Father Gabriel O’Donnell was naturally cheerful and good-spirited and rarely had reason to be otherwise. He had been a military chaplain, and now he had a decent parish in New York, so, all in all, life was good and less complicated than before.
He wore his thick, dark hair short. Though he could be mistaken for a thin man at a superficial glance, his muscles and physique were still those of a trained athlete under his clerical garments.
Beneath the church"s graceful, vaulted stone ceiling, he paced steadily up the centre aisle to the red-carpeted transept. He knelt and bent his head in prayer for a few moments, then raised his eyes crossed himself before the crucifix that hung above the altar.
Rising, he made his way to a discreet door set in the far corner that led to the back rooms a
