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“In case you decide you’d like to join us, I’ll just make a phone call,” O’Neill said sarcastically.

He popped open his cell.

“You won’t bloody believe it, Tim. Meet me outside the Linen Hall right now with the van and a couple of heavy lifting boys,” he said.

I nodded at Mikhail.

“How did you get a library card, you don’t seem the literary type?” I asked.

Mikhail ignored me. O’Neill hung up, smiled.

“I’m curious, how did you find me here, Mr. Forsythe?” O’Neill said.

“I’d love to tell you, but question-and-answer is just such an uncivilized form of discourse. Spot me a couple of Manhattans and we’ll have a right old chin wag about anything you like.”

“Oh, I don’t think we’ll be doing much talking, Mr. Forsythe. Very little of what you could say would interest me,” O’Neill said.

“I think you’ll find you’re mistaken, I’m quite the amiable companion. For instance, I’ll bet you didn’t know that today is Bloomsday. Down in Dublin they are having a real shindig. And this might interest Mikhail: on this date in history Yuri Gagarin—”

I’d been trying to say all this in an increasingly loud voice, not so loud that Mikhail would pop a cap in my stomach, but loud enough to bring Miss Plum over. Regardless, O’Neill stopped me with a wave of his hand since his cell phone was vibrating.

“Hello…. It is…. Excellent…. We’ll be down in two minutes,” he said.

He turned to face me with the grisly smile of an executioner.

“Stand, please, Mr. Forsythe.” I stood.

“Mikhail, I think Mr. Forsythe and you and I will take a walk outside. We’ll go down the fire escape. I’ll want you to walk ahead of us very slowly, Mr. Forsythe, and if you stumble or fall, or cry out or do anything I don’t like, Mikhail will shoot you in the brain.”

I hesitated and stared at him.

“But I have no real incentive to go, do I? You’re going to kill me once I get outside and into that van,” I protested.

“We’ll kill you right now. The .22 won’t make a sound. At least if we postpone it, you’ll have more of a chance. Maybe once we get in the van, you’ll talk me out of it, who knows?”

“I might convince you not to top me?” I said.

“I’ll be honest with you, Mr. Forsythe, it’s unlikely, but stranger things have happened.”

I had no choice but to do what he said. I began walking toward the fire escape.

O’Neill beside me, holding my gun, Mikhail behind us.

“Maybe you should go back and put your book away. That Miss Plum is terribly overworked,” I said to O’Neill. He was tiring of my glibness now. His lips narrowed into a grim slit.

We reached the stairwell.

An echoing concrete space, devoid of people.

“We could kill him right here,” Mikhail said in some kind of Yugoslavian accent. I knew this because my old landlord in New York City had been a Serbian.

“Let’s not bring the library into it all,” O’Neill said with distaste.

“Dobar dan,” I attempted, trying to get Mikhail on my good side, but the bastard appeared completely unmoved.

Mikhail did a thorough search of my body, gave O’Neill my bag of. 38 shells and all the money I had left in my pocket.

We walked carefully down the concrete steps and reached the fire exit door. O’Neill turned to Mikhail.

“You keep the gun on him, I’ll go out and see if there’s any peelers. Shoot him if he so much as blinks.”

O’Neill slipped out into the street. When he had gone, I turned to the big guy.

“Don’t take him literally on the blinking thing,” I said. Mikhail nodded sullenly.

“Dobar dan again, Mikhail. Misha, my old mate. This could be your lucky day. I work for Bridget Callaghan and she’s the head of the Irish mob in the United States. We’ll pay you ten times what you’re getting in this small town, ten times and a green card, what do you say?”

Mikhail laughed, said nothing. Before I could think of anything else, O’Neill came back.

“It’s all clear, Tim has the van,” he said. He looked at me.

“One move, one sound, Forsythe, and we’ll fucking kill you in the street, understood?”

I nodded.

He opened the fire exit door. I stepped outside.

A big red Ford van double-parked twenty feet away along the pavement. A couple of meatpackers waiting beside the rear doors.

I walked slowly onto the sidewalk. The streets were comparatively empty. It was nearly six o’clock and Belfast has a short rush hour. Everyone who needs to get home is usually on a train or a bus by 5:30. Thursday was late shopping night, but today was not, alas, a Thursday. Only two witnesses on the

whole street. A religious preacher with a megaphone and the bootleg video salesman.

“Faster,” O’Neill instructed.

The preacher spotted us and asked Mikhail and myself if we knew that our lives were hanging by a thread. Mikhail prodded me with the gun before I could give my ironic answer.

We stopped at the van. One of the meatpackers looked at me. “That runt’s Michael Forsythe?” he said skeptically.

“That’s him,” O’Neill said. “Mikhail, help him inside.”

I didn’t want to get into the van. The van meant death. I made a last desperate plea to O’Neill.

