36 Righteous Men

by Steven Pressfield

  Rachel’s posture becomes even more aggressive.

  RACHEL

  And you are now, aren’t you?

  (with satisfaction)

  You’ve seen him. You’ve touched him.

  At this instant the elevator doors open. Ellie Landau emerges.

  I grab Manning’s sleeve again and force him to read the two names I indicate on Rachel’s list.

  AMOS BEN-DAVID

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Manning’s expression never alters.

  He watches Ms. Landau step from the elevator. Two male associates in business suits accompany her. One wears fashionable spectacles and carries a leather briefcase; the other sports a butch cut and wears an earpiece. Ms. Landau crosses to the table in three strides.

  BEN-DAVID

  Ellie!

  Ben-David seizes the attorney’s hand with relief, steering her to Rachel’s side.

  Ellie Landau inserts herself physically between Rachel and Manning. With a glance she takes in Rachel’s distraught countenance, Manning’s truculent posture, and the evidence table with its impounded weaponry and documents.

  She notes as well the list—Rachel’s list—in Manning’s hands.

  Clearly he has read it.

  Clearly he is aware of the names upon it.

  I’m facing my lapel cam directly toward Ms. Landau. I tap the volume control on the voice recorder. I want to be sure I get everything.

  Ellie Landau looks exactly like her photos in the press and on TV—jet-black hair styled in a severe but feminine cut, with a streak of vivid white ascending from the forelock. What the images in the media can’t show, however, is her charisma. Ellie Landau is a star and she knows it.

  Ms. Landau says something to Rachel and Ben-David that none of us outside their circle can hear. She turns and, shielding Rachel and Ben-David both with her posture, faces Manning.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Detective Manning, I presume.

  MANNING

  “Ellie Landau for the defense.”

  Ms. Landau smiles but does not extend her hand.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  That document in your hand, Detective. Is it the list of Righteous Men from Rabbi Davidson’s Ph.D. dissertation?

  MANNING

  Righteous Men. And Righteous Women.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  The Almighty has apparently grown more inclusive over the millennia.

  Now it’s Manning who smiles. Ellie Landau holds out her hand. Manning shakes it.

  Manning’s eyes never leave Ellie Landau’s.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  You’ve seen my name on that list, Detective. You’ve seen Dr. Ben-David’s. You’re convinced the document is a hit list. You’re thinking, “Why would Ellie Landau defend a woman who put her in the crosshairs of a psychopath?”

  Manning’s expression says, You’re reading my mind.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  That document is a hit list. And my client did compile it. But she had no idea, as she was doing so, that the list would be used for that purpose . . . and no idea of the motive or identity of the killer.

  MANNING

  And what would that motive be, Ms. Landau?

  ELLIE LANDAU

  You tell me, Detective. Or maybe you should tell your boss at Division Six Homicide.

  Manning bristles.

  MANNING

  Who is Instancer? You know, don’t you?

  ELLIE LANDAU

  I only know what can be proven in a court of law.

  MANNING

  Don’t fuck with me, counselor. I’ll put your client away.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Will you, Detective? I don’t think you’ve got the juice.

  Manning’s shoulders rise the way they do when he’s battling fury.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Your boss thinks this line of investigation is hogwash. What word did he use? “Bullshit,” wasn’t it? That’s what my spies tell me. “Righteous Men?” “Supernatural Killer?” “End of the World?” Lieutenant Gleason thinks you’ve gone off the deep end, Manning. He thinks you’ve lost your shit. You’re embarrassing him and the whole division. Worse, you’re threatening his career, his future . . .

  MANNING

  You’re a brawler, Ellie. I’m impressed.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  You won’t book my client, Detective, because if you do, it’ll be the end of your career, which from what I understand is hanging by a very slender thread already.

  Manning’s eyes never leave Ellie Landau’s.

  MANNING

  (to me)

  Detective Dewey, place Rabbi Davidson under arrest. Handcuff her, take her in, and book her.

  I reach for my cuffs and start forward.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  (to Manning)

  On what charge, Detective, are you detaining my client?

  MANNING

  Accessory to murder.

  Outside, in the ongoing downpour, I palm the crown of Rachel’s head and steer her under the roofline into the rear seat of Manning’s AV. Ellie Landau’s Escalade brakes at the curb, taking aboard Ellie, Ben-David, and her bodyguard. Her law associate scurries across to Manning, confirming with him the floor and room at DivSix to which Manning will be taking Rabbi Davidson for booking. “Follow us,” Manning tells him.

  He gives me my instructions across the Crown Vic’s roof.

  MANNING

  Identify every “LV” murder in Europe, Russia, Asia, and South and Central America, and don’t stop till you’ve found ’em all. Cross-check dates and cities for flights from the States, hotels, taxis, Ubers . . . search every record including FaceRec videos from street-corner surveillance cameras.

  (indicates Rachel in car)

  If this woman was anywhere near any of those murders, I wanna know about it in detail.

