Chapter 9 - The Blue Room
The ladder ended in a circular chamber painted dark blue.
No windows.
No furniture.
Only a drain in the center of the floor and chains fixed to one wall.
Andrés’s flashlight moved across old stains.
Teresa refused to enter fully.
She remained on the final rung, gripping the ladder.
Rafael stood below her.
“What happened here?” Andrés asked.
Teresa stared at the chains.
“Six months after the funeral, a man came to the estate at night. He looked like Rafael. He knew our memories. He knew the family codes. He even knew the words engraved inside my ring.”
Rafael’s jaw tightened.
“What did you do?”
“I let him inside.”
“You believed him?”
“For three days.”
Andrés looked between them.
“What exposed him?”
Teresa swallowed.
“He called you by your full name.”
“That proves nothing.”
“Your father never did. Not once. Even when angry, he called you Captain because you commanded your toy soldiers.”
The man claiming to be Rafael closed his eyes.
Teresa continued, “I confronted the impostor. He attacked me. Mateo and Emilio Rojas helped restrain him. We brought him here.”
Sofía’s anger shifted into confusion.
“My father was here?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He questioned the man.”
“How?”
Teresa did not answer.
The chains answered for her.
Sofía stepped backward.
Teresa’s voice cracked.
“The impostor died before telling us who sent him.”
“Did you kill him?” Andrés asked.
“No.”
“Who did?”
The blue room door above them exploded inward.
Dust fell from the ladder shaft.
Ordoñez’s men were entering the control room.
Rafael moved toward a second door concealed in the curved wall.
Teresa seized his coat.
“Tell him.”
Rafael looked at her.
“Not here.”
“You always say not here. Not yet. Not until it is safe. Sixteen years have passed, and still the truth must wait.”
Andrés stepped between them.
“Who killed the impostor?”
Teresa pointed at Rafael.
“He did.”
Sofía raised her empty hands in disbelief.
“But you said Rafael had already disappeared.”
“He had.”
Andrés understood before she finished.
“The impostor was killed by another man claiming to be Rafael.”
Teresa nodded.
“Two men returned that year.”
The man beside them spoke quietly.
“I was the second.”
A heavy impact shook the hatch above.
They had seconds.
Rafael opened the concealed door.
Beyond it was an underground railway tunnel barely wide enough for a maintenance cart.
He started the engine.
Andrés helped Teresa aboard. Sofía climbed behind her.
They moved as Ordoñez’s men descended into the blue room.
Gunshots followed.
Bullets struck the tunnel walls.
The cart accelerated into darkness.
For several minutes, only the engine and Teresa’s breathing could be heard.
Andrés kept his weapon aimed at Rafael’s back.
“You killed the first impostor?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know he was not another version of you?”
“Because I knew who trained him.”
“Varela?”
“No.”
“Ordoñez?”
Rafael looked over his shoulder.
“My brother.”
Mateo had insisted the recorded voice was not his.
Yet voices could be imitated.
Memories could be stolen.
Faces could be reconstructed.
And a wounded man in a chapel could still be part of a design.
The cart slowed near a collapsed section of tunnel.
Rafael switched off the motor.
“We walk from here.”
Teresa could barely stand.
Andrés carried her.
The passage climbed toward an iron door marked C-7.
The same code written in the ledger.
Sofía stared at it.
“This is where they transferred you after the crash.”
Rafael inserted his hand into a narrow opening beside the door.
A scanner activated.
ACCESS DENIED.
He tried again.
ACCESS DENIED.
Andrés stepped closer.
“If you are Rafael, why doesn’t it recognize you?”
Rafael examined the scanner.
“It was changed.”
A small screen lit up.
IDENTITY REQUIRED.
Below the words appeared three names.
RAFAEL VALDÉS
ANDRÉS VALDÉS
EMILIO ROJAS
Sofía whispered, “My father.”
Rafael looked toward her.
The scanner requested a living biometric sample from any two listed individuals.
Andrés placed his thumb against the glass.
His name turned green.
Sofía tried hers.
Nothing happened.
“Direct identities only,” Rafael said. “Children do not qualify.”
“You try,” Andrés ordered.
Rafael placed his thumb against the scanner.
The machine processed the sample.
Then his name turned red.
IDENTITY REJECTED.
Teresa stared at him.
The man removed his hand.
“It does not prove anything.”
“It proves you are not Rafael,” Sofía said.
“Or that their records were altered.”
Behind them, voices echoed through the tunnel.
Ordoñez’s team was approaching.
The screen changed.
A new message appeared.
SECOND IDENTITY DETECTED INSIDE C-7.
Then came a sound from beyond the door.
Three slow knocks.
A pause.
Two more.
The old Valdés distress signal.
Teresa began trembling.
Someone inside whispered her name.
The voice was weak, but unmistakable.
“Teresa.”
The man beside them turned pale.
Andrés aimed his pistol at him.
“Who are you?”
He raised both hands.
“My name is Rafael Valdés.”
May you like
From behind the iron door, the second voice spoke again.
“So is mine.”
