Sam Bourne 4-Book Thriller Collection. Sam Bourne

living alone. Like something from our folk tales, Tova Chaya: a simple man in the forest.’

      Pat Baxter, thought Will. The very cabin he had gazed at just a few days ago.

      ‘Another number was an empty space in the middle of the Sudan. Again, no one was meant to live there. But then we saw from satellite pictures that a refugee camp had sprung up on that spot during the last few months, saving people who were fleeing for their lives. It was maintained by one man: the international agencies were not even sure who he was. So we began to realize that we were right. That the Rebbe was right.’

      ‘What about this number?’ asked Will, pointing at the wipe-board. ‘What did this come out as?’

      ‘I’ll show you.’ The rabbi walked the few paces to where one of the young men was working away at a computer. TC and Will caught up, watching the technician over his shoulder. The rabbi pointed at the number on the wipe-board and murmured an instruction.

      The young man punched in the digits, waited a few seconds and then watched as the computer came back with an answer.

       11 Downing Street, London, SW1 2AB, UK.

      ‘So this was the verse for Gavin Curtis?’

      The rabbi nodded.

      Will needed to sit down and, ideally, drink something. Though nothing was around. These men would use computers and work hard, even though it was Yom Kippur, because lives were at stake. Pikuach nefesh. But they would break no rules they did not have to.

      Now TC was speaking. ‘So that was what the Rebbe was trying to say. Space depends on time. Time reveals space. The location depends on time. If you know the time, the year – if you use the number 5768 – then you will know the space. You’ll work out the location.’ She was shaking her head in wonder at the ingenuity of it. ‘And I suppose if you try the same verses with different years, you get different places. Different people.’

      ‘Well, our texts are good at guarding their secrets, Tova Chaya. Yosef Yitzhok wanted to do as you say. He worked with people here to devise a computer program, to do what we just did with that one verse: stopping at every fifth or seventh character. He did it for different years. And then he ran it through the GPS system and, sure enough, he started getting place names. But what use is a place name, Kabul or Mainz, for 1735? How are we to know who lived there then? Besides, Yosef Yitzhok always wondered if that was too easy.’

      ‘If what was too easy?’

      ‘He wasn’t sure it would necessarily be the same verses for all time. Those were the verses the Rebbe had mentioned for his generation. But maybe the other great sages who had somehow been let in on this secret in the past – the Baal Shem Tov or Rabbi Leib Sorres – maybe they knew of the righteous men of their time in a different way. They didn’t have this GPS, did they? This method wouldn’t have made much sense to them, would it? They would have had their own ways – different verses, or maybe a different method entirely.

      ‘This, I now realize, is what lay behind the Rebbe’s interest in technology. I think he understood that even the most enduring, ancient truths could outwardly change very fast, that they would find new forms. Hassidim had to know about the modern world, because this too is HaShem’s creation. He is found here, too.’

      Will and TC were silent. Awestruck, even: it was not just the lives of the thirty-six that were keeping Rabbi Freilich working around the clock, even now on the solemnest night of the Jewish year, when all work was prohibited. This man, who spoke with erudition and in calm, rational paragraphs, clearly believed he had less than twenty-four hours to save the world. Will tried to blot that out, to focus on his own, immediate need: Beth.

      ‘OK,’ he said, like a police captain calling his squad to order. ‘So that’s how the system works. The crucial question is, who else knows about this? Who else might know the identity of the righteous men?’

      By now they were back at the table, where the rabbi had all but fallen into his chair. Will could see the exhaustion in his face.

      ‘You were our best hope.’

      ‘I’m sorry?’

      ‘When you came here on shabbos. On Friday night. We thought you were some kind of spy. From the people who are doing this, I mean. You were asking questions, you were an outsider. Maybe you were trying to find out about the lamad vav. That’s why we, why I, treated you so harshly. Then we discovered you were—’ Will could see the rabbi did not want to name him as the husband of their hostage ‘—you were something else.’

      Will could feel the anger rising within him again. Why did he not just shake this man and force him to reveal where Beth was? Why was he putting up with this? Because, a voice inside him began, if these people were fanatical enough to kidnap Beth for no apparent reason, they were fanatical enough to hold on to her. Rabbi Freilich might have looked weak and exhausted, but there were a dozen men in here who were stronger. If Will lunged, they would soon have him pinned down.

      ‘All right, so it’s not me. Who else knows?’

      The rabbi sunk lower. ‘That’s just it. No one knows. No one outside this community. And not even this community has any idea what’s going on: there would be mass panic if they did. If they knew that the lamadvavniks are being murdered, every day more of them killed, there would be chaos here. They would believe the end of the world was coming.’

      ‘You believe that, don’t you?’ It was said in Tova Chaya’s gentlest voice.

      The rabbi looked up at her, his eyes wet. ‘I fear that what the Rebbe spoke of is coming to pass. Di velt shokelt zich und treiselt zich. That’s what he used to say, Tova Chaya. The world is trembling and shaking. I fear for what judgement this day is about to bring upon us.’

      Will was pacing. ‘So no one outside this small group has any idea of this. Just you, Yosef Yitzhok and a few of your best students.’

      ‘And now you.’

      ‘And you’re sure no one breathed a word?’

      ‘To whom? Who even knew about this whole subject? Why would anyone ask? But when Yosef Yitzhok was found dead. Well, then . . .’

      ‘Then, what?’

      ‘It confirmed that somebody knows what we know and wanted to know more. Until then, I thought maybe it was a strange coincidence that the tzaddikim were dying. Maybe this was the work of HaShem, for a purpose beyond our understanding. But Yosef Yitzhok being murdered, that’s not a plan of HaShem’s.’

      ‘You think someone was pressing him for information?’

      ‘Just before you came tonight, I had a visit. The police. They think Yosef Yitzhok was tortured before he was killed.’

      Will and TC both recoiled.

      ‘What did they want from him that they didn’t know already?’

      ‘Ah, this you tried to ask me about before. Remember, I told you about the verses the Rebbe quoted in his talks? The ones Yosef Yitzhok had memorized? Well, there was something missing.’

      ‘There were only thirty-five.’

      ‘That’s right. Only thirty-five. You can use the method I just showed you, converting letters into numbers and turning those numbers into co-ordinates, but you would still have only thirty-five righteous men. Isn’t it obvious what the men who killed Yosef Yitzhok wanted to know? They wanted the identity of number thirty-six.’

FORTY-NINE

       Sunday, 11.18pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

      Will’s first impulse was to ask Rabbi Freilich the name of this thirty-sixth man. It was crucial. If he and TC knew that, they could work out where the killers were heading next: whoever he was, they were bound to be on his trail.

      But