Jack Trump awoke from the nightmare drenched in sweat. It was a familiar part of his life now. The memories of the trenches would seem like reality up until the point where his own body would be cut down by a swathe of bullets and he would launch, bolt upright, in his bed. His shaking hands would run over his skin and find sweat instead of blood. It would not yet be dawn but he would rise, wash and dress himself, the nightmare still lodged, like small shards of glass, inside his every movement. Even as he walked into the London streets a scream or a cry for help would invade his ears, as clear and as real as the hawkers selling their papers on the side streets and the cobbles.

It was a humid summer night when a feint glow of light was seen by all peoples on the isle of Tarama, no matter how far they stood from it. The light emanated from the pinnacle of a magnificent castle, which was as grand as any Shogun’s in Japan. The people of the island had seen that same glow in the darkness many times before, and knew that it always came from a raucous party being held inside the ornate fortress, and always hosted by the man who called the citadel his home; Lord Katsuro Ogawa, the Daimyo of Miyako.

JUNE 15, 2006 - MAUI, HAWAII

I'm lying on my back on a bed of undulating seaweed, twenty thousand leagues beneath the sea. I'm Mr. Spock flying through the universe, sealed in a capsule, my destination unknown. I'm a vegetating chunk of humanness, a rotting homo-sapient tuber buried in the slimy earth, millions of worms invading me, crawling into every orifice, devouring my living corpse from the inside out. I'm the centenarian Dave Bowman, lying in that enigmatic and mysteriously uber-sterile green and white room in 2001 - A Space Odyssey, growing older, and older, and older, by the second... whole, but not whole, not wholly alive. What is it to be alive? Perhaps I'm dead and at the same time alive, but mostly… I'm so alone here.

Matt Devon logged on to his site as he ordered his coffee. The waitress glanced back at him after he ordered but hadn’t come back, for which he was grateful for. It wasn’t so bad now and he hoped by the end of the year no-one would recognise him at all.

Driving west up Market Street, the first place they stopped was at police headquarters. Parked in the parking lot, Hurts told Amanda to remain in the car, telling her that he would be back in a few minutes. Ten minutes later, he returned, carrying two walkie-talkies, the type that have extended microphones that can be attached to the lapel of a coat or shirt. He set them down on the seat between Amanda and him.