The Anniversary Man

by R.J. Ellory

  Farraday understood. He said that no-one would be seen. He gave his word, and Irving believed him.

  Eight minutes to go and they were still caught in the gridlock between the 34th Street subway and Penn Station. It cleared suddenly, a line of traffic taking the 32nd Street exit. Irving floored the car and they made it to 26th where he turned left and took Broadway down to the edge of the park.

  They left the car and walked half a block. Irving held Karen Langley′s hand, a message of reassurance that neither of them were doing this thing alone. They didn′t speak. Seemed that everything needing words had already been said.

  Ray Irving ignored a sudden and unnerving premonition, the feeling that he might walk away from this meeting understanding even less of the truth.

  Stationed at the four corners of the park were unmarked sedans, each carrying two officers and waiting on radio silence. Through the cleared frequency each of them could hear Langley and Irving talking to one another. A row of wooden benches stood empty in the north eastern corner of the park, and it was here that they sat.

  ′This scares the living crap out of me,′ Karen Langley said at one point, and Ken Hudson, looking at them through binoculars from his vantage point at West 26th, understood precisely what she meant. The emotion she felt was something with which he was very familiar. People literally lost their minds. It was something he would never wish on anyone, especially a civilian, especially someone dragged into this thing through no real choice of their own. He watched them, Irving and Langley, two narrow silhouettes on a park bench between the trees, and he knew that Irving, despite his training and experience, would be caught between the necessity to meet this Karl Roberts and the drive to protect Karen Langley. Rock and a hard place. Couldn′t do one without the other.

  No more than three or four minutes after they were seated, Irving saw someone cross the grass to his left and make their way toward the trees. He had on a long overcoat, tan-colored from what he could make out, and he seemed purposeful but cautious.

  Irving′s stomach turned over.

  From another police car, Vernon Gifford saw a second man exit a cab at the corner of East 25th and Madison and make his way toward the park railings. He had on a black jacket, hands buried in the pockets, shoulders hunched and head down, his face obscured by a baseball cap. The uniformed officer back of the driver′s seat, crouched down in the rear foot-well, felt the pressure of Gifford′s back as he pressed against the seat. He was sweating profusely, could feel the corner of his radio digging painfully into his thigh, but he couldn′t move.

  Words were exchanged between the four stationed teams. They were now watching four people - Irving and Langley, the tan overcoat, the baseball cap.

  Seventy twenty-nine Irving rose slightly as the man in the overcoat crossed his line of vision, turned left, and then started to walk slowly toward them. His heart ran ahead of itself.

  Vernon Gifford watched as Baseball Cap followed the railings and entered the park through the north eastern gate. Gifford sensed something was awry. He shifted awkwardly, reached for the door lever, told the officer behind him to move slowly into the front seat once Gifford had cleared the car.

  ′Moving in,′ Gifford said across the radio. ′Everyone stay back for the moment.′

  Gifford eased the door open and slipped out soundlessly. He closed the door behind him and hurried down the sidewalk to the corner. His breathing was heavy - white ghosts ahead of him as he exhaled. He felt the extraordinary tension of the situation.

  Screw this up and they were all fucked.

  Screw this up and God only knew how many more might die.

  He withdrew his .38 and slowed down. He reached the railings just as Tan Overcoat appeared behind a tree to the left of the path. He was the better part of fifty yards away, but he had Irving and Langley in his sights on the bench, saw Baseball Cap approaching them from the rear, and Tan Overcoat now walking toward them from the trees. He felt the sweat along his hairline break free and run down the side of his nose.

  ′Baseball Cap from the rear,′ he said into his mouthpiece. ′Tan Overcoat from ahead. Unit Three: send your lead man out to the far right of the park and come in slowly. Unit Four on hold. Irving? You have an unidentified man in a baseball cap approaching you from the rear, and the man in the tan-colored overcoat ahead of you. Raise your left hand and touch your ear if you read me.′

  Gifford watched as Irving slowly raised his hand and touched his ear.