  Ben-David has crossed back to our Crown Vic in the downpour. Rain plasters his hair to his skull; his eyeglasses are fogged solid. Manning steps aside, permitting Ben-David to reassure Rachel that he and Ellie will be at DivSix the moment she arrives and that Ellie is already on the phone arranging a speedy release.

  I’m still mystified by the anthropologist’s ardor to defend Rachel. When he bolts back to the Escalade, I turn to Manning.

  ME

  Why is this famous guy here? I don’t get it. Why does he care so much about this crazy woman?

  MANNING

  Ben-David in Hebrew means “son of David.”

  ME

  So?

  MANNING

  Davidson.

  I’m an idiot.

  ME

  He’s her fucking brother.

  18

  THAT WHICH GOD HAS HIDDEN

  I’M WATCHING MANNING interrogate Rachel. It’s eight hours later, four-thirty in the afternoon of April 23, 2034. Manning is the lone detective conducting the interview. I’m observing from my desk at DivSix via remote camera. Across the table from Manning sit Rachel, Ellie Landau, and Dr. Ben-David, whom for reasons unknown to me Manning has permitted to remain. The room is the same one in which Gleason and Silver interrogated Yoo-hoo Petracek early this morning.

  In the hours since the impound lot, I have web-scoured the hell out of Rachel and Ben-David.

  They are indeed brother and sister, of Massapequa, Long Island, New York, the children and grandchildren of Conservative rabbis. Both spoke Hebrew before they could speak English. Ben-David Hebraized his name when he made aliyah to Israel in 2018. He is currently, as I said, a paratroop battalion commander in the reserve forces of the Jewish state. His younger sister, before her expulsion, was also an IDF reservist—a second lieutenant in Intelligence—as are hundreds, even thousands, of other Jewish-American citizens. She fought in the sixth and seventh Hamas Wars, in the tunnels.

  For the first twenty minutes of the interrogation Manning presses Rachel on the origin of her list. Ben-David defends his sister with barely contained fury.

  BEN-DAVID

  The list is Rache
l’s Ph.D. thesis. You have proof of this already, Detective. I have given it to you. What more do you need?

  MANNING

  Nine men have been murdered, Dr. Ben-David. Every name is on Ms. Davidson’s list. Explain that to me.

  Manning intensifies his pressure on Rachel. Ellie Landau objects over and over to Manning’s hostile, berating tone. She blocks Manning again and again from compelling Rachel to answer.

  The physical layout of DivSix is different from that of a precinct house.

  The office is built around “the Floor,” a central arena containing the workstations of the Second and Third Grade detectives. Flanking this on one side is the Bunker, the big meeting room. On the other are conference areas and interrogation rooms. It is in the third and largest of these that Rachel is being interviewed.

  The process simply of getting her here has consumed, as I said, the better part of eight hours today, because of Superstorm Dani. Trains are out, streets are flooded, bridges and tunnels closed. It has been impossible for the judicial officers, at least those who normally service DivSix and who all live in the New Jersey or Connecticut suburbs, to make their way into town.

  Bottom line: Manning and I have had to transport Ms. Davidson, and her brother and lawyer, in person and by vehicle to the New York State Supreme Court Building at 60 Centre Street on Foley Square. It takes us two hours to get there and, when we arrive, Centre Street is inundated. The East River seawall has been breached at South Ferry and at Old Slip. Lower Manhattan is under a foot of water.

  So we walk.

  Wade.

  Our group—Manning, Rachel, Ben-David, Ellie Landau, and me—has been together now for six unbroken hours since the impound lot. Individuals are starting to get to know one another.

  “Tell me the truth,” Manning says to Ellie Landau as we approach Centre Street in salt water above our ankles. Manning is carrying the attorney’s Manolos and sheltering her beneath his umbrella. “Why are you defending this woman?”

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Maybe I believe in her.

  MANNING

  Come on.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Maybe I don’t like the idea of you locking her up. Maybe I believe she has critical work to do, and that the stakes for the human race could not be higher.

  Two hours earlier, before our initial departure from DivSix, I had handed Manning a quickie report, gleaned by me from overseas trial transcripts and airline passenger manifests.

  Ellie Landau, it turns out, has assisted in the defense of both Russian “LV” victims when they were charged with crimes by the Kremlin.

  She was in Russia on four separate occasions.

  As a foreigner, Ms. Landau could not officially represent the accused. But she stood present to aid their domestic counsels. She was in Moscow at the time Russian Victim #2, Alexsandr Golokoff, was murdered.

  I have found as well, on Instagram, a video from January 2031. The tape is of Ms. Landau praying at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The caption identifies her as part of a delegation from the United States. The group was led by the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

  MANNING

  They know each other, don’t they? All of them.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  To whom do you refer, Detective?

  MANNING

  Stop breaking my balls.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  And how might I do that, Jim? By telling you I believe in the devil? Clearly you do.

  MANNING

  I’m a Catholic, Ms. Landau. I believe in everything.

  The courthouse at Centre Street shuts down when the last auxiliary power generator crashes. It’s 3:40 in the afternoon. We still haven’t received a hearing. Over Ellie Landau’s objections Manning compels the traveling troupe back to DivSix’s offices and begins the interrogation.

