Baby boomers may have kick-started environmental activism but ultimately they caused the climate change catastrophe because they declined to do more to stop it.

If they had, they could have released future generations from the abiding torment they have now become trapped in: the torment of knowing that every move they make, every journey they take, every baby they conceive, every joule of energy they burn, every mouthful of food they eat could be bringing them and their children a step closer to oblivion.

The east winds picked up strength as if heralding a moment which could prove a game changer for the tortured planet. Waites waited two more heartbeats, then pressed the button. With an oiled mechanical clank, the pump shook against the fixing rings, within seconds the pipe began drawing down the gel and for the first time in his adult life, Jameson said a little prayer.

Through the undersea cameras they could clearly see that the gel was coating the rough underbelly of the glacier and isolating the fragile ice crystals from the surrounding water.

‘Ha ha, it’s only gone and worked,’

As they passed through ruined communities, where once proud houses had stood, all that remained were their skeletons. Iron roofs, split and awkwardly draped over bent steel uprights, melted window glass laying in puddles or stuck fast to tiles. Here and there, signs of former occupants; forks and spoons welded together, delicate feathers of ash that were once books, light fittings hollow and black, a garden bench split and singed from the heat. Hundreds of cars and trucks sat abandoned by the side of the road, twisted and blackened by the catastrophe that had overwhelmed them.

The metre-long slender arrow arched gracefully up into the air escaping the shadows of the forest canopy. It caught a momentary sliver of sunlight before continuing its flight across the clearing, striking the man just behind his neck and driving down into his heart. He was dead before his body hit the moss covered forest floor with a cushioned thud.

Over that morning, Lauvergne had watched the bloodless coup unfold from the wall of screens in Monaco’s police headquarters building. Its system of surveillance cameras monitored every square centimetre of this tiny nation.

‘Those bastards. Don’t look so self-satisfied now, do they?’ Lauvergne had said to no one in particular, bewitched by the sight of this bloated, overprivileged society coming apart.

D’Antoni stopped and turned on Rossi. ‘Know this Milanese, the pope will never give you animals his blessing. This bloodbath that you propose is obscene.’

Rossi was shaken momentarily but quickly retorted, ‘I am a Catholic. I know the Church has always done what it needed to do to survive, Signor D’Antoni. This place has plenty of blood on its hands too.’ They both fell quiet as they heard a small cough. The pope waited for them at his door.

Ibrahim Abdalla was tired. Tired of working this dusty, infertile soil under a pitiless, baking sun. He was thirty-five but felt twice that. And in North Darfur, where a man can only expect to live sixty-three years, that was troubling.

But even that wasn’t the worst of it for Ibrahim because today, as he stood with his eldest son, he knew that the pastoralists from Khartoum were coming. Coming to kill them both.

Lomas heard a shout and running footsteps from the corridor, causing the man to step inside the office. Two staff members ran past the door, obviously not spotting him. The elderly man waited, then dashed out again in the opposite direction. Lomas watched him lope away, as clumsy as a fleeing chicken. Within seconds he’d been caught by two nurses, each grabbing an arm.

Somewhere in the murk a beautiful lyrical wailing started up and cut through the clamour. A haunting, unworldly melody. Gradually the noises subsided as men downed their tools. After another minute, all sound had ceased and the dust started to settle.

Then, as if summoned by some magician’s spell, it was there. Müller stared down, wide-eyed in amazement at the scale of the site of the ‘cursed pit’.

They stood together at the bottom of the steps like the oddest of odd couples. As he waited, Jameson noticed a multicoloured tattoo, possibly a flying dragon poking out of his collar just below his ear.

‘Get that in China?’

‘Eh?’

‘Your dragon, did you travel to China to get it?’

‘Camden.’

The Stalwart turned in the direction of the setting sun, no one looked back. If they had, they would have noticed the white bullet-shaped objects exploding to the surface, leaping into the air and splashing down into the wake of the ship, as thousands of shrouded, gas-filled bodies escaped their metal tomb.

It was a typically humid day on the thirty-eighth Parallel, 38 degrees and no breeze. Mosquitoes, gnats and dragonflies happily buzzed between the two distrustful lands.

Overhead, a grey heron flew north, blissfully unaware it had passed from democratic republic to dynastic dictatorship in the space of a few wing beats.

Roussel decided he didn’t just like Manosque, he loved it, especially its smells.

The smell of the cream patisseries at Giraud’s Boulangerie on the Rue des Sophoras which he liked to treat his team with. The scent of the orange blossom, jasmine and lilies from the flower seller on the corner of Place du Joubert. The mouth-watering waft of the suckling pig roast at the front of Becker’s butcher’s shop at boulevard Charles De Gaulle. And the exotic scented aromas from the Starlight Brothel at Rue L’Armistice which occasionally offered him comfort and diversion from his chaotic life.