Gleason is giving me Manning’s job.

To my astonishment, I feel my right hand reaching to the holster at the small of my back while my left removes my shield from the belt clasp at the front right of my trousers. Without a word I set my badge and weapon next to Manning’s on Gleason’s desktop.

MANNING

Dewey, are you out of your mind?

Manning turns to me and tells me I’m an idiot.

ME

You’re going to Israel. I’m going with you.

Manning’s look to me says, What makes you think I even want you along?

MANNING

What do you imagine you are, Dewey—my “partner”? I’ve been babysitting you since Day One. I don’t need you and I don’t want you. You’re an albatross. Every move I make, I have to look over my shoulder to make sure you’re not tripping over your own butch-heeled shoes. You’re a burden! You’re a liability!

Once, when my father was still alive, he took me into his arms and told me he loved me. This from Manning feels at least as good.

ME

I’ll get us adjacent seats.

I said Ben-David’s flight was El Al’s last out of Kennedy. This is true. Manning and I make our departure out of Halifax.

Why Halifax? Because JFK’s runways have been rendered unusable indefinitely due to seawater incursion and “float” beneath their surfaces. (The other NY-NJ-CT fields ceased all operations seven years ago except those employing regional jets.)

We drive to Logan in Boston, then Portland, Maine, hoping that our inbound flight has been cleared to set down. Except wind shear from the third storm in seven days is so extreme at ground level and so unpredictable that air traffic control won’t give the El Al extended-cabin 797 clearance to land at either of these fields. The aircraft is rerouted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Manning and I overnight twice en route, at the Airport Radisson in Portland, then at a Holiday Inn Express in New Brunswick.

Throughout this pilgrimage Manning maintains what spotty contact he can with Ben-David (atmospheric conditions are so unstable that cell and satellite service is basically zilch) to make sure he’s safe, to update him on our delay situation, to press him on his promise to meet us at Ben Gurion when we land, and to urge him to latch on to Rachel and to not let her out of his sight.

The plan, agreed upon in New York on that final morning at the Dorot Library, is to lure Instancer to the sulfurous portal from which he first emerged and then, somehow, send him back down there for keeps.