Or at least, so they would know for some time. I knew the day might well come when we would take them into our confidence and share the list of coordinates Haden had given me. We could never be sure, after all, if Bramnik would always be in charge, or if one day we might want to run.

As for retrieving Haden . . . well, we went looking, but we never found him. Don’t ask me how or why, but every coordinate we tried in his particular braid came up empty. I came to believe Haden had been a plant, left behind for the Authority to find, complete with a cover story to explain how he had managed to ‘survive’ all those years.

I turned on the ignition and drove the two of them out of the base compound, past the runway and into town, turning into the street where the original Nadia and Rozalia had lived.

‘Hey,’ I said, a sudden thought occurring to me as I pulled up outside. ‘You like fishing?’

‘Hell, yeah,’ said Rozalia. ‘Got any boats around here?’

I grinned. ‘Maybe before I show you your new home, I’ll show you a dandy little boat that’s just right for the job. Sound like a deal?’

‘Deal,’ they both said at once.

There are risks in every walk of life. My predecessor knew that, and I’ve come to believe he knew there was at least the possibility that some other Jerry might one day read the pages he left behind. The more I read and reread those pages, once Mayer gave them back to me, the more I thought of it as a letter addressed to me as much as it had been to Chloe. I liked to imagine that in a way he was looking ahead, giving the newcomer some hints and tips to make his time as a Pathfinder easier.

So I figured it made sense to do the same thing, and anticipate in turn. Because you just never know.

It’s been a little while now since we brought Nadia and Rozalia back to the island. They’ve gone on some tentative first missions, as have the new Randall and Selwyn, and we’re even putting together a team to retrieve Wallace Deans. Much of what he did, after all, was under the influence of Casey Vishnevsky – and a finer case of Stockholm syndrome I’ve never encountered. With the right guidance, I felt sure – or hoped – his replacement might make a valuable contribution.