By the time he touched down at Newark and went through customs, it was nine minutes after 11 a.m. Since Eastern Standard Time is five hours before Greenwich Meantime, that meant that there were seven hours and fifty-one minutes left on the clock. Zero hour would be seven that evening. Kuutma was already giving orders to his Messengers as he was being driven through the streets of New Jersey, and the first Messengers were mobilising and moving out by the time he reached the island of Manhattan and descended into his home.
The first and most important consideration was to seal and guard the borders. To this end, Kuutma gave orders for the surface streets at Thayer, Nagle Avenue and along the eastern limits of Inwood Hill Park to be undermined with earthworks so that they would start to collapse. The New York City authorities promptly closed the affected streets for repairs, re-routing traffic via the bridge at University Heights. Cars could still come and go along the full length and breadth of the island, obviously, but if Ber Lusim was carrying his poison in trucks, they wouldn’t be able to pass directly into the territory under which Ginat’Dania lay.
That left air and water as potential approaches. Elohim were sent to search all known private airfields around the city, looking mainly for microlight aircraft small enough to be exempt from safety inspections and federal monitoring. Satellite footage was being examined in order to identify any potential runways whose location was disguised.
As far as the water went, dockside warehouses were being searched at the same time, as well as ships on the river that were in fixed moorage. The factory in which Ber Lusim had extracted and refined his poison had already been identified from archived satellite footage, which showed the red liveried trucks of the High Energy Haulage company making a delivery there more than a month before. But it had clearly been abandoned for some time. There was nothing there now except some industrial waste, sacks of raw chemicals and several hundredweight of castor beans that had not been pulped and processed. The location of the factory was a calculated insult: it was in Marble Hill, looking directly across the Harlem River towards the northern tip of Manhattan Island. Ber Lusim, who they had sought around the world, had built his weapon of mass destruction within walking distance of Ginat’Dania itself.
It was true the Elohim’s search was hampered by their having no idea of what that armament might be, and what it might look like. But it was also true that they could rule out some possibilities and concentrate on others that were more likely. Ricin was extremely difficult to weaponise. It had a high toxicity, but it was most effective in solid form, either as a pellet or as a poisonous coating on some form of scatter munition. The amount required to kill a million people would be measured in tons, and each of the victims would have to be directly exposed to the toxin: there was no way its effects could be transmitted from one person to another.
All of these factors worked in their favour. But Ber Lusim had known these things, too, and had still chosen ricin over a wide range of other toxic agents such as sarin, botulinum, smallpox or anthrax, which might have been more convenient or more efficacious. It followed that he had a plan for delivering the poison across the city, or at least across enough of the city to kill a million of its inhabitants.
Would he really attack Ginat’Dania itself? The thought was terrible, but it had a monstrous logic of its own. Shekolni had believed completely and fervently in Johann Toller’s divine inspiration, and Toller, in his book, had described God choosing those who would be saved. Who else would he choose but the Judas People? And therefore, where else could the final atrocity be unleashed?
So Ginat’Dania was in a state of siege, all of its citizens in lockdown, all of its entry and exit points fortified and guarded, all of its Messengers answerable directly to Kuutma himself, who sent a constant stream of instructions and queries from his rooms in het retoyet.
Or almost all.
Coming from a tiny commercial airfield much further out from the city, a good hour behind Kuutma because of the complications involved in transporting one of its passengers, an armoured truck bearing the logo of a well-known security firm was also headed for Manhattan. In its innards, not quite imprisoned and yet not quite free, was the small group that had been deputed to Diema’s command. It consisted of Diema herself, Desh Nahir, Kuutma’s two bodyguards Alus and Taria, and the three Adamites. Tillman. Kennedy. Rush.
Kuutma frowned as he thought about them. The memory of that last hour in Budapest still troubled him. He had heard Diema out — he owed her that, and more. But he was far from sure that he had made the right decision.
‘I need the three of them to come with me,’ Diema had said. ‘You see that, Tannanu, don’t you? The reason why you sent me to them — it wasn’t just because they can kill where we can’t. It’s because they see things differently from the way we see them, and we need their expertise. It was with their help that I got this far. It would be blind stupidity to give up that help now, while we still might need it. Let them come with us, to New York.’
Nahir made a sound of disgust, deep in his throat.
‘You disagree, Nahir?’
‘It makes no sense, Tannanu. If you need their input, speak to them by phone or address your requirements to me and I’ll speak to them for you. There’s no need for them to accompany you. It would even be better that way, since Tillman is probably too weak to be moved. You’d risk killing him in transit — which Diema Beit Evrom surely wouldn’t want, if he’s such a valuable asset.’
‘We can’t predict what we’ll find and what we’ll need,’ Diema countered. ‘It may be that we’ll need Tillman to accompany us, as weak as he is, and give us his insights. It’s not about safeguarding his health. It’s about keeping him where he can do the most good.’
‘And Kennedy, likewise?’ Kuutma asked.
‘Yes. Exactly.’
‘And the boy?’
Diema didn’t answer. Which was an answer in itself.
‘Very well,’ Kuutma said. ‘We’ll take the rhaka. And Tillman, too, though I find it hard to believe we’ll use him in the way you suggest. But the boy stays. Once we’re gone, Nahir can dispose of him as he sees fit.’
Diema tensed visibly, as though she was steeling herself for some intense physical effort.
‘Benjamin Rush is the father of my child,’ she said, ‘who is not yet born.’
Kuutma’s shock at hearing this was as great as Nahir’s, but unlike Nahir, he was able to keep the shock from showing on his face or in his actions.
Nahir, by contrast, cried out, a wordless yell of disgust and protest. He took a step towards Diema, his hand raised as though he intended to strike her. She took a combat stance herself, ready to defend against the attack.
‘What is this?’ Kuutma asked her coldly. ‘What is this thing you say? You’re Elohim, not Kelim.’
‘Now I’m both,’ she said.
‘You’re a whore!’ Nahir bellowed. ‘A filthy whore!’
She gave him a look of cool derision. ‘You need to learn some new curse words, Desh Nahir. Vary your repertoire. It would be terrible if you became dull.’
‘Desh Nahir makes a reasonable assumption,’ Kuutma broke in, grinding out the words. ‘If he’s wrong, tell me why. How did this happen?’
Diema stared into his eyes. ‘It happened, Tannanu, in this wise,’ she said. ‘I gave myself to the boy in order to win his trust — and through him, the trust of Heather Kennedy. It was part of my mission, I took no pleasure in it, but neither did I hesitate. Other Elohim have done such things, many times. But I miscounted my days and fell pregnant. And in that, obviously, I was at fault.’