The Vice President of America has been assassinated on the grounds of Trinity College, in Dublin, Ireland.

Noah Nightingale, a former American Special-Ops soldier, stands accused, with seemingly damning evidence against him. Katie Cullen, an Irish Special Agent, investigates what seems like an open and shut case, which soon devolves into a conspiracy of the highest order.

Hampered by the C.I.A, family members drawn into the chaos, and facing betrayal from people within the Irish Secret Service, the two must take different paths to figure out the motives behind the assassination and attempt to clear Nightingale’s name.

Nightingale is available on Amazon in ebook and paperback editions. Click on the cover above to visit the Amazon Store to buy your copy.

As a sample, I have decided to post the first two chapters of this novel below. Should you enjoy it, please click on the link above to be taken to the Amazon store.

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Chapter One

Forty eight hours had passed since Henry Shaw, the Vice President of America had been shot in the head, murdered on Irish soil.

For Katie Cullen, lead investigator into the assassination, it felt like it had been so much longer.

She stood in the center of Parliament Square, in the middle of the historic Trinity College. People swarmed all around her, a mix of students heading to their lectures and tourists visiting the various attractions the grounds held. Inevitably, everyone in Dublin seemed to visit the university, be it for study or sightseeing.  It had been around for hundreds of years, and was at the very heart of the Irish city. The weather was overcast and it was starting to rain, a stereotypical Irish afternoon, but the shadow of the Campanile, the hundred foot bell tower, protected her from any oncoming storms. The students here believed that anyone who passed through the archway of the tower was doomed to fail their exams, and never graduate. Most days, they tried to give it as wide a berth as possible, and made sure that none of the bad luck could get anywhere near them. The superstitions were generations old.

Katie Cullen did not think the superstitions would be helped by an assassination at the tower’s base.

Every angle had been covered as Henry Shaw fell to the ground, lifeless. A man of his profile was nearly always being recorded in some form. Between the media with their high end, professional equipment, and the crowds with their smart phone cameras, there had been hundreds of videos and pictures taken, distributed worldwide in seconds via the power of the internet. And Katie had watched them all in the last two days. She had studied each one she could find, trying to figure out if there was anything she could have done differently.

Henry Shaw had been a mountain of a man, tall and well built. He was a politician, but that life had come after decades in the armed forces, and the lifestyle habits he had learned there had stayed with him. His face was harsh and wrinkled. The face of a man who had seen many battles, literally and figuratively. His hair was cut tight, and his suit was pristine, and very expensive. He was not what one could call naturally warm, but he was an American war hero with a no nonsense approach to foreign policy, and that resonated with enough voters to give him a good chance to take up a seat in the Oval Office some day. She had not really had much chance to converse with him, but the few moments they did talk, he had radiated intensity.

He had been there for a photo opportunity. The man was the presumptive nominee for his party, next in line to the American presidential throne, but he knew he had to work for it. It was not an aspect of the position he held that he enjoyed, but he knew that it was necessary, especially if he wanted to take the relevant step upwards. So he had come to Ireland for the positive publicity it would bring. He was Irish in that way a lot of Americans seemed to be. To her knowledge, he had never stepped foot in the country before, but his Great Grandmother had been born in the West of Ireland in a town he could not pronounce correctly, and that was enough for him to appeal to the Irish-American voters.

So he came to Dublin, and he went to the Guinness factory for the tour. And he went to a tiny local pub where he drank with some carefully selected locals, and pulled pints until his press team found the most photogenic. And he was presented with an overflowing bowl of shamrock from a diverse line up of children at a school, who smiled at the correct time and showed the right level of adoration for a future world leader. And he attended a Hurling match and acted like he knew the rules, while being both bemused and excited as he watched well built men use sticks to batter each other.

And he visited the ancient Book of Kells, the thousand year old artefact located in the library of Trinity College. With the country’s Taoiseach, Dermot O’Callaghan, at his side, they stood in front of the glass display case as the media snapped pictures of them. O’Callaghan grinning from ear to ear, soaking in all the attention, as the Vice President solemnly pretended to study the artwork on the pages, making moves he felt scholarly people made when presented with such things.

