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O’Brien got to his feet and placed both hands on the table. He leaned down until he was almost eye level with Christophe. There was a spark of madness in O’Brien’s eyes, and for the first time Christophe saw the man who had allegedly bombed a restaurant in Dublin, the man who had been a member of one of the most deadly terrorist organizations in modern history.
“You hear that, Frenchie?” O’Brien asked. “You should be prepared to get belted, and a whole lot more than that if you think you’re going to take this city. Now get the feck out of here.”
Christophe rose slowly and buttoned his jacket. “Thank you for your time.”
“Get your weapon at the door,” Mick said as Christophe passed into the main room of the bar.
He was halfway to the bar’s entrance when O’Brien spoke again.
"Don’t see my hospitality as an invitation to pay us another visit,” he called. “We won’t be so welcoming next time.”
Christophe continued without looking back, a deep sense of unease settling in his bones as he collected his weapon and stepped out onto the street.
4
Nolan packed up his laptop and looked around. The lights were off in most of the other offices, everyone gone for the night except the team working on the Somerset case.
He could have done his work at his apartment, but he preferred staying late at the office, preferred the antiseptic quality of the space, although to be fair, his apartment was hardly homey.
The office provided endless opportunities for distraction — argument preparation and research and paperwork and more research. Putting off his return to his apartment was a habit. It was too quiet there, too cold, even with the high-tech climate control system that came preinstalled in every unit of the luxury building downtown.
It was too easy for Bridget to creep back into his mind, too easy to fall into the web of his memories. The reliable list of hookups that were ready and waiting on his phone softened the edges, but the interludes were temporary. Eventually the women would go home and he would be left with the walls of his apartment, the big window overlooking a city that meant nothing to him without her.
He got to his feet and picked up his briefcase, turned off the light in his office, and started for the elevator. The offices of Glassman and Weld were a sea of gray and white, every surface designed to soothe the clients who paid upwards of fifteen hundred dollars an hour for their services. The space screamed understated money, the kind their clients liked best, the kind that could be hidden from a public increasingly crying foul over an economic model that left more and more people behind.
He stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the parking garage. He’d felt a twinge of guilt when he’d accepted the job at the firm right after graduation. It was the kind of job Bridget would hate, the kind that didn’t contribute to the world in any meaningful way, the kind that kept the rich flush with wealth and the poor on their knees.
It wasn’t what he’d imagined himself doing, but then he’d never had the imagination to dream up anything more than a life with Bridget, a pack of kids and a white picket fence and Sunday dinner with Bridget’s family and nights falling asleep with her in his arms while their children slept safe and sound in rooms down the hall.
How was he supposed to come up with a dream better than that one?
The elevator dinged and the doors opened onto an expanse of concrete. He stepped into the parking garage and headed for his car. It was nearly midnight and the Lexus was one of only a handful of vehicles left in the garage.
It didn’t bother him. He’d come out of his time at the Syndicate with a little money and a lot of confidence in his ability to defend himself. Carrying a weapon was a habit he hadn’t been able to shake.
He was almost to the car when he felt someone’s presence behind him. There was no sound, but he sensed the subtle shift in energy, the hair standing up on the back of his neck, the sensation of being watched.
He kept his pace even, hoping to get to the car and the gun he kept in the glove compartment. He didn’t bring a weapon to the office for obvious reasons, and while he wasn’t above returning to his roots for a good old fashioned fight, he’d gotten used to the feel of cold steel in his hand.
“I’m not here to harm you.” The voice came from behind him as he pressed the button on his key fob to unlock the doors of the Lexus.
He turned around to find a tall man with dark hair staring at him. The man’s jeans and T-shirt were a sorry disguise for someone wearing such a perfectly tailored jacket and custom shoes.
“Then why are you lurking in an empty parking garage?” Nolan asked.
The man had the bearing of someone with money, someone who’d always had money — someone like Nolan.
“I needed a place to speak to you in private,” the man said. “A place where I could be reasonably certain we wouldn’t be seen.”
He spoke excellent English, but Nolan caught an accent that might have been French or Italian at the edges of his words.
“Here we are,” Nolan said.
The man extended his hand. “Christophe Marchand.”
Nolan hesitated, then shook his hand, the name ringing like a familiar bell in his head. “Marchand…”
“The Syndicate,” Christophe said. “Paris.”
