Chapter 1
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
-Rupert Brooke, 1914
Chapter 1
October 25, 1914: Dublin, Ireland
The barkeep hunched over the long wooden bar top, polishing the immaculate surface in small, precise circular motions. In his left hand, he clutched a dull metal container of polishing oil. In his right, he gripped his cleaning rag, laced between his fourth and fifth fingers like worn leather reins. Just as he had for the past twenty-three years, he dabbed oil from the container onto the stained rag and worked the oil into the wood in tight circular patterns. The smell of the oil filled the dim pub air. Rustic. Like an old cottage in the Irish countryside.
Perhaps it was this smell that called the Irish Volunteers into his pub by the baker’s dozen. From middle-aged men down to boys who were barely teens, they flocked to the polished wooden bar top, ordering up pint after pint and telling tales of the old Irish cottages where they grew up. It seemed they couldn’t stop themselves from coming by for any reminder of the homes and the lives they couldn’t afford to return to. That old earthen smell, the beer, the whiskey—all served up in quantities that might ease the ache of homesickness.
The ritual of polishing was unnecessary—the aged oak plank shone like amirror. Still, he continued to swirl his rag across the smooth bar top because every square inch of Father Joseph’s Pub belonged to him. He had bought and paid for it over twenty-three long years and endured the exorbitant fees designed to force foreclosure. He had poured sweat and sacrifice into every square inch of the pub and had slept in the spotless kitchen nook instead of renting a room elsewhere. It was one of the few pubs in the city owned outright and in full by a Catholic.
In twenty-three years, not a single payment had been late. In the safe installed below the bar, Joe McNeill kept not deposits but receipts. Every receipt lay in a tall, neat pile, each year held together with a metal clip. Twenty three clips. Twenty-three years under the thumb of an unscrupulous lender.
These scraps of paper were as dear to him as the pub itself, and for goodreason. He knew that one day, when his existence became too inconvenient for authorities, he would need every one of them to prove his legal ownership. And so, he held the key to the safe on a string, worn around his neck everyday for twenty-three years.
The pocket watch that hung from the tap showed ten in the morning. Opening time. Thomas Walsh, a stocky, balding Volunteer was the only other person in the establishment. He sat where he always did, at the first table from the door, where the morning sunlight shone through the window and onto his prominent forehead. Back straight and dress impeccable, Tom sat with his eyes trained on the door. His enormous forearms were visible under his neatly rolled shirt sleeves, and his stout arms fell like tree limbs across his lap.
Tom had spent so many hours in the pub he had become the de facto permanent security detail. Yet he sipped neither draft nor whiskey, just cold Irish tea. No sugar, no milk. Plain. He was the only pub employee whom Joe had never officially hired. He just came and sat each day, drinking tea from pint glasses, until the old barkeep took pity on him and paid him a small wage to sit and watch.
His duties? To keep the occasional customer in order, and should a wayward British officer poke his unfortunate head in—cross his arms and stand to his full six feet, and give a silent nod to recommend they continue on their way.
As Joe’s pocket watch settled in on ten o’clock, the barkeep called across the pub to Tom, “What’s the count, ol’ man?”
“Fifteen, sir. Fifteen seconds.”
The barkeep lifted the watch chain from the tap handle and held the gold watch up to the light, watching the hand tick. With five seconds to go, he counted aloud. “Five, four, three, two—”. The beam of sun shining on the forehead of Tom Walsh became obscured as the door swung open. A cool autumn breeze floated into the warm pub. From the bright sunshine of the open doorway, a dark-haired customer marched through the entryway. Dressed in a thin day suit topped with a wool cap, the man had a swagger that made even his cheap clothes look refined.
“One,” said Tom, raising his glass of cold tea to the customer. “Good mornin’ to you.”
“You know, Mick,” Joe called from behind the immaculate bar countertop, “for someone on the brink of being a wanted man, I’d vary me schedule.”
“Nonsense!” cried Michael Kildare as he sauntered through the open door. “Those arseholes wouldn’t dare touch me in here. We’ve got Tom!”
“Maybe not,” said the barkeep, “but they sure as hell might love to get their hands on you as you stand on the curb outside. Maybe come by at quarter past tomorrow.”