Dermot O’Callaghan could not have been more radically different than the man he had escorted. He was a life-long politician, whose father had been a key figure in the Irish government, and whose father’s father had been too. Born into an elite life, and trained from a young age to ensure a perfect presentation so he could continue the family tradition. He had never seen a real fight like Shaw had, not living in the neutral country of Ireland, in his well-guarded mansion in the richest area of the city. For O’Callaghan, the world revolved around photo opportunities and public relation events which would get him re-elected the next time people went to the polls.

For the Taoiseach, it was a moment he knew would be seen around the world, and would make the front page of every newspaper in his own country.  Had he survived, Shaw’s next visit was to Áras an Uachtaráin to meet the country’s President.  But the President was, for all intents and purposes, a figurehead leader for the country. The Taoiseach was the one who ran the government, who made sure the country was functioning correctly. So he was the one who got to escort their very special guest around to the various sites for the day. He was the one of whom the pictures would circulate, the Taoiseach and the Vice-President, shoulder to shoulder, and whom everyone would recognise as a man of importance by way of standing next to one.

Katie Cullen had stood behind them both in the library. It was, at that moment, her job to be the Irish Bureau of National Intelligence’s representative to the Vice President’s party. She was effectively the babysitter, designated to follow behind a man who was already flanked by his own selection of Secret Service bodyguards, with a circle of Irish Garda officers surrounding them loosely. Typically, escorting foreign dignitaries would have been slightly below her pay grade, but the Taoiseach had insisted they send their very best. He had been eager to impress the Americans, and that meant putting people with impressive titles round him. So she watched him closely as they exited the library. She watched him closely as they made their way across the square towards the bell tower, towards a designated spot where they would take more photographs and answer a few more predetermined questions.

And she watched him closely as his head snapped back and blood erupted from the sides of his face, an entry wound and an exit one, before collapsing to the ground.

Chaos followed. The gathered crowd of journalists and bystanders scattered, screaming and terrified. The mix of American Secret Service and Irish police officers all started searching for a shooter, first looking at those in close proximity. Only one shot was fired and no one stood close with a smoking gun. Their attentions quickly turned to the windows of the buildings surrounding them. But it was an open square, surrounded by countless vantage points. They dispersed in every direction, running for doors and searching for signs of where the attacker was. Katie grabbed the Taoiseach and bundled him to the belltower’s arch, pressing him up against the wall, trying to use her body as a shield in case another shot was taken. He cowered with his head in his hands, terrified.

A lone Secret Service agent knelt beside the body of the Vice President, eyes looking in every direction at once, his gun drawn in one hand, using the other to check for a pulse. But that was a formality. Henry Shaw’s eyes were lifeless and the holes on both sides of his head made it clear he had been dead before he even hit the ground, his brain perforated cleanly. No second shot came.

Every member of the Gardai in Dublin had swarmed the scene within minutes, closing off the university’s grounds. They issued warnings via radio and TV that everyone in the area should stay inside, that there was an armed and dangerous person on the loose. But this was a formality as well. It had been a single shot from far range, with accuracy. Not an attempt to kill multiple people, nor a mindless act of terrorism. This had been personal. An assassination of a single man. Once the shot was fired, Henry Shaw had been dead a second later. There was no need for an additional shot, and no desire to cause multiple fatalities. A clean kill, carried out with extreme precision.

Now, fourty eight hours later, Katie Cullen stood where Henry Shaw had died. And replaying the events in her head, she knew there was nothing more she could have done. Had it not happened here, the assassination attempt would have simply occurred elsewhere. She could not have stopped the killing. Everyone had followed procedure as best they could. The truth was that a long range shooter like this was very difficult to stop without advance warning. He had picked his spot, he would have studied the advantages and disadvantages of his location, but he would not have been so tied to one that he could not have chosen another. If it had not been here, at this moment, it would have been an equally difficult position for her to defend. There was nothing to be gained from letting any semblance of blame engulf her. All that was left now was to do her job and to find the killer.

