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for a month.”
    “Bishop Avery is only authorized to make this offer for the Archdiocese of Armagh,” one of the Church clerks said in a thick Kerry accent.
    “I’m giving you my son,” Bran said, dropping the agreement onto the table in disgust. “You ask me to risk him for this?”
    Father Murray laid a hand on Bran’s arm. “A lasting trust is built with small steps.”
    “He’s my son. I’d hardly count that a small step.”
    “Then have another take his place,” Bishop Avery said. “We are offering a hostage in exchange. Father Franklin will go with you. That’s all I can offer.”
    For a brief moment, Liam wondered if he’d be consulted at all or if they’d continue to discuss him as if he weren’t present.
    Father Murray lowered his voice. “Liam will be safe. I swear it.”
    Bran turned and gave Liam a long look. “It’s your neck. You’ve the last word. What do you say?”
    Here’s your chance, Liam thought. Tell them all to sod off. He held his father’s gaze and thought of Mary Kate, Oran and everyone else who’d suffered. He thought of the baby that would’ve lived. Mary Kate’s baby. Our son. It was easier, somehow, to summon up Mary Kate’s smile on a child’s face. Daughter. We could’ve had a daughter. That ghost of a feeling stirred again inside his chest. It took an instant to recognize it at last, and suddenly nothing else mattered.
    “I’m in,” Liam said.
    Bran nodded, went to the table and signed the truce with the pen Father Murray offered. Looking up from the agreement, Bran stared at Bishop Avery. “If anything happens to my son—if he’s harmed in any way, you’ll not make old bones. I’ll see to it myself. I don’t care where you hide. Me and mine will find you. Do you understand me, Robert Avery, priest?”
    Bishop Avery swallowed. “I do.” And with a nervous pause, he signed the document.

Chapter 2
     
    Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
November 1977
     
     
     
    “ R emove your clothes,” the Church Inquisitor said.
    Liam bit down an urge to tell the man to go fuck himself and settled on a hard stare instead.
    It was small relief that the Inquisitor looked nowhere near as intimidating as his title implied. He was average height, small in build and although he’d tucked it behind his ears, it was obvious he hadn’t cut his hair in months. A stained lab coat partially covered his clerical shirt and priest collar. The black badge pinned above the right pocket was engraved with the name “Father Gerard Conroy, MD” in white block letters. His freshly shaved face was carefully set in an expression that could at worst be described as professional curiosity. There were no blood-red hoods, hot pokers or thumbscrews in evidence. However, a quick inventory of the medical tray the man was holding caused Liam to revise his initial impression.
    He waited five rushed heartbeats in an effort to hide his anxiety before looking to Father Murray. “Is it to be another strip search, then?” In spite of reassurances that a thorough search was standard procedure when entering a high-security facility, Liam had struggled to get through the pat down without acting on the urge to kill someone.
    “This is a medical examination. Undressing is standard procedure,” Father Conroy said with a friendly smile clearly intended for Father Murray’s benefit.
    Liam caught the severe lines beneath the Inquisitor’s facade at once.
    The Inquisitor set the tray on the built-in desk to the right. The desk, along with the examination table and the wheeled office chair, comprised all the furnishings in the room. “I need baseline vital statistics. A comparison will be made to those of a human’s.”
    “Get my records from the infirmary at Long Kesh or Malone, if you’ve the need,” Liam said.
    “Liam—”
    “Everyone knew me for a mortal until a few weeks ago. Including myself. If there were a difference a surgeon could catch, they would’ve noticed long before