife and hatred for her new Jewish husband. Was it that simple? He was just some failed, cowardly impotent, looking for a target to hit out at. There was nothing extraordinary about this man who had killed all those innocent people. Nothing extraordinary at all. In fact, he was banal.

Erin spotted Detective Harper and Levene walking across the street to the station house. Harper looked bad. She jumped out and blocked his path.

‘How’s my hero?’

‘I’m not a hero.’

‘They say if you try hard enough, everyone gives in.’

‘It’s probably true, but how many years have you got?’

‘Come on, Harper, I just want an interview. Your story. The cop who came face to face with the 88 Killer. You got to be heard, for the sake of those people who lost their lives.’

‘I didn’t see him.’

‘They said you did.’

‘Not me,’ said Harper. ‘Wish I had, but I was second to this one.’

‘Who got there first?’

‘Detective Jack Carney of Hate Crime Unit.’

‘I don’t know him. Should I be speaking to him?’

‘He didn’t see him either.’

‘Sad, isn’t it. You’re having to play Buzz Aldrin to his Neil Armstrong.’

‘This isn’t moon walking, Erin. This is serious.’

‘I know that, Harper.’ She turned to Denise. ‘Denise Levene. You’re back at work? I didn’t know you were on the case. The A Team is back in business, is that right?’

‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Denise is not officially on this case.’

‘Never mind,’ said Erin. ‘You’re obviously quite special, Dr Levene. Tom Harper doesn’t share his thoughts with many people.’

‘Cut it out,’ said Tom.

‘Come on, something happened last night, didn’t it, Detective? You had the killer in your sights, so how the hell did he get away?’

‘He just did. We were a few minutes too late.’

‘How did he get the location of the kids?’

‘You heard the press conference, we are looking into it.’

‘You fired shots in the alley. I hear your gun’s been taken, right?’

‘Standard procedure. We tried to take the killer down but the killer evaded us. He shot at me. I shot back.’

Harper made his way up the steps and pulled open the big brown door.

‘I’m going to keep at it, Detective. I’m going to stick to this story until I get an angle. I always do, you know.’

Harper waved without turning and closed the door. He didn’t doubt her.

Borough Park, Brooklyn

March 13, 11.17 a.m.

The killer straightened the front of his coat, flicked a thread from one of the shining black buttons, pressed his hair against his head and replaced the low cap that covered his face. His facial muscles creased and flexed as if he were trying to straighten out his expression. He had been standing across from the synagogue for two hours now and the soles of his feet ached. He felt that the world was spiraling away from him. He needed to concentrate all that pain on to one object. One detested type of person. He looked up at the sky. It was an uneven color. A line of dark gray growing across the horizon to a heavy ominous stormcloud just out in the Atlantic.

He checked his watch, moved his head from side to side to stretch his neck muscles, then shifted his weight from foot to foot. He had read most of the newspapers that morning and got a thrill out of the thrashing anger of the media. He liked it in the way an animal enjoys the resistance of its prey when it struggles in its jaws. They were angry, the Jews were outraged and the police were full of confident rhetoric. They were all pleased with themselves. But he was unconcerned. It was not him they should be hunting down, but the Jews conspiring against America.

He knew now what he had to do, though. He had to continue like he had been doing, keep the pressure on himself and keep watching. There were two security guards outside the synagogue, there to protect the Jews. He smiled at the thought and walked across. The synagogue was situated twenty feet back from the street, with a raised plaza in front with four benches.

The first security guard moved over to stop him. ‘Can I help you, sir?’ he said in a thick foreign accent.