“It’s precisely what they intend,” said Miles. “When He has decided to undertake a smiting, it is only ever for one reason—to rid the earth of sin and cleanse the land so the meek and righteous can walk free and unfettered by the dark shadows of the wayward. In technical terms what this means is that the pillar of all-consuming fire can be swayed from its course by a point source of concentrated sinfulness. A television tube works on the same principle, but instead of having a beam of photons shifted by an electromagnet, you have a pillar of fire moved ever so slightly by an unrepentant ax murderer.”

“A single ax murderer is going to shift an entire pillar of fire?”

“No, you’ll need more sinners than that—and we’re not talking simply immoral people or even questionable thought crimes such as blasphemy, apostasy or ox coveting. No, we’re talking about the big ones: murder, thievery and sadistic violence. And only in those who are evil beyond measure. The sort of people who are so twisted and degenerate they can never find redemption for their crimes.”

Miles spread a map of the local area out on the hood of his car. He had already drawn several circles and lines upon it, plus some simple geometry.

He pointed at his calculations. “Since smitings originate at one lakh feet, they need to deviate the groundburst by a little over four miles, or thirteen point two degrees of arc. That will probably require eighteen mass murderers, six stranglers, five poisoners, sixteen con men and eight career bank robbers.”

I stared at the screen again. “Does England even have that many?”

“I think we’re short on poisoners,” replied Miles, “but France has a few they’ll let Smite Solutions use, and I think the ‘Butcher of Naples’ is being imported from Italy to make up the shortfall of ax murderers. Since Goliath runs the prison service, there shouldn’t be a problem getting them all together.”

“Do they know they’re going to be vaporized in a sudden flash of God’s wrath?” asked Friday.

“I’d not think they’d take to it that kindly,” replied Miles. “No, my guess is they’re being brought here on the pretext of ‘outdoor rehabilitation’ or ‘fresh-air therapy’ or some nonsense like that.”

“But that’s . . . murder,” said Friday. “They’re in custody— doing time. They can’t be just used as smite bait.”

“I know,” said Miles, starting to pack his stuff up. “It’s wholly immoral, despite their crimes. Which really leaves us with only three options. One, Tuesday figures out the Unentanglement Constant between now and midday Friday and the Anti-Smite Shield functions as normal—the city council saves a hundred million pounds, and the searing heat of His unbridled frustration at His creation’s inability to stop its morally questionable behavior is transferred into a useful twenty-two point six megawatts of electricity.”

“And option two?”