The house had no garage, which meant they had no choice but to take Walsh out the front door, in plain view of the neighbors. Gabriel found the key to the Mercedes on the body of one of the dead men. He moved the car into the street and backed the Škoda into the drive. Keller carried Walsh outside alone and deposited him in the open trunk. Then he climbed into the passenger seat and allowed Gabriel to drive. It was for the best. In Gabriel’s experience, it was unwise to allow a man who had just killed three people to operate a motor vehicle.

“Did you turn out the lights?”

Keller nodded.

“What about the doors?”

“They’re locked.”

Keller removed the suppressor and the magazine from the Beretta and placed all three in the glove box. Gabriel turned into the street and started back toward Ballyfermot Road.

“How many rounds did you fire?” he asked.

“Three,” answered Keller.

“How long before the Garda finds those bodies?”

“It’s not the Garda we should be worried about.”

Keller flicked his cigarette into the darkness. Gabriel saw sparks explode in his rearview mirror.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

“Like I never left.”

“That’s the problem with revenge, Christopher. It never makes you feel better.”

“That’s true,” said Keller, lighting another cigarette. “And I’m just getting started.”

14

CLIFDEN, COUNTY GALWAY

THE COTTAGE STOOD ON DOONEN ROAD, perched atop a high rocky bluff overlooking the dark waters of Salt Lake. It had three bedrooms, a large kitchen with modern appliances, a formal dining room, a small library and study, and a cellar with walls of stone. The owner, a successful Dublin lawyer, had wanted a thousand euros for a week. Housekeeping had countered with fifteen hundred for two, and the lawyer, who rarely received offers in winter, accepted the deal. The money appeared in his bank account the next morning. It came from something called Taurus Global Entertainment, a television production company based in the Swiss city of Montreux. The lawyer was told the two men who would be staying in his cottage were Taurus executives who were coming to Ireland to work on a project that was sensitive in nature. That much, at least, was true.

The cottage was set back from Doonen Road by approximately a hundred meters. There was a flimsy aluminum gate that had to be opened and closed by hand and a gravel drive that wound its way steeply up the bluff through the gorse and the heather. On the highest point of the land stood three ancient trees bowed by the wind that blew from the North Atlantic and up the narrows of Clifden Bay. The wind was cold and without remorse. It rattled the windows of the cottage, clawed at the tiles of the roof, and prowled the rooms each time a door opened. The small terrace was uninhabitable, a no-man’s-land. Even the gulls did not stay there long.