The Righteous Men (2006) (49 page)

‘Can someone tell me what on earth is going on here?’ No one
said anything. Will gave a small shake of the head.
No time. Later
.

By now Rabbi Freilich was sitting, stroking his beard, deep in thought. ‘And
you have seen this group with your own eyes?’

‘I was with them an hour ago. They’re here in New York. I’m
convinced it’s them. And I’m convinced they’re here to finish
the job. The Apostle said that “the final knowledge eludes us”. I
think they still don’t know the name of the thirty-sixth righteous man.
But they are determined to find him — and to kill him. You have to
protect him. Where is he? Is he safe?’

‘He is in the safest place in the world.’

‘You must tell me. Otherwise, we can’t be sure they won’t find
him.’

Rabbi Freilich looked at his watch again and allowed himself a small smile. ‘He
is right here.’

T
he sounds of
ne’eilah
were drifting through, not just from the synagogue but from houses along the
street — intense prayer at this, the most climactic hour of the holiest
day of the year.

‘Here?’ Will said. ‘You mean . ..’ He stared at
Rabbi Freilich himself.

‘No, Will, it’s not me.’

Will looked around. There were no other men in the room; no other men in the
house. His stomach began to turn over.

Was it even possible? ‘No, it can’t be. You can’t mean—’

‘No, Will,’ said the rabbi, his smile stretching wider. ‘It’s
not you.’ And then, with only the slightest tilt of his head, he nodded
towards Beth.

‘Beth? But I thought the thirty-six were all men. You told me they
were all
men
.

‘They are. And your wife is carrying inside her the thirty sixth
righteous man. She is pregnant, Will, with a boy.’

‘You’ve made a mistake. We’ve been trying—’
Will stopped himself when he saw Beth’s face. She was smiling and crying at
the same time.

‘It’s true, Will. I finally got to use that tester I’ve
carried around in my bag for so long. It’s true. We’re going to
have a baby.’

‘You see,’ said Rabbi Freilich. ‘Your wife didn’t
know she was pregnant. But the Torah knew. The Torah told us. It was the Rebbe’s
last message, given to Yosef Yitzhok in his dying hours. Nobody realized it at
the time but his last words led us to the thirty-sixth verse — from the
Book of Genesis, the book of new beginnings. This one verse — the tenth
verse of the eighteenth chapter — was kept separate from all the others; not
written down in any of the Rebbe’s papers or speeches.

No one could have picked it up from our computers. But we counted off the
letters in the usual way and it brought us a location: your home. At first we
assumed that meant the
tzaddik
was you. But then Yosef Yitzhok looked
closer at the words themselves. That verse describes the moment when God speaks
to Abraham and tells him his wife, Sarah, is to have a son. She had been
childless so long, yet she was to have a child. Yosef Yitzhok understood what
the Rebbe was telling us. We weren’t to look at you, but your wife. We
found the hidden of the hidden, Will. And he is your son.’

Will pulled Beth towards him. But as they hugged, he felt something dig into
his chest through the bandages. He heard the words of the vicar, repeated in
his ears. We’ve bound your wounds. I hope your pain is easing.

Will ripped open his shirt and tore off the bandages underneath.

He cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid!

He had followed the script exactly as the vicar had laid it out for him. Try
instead to light the way — and that was exactly what he had done. Sure
enough, there it was, concealed between the bandages: a simple wire, tipped at
one end by a microphone and at the other by a tiny transmitter.

A second, maybe two, passed before they knocked down the door. As it smashed
against the wall, Will saw a blur with only two distinct features: a pair of
laser-blue eyes and the barrel of a revolver, sheathed in a silencer. Instinct
rather than judgment made Will shield Beth. He stole a glance at his watch.
Nine minutes to go.

Rabbi Freilich and the woman of the house froze, petrified.

Laser Eyes barely looked at them.

Thank you, William. You did what we asked.’

