by Sam Bourne
Will and TO were silent. Awestruck, even: it was not just the lives of the thirty-six that were keeping Rabbi Freilich working around the clock, even now on the solemnest night of the Jewish year, when all work was prohibited. This man, who spoke with erudition and in calm, rational paragraphs, clearly believed he had less than twenty-four hours to save the world. Will tried to blot that out, to focus on his own, immediate need: Beth.
'OK,' he said, like a police captain calling his squad to order. 'So that's how the system works. The crucial question is, who else knows about this? Who else might know the identity of the righteous men?'
By now they were back at the table, where the rabbi had all but fallen into his chair. Will could see the exhaustion in his face.
'You were our best hope.'
'I'm sorry?'
'When you came here on shabbos. On Friday night. We thought you were some kind of spy. From the people who are doing this, I mean. You were asking questions, you were an outsider. Maybe you were trying to find out about the lamad vav. That's why we, why I, treated you so harshly. Then we discovered you were-' Will could see the rabbi did not want to name him as the husband of their hostage '-you were something else.'
Will could feel the anger rising within him again. Why did he not just shake this man and force him to reveal where Beth was? Why was he putting up with this? Because, a voice inside him began, if these people were fanatical enough to kidnap Beth for no apparent reason, they were fanatical enough to hold on to her. Rabbi Freilich might have looked weak and exhausted, but there were a dozen men in here who were stronger. If Will lunged, they would soon have him pinned down.
'All right, so it's not me. Who else knows?'
The rabbi sunk lower. 'That's just it. No one knows. No one outside this community. And not even this community has any idea what's going on: there would be mass panic if they did. If they knew that the lamadvavniks are being murdered, every day more of them killed, there would be chaos here. They would believe the end of the world was coming.'
'You believe that, don't you?' It was said in Tova Chaya's gentlest voice.
The rabbi looked up at her, his eyes wet. 'I fear that what the Rebbe spoke of is coming to pass. Di velt shokelt zich und treiselt zich. That's what he used to say, Tova Chaya. The world is trembling and shaking. I fear for what judgement this day is about to bring upon us.'
Will was pacing. 'So no one outside this small group has any idea of this. Just you, Yosef Yitzhok and a few of your best students.'
'And now you.'
'And you're sure no one breathed a word?'
'To whom? Who even knew about this whole subject?
Why would anyone ask? But when Yosef Yitzhok was found dead. Well, then 'Then, what?'
'It confirmed that somebody knows what we know and wanted to know more. until then, I thought maybe it was a strange coincidence that the tzaddikim were dying. Maybe this was the work of HaShem, for a purpose beyond our understanding.
But Yosef Yitzhok being murdered, that's not a plan of HaShem's.'
'You think someone was pressing him for information?'
'Just before you came tonight, I had a visit. The police.
They think Yosef Yitzhok was tortured before he was killed.'
Will and TO both recoiled.
'What did they want from him that they didn't know already?'
'Ah, this you tried to ask me about before. Remember, I told you about the verses the Rebbe quoted in his talks? The ones Yosef Yitzhok had memorized? Well, there was something missing.'
'There were only thirty-five.'
'That's right. Only thirty-five. You can use the method I just showed you, converting letters into numbers and turning those numbers into co-ordinates, but you would still have only thirty-five righteous men. Isn't it obvious what the men who killed Yosef Yitzhok wanted to know? They wanted the identity of number thirty-six.'
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Sunday, 11.18pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn
Will's first impulse was to ask Rabbi Freilich the name of this thirty-sixth man. It was crucial. If he and TO knew that, they could work out where the killers were heading next: whoever he was, they were bound to be on his trail.
But the rabbi would not budge. For one thing, he said, the death of Yosef Yitzhok suggested the murderers were still not in possession of this vital fact. Had YY cracked under torture?
The rabbi was convinced he had not. 'I know this man. His intellect, his soul. He would not betray the word of the Rebbe.'
He was sure the secret was safe. If he shared it with TO and Will, it could only bring harm to them. Better that they did not know. (Will was sceptical: if the torturers came after him, they were hardly likely to inquire politely whether he had any useful information and then, once assured he did not, beat a polite retreat.) Will tried' another approach. 'This thirty-sixth righteous man? Is he still alive?'
'We think so. But I really will not say any more, Mr Monroe.
I cannot say any more.'
'Is he the only one alive?'
'We're not certain. Our sources of information are very patchy. We have had to scramble people to the furthest corners of the world to find these tzaddikim. Each time we have been getting there too late.'
'You mean, you didn't work out these names until this week?'
'No, Yosef Yitzhok made this breakthrough a few months ago. And, as I told you, we sent people to take a look, just to see who these tzaddikim were. We planned to keep an eye on them, no more. Maybe give them food or money if they were in trouble. But, to answer your question, we did not know they were dying until this week. We're not sure, but it only seems to have started a few days ago.'
'On Rosh Hashana,' said TO, her mind turning over visibly.
'That's when Howard Macrae was murdered.'
'I'm afraid we didn't know about that until days after it happened. When the news about the others started coming through. Was it even in the papers?'
