“Can you walk?” Janson asked, his tone sharper than he had intended.

There was a beat before Novak responded. “Yes,” he said. “I think so.”

“We have to leave now.”

“No,” said Peter Novak.

“Please. We can’t afford to wait.” In all likelihood, Novak was suffering the normal confusion and disorientation of the newly released captive. But could there be something more? Had the Stockholm syndrome set in? Had Novak been betrayed by the famously expansive compass of his moral sympathies?

“No—there’s someone else!” he whispered.

“What are you talking about?” Katsaris interrupted.

“Somebody else here.” He coughed. “Another prisoner.”

“Who?” Katsaris prodded.

“An American,” he said. He gestured to the cell at the end of the passageway. “I won’t leave without her.”

“That’s impossible!” Katsaris interjected.

“If you leave her behind, they’ll kill her. They’ll kill her at once!” The humanitarian’s eyes were imploring, and then commanding. He cleared his throat, moistened his cracked lips, and took another breath. “I cannot have that on my conscience.” His English was manicured, precise, with just a faint Hungarian inflection. Another labored breath. “It need not be on yours.”

Bit by bit, Janson realized, the prisoner was regaining his composure, becoming himself again. His piercing dark eyes reminded Janson that Novak was no ordinary man. He was a natural aristocrat, accustomed to ordering the world to his liking. He had a gift for it, a gift he had used for ends of extraordinary benevolence.

Janson studied Novak’s unwavering gaze. “And if we can’t …”

“Then you’ll have to leave me behind.” The words were halting, but unequivocal.

Janson stared at him in disbelief.

A twitch played out on Novak’s face, and then he spoke again. “I doubt your rescue plans provide for an unwilling hostage.”

It was clear that his mind was still blazingly fast. He had played the tactical card immediately, impressing on Janson that no further discussion would be possible.

Janson and Katsaris exchanged glances. “Theo,” Janson said quietly. “Get her.”

Katsaris nodded reluctantly. Then they both froze.

The noise.

A scrape of steel against stone.

A familiar noise: that of the steel grate they had opened to go down there.

Janson remembered the soldier’s hopeful cry: Theyilai .

The expected visitor, bringing the soldiers their tea.

Janson and Theo strode from the dungeon to the blood-drenched adjoining chamber, where they could hear the jangling of someone’s key chain, and then watched as a tray—laden with a teapot of hammered metal and several stacks of little clay cups—came into view.

He saw the hands supporting the tray—remarkably small hands. And then the man, who was no man at all.