Chapter 3
Aran
Connor’s house sits behind walls that have seen more blood than a trauma ward. Not literally. The blood happens elsewhere. The walls just know about it.
I park beside a Range Rover and get out.
The front door is open. Bridgit, Connor’s housekeeper, stands in the hallway with a tea towel over her arm and the expression of a woman who has seen everything and decided none of it is her business. She’s been with Connor for thirty years. She knows what we are. She makes sandwiches anyway.
“He’s in the study,” she says, already turning back toward the kitchen. “Tea’s made.”
I give her a smirk that she scowls at. “Thanks, sweetheart.”
“Go and catch yerself on,” she mumbles, showing her Belfast roots as she stalks off. If she thought she could get away with giving me the finger, she probably would.
The entrance hall is wide, tiled in black and white like a chessboard.
Family portraits line the walls. The O’Neills going back four generations, each one looking slightly more respectable than the last while doing exactly the same things.
I pass the drawing room, the dining room that seats twenty, and stop at the ajar study door. I knock twice.
“Aran?” He looks up from his notes. “You’re late.”
“I’m never late,” I respond, eyes narrowed.
“Conviction. Serves you well.”
“You have to get up earlier, and all that fucking nonsense.”
He snorts. “Most men would stammer, check their watch, make excuses. You? Solid as a fucking rock.”
“Learned from the best,” I say, sitting opposite my uncle and placing one ankle on my knee. “So what’s this thing you’ve got?”
He sits back and gives me a searching look. “Prisoner exchange.”
I raise my right eyebrow. “That’s new.”
“Hmm.”
“Who?”
He hesitates to tell me.
“Pretty much need to know, don’t you think?”
“All I can tell you is it’s a woman. Small, blonde, green eyes. Violent. Uses a nail gun with remarkable efficiency.”
Sounds like my kind of woman. “That gives me a description. Doesn’t tell me who she is.”
“You don’t need to know that part. They have her, I want her, and you are taking Sean Granville to get her.”
I drop my foot to the floor and lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Granville.”
“Problem?”
“He is a high-profile threat to the O’Neills. It took us two years to get him contained, and you’re going to hand him over for some woman whose name you won’t tell me.”
“Can’t tell you. There’s a difference. This is a total set-up. Know that going in. They took her, knowing I’d give them Granville back in a swap.”
I sit back again, sifting through this information. “She’s that important?”
“I wouldn’t be doing this if she weren’t.”
“Where?”
“The Regeant. Twelve noon today.”
“Broad daylight in a semi-public place. You realize how crazy this is, right?”
“It looks like it from the outside. But this is precisely why. I don’t want drama. I want a straight swap. One look at you and they should just want to hand her over and be done with it.”
I don’t flinch. Six-six and built like the business end of a battering ram tends to make people reconsider their options. The last guy who tried something needs his jaw wired shut for eight weeks. That was three days ago. Wonder how he’s doing, eating through a tube.
“So I walk in with Granville, hand him over, collect the woman, walk out. That simple.”
Connor gives me a not-quite smile. “That simple.”
“Nothing’s ever that simple with you, Connor.”
“Which is why I’m sending you.” He picks up a folder from the desk and slides it across to me. “Granville’s being held at the lockup in Clondalkin. Declan’s sitting on him. Pick him up at eleven, bring him to the Regeant. Fourth floor, room 412.”
I open the folder. Floor plans of the hotel. Entry and exit points marked in red.
“What aren’t you telling me? Why do you think this is a trap?”
He inhales through his nose and considers his words, which for Connor is a small miracle. He doesn’t do bullshit, which is something I appreciate.
“Both Granville and the woman are high profile. Anyone who gets a whiff of this exchange could be looking to take their chance.”
“And who would be getting a whiff, exactly?”
He shrugs. “Just be aware going in.”
“So not as simple as that, then.”
This time, he smiles. Sinister. Cold. Calculating.
“I’ll take that as a yes, there’s more to this than you’re letting on.”
“There’s always more, Aran. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”
Right. Paid. I get a house, a car, a trust fund the size of Dublin and the O’Neill name, which opens more doors than a hundred euro note, wrapped in more hundred euro notes.
I close the folder and tuck it under my arm. “What’s the woman’s condition?”
“Unknown. She was taken four days ago. They’ve been communicating through intermediaries.”
“And we know she’s alive because?”
“Because they want Granville.”
“Right.”
Simple as that.
I stand. “Anything else?”
“Don’t let them provoke you.”
I look at him. He looks at me. We both know what a stupid fucking statement that is. I don’t get provoked. I provoke. There’s a difference.
“I mean it, Aran. This is a handover, not a war. Walk in, make the trade, walk out. Whatever they say, whatever they do, you keep it clean.”
“When have I ever not kept it clean?”
He gives me a look that references at least three specific incidents I’d rather not discuss. I nod and leave the study without another word. Bridgit catches me in the hall. She holds out a foil-wrapped package without a word.
“What’s this?”
“Sausage sandwich. You look like you haven’t eaten.”
“I ate.”
“Tea and brooding don’t count as a meal.” She pushes it into my hand. “Go on.”
I take the sandwich because arguing with Bridgit is like arguing with the weather.
Pointless, and you’ll lose. I unwrap it in the car and eat it on the way to Clondalkin, steering one-handed through morning traffic that moves like it has nowhere to be and all day to get there.
She put brown sauce on it. She remembers.
The lockup is a warehouse unit on an industrial estate that looks like every other industrial estate in Dublin. Gray corrugated walls, chain-link fencing, a sign that says something about plumbing supplies. Declan’s car sits outside the roller door.
I pull up and kill the engine. I’m too early. Even with the volume of traffic.
Getting out, I move around to the trunk and open it, staring inside.
There is only one way to move high-profile threats, and that is where they can’t attack you from behind.
I pick up the few odd ends, the jack, alloy locking wheel nut kit, the spare water and screen wash, and throw them in the back.
I lift up the lining and glance around to make sure I’m alone before I haul the briefcase of arms out of the custom-made hole.
That goes under the passenger-side seat—again, a custom-made hidey-hole that cost more than the car itself to keep quiet.
Along with bulletproof doors and windows, the Q7 is about as close to a tank as you can get without drawing attention.
Slamming the lid shut, I climb back in and wait. Twenty minutes and we roll.