In the center of the island was Two Boats village, where Petra had last been seen. Beside it was Green Mountain, the highest peak. A lot of place names appeared to have been dreamed up by men in the grip of a bad fever: Dead Man’s Beach, Comfortless Cove, Devil’s Cauldron. Satellite images of the island only made the place more enigmatic: thin strings of road among plains of what looked like elephant hide, with some of the most powerful surveillance tech in the world reduced to white spores among the lava. But you could see the British base had a cricket pitch and the Americans had a baseball diamond, could see the cold geometry of the installations—squares and circles of antennae and God knows what else—strangely at home among the forbidding rock.

Kane put the map away and listened to the waves pounding a few meters from his new home: the slow, alternating detonation and hiss as they crashed in, sending up spray that hung in the air before collapsing like a moment of rain. Then there was ten seconds before the next explosion, as if the sea was setting about destroying the island that had appeared in its midst one day. There was something measured and vindictive about it that reminded Kane of artillery shelling. He tried to slow his breathing to the rhythm of the waves. Then he heard a child scream.

It was short, terrified, abruptly cut off. The silence that followed seemed deeper than before. Kane opened the front door and stood in the doorway, wondering if he could have mistaken it. Then he heard another cry—No—and the grunt of an older, larger person.

Kane walked toward the sound. The settlement still appeared empty. Had no one else heard it? He stopped, listened, heard the voice again—less like a child now but still someone very young and terrified, a boy—he was sure it was a boy or teenager pleading. Then the older man said: What do you want?

They were on the other side of the old barracks. Kane went to the corner to get a view. He saw the white of the church and then two figures in front of it. The struggle was between a boy of no older than sixteen and a large man around Kane’s age. The boy wore a white T-shirt and shorts. He was on his knees, trying to pick himself up. The man used a foot to push him onto his side. A torch beam came from the far side of the square, where two more men were approaching.

“Get off me.” The boy had an American accent. A bike lay on the ground between the church and the barracks. The man above him lifted his head by the hair.

“What are you doing here?”

“Nothing.”

“You fucking dare to come here?”