He was dressed totally in black: a kind of jersey with a collar fastened by a single button at the neck, black jacket and trousers, obviously Brioni. Even his pocket handkerchief was black.

His mobile phone, encrypted, buzzed. Bounine said, “Turn left out of the entrance, fifty meters, and I’m waiting. Black Volvo.”

Kurbsky didn’t reply, simply switched off, went out, found the nearest elevator, and descended. He went out of the entrance of the hotel, ignoring the staff on duty, walked his fifty meters, found the Volvo, and got in.

“How far?” he asked.

Bounine glanced briefly at him and smiled through gold-rimmed glasses. He had thinning hair, and the look of somebody’s favorite uncle about him, except that he was GRU.

“Fifteen minutes. I’ve checked it.”

“Let’s get on with it, then.”

Kurbsky leaned back and closed his eyes.

IGOR VRONSKY WAS thirty-five and looked ten years older, but that was his drug habit. His hair was black and a little too long, verging on the unkempt. The skin was stretched too tightly across a narrow face with pointed chin. A paisley neckerchief at his throat and a midnight-blue velvet jacket combined, by intention, to give him a theatrical look. His notoriety in Moscow these days didn’t worry him. The government loathed him for his book on Putin’s time in the KGB, but this was America, he had a new job writing for The New York Times, and they couldn’t touch him. The book had brought him fame, money, women-to hell with Moscow.

He smiled at himself in the bathroom mirror, then leaned down to inhale the first of two lines of cocaine that waited. It was good stuff, absolutely, and he followed it with the second line. He was dizzy for a moment, then slightly chilled in the brain and suddenly very sharp and ready for the great Alexander Kurbsky.