For what seemed like a long time, Alexandra’s world was reduced to chaos. Then came the sirens, disembodied and insistent, cutting through the swelter of smoke and the hot, copper taste of blood. The hypnotic secret agent watched the emergency vehicles arrive on the scene, but her thoughts were numb. It was as if her soul had left her body and was struggling to return to it.

When she finally did so, sensation began to return as desperate hands gripping her wrists, bracing her head, and peeling the debris from her chest. The voices arrived next, a chorus of accented Spanish, speaking rapidly against the warehouse’s charred husk.

She blinked, the world around her a painting of disaster: the roof collapsed, sunlight pouring through the wounds of the building, concrete dust hanging in the air like snow. Her mind tried to reconstruct the sequence: Torres, the bombs, the shrapnel, the flash of heat, but time had gone spongy, logic elastic and unreliable. She coughed, and someone rolled her onto her side. There was a paramedic, young and trembling, face mottled with horror at his surroundings. He kept repeating, “Cuida, cuida,” as he checked her leg.

Beyond him, a ring of navy uniforms corralled the crime scene, yellow tape unfurling in the wind. It was a circus of flashing lights and shouted orders. A woman in a Guardia Civil uniform paced nearby, barking into a radio. Alexandra felt her tactical jacket pulled away, the cool bite of scissors against her flesh, then the sharp sting as a field dressing was pressed against the wound. The pain was immediate. She gritted her teeth, tried to sit up, and instantly regretted it: her shoulder screamed, and so did she.

Two different medical teams argued over her body, trading clipped sentences, while a third team attended to the blackened, unrecognizable remains by the stairs. She caught glimpses: the twisted metal of the van, one of the bomb carriers slumped over the bay doors, a booted foot protruding from beneath a slab of cinderblock. It was a nightmarish vision for sure, yet not the worst thing she had seen on the job. Alexandra cataloged her injuries, comparing them to the last time she’d been blown off her feet, and decided she could live with the odds.

A hand pressed gently but insistently on her sternum. “Señorita, por favor, no se mueva,” said the paramedic. Alexandra nodded, blinking sweat and dust from her eyes. She tried to contact Melvin again, but a second hand gently restrained her.

“You’re at the depot,” said a male voice in almost perfect English. “You suffered a concussion, possible shrapnel penetration. Please try to keep as still as possible.”

She looked up and saw him: tall, lean, early forties, dark hair combed with precision, eyes the color of wet slate. He wore a suit so sharply tailored it looked immune to the chaos around him. His badge flashed CNI - Centro Nacional de Inteligencia. Like her, he had witnessed many horrors throughout his professional life and had become somewhat desensitized. The way he looked at her suggested he didn’t want to waste any time figuring out what had transpired and why.

“Señorita Ryder?” he said, again in English. His voice was low, confidential, almost gentle. “Do you understand me?”

She nodded, winced, then coughed again, clearing the last grit from her lungs. She tried to sit again; this time, the agent helped her, bracing her back with unexpected gentleness. A paramedic wrapped her shoulder in gauze, then pressed a cold pack to the swelling. Her skin was streaked with blood and soot. She looked like something dragged out of a trench.

The agent introduced himself as Emiliano Gálvez, but Alexandra clocked the way the paramedics deferred to him: this was not an ordinary field agent. She also noticed his lack of visible sidearm, his refusal to crouch, and the way he kept his line of sight open to his surroundings. He was assessing her, but also the perimeter, the responders, and the journalists already converging on the scene.

“I was just on the phone with General Hayes. Can you tell me what happened?” he asked, tablet already in hand, stylus poised. “The sequence, from your perspective.”

She inhaled, focusing. “Torres. He came for the shipment. He escaped with a case. It looked like a laptop, but I’m not sure.”

Gálvez nodded, jotting notes. “Any indication of his next destination?”

Alexandra’s mind ran the post-incident checklist. “He had a vehicle, a white SUV, northbound..” Her thoughts sharpened as she spoke, the old muscle memory of debriefings kicking in. “We already know this is a large-scale operation. He burned his own men to stop me and cover his exit.”

Gálvez’s eyebrows ticked up. “You’re certain?”

“Yes, and I have the marks to prove it.”

The paramedics finished packing her wounds. One of them pressed a packet of gauze into her palm, gave her a thumbs up, and moved on to the next casualty. Gálvez pressed the tablet to his chest and lowered his voice.