“Look, please, whatever I’ve done, I don’t think this will solve anything. I’m not a bad lad, I don’t care what you’ve heard. Really, we should talk this over,” I said.

“Just get in the van,” O’Neill demanded.

No way. If I got in that van, I was toast. This would be my last opportunity to make a run for it, even if Mikhail did bloody shoot me.

I dropped to the ground, breaking Mikhail’s hold on my shoulder. I scrambled to my feet.

“Help, they’re gonna murder me,” I screamed at the top of my voice, tried to push past Mikhail and the other goons.

Someone thumped me in the head, I ate tarmac. Mikhail and one of the other boys picked me up bodily and threw me inside the van. I screamed all the louder, attracting the attention of the only person now left on the street.

“What the hell is going on there?” the video guy shouted.

“Get the police, I’m being kidnapped—” I managed before someone belted me in the mouth, the boys jumped in, and the van doors closed. O’Neill and Mikhail got in the front while three goons grinned at me in the back. We sped off into the traffic, Mikhail driving fast for some safe location.

A pretty large van that you could almost stand up in, about ten feet long. It was basically a shiny box with hooks in the ceiling that I didn’t like the look of one little bit. It was either a dry- cleaning delivery vehicle or a portable torture chamber. They weren’t meat hooks because the van wasn’t refrigerated.

The three boys were crouched at one end. I was up near the cab. No chance against the boys, but maybe if I could smash the glass through to the driver’s compartment I could cause an accident.

I thumped the glass with my elbow, it bounced off harmlessly, the van turned a corner, the three boys jumped me at once. I tried to clobber one, but these were big shits who knew exactly what they were doing. We didn’t even fight, they just grappled me to the floor and pinned me down.

One sat on my legs and the other two held down each arm. O’Neill slid back the glass partition.

“Do you have him, Tim?” he asked. “Aye, we got him.”

“Good.”

“What do you want us to do with him, Mr. O’Neill?” one of the goons asked. This eejit seemed to be the leader. Tim, tall, well built, viciously scarred, wearing a Man. United goalkeeper’s shirt and a Yankees cap.

“Well, first thing. We just did a cursory pat down, make sure he’s got nothing on him,” O’Neill said.

They violently searched me.

“Hey, he’s got no left foot, see that?” Tim said. They stared at the prosthesis.

“You would never have known, I seen him walk just like a regular person,” Tim said.

“Get off me, I’ll fucking kill you all,” I yelled, but Tim bitch- slapped me across the face and shoved a handkerchief in my

mouth to shut me up. Now that I was restrained and quiet, O’Neill could give full vent to his fury.

“What in the name of God is going on, Tim? I thought people were taking care of him and, lo and behold, he comes up to my private sanctuary. You know he pointed a gun at me while I was working on my book?”

“Sorry, Mr. O’Neill,” Tim said.

“He came into my holy of holies and shoved a .38 in my face. You can imagine how surprised I was. I thought he was bloody dead already.”

“Really sorry, Mr. O’Neill.”

“I thought Sammy was going to take care of him at that boat? Eh? Was that not the plan? And it turns out Sammy did not take care of him at the boat?” O’Neill asked.

“Sammy’s dead, Mr. O’Neill, the whole thing was a disaster. Jimmy fired the RPG at a peeler foot patrol. There were injuries. I don’t know what went down. But the cops killed Sammy,” Tim said.

“Hey, where to?” Mikhail asked from the front.

“Just drive around for the moment, eventually we’ll have to take him out to the country,” O’Neill said.

Mikhail nodded.

“Tell me what happened,” O’Neill demanded.

“It’s not that clear yet but apparently Jimmy fired the RPG at him on the boat at the same time a foot patrol was coming. I suppose Jimmy thought he could get him and get away before the peelers got involved,” Tim explained.

“Jesus Christ. And you’re telling me there were casualties?” O’Neill asked. “Did anybody die?”

“I don’t know yet,” Tim responded. “Holy Mary. Where’s Jimmy now?” “He’s in custody.”

“Oh for Godsake, that’s just terrific,” O’Neill said. We drove in silence for a moment.

“What do we do about Forsythe?” Tim asked.

“Next time Seamus Deasey asks me to help him out, somebody remind me that wee shite is more trouble than he’s worth. Have to see about replacing him,” O’Neill said almost to himself.

“Aye, but what do we do about Forsythe?” the goon persisted.

“Oh, I suppose we have to top him now, it’s the very least we can do after this bollocks,” O’Neill said.

“Aye, he’s a rat anyway,” Tim said.

“Aye, he is too, he is too,” O’Neill said reflectively.

“Take us out of town, the usual spot,” he told Mikhail, and he leaned back to us.

“Aye, lads, better get this over with.”

