She looked at the computer on the beat-up desk, the battered chair and the table lamp with the frayed cord that was death in wait for the unwary. The remains of this night’s Mpvenpick meal sat next to the computer. She turned to the right: metal door with the vent fan and in the corner, the chamber pot. Another quarter turn and there was her bed. One more quarter turn and her eyes fell on the cardboard boxes she used to store the clothes they had provided for her. The final turn brought her back to the computer.

There was no way to go through the concrete floor and walls. There was always someone in the office above her head. She walked over to the door and gave it the usual evening inspection, hoping for some inspiration. It was still heavy-gauge metal; the hinge pins were still welded so she could not slip them out, and the double-keyed dead bolt was still locked from the outside.

Zoe’s heart pounded in her chest: slow, deep and strong. There was an exit; she just needed to see it. She thought of using the electric heater to build a fire; one that might burn the wooden ceiling.

Not before it killed me first. Not before the sprinklers put it out. Not before the men in the room above discovered it and came down here to kill me for trying.

No. It was clear that she’d need to induce them somehow to open the door. Somehow and sometime when she wasn’t handcuffed to the Hulk, sometime when the man Sergiev wasn’t calmly waiting with his finger on the trigger. Sometime like a time that had not happened anytime in the previous months but had to happen in the next day or so. Sometime that had not come and would not arrive on its own.

It’s not going to come, she thought dismally. She’d had months to think her way out and there was no reason to think that the solution that had eluded her for months would miraculously appear this close to the end.

Despair settled into her heart like evening shadows. She saw Seth’s eyes, and for a moment his entire face seemed fully painted for her. She’d never see him again. Tears blinded her, darkness swelled in her chest and left little room for her heart to beat.

“Damn!” She wiped at the tears. “Stop this, Zoe Ridgeway.” But the sound of her voice exerted no authority over the flood tide that swelled of frustration and anger and fear. Half blinded, Zoe stumbled over to her bed; it gave a loud, rusty complaint as she seated herself on the sagging edge and surrendered to the tears.

Zoe had no idea how long she had been crying when she felt herself again drawn to prayer.

“Don’t!” She shook her head against the thought, then got up to get the roll of toilet paper that sat by the chamber pot and used it to blow her nose. She dabbed at the tears that streaked her cheeks.