CHAPTER 7: THE UNMASKING
The moment I hung up the phone, I knew.
I knew the words I had used were wrong. Not because they were untrue, but because they were too specific. Too personal. Too much like Álvaro, and not enough like The Professor.
"You always chase ghosts."
The kind of thing a man says over wine. The kind of thing he whispers to a woman he's trying to impress. Not something a faceless voice should say to a government investigator.
I'd told her that, once. At a restaurant. Two months before this all began.
And now she'd remembered.
Inside the Mint, the alarms had finally stopped. The system reset. Lights dimmed back to normal. But inside the crew, something else had been triggered.
Pressure.
And pressure didn't reset. It built.
Berlin was pacing. His voice was tight over the internal radio.
"That was a test. Next time, they'll be smarter. Faster."
Tokyo leaned against a pillar, watching him like you watch a man trying not to fall off the edge.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Define 'okay,'" he snapped.
"You're barking more than usual."
"I'm trying to prevent a bloodbath."
She stepped closer. "You mean a bloodbath you might start?"
He turned sharply. "If anyone dies in here, it will be because the world outside forced us. Not because of me."
"Then stop making it easier for them to paint us as monsters."
He didn't respond.
He couldn't.
Back in the mobile command unit, Raquel sat alone with the file.
The picture of Álvaro.
The fake lecturer. The charming stranger. The man she'd met at that off-campus workshop who said he was researching state propaganda systems. The man who talked more like a philosopher than a professor.
The man who now, she was certain, was The Professor.
She pulled up the phone call logs again. Ran voice matching.
79% match. Not perfect. But enough.
She didn't tell Prieto.
Not yet.
Because this wasn't just about strategy anymore.
It was about betrayal.
In the Mint, Nairobi was reviewing the numbers.
"We've printed 487 million so far," she said over comms. "We're halfway through the first chamber."
"Timeline?" I asked.
"At this pace, six more days. But we need to switch plates soon. We're burning through the twenties."
"Rotate. Push the fifties."
She nodded, then turned to her print team who, by now, were no longer just hostages. José was her second-in-command. A woman named Leticia had memorized the new ink ratios. Even the youngest of them, a quiet guy named Ángel, had begun volunteering for extra shifts.
The money was working.
And so was the message.
At 11:42 a.m., Rio flagged an alert.
"We've got a new signal source. It's encrypted. Government-grade."
"Origin?"
"Two blocks east. Not police. It's bouncing through a civilian node. But the encryption's military."
Raquel.
She was digging.
I leaned back in my seat and stared at the monitors.
It was only a matter of time now.
She would find me. The question wasn't if.
It was when.
And what she would do with that truth.
Later that day, inside the Mint, Arturo struck again.
He wasn't done. Not after being humiliated.
He approached Monica in the cafeteria.
"You don't have to side with them," he whispered.
She didn't look at him.
"They're criminals."
"They're giving me a million euros."
"You think they'll actually pay you?"
"They haven't lied to me yet."
"They kidnapped you."
"No, Arturo. You did. With your ego. With your need to play the hero. You almost got me killed."
He tried to grab her wrist.
She pulled away.
Denver was watching from the door.
He stepped forward, fists clenched.
"You want a rematch?" he growled.
Arturo slinked away.
But his eyes burned.
He was still planning.
Still dangerous.
That night, Berlin made a move I hadn't authorized.
He took a hostage one of the older guards into a supply closet.
For interrogation, he said.
What he really wanted was leverage.
I saw it on the feed. The screaming. The panic. The fear.
I opened the comms.
"Berlin. Stand down."
Static.
"Berlin. This is not a rogue operation. We are a unit. You step outside the plan again, and I will shut you down."
Finally, his voice came through.
"He was planning another revolt."
"We don't torture people. Not in this operation."
"You're too soft."
"No," I said. "I'm just smart."
I sent Tokyo.
She pulled Berlin out. Calmed the hostage.
He wasn't hurt. But the lines were blurring.
Inside the Mint, we were starting to look like the people we said we weren't.
And if that happened, the hostages would stop believing.
In her tent, Raquel made the decision.
She slipped away, without telling anyone.
Took a car.
Drove to the address on Álvaro's fake ID. The one he used to seduce her.
A small flat on the edge of the city.
She entered. No resistance.
The place was clean. Too clean.
Fake books. Fake dishes. One toothbrush.
A single photo frame on the nightstand. Blank inside.
He'd known she would come.
There was a note.
In my handwriting.
It read:
"You always chase ghosts. But some ghosts chase you back."