Chapter 3 - What Lucía Knew
Iván reached for the radio.
Marcos pulled it away.
“Don’t.”
“She’s confused.”
“She just fell off a mountain and somehow she’s still making more sense than you.”
“Give me the radio.”
“No.”
Álvaro stepped between them.
“We need to find her.”
Iván laughed once.
“You really believe her?”
Álex stood beside the damaged helicopter.
“I believe somebody cut that pin.”
“That doesn’t mean me.”
“No,” Álex said. “But you were one of only three people who had access to the hangar last night.”
Iván’s eyes narrowed.
“Who were the other two?”
“Lucía.”
“And?”
Álex hesitated.
“Me.”
Marcos looked at him.
Álex lifted both hands.
“I didn’t do this.”
Iván smiled.
“Interesting.”
Marcos shook his head.
“Don’t even start.”
Iván pointed toward Álex.
“He had access. He understands the system better than anyone.”
“And Lucía specifically named you,” Marcos said.
“She hated me.”
“No. She distrusted you.”
“Same difference.”
Marcos stared toward the ridge where he had seen the figure.
“We find her. Then we hear what she has.”
Iván’s jaw tightened.
The team began climbing.
Lucía had fallen into a ravine almost half a mile from their emergency landing site.
The terrain was brutal.
Loose stone.
Sharp drops.
Thick brush.
Marcos moved fastest.
He found the first sign twenty minutes later.
Blood on a broken branch.
Then another.
Then a torn piece of Lucía’s sleeve.
“She came through here.”
Álvaro looked down the slope.
“How did she survive?”
Álex studied the trees.
“She probably hit those branches before the ledge.”
They followed the trail.
Then Marcos found footprints.
Lucía had been walking.
Barely.
But walking.
Suddenly a gunshot cracked through the valley.
Stone exploded beside Marcos’s face.
“Down!”
Everyone dropped.
A second shot hit a tree.
Marcos looked upslope.
A shadow moved between the rocks.
Álvaro drew his weapon.
“Who the hell is shooting at us?”
Iván crouched behind a boulder.
“Could be her.”
Marcos stared at him.
“Lucía just called us for help.”
Another round struck the ground.
Álex pointed.
“Shooter’s moving east!”
Marcos fired once toward the ridge, forcing the shooter down.
The gunfire stopped.
For several seconds, there was nothing except wind.
Then Marcos’s radio crackled.
Lucía.
“Marcos.”
He answered instantly.
“Where are you?”
“Don’t say my location over the radio.”
Marcos looked at Iván.
Lucía continued.
“One of you has another transmitter.”
Iván’s face changed slightly.
Marcos caught it.
“What proof do you have?”
A pause.
Then Lucía said the words that changed everything.
May you like
“A recording of Iván ordering the helicopter sabotage.”
And this time, even Iván stopped pretending he wasn’t afraid.
