MANNING
Couldn’t what? Couldn’t stop? Couldn’t resist him?
Now I jump in. I push past Manning to Rachel’s side.
ME
That’s enough, Manning!
BEN-DAVID
Stop this!
ME
Leave her alone!
Manning’s open hand is raised to swat Rachel again. He restrains himself, barely.
MANNING
You “conducted” him in. You were the human medium he used to enter the world.
RACHEL
How could I know? He looked like a person! I couldn’t stop! I couldn’t help myself!
Rachel’s eyes meet Manning’s in anguish. Manning faces me and Ben-David, who are lined up against him, protecting Rachel.
Rachel breaks down.
Manning steps back.
MANNING
(to Rachel)
Whose idea was it to compile the list? The Righteous Man list.
Rachel’s tears answer for her.
MANNING
You did it for him. You couldn’t help yourself.
24
THE DOROT LIBRARY, REVISITED
MANNING
How do we kill him? There’s gotta be some way.
BEN-DAVID
He can’t be killed. If he could be, your bullets would’ve done it on the subway platform.
We’re at the Jewish Library. An hour past dawn. Rachel has vanished. Manning and I let her out of our sight for thirty seconds and she bolted. She’s on an El Al jet to Israel right now, though we won’t learn this for another ninety minutes when she texts her brother from somewhere over the North Atlantic. Manning is furious with himself, and none too happy with me.
He stands now before an oaken table (the same one where he first met Instancer) in the main reading room of the Dorot Library at Forty-Second and Fifth. Before him sprawls a welter of esoteric texts and scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin.
MANNING
(to Ben-David)
Tell me the ground rules. Instancer must have a weakness.
From the kitchen at the athletic club, Manning ordered me to phone Gleason, who in turn called heaven-knows-who. Somehow, at oh-dark-thirty in the middle of the worst weather calamity of the past dozen years, the main branch of the New York Public Library unlocked its doors and let our party in.
The research librarian of the Dorot division of the library has made his way in from his home in Park Slope to assist. He enters from the librarian’s station now, lugging an additional armload of research material.
BEN-DAVID
He’s supernatural, Manning! The definition is he has no weaknesses.
MANNING
Bullshit. If Instancer had unlimited powers, he wouldn’t have needed Rachel to compile the list of Righteous Men and he wouldn’t have had to stalk them before he struck. Besides, he wants something. And anyone who wants something is vulnerable.
The librarian’s glance darts from face to face.
LIBRARIAN
What exactly are we trying to accomplish here? What is the question we’re trying to answer?
MANNING
(to Ben-David)
And he’s vain. That’s why he leaves the “LV” sign . . . why he’s sucked every one of us in to his drama. It’s not enough for him to wipe out the human race. He wants to leave a record to show how clever he was.
BEN-DAVID
Record for whom? If nobody’s left to read it.
MANNING
For God.
An hour passes. The great thing about New York is that even in the aftermath of a superstorm, you can still get coffee and bagels delivered. The side table of the reading room looks like a deli counter, supporting a spread of sandwich wrappers, take-out cups and lids, cream cheese containers, sugar packets, and plastic utensils.
I’m helping the librarian tote in further armloads of bound arcana—huge, heavy tomes that reek like a tomb. Everything is pre-Gutenberg, or only a few years post. Illustrations are hand-rendered or etched or woodcut. Text is either inscribed letter by letter, or laid out in hand-set type. Pages crinkle at the touch. We have to wear gloves, white cotton, to handle the covers, and must turn the leaves with surgical care. “If it means anything to you,” the librarian tells Manning, “the volumes you’re poring through are collectively worth seventeen-point-two million.”
What powers do these Satanic entities possess? Our group pores over pix of Evil Ones stalking across fields of sulfur and brimstone. They descend from the aether on wings like dragons. They spit flame. Thunderbolts shoot from their sockets.
BEN-DAVID
We can’t rely solely on myth and legend. How we fight must be based on what we know empirically, what we’ve seen with our own eyes . . .
Ben-David cites his own clash with Instancer on the subway platform.
BEN-DAVID
You grappled with him, Manning. So did I. He’s real. He’s physical. When he grabbed me, he even felt warm.
ME
Physical? Then how does he get into secure buildings leaving no sign? How does he kill ten people on four continents in the past fifteen days?
BEN-DAVID
I don’t know.
ME
How does he know Manning’s mantras? How does Instancer quote verbatim stuff he couldn’t possibly have heard?
BEN-DAVID
I don’t know.
Another ninety minutes pass. Rachel’s text comes in from her plane to Israel. Outside the library, the windstorm continues to rage. I’m staring at medieval renderings of behorned demons (as well as a smattering of human-like creatures) emerging from smoldering clefts in the earth.
Not all, but most are escorted by females—innocent maidens, bewhiskered crones, maternal archetypes.
In the midst of this I’m on the phone at Manning’s instruction to El Al, BEA, Lufthansa, and KLM trying to book Ben-David onto a flight to Tel Aviv. He’s frantic to reach his sister and Manning is equally determined to find out where she’s going and for what purpose.
