PROLOGUE I
Koloku Island, Southeast Asia, the Palaccas Archipelago
July 1, 2014
The jungle comes alive at night.
In the darkness strange shapes creep and fold. Liquid shadows are black as ink and the undergrowth moves. Things shift unseen, slipping beneath leaf-silk. The air quivers, hot and clenched. It smells of the colour green, fragrant and private; and the purple sky, glimpsed in diamonds through a trembling canopy, is bursting