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Back The Counterfeit Candidate Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Prologue
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. Chapter Forty-Six
  48. Chapter Forty-Seven
  49. Chapter Forty-Eight
  50. Chapter Forty-Nine
  51. Chapter Fifty
  52. Chapter Fifty-One
  53. Chapter Fifty-Two
  54. Chapter Fifty-Three
  55. Chapter Fifty-Four
  56. Chapter Fifty-Five
  57. Chapter Fifty-Six
  58. Epilogue
  59. Author’s Note
  60. Acknowledgements
  61. About the Author

Every day, she scheduled personnel meetings at the fifty-six stations that were dotted around the city. Today she felt under far more pressure than usual as she sat at her desk arranging her daily planner. She ensured that her final meeting would take place at the Twenty-Fifth Division on Avenida Guzmán, where Chief Inspector Vargas and his serious crime squad were based. Bianchi was held in high regard by all her contemporaries, including the chief of police, but none of them were aware she hid two huge secrets: Bianchi was addicted to online gambling and was on the payroll of Theodor Consultants.

The previous night, she had been summoned to a rare face-to-face meeting with her handler, Alonso Núñez, which proved to be one of the worst experiences of her life. It was only the third time in five years they had met in person. Núñez had summoned her to a meet in a quiet bar near the port. He outlined an outrageous plan that involved her initiating a late-night fire in Vargas’s station. Bianchi was horrified by the request and argued she was a paid informer, not a criminal arsonist, but soon realised he was deadly serious. Núñez seemed desperate and was obviously acting under enormous pressure from above. He made it abundantly clear that failure to comply would mean a painful death for both her and her eighteen-year-old daughter, who was currently away at university.

Bianchi realised, at that precise moment, she was completely out of her depth and had little choice but to cooperate with Núñez’s demands. She had screwed up badly, and now she had to pay the price. The meeting moved on from the bar to Núñez’s apartment, where he demonstrated how easy it is to start a fire using minimal props. By the time she left, at two in the morning, she had been fully briefed and her handbag contained everything she needed to carry out the assignment.

* * *

Torres sat opposite his boss in the office, looking slightly bemused.

“Chief, I don’t quite understand what’s going on. You spent all night going through the materials, yet you won’t tell me what you actually found. What the hell was in that box?”

Vargas was feeling exhausted, having only caught a couple of hours’ sleep, catnapping in his office chair.