The enclosed car park seems deserted, but even if a curtain-twitcher spies me, all anyone can ever testify to is that a masked man rolled a rug into a car. Of course Michael Madden won’t care about due process or reasonable doubt.

I’m adjusting the driver’s seat for my legs when a text buzzes through on Barrett’s cell.

‘I’ll check that, shall I?’ I say to the corpse in the back. He doesn’t object, so I open the text.

It’s from Mike Madden. Irish M reads the caller ID. Barrett has his phone set to display a photo of his boss. This massive guy at an Irish wedding, looks like, stripped to the waist, two of his boys in sweaty headlocks. Mad eyes, flat tweed cap with a shamrock pin on the peak.

I shudder. This person is bad news. I know the type. Irish borderline alcoholic. Death before disrespect. I would be better off swinging by his house and putting an end to this right now. But I won’t, because this is not a war zone, there might be another way, and maybe Zeb is still alive.

I read the message.

Did you get it?

I sigh and pocket the phone.

Did you get it?

Shit. Zeb is most likely dead.

So who is this Zebulon Kronski guy? And how did I bump into him? That’s nearly better than the gunship story. Surprise, surprise, the answer to those questions lies back in the Lebanon, so I’ll keep it brief because this story is about now rather than then, although then seems to be pretty much a part of now most of the time. Someday I’ll tell the full then story when I can even think of a Russian bear without throwing up.

In a nutshell, the UN peacekeepers patrolled the border between Israel and the Lebanon, trying to keep the Israeli troops and the Shi’a Hezbollah and Amal from blowing themselves, each other and us to kingdom come. Those groups had been fighting for so long that they couldn’t even agree which kingdom they would get blown to. Our main objective was to keep civilians safe, but our main function seemed to be as human shields for the Shi’a to hide behind while they fired rockets up at Israeli encampments. Most of the time we wore camouflage, went on patrol and were baked by the sun until our skin cracked, but sometimes things got a little primal, which tends to happen when bunches of hot, grumpy men have loaded weapons and different ideas about God.