Michael cracked a wide smile that showed the gap where his missing incisor should have been, but the barkeep couldn’t return a cheerful face. The past twenty-three years had been enough to harden him against any humor on this topic. “They need not have a damned thing on you to haul your arse off to the clink for a fortnight. You’ll come back to us missin’ more than just a tooth!”
Tom Walsh, bright eyes again trained on the door, piped up, “Dennis McClure came back without a kidney. Had a guard assigned to kick ‘im in the side about a thousand times a day.” He took a slow sip of cold tea, as though it were piping hot. “Lucky for ol’ Denny, the guard was so lazy he only kicked him on the one side. Otherwise … Glasnevin Cemetery.” Tom placed his tea back on the wooden tabletop and straightened his posture.
Joe picked up a clean pint glass and began washing it, drying it, as if his hands knew nothing else but to remain busy. Michael Kildare was an interesting acquaintance. Useful, a good man to know and to be close with. He had more information stored in his little mind and the file of cards that he kept hidden in his father’s grocery store than all the rest of rebel Dublin.
Still, as good as Mick Kildare was for the Irish Volunteers, his arrogance and his temper were liabilities that were hard to swallow. Joe watched Michael from the corner of his eye as the boyish man pulled out a barstool and settled in below the faded painting of the white dove that watched over the bar from on high.
Michael placed his elbows on the shining bar top, then wiped his brow and tossed his worn wool cap on the bar. As the cap hit the wood, it slid across the surface, slick from so much polishing, and came to a rest in front of the barkeep. Joe stood by the taps, silent, and still running his drying cloth over the pint glass.
In his twenty-three years behind the bar, he had seen so many men like Michael Kildare. Arrogant, indestructible, popular among their less-confident peers, and always compensating for closed minds with clenched fists. And while most might find these types of men impossible to reason with, the old barkeep was not most people. Over two decades of serving customers with this undesirable combination of traits had taught him a few tricks.
First, he knew that these boorish men were best dealt with as if they were children. Like a parent coaxing a spoiled child to behave with a coveted toy, Joe had something that these boys desperately desired, and he was one of the few establishments in the city who would serve them. He had only to lift an eyebrow to Michael and glance at the wayward cap that now spread its filth across his immaculate bar. A look he had perfected over his twenty-three years.
“Apologies, Mr. Joe,” Michael said, reaching for his cap. In a swift motion, he grasped it with a giant hand and placed it on one of the hat-hooks below the bar top.
Without asking, Joe lifted the tap handle and drew Michael an imperial pint of Guinness. He tipped the glass, then swirled it to create the perfect amount of foam atop the glass. As the pour settled, he reached below the bar and pulled out a glass jar with blackcurrant liqueur. He poured just a touch into the foam, stirred it with a spoon, then slid the glass to Michael. Not a drop spilled.
“Just the way you like it, I do believe,” he said, again not making eye contact. He poured the same concoction for himself, then turned to Michael. “Are you alone?”
“Not supposed to be. Me damned cousin can’t seem to—” Michael paused at the sound of a door shutting in the kitchen’s rear. Tom exploded from his chair and bounded, in the heavy booming steps of a giant, off through the kitchen. Joe ran his hands over his scalp and through the memory of thick curly hair, then reached up and grabbed another clean pint glass and began washing it. Tom could take care of any disturbance. And if he couldn’t, there wasn’t any security detail that could. Because of this, nothing rattled Joe. As long as Tom breathed, the pub was as safe as it could be, for an establishment that served the rebellious class of Irish.
Tom emerged a moment later, dragging a young man even taller than himself through the kitchen by his collar. “Do you know this arsehole?”
Michael appeared to stifle a laugh to avoid spitting out his Guinness. Still, a slight drop drizzled from his mustache onto the polished bar. He wiped it up with his immaculate sleeve. “That’d be me idiot cousin.”
Joe looked at the man, the summer tan yet to fade from his rugged face, his cap missing from atop his unkempt blond head, and allowed himself to smile. “At least he has the sense to come in the back way when he’s coming for business. I like unpredictable.”
Tom dropped the collar and Colin Kildare stood up straight to a height that towered over the hefty bouncer. “Won’t make that mistake again,” Colin said, running his hands around the back of his neck.
“Nonsense,” Joe said, and could feel himself still smiling. “I said I like unpredictable.”
“Do you like ‘late’? ’Cause I told him to be here at ten.” Michael glared at his cousin, who Joe guessed couldn’t yet be twenty years old.
