She was in Russia. This was confirmed over the following hour, in which Jane conducted a methodical, quietly furious investigation of everything she could learn about her situation.
The room she was in was part of a large estate — she could tell from the view, from the scale of the building visible through the side windows, from the quality and amount of space. Not a city. The snow outside was uninterrupted for miles. Somewhere rural, then. Remote.
A woman had arrived shortly after Dimitri left — mid-fifties, stout, grey-haired, with a broad Slavic face and the particular combination of warmth and no-nonsense that Jane associated with mothers and school librarians. She'd introduced herself as Irina, set down a tray of food (soup, bread, tea, what appeared to be some kind of honey pastry that smelled unbearably good), and informed Jane in careful, slightly accented English that she was Mr. Volkov's housekeeper, that the bathroom had everything she would need, and that clean clothes had been arranged.
"And if I told you I wanted to leave?" Jane asked.
Irina looked at her with kind, steady eyes. "I would say that you should eat first. You haven't eaten since yesterday." She put a spoon in Jane's hand with the firmness of someone who considered nutrition non-negotiable regardless of circumstances. "Everything else can wait until you've eaten."
Jane, who had not, in fact, eaten since the soup she'd made yesterday at lunch, ate the bread and half the soup before she could stop herself. The honey pastry defeated her remaining defiance entirely.
"It's Russia," she said, between bites. "Isn't it. Outside."
"Yes," Irina said simply.
Jane set down her spoon. "He took me from London to Russia."
"Yes."
"On what — a private plane, I assume."
"Yes."
"While I was unconscious."
"Yes." Irina's voice was entirely even, in the way of someone who found the logistics of the matter unremarkable while being quite aware that the ethics of it were complex.
Jane pressed her palms flat on the table. "Irina," she said, in the careful voice she used when she was working very hard at calm, "how far are we from the nearest town?"
Irina looked at her for a long moment. "Far enough," she said gently, "that you would not survive the walk in the cold."
Jane heard this. Filed it. Did not collapse under the weight of it, because collapsing would not help.
"Thank you for being honest," she said.
Irina patted her hand once, with the brief, businesslike warmth of a woman who had feelings but kept them tidily managed. "Finish your tea," she said. "It'll help with the headache."
Jane finished her tea.
She was in Russia, in a locked room, on the estate of a mafia boss who had kidnapped her because he wanted her, surrounded by snow and miles from any help, with no phone, no money, and no plan.
She pressed her hands together in her lap and stared at the wall and started planning anyway.