Role: Bar owner. Spy. Informant. Femme fatale. Deadlier than she looks.
Location: Santa Ana district, Manila
Mission Brief:
Meet with Maria. Extract information about Lim Tionco's money laundering channels. Gain her trust. Survive her test.
---
Santa Ana – 11:23 PM
The rain hadn't stopped since the Taal incident.
Manila's streets were slick with water and secrets. Tricycles buzzed like dying flies. Neon signs flickered in the red-light district near the Pasig River, casting glows of magenta and gold over the wet asphalt.
Juan Cariño Hernández lit a cigar under the awning of La Sombra Roja, an old Spanish-style bar turned jazz-lounge near an old colonial warehouse. The sound of bolero-jazz and bandurria notes wafted out the door.
Inside was Maria de los Reyes—the infamous half-Castiza bar owner, daughter of a forgotten Spanish soldier and a Binondo socialite. She was more rumor than fact. And tonight, she was real.
---
Inside La Sombra Roja
The bar was dim and sensual. Red velvet. Mirrors. Cigarette smoke danced above a crowd of mestizo Sangleys, rich Manileños, and old military ghosts. Onstage, a woman in a terno sang in soft Spanish:
> "La sombra de tu amor...
Me sigue como el viento…"
Behind the bar, Maria poured herself a glass of Fundador and sat, legs crossed, eyes like obsidian daggers. She was stunning. But Juan knew better than to be distracted.
"Señor Hernández," she said, voice smooth as silk and sharp as a razor, "You killed three of Lim Tionco's men during the Subli."
"I'd do it again," he replied.
She raised her glass. "Then I suppose we'll get along."
---
The Test
Maria led him upstairs, through a corridor filled with Spanish oil paintings, capiz-shell windows, and candlelight. She opened a secret door behind a bookshelf.
Inside: a hidden room lined with maps, photographs, and files. Old Manila blueprints. Shipping logs. Police reports. And in the center—an old chessboard.
She poured Juan another drink.
"Before I give you what you want," she said, "I need to know if I can trust you. Play with me."
They sat. Maria moved her white bishop forward.
"You ever kill a friend?" she asked.
Juan moved his knight. "Yes."
"Did he deserve it?"
He paused. "No. But it saved lives."
Check.
---
Information Exchange
After ten moves and three lies, Maria finally opened a locked case under the table.
Inside:
A ledger detailing all of Señor Lim's laundering schemes—from Binondo pawnshops to casinos in Clark.
A video reel of secret meetings in Escolta—featuring one American: James Smith.
A handwritten letter from a corrupt Filipino senator asking for "shipment favors."
And a black envelope marked Sombra.
"This," Maria whispered, "is just the beginning. Señor Lim isn't just a kingpin. He's an agent of something older... something darker. They call themselves La Cámara Oscura—The Dark Chamber."
Juan frowned. "A secret society?"
Maria nodded. "With roots going back to the fall of the Spanish Empire. Chinese mestizo elites, forgotten friar lineages, and old American spies. And they all answer to one name."
"Lim Tionco."
---
Trust Is Earned in Blood
Suddenly, the power went out.
The air shifted.
Gunshots from downstairs. Screams. Smoke.
Maria grabbed two pistols from a drawer and threw one to Juan.
"They followed you here," she hissed. "Let's see if you're worth the files I just gave."
They moved like ghosts through the bar—Juan picking off Sangley hitmen in the hallway, Maria flipping tables and dual-wielding like a dancer of death.
In one brilliant sequence, Maria leapt off a balcony and landed heel-first on a gunman's face.
By the time the smoke cleared, five bodies lay in pools of red under neon pink lights. Maria lit a cigarette with shaking hands.
"You pass," she said.
---
Midnight Rain
Later, on the rooftop, as the rain came down and Manila glowed beneath them, Maria stood beside Juan.
"I used to believe in the Republic," she said. "But now… I believe in you."
Juan looked at her.
"And I believe Señor Lim is going to burn."
They kissed—not out of passion, but out of war. Out of pain.
The war was no longer just his.
It was theirs.