'Yes,' said Will, pushing the air out of his nostrils in a sound of wry resignation. 'It was in the papers.' That was the trouble with page B3 of Metro; people could sail right past it.
'Anyway, it was the high holy days. We were not reading the newspapers. We were living our lives. We had no idea anything was happening. But then some of our people started hearing things. Our emissary in Seattle saw the cabin he had visited on the television news. The man who runs our centre in Chennai was reading through the local paper when he saw that the tzaddik in that town — one of our youngest — had been found dead. One report after another.'
'How many have gone?'
'We don't know. Remember, Yosef Yitzhok only began working on this a few months ago. Our list was barely complete; we hadn't been able to confirm everyone. This man, for example-' the rabbi gestured back towards the wipe-board with the Chancellor's number on it '-it took us a long time to find him. It turns out the GPS system is slightly different there, in England; it takes a different key. The WGS84 datum, apparently. We didn't know that then, so when Yosef Yitzhok first ran the numbers, they indicated, of all things, a prison. A Belmarsh jail. It seemed unlikely. But we didn't dismiss such a possibility. We know the tzaddikim delight in concealing their true nature.
'But when we readjusted the figures the result was instant.
Downing Street! And not the famous house, Number Ten.
But the house next door. The map was very clear. At the time, this man, Curtis, was in some trouble. A scandal, I think. Another disguise.'
Will was getting impatient. Enough lectures, he thought.
He wanted simple, hard facts — stripped of their mystical overtones.
'So, sorry, I just want to be clear on this. Do you have the full list or not?'
'We think we do.'
'And of those, how many are dead?'
'We think at least thirty-three.'
'Jesus!'
'You mean, they may only have to kill three more people?
It's nearly midnight now. Yom
Kippur ends in about nineteen hours!' TO, usually so calm, sounded genuinely panicked.
'Rabbi, whoever's doing this seems to be pretty clued up on Jewish religious custom, wouldn't you say?' Will began.
'I mean, who else but religious Jews know all this stuff about the righteous men, about the Days of Awe? They're following it all to the letter. And you say that no one outside this very small group even knew of Yosef Yitzhok's discovery.'
'What are you saying, Mr Monroe?'
'I'm saying, Rabbi, that you may not be behind this, despite the fact that I know you're a proven kidnapper. But somebody inside this… organization or community or whatever it is, almost certainly is. I reckon this is what the police would call an inside job. If I were you, I'd start looking at the people here very closely.'
'Mr Monroe, it's late and time is running out. I don't have the time or the strength to start fighting you. What Tova Chaya said before is right: we need to work together. So I'm going to trust you, even if you cannot trust me. I'm going to let you do something that will prove we are not behind this terrible wickedness.'
'Go on.'
'I'm going to send you to the next victim.'
CHAPTER FIFTY
Monday, 12.10am, Manhattan
Will had been to the Lower East Side a few times, to visit friends chic and savvy enough to buy up and renovate properties in the now-gentrified pockets north of East Broadway.
He had seen the old-time delis, drunk coffee in the retro-chic cafes on Orchard Street. But he had not wandered beyond the safely fashionable areas. He had glided past the old tenement buildings, seeing them as cinematic backdrop. He had never looked properly.
Now he was among them, shivering from cold and exhaustion in the night air. Scrunched in his hand, safely hidden inside his pocket, was the scrap of paper with the address he was meant to find.
Rabbi Freilich had led Will and TO back to the computer whiz who had given them the earlier demonstration. He talked them through the process. First, feed the computer the Hebrew sentence: Verse 16 of Isaiah 30. Then ask it to stop at the right intervals, and it will spit out a number. Feed that number through the GPS websites and you get co-ordinates for a place: a specific address on a specific street on the Lower East Side in Manhattan.
'Hang on a minute,' Will had said. 'Isn't this a bit unlikely?
You've got thirty-six righteous men out of six billion people on the planet — and two are in New York? Howard Macrae and now this guy? It sounds a bit convenient to me.' It had not yet congealed into a full allegation, but Will's scepticism was turning into suspicion.
The rabbi explained that they too had wondered at such a coincidence. But then they had read deeper into Hassidic folklore. It turned out a truly great tzaddik radiated a 'glow' — the same word Rabbi Mandelbaum had used — that might draw in others. Their calculated guess was that the Rebbe's goodness had been so powerful that a couple of tzaddikim had been pulled near. Think of them as satellites,' the rabbi had said.
But there was a problem. The address now balled up in Will's fist was an apartment building, home to dozens of people. Which one was the tzaddik? The Hassidim had gone down there once to check it out soon after Yosef Yitzhok had first cracked the Rebbe's code, but they had not been able to identify him. The man in this building remained one of the most hidden of the hidden righteous men.
'You will have a better chance of finding him than us,'
Freilich had said.
'Why?'
'Look at us, Mr Monroe. We cannot go where you go, we cannot ask what you can ask. We are too visible. You are a reporter from The New York Times. You can go where you like and talk to anybody. You found Mr Macrae, zechuso yogen aleinu, and Mr Baxter, zechuso yogen aleinu.' May his righteousness protect us. 'Find this man. Go find our tzaddik.'
