“Luci, I want you, Benjamín, Thiago and six of our best operatives in the boardroom in the next hour. We have an urgent problem to solve and, until we fix it, nobody rests, nobody sleeps.”

The nine senior agents of Theodor Consultants sat around the large rectangular walnut table in total silence, waiting for their leader to speak. Paz was seated at one end, staring intently at the screen of his laptop, which was logged on to the home page of the Buenos Aires Times. The banner headline reported the sensational safe-deposit robbery at the Banco Estero. Paz slammed the laptop shut and broke into life. As ever, his tone was menacing.

“Gentlemen, the very survival of our company and possibly our lives depend on your ability to solve a very big problem. You all know about the robbery by now. One of the boxes broken into belongs to our most valued client, who also happens to be our principal investor. We need to retrieve its contents. Create whatever chaos is necessary but find the men who are behind this.”

Paz paused and looked around the room at the grim faces of his senior men. He was staring directly at Luciano when he resumed speaking. “We are going to need to shake down every contact we have in the city to get a lead on who these guys are – jewellers, pawnshops, drug dealers and any other informants we have on the payroll. Someone must know something. Call in whatever favours you’re owed but get me some names. I wanna know how these fuckers pulled it off. We also need a full list of the owners of all the boxes in the vault, in case one of them was involved.”

Everyone around the table nodded as the Black Scorpion continued. “Luci, have we still got our source inside the City Police Department? We’re going to need to know every single step they take in this investigation.”

Luciano sat forward in his chair and rested his arms on the table. “Yes, boss, we do. We already know from them that the man running the case is a chief inspector named Vargas. He visited the bank earlier, where he met with the general manager and requested a great deal of information. He also took possession of a hard drive that holds camera coverage of the break-in. Our source says they can get sight of all emails that Vargas sends and receives so, hopefully, we can always stay one step ahead.”

Paz picked up his laptop from the table. “Good. And I want a copy of that fucking hard drive as well.”

He rose from his chair and nodded at Herrera, then turned to face the room. “And one last thing for now. Once we find the assholes who did this and we retrieve our client’s materials, none of those fuckers are going to live to tell the tale.”