He turned away, toward the window, and Kane wondered if he’d stepped past an invisible boundary, or if there was something he wasn’t saying. A few minutes later the man pulled his hat down in front of his eyes and fell asleep.

When Saint Helena appeared beneath them it looked attractive, its capital nestled between two steep hills, like a river of homes running to the sea. Population 4,500, which was five times larger than Ascension. Kane felt sorry to be moving on. He tried to see the house where Napoleon was held, but they dropped too fast.

The airport was miniature, the size of a bus station, but clean and modern and even fitted with air-conditioning, and while the view from its windows didn’t extend past the expanse of beige rock in which it sat, those departing for the greener interior seemed lighthearted about it. Kane watched passengers disperse to cars and buses, and then the handful connecting to Ascension were revealed. Seven British military with canvas kit bags, two US Air Force personnel: a man and a woman. There was a group of Saints, one of whom had a huge sack of provisions: fruit and vegetables mostly, wholesale boxes of chocolate bars and crisps. Finally a British couple bringing a boxed air-con unit.

No tourists. No other first-timers, you could tell. The atmosphere was altogether different now. Those remaining were people making the journey for reasons other than sheer desire, mentally readying themselves.

They boarded at two thirty p.m. Kane saw mailbags and boxes of frozen food being wheeled aboard, and finally a mint-condition Hyundai motorbike. The crew of their small seventy-six-seat plane seemed unfazed by the varied cargo. The flight was rocky. Kane had hoped to sleep, but that wasn’t happening. His thoughts raced, working through his prep­aration: spreadsheets of locations and individuals, all about to become real. Two hours into the flight they began to drop toward the ocean. Kane looked to see their target but there was nothing beneath them apart from thin white strands of foam. They sank through the air until, at the final minute, a scrap of cloud appeared ahead and then a reddish-brown rock beneath it: Ascension.

Kane couldn’t see how there would be room to land. As they drew closer the surface resolved itself into individual volcanic cones, then the prickles of antennae came into view. Still no sign of life, just aerial arrays and satellite dishes, and finally a runway cutting through the rock.

They touched down in a cloud of red dust, then taxied back to a small hangar at the edge of an empty airfield. The runway petered out. His fellow passengers roused themselves. Again, there was a sense of a deep breath being taken, of stiffening the sinews, steadying the mind.