The Righteous Men (2006) (30 page)

‘This is the train I used to catch visiting my Dad’s place, before
we got the car.’ He regretted that ‘we’: it felt somehow unkind
to rub his married coupleness into TC’s still-single face. And that regret
instantly reminded him that he and TC had never once spent a weekend at Sag
Harbor. He had taken his cue from her, keeping their relationship a virtual
secret. TC had met Will’s father just once and they had never spent any
proper time together. Beth, on the other hand, had fitted in straight away; it
was one of the things that made it feel so right.

A silence fell. It was TC who broke it, digging into her bag to produce the
item she had been holding before they left her apartment. The Holy Bible. ‘Christ,
I nearly forgot.’ She thumbed through the pages at top speed. ‘There.
The Book of Proverbs, Chapter 10.’

‘Haven’t we been through this already? We found what he wanted
us to see: righteous, righteous, righteous.’

‘I know, but I’m a nerd. I want to study it some more.’

‘What are you looking for?’

‘I don’t know. But something tells me I’ll know it when I see
it.’

T
he house in Sag Harbor, at
least, sprung no surprises. The key was under the flower pot, as always; the
place was even quite warm, testament to the efficiency of the local couple Will’s
father hired to keep things ticking over out of season.

He moved around rapidly, turning on lights, putting hot water on the stove,
making tea. Clutching a packet of Oreos, he finally sat himself opposite TC,
facing her across the vast, aged oak table that dominated Monroe Sr’s
stylishly rustic kitchen.

Instantly, the memories flooded back. The long winters at school, when Will
could feel every one of those three thousand miles that separated him from his
father. The joy when a parcel arrived in the post, often containing a delicious
slice of exotic Americana — perhaps a packet of bubblegum or, never
forgotten, a leather baseball. And then the thrill as he was put on a plane
during the summer vacation, ‘an unaccompanied minor’ on his way to
see his Dad. Those August weeks in Sag Harbor, spent crabbing on the beach or
eating clams on the deck, were the highlight of Will’s year. He could still
feel, even now, twenty years later, the pit in his stomach when September
loomed and he would be taken back to the airport — and away from his
father for another year.

Will forced himself back into the moment. He had begun on the train, but now
he explained in full what he had been bursting to tell TC since the moment he
had taken the call.

It was the first TC had heard either of Jay Newell or of Will’s conversation
with him earlier that evening. But she was a quick study; once Will had told
her about Jay’s phone message, she did not need him to join the dots.

‘So Baxter and Macrae were both drugged before they were killed; they
were both deemed righteous by people who knew them; and, according to YY and
Proverbs 10, if your reading of it is right, it’s this righteous thing which
is significant.

Which somehow explains the wider Hassidic plot. Why they’ve taken
Beth, why they killed the guy in Bangkok, why they had someone follow you, or
us, tonight. That’s essentially the theory here, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a bit more than a theory now, TC. “2 down: More’s
to come.” “Yet more deaths soon.” That’s what he said.
He was addressing me directly! He’s read the stories in the
Times
and he’s telling me, “OK, you’ve cracked two of them, but there
are going to be more.” Meaning we have to link this with everything else
that’s going on! Don’t you see?’

‘No, no, I do see.’ She chose her words carefully. ‘I do
see that this must all be linked. The trouble is … Rather, my problem is,
I personally cannot quite see how we get from the Macrae/Baxter/righteous thing
— which I admit is fascinating and incredible — to the “more”
that are supposed to be coming.’

Will slumped in his chair.

‘No, Will. Don’t be like that. This is great progress. We’re
nearly there, I’m sure of it. Look, let’s get some sleep and then
we’ll think this last bit through,’ she said, placing her hand on
his shoulder, sending a pulse of memory through them both. ‘Come on, we
can do this.’

Suddenly Will leapt up, walking out of the kitchen. TC chased after him.

‘Will! Will! Come on, don’t do this.’