“Punctuality is predictable,” Joe said. “What does your cousin drink?”
“Guinness,” said Michael. “With blackcurrant.”
Joe cocked an eye toward Colin, who shook a head of blond hair out of his eyes. He felt an instant pang of jealousy over Colin’s youthful head of hair, the summer sun’s touch still visible in haphazard white-blond streaks. “Whiskey. Straight.”
The pub fell silent. Michael silently fumed at his younger cousin, and Colin soaked in Michael’s irritation with the pleasure that comes only from vexing an annoying relative. The only sounds in the pub were the cork being pried from a glass bottle of Jameson and Tom Walsh rotating the splintered wooden sign in the front window from Open to Closed.
❧
Joe slid a copper mug of whiskey over to Colin and watched him take it all in one swig, then drop it on the table and send it back across the bar. “I remember you now,” said Joe. He poured another shot slowly, hoping the pause might encourage Colin to talk.
“You were in here with your cousin last summer. Broken heart.” And a mangled arm, Joe thought, stealing a glance at Colin’s left arm. Joe remembered the night well. The lad was just a boy, but his eyes had appeared sunken in their sockets with the worry of a man twice his age as he ordered whiskey in volumes that suggested that uncanny Irish ability to down hard alcohol all day without appearing drunk. But the memory of Colin was more than empty whiskey glasses and bloodshot eyes. It was that youthful toss of the hair, that muscular form that made his shoulders appear rounded even under a tattered linen shirt, and that heartache pasted so vividly across his face as a brutal reminder of the pain inflicted by a first love.
The boy seemed as though he sprung directly from one of the many stories told by ancient storytellers all around the island. “Ah yes,” Joe said to himself, remembering another detail of the boy. The last time I saw this likes of him was also the last time I saw ol’ Ailbe O’Cleirigh.
Ailbe. The storyteller. He and Colin had been seated next to each other at the bar, bellies pointed forward but eyes flashing sideways, as Ailbe coaxed Colin from his misery with a favorite tale. But the old storyteller had disappeared mid-tale in the mysterious way that only such a man could do.
Joe knew the old man still passed through Dublin city because sometimes, on nights when the moonlight took the place of the doused gas lanterns, he would see the shadow of his tall black cap and the swoosh of his long, tattered black coat in the night wind, which came in cold off the Liffey. He’d nod to him in the darkness, a silent acknowledgement of his work and his ceaseless devotion to Ireland.
“Broken heart is right!” Michael’s unwelcome voice chimed into Joe’s thoughts and stopped any chance at Colin growing more conversational. “Still mopin’ around even now over that girl,” he continued, and cast an observant glance Colin’s way as if to judge how the snide comment had affected him.
Joe figured Michael must calibrate all his jibes to Colin’s physical reaction, and throttle forward if he hadn’t annoyed him enough, but quickly back if Colin cocked back one of his fists. From the looks of him, Joe guessed that Colin would win most scuffles with Michael. From the looks of Michael’s crooked nose—and missing tooth—someone had landed a few right hooks on target over the years. Michael’s reputation as a scoundrel was well-deserved, but besides making him difficult to hang out with, it made him uniquely qualified for his role in the Volunteer organization. Everyone was drawn to him. Everyone wanted his attention. Everyone envied his confidence. And no one was willing to do the things he was willing to do or to risk what he was willing to risk.
Joe ignored Michael’s comments. “You drank your whiskey just as fast back then,” he commented. “A little young for that, aren’t you?”
“Dublin will do that to you,” said Colin, accepting his second serving of whiskey. He swirled the glass gently with two fingers before downing the entire serving in one swift drink.
“That it will, boy,” replied Joe, taking to his polishing rag again. “That it will.” Joe spun the rag in small circles across his bar top, long enough to create the awkward pause that so often lent itself to conversation. Michael sipped his Guinness and blackcurrant. Colin spun his empty mug slowly between two fingers. Tom resumed his post at the table nearest the locked front door. Joe polished. Circle after circle.
Michael proved to be the least patient. “So, what’d you want me here for anyway, Mr. Joe?” Circles. Smaller and smaller circles, the rag held tightly between his thumb and forefinger, with the tail laced between the fourth and fifth fingers. His reflection appeared in the glimmering bar top and he stared back at the image of a middle-aged man, proud, but with depleting strength, with two young and energetic men ready to hang off every word he hadn’t yet pronounced. Was this what twenty-three years earned him? The respect of some rascally and unrefined Irish Volunteers, and the detestation of the authorities, who were ready to pounce at any opportunity to shut him down or make him disappear? He watched his reflection smile back at him and reveled for a moment longer in his own success.