  Irving lowered his hand and sat forward. He gripped Karen′s hand firmly as he saw a shadow emerge from back of the trees and walk toward them. Overcoat was now directly ahead of them. He approached slowly, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed. He wore a scarf, wound around the lower half of his face. Even at five yards Irving couldn′t make out his features, but there was something about the certainty with which he approached that told him this was Karl Roberts, that something might at last break on the case, something to resolve the deadlock within which he had found himself for the last endless number of days . . .

  Karl Roberts was no more than ten feet from where Irving was now rising from the bench.

  Irving did not dare look over his shoulder, but perceived the presence of whoever might have been behind them. The man in the baseball cap. Had Roberts brought along his own security?

  From Gifford′s vantage point it appeared that Baseball Cap had not been seen by Overcoat. Gifford went down to the ground, aware that any movement would alert Overcoat to his presence. He lay on the cold, wet grass, the .38 in his hand, his heart pounding, his breathing labored as he tried to make no sound at all.

  ′Mr Roberts,′ Irving said.

  ′Detective Irving,′ the voice came back, and Karl Roberts crossed the last few feet between himself and Irving, unaware of Vernon Gifford spread-eagled on the grass no more than fifteen feet from where he paused.

  ′Please,′ Roberts said. ′Sit down.′

  Irving backed up and sat beside Karen.

  ′You are afraid for your life,′ Irving said.

  Roberts, standing ahead of them, coat to his knees, scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face against the cold - and against being identified by whoever he believed might be the anniversary killer - seemed to sigh audibly. Irving knew this could not have been the case - not with the sound of traffic in the street behind them, not with the sound of his own breathing, the thundering of his own heart - but he sensed it nevertheless.

  Perhaps, Irving believed, there was resolution for both of them here. In hiding, unable to speak to anyone, Karl Roberts would perhaps find his own escape as he communicated what he knew to someone who had been involved in this thing even longer than himself.

  ′Afraid?′ Roberts said. ′Yes. Afraid of everything. Afraid of my own shadow these past few days.′

  ′So what is it that you know?′ Irving asked. Again the disturbing feeling, the dark edge of premonition around everything.

  ′This is Karen Langley?′ Roberts asked.

  ′Yes, this is Karen Langley.′

  Roberts nodded. ′Thank you for coming . . . I know this must be terrible for you—′

  ′It′s okay,′ Karen said. ′Really. I wanted to come. I wanted to help in any way I could.′

  ′It′s appreciated,′ Roberts said, ′but unfortunately this is a hell of a lot worse than I think either of you could have imagined.′

  Irving felt a chill of disquiet. ′Worse?′ he echoed. ′In what way? How could it be worse than it already is?′

  Roberts lowered his head. When he looked up he seemed distracted by something in the trees. ′Is there someone with you?′ he asked. ′You told me there′d be no-one with you . . . if there′s someone with you—′ He backed up, turned and glanced over his shoulder toward the path. He was checking that his route away was clear.

  Irving half-rose from the bench. He raised his hands in a placatory manner. ′There′s no-one else,′ he said. ′I assure you we′re here alone, just the two of us. No p
olice . . . nothing.′

  Roberts paused, perhaps reassured by Irving′s insistence.

  ′Please,′ Irving said, sitting down again. ′Please tell us what you know. Tell us what you know and then we can take whatever action we need and remove this threat—′

  Roberts took a step toward them. ′I know who it is,′ he said. It was a simple statement, and delivered with such certainty that Irving could not speak for a moment.

  ′You know who it is?′ Irving said. He felt his heart racing. His hands were literally running with sweat. He glanced at Karen Langley. Her eyes wide, her skin pale, she looked like a terrified child.

  ′Yes,′ Roberts said calmly. ′I know precisely and exactly who it is.′

  He took another step forward, and in that moment Irving knew the source of his disquiet. The man in front of him was too tall. More than six feet. He′d seen the records of Karl Roberts′ police service, his PI application forms, documents that detailed his height and weight, the color of his eyes, his race, religion, gender . . . his prints . . .

