QUINN OPENED ONE EYE SLOWLY, then the other. He saw his bare arm draped over the breasts of a woman, and his hand wrapped around the grip of a Makarov pistol, a finger resting alertly on the trigger guard. The room was in semidarkness; an open window admitted the sharp smell of the sea. In the instant between sleep and consciousness, Quinn struggled to place his whereabouts. Was he in his villa on Margarita Island? Or perhaps he was back at Ras al Helal, the seaside terror training camp in Libya. He recalled his time at the camp with fondness. He had made a friend there, a Palestinian bomb maker. Quinn had helped the Palestinian overcome a simple problem he was having with his design. In return, he had given Quinn an expensive Swiss wristwatch, paid for by Yasir Arafat himself. The engraving read NO MORE TIMER FAILURES . . .

Quinn raised the watch to his eyes now and saw that it was half past four in the afternoon. Through the open window came the sound of two men conversing in a Lancashire accent. He was not on Margarita Island or at the camp on the Libyan coast. He was in Fleetwood, England, in a hotel along the Esplanade, and the woman sleeping beneath his arm was Katerina. It was not an embrace of affection. Quinn had held her tightly against his body so he could get some much-needed rest. He had slept more than six hours, enough to see him through to the next phase of the operation.

Quinn lifted his arm and slipped from the bed, gently, so as not to wake Katerina. A complimentary coffee-and-tea service stood on a table near the window. Quinn filled the electric kettle, dropped a bag of Twinings into the aluminum pot, and peered out the window. The Renault was parked in the street. A duffel bag containing the weapons was still in the storage compartment. Quinn thought it better to leave the bag in the car rather than bring it into the hotel. It meant there would be fewer firearms within reach of the SVR’s top female assassin.

Quinn carried the Makarov into the bathroom and showered quickly, leaving the curtain open so he could watch Katerina in the next room. She was still sleeping when he emerged. He prepared the tea and poured two cups, one with milk, the other with sugar. Then he woke Katerina and handed her the cup with the sugar.

“Get dressed,” he said coldly. “It’s time to let Moscow Center know you’re still alive.”

Katerina spent a long time in the shower and took inordinate care with her appearance while dressing. Finally, she pulled on her coat and followed Quinn downstairs to the lobby, where a gray-haired woman of sixty sat in an alcove doing needlepoint. Quinn poked his head through the window and asked where he might find an Internet café.

“Lord Street, luv. Opposite the chippy.”