London August 1816 - "The year without summer." London is heaving with every step of society. There are the rich, living in their fine houses, their mansions and their palaces, and there are the poor, living in hovels and squalor. Pickit is 18 years old. Abandoned at birth, he was unlucky enough to be found by a woman who lived off the criminal activities of her charges and the lad only escaped her clutches after her untimely demise. Fending for himself, he managed to gain some financial security and lodgings, caretaking a warehouse. The fact that the warehouse housed illicit goods and the owner was a successful smuggler did not faze Pickit at all. Colonel James Robert Tyler. Born 1790. His Mother died when he was thirteen and his father, a successful merchant, remarried. James had to leave and make his own way in life after a series of arguments with his stepmother. He was fifteen years of age. James joined the army in 1806, when he was sixteen, and made the rank of Colonel in 1813. He survived the Battle of Waterloo after serving under Sir Arthur Wellesley, The Duke of Wellington, and returned to London. He became a wealthy man when his best friend died in the battle and left to him his entire estate. Their paths should never have crossed but fate had other ideas.