Katie had been made lead investigator for the Irish Bureau of National Intelligence on the case. She had been with them for nearly ten years, after spending the ten prior to that with the Gardai. She had worked hard to rise through the ranks, and it meant they trusted her to figure out the biggest crimes the country offered. She wished, at times, she could be proud of that. But at moments like this, when there was an international incident threatening to swallow the country whole, when there was such a prolific murder engulfing every news outlet in the world, it felt wrong to be proud. Pride would wait until she caught the killer.

The entire Bureau had been chaotic for two days, everyone tracking down leads, no matter how minute. As head of the investigation, Katie had to coordinate that frantic energy into something constructive, in a way that actually worked towards solutions, not created more problems. It made matters worse that the Americans seemed determined to take de facto control of the entire situation. Either through anger or embarrassment that their ward had been killed, they wanted to be the ones leading the charge in the investigation. She felt partially grateful that her superiors had insisted a murder on Irish soil, even one of this magnitude, should be led by Irish investigators. The Americans would have a seat at the table, of course, and she had made sure to set up as many liaisons as possible. But this was her case to solve.

They started by scanning every second of security footage they could find from the college campus. Practically every inch of the grounds were under surveillance, so it would be impossible for anyone to enter or exit without being recorded. It had not taken long to find their killer. He entered the college grounds hours before the Vice President arrived, moved quickly to one of the buildings that overlooked the square, and moved through the halls to the second floor. He prowled with a large backpack slung over his shoulder, moving quickly but calmly, with purpose. He had studied his hunting grounds; he knew where the cameras were along his route, and never once had to pause to figure out where he was or what his next step should be. He wore a black cap and a black jacket with the collar up, black gloves that would make sure no fingerprints were left, and he hid his face well from most of the cameras.

Most of them. As he had climbed a set of stairs towards his destination, a door opened behind him, causing him to glance backwards. In that moment, his face became partially visible. He was white, clean shaven, with the slightest lock of dark hair hanging out from under the hat. It was not much, but it was enough to give them some basic characteristics to begin their profile of him. His age was tough to judge, between the angle of the shot and the obscured features. Katie put him somewhere around thirty. He slowed as the door opened, and watched as two female students emerged from an office, chatting and laughing about something. They did not notice him, no more than any student noticed another in what were typically busy university hallways. He watched, tensed up, as they disappeared down the hall before he continued his path.

He proceeded to a room, an old office of a retired professor who had yet to be replaced, and closed the door behind him. And waited for hours.  And then, approximately two minutes after the assassination, as doors up and down the hallway opened and people began fleeing in panic from the sound of the gunshot, he emerged from the room again, backpack over his shoulder and hat and jacket obscuring his face.

They believed the backpack held his gun, a sniper rifle that could be assembled and dissembled for ease of transport. An expert would be able to fire the shot and put the gun away quickly. There had been no shell casing found at the scene, nor any fingerprints, hair or fibres. He had made sure to leave no forensic evidence, nothing they could trace back to anyone. He walked calmly back through the building, merging with groups of panicked students and staff, before heading out a backdoor. He had escaped before the Gardai had arrived. By the time they had closed off the grounds in hopes of trapping the killer, he had already walked through the gates and down the streets of Dublin. He had every second he was on the university’s grounds prepared, and executed his plan nearly flawlessly.

It would not have been easy to get a sniper rifle in Ireland, nor were there many people who would have the nerve or ability to pull off such an assassination. Watching the footage over and over, Katie had come to the conclusion that this was not some lunatic. He had been calm, calculating. The lunatics usually did not have an escape plan, and when they did, it was not a very good one. The lunatics would typically approach a target with something more close range, a handgun or the likes, pulled from a jacket and fired from a matter of centimetres, not meters. Tunnel-vision to a fault. This man knew where every camera was, knew the layout of the campus as if he had been planning the routes he would take, in both directions. He knew exactly where his vantage point was. And he knew exactly the best way to escape, knew how to disappear into a crowd of people.

