At a little before two o'clock on a chill and overcast Wednesday afternoon, Moses McGuire pulled his old Ford pickup to a grating stop in front of his sister Frannie's house and honked the horn twice.

He waited, blowing on his hands, which he couldn't get to stay warm. The heater in the truck didn't work worth a damn and the driver-side window was stuck halfway down, but he knew it wasn't the weather. It was nerves. He blew into the cup of his hands again, lay on the horn another time.

The door opened. His brother-in-law, Dismas Hardy, walked briskly, businesslike, down his porch steps and the path that bisected his small lawn. Normally he was good for a smile or some wiseass greeting, but today his face was set, his eyes cast down. He carried a rope-wrapped package under one arm, wore jeans and hiking boots and a heavy coat into the pockets of which he'd stuffed his hands. The coat, McGuire thought, was a good idea, not so much for the cold as to disguise the fact that he was wearing Kevlar, and packing.

Hardy, at fifty-two, was two years younger than McGuire. The two men had known each other for over thirty years, since they'd been in Vietnam. Over there, Hardy had pulled McGuire to cover and safety in the midst of an intense firefight-both of the men had been hit, both awarded the Purple Heart. But Hardy had saved McGuire's life and that bond had held, would always hold.

When Hardy's first pass at adult life fell apart, he'd worked for years at the bar Moses owned, the Little Shamrock, and eventually, when Hardy was ready to risk life and commitment again, he became a quarter partner in the bar.