Page 14 of Blood in the Water

“There is something else,” Christophe said. “Word is they came up with Niall Devlin during the IRA’s heyday.”

“That name doesn’t mean anything to me,” Nolan said. As a second-generation immigrant, he hadn’t paid muchattention to the fighting that had gone on in Ireland. His father had railed against the “killers” in the IRA, but it had all seemed very far removed from the mansion in Beacon Hill where Nolan had been raised when he wasn’t visiting his grandparents in Southie.

Christophe took a drink of his coffee. “Niall was Chief of Staff in the IRA at one point. In other words, he was the big boss, and he had a reputation for being particularly ruthless. Most of the civilian targets were chosen by Niall, who believed nothing would happen until everyone had had a mother, father, brother, sister, or child blown to bits."

“Jesus,” Nolan said. “What happened to him?”

“No one knows for sure,” Christophe said. “By all accounts he left Ireland in 1997, when Sinn Fein, the organization’s political wing, took center stage during peace talks.”

Nolan looked at him. “I take it you have an idea where he’s been hiding?”

Christophe sat back in the cheap diner chair. “We found rumors of him in a lot of places. The most significant and credible seems to be Singapore.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about him,” Will said. “Seamus and Baren are bad enough.”

Christophe’s eyes were wide as he watched Will devour half a pancake in one bite, syrup and butter dripping off his fork. He was still chewing as he spread jam on a piece of toast.

“What about the Feds? How are they coming on the computer?” Nolan asked. He’d handed over Seamus’s computer after he and Will broke into Seamus’s house right before the Harbor Trust theft. It had been more than they could have hoped for, revealing a surprising piece of new information: Seamus wasn’t as out of the loop technologically as they’d thought.

“We haven’t heard anything from our men inside the bureau,” Christophe said. “That typically means they’re still working on it.”

“It’s been two months,” Will said, wiping his mouth on a napkin.

Christophe was nonplussed. “It’s American bureaucracy. These things take time.”

Nolan thought about Seamus’s orders to surveil Doug. He wasn’t naive enough to think Seamus was going to skip over him and Will. It was only a matter of time before one of the other men was ordered to tail one or both of them.

“Time is one thing we don’t have. Especially now,” Nolan said.

“What do you advise?” Christophe asked.

“Me? This is your show. I’m only here for Bridget and Will.”

“Feck you,” Will said. “I don’t need your protection.”

Nolan looked at him. “You’re telling me if I was in this deep with Seamus, you wouldn’t have my back?”

“Hate to break it to you, brother, but you are in this deep with Seamus.”

“I am now,” Nolan said.

“We have resources,” Christophe said. “Men, information, weaponry. But you and Will — and Miss Monaghan — are the ones with the inside knowledge necessary for strategy development.”

“Keep Bridget out of it,” Nolan said, his voice low. “I’m here to get her out, not drag her in deeper.”

Christophe looked completely at ease in spite of the warning in Nolan’s voice. “It is possible one will be required to affect the other.”

Nolan tried to focus on the problem at hand. Thinking about Bridget, about how close she was to trouble every dayshe worked with Seamus, about all the ways that trouble might find her, was an exercise in frustration.

“We need to get Seamus out, and Baren and the others with him.” Nolan saw the organization in his mind, the men and the money and the financial operations, their place in the grand scheme of things, their strengths and weaknesses. “The way I see it, we have three ways to do it.”

Christophe steepled his hands in front of him. “I’m listening.”

“We find something incriminating that forces the Feds to bring charges that will stick, we undermine faith in Seamus by his men, or we take Seamus out ourselves and you seize control before someone else decides to do it.”

Christophe was silent as he considered Nolan’s words. Nolan was already working through the possibilities in his mind, narrowing the field to the only one that made sense, but it was the Syndicate’s operation, and he was more than happy to let them take the lead. He wasn’t eager to take on a role that might make them think he was anything other than what he was — a temporary consultant.

“If incriminating information falls in our laps, we should take it to our friends at the FBI,” Christophe finally said.