He was tactical in his precision.

This had been someone with training and experience, with access to military weaponry, and with a single target in mind. Ireland, being a neutral country with a relatively small armed force, had very few soldiers with such advanced sniper training. Irish soldiers simply were not engaging in any conflicts that required that set of talents on a regular basis. There would have been a small handful, trained for the sake of being trained. Working closely with liaisons from the Irish army, they found they were able to create alibis for every soldier who could have pulled off the attack, and located every registered rifle they had. So they comfortably ruled out an Irish attacker.

Katie felt she had to let her suspicions drift towards another option. It was highly likely that the killer was not Irish, but someone from abroad who simply chose Dublin as their staging ground. The nationality required a bit of a stretch in logic, and they did not tie themselves to any single possibility as resolute. He was Caucasian, which narrowed down the field somewhat. It was unlikely to be a Middle Eastern threat, even ignoring how precise of an attack it was. A terrorist attack in modern times tended to be more up-close, with a homemade weapon, and more emphasis on collateral damage. It had been an attack specifically on one person, on the American Vice President, so they could not rule out the possibility it was a specific American with a grudge. They ran the photo, as partial as it was, through not just their own, but every database they could get access too. It only took a few hours to get a hit from the Americans, who identified the culprit from the picture. The speed of the response surprised Katie somewhat, but she was grateful to get a response at all. They informed her team that a file would be sent over as fast as they could. Apparently parts of the file in question were “delicate”, and as such, they wanted an agent to hand deliver it, which would take some time to organize.

As soon as the killer had stepped off the grounds of the university, he was picked up by the security cameras that littered the streets of Dublin. In the times that they lived in, the sad reality was that every centimeter of the city was covered with cameras, not just ones erected by the police, but each store wanting their own individual surveillance as well. Store owners would always be more than happy to provide their footage when asked, since it justified their reason for having the cameras. With so many reliable sources available to the Gardai and to her agency, Katie was able to track the killer as he made his way through the streets of the capital, watching practically every step he made.

He must have been at least partially aware of that issue, as the man followed what seemed like an erratic route through the city. He varied his pace as he turned quickly from busy streets where he blended in with pedestrians, down dark alleyways with very little camera coverage. Katie and her team nearly lost him a few times, but always found him emerging from the shadows eventually. They followed him on their screens as he took the Heypenny Bridge across the Liffey. He merged into a tour group until they stopped outside the General Post Office, admiring the large pillars outside its doors, feigning interest temporarily, before branching off down a road and walking towards Connelly train station. He kept his hat pulled down, his collar pulled up and tried his best to be as indistinguishable as possible. But the network of security cameras simply did not give him anywhere to disappear.

Katie had gotten her team down to the station quickly once they realised he had entered it, and with the help of their security, they were able to plot out the killer’s path, up to a ticket booth. They interviewed the woman who had sold him a ticket, questioned less for the travel destination and more for information on the man himself. The ticket seller was an older lady, who eventually did remember minor details about a young American man who booked a one way ticket to Ennis, in the west of Ireland. She identified him from the picture they had from the university, but was not able to offer much more information. He was one customer from the hundreds she had dealt with that day.

They studied the CCTV footage, and watched as their killer continued to avoid letting the cameras catch his face. But it was him. The hat and jacket, the backpack. He knew how busy the train station was, and stuck to the crowds as best he could. He bought the ticket, boarded the train. At no point in his journey did he make any contact with anyone else, at least that they could see on the cameras. If he had any accomplices, they did not interact with him as he made his getaway.

Katie’s phone started ringing, snapping her out of her thoughts. She answered quickly, and let the person at the other end talk.

A subordinate told her that they had a lead. The Gardai in Ennis had gone to the train station and checked the cameras there too. God bless modern day technology, she thought to herself. Some might complain about invasion of privacy, but it made her job so, so much easier. The officers saw the man climb off the train, still obscuring his face from the final set of cameras he would pass, before walking out of the station and making his way down a country road. There were no more cameras after that. Ennis was a small town with a low rate of crime, which meant it really did not need to monitor every rough and ready country road.

