The rain drummed on the tin roof of the hangar, as if trying to force its way inside. The air was thick with the smells of engine oil, dust, and something sharp and metallic—blood or old rust. Otto Schreiber, who looked like a rough-hewn granite boulder in a black T-shirt, sat on the edge of a table littered with disassembled machine parts and dirty diagrams. His thick fingers were methodically cleaning a long combat knife with an oiled cloth. A grey moustache bristled above the thin, cruel line of his lips. Karsten was sitting next to him on a chair under an army radio, a scar crossing his face, making his single eye a sullen slit.

The door creaked on its rusty hinges. A figure in a huge, shapeless gray hoodie, tightly concealing any outline of the body, froze in the opening, obscured by a gray veil of rain. Only a pale, pointed face with sharp cheekbones and large, dark, like wet asphalt, eyes peeked out from under the hood. She stepped inside, the door slammed shut with a thud, and the cold and the smell of dampness rushed in with her.

Otto didn't even look up from the knife. Only Karsten's finger unconsciously reached for the holster on his hip.

—Schreiber,— came her voice, low, husky, without a trace of pleading or uncertainty. A statement.

The blade of the knife froze in Otto's hand. He slowly raised his eyes. Gray, like a stormy sky over an industrial zone, icy. He looked her up and down—the baggy hoodie, the worn army boots, the empty hands. A slow, venomous grin spread across his face.