The voice was not the gunman’s, but belonged to the figure behind him,
now stepping into the room. The sound of it made Will’s brain flood. He
realized he was looking at the head of the Church of the Reborn Jesus, the man
behind the murder of thirty-five of the most virtuous people on earth, the man
who wanted to bring about nothing less than the end of the world. And yet the
face he was staring at was one he had known forever.

‘H
ello, William.’

Will could feel his head pounding. The room seemed to spin. Beth, cowering
behind him, grabbed his wrist and gasped.

Rabbi Freilich, the woman — everyone was frozen.

‘What? What are you … I don’t understand.’

‘I don’t blame you, Will. How could you possibly understand?

I never explained any of this to you. Nor to your mother either. Not in any
way she could understand.’

‘But, I don’t, I don’t…’ Will was stammering.
Nonsensically he said, ‘But you’re my father.’

‘I am, Will. But I am also the leader of this movement. I am the
Apostle. And you have just rendered us the greatest possible service, as I knew
you would. You have brought us to the last of the just. For that alone, you
have earned your place in the world to come.’

Will was blinking, like a fugitive dazzled by headlights. He could not
compute what he was seeing or hearing.

His father. How could his father, a man of the law and justice, be the
architect of so many cruel, needless deaths? Did his father, a stern
rationalist, really believe all that replacement theology, all that stuff about
becoming God’s chosen people, about the end of the world? Of course he
must believe it: but how had he hidden it all these years, convincing the world
that he was a man whose only god was the legal code and the United States
Constitution? Had his father really drawn up a plan to strangle and shoot three
dozen good men, the last best hope of humanity?

For less than a second, an image popped into his head. It was the face of
someone he had not seen in years. It was his grandmother, serving tea in her
garden back in England. The sun was shining, but all he could focus on was her
mouth, as she uttered the words which had intrigued him at the time and ever
since: Your father’s other great passion. So this was it. The force that
came between his parents, both so young. It was not another woman nor even his
father’s dedication to the law. It was his faith. His fanaticism.

Will had so many questions, but he asked only one.

‘So you knew all along, all this time, about Beth?’ As he said
it, his arms went backward, shielding his wife from both sides.

‘Oh, I had nothing to do with that, William. That was your Jewish
friends’ initiative, theirs alone.’ Monroe Sr gestured towards
Rabbi Freilich. ‘But once you told me Beth was kidnapped, I had my
suspicions. Once you had tracked her captors down to Crown Heights, I knew for
certain. It took me a while to work it out. At first, I wondered if it was somehow
meant to stop you working on the story. You were doing so well — first
Howard Macrae, then Pat Baxter — it seemed you were about to discover
everything. But then I realized that the Hassidim had not taken Beth to stop
you.

That would make no sense. They had taken her to stop me. And there could
only be one explanation. They needed to give her shelter because she was
shelter — the shelter of the thirty-sixth righteous man.’

‘You knew what was going on, but you didn’t help me, you didn’t—’

‘No, William. I wanted you to help me. I knew you would not rest until
you had found Beth and, in so doing, you would bring us to her. And I was
right.’

Will was struggling to stay standing. The room was beginning to turn. His
lungs seemed to be emptying of air. He could only manage a few words. ‘This
is madness.’

‘You think this is madness? Do you have even the first idea of what’s
going on here?’

‘I think you’re murdering the righteous of the earth.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t use those words, William. I surely would not.
But I want you to look more widely, to see the whole picture.’ It was a
tone Will had never heard before, or not until an hour ago at any rate. It was
the voice of a strict teacher who expected to be obeyed. Whatever electronic
voice distortion had been used in the Chapel at the convention centre, it had
not concealed this tone: the authority of the Apostle.

‘You see, Christianity understands what Judaism never could: what the
Jews stubbornly refused to understand. They did not see what was staring them
in the face! They believed that, so long as there were thirty-six just souls in
the world, all would be well. They took comfort from the idea. They did not
realize its true power.’

‘And what is its true power?’ It was Rabbi Freilich.