She found him standing in his father’s study, a room filled from floor
to ceiling with books. Row after row of leather bound legal texts, collected
case reports, volumes of Supreme Court judgments going back to the nineteenth
century. On another wall, there were more contemporary works, lines of hardback
texts on politics, the constitution and of course, the law. They seemed to be
arranged with a librarian’s zeal for order: grouped by theme and then,
within each category, rigorously alphabetized. TC’s eye landed on the
Christianity section:
Documents of the Christian Church
by Henry
Bettenson,
The Early Church
by Henry Chadwick,
From Christ to
Constantine
by Eusebius,
Early Christian Doctrines
by JND Kelly, all
lined up in perfect order.

But Will was ignoring the books, instead powering up the computer on his
father’s desk. He scrolled down an Associated Press story, barely reading
the words, looking for something.

He moved his cursor over the text to define two words: the name of the
Hassidim’s kidnap victim in Bangkok: Samak Sangsuk. He moved up to the
Google window at the top right of the screen, pasted in the name and hit return.

Your search — samak sangsuk — did not match any documents.

He was about to curse but he was silenced. Not by TC, but by the distinct
sound of a creak in the hallway. Not just one, but several in quick succession.
There was no doubt about it. Someone else was in the house.

H
e had waited long enough. It
was the lights going out that had made him suspicious. He was told this man was
desperately searching for his wife: it did not make sense that he would happily
go to sleep at midnight.

Besides, he feared he was arousing suspicion, pacing around outside an
apartment building for hours on end. This might be Manhattan, where no one
seemed to notice anything, but it was a risk.

He telephoned his superiors, asking for permission to make his move.

‘All right. But keep it clean. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘And may the Lord be with you.’

He waited for the next new arrival at the building, a woman apparently
returning from a late-night convenience store with a bag full of groceries. It
took him a second to jog the few yards to the entrance, as if catching up with
her.

‘Oh, let me get that,’ he said, holding the door once she had
opened it. He followed her in.

While she checked her mailbox, he headed downstairs for the basement —
pausing only to cover his face with a ski-mask.

He could hear the sound of a television, seeping out from under the door. He
knocked and waited, checking once again the cold steel of the revolver he would
reveal the instant the door opened. This would not take long.

Mr Pugachov jumped back in fright, raising his arms in an instant surrender.

‘Good. Now, y’all need to stay nice and calm. We need to do this
nice and easy. All you gotta do is take me to the apartment on the sixth floor.
The one that looks out onto the street. The one where the pretty girl lives.
You know the one I mean. Mighty pretty girl.’

Pugachov had never heard such an accent before; this man did not sound like
the New Yorkers he knew. It took him a while to work out what he was saying.
Guessing, he reached with his right hand behind the door.

‘Hey! Hands in the air! What did I say just now, mister?’

‘Excuse, excuse,’ Pugachov sputtered. ‘I was getting key.

Key!’ He gestured behind the door, where the man in the ski-mask could
see a series of numbered hooks: spare keys for every apartment in the building.

He shoved Pugachov out of the door and towards the back stairway. It was
late; no one was around. But it was still too risky to take the elevator. Those
were his orders: he must not be seen.

The super opened TC’s door tentatively, calling out a meek hello. He
felt the gun in his back.

The man in the ski-mask flashed on a torch, searching out the bedroom door.
He pushed his hostage towards it.

‘Open it.’

Pugachov turned the handle slowly but the gunman reached over him and pushed
the door hard.

‘Freeze!’ he shouted, shining a torch onto the bed. Seeing nothing,
he wheeled around, anticipating an ambush from behind. Nothing. Now grabbing
Pugachov by the collar, he started flinging open cupboard doors, training his
revolver onto each new opening of dark space. When he came to the bathroom door
he gave it a firm kick and jumped in, before turning around to ensure no one
could pounce.

He searched the rest of the apartment, beaming the torchlight into every
corner.