“The first phase has begun.” Joe lifted an eye to judge the reaction of the men sitting behind his bar. Michael offered a thoughtful look but didn’t take the bait. But Colin responded with all the naivety Joe might have expected from a boy who had grown up in the country and, if he’d had his druthers, would be a farmer and not a rebel.
“If this is phase one, what in God’s name have we been doin’ all these weeks?”
Joe popped the cork off the Jameson and poured Colin a third serving. His pocket watch read half past ten. At this rate, the young man might pass out by noon. He picked up the bottle of Jameson and held it up to the light. A perfect deep amber color. Finally, he turned to answer Colin’s question. “You’ve been laying the groundwork for what is to come, my boy. Testing the networks, adding oil to the gears.” He took a sip of his own Guinness and blackcurrant. Michael’s glass was already halfway to needing a refill. He tested his theory about Colin. Wanted to see what he could pull from him. “What do you think of the war, boys?”
“I couldn’t care less about the war or the damned Jerries,” said Colin. “Don’t much care if they win or lose. Just that Irish boys come home.”
Michael ran his fingers a cross his jet-black mustache. “If the Jerries are winning, it means the British whores are getting pummeled, which I like. But those same British whores will use our Irish boys to catch artillery shells. Irish boys who should be here, getting ready for the real war. Their war.”
“Aye,” said Joe. “That’s the war I’m talkin’ about .” He spoke the words slowly and squeezed the moisture from his cleaning rag to keep his fingers from fidgeting. He watched the cousins’ responses intently.
Colin swirled the whiskey. “I’ve been waitin’ for my chance to mess with the Brits.”
Michael raised his face to the faded painting above the bar, his eyes tracing the peeling paint. He dropped dark eyes to Joe, and as if on cue, asked, “We’re a little low on men. How do we get our boys to stop runnin’ off to fight Jerries. Get them to stay home and fight?”
It was a logical question from the wry mouth of a soldier. Michael Kildare, for all his faults, had risen to the level of Captain in the Irish Volunteers. And Joe knew that when Mick uttered the words, our boys, he was talking about his men. The ones he had recruited and trained, then powerlessly watched as they hurried down to Dublin Castle to enlist in the King’s army. In Michael’s mind, they were his boys. But Joe also knew that Michael knew damned well what was happening to his boys. He, like Joe, was testing an idea that had been growing in the depths of his mind since the war began.
“The ones we’ve sent are already lost,” Joe said. “They won’t be comin’ back.”
Michael sipped his Guinness. He gave no hint of the activity that must have swirled beneath the soldier’s stare, though his eyes flickered with a hint of fire. Colin, for his part, threw wide gray eyes toward the bartender, showcasing the disgust Michael so adeptly hid. “What do you mean they aren’t comin’ back?”
Anger swept across his face, spreading from red ear to red ear. Joe felt the corners of his lips twitch, but wouldn’t permit a smile to escape. He knew that if he had hit a chord with Colin, he could strike a chord with every Irishman and woman who expected their good-hearted Irish boys to survive. And casting a sideways glance at Michael, he knew that the elder cousin understood as well.
“The numbers, boy, aren’t good.”
“Aye,” said Michael, grasping his glass with both hands, and taking up the charge. “Patrick says some units are a total loss. One hundred percent casualty—dead or injured. English or Irish, they are all going to be slaughtered.”
Colin’s third copper mug was empty. The young man, ears still red with anger, slowly licked dry lips to savor every last taste of whiskey. Joe leaned forward, set his own elbows on his pristine bar top, and pushed even further. “And wouldn’t our mothers and wives be horrified to learn that their sons and husbands were being sent off to be cut down?”
“They would,” said Michael. “So let’s be the first to tell them.” Black eyes once again burned in the morning sun. “Tell them the truth and not the ‘Fight for King and Country’ shite that Redmond paid Father McGinty to spew out each Sunday to a packed Pro Cathedral. No doubt the Brits will release their casualty lists slowly. Wait until they can hide the losses behind battlefield victories.”
