It was because of his profession that he took these rather drastic measures, but his profession was not one of those suggested by Ricardo the receptionist. Aleksandr Viktorovich Lubin was neither a mobster nor a spy, nor a hit man, only a practitioner of the most dangerous trade one could choose in the brave New Russia: the trade of journalism. And not just any type of journalism: independent journalism. His magazine, Moskovsky Gazeta, was one of the country’s last investigative weeklies and had been a persistent stone in the shoe of the Kremlin. Its reporters and photographers were watched and harassed constantly, not only by the secret police but by the private security services of the powerful oligarchs they attempted to cover. Courchevel was now crawling with such men. Men who thought nothing of sprinkling transmitters and poisons around hotel rooms. Men who operated by the creed of Stalin: Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.

Confident the room had not been tampered with, Lubin again dialed the concierge to check on his bags and was informed they would arrive “imminently.” Then, after throwing open the balcony doors to the cold evening air, he settled himself at the writing desk and removed a file folder from his dog-eared leather briefcase. It had been given to him the previous evening by Boris Ostrovsky, the Gazeta’s editor in chief. Their meeting had taken place not in the Gazeta’s offices, which were assumed to be thoroughly bugged, but on a bench in the Arbatskaya Metro station.

I’m only going to give you part of the picture, Ostrovsky had said, handing Lubin the documents with practiced indifference. It’s for your own protection. Do you understand, Aleksandr? Lubin had understood perfectly. Ostrovsky was handing him an assignment that could get him killed.