Sam Bourne - The righteous men

'I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Oh, come on. We really can't play these games much longer, Rabbi. Don't you see? We know what's going on.'

'Will, that's enough.' It was TO, speaking in her normal accent.

'I have no idea about any Mr Pugachov. And I know nothing of any man in a baseball cap.'

'I don't believe this. This is ridiculous! You sent a man to follow me yesterday. We saw him, we got away and the man who helped us is now lying dead in her apartment.' He could hardly bring himself to use the name Tova Chaya again. It sounded strange enough the first time.

'Will, please.' TO was imploring him to stop. But he could not help himself. The pressure of the last few days had been coiled up for too long.

The rabbi's face was tensing. 'I promise you, I know of no man in a baseball cap. I did not send anyone to follow you.

I have not lied to you. Not once. When you confronted me about the man in Bangkok, I did not deny it. I told you that a terrible mistake had occurred. When we,' he paused for the right word, 'met on erev shabbos — excuse me — when we met on Friday night, I even conceded that we are indeed holding your wife. I have not lied. And I am telling you the truth now: what you tell me happened in Tova Chaya's building was nothing to do with me.'

'So who do you think did it, then? Eh? If you didn't kill that man, who did?'

'I don't know. Which should worry you infinitely more. It suggests that whoever is behind this dreadful scheme is now aware of you.'

'Rabbi Freilich, I think you have to tell us what's going on.' TO was sounding like Tova Chaya again. 'You know things, we know things. We all know time is running out. It is already the Day of Judgment. Whoever is doing this wants to finish the job before the Ten Days of Penitence are over.

We don't have time to fight each other. So far, handling this alone, what have you done? Have you stopped the killing?'

The rabbi had his head bowed, his right palm flat on his forehead. It moved up onto his scalp, tucking under his yarmulke, and back down again. Whatever TO was saying, it was striking a nerve. The man looked weighed down with worry. He muttered a barely audible 'no'.

TO sat forward, trying to close the deal. 'The killing is still going on. In twenty-four hours they might have killed the last of the lamadvavniks. And who knows what will happen then. You can't do this alone. We can help you and you have to help us. You must do it. For the sake of HaShem.'

For the sake of the Name, for the sake of God himself. It was the ultimate argument, the one no believer could refuse.

Was TO deploying it because she knew which buttons to press? Or was Tova Chaya speaking sincerely, genuinely fearing for the sake of the world if they did not act? Will was not sure. But if he had to guess one way or the other he would, to his great surprise, declare for the latter. For all her scepticism, for all her ten years away from Crown Heights, for all her bacon breakfasts and body piercings, she was not acting merely to find Will's wife, nor even for the sake of the remaining righteous men. At that moment Will realized that TO was driven by nothing less than fear for the fate of the world.

'Tova Chaya, we have so little time.' Rabbi Freilich was looking up. He had removed his glasses, revealing a face etched in anguish. 'We have tried everything. I don't know what more there is you can do. But I will tell you what we know.'

Unexpectedly, he rose to his feet and made for the front door. He put on his trilby and his coat and, without another word, gestured for TO and Will to follow him.

Outside was a quiet Will had never experienced in a city.

The streets were desolate. No cars travelled because the Yom Kippur restrictions prohibited all driving. A few knots of young men walked together, wearing their prayer shawls. Even though the evening was warm and people were out together, the atmosphere was not festive. Instead Crown Heights seemed to be under a blanket of contemplation and silent thought; it was as if the whole neighbourhood was a single, roofless synagogue. Will felt grateful for his costume, so that he could move through this extraordinary atmosphere without breaking the spell.

They were, Will now understood, moving towards the synagogue. Once again, he wondered if he and TO were walking voluntarily into the wolf's lair — with the wolf as their guide.

But they did not go inside the main entrance. Instead they entered a building next door, one that seemed entirely out of place in this neighbourhood. It looked like a redbrick annexe to an Oxford college, ancient by New York standards. Outside were crowds of men, spilling out from the lobby. They did not have to wade through the throng: people stepped out of the way the moment they recognized the rabbi. Will could see some raised eyebrows. He assumed they were directed at him, a face they did not know. But when he saw TO looking down at her feet, he understood: they were shocked to see a woman in this usually male terrain.

TO managed to whisper an explanation. They were entering the Rebbe's house. This was the home the late leader had lived in and which had doubled as his office.

Will stared. He had been here before, forty-eight hours earlier.

Soon they had reached a staircase. The crowds were thinning now. They moved up another flight, to a corridor empty of people. Straight into his trap, thought Will.

Rabbi Freilich led them through one door, which revealed another. But he did not go in. Instead he turned around, to offer an explanation to TO.

'I want you to know that what you are about to see is a mark of our desperation. It is a violation of Yom Kippur that has never before occurred in this building and, please God, will never happen again. We are doing it for-'

'Pikuach nefesh.' TO had interrupted him. 'I know. It is a matter of saving lives.'

The rabbi nodded, grateful to TO for her understanding.

Then he turned around, breathing in sharply through his nostrils as if bracing himself for the secret he was about to reveal. Only then did Rabbi Freilich dare open the door.

Sunday, 11.01pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

This place, Will realized, would normally be still on such a holy evening: no lights on, no machines in use, no phones answered, no eating, no drinking. Even Will could tell that the scene before him was an act of mass sacrilege.

It looked like the control room of a police station. Perhaps a dozen people at computers, surrounded by in-trays spilling over with paper and, on a back wall, a large wipe-board, covered with names, phone numbers, addresses. Down one side, Will could see a list of names. In a quick scan, he spotted Howard Macrae and Gavin Curtis — a line through each of them.

'No one knows about this room apart from the men working in it — and now you. We have been working in here day and night for a week. And today we lost the man who knew it best, the man who set it up.'

'Yosef Yitzhok,' said Will, noticing a pile of maps — one of them for Montana — and a stack of guide books, for London, for Copenhagen, for Algiers.

'All of this was his work. And today he was murdered.'

'Rabbi Freilich?' It was TO. 'Do you think you could start at the beginning?'

The rabbi led them to the front of the room, where a desk had been set out as if for a teacher to invigilate an exam.

The three of them sat around it.

'As you know, the Rebbe in his later years spoke often about Moshiach, about the Messiah. He gave long talks at our weekly farbrengen touching on this theme. Tova Chaya will also know how we preserved those talks for posterity.'

TO took her cue. 'Because he spoke on the sabbath, the Rebbe could not be tape-recorded or filmed. That's not allowed. So we relied on an ancient system. In the synagogue would be three or four people chosen for their amazing memories.