So shortly before midnight, Will took off his skullcap and went back out into the world. As he set off, TO decided to do the same.
'I'm going to call the police. I can't hide from them forever.
We've done what we needed to do.'
'What will you say?'
'That my phone's been dead all day and I've only just heard what happened. Wish me luck. Or at least visit me in jail.'
'This is so not a joke.'
'I know. But you can see what it looks like: a dead man in my apartment and I'm AWOL. I might be charged with murder by the morning.'
'This is all my fault. I sucked you into this insane mess.'
'No, you didn't. You asked for my help. I could have said no. I knew what I was getting into.'
'Did you?'
'Not really, no.'
And with that, Will leaned over to give TO a kiss on the cheek — only for her to pull back the moment he came close.
There was a magnetic field of resistance around her face. Of course. She was not allowed to touch a man, let alone be kissed by one, not in the heart of Crown Heights. Will made do with a plain goodbye.
Now watching his breath form clouds before him, Will turned the corner so that he was at Montgomery and Henry.
Behind him was a small triangle of park. In front, the tenement building he was looking for. He held back, wanting to gaze at it a while. He could see one, two, three lights still on.
Now what? He had barely considered what he would do once he got here. He could not exactly start knocking on doors, claiming to be doing a vox pop for The New York Times after midnight. What could he do?
He would have to get into the building. That would be a start. Then he could look at the mail boxes, get some names, Google a few of them on his BlackBerry. He would think of something. '
Oh, good. Someone coming out. Perfect: that would give him his chance to slip in. Except this person was moving too fast, almost running. It was hard to make him, or her, out; it was too dark and the light above the entrance too dim. But when he stepped forward, looking nervously left and right, Will saw enough.
Most striking was the piercing brightness of his eyes, a chill, glassy blue. But it was the posture Will recognized. A physical confidence, as if this man was used to using his body.
The clothes were slightly changed, but there was no mistaking him — with or without his baseball cap.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Monday, 12.13am, Manhattan
Will's first instinct was to observe. He was used to watching, seeing how things unfolded. So it took a beat and then another before Will realized that he could not just watch. He would have to stalk the stalker.
He was wary. Hardly anyone was around; he would be noticed. So he kept far back, walking as quietly as he could.
He cursed the black leather shoes he was wearing: they made too much noise. He tried to prevent his heels making contact with the sidewalk, to dampen the sound.
But the man in front seemed to be in a hurry as he charged down Henry Street. Not running, but a brisk walk that allowed no time for looking back. That emboldened Will; he walked faster, taking pains to keep just less than a block between them.
The stalker was carrying a black leather bag at his side, the strap worn like a sash crossing over to his opposite shoulder.
He was neat and self-contained, moving nimbly. Will was no expert, but he would have been surprised if this guy did not have some connection with the military.
By now he had crossed Clinton and Jefferson. Where was he going? To meet a getaway car? If so, why had he not been picked up earlier? Maybe he was walking towards a subway station. Will cursed his limited knowledge of New York: he had no idea if there was a station near here.
Without warning, the man suddenly looked back. Will saw the movement of his head and, without even thinking, moved off the sidewalk towards the steps of the tenement block he was passing. At the same time he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. What the stalker would have seen was a man entering his own apartment building. He walked on;
Will let out a deep sigh. He had been holding his breath.
By now the man ahead was turning a sharp rig
ht. Will tried to position himself so that he would not be caught in his field of vision.
'Yo, Ashley! You got my phone?'
Will had not seen them coming, but there they were, right in front of him. Three African-American teenage girls, filling up the sidewalk. Will tried to slide past, but they were in the mood for some fun.
'What's the hurry, handsome? You don't like how we look?
You don't think we look fine?' At this the other two were screeching with laughter. He looked over their heads, to see the stalker heading down a side street towards East Broadway.
He was hard to make out.
'Yo, I'm over here, honey!' It was the leader of the pack, now waving her hand in Will's face. If he had been born in New York, he was sure he would have shoved them aside with a curt, 'Get the fuck out of my way.' But even here, on a mission to prevent a murder in the dead of night, he was still an Englishman.
'Excuse me, I have to get past. Please.'
With that, he weaved around Ashley and company, hearing more whooping and calling behind him. 'My friend says you can have her number!'
Will now broke into a run, desperate to catch up. He reached the junction and turned right, scanning the street up and down in search of his quarry. There was a couple making out on a stoop. But no sign of the stalker.
He could see only two non-residential buildings; the man might have fled into either one of them. He certainly could not yet have reached East Broadway or else Will would have caught sight of him. Will slowed down, checking over his shoulder, aware that this was exactly how to walk into an ambush. After fifteen paces, Will gave up: he had clearly lost the man he had needed to follow. He must have escaped into one of these two buildings, on opposite sides of the street.
Will was near enough now to see what they were. One was the Church of the Reborn Jesus, but the other was a synagogue — affiliated to the Hassidim of Crown Heights.