But that Ennis was a small town also meant everyone knew everyone, and a young American was not a common thing in the West of Ireland. It had not taken too long to find stories of him. Shopkeepers and nosey old gossips who loved talking about people they were suspicious off for whatever reasons they could think of.

And so Katie was now being informed that they had their suspect in sights. All they wanted was her go ahead to make the arrest.

“Do it,” she said. “I want him brought straight to me when you’ve got him, understand?” She clicked off her phone without waiting for a response, and headed to her car.

Finding a suspect was always the easy part in the investigation. Now came the hard part.

Chapter Two

Noah Nightingale liked to be alone.

It’s not that he was bad with people in a social sense, or that people did not like him. He knew many would consider him charming to be around, witty if not always funny. He was confident, a good looking young man, and smart enough to know how to lead a crowd when necessary. People trusted him naturally, and seemed to like being around him.

But he did not like being around people. It was work, and it was not work he felt was necessary to live a full and happy life.

When he was eighteen, he had decided to enlist in the military. He had spent the years before bouncing around various foster homes across Florida. The people he had met had been mostly good, had treated him mostly well. But the military offered him a chance to forge his own path without needing to think too hard about what people wanted from him. The soldier’s life was a relatively easy one. Not in terms of the physicality; long days, large amounts of exercise. That was tough, but still enjoyable.

What made the military easy was the fact there were rules. Go here, do that, jump over this, shoot at them. Expectations were clearly defined and easily followed. It was an easy life. Even when fraternising, there was rules that guided personal interactions. For Noah, it meant a life where he did not have to think too hard about whether he was doing the right things or not. He placed the trust into his superiors, and hoped that trust would yield the right results.

He had been young and naive.

And stupid.

And so, after spending a decade or thereabouts in the US Army, time in which he was deployed at various bases around the world, he left. The problem with trusting people to give you good orders was that, inevitably, there would be one person who should not have been trusted. Blind loyalty was prone to abuse. And when that happened, Noah could not look at military life the same way.

So he had left the army, honourably discharged for his contribution, with a pat on the back and a nod of the head, and left the country. He headed across the Atlantic, and with the money he had made, he found a little house in a field, surrounded by loads of other fields, in the backend of nowhere, near a little town called Ennis in the West of Ireland. Farm land stretching in every direction, his closest neighbours mostly cows and sheep, with the occasional farmer who might tip a hat his direction if they saw him, but by and large left him to his solitude. The small town nearby provided him with whatever basics he needed. And he would do the odd job that a fit young man could do when he needed to boost his bank accounts. In such an isolated area, young people tended to move away when they reached an age they could, attracted by the shiny lights of the bigger cities, on the other side of the country. That meant there was always physical labour that needed doing. If anyone asked him questions or tried to make conversation, he would provide answers, politely enough to ensure he’d be asked back for future jobs, but blunt enough to make it clear he did not want to form any deeper relationships. It was a lonely life. But it was a life in which he was content to enjoy the isolation and his own thoughts, and the peace that came with that.

So when he spotted the car following him back from the local newsagents that evening, he could not help but feel frustrated.

He thought, at first, that he was just being paranoid. A car, a rental based on a sticker on the back window, parked outside a shop was not suspicious. Three large men, dressed in black and seeming to look in every direction but his as he passed it by, did raise eyebrows, but even that could be explained away. Tourists were not necessarily rare in the West and usually stood out like sore thumbs. But as Noah walked back to his house, taking empty country roads, and the car stalked the corners behind him, he realised that this was not simply a coincidence. He knew he was being followed. Hunted.

