The righteous men

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Monday, 2.56pm, Brooklyn

Tom had fairly wrenched Will from the chair and out the window, sending him plunging down the fire escape. He nudged TO the same way and was about to follow himself when he looked back. The computer screen was still alight with information. It would be too terrible, thought Tom, if his machine, always such a loyal ally, were to end up giving them all away.

He rushed TO out, then moved over to the desk and started frantically closing down programmes. It was while he was shutting down the internet browser that the door flung open.

He heard it before he saw it, a splintering crash, as two men shouldered their way into the apartment. Tom looked up and saw one of them: tall, thick-armed and with the clearest, sharpest blue eyes. In an instant, Tom decided to do the one thing his every instinct rebelled against. He reached for the powers cord and pulled it out of the wall, shutting down his computer and everything connected to it.

But the move was too sudden for his uninvited guests.

They interpreted a man stretching downwards the way they had been trained to, as someone reaching for a weapon. As he pulled on the white flex, the bullet pierced his chest. He crumpled to the ground. The screens went dark.

Will charged down the back ladder, taking two then three rungs at a time. His head was throbbing. Who was chasing him? What had happened to TO and Tom? Where should he go?

But even as he thundered downwards, storey after storey, his mind was racing with what he had just seen. The face was unmistakable; TO had seen it straight away. What Freudian impulse had led his eye away from it? The eyes, the jaw, the firm nose: his father.

And yet, the one thing he knew for certain about William Monroe Sr was that he was an avowed rationalist, a coolly secular man whose scepticism about religion might well have thwarted his highest ambition, to serve as a justice of the United States Supreme Court. Could he really have once been a bible-thumper, and such a serious one?

Three more storeys to go, and now he could feel the iron handrail vibrating. He looked up, to see the soles of shoes descending just as fast as his. One more level to go: Will all but jumped it.

Now he started sprinting down Smith Street, dodging people as they came out of the Salonike diner. He looked over his shoulder: a commotion behind him, caused by a man dashing through a crowd. 'Hey, watch it asshole!'

Will body-swerved round the corner, clasping hold of a pretzel wagon to steady himself. In front of him was Fourth Avenue, with six lanes of traffic, all moving fast. At the first gap, he plunged in.

He was standing on the dotted white line separating two streams of heavy traffic. Drivers started blasting their horns; they clearly thought Will was some kind of psycho. He looked back. There, just a lane of cars away, was the stalker, the man he had nearly caught in the act of murder less than twenty four hours ago. As if protected by the traffic, Will stared at him. What came back was a laser-beam eye that seemed to bore right through him.

He wheeled around and spotted another gap in traffic just a beat and he would miss it. Will leapt across, turning around to see that his pursuer had made the same move.

They were still just the width of a single car apart. He could see a bulge around the man's hip, what Will assumed to be a holster.

He looked ahead: the light was still green. But for how much longer? Soon it would be red: the traffic would slow down and he would be able to cross to the other side, but so would the man with the gun. He would be within pointblank range. But there was no gap. The cars were moving too fast.

Will had only one option. Instead of crossing the road, he sprinted to his left, as if trying to catch up with the traffic.

He ran faster, never taking his eye off the lights. He would act the second he saw a glimmer of red. Come on, come on. He looked around. The man was still just one lane away, but hardly moved from his previous position. Now was the moment.

As green turned to red, the traffic slowed, the cars bunching up behind each other: Will had only to dart between them, keeping himself low. Three, four, five lanes and he was nearly there.

Once across, he had to burst through a family waiting at the crossing; he knocked the balloon out of a child's hand.

Will looked back to see it soar — and to realize Laser Eyes was now just a sprint away from him.

At last, Atlantic Avenue subway station. Will hurtled down the stairs, cursing the wide woman blocking his way. Down and down, vaulting over the turnstile, hoping his ears would not fail him. Years of travelling on the Underground in London had given him a sixth sense for the mix of wind, light and humming sounds that indicated a train was coming. Will was sure he could hear it on the opposite platform. He would have to get up the stairs and across the bridge in just a few seconds. He could hear the thudding of footsteps; the stalker was just behind him.

Only moments separated them, but as Will crossed the bridge he could see the train that had just pulled in. An instant later, he was sliding down the stairs, shoving people out of the way. There was the beep-beep-beep and hiss of air that announced the train was about to move off. Just one more second…

Will dived from the bottom stair and across the platform in what felt like a single leap. The door had almost closed behind him when it stopped — held back by four fingers of a hand. Through the glass, Will could see his face: the eyes almost translucent, fixed in a stare that turned Will's guts to ice. The door was inching back.

'What you doing? You just gonna have to wait for the next train like everyone else!' It was a woman passenger, no younger than seventy, using her walking stick to whack the knuckles protruding through the door. As the train began to move off, she rapped harder — until one by one, they disappeared.

The man with the glass eyes was left on the platform, getting smaller and smaller.

'Thank you with all my heart,' said Will, gasping for air as he fell into the nearest seat.

'People need to have more respect,' she said.

'Yes, that's right,' Will wheezed. 'Respect. I couldn't agree more.'

As the air came back into his lungs, and the oxygen returned to his brain, he could see only one image. When he closed his eyes, it was there, imprinted under his eyelids. His father, aged twenty-one — a comrade in the army of Jesus. And not just the army, but the vanguard. A handpicked elite who believed they knew the secrets of the true faith.

What were they exactly? Christians, certainly. But with a strange edge of arrogance. It was they, not the Jews, who were the chosen people. They, not the Jews, who could regard Judaism itself as their birthright. They, not the Jews, who would quote the Old Testament and all its prophecies, they who would see the promises made to Abraham as promises made to them.

Will looked out the window. DeKalb Avenue station. He got out and jumped on another train. Keep Laser Eyes and his friends guessing.

TO had seen the significance straight away. According to this strict brand of replacement theology, if Judaism was theirs, that meant all of it. The story of Abraham's bargain with Sodom would be part of their inheritance — and so would the fruit of that story, the mystical Jewish belief that the world was maintained by thirty-six righteous men. For some reason, they had taken that belief as their own — and now, it seemed, they had added a new twist. They were determined to kill these good men one by one. But if it was this bizarre Christian sect who were behind the killings, why on earth had the Hassidim kidnapped Beth?

It was too much. Will needed to think, calmly. He looked at his watch. 3.45pm. So little time. He called TO's number, praying she had somehow got away.

'Will! You're alive!'

'Are you OK? Where are you?'

'I'm in the hospital. With Tom. He was shot.'

'Oh my God.'

'I was on the roof. I heard a shot, I ran downstairs and he was lying there, bleeding. Oh, Will-'

'Is he alive?'

'They're operating on him now. My God, who did this, Will? Why would anyone do this?'

'I don't know, but I'm going to find them, I promise. I'm going to find the people behind this whole fucking mess. And I know I'm close.'