Joe felt that twitch again, but this time released his smile to show crookedyellowed teeth, and winked an eye at Michael. It pained him to have to give Michael credit. That billowing ego might just be the death of all of them one day. But there was a reason Michael was revered in rebel circles. He had a keen sense of logic, placing purpose over emotion. And he was a master of theater.
After flashing his smile briefly, he tucked his top lip over the yellowed teeth.He had confirmed what he had long assumed to be true. Wild Irish boys and passionate Irish mothers alike were a secret weapon, not yet fully unleashed against the English. But they existed in multitudes in the near and far reaches of the island. Waiting to be called to action.
Leaning forward, so as to draw the young men in, he spoke softly. “Which brings me to why I brought you boys by. Have you ever heard of the Quill and Ink?”
“The Nationalist paper,” said Michael, “Of course we have. Read it every day.”
“I know a man. Someone who can spread this information to like-minded folks. An editor with the Quill and Ink.”
“So we’ll list out the casualties in the Irish papers!” Colin exclaimed. “Sothey can all see for themselves!”
“And get every paper shut down? Brits read too, you know.” Michael shook his head. “Are you ever plannin’ to use your brain, or just let it sit there a couple feet above your arse?”
Joe refilled Colin’s mug, though he wondered how many more shots it would take to loosen Colin up enough to take a good swing at his cousin. He seemed to have more restraint than most.
“We can’t print those, boy. But we have more subtle weapons at hand.”
“Subtle?” Colin raised an eyebrow, as much as anyone with three servings of whiskey by half ten in the morning could.
“Of course,” said Joe, and he winked. “We can hide whatever we want in everyday news.”
“But everyday news is boring,” said Colin.
Joe could practically feel his own eyes light up. “Precisely. Think of the most boring sections of the daily news. And that’s where we want to strike.”
“I don’t know—” Colin began.
His cousin cut him off. “—that’s because the bastard never bothers to read the paper.”
Colin clenched his mug as his ears shone bright red. “I read them a bit,” he said, through clenched teeth. He reached for his flask, apparently forgetting he was at a pub. He took a swig, and as his ears returned to a more natural color, said, “If I were to think of the most boring part of the paper that every busybody in town reads, it would be the obituaries.”
Joe held the deep breath he had just inhaled, and for a moment, the rag stopped its circular motion. Michael slowly picked up his glass of Guinness. It left an irritating ring on the spotless bar top, but Joe didn’t move to clean it. He watched the liquid set in.
Colin, not recognizing the shift in the mood, lifted his head and appeared to be studying the painting of the dove above the bar. Perhaps remembering something. A slight smile flickered across his face.
Joe eyed Michael, who raised a dark eyebrow. Joe returned the gesture, but stood silent, forcing an outcome to the internal boxing match that he knew must be going on in Michael’s mind. A full thirty seconds passed before
Michael sighed and said, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
Joe bit his lip to avoid revealing just how satisfying it was to watch Michael admit his younger cousin was indeed capable of using his brain. “That idea has some merit, wouldn’t you say, Mick?”
A pained look crossed Michael’s face just as a surprised one came across Colin’s. The little smile that still lingered from his study of the dove grew into an unmistakable grin.
“Aye,” said Michael, then quickly swallowed the rest of his Guinness. “But what if no one dies the day we need to send a message?”
“Who said it has to be an actual person?” said Colin. “Makes it a lot easier if it’s not.”
This time, an unfamiliar look crossed Michael’s face, a combination of surprise and fascination. Joe finally reached with his polishing rag for the condensation that seeped into his bar top. “That, boy, is the most brilliant thing I have heard all day. We can hide most anything within an obituary. Casualty reports. Calls for recruitment.”
“Fundraising,” Michael chimed in. “Whatever we want.”
Joe’s thoughts returned to the old storyteller. Men like him could take information like this and spread it across an entire island. The stories he would tell would fly like seeds in the breeze.
Colin picked up his fourth shot of whiskey, not seeming to notice that this one was a less generous pour. He swirled his dented copper mug. “Do the Americans read Quill and Ink?”
Joe cast curious eyes at Colin. There was more beneath his simple and humble country demeanor. “Aye.”
Colin ran his hands over the copper mug, tracing its age, its dents, as though he himself were molding it. “’Cause we’ve got a man in Boston who can spin stories like this into gold. Actual gold. The Irish in America aren’t so poor as we are. And the Brits can’t touch ’em.”
