‘Leo,’ she said.
His wide eyes flickered, swivelled and found her. He tried to speak, eventually producing a sound that could have been the start of her name. ‘Heh …’
And a second later, ‘… ther.’
Kuutma wasted no time. ‘As you wished, Diema,’ he said to her, with a wave of his hand. ‘Please continue.’
Diema stepped forward. ‘We found Ber Lusim’s base of operations, underneath Gellert Hill,’ she said, addressing herself to Tillman. ‘But he escaped us. And now, we think, he’s aiming to fulfil the final prophecy in Toller’s book. So we have to go there, too, and stop him. Our goal is what it’s been all along — to save a million lives. If we can do that, then everything … everything that’s happened along the way will have been justified.’
The tone of her voice was strange. So were her words, Kennedy thought. She sounded as though she were pleading a case rather than carrying out an interrogation.
Tillman nodded. He swallowed deeply before he tried to speak again. ‘The island,’ he said, his voice slurred but comprehensible.
Diema nodded. ‘The island given for an island. We’ve all had time to think about it. If you’ve got any ideas — if any of you have anything at all — this is probably our last chance to figure it out.’
Nobody answered. Diema looked at each of them in turn.
‘Please,’ she said. She sounded desperate. ‘Anything. It’s not about our feelings. It’s not about whether we trust each other or not. Think about the living, who will soon be dead.’
Nahir winced, and shook his head. He seemed to think this whole spectacle was beneath his dignity.
‘There were treaties,’ Rush said, with deep reluctance.
Diema turned to him. ‘Go on.’
‘In the seventeenth century. Sometimes countries would give away or trade ownership of colonies, either to prevent a war or to share out the proceeds after one. I found a whole bunch of them.’
Diema was still looking at him expectantly. So was Kuutma. Rush shrugged. ‘I don’t think I can remember.’
‘Try,’ Diema said tightly.
Rush scowled and stared at the floor. ‘The Spice Islands,’ he said. ‘West Coast of … India, I think. They were given to England in the 1660s. It’s the right time for Toller, but there wasn’t a swap involved. I mean, they weren’t given for an island. They were part of a dowry. When Catherine of Braganza married Charles II.’
‘Then they’re probably out,’ said Diema. ‘What else?’
Rush thought some more. ‘The Azores kept changing hands between Spain and Portugal, all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So did the Madeira archipelago. There were a whole bunch of treaties where they swapped control over one island or another, abandoned forts, leased land, that kind of thing. You could probably say that any one of those islands had been given for another island at one time or another.’
‘Not enough people,’ Kennedy said, remembering Gilles Bouchard’s sleeve notes. ‘Even now, Madeira doesn’t top a quarter of a million. And the Azores are even smaller.’
‘Okay,’ Rush said. ‘Well, there’s Paulu Run, in Indonesia. Britain gave it to the Dutch in 1667 and got Manhattan — which is when New Amsterdam became New York. Martinique is possible. That was French, then British, then French again, all around the time when Toller was writing. Grenada. The French took the indigenous population out of there in the 1640s, which again is about right for Toller, and pushed them onto the smaller islands in the Grenadines. So you could say they gave an island for an island. And there are others. I can’t remember the details, but Aruba fits. So does Tasmania. Abel Tasman was resupplying his ship in Budapest at a time when Toller might still have been here.’
Rush shook his head. ‘The truth is,’ he said, ‘you could make a case for any island you want, pretty much. The big European powers back then, they had big, colony-swapping parties where everyone put their car keys in a bowl. We’re not going to get there this way.’
They absorbed this in silence. Diema let her hands fall to her sides, then balled her fists. An image flashed into Kennedy’s mind, suddenly and powerfully: Alex Wales, in the boardroom at Ryegate House, in the moment before he exploded into violence.
‘It’s … Manhattan,’ Tillman said.
A change came over all the Elohim in the room. They tried to hide it, and it was gone as quickly as it came — their ferocious self-control reasserted itself that quickly. But for a moment they looked the same way they’d looked when Diema had made her comment about forcing God’s hand.
‘Why?’ Kuutma said quickly.
Tillman stared at him, his eyes swimming in and out of focus. ‘Because High Energy Haulage … shipped there.’
‘We have that information,’ Nahir said. ‘From the computer files Ber Lusim left behind. High Energy did send a shipment there — but it wasn’t weapons. It was food products.’
‘Manhattan,’ Tillman murmured again, more weakly.
‘What food products?’ Kuutma asked Nahir.
‘Beans.’
‘Beans?’
‘Castor beans.’
‘Those aren’t food,’ Diema said savagely.
‘Natural … natural source …’ Tillman mumbled.
‘Of the ricin toxin,’ Kuutma finished. ‘I salute you, little sister. And you, Mr Tillman. Nahir, you’ve closed the local airspace. Open it again. Do whatever it takes. Diema and I will leave for New York at once.’
He opened the door and stood aside for her to step through. Diema remained where she was.
And took a breath.
PART SIX
THE THRESHING FLOOR
64
The Borough of Manhattan extends beyond the Island that gives it its name, carving out a foothold on the mainland in the shape of Marble Hill — ‘the Bronx’s Sudetenland’. But on the island itself, if you keep on going north about as far as you can, just before you hit the Harlem River you hit Inwood.
It’s a seriously schizophrenic neighbourhood, anyone will tell you that, but there’s some disagreement as to exactly where the divide comes. Some people claim it’s East-West, with Broadway separating a larger East Side full of mostly Dominican families, maybe two or three generations out of the Republic and as aspirational as hell, from a smaller and more Bohemian West Side full of artists, writers and second-stringers from the city’s many orchestras. Others say the distinction that matters is up-down. Inwood is either your first beachhead in Manhattan real estate, with a view to going south along with your rising fortunes, or else it’s your swan song before you hit the boroughs.
And then there’s a third distinction, of which most of Inwood’s general population are entirely unaware: between those who live above the ground and those who live under it. Because from Isham Park in the North to Fort George Hill in the South, from 10th Avenue to Payson, and from 30ft to 700ft below the street, Inwood is the current location of Ginat’Dania, the peripatetic homeland of the Judas People.
Within that volume of space, whose combined ground area across all of its levels is close to five hundred square miles, the entire population of the People, apart from the tiny diaspora already defined, live and work and dream and die. Six high-rise blocks wholly owned and staffed by the People’s guardians, the Elohim, form its periscopes and its guard towers, but most of the citizenry never visit these above-ground extrusions. They’re accustomed to the rhythms and logistics of life underground, to the point where ‘underground’ ceases to be part of their frame of reference.
Ginat’Dania, the Eden Garden from which the rest of humanity was long ago expelled, is where they live.
And to Ginat’Dania Kuutma now returned, in order to begin its defence in depth.