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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

Fifteen minutes later, he found himself, fully clothed, wading waist-high through the crashing waves. In one hand he held a bottle of bourbon and, in the other, a plastic bottle of barbiturates he had found in the medicine cabinet in his father’s bathroom. A wild wave stopped his momentum, knocking him over, and he went under for the first time. When he emerged, he struggled to regain his balance, but after a few seconds he managed to stand upright and stare straight-ahead, out to sea. He held his position for a few seconds and then began walking.

By the time Amanda signed off, hundreds of millions of people around the world were coming to terms with a new reality. Hembury and Vargas were stunned by the display of sheer journalistic brilliance they had just witnessed.

“Troy, she nailed that bastard to a giant cross. There’s no coming back from this. I can’t believe it’s finally over.”

“What are you going to do now, Nic?”

Vargas sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes. “I don’t know about you but I feel like I want to sleep for a week. I really need to get back home and help Juan and the team as they work their way through the car crash I left behind.”

“Listen, Nic, before you go back and catch up on your sleep, I have an idea. How about not sleeping and pulling an all-nighter in Vegas?”

Vargas’s face broke into a huge smile. “Bring it on. Who needs sleep?”

* * *

Six thousand miles away in a small city in Patagonia, an old lady sat up in bed and watched events unfold live on TV. She glanced away from the screen and stared at the small white plate on her bedside table with its slice of birthday cake. Next to it sat a tiny green onyx jewellery box. Her bony fingers slowly prised open the lid and fumbled around inside until she found what she was searching for. Her grip was pitifully weak but she managed to lift the glass vial out of the box, balancing it between her forefinger and thumb. She used her tongue to help position it between her back teeth and then crunched down, releasing the cyanide.

In the afternoon of her one hundredth birthday, sixty-seven years after she had first faked her own death, Eva Braun finally took her own life.

Epilogue

6 April 2012

Washington D.C.