He stayed calm, as his military training had encouraged him to do, and continued walking. Not Gardai, Noah thought to himself. He did not think unmarked police cars were common in his area, nor did the three men in the vehicle give off the aura of officers on a legitimate mission. He had been around enough meatheads to identify them a mile off. Soldiers of some kind. Two sat in the front, same build as himself, strong but in an educated way, their bodies honed to be fighters, not just to look good. Another man sat in the back seat, sprawled out in the center so he could, without an ounce of subtlety, look at Nightingale clearly. He was bigger than the others, and the car looked to dip down at the back, the weight of the man pulling it down.

His journey home involved a half hour walk, down quiet narrow roads, rarely used by anything other than farmers. Enough time to let his paranoia settle in, running scenarios as to what these guys wanted through his head. He knew that he had travelled paths that left him isolated, paths that, had they wanted, they could have jumped him on. If they just wanted to kill him, a drive by would have been difficult to prevent. Speed up, roll the window down, fire a few shots and drive off, no witnesses, no cameras to record what happened. It would be weeks, at best, before anyone found his body if he fell into one of the ditches the lined the path. He could try to dive into the local shrubbery or over a farm’s wall for safety, but they would bide their time and try again.  So they wanted something more than to just kill him. They would follow him home. Possibly wait until nightfall, which was fast approaching, before making whatever move they intended to.

He walked quickly to his cottage, surrounded by nothing but green fields and grey skies. The evening was growing darker, which suited Noah in a way. If they planned to attack him, darkness would provide him some aid. He walked up the long path towards his house, as the car pulled to a stop on the nearby road. Neither he nor they were trying to be subtle anymore. The minor pretence that had existed when he left the shop was gone. They were all aware of each others’ presence, and they knew what was coming next. This was part of the performance now, though. Intimidation was a key technique to a situation like this. They had shown him their numbers, and they were letting him fear what would come next. Stalking him. He wondered if they had run operations, however primitive it was, like this one before, where their prey would try and do something stupid.

But Noah was not just another victim. They were making a big mistake, letting him get to his house. Inside was his territory. Inside, he could prepare for them.

He opened his front door and stepped inside, keeping his gaze directed down towards the car, which had turned off its engine. He heard its doors opening, and footsteps of the men getting out. Inside the house, there was very little light, the small windows struggling to let in any from the dusky skies. As such, it took him a few moments longer than it should have to notice the big muddy footprints on the floor, from shoes that were two sizes bigger than his own. A shadow flashed at him from his side, a figure emerging from a dark corner. Noah reacted instinctively, dropping the bag he had carried home from the shop, and trying to stop the stranger from tackling him. But the stranger had the advantage of surprise; he wrapped his arms around Noah’s midrift and speared him to the ground, winding him.

Noah knew he only had a few moments before the three men in the car reached the front door. They would have known their accomplice was inside, and the cottage was small, the front door opening directly onto a kitchen and sitting room combo. They would know that their friend would be found quickly, that this fight would ensue quickly. They would not waste time. The man who had tackled him was trying to mount him, trying to use his meaty legs to trap Noah’s arms at his side. He was not a street thug, trying to rely solely on his strength. He was trying to use grapples he had practiced, like a martial arts fighter, using his body weight to push down on his opponent, squeezing the air out of him. Noah struggled as hard as he could, but only his legs were in a truly free position. He kicked out as hard as he could, squirming with all of his might. When Noah got an arm free, he thrust his fist towards the man’s throat, causing him to topple sideways, gasping momentarily.

They both clambered up to their feet quickly. Noah’s assailant reached into his pocket and pulled out a long cord of wire, a look in his eye that he intended to use it to choke every last breath out of him. Noah’s choice of weaponry was rather more simple. He reached down to a small coffee table beside him, and grabbed it by a leg. It was only 2 foot high, and was unbalanced, designed for holding cups or lamps, not to be used as a makeshift bludgeon. A small piece of paper fell from the tabletop, floating gently to the ground nearby. He only got a momentary glance of its contents, something handwritten in a manner he was not familiar with. Not his, but the writings of another person.