Michael slowly ran his hand over his chin. “Seamus. Haven’t heard from the lad in over a month. But he is in Boston. And he’s just as resourceful as his twin sister.”
“Aye,” said Colin, his ears now a different, more endearing shade of red. “But I’d still put my money on Nora any day,” Michael muttered into his pint.
For the first time, Joe noticed that Michael held a certain reverence for his insider, Nora, that he didn’t extend to his cousin. The one they all called the White Dove in their secret correspondence. So our little Dove has a twin, he thought, and he found himself more than a little intrigued. His mind flashed back to Ailbe and a favorite story the old man told, and he wondered if the old man knew about this twin.
“You boys have a job to do,” Joe said, taking up his polishing rag again. “You feed me whatever information you can about the war effort. Anything that might help to turn people to our side. Raise some money. We want anything what you can glean from your uncle’s customers at the grocery store, particularly the ones who live in mansions and work in Dublin Castle. Whatever you learn from God knows what else you are doin’ around this city. ”
“We’ll get ol’ Ronan on board as well,” Michael said, for the first time referencing the jovial butler, who, with Nora, was hiding in plain sight at the home of Mr. Thomas Parsons, the notorious Ulster sympathizer. Ronan Dunham, on the surface, appeared so loyal that no one suspected he had a rebel past. But a quiet fire that still burned deep within his soul. Joe could practically feel his eyes light up at the mention of the old butler.
“Ronan? ‘Twas his idea.” Joe let these words fall on the cousins and watched as two mouths cracked broad smiles. One grin showed a missing tooth, the other curled into a youthful smirk. “And your little dove—she’s the one who’ll turn your gossip into boring lines of text that only rebels will read. She’s got a knack for writin’ in code, wouldn’t you know? We’ll have to let them know about the death notices. A clever idea.”
The smirk disappeared behind red cheeks. From whiskey or a racing heart, Joe couldn’t tell. Colin drew in a deep breath, and his shoulders hunched with tension. “Do they both need to be in on it?” he said, to no one in particular.
“They make a good team,” Joe said, glancing from Michael to Colin. The morning sun cast beams of light through the front windows, and scattered across Colin’s crop of hair, bringing out golden highlights. But the lad’s face shadowed, and he bit his lower lip. His thing left arm rose as he brought his hand across the stubble on his chin. Colin must have known as well as any of them that Ronan and Nora were one misstep away from being discovered. And being in the Parsons’s home—nothing good would come of it, if they survived at all.
Joe leaned in even further and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Seems your little dove has been busy of late. Ethan Parsons’s evening meetings with his colleagues at the Castle are givin’ her a whole host of fresh information. But … there’s an easier way to get the information we need. Faster than waiting for Ethan to be careless in that little diary of his. And more reliable.”
Michael leaned in, his eyes sparkling with curiosity. But Colin closed his gray eyes and drew in a deep breath. And at that moment, Joe saw another difference between the cousins. Michael loved Nora because she was smart and strong and resourceful, and probably because she didn’t love him. He wanted her in the center of the activity because she was so useful and was happy to use her however he could to get what he needed. But Colin—he loved Nora in a way that went far beyond her role in their little ring. They were childhood sweethearts, inseparable since they were wee ones wandering the hills of County Clare. And because of that, he must have wanted her as far away from any of their activity as possible.
“Boys,” he whispered slowly, “the records of the Irish recruitment and Irish dead are being held at Dublin Castle.” He paused and wrung the cleaning cloth in his hands.
“And?” Michael prompted.
“I’ve got a job for you boys. And it could be a dirty one.”
Michael leaned further across the pristine bar top, his forearms leaving behind smudges on the shining wood and a lock of black hair falling across his eyes. A slight smirk appeared on his face, just enough to highlight the vacant place on his gum line.
“I need you to get those names to Ronan." Both men sat silently. Colin rubbed the bump on his left forearm, his mind engaged on more than just this new adventure. Michael’s black eyes stared right at Joe.
“Enlistment numbers. How many dead or injured, in as much gory detail as you can find. Get those records. I’ve got some obituaries to publish.”
“You?” said Michael. “I though you said you knew a man . . .”
Joe winked an eye, then picked up his polishing rag and began swirling it over the top of his spotless bar.