I writhed, but it was useless. Tim was kneeling on my left arm. And the others had me locked to the floor. The only way I was getting out of this was to talk my way out. I cleared my head fast. I stopped struggling, bit the handkerchief, partially swallowed it, gagged, and managed to puke it out of my mouth.

“O’Neill, listen to me. This will start a mob war with America. I’m working for Bridget Callaghan now, I’m trying to find her wee girl. You don’t want her pissed off at you, do you?” I screamed.

“You say you’re working for Bridget Callaghan?” O’Neill asked, surprised.

“Yeah, ask Seamus, I’m working for her. I’m looking for her daughter. Ask Seamus if you don’t believe me. That’s what this is all about.”

“Seamus wants you dead. Bridget Callaghan wants you dead. We’ll be doing everyone a favor,” O’Neill said.

“No fucking way, you haven’t got the latest news. Bridget does not want me dead. I’m working for her now. If you kill me, Bridget will make sure you all pay a very heavy price.”

O’Neill shrugged in the front seat, took off his bifocals, cleaned them.

“Ach, they’ll never find you, will they, Tim?”

“No, sir,” Tim said, placing the handkerchief back in my mouth and attempting to squeeze my jaw shut with his big hands.

“How will we do it, Mr. O’Neill, cut his fucking throat?”

“No, no, no, I don’t want blood all over the van, and you can put your guns away. I just bought this wee number and I got to move the grandkids’ play box on Saturday. I do not want blood or holes in the bodywork.”

“So what do we do?” Tim asked.

“Throw one of them plastic bags over his head. Suffocate him. Anybody ever seen someone die like that? It’s very instructive. Completely bloodless. Very efficient way to do someone if you do it right.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tim said.

“There’s some rubber bands back there, you can use those to keep it tight, ok?” O’Neill said.

Tim reached behind him and the other two lads gave him one of the bags. With his hands off my mouth, I could just about speak.

“Now wait just a goddamn minute, I haven’t done a thing to any of you people, this is a huge mistake,” I said.

O’Neill turned around to face me.

“Make your peace, Forsythe, it’ll be easier on yourself. Just get composed, this doesn’t have to be ugly for anyone. We all have to go sometime and it’s the manner of our death that tells us whether we have dignity or not.”

“Nice speech, but you’re not killing me,” I said, and struggled as hard as I could against the three men. But they were over seven hundred pounds of deadweight. I had no chance.

“You’re making a huge mistake. I’m the only one that can bring that girl back alive. Bridget will have you all killed. She’ll have every one of you executed, you don’t know the depths to which she—”

They slipped a clear plastic bag over my head and fastened it around my neck with a thick rubber band. Almost immediately I found that I was having difficulty breathing.

I tried to bite the bag, but it was thick, heavy-duty material. I tried to claw Tim with my fingernails, but he simply adjusted his weight so that he was sitting on my wrist rather than my hand.

Within seconds all the good air in the bag was gone. “Help,” I called out. “Help me, please.”

The three men looking at me through the clear plastic. The inside of the bag filling with condensed water vapor from my lungs. My temples throbbing. My eyes stinging.

Not this way, not now. No. Please. I have so much to do.

I bit at the bag, thrashed my legs and arms. Screamed. I lifted my head off the van floor and banged it, trying to create any kind of rip in the plastic. Tim simply forced my head down with his fist.

Tim’s hand and the wet plastic on my forehead—the slimy touch of death.

The bag full of CO2 now. The oxygen had been burned away. I panic-breathed, dragged the poison down into my lungs. My throat burned and I breathed even deeper. In a few seconds the

lack of oxygen in my brain would force me into a blackout and

that would be the—

All three men clattered down on top of me. A pocket at the bottom of the bag.

I sucked air. A siren.

Something was happening. The car violently skewed to the left and then to the right, accelerated.

I managed to free a hand. There was a huge crash and I was smashed against the roof of the van, just missing one of those ugly hooks. Suspended for a moment in free fall, I ripped the bag off my face as the van turned over on its side and tumbled onto its roof before the windshield smashed, the ceiling buckled, and the air bags inflated in the front seat.

We were still moving upside down, me and the three goons tangled up together. I elbowed the nearest one in the eye, sticking my elbow deep in the socket. I grabbed his fat head in my two hands and banged it into the side of the van. I reached inside his coat and pulled out an Uzi machine pistol.

The van continued skidding on its roof for a second before smashing into a wall. Tim thumped into one of the meat hooks, his flesh neatly skewered through the neck, the other two goons tumbled into the rear doors.

I dropped the gun, regrabbed it, braced myself. The van stopped spinning and came to a dead halt.

I got into a half crouch, took the safety off the Uzi, made sure the magazine was slammed in properly, and machine-gunned all three of them, riddling them with bullets, for a blast of about three seconds. Two were unconscious, but the third put his hands up defensively. I shot through his palms and pumped a dozen rounds into his neck and head.