The attacker charged Noah again, forcing him to sidestep. As the man moved past him, Noah brought the table down on the back of his head as hard as he could, trying his best to smash his skull. He could not worry about long lasting damage, he could not worry about being “nice” in a situation like this. Whoever these guys were, they wanted to do him serious damage, so he had to adopt a mindset that let him deliver the same punishment back. The man stumbled and fell to the ground, not unconscious but at least temporarily stunned.

Noah had to use the door as a choke point, to try and stop the others all getting in and surrounding him. He knew it did not matter what training you had or how tough you thought you were. It was a fantasy to think a four-on-one situation would have any outcomes other than a loss for the individual. He ran at the door as the stocky, monster of a human being entered, arrogance making him think his partner had probably already taken care of their problem. With table still in hand, Noah threw his weapon at the man’s head, causing him to recoil, but not preventing him from coming into the house. Noah had just enough space to shove the wooden door shut and apply the large bolt, keeping the other two out. They began trying to kick the door down; Noah knew it would not hold for long. It was a simple enough cottage door, and the latch was more of a formality here in the West of Ireland, not designed to face the onslaught of two men beating on it. So he turned his attentions quickly to the brute, knowing speed was of the essence.

The man was big, built like a tank with muscles on top of his muscles. He wore a long sleeved top that was two sizes too small for him, to show off all his work. But all that mass meant that he was slow.  Noah threw his foot forward, putting as much power into it as he could, driving it into the kneecap of his opponent. The man fell back against the wall of the house, lowering his head enough for Noah to drill his knee full force into his nose. He heard the crack, letting him know he had broken it, as the man collapsed backwards, holding his face and letting out a cry.

The front door gave way, as the other two finally came in. Noah moved quickly for the kitchen area, grabbing the largest knife he could, giving the two men pause. Much like the giant, they also wore long sleeve tops, and dark pants. It was not a coincidence they all were dressed alike. It was bordering on a uniform, but it was also tactical. Dressed as they were, they could vanish into the oncoming Irish night if they had to, blend in with shadows. They moved away from each other. Smart, Noah thought to himself, putting his back up against the sink, trying to counter their attempts to circle around him. If he lunged at one, he would leave himself open to the other. He could not make the first move. So the house fell quiet, as Noah and the two men in front of him stood, waiting. A standoff.

After a few moments, one jumped forward, trying to land a punch. Noah felt relief; these guys seemed to be military trained, but naivety and a lack of patience were exploitable. He swung the knife at the one who charged, catching and slicing the side of his chest. As he did, the second one made a grab at his feet. Noah struck out with a kick, hitting him in the side of the head. As the man tried to recover, Noah grabbed him by the shirt and flung him as hard as he could up onto the kitchen worktop, back first into a window. He hit the glass with a solid thud, but it only cracked, not shatter. The man slumped over and stayed lying on the work top.

Noah turned his attention back to the man he had cut, taking another swipe, catching him on the arm, tearing his shirt sleeve. The man took a step backwards but Noah followed, knowing he could not let up. He swung again and again, and although the man continued to dodge, Noah managed to position him towards the wall. As soon as the man could not back up any more, Noah took the blade and drove it as deep as he could into his shoulder. The man screamed and fell to the ground.

Beneath a steady stream of blood that now ran down the man’s arm, Noah spotted something through the slice in his shirt sleeve. Noah grabbed at the sleeve and pulled it, ripping it away, exposing a tattoo on the man’s arm. What he saw gave him a moment’s pause. He knew the symbol. The brief glance gave the man an opening, and he drilled his fist into Noah’s jaw, before following up with another punch to the gut. They hurt, but they focused Noah, who reared his head back and then launched it forward, head butting the man as hard as he could. It made Noah’s world spin, but he managed, somehow, to stay standing. The man, however, collapsed back against the wall, into a sitting position on the floor.

