CHAPTER 10: THE FALL AND THE FLIGHT
At 4:07 a.m., the wind picked up.
Not outside.
Inside me.
Because I knew what was coming.
Raquel had the name. The face. The trail.
And if she'd tracked me this far, she'd be hunting the safehouse.
Which meant I had two choices:
Run.
Or burn everything behind me.
In the Mint, Tokyo was locking Arturo in a storage room for the third time in forty-eight hours.
This time, zip-ties weren't enough. She handcuffed him to a pipe and bolted the door from the outside.
"You're done being part of this play," she muttered.
Arturo didn't argue. He just laughed.
"You know, I always knew you were going to kill someone in here," he said. "I just thought it'd be me."
She leaned in close. "It still might be."
In the infirmary, Moscow was unconscious.
Denver sat at his side, holding his hand, whispering things that only made sense to broken-hearted sons.
"You can't die here. Not after all this. Not after raising me right in all the wrong places."
Moscow stirred. Barely.
Denver called for Nairobi.
She came, checked his pulse, his pupils.
"We need a real doctor," she said under her breath.
Denver looked at her. "Then bring one."
Outside, I was packing.
Laptop. Drives. Burner phones. My master plan written across coded ledgers and hidden USBs.
Everything had to go.
Because Raquel was coming.
And when she came, she'd come armed.
At 5:12 a.m., she found the hideout.
The law office.
The third and final shell in a chain of false fronts I'd created to stay ahead.
She breached it with a six-man tactical team.
Room by room, they cleared.
But I was gone.
Just like before.
All that remained was a single chessboard on the desk, mid-match.
Her queen was gone.
My bishop had her cornered.
There was a note taped under the board.
"This was never about kings and queens. It was always about pawns."
She crumpled it.
And for the first time... smiled.
In the Mint, Berlin crossed another line.
He dragged a hostage Carlos out in front of the press floor.
Held a gun to his temple.
"This man," Berlin barked, "was plotting an uprising. Feeding Arturo escape paths."
The room froze.
Carlos shook. "I wasn't. I swear"
Berlin cocked the hammer.
And Tokyo snapped.
She shoved Berlin back, gun drawn.
"That's enough!" she shouted. "You want to blow this whole thing up because you're spiraling? Be my guest. But you pull that trigger, and I'll make sure you don't get to your million."
The crew watched.
Nairobi stood. "We follow the Professor. Not your mood swings."
Denver added, "You're not fit to lead."
Berlin stared at them all.
Then lowered the weapon.
Carlos collapsed, sobbing.
Berlin walked out without a word.
I saw it all.
He was losing control.
And I was losing time.
I found a new perch. An underground metro line shut down for repairs. With Rio rerouting signals, I could still monitor the Mint.
But I couldn't reach inside it.
Not like before.
I was slipping away from my own story.
At 6:09 a.m., the first heartbeat monitor flatlined.
Moscow.
Nairobi was mid-shift when it happened.
She dropped everything and ran.
Denver was already doing CPR.
"He stopped breathing!" he yelled.
Nairobi grabbed a defibrillator. "Clear!"
Shock.
Nothing.
"Clear!"
Another shock.
A pulse.
Faint.
But real.
He was alive.
Barely.
Raquel returned to HQ and laid out everything she had:
Álvaro Ramón Martínez = The Professor.
Known aliases.
Known hiding methods.
Psychological profile: trauma-rooted strategist, nonviolent by design, manipulative.
She looked Prieto in the eye.
"I'm going to catch him. But when I do, you let me talk to him first."
"Why?"
"Because he already told me everything I need to know. I just didn't know he was the enemy when he said it."
Arturo escaped.
Again.
Used a wire from the air conditioner to unlock the pipe.
Slipped into the north stairwell during the chaos of Moscow's episode.
Stole a security card.
And disappeared.
Tokyo found the empty room.
And knew.
She didn't panic.
She went to the vault.
To Berlin.
"Your mistake," she said, "just became ours."