At the eastern end of Killary Harbor, Keller turned onto an unpaved track and followed it into a dense patch of heather and gorse. He stopped in a small clearing, killed the lights and the engine, and popped the interior trunk release. Gabriel reached for the latch, but Keller stopped him. “Stay,” was all he said before opening the door and stepping into the rain.

By then, Walsh had regained consciousness. Gabriel listened as Keller explained what was about to transpire. Because Walsh had cooperated, he would be released with no further harm. Under no circumstances was he to discuss his interrogation with his associates. Nor was he to make any attempt to pass a message of warning to Quinn. If he did, said Keller, he was dead.

“Are we clear, Liam?”

Gabriel overheard Walsh murmuring something in the affirmative. Then he felt the rear end of the Škoda rise slightly as Keller helped the Irishman from the boot. The lid closed; Walsh shuffled blindfolded into the heather, Keller clutching one elbow. For a moment there was only the wind and the rain. Then from deep in the heather came two muted flashes of light.

Keller soon reappeared. He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and reversed back to the road. Gabriel stared out the window as news from a troubled world issued softly from the radio. This time, he didn’t bother to ask how Keller felt. It was personal. He closed his eyes and slept. And when he woke it was daylight and they were crossing the border into Northern Ireland.

18

OMAGH, NORTHERN IRELAND

THE FIRST TOWN ON THE other side of the border was Aughnacloy. Keller stopped for gas next to a pretty flint church and then followed the A5 north to Omagh, just as Quinn and Liam Walsh had done on the afternoon of August 15, 1998. It was a few minutes after nine when they breached the town’s southern outskirts; the rain had ended and a bright orange sun shone through a slit in the clouds. They left the car near the courthouse and walked to a café on Lower Market Street. Keller ordered a traditional Irish breakfast but Gabriel asked for only tea and bread. He glimpsed his reflection in the window and was dismayed by his appearance. Keller, he decided, looked worse. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and his face was sorely in need of a razor. Nowhere in his expression, however, was there any suggestion he had recently killed a man in a patch of heather and gorse in County Mayo.

“Why are we here?” asked Gabriel as he watched the first pedestrians of the morning, shopkeepers mainly, moving purposefully along the shimmering pavements.

“It’s a nice place.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“On several occasions, actually.”

“What brought you to town?”

“I used to meet a source here.”

“IRA?”

“More or less.”

“Where’s the source now?”

“Greenhill Cemetery.”

“What happened?”

Keller fashioned his hand into the shape of a gun and placed the barrel against his temple.

“IRA?” asked Gabriel.

Keller shrugged. “More or less.”

The food arrived. Keller devoured his as though he had not eaten in many days, but Gabriel picked at his bread without appetite. Outside, the clouds were playing tricks with the light. It was morning one minute, dusk the next. Gabriel imagined the street littered with shattered glass and human limbs. He looked at Keller and again asked why they had come to Omagh.

“In case you were having second thoughts.”

“About what?”

Keller looked down at the remnants of his breakfast and said, “Liam Walsh.”

Gabriel made no reply. On the opposite side of the street, a woman with one arm and burns on her face was attempting to unlock the door of a dress shop. Gabriel supposed she was one of the wounded. There were more than two hundred that day: men, women, teenagers, small children. The politicians and the press always seemed to focus on the dead after a bombing, but the wounded were soon forgotten—the ones with scorched flesh, the ones with memories so terrible that no amount of therapy or medication could put their minds at rest. Such were the accomplishments of a man like Eamon Quinn, a man who could make a ball of fire travel one thousand feet per second.

“Well?” asked Keller.

“No,” said Gabriel. “No second thoughts.”

A red Vauxhall sedan pulled to the curb outside the café and two men climbed out. Gabriel felt a rush of blood to his face as he watched the men move off down the street. Then he stared at the car as though he were waiting for the timer in the glove box to reach zero.

“What would you have done?” he asked suddenly.

“About what?”

“If you’d known where the bomb was that day.”

“I would have tried to warn them.”

“And if the bomb were about to explode? Would you have risked your life?”

The waitress placed the check on the table before Keller could answer. Gabriel paid the bill in cash, pocketed the receipt, and followed Keller into the street. The courthouse was to the right. Keller turned left instead and led Gabriel past the brightly colored shops and storefronts, to a tower of blue-green glass rising from the pavement like a gravestone. It was the memorial for the victims of the Omagh bombing, placed on the very spot where the car had exploded. Gabriel and Keller stood there for a moment, neither man speaking, as pedestrians hurried past. Most averted their eyes. On the opposite side of the street a woman with pale hair and sunglasses lifted a smartphone to her face, as if to take a photograph. Keller quickly turned his back to her. So did Gabriel.

“What would you have done, Christopher?”

“About the bomb?”

Gabriel nodded.

“I would have done everything in my power to move the people to safety.”

“Even if you died?”

“Even if I died.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

Gabriel was silent for a moment. Then he said quietly, “You’re going to make a fine MI6 officer, Christopher.”

“MI6 officers don’t kill terrorists and leave their bodies in the countryside.”

“No,” said Gabriel. “Only the good ones.”

He looked over his shoulder. The woman with the smartphone was gone.

Twenty-five years had passed since Christopher Keller last set foot in Belfast, and the city center had changed much in his absence. Indeed, were it not for a few landmarks like the Opera House and the Europa Hotel, he scarcely would have recognized it. There were no British soldiers patrolling the streets, no army surveillance posts atop the taller buildings, and no fear on the faces of the pedestrians walking along Great Victoria Street. The city’s geography remained sharply divided along sectarian lines, and there were still paramilitary murals in some of the rougher neighborhoods. But for the most part, evidence of the long and bloody war had been erased. Belfast promoted itself as a tourist mecca. And for some reason, thought Keller, the tourists actually came.

One of the city’s main attractions was a vibrant Celtic music scene that had reappeared in the absence of war. Most of the bars and pubs that featured live music were located in the streets around St. Anne’s Cathedral. Tommy O’Boyle’s was on Union Street, on the ground floor of an old redbrick Victorian factory. It was not yet noon, and the door was locked. Keller thumbed the button on the intercom and quickly turned his back to the security camera. Greeted by silence, he pressed the button a second time.

“We’re closed,” a voice said.

“I can read,” Keller replied in his Belfast accent.

“What do you want?”

“A word with Billy Conway.”

A few seconds of silence, then, “He’s busy.”

“I’m sure he can make time for me.”