CHAPTER 12: THE FIRST LOSS
At 3:04 p.m., smoke began to rise.
It was faint just a whisper of heat caught on the hallway motion sensors. But inside the Royal Mint, where paranoia lived in every corner, it rang like a bomb.
Tokyo got the alert first. Then Rio.
"Smoke detected. Eastern maintenance corridor."
Tokyo radioed all channels. "Confirm! Is anyone burning something?"
Nairobi replied instantly. "Negative. No scheduled welding. No open flames."
Then silence.
Then the alarm.
The fire had begun.
I watched the feed in slow motion.
A flicker of orange in a dark corridor.
The heat warped the camera lens just enough to obscure Arturo's figure running from the scene, coat in hand.
He'd lit it.
Not as sabotage.
As distraction.
He was about to try again.
And this time, the consequences would be fatal.
Nairobi triggered the evacuation protocol for all hostages near the eastern quadrant.
Fire doors slammed shut.
Sprinklers activated.
The air filled with steam, panic, and screaming.
Arturo disappeared into the chaos.
Tokyo and Denver split to search.
And I knew:
We were about to lose someone.
Raquel was reviewing heat signatures in real time from a drone above the Mint.
"Flare detected on eastern roofline."
She ordered a perimeter shift.
"Units two and four, flank the eastern wall. If he's trying to breach, we take him alive."
Her orders were crisp. Focused.
But her hand trembled as she set the radio down.
Because she knew this wasn't just about Arturo anymore.
This was about what desperation looked like inside a fortress.
In the boiler corridor, Oslo found Arturo.
Cornered him between a generator and the exit stairwell.
"Stop," Oslo said, voice flat.
Arturo lifted a wrench.
He wasn't going to surrender.
He was going to fight.
Oslo stepped forward.
And Arturo swung.
The wrench cracked Oslo's temple.
Blood sprayed.
Oslo staggered.
Then Arturo hit him again.
And again.
Until the giant fell.
Denver was first to find the body.
He called it in, voice shaking.
"Oslo's down. He's not... he's not moving."
Tokyo arrived seconds later. Checked his pulse.
Nothing.
A pool of blood was spreading across the tiles.
She looked at Denver. "Where's Arturo?"
Gone.
I watched the screen go black.
Oslo's camera cut out.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
He was the quiet one. The rock.
The man who never complained. Who followed every command. Who saved Berlin's life in Tangiers. Who buried a brother in silence and took bullets without blinking.
And now he was gone.
Because we let a rat fester.
Because I'd underestimated the desperation of a coward.
The crew gathered.
They laid Oslo in the storage room.
Wrapped him in a red jumpsuit.
Covered his face.
Berlin stood in the corner, silent.
He didn't cry.
He didn't speak.
But I could see it in his eyes:
Oslo was his fault.
Nairobi spoke.
"No more second chances. No more 'negotiations.' Anyone who threatens this mission from here on out? We end it."
No one argued.
Because Oslo wasn't just a teammate.
He was a brother.
And now, the family had a corpse.
Raquel received the intel about the fire.
She studied the footage. The drone pass. The footprints.
Something was wrong.
"Too clean," she whispered. "That fire wasn't random. It was deliberate."
She ran facial match against escape attempts.
One stood out.
Arturo Román.
She called it in.
"If you see Arturo, you do not engage. He's not alone. They're moving him like a chess piece."
Because she knew:
If we let Arturo go,
It was only because we wanted to.
Back inside, Tokyo finally found him.
Near the elevator shaft.
He was climbing the maintenance ladder, soaked in blood and sweat.
She raised her gun.
"Final warning, Arturo."
He froze.
"I didn't mean to kill him."
"Didn't mean to stop? Didn't mean to swing three more times?"
She climbed slowly, keeping the gun level.
Then she pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit his leg.
He screamed.
Fell.
Twelve feet.
Straight onto the concrete floor.
Alive.
But done.
They tied him to the printer axle.
Let the ink from the bills stain his cuffs.
A symbol.
A warning.
This was what betrayal looked like.
That night, Rio lit a candle for Oslo.
We all watched on the feed.
No one said a word.
Because we had.
Already.
And now, it was war.
No more second chances.
Not for traitors.
Not for weakness.
Not for failure.