“Was anyone else with you?” he asked.

“No,” Alexandra said. “As I’m sure General Hayes already told you, I was solo. I have someone on comms, but offsite.”

“Why do you Americans love to interfere in other countries’ affairs so much?”

“Don’t ask me. To be honest, I’d rather not be here right now. I was on vacation, but then shit happened, as it usually does.”

“I see.” He tapped the stylus against his teeth, pensive. “Did you see anyone else enter the premises in the last hour?”

She thought of the way the van was parked, the precision timing of the bomb handlers, the covert hand signals exchanged before the breach. There had been something off about it all, a sense of choreography, not improvisation.

“No. I may recall some more details later, but for now, things are still hazy.”

Gálvez looked over his shoulder, scanning the scene, then handed her a water bottle. “Understandable. You need to be seen by a proper doctor. A field hospital is being put together right now. I’ll want your report as soon as possible.”

He started to rise, but Alexandra caught his sleeve. “You’ll get more than that. I’m still on the job, and won’t let him get away.”

His face hardened. “You’ve done enough. We don’t need your help, Miss Ryder.”

“The hell you don’t! I’ve dealt with Torres in the past. Unfortunately, I know how he thinks.”

“So do we. We’ve got this.”

“He tried to blow me away, Gálvez. Would you sit still if you were in my shoes?”

The CNI agent stopped to think for a moment and then replied,

“No, I wouldn’t. The problem is, we also know you. You have… quite an interesting reputation in the intelligence world, Miss Ryder.”

“And also a success rate unlike any other. You can use my skills, and I’m sure you will. It’s in the best interest of our governments that we work together on this one.”

“Hmmm… perhaps. We’ll talk again after you’ve had the doctor check you out.”

She let him go and sat back, watching the blur of responders and officers crisscrossing the warehouse’s wounds. Someone brought her a blanket; she wrapped it around her shoulders, shivering despite the heat. Every few seconds, a flashbulb went off nearby, the world already wanting answers, explanations, someone to blame.

An officer in riot gear picked his way through the debris, carrying a small duffel bag. He thrust it into Alexandra’s lap: her courier bag, or what was left of it, anyway.

“Su bolsa, señorita.”

As expected, none of its content had survived. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been lucky this time. Had she been closer to the blast, there would be no more Alexandra for anyone. Despite the circumstances, the pain she was still experiencing served as a reminder of her good fortune.

A gurney arrived, and two medics lifted her onto it. She protested, but they ignored her, rolling her through the carnage and out into the fire-lit morning. The police perimeter was now two city blocks wide, a cordon of flashing blue and red, interspersed with news cameras desperate to find the best angle for their coverage.

She was taken to a temporary triage tent erected in the shadow of the warehouse’s shell. The interior smelled of sweat and antiseptic, the canvas walls vibrating with the noise of the city waking to disaster. Alexandra was left on a cot, flanked by two officers who did not take their eyes off her. As she was waiting for the doctor, Melvin called her on Comms to see how she was doing.

“Alexandra? Talk to me. How are you holding up?”

She pressed the earpiece closer, wincing at the movement. “Mostly intact. Bit banged up, but I’ll live. Please tell me we have satellite footage of Torres as he made his escape.”

“I wish I could, but everything got hectic after the blast. We lost visuals almost immediately.”

“Damn it! I almost had him, Melvin. Fucking almost.”

“Don’t blame yourself. I know you did your best. There’s still time to get everything sorted out.”

“That may be so, but the quicker the better.”

“Dying to get back to your vacation?”

“Wouldn’t you be, too?” Alexandra shifted on the cot, testing her shoulder’s range of motion. Sharp pain lanced through her muscles. Not good.

One of the officers - young, nervous - kept glancing at her. She knew the look. Fresh recruit, first major incident. Probably wondering if she was some kind of dangerous foreigner. He was cute, though, and would probably make a good hypnotic subject if the circumstances allowed it.

The tent’s canvas rustled with outside activity. Distant radios squawked, vehicles shifted, and rumbled. Her mind was already going through the warehouse scene again, looking for details she might have missed. Torres always had plans stacked on top of other plans. Always.

“I need to go now, Melvin,” Alexandra said. “Talk to you soon.

A doctor walked inside the tent. He was a burly, mid-fifties man with salt and pepper hair and calloused hands. He spoke rapid Spanish to one of the officers, who nodded and stepped back, and then addressed her in somewhat broken English:

“Take a look… yes?”

