Location: Madrid, Spain — March 2024
Present Day: Archive Verification, Security Footage
We arrived in Madrid on a Tuesday, the sky low and gray, the streets slick with a rain that had been falling for days. Claudia had booked a room near the university, a pension that catered to students and asked few questions. The walls were thin, the beds narrow, the windows facing a courtyard where laundry hung in the damp air.
I did not sleep. I sat by the window, watching the alley below, waiting for the men in dark suits who always seemed to find us.
Claudia was on the phone again, trying to reach Vasquez. The calls went to voicemail. The texts were unanswered. She was growing agitated, pacing the room, her hands shaking.
"Something's wrong," she said. "She was supposed to meet us tonight."
"Maybe she got scared."
"She's been scared for months. That's not why she's not answering."
I looked at her. "Then why?"
She met my eyes. "Because someone else has her phone."
I. THE MEETING
The address Vasquez had given was a small apartment on Calle de la Palma, a narrow street in the Malasaña district, where the buildings were old and the doors were heavy and the shadows seemed to have weight. We arrived early, as we always did, and found a café across the street where we could watch the entrance.
Claudia ordered coffee she did not drink. I watched the door.
At eight o'clock, a figure appeared. A woman, wrapped in a dark coat, her face hidden by a hood. She stopped at the entrance, looked up and down the street, then disappeared inside.
"That's her," Claudia whispered.
"Did she see you?"
"I don't think so."
We waited. Five minutes. Ten. The woman did not come out.
"We should go," I said.
"Not yet."
"Claudia—"
The door opened. The woman emerged, her hood still up, her pace quick. She turned down the street and vanished into the darkness.
Claudia was already on her feet. "Come on."
We crossed the street, our footsteps loud on the wet pavement. The door was unlocked. We stepped into a narrow hallway, the air thick with the smell of old cooking and damp plaster. A staircase rose to the left, leading to the upper floors.
"Which apartment?" I asked.
"Third floor. Number 4."
We climbed. The stairs groaned under our weight. The lights were dim, flickering, as if the building itself was holding its breath.
On the third floor, we found the door. Number 4. It was ajar.
Claudia reached for it. I caught her wrist.
"Wait."
I pushed the door open with my foot, my hand on the knife in my pocket. The room beyond was dark, the curtains drawn, the air still. I stepped inside, Claudia behind me.
The smell hit me first. Copper. Blood.
I found the light switch. The room was small, a studio apartment with a bed, a desk, a single chair. The woman who had entered before us lay on the floor, her coat spread around her like wings, her face turned to the ceiling.
Her throat was cut. The blood was still wet.
Claudia made a sound, a choked gasp, and stumbled back against the wall.
"It's not her," I said.
"What?"
"It's not Vasquez. Look."
I knelt beside the body. The face was younger, the features sharper. She was not the woman we had come to meet.
"They sent a decoy," I said. "She was bait."
"For what?"
The answer came from behind us. A voice, calm and unhurried.
"For you."
II. THE HUNTERS
I turned. Three men stood in the doorway, filling it, their shadows stretching across the bloodied floor. The one in front was the man from the Pantheon, the one who had let us go in Rome. He was not smiling now.
"You should have stayed in Argentina," he said.
Claudia pressed herself against the wall. I stepped in front of her, my knife useless against the guns they carried.
"Where is Vasquez?" I asked.
"She died three days ago. Her own hand, or so the report says. We made it look like she was still alive long enough to bring you here."
"Why?"
"Because you have something we need. The list. And because you have something else. A name. The name of the person who is going to expose Eclipse before we're ready."
I said nothing.
He took a step closer. "The son. Matteo. We know he's with you. We know he has the contracts. We want him."
"He's not with us."
"We'll find him. But first, we'll have you."
He raised his gun.
From behind us, a crash. The window exploded inward, glass spraying across the room. A figure dropped from the fire escape, landing between us and the hunters, a pistol raised.
It was Lena.
"Get down!" she shouted.
I grabbed Claudia and pulled her to the floor. Lena fired twice, the shots deafening in the small room. The man in front staggered, clutching his shoulder. His companions returned fire, the bullets tearing into the walls, the furniture, the body of the dead woman.
Lena grabbed my arm. "Go! Now!"
We ran. Through the door, down the stairs, out into the street. Behind us, more shots, then the screech of tires as the hunters' car pulled away.
We did not stop until we were blocks away, our lungs burning, our legs shaking. Lena led us to a van parked near the Plaza de España, its engine running, Matteo at the wheel.
"Get in," he said.
III. THE ACCUSATION
We drove through the night, leaving Madrid behind, heading south toward the coast. Lena sat in the back with Claudia, who was silent, her face pale, her hands still trembling. I sat in the front with Matteo, watching the darkness rush past the window.
After an hour, Claudia spoke.
"You led them to us."
I turned. "What?"
"The meeting. Vasquez's apartment. You knew it was a trap. You went anyway."
"I didn't know. I suspected. But we had to try."
"You wanted them to find us. You wanted to see who they were, how they worked. You used us as bait."
Lena looked between us, her expression unreadable. Matteo's hands tightened on the wheel.
"Claudia, that's not what happened."
"Isn't it?" Her voice was shaking. "You've been running this hunt from the beginning. You found me in Buenos Aires. You pushed me to give you the list. You called Kerim, you reached out to Vasquez, you kept moving us into places where they could find us."
"I was trying to verify the list."
"You were trying to draw them out. And you used me to do it."
I met her eyes. There was no accusation in them. Only a cold, tired certainty.
"You're right," I said. "I was trying to draw them out. But not with you. With myself. I am the one who published the ledger. I am the one they want. You are just collateral."
She stared at me.
"I didn't know about Vasquez," I said. "I didn't know they would kill someone to set the trap. But I knew they would come. And I let them."
The silence in the van was absolute.
Finally, Claudia nodded. "You should have told me."
"If I had, would you have come?"
She did not answer.
IV. THE ALLIANCE
We stopped at a service station outside Valencia. Lena bought coffee and sandwiches. Claudia went to the bathroom and did not come back for twenty minutes. I waited by the van, watching the road, wondering if she would run.
She did not. She returned with her face washed, her eyes clear.
"I'm not leaving," she said. "Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because you were right. We needed to draw them out. And now we know more than we did before."
She sat on the bumper, cradling a paper cup of coffee.
"The man in the apartment. The one Lena shot. He's the one who paid me. He's the one who has been running the cleanup."
"You know him?"
"I know his voice. I know his methods. He's not just a hunter. He's the one who gave the orders to kill Richter, Khalil, Petrov. He's the one who decided who lives and who dies."
She looked at me. "And now we know where to find him."
"Where?"
"He's not going back to Rome. He's not going to Moscow. He's going to the staging ground. To Dnipro. Because that's where Eclipse is happening."
I thought about the facility, the weapons, the trucks moving north. I thought about the dead general, the contracts signed by ghosts.
"You want to go after him."
"I want to finish what the Trader started. He wrote the names. Now we have to stop them."
Matteo came to stand beside us. "I know where the facility is. I can get us in."
Lena shook her head. "That's a war zone. You'll be killed."
"We'll be killed if we stay here. The network knows we're alive. They'll keep hunting. The only way to survive is to expose them completely."
I looked at Claudia. She nodded.
"Then we go east," I said.