All four were down but it would be moments before at least two would be back up. The first two, the ambusher and the giant, were already stirring. The one with the shoulder injury stayed down. The forth still lay prone on the kitchen worktop. Noah moved quickly towards the bedroom door, the exit to the only other room in the building, throwing it open and diving to find the metal box under his bed. He pulled it out and took the lid off, throwing it aside. The box contained anything and everything Noah would need in an emergency. On top of piles of paperwork, passports and cash from various countries lay a large handgun, fully loaded and with a bullet already in the chamber. It was illegal, sure. But right now, Noah was feeling happy he had decided to get it for protection.

Noah sat down on the ground, positioning himself at an angle to the door, not able to see out of the room, but making sure anyone who wanted to see him had to fully enter it. He pulled the hammer back on the gun, grasped it tightly with both hands and held it up in the direction of the entrance. That was the line in the sand. Anyone who stepped over the threshold was getting shot. He felt his heart racing, so took some deep breaths, trying to steady himself. He noticed there was a rucksack, slotted neatly in beside a small wardrobe he had. But for now, the contents of the bag were none of his concern.

Seconds seemed to take an eternity. He heard the men outside his bedroom standing up, regrouping. He waited, wondering which of them was stupid enough to step in blindly. But the footsteps did not come closer. Silence fell. After a few minutes, he pulled himself up to his feet. He did not want to make the same mistake the two had when they tried to entrap him, letting an overeagerness take over to a damaging extent. But he had suspicions they were not planning the same tactics he was. He edged close to the doorway, gun held out, peaking around it

The room was empty. It was not big enough to hide four men like those who had attacked. The front door stood open and barely hanging on to its hinges. Noah was huffing heavily, no amount of breathing techniques able to fully calm him down, and the adrenaline in him forced his feet to move towards the door, gun still raised and ready to shoot. As he did, he heard the engine of a car roaring to life. He stepped outside as the car holding the four men tore down the road, vanishing around a corner.

He stood looking at the empty road for a moment, confused. Grateful they were gone. But confused as to why they had been there. Eventually, he turned back into his house. He did not take any further steps out. Light was fading fast, and he could not be completely sure someone was not hiding behind a corner or behind a hedge. He thought about doing a quick patrol of the area, making sure that they had not left any unexpected gifts for him. But he was exhausted. He moved to a chair that sat facing the doorway, and, with gun still in hand, fell down into it and closed his eyes. His head was ringing, and his jaw ached, but it was the adrenaline draining from his body that caused his weariness now. His breathing slowed down, returning to normal. He felt his heartbeat dropping too. But he kept listening, ready to defend himself further if necessary.

Another car engine grew louder. Not just one. Multiple engines. He opened his eyes as he realised they were stopping outside his house. He raised the gun towards the door as footsteps approached, ready to fire if one of the assailants came back through it.

A young man in a high-visibility Gardai jacket stepped inside, bemusement on his face as he looked at the destruction caused to the house. It took him a second longer than it should have to spot Noah, sitting in the chair, and another second to realise a gun was pointing right at him.

“Jesus, lads! He’s got a gun,” he said in a thick Irish accent, turning quickly and running for cover outside. The footsteps that had approached the house now quickly turned away. After a few moments, the thick accent shouted in at him. “We’ve got the house surrounded. Throw out the weapon and come out with your hands up.”

Noah slumped back into the chair, smiling slightly. The Gardai in Ennis probably did not have much experience with guns. The extent of crime here was rowdy teenagers carjacking a vehicle, and even they usually returned it within a few hours. The officer’s shouts exposed the nerves he was feeling. Noah stood, slowly, and approached the door. He threw the gun out, gently so as not to accidently set it off, but with enough force so that the officers could see he had disarmed. He complied with the order, walking out with his hands up.

He did not know why the Gardai had shown up when they did, but he was not an idiot. He knew it was no coincidence that they had appeared on his doorsteps moments after four men had fled from trying to kill him. He knew something bad was coming. But there was three cars and seven Gardai now, and he knew, even if he wanted to, that he could not fight that many people. So he knelt down on the ground and let them come towards him, and let them handcuff him.

“Noah Nightingale,” the officer with the thick accent said. “You are under arrest for the murder of Henry Shaw, Vice President of the United States.”

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