  Irving rose and took a step to the left. The backs of his knees were against Karen Langley′s legs, and he instinctively held out his arms wide, put them out beside him at waist height. Trying to shield her, to protect her . . . because even as he was questioning his own recollection of Roberts′ details, telling himself that something was wrong, the man drew an object from his overcoat pocket, something immediately identifiable, and the words that issued from the man′s mouth were as clear and uncomplicated as anything Irving had heard:

  ′I am the Hammer of God,′ he said, and his voice was level and insistent and certain, and betrayed nothing whatever of the depth of anger and hatred that might lie behind it.

  ′I am the relentless fucking Hammer of God . . .′

  Irving, trying desperately to reach his gun, went down with the first blow. Even as he collapsed to the ground, even as he heard Karen Langley screaming, he realized they had made a terrible, terrible mistake.

  The sound of the hammer connecting with Karen Langley′s head was indescribable, but immediately after - almost as if from a dream - there was the sound of gunshots, and in the madness of what was happening, looking back through the space beneath the bench, Irving saw someone standing no more than twenty feet away, someone in a baseball cap, his hand raised, the barrel of a gun erupting, and suddenly the assailant was staggering back, and before Irving could try and turn his head to see the gunman, he heard the familiar voice of Vernon Gifford.

  Gifford was shouting, then screaming at the top of his voice for the man in the baseball cap to drop his weapon, and there seemed to be some confusion, because the man in the cap hesitated, turned back toward Gifford, then suddenly started running toward Irving and Langley.

  And he did not drop the gun. He raised it as the attacker lifted the hammer once again, and it was in that moment that Gifford fired. Confused, disorientated, stunned with pain and trying to shield Karen Langley from the mayhem erupting around them, Irving was unable to reach his gun with his shattered forearm, and Gifford took the shot for him. He made a decision and went with it. It was a clean shot. A good shot. A single .38 caliber bullet found its mark in the upper right thigh of the man in the baseball cap. It was a through-and-through. The front of the man′s leg exploded outwards and he fell to his knees, his gun gone, his hands clawing at the wound in his leg. Perhaps he didn′t see the assailant towering over him, but Gifford saw him, saw him clearly, recognized the shape of the hammer as it came crashing down. Baseball Cap turned awkwardly and the hammer glanced off his shoulder. The scream of agony was indescribable

  Baseball Cap collapsed sideways, his hand on the far edge of the bench, and for a moment he seemed to be caught in an indecision of self-preservation versus the apparent need to protect Karen Langley from further attack.

  Unable to move his right arm, Irving tried to maneuver his handgun from its holster with his left hand. Consciousness was evading him. He felt the gun slip from his fingers and land on the grass.

  Baseball Cap tried to pull himself forward, put his hand on the front edge of the bench to lever himself up, but the man in the overcoat was there. Standing right over him. The hammer came down and glanced off his ear, down the side of his neck, and Irving heard something break and the man in the baseball cap dropped to the ground like a deadweight.

  Irving fought against waves of pain and blackness. He found his gun, felt the sweat on his hands, struggled to gain purchase, somehow turning over while still shielding Karen Langley. He tried to lift the weapon, but the gun slipped again and fell to the grass. And then his assailant was there again, looking down at him, and it seemed for a moment that the man possessed no face at all, just the impression of features somewhere within the shadows, as if he had simply grown out of darkness . . .

  Irving screamed. And then there were voices, so many voices in his ear, and he wondered for a split second where those voices were coming from until he heard Clean shot! Clean shot!

  The sound of a single gunshot, and the man staggered back, the hammer falling from his hand and landing on the grass. Irving could not see where he had been hit, only saw him take another handful of awkward steps backwards and then fall to the grass.

  And then Gifford was there, and within moments there was someone else, and someone else, and the voices were too loud, and there was a bright light in his eyes . . .

