After five minutes, or twenty, he opened his eyes and slid off the mattress. Then he made the bed carefully. He stretched and did push-ups, sit-ups, and a quick core workout, favoring his bruised rib. His muscles felt creaky from the days he’d spent unconscious. He kept all thoughts at bay, focused only on breaking a good sweat. Then he showered and changed and returned to the spot by the window. Standing in the same place with a clearer mind meant it was no longer the same place. He reviewed what little he knew.

He now had a grasp on the time: midday.

He’d gleaned the date: October 18.

The next priority was figuring out where he was.

His gaze swept the walls low, just above the baseboards. Nothing. He moved to the built-in mahogany desk. The backing floated an inch or so off the wall, no doubt to leave room for appliance plugs. He put one eye to the dark sliver but could make out only darkness. Then he crawled into the space where a chair should be and flattened his cheek to the wall. The power outlet floated a few inches away in the gap between desk and wall.

It had only two holes, designed to fit round pins.

Clearly not built to receive an American plug.

Evan popped to his feet and headed briskly into the bathroom. After scanning the walls, he dropped onto a knee and found a wet-room outlet tucked beneath the floating granite slab housing the sinks. This one took a three-pin plug—two round, one grounding.

That was helpful, too.

He searched the bathroom for a hidden surveillance camera but found none. With the stark stone and tile, there were scant hiding places. He had to assume that the mirror was a one-way and that a pinhole camera was positioned inside the ceiling vent as in the bedroom, but he couldn’t be certain. That still left him a blind spot beneath the sink and in the corner by the toilet.

He needed to create a blind zone in the bedroom as well. Pausing in the doorway, he searched the crack in the frame, careful not to be obvious. There it was, a pencil eraser–size circle of metal nestled back in the wood like a dug-in pinworm. He walked over to the hearth and ran his fingertips across the caulking between the travertine tiles but felt nothing. The vent camera he’d spotted earlier and the bathroom doorframe unit gave them eyes on three-fourths of the bedroom. He looked for a spot that would pick up the remaining quarter.

The corner above the closet where the walls met the ceiling. He flicked a gaze quickly in that direction, noting that the point of blackness there was slightly more pronounced than in the other corners.

Solid tradecraft.

What was the best way to play this?