I Uzied the rear doors, kicked them open, and jumped outside.

We were still in Belfast, on a blasted piece of waste ground, which was what was left of the projects near the old markets district. The tenements had been demolished and were being replaced with neat semidetached houses. The van was upside down and the cab had a police Land Rover wedged into the side of it, the Land Rover lying on its side with the wheels

spinning. Mikhail’s mangled body cut in two, his legs in the van and his torso on the Land Rover’s windshield.

I didn’t have much time. The cops would be out of there just as soon as they recovered and got those big armor-plated rear doors open.

I ran to the front of the van, saw that O’Neill was bleeding from a scalp wound but very much alive. I pointed the Uzi at him.

“You’re coming with me, you old bastard,” I said.

I dragged him out of the van, ran, and practically carried him away from the scene before the peelers got out and shot or lifted the both of us.

The rain fell and muddied grass, flooded drains, and made petrol float and turn to filthy rainbows, manufacturing a slimy membrane on rooftops, streets, and lanes.

I let it drip onto my tongue. Where were we?

Safe.

An alley behind the Peace Line between two rows of new houses. The Peace Line, a twenty-foot-high wall that separated the Protestant housing development from the Catholic one.

No one around here, but they were close and they were coming.

Cops starting to mill about the crime scene. A helicopter flying above us. I had about five minutes to question the old man. We were three hundred yards away on the other side of a playground from where the police Land Rover had rammed the van. Already there were two other cop Land Rovers there with a forensic team.

We’d gotten away so fast the peelers hadn’t seen us. But it was standard cop procedure to fan out from the scene of a violent incident. Soon there would be dozens of constables

walking three-sixty in every direction, looking for witnesses. We’d have to move on if we didn’t want to get arrested. Like I say, five, ten minutes tops.

But that was ok.

All I needed was a quick debrief with O’Neill and then I’d pop the old git and make a run for it.

And if I survived this day, I’d make sure I bought a bloody copy of Star Wars III from that bootleg video man. His phone call to the peelers had undoubtedly saved my life. I’d thank the coppers, too, if I hadn’t made it a rule never to thank the peels for anything.

O’Neill was slumped against a wall. Breathing hard, dabbing at his scalp. Let him bleed, let him fucking hemorrhage. But be damn quick about it. The helicopter might spot us and sooner or later the police would realize that someone had run. I needn’t worry about eyewitnesses, at least, there’d been no one about. (Even if there had, nobody would have seen a thing.)

O’Neill coughed and spat blood.

Didn’t look like an internal wound, just a gash in the mouth.

I was still holding the Uzi but I felt uncomfortable with that bulky weapon, so I searched O’Neill, removed my .38, the bag of shells, the money he’d taken from me, and all his dough too. I wiped the Uzi clean of prints and threw it over the Peace Line.

“Open your eyes,” I said. O’Neill looked at me.

“If you’re going to kill me, just fucking kill me,” he said.

“Patience, Body, patience; we don’t have a lot of time, those pigs are going to be over in a minute and we want to be gone.”

“You’re not going to top me?”

“I haven’t decided. O’Neill, listen, I want you to answer some questions for me, I don’t want you to piss me about,” I said.

O’Neill sat up.

“There’s some pills in my trouser pocket, can I get them? For my angina.”

“Get your pills, but hurry up.”

O’Neill reached into his pocket, pulled out a bottle of morphine pills, and chucked a couple into his mouth.

“I’ll take a few of them too,” I said, and pocketed a couple. I was in a hell of a lot of pain myself. O’Neill breathed deep and seemed a little better now.

“Ok, what do you want to know?”

“I want to know why you’ve been trying to kill me since I landed in Dublin,” I said.

He looked puzzled.

“I haven’t been trying to kill you since you landed in Dublin.”

“You bloody have. Your wee pal Jimmy told me you authorized the RPG attack on me. You said so yourself in the van.”

“I did. But I didn’t try to get you in Dublin,” O’Neill said. “Why did you try to kill me at the boat?”

“You fucked with one of my boys. Seamus Deasey. You embarrassed him in front of his men, you hit him, you came into his place of business and you shot Eliot Mulroony, who was his right-hand man. I couldn’t let you get away with that. Seamus was furious. He told me where you were going to be and I told him I’d take care of it.”

“You’re lying to me. You sent that guy to the airport and the other guy in the brothel. You tried to get me twice in Dublin.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You did. I talked to Moran and he told me that it wasn’t him. I looked him right in the eye and he said it wasn’t him.”

“Listen, Michael, can I call you Michael? The first time I heard you were in the bloody country was this afternoon when

that eejit Deasey calls me gurning that you’ve humiliated him and he wants you dead.”

I sat on my hunkers in an uncomfortable squat.

“You’re saying you haven’t been trying to kill me since this morning?” I said.

He shook his head.