A knock on the door before dawn. I rise groggy from another country, my heart pounding from the wild action scene I have just been in. It takes me a moment to identify where I am, and a moment more to pull on a tee-shirt and answer the door.

 

There's nobody there. I stick my head out and inspect the corridor, lit only by the dull orange glow of the night lights. No one - except for a dim figure with hair sticking up like white hay in the wall mirror by the bathroom. I wasn't dressed like that in the place I've just returned from. My hair was neatly barbered and brushed.

 

I pad in my bare feet towards my mirror self. As I brush my teeth, I try to pull back the details of my latest expedition, the one from which the unexplained knock at the door has recalled me. I was in Moscow. I was privy to a crisis meeting of top executives from two Western corporations who feared they were being chiseled out of their fair share of the earnings from a joint venture with Russians after taking most of the risk and laying out most of the cash. Not the kind of news I follow any more, and not a scene to which anyone would invite my regular self.