  Ray Irving turned his head sideways to look back between the feet of the bench, and he saw the man in the baseball cap lying there, and he knew who it was. And he knew the date, and he understood how this could have concluded no other way.

  And then he remembered Karen, and Vernon Gifford was kicking the hammer away, and someone was kneeling beside Roberts, and then Irving felt himself being lifted from the ground, and the pain was indescribable . . . and people were struggling to get him onto the bench, all the while shouting into radios.

  He could hear people running along the path, the sound of people screaming, and somewhere there was a siren . . .

  Gifford was beside him then, and Irving tried to say whatever he needed to say without words, for the darkness that swallowed him was deep and endless and full of the blackest shadows, and there was neither a sound nor any element of familiarity within it. He went silently, because there was nothing left with which to fight.

  SEVENTY-EIGHT

  November 23rd, 1984 - the Hammer of God killing of Nadia McGowan.

  November 23rd, 2006 - twenty-two years after the fact, the final Hammer of God killing had been replicated, this time with Karen Langley and Ray Irving the intended victims. They had survived, but this time - the casualty of some terrible, bitter irony - John Costello was the one who did not walk away. He was murdered by a killer posing as Karl Roberts; murdered by the Anniversary Man. And that man - a man whose real name was as yet unknown - had undergone surgery to arrest the potentially fatal consequence of a clean shot to the chest. Word had come down that he would survive, that he would make it, and even now the DA′s office, the relevant precincts, everyone who had been touched by this thing was preparing themselves to confront this horror of a human being.

  Vernon Gifford, an experienced homicide detective who had seen nothing but an unidentified man in a baseball cap aiming a gun in the direction of Ray Irving and Karen Langley, had taken the only rational action in such a situation. Had he not fired at Costello, had he not put a bullet through Costello′s thigh, the outcome might have been different.

  Irving, sitting beside Karen Langley′s hospital bed while he waited for her to regain consciousness, considered every angle of the event. Somehow he convinced himself that the manner of Costello′s death would have been the same regardless of what Vernon Gifford had done. It seemed to Ray Irving that John Costello had been waiting for this to happen since November of 1984.

  At nine-eighteen, morning of Saturday, November 25th, 2006, Karen Langley surfaced into consciousness in the post-op recovery room of St Clare′s Hospital on East 51
st and Ninth. The surgical team had operated on a skull fracture that extended from the upper edge of her right ear and around the back of her head for four and a half inches. She had also suffered a fractured right clavicle and two broken ribs.

  Ray Irving was there when she woke, his right arm and shoulder bandaged tightly, beneath the bandages a wound that had taken thirty-eight stitches to close.

  And it was Ray Irving who told her that John Costello was dead, killed by a single hammer-blow to the head. It was Costello who had followed them, his baseball cap pulled down over his face, his collar turned up; Costello who had understood the message from the Anniversary Man that the next killing would be personal . . . and it was Costello who had been prepared to do whatever was necessary to protect Karen Langley.

  ′Who is he?′ she whispered to Irving through dry and swollen lips.

  ′He isn′t Karl Roberts,′ Irving replied. ′We haven′t found Roberts yet. We can only presume he′s dead somewhere. Anthony Grant identified the man in the park as the Karl Roberts he had spoken to.′ Irving shook his head. ′Hard to believe, but Grant hired his own daughter′s killer to investigate her murder.′

  ′You know his name?′

  ′Not yet. His fingerprints aren′t on record and he′s certainly not on our files in New York, but that doesn′t mean he′s not on file someplace else. We have the FBI working on it with us . . . they′re going to help us identify him.′

  There were tears in Karen′s eyes then, as if she knew she could no longer escape the reality of John Costello′s fate.

  ′John is dead,′ she whispered.

  ′Yes,′ Irving said. He leaned forward, reached out his hand and closed it over hers.

  ′He was a good man, Ray . . . he really was a good man.′

  ′I know,′ Irving replied.

  ′He was killed on the same day . . . all these years later . . .′