Sam struggled restlessly through the foggy, confusing plateau that existed somewhere between sleep and consciousness. Uninvited, unwelcome, disjointed images came and went like the flickering frames of an old silent movie. Finally, thankfully, he surfaced from that place, bathed in perspiration. The digital display from the bedside clock glowed four-thirty a.m. For a long while, he lay in the dampness of his bedding, not wanting to acknowledge the truth of what woke him. It wasn’t a dream, and the name strobing with the intensity of neon behind his eyes would not leave his mind.
Stringer! John Stringer. Could it possibly be? No, surely not? Stringer was still in prison. Wasn’t he? It couldn’t be Stringer. He had to be mistaken.
As the darkness of night gently ebbed, conceding ground to t