  MANNING

  Where did you first meet Instancer?

  RACHEL

  On a dig. An archaeological dig in Israel.

  Rachel turns to the button camera mounted in the ceiling of the interrogation room.

  RACHEL

  The “Gehenna dig.” Look it up, Dewey. November to January 2031.

  (to Manning)

  He said he was a graduate student from Columbia, studying at Bar-Ilan University for the semester.

  MANNING

  And you believed him?

  RACHEL

  You did.

  Ellie Landau again objects to Manning’s hectoring tone. She cites her client’s fraught state, as well as her history of emotional instability. She threatens Manning with administrative action if he continues in this “truculent and confrontational” manner.

  Manning takes a breath.

  He resumes.

  If Ms. Davidson is indeed a rabbi, why is she living like a street person?

  If she is truly a Ph.D., why is she camping in a van “under the steel”?

  Why does she carry no ID, no credit cards, no phone, no money?

  How did she come to compile her list of Righteous Men? For what purpose? Whose idea was it?

  Again Ellie Landau refuses to let Rachel answer.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  (to Manning)

  Are you familiar with the Hebrew term herem?

  MANNING

  I’m not familiar with any Hebrew terms.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  It means excommunication.

  The most senior religious officials of Israel, Ellie Landau tells Manning, are the Ashkenazi chief rabbi and the Sephardic chief rabbi. Acting in concert, these elders, with their council of scholars and advisors, constitute the supreme authority of the Jewish faith.

  Charges were brought against Rachel twenty-seven months ago, Ellie Landau says. Rachel was compelled to appear in Jerusalem before this synod.

  MANNING

  For what crime?

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Publishing her dissertation. For printing this document that you’re so certain is a hit list.

  MANNING

  I don’t get it.

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Among the Orthodox, for anyone but the most venerated scholars to dig into the hidden lore is considered an outrage. For a woman, such an act is unthinkable. What Rachel did, in the world of the devout, was sacrilege of the highest order.

  MANNING

  (to Rachel)

  They excommunicated you?

  Rachel acknowledges. This makes an impression on Manning.

  BEN-DAVID

  Rachel lost everything—her livelihood, her standing in the community, her family, her future. Our own father disowned her. She was dishonorably discharged from the army. Death threats were made against her.

  Rachel’s hands tremble. Her eyes plead with her brother to stop.

  BEN-DAVID

  My sister cracked up, Manning. She tried to kill herself—twice. She spent six weeks in a locked ward at Tel HaShomer Hospital in Israel. Is that enough for you? That’s why she’s “under the steel” now. That’s why even I don’t know how to help her.

  My fingers are hammering the keys for:

  ASHKENAZI CHIEF RABBI AND SEPHARDIC CHIEF RABBI

  appending Rachel’s name and every other search parameter I can think of. To my non-surprise, no official record comes up. But I’m getting article after article in Maariv, Haaretz, and the Jerusalem Post.

  The proceedings of the hearing are secret, of course, including the identity of the accused.

  But not that of her counsel.

  As I’m running this search, I’m speaking into Manning’s earbud and watching him in the interrogation room via the overhead camera. With the most imperceptible of nods he waves me off.

  MANNING

  When you went before the elders in Jerusalem, Ms. Davidson, were you represented by counsel?

  Rachel makes no answer. But she glances, despite herself, toward Ellie Landau.

  MANNING

  Two women against the patriarchy. I’d have bought tickets to that.

  Manning’s expression
reveals a new respect.

  BEN-DAVID

  Rachel went through hell. Can you understand that, Manning? Can you see that she’s hanging on by a thread?

  MANNING

  And the submachine gun? The Obsession Board?

  ELLIE LANDAU

  Does someone put together an Obsession Board because they’re in cahoots with its subject? Rachel isn’t working with Instancer. She’s hunting him. She’s trying to stop him. The gun isn’t to help him, He never uses a weapon anyway. It’s to protect herself, as much as anything can protect against him!

  The interrogation goes on for another hour. For the first time, Ellie Landau lets Rachel open up.

  Rachel declares, haltingly at first and then with greater vigor, that she has been tracking Instancer for the past twenty-one months. Twice she got within a day of him—once in Dusseldorf, once in São Paulo.

  Instancer broke no laws. He committed no crimes. Rachel says she couldn’t figure out, at first, what his intentions were or why he was in these specific places.

  Then she realized: he was establishing the whereabouts and studying the daily routines of individuals on her Righteous Men list.

  He was casing them.

  Rachel went to the men and warned them.

  She told them their lives were in danger.

  She identified herself, explained everything, pleaded with the men to realize their peril.

  The men dismissed her. They rejected her. They turned her in to the police.

  RACHEL

  The cops ran their checks on me. Every ounce of shit came up. I was detained four times and deported twice.

  Rachel raises her eyes again to the ceiling cam.

  RACHEL

  Look it up, Dewey. Ankara, October ’32. Marseille, April ’33 . . .