‘Well, there’s a moral to this story. Trust your hunches. I thought
they’d gone and they have.’

He put on the lights and started looking around more closely, never letting
Pugachov out of his sight — or out of range.

He flipped open TC’s computer, instantly opening up her internet
browser. He asked for a ‘history’, generating a long list of the
sites she had looked at most recently. He took out a silver pen and a black
notebook and began writing down what he saw. Pugachov noticed for the first
time that he was wearing tight black leather gloves.

Next he saw a half-finished pad of Post-it notes. The top sheet was blank,
but he held it up to the light all the same.

Sure enough, as so often, he could see the trace of words, and numbers,
indented from the page above. It amazed him that people still made this
elementary mistake: he would have thought Will Monroe would know better.

Next he picked up the phone, pressing the ‘last number’ button:
1-718-217-54771173667274341. So many digits could only mean one thing: Monroe
had dialled some kind of automated service, offering a series of numerical options,
rather than a personal number. The gunman wrote down the full string of numbers
and hit redial.

Thank you for calling the Long Island Railroad
…

After that it was simple: he only had to punch in the sequence of numbers he
had written down. ‘ 1’ to use touchtone, ‘ 1’ for
schedule information, then, when asked to enter the first five letters of his
starting station, 73667, and so on. It was easy. Obligingly, the automated
female voice told him the times for the next three trains from Penn Station to Bridgehampton,
the nearest station for Sag Harbor.

He ran his torch over the floor one more time, noticing a yellow piece of
paper that he had missed. It read:
Verse 11. The mouth of a righteous man is
a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked
.

He tucked that into his pocket and turned once again to face Pugachov.

‘OK, son. It’s time to shape up and ship out.’ He used his
revolver to gesture towards the front door.

As Pugachov made for the handle he turned his back slightly, so that he was sideways
on to the gunman. Now he decided, remembering the training he had received as a
long ago conscript in the Red Army, was the moment. In an instant, he grabbed
the masked man by the wrist and looped his own arm under his shoulder, bringing
him quickly to the ground.

The gun had fallen and Pugachov reached for it, only to be kicked, hard, in
the balls. He doubled over and felt an arm around his neck. He tried to jab
back with his elbows, but there was no movement. He was in a headlock and the
man holding him seemed to have superhuman strength. He could feel his breath
around his ear.

Somehow, and only with supreme effort, Pugachov managed to wriggle his right
arm free and aim it at the man’s head. But it did not connect. His
fingers were flailing until they finally grabbed something. It took him a
second to realize it was not hair. Out of the corner of his eye he could see what
he was holding: he had removed the gunman’s mask.

Suddenly the grip was loosened. Pugachov slumped, panting heavily. He was no
longer the fit, fighting machine of his youth; that stint of military duty in
Afghanistan was in the faraway past. Perhaps the masked man had realized that;
maybe he understood that Pugachov could inflict no serious damage and was about
to let him go.

‘I’m afraid you’ve just made a big mistake, my friend.’

Pugachov looked up to see a much younger man than he was expecting. Now that
the mask was off, he could see that his eyes were of the most exceptional blue,
almost feminine in their beauty. They seemed to cast beams of sharp, bright light.

He did not have long to stare into them because his view was soon obscured
— by the mouth of what he recognized to be a silencer, aimed right
between his eyes.

T
C was staring at Will, stock
still. The sound was too regular to be the music of an old house, the creaking
of aged timber.

There was no doubt about it: these were footsteps. Will grabbed the heaviest
poker he could find from the fireplace, placed his finger over his lips to hush
TC and edged out of the study.

He crept down the corridor, towards the kitchen. The sound seemed to have
moved there. As he got closer, he could hear a rustling, as if the intruder was
rifling through papers. He inched closer, until he could see the shadow of a
tall man.

His heart was pounding; his throat was parched.

In a single movement, Will swung around the corner, lifted the poker above
his head—