BEN-DAVID
Genesis 32:24 tells of Jacob wrestling with an angel. But the Greek and Hebrew translations say “man.”
MANNING
Meaning what?
Ben-David locates the passage in one of the Old Testaments. An illustration depicts two human-scale figures struggling on the earth beneath a horned moon in a setting beside a river.
BEN-DAVID
A man. See? Something or someone who could be grappled with physically.
The librarian confirms this. Devil or rebel angel, he says, this entity would be in material form.
LIBRARIAN
To enter the world, the teachings say, a supernatural being must become physical. It must take on the limitations of the flesh, at least some of them.
BEN-DAVID
(to Manning)
When you shot Instancer, the bullets struck something solid. They didn’t pass through him as if he were a ghost. Their impact rocked him. The bullets knocked him back.
Manning paces in frustration.
MANNING
Where does the world end?
BEN-DAVID
What?
MANNING
Instancer said he wanted me with him at “the end.” What does the Bible say? Is there a place—a specific location?
BEN-DAVID
Megiddo.
MANNING
Instancer said “you know where.”
LIBRARIAN
The hill of Megiddo. Armageddon.
MANNING
The archaeological dig. Gehenna. Where is it?
LIBRARIAN
It’s there. It’s the next hill.
BEN-DAVID
That does us no good.
MANNING
It tells us where Instancer will be.
BEN-DAVID
But not when. And not how to stop him.
MANNING
He’ll be there. It’s where he came from. “The end”
plays out at the beginning.
Manning crosses to a stack of books.
MANNING
If Instancer can be “conducted” into the world, can he be conducted out?
He points to an etching in one of the texts. The illustration depicts a demonic figure ascending from the inferno, led by a female child.
MANNING
The devil is escorted into this world, right? Then there must be a way to escort him out. That’s the law. You said it, Amos. Those are the ground rules.
BEN-DAVID
This is all myth and legend, Manning. There’s no such thing as “the law.”
MANNING
There’s always a law.
BEN-DAVID
Right.
(sarcastic)
All you have to do is get Instancer to the mouth of hell and kick him back down.
MANNING
He can’t return from there unconducted? That’s the law.
BEN-DAVID
I told you, there is no law!
We’re all getting punchy. The greater library is closed with the flooding and the scorching windstorm. Power keeps going on and off. We’re out of coffee. The battery in my phone is fading . . .
This whole stunt feels like a fool’s errand.
How can we kill the unkillable?
Are we crazy to put Ben-David on a plane to Israel? What if Instancer’s already there? What if Rachel fled to be with him? Will she be an accomplice to the murder of her own brother?
The librarian has begun clearing the books.
Manning slumps, silent, in a chair at the central table.
Ben-David keeps working. He’s reviewing, out loud, all we have gleaned this morning from the ancient texts or have theorized on our own about supernatural beings and their potential vulnerabilities.
I can’t tell if Manning is even listening.
Angels, Ben-David says, appear over and over in the Bible.
Angels can go bad.
They can rebel against God.
Is that Instancer?
Is he HaSatan?
Can anything stop him?
Manning remains slumped in his chair. He hasn’t spoken in minutes.
My eyes have crossed. I’m in and out of a REM state. Ben-David is explaining to Manning that in the Jewish religion God is One, meaning everything that is, is a part of the Almighty. Including the angels, including the devils.
Including Instancer.
All perform the will of the Almighty, whether they know it or not.
“How does that help us?” I say. “How do we kill this motherfucker?”
BEN-DAVID
He can’t be killed. He can’t be wounded. He fears nothing, not even God. He thinks he’s smarter than God. Can he read our minds? Are we pawns for his amusement? Is he toying with us, playing us for fools?
MANNING
He can fall.
BEN-DAVID
What?
Manning says this so softly I barely hear it.
MANNING
(to me)
On the catwalk in the subway, remember? Instancer slipped. He fell.
BEN-DAVID
What are you talking about?
Manning sits up.
MANNING
He can fall. He’s subject to gravity.
Manning shoots me a look that says, Get this down. Don’t forget it.
He cranes all the way upright.
MANNING
We can’t overpower him. We can’t kill him. But we can make him fall.
25
THIS IS HOW THE WORLD ENDS, PART TWO
WE’RE ON EL AL FLIGHT 26 to Tel Aviv, Manning and me. Forty-eight hours have passed. I’m checking my news feed every ten minutes.
Four more “LV” murders have been reported. Ben-David has decamped for the Holy Land two days ahead of us, alone, on the last El Al flight out of Kennedy. Rachel had bolted ten hours earlier.
Our exodus, Manning’s and mine, plays out forty-eight hours after that.
