Alicia walked slowly around the room, rapping on the walls with her knuckles, but they seemed solid. A metal door was just visible in a corner. She unlocked the lever and opened it. On the other side she found a room, about six meters square, its walls covered in dusty shelving: perhaps an old pantry. The metal drumming could be heard more clearly here. She took a few more steps into the room and felt the vibration beneath her feet. Then she noticed it: a dark line that looked like a vertical crack in the wall at the far end. She drew closer and felt the wall. When she pushed it with both hands, the wall gave way. A strong animal stench of rot and excrement rose from inside. Nauseated, she covered her face with her hand.

A tunnel opened up before her, drilled through the stone, descending at an angle of forty-five degrees. A staircase of irregular steps ran down into the darkness.

Suddenly the drumming stopped. Alicia took one step down and listened. She thought she could hear a faint sound of someone breathing. Pointing her revolver forward, she descended another step.

On one side, hanging from a metal hook on the wall, was a long object. A torch. Alicia took it and, turning the handle, switched it on. A beam of white light penetrated the thick, damp darkness rising from the well.

“Hendaya? Is that you? Don’t leave me here . . .” The voice came from the end of the tunnel, broken, barely human.

Alicia stepped down slowly until she glimpsed the metal bars. Raising the torch, she swept the inside of the cell with its beam. When she realized what she was seeing, her blood froze.

He looked like a wounded animal, covered in filth and rags. Wisps of grimy hair and a thick beard hid a yellow face with scratches all over it. The creature crawled up to the bars and stretched out a pleading hand. Alicia lowered her weapon and looked at the prisoner in astonishment. He placed his other arm between the metal bars, and she noticed that his hand was missing. It had been brutally amputated at the wrist, and the stump was covered with dry tar. The skin on that arm had a purplish tone.

Struggling to hold back her nausea, Alicia went over to the metal bars. “Valls?” she asked in astonishment. “Are you Mauricio Valls?”

The prisoner opened his mouth as if he were trying to form a word, but the only thing that came out of his lips was a harrowing groan. Alicia examined the cell’s lock. A wrought-iron padlock sealed a chain looped around the bars.

She could hear the sound of footsteps through the walls. She didn’t have much time. On the other side of the bars, Valls looked at her with eyes that were drowning in despair. She knew she couldn’t get him out of there. Even supposing she could blow open the padlock with her gun, she assumed that Hendaya must have left at least two or three men in the house. She was going to have to leave Valls in his cell and go in search of Vargas.