I said nothing. But I did have a strong sense of something-that I couldn't simply solve this by chopping him up like the Gordian knot. "Right you are!" he said. "Sit down, and listen to me." I took the first chair to his left. He picked up a small multi-buttoned remote control device. I placed my hand on it.
"It controls the monitors, nothing more. Most are security.
Only two have film in them. Look directly up there, over the central map."
At once two of the screens began to fill with still shots-frozen for about two seconds each-of people who were starving, or the dead, battlefields, bombed-out buildings, trash heaps. I recognized that these photos were a steady panorama from all over the world. I could see the Mayan temples in one picture of gathered villagers. In another I saw ruins I knew to be in Cambodia.
He watched these almost serenely, as if he'd forgotten my presence or took me utterly for granted.
"Assure me nothing will happen to Nathan," I said, "as we talk."
"I assure you," he said. "Nothing will happen, until six o'clock and even then it depends on my signal. But I should let you know, angelic one, you have no bargaining power."
"Oh?"
As he turned and smiled graciously at me, he was now preening and full of happiness.
"I've waited so long for this to come," he said, "and to think that you arrived in the midst of it. I do think God sent you as an answer to the sacrifice of Esther. I myself didn't see the symmetry of it or the genius until later. I offered up Esther, whom I loved, truly loved, and you came through the break from the Heavens." He seemed perfectly sincere.
"I have not been in Heaven," I said. "Where is Nathan?"
"First," he said, "let us think intelligently. If you should lose your angelic temper and kill me, you'll only trigger the plan automatically. If you destroy this building you'll trigger the plan automatically. If you want any chance of understanding, acceptance, or modification, you heed me. And hear me out."
"All right," I said. "But you do plan to kill Nathan at six o'clock. You admit it. And you could do it before. That's why you put him in the hospital under your name, to create DNA evidence and dental evidence to identify Nathan as you, so that your death would be certified, didn't you?"
He didn't seem at all happy to hear this much figuring.
"That's a crude version of what I accomplished," he said. "But look, the world is at stake, Azriel, the world itself. Dear God, you must be my Divine Witness."
"Don't get romantic, Gregory, tell me the plan. Somewhere else you have DNA documents that will be used to cleverly replace Nathan's set, and these documents will confirm you when you have risen. You have many people involved in erasing and moving data."
"I'm beginning to love your intelligence," he said. "Now really use it. This is for the world itself! It's for that that we do what we do. And you cannot prevent what will happen, and you must keep it in your mind that when the Last Days come, and they will begin sometime before midnight this night, you will need me. You will need me desperately, just as everyone alive and meant to live will need me. Otherwise only disaster can follow upon disaster."
"Okay, what is this Last Days? What's to happen? You're going to have him assassinated. Then what? Appear to rise from the dead?"
"In three days," he said. "Isn't that the way the other Messiah did it?" He was cooler.
Three days. Blurry horrid images filled with-lions, a loathsome swarm of bees, dancing. I shivered and fought it off. I saw the cross of Christ. I saw the risen Christ in paintings old and new. I heard Christian words in Greek and Latin.
"I'm eager to have you understand this," he said. "You know, it's occurred to me several times that you are the only one who will fully appreciate this."
"And why's that?"
"Azriel, nobody else alive has my courage. No one. It takes courage to kill. You know it does. You know time and the world, and have probably witnessed war, starvation, injustice. But first, allow me to caution you. If you don't hear me out, if you decide that my death is appropriate and that you don't care what happens to the world, there's the question of the Bones."
"Yes?"
"They are in a kiln in this building, and a word from me will roast them and melt them into running liquid. Oh, and I should tell you the results of our tests on them, shouldn't I?"
"If you want to waste the time. I'd rather hear about the Last Days."
"Don't you want to know what's inside your bones?"
"I know. My bones."
He shook his head and smiled. "No more," he said. "The human bone is almost entirely devoured by the metals in which it was encased. There is very little if anything left. Which means I think that as soon as the metal is heated it will easily incinerate and obliterate any trace of the human remaining."
"That's what it means to you?" I smiled. "How amusing. Your test results have an entirely different meaning for me. Did you find enough there to do your DNA magic?"
He shook his head. "There's almost nothing left."
"That's good news. But go on."
He studied me most intensely. He reached out to take my hand, which I more or less allowed. All his charm was in play now, and his eyes had the depth of greatness, and the sincerity of greatness. Very alluring. Rachel had warned me of this.
But I loathed him. For Esther and Nathan alone, as if all the world didn't matter, or as if to mourn them was to mourn all injustice.
"Azriel, this is a dream of unparalleled greatness. It has harshness in it and death, but so did the conquests of Alexander. So did the conquests of Constantine. You know they did. You know the land of Egypt lived in peace for two thousand years because of harshness and the willingness to kill. You know or remember those long times of peace. The Peace of Alexander, and after him the Pax Romana."
"Tell me the plan."
He pointed to the big map on the wall, the map of the world that was filled with pinpoints of light. The pinpoints were red and blue mostly, though some were yellow. They were in stark contrast to the lights of the map, but I saw now much drawing and marking on the map. Much detail.
"Those are my headquarters throughout the world," he said. "Those are my Temples, my so-called resorts, my so-called business offices. Airports. Islands."
"God, why does ambition come to such a man?" I said. "Think of the good you could do, you blithering moral idiot!"