It unspools like this:
Wednesday, April 26 (the day Ben-David flies to Israel), I’m in the office, at my desk, when I see Gleason’s tech sergeant exit the chief’s office and cross to Manning’s. The spaces are only a hallway apart, both with glass walls. The tech stops in Manning’s doorway, obviously delivering a message from the boss. Word around DivSix since the blow-up between Gleason and Manning two days ago is that Manning is about to be yanked from the “LV” investigation. Manning rises now and crosses from his own office to Gleason’s. I’m watching from my workstation as he enters. Lieutenant Silver is in Gleason’s office as well, along with Detective Kiriakin. Gleason’s tech sergeant hurries in, trailing Manning.
Words are exchanged between Gleason and Manning.
Through the glass I see Manning pull out his badge and gun and slap them onto Gleason’s desktop.
I get up and cross to Gleason’s doorway. No one stops me, so I march in. Gleason, without looking at me (his eyes never leave Manning’s), instructs his tech sergeant to put in motion the paperwork that will promote me to Detective Second Grade, raise my salary by $21,348, and install me in Manning’s slot on the division table of organization.
Gleason is giving me Manning’s job.
To my astonishment, I feel my right hand reaching to the holster at the small of my back while my left removes my shield from the belt clasp at the front right of my trousers. Without a word I set my badge and weapon next to Manning’s on Gleason’s desktop.
MANNING
Dewey, are you out of your mind?
Manning turns to me and tells me I’m an idiot.
ME
You’re going to Israel. I’m going with you.
Manning’s look to me says, What makes you think I even want you along?
MANNING
What do you imagine you are, Dewey—my “partner”? I’ve been babysitting you since Day One. I don’t need you and I don’t want you. You’re an albatross. Every move I make, I have to look over my shoulder to make sure you’re not tripping over your own butch-heeled shoes. You’re a burden! You’re a liability!
Once, when my father was still alive, he took me into his arms and told me he loved me. This from Manning feels at least as good.
ME
I’ll get us adjacent seats.
I said Ben-David’s flight was El Al’s last out of Kennedy. This is true. Manning and I make our departure out of Halifax.
Why Halifax? Because JFK’s runways have been rendered unusable indefinitely due to seawater incursion and “float” beneath their surfaces. (The other NY-NJ-CT fields ceased all operations seven years ago except those employing regional jets.)
We drive to Logan in Boston, then Portland, Maine, hoping that our inbound flight has been cleared to set down. Except wind shear from the third storm in seven days is so extreme at ground level and so unpredictable that air traffic control won’t give the El Al extended-cabin 797 clearance to land at either of these fields. The aircraft is rerouted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Manning and I overnight twice en route, at the Airport Radisson in Portland, then at a Holiday Inn Express in New Brunswick.
Throughout this pilgrimage Manning maintains what spotty contact he can with Ben-David (atmospheric conditions are so unstable that cell and satellite service is basically zilch) to make sure he’s safe, to update him on our delay situation, to press him on his promise to meet us at Ben Gurion when we land, and to urge him to latch on to Rachel and to not let her out of his sight.
The plan, agreed upon in New York on that final morning at the Dorot Library, is to lure Instancer to the sulfurous portal from which he first emerged and then, somehow, send him back down there for keeps.
What I can’t figure out is why Manning is so insistent on holding tight to Rachel. Forget her, I tell him. Let her go! If she is working with Instancer, as half our evidence and instincts say she is, she’ll do everything in her power to sabotage us. She’ll play innocent, like she has from the start. Then in the
fatal moment she’ll betray us.
ME
Don’t tell me you trust her now?
MANNING
I don’t even trust you, Dewey.
Meanwhile, I’m poring over maps of the Holy Land. Before, I had only the sketchiest notion of the geography of Israel and her Arab neighbors. Forty-eight hours of delays and forced layovers, however, have given me ample opportunity to bone up.
I had no idea that Israel was so small, the size of New Jersey. You can drive cross-country in an hour and ten minutes.
I’m memorizing place names and topography. I know now where Tel Aviv is (on the coastal plain, along the Mediterranean) and where Jerusalem sits (about sixty miles east, and high—twenty-five hundred feet—on the crest of the drop-off into Jordan and the highway across the desert to Amman).
I find Megiddo. It’s in the north, near the Sea of Galilee. The Gehenna dig is there, so close the two names butt against each other on the map.
In the waiting area at Halifax Stanfield International, a fellow passenger—a nun in a habit—watches me paging through maps and guidebooks. She asks what my purpose is in traveling to the Holy Land.
ME
We’re going to confront the devil at Armageddon and stop him from destroying the world.
“Well,” she says without a trace of irony, “good luck with that.”
I’m beginning as well to grasp the link between climate and geography.
Africa and the Middle East are the canaries in the global weather coal mine. What happens there today happens in Kansas tomorrow. Khamsins, simooms, siroccos. I had never heard of any of these five years ago. They’re the hot, dry winds that formerly tormented the region only in season, rising out of the Sahara and the Arabian Peninsula. Now they’re year-round and twenty degrees Celsius hotter than they’ve ever been. Commercial air traffic to the Middle East (and even military flights) is down to a fifth of what it had been only a few years ago.
36 Righteous Men Page 17
