The minutes stretched on and she told herself over and over that no one would have brought her all the way to Moscow just to let her freeze to death. Nevertheless, she was getting so cold that she felt herself starting to get sleepy.

She struggled not to lose consciousness again.

Time stretched on.

Flurries of snow whipped into the hangar.

And eventually, she heard the clack of electrical lights coming on.

That was followed by the opening of a door.

Laurel had to squint to adjust her eyes, but she gradually made out the figure of a very short, very small man, walking her way with the aid of a cane. He walked with a hunch, taking his time, tapping each step with the cane.

He was smoking a cigar that he held in his mouth as he walked. The suit looked expensive, the black leather of his shoes gleamed, and as he got closer, she made out fine silver details on the cane.

He got to the cage and stopped, looking at it as if he’d expected to find something else.

For some reason, Laurel avoided looking at his face. She focused on the cane, the silver lion at the top. The hand that held it had a large, gold ring on every finger. Some of the rings had gems in them.

“You’re injured,” the man said.

Laurel placed his accent as Saint Petersburg. He spoke like he had something distasteful in his mouth. He made a sucking sound with each word.

“You need medical attention,” he said, as if it were her fault.

She looked at his face for the first time and immediately wished she hadn’t. He looked to be in his seventies. The way he ran his tongue over his lips made her think he was planning to dig in to a meal. His face was pocked mercilessly, as if by some childhood illness. He had facial hair but it was patchy. Mangy was the word she’d have used.

She’d been right in her initial assessment of his size. He was five feet tall at most, and probably weighed less than a hundred-twenty pounds.

He looked too frail to be out there alone. He was the kind of man people would offer their seat to on the subway.

He pulled a phone from his jacket pocket and croaked into it.

“I need a medical team at hangar two, right away.”

He took a long suck from his cigar and then just stood there, leaning on the cane, smacking his lips, looking at her.

“A dog cage,” he muttered to himself, “How appropriate.” Then to her, he said, “Who has the key?”

She said nothing.

He rattled the cage with his cane.

“Come now. Don’t be rude. I asked a question.”

Laurel’s Russian was a little rusty, but good enough to get by.

“I don’t know,” she said.