Alexandra tensed. She hated hospitals. Hated feeling vulnerable and not in control of the situation. The doctor’s fingers probed her with care, and she bit back a sharp intake of breath. Each touch sent electric jolts of pain through her system.

“Lucky,” the doctor muttered. “Shrapnel missed major arteries. The concussion is mild. You need rest.”

Rest. Right. As if that was even a possibility now.

Suddenly, there was more commotion outside. The distant shouting was no longer the scattershot panic of first responders but the focused, urgent barking of command, and she needed to find out what was going on.

Alexandra ignored the doctor and swung her legs off the cot, pushing upright with a hiss of pain. The two officers on watch tried to forestall her, but she cut them off with a glare that brokered no argument.

She parted the tent flap and stepped outside once again. The warehouse and its surrounds had become a stage for conflicting authorities: paramedics darted between triage tents, CNI agents clustered in tight huddles, and the police perimeter flexed and contracted with every new development. At the far end of the cordon, a knot of riot officers in black body armor pressed inward, their formation protecting something, or someone.

Alexandra’s training had taught her to spot the subtle differences between a perimeter set up for crowd control and one for high-value containment. This was the latter. She moved toward it, letting adrenaline override physical pain, and was halfway there when she caught sight of Gálvez. He was walking briskly, tablet in hand, flanked by a pair of subordinates. He saw her, hesitated, and then inclined his head for her to follow.

The two converged at the edge of a police vehicle, its back doors shielded by a makeshift privacy tarp. The riot police parted just enough to let Gálvez and Alexandra through. Inside, a man in bloodstained clothes sat handcuffed and slumped against the seat, his face smeared with soot. He was conscious enough to spit on the floor as they approached.

“Looks like he made it through the fireworks,” Alexandra said, keeping her voice low. “Does he speak English?”

Gálvez shrugged. “Probably. These mercenaries usually pick up just enough to be dangerous.” Tension was in the air: one wrong move and their only lead might bleed out or clam up for good.

The medical team had already stabilized the prisoner, so Alexandra turned to Gálvez and said, “I want a crack at him. Give me ten minutes before you bring in the heavy hitters.”

He looked at her sidelong, as if weighing the likelihood that she might make things worse. “Excuse me? You’re not cleared for interrogations. You’re a foreign operative working on Spanish soil. And you’re injured.”

“No one’s going to get more out of him than I can,” she said quietly. “If you know my reputation, then you know what I’m capable of.” She held his gaze, letting him read the challenge in her face. If he were half as well briefed as he thought, he’d know she was being nothing more than truthful.

He took a long moment to consider her proposal and then asked,

“You think you can break him?”

“Not break. Persuade.” She watched the prisoner’s eyes flicker between them, sizing up the threat. “He’ll never talk to you. I’m the only person in this country he hasn’t been trained to resist.”

“You seem awfully sure of yourself.”

“That’s because I am. Come on, Gálvez. You want info, and so do I. I said you could use my skills. This is your chance.”

“Why should I trust you, Miss Ryder?”

“Because you’ve got nothing to lose if you do. There’s a known terrorist at large plotting against this and other European cities. More than anything, this is the time for proper cooperation.”

“You know, I really don’t believe in that hypnosis and brainwashing bullshit everyone claims you’re so good at…”

“I honestly don’t give a fuck whether you believe in it or not. That’s not the point - results are! And I’m not asking for much.”

“Ten minutes, huh?”

“Could be less, depending on how suggestible he is. You can call General Hayes again. He’ll be more than happy to vouch for me on this matter.”

“I don’t need to talk to your boss again.”

“Then what? Talk to yours? The clock is ticking, Gálvez. The longer Torres is out and about in Madrid, the more dangerous he becomes. Take a chance on me, and I promise you won’t regret it.”

The CNI agent considered his options. Everything about this situation was highly irregular, but she had a point. Torres was the main target, and the man they had captured was just a lowly grunt. Would anyone really bat an eye if they used unconventional methods to stop an imminent disaster from happening?

“If I let you do this, I need to be present. You can’t be left alone with the prisoner.”

“Fine by me. Are we doing this or not?”

Gálvez gestured for his men to clear out. The riot officers peeled back, keeping a respectful distance. Alexandra stepped in, leaned against the open door, and looked the prisoner squarely in the eye. It was time for her to work her magic.

((to be continued))