‘That if these thirty-six men uphold the world, then the opposite must
be true! The instant the thirty-six are gone, the world is no more.’
Monroe Sr turned back to face his son. ‘You see, that didn’t
interest the Jews. They thought if the world ended, then that would be that. It
would all be over: death, destruction, the end of the story. But Christianity teaches
us something else, doesn’t it William? Something glorious and infinite!
For we Christians are blessed with a sacred knowledge: we know that the end of
the world spells the final reckoning. And now we discover that all we have to
do to make that happen — to make absolutely sure that happens — is
to end the lives of thirty-six people.

‘If we can do that before the Ten Days of Penitence are complete, the
true Judgment Day will be upon us. It’s as simple and beautiful as that.’

Will could not quite believe these words were coming from his father’s
mouth. It was a mismatch, as if he had become a ventriloquist dummy for a
madman. With dread, Will realized that maybe this was the real William Monroe.
Perhaps the father he had known was the fake. He forced himself to speak. ‘And
why would you want to bring about “the true Judgment Day”? Why
would you want this final reckoning?’

‘Oh come on, William. Don’t play the fool. Every Sunday school
child in Christendom knows the answer to that. It’s all there in the Book
of Revelation. The end of the world will bring about the return of Christ the
Redeemer.’

Will rocked on his heels, as if the words themselves were a physical force. ‘So
you’re trying to bring Christ back into the world by killing thirty-six
innocent people?’ Will was conscious of the gun pointed directly at him. ‘And
these men are not just innocent. They are men of remarkable goodness.

I know that for a fact.’

‘Don’t look at me as if I’m some common murderer, William.
You must see the genius of this plan. Only thirty six. Just thirty-six men need
die. You should read the scriptures, my son. It was assumed that millions would
have to lose their lives in the battle of Armageddon, the final conflagration
hastening the Second Coming. The dead piled on the dead, oceans of blood. “Every
island fled away and the mountains could not be found”.

‘But this avoids all that. This finds a new way to paradise, via a
path neither strewn with bones, nor drenched in tears.’ Will’s
father was closing his eyes. ‘This is a just, peaceful way to bring about
heaven on earth. Think of it, William: no more suffering, no more bloodshed.
The Messianic days, brought about by the sacrifice of only thirty-six souls.
That’s fewer than die every minute on the roads; fewer than die needlessly
in house fires or train wrecks. And those deaths are for nothing. But these
— these lives are given so that others, the rest of humanity, may live
forever. In paradise.

Isn’t that what these righteous men would have wanted?

‘And these were not brutal murders, William. Each one was carried out
with love and respect for the blessed soul within. We gave them anaesthetic so
they would feel no pain.

Of course, sometimes we had to disguise what we were doing.

Sometimes that meant a more violent end than we would have liked.’
Will thought of Howard Macrae, stabbed and stabbed again, so that his death
might look like a gang killing.

‘But we tried to give them a measure of dignity.’ Will remembered
the blanket laid over Macrae’s corpse. The woman he had interviewed a
thousand years ago in Brownsville — Rosa — had insisted that the
only person who could have done that was the killer himself, and it turned out
Rosa was right.

His father was still talking, his voice softer now. ‘Imagine it,
William. Let yourself imagine it. A world without war. A world of peace and
tranquillity, not just for now or next week, but for ever and ever. And you
could make all that a reality, not by the sacrifice of millions but by
sacrificing three dozen righteous souls. If you could do that, William, wouldn’t
you do it? Wouldn’t you have to do it?’

The Apostle stopped preaching, letting his words hang for a while. Will
could feel his head aching. All this talk of the end of days, of the second
coming, of redemption and Armageddon, was too vast. It seemed to engulf him.
Out of nowhere, an image of his past floated before his eyes. He was six years
old, jumping the waves on a beach in the Hamptons, clinging onto his father’s
hand. But now there was no hand to hold.

Everything rational told Will his father had lapsed into a kind of insanity.
How long he had been like this, Will had no idea. Perhaps ever since he started
following Jim Johnson at Yale. But insanity was what it was. An international
killing spree to bring back Jesus? It was certifiable.