The guards rushed forward, but he made no attempt to escape.
Salomé clung to him with a strength far beyond her years.
“It’s time they know the truth,” she said clearly.
“It’s time.”
72 HOURS
From behind the observation window, Colonel Méndez watched every second.
His instincts — the same instincts that had kept him alive and employed for thirty years — screamed that something extraordinary had just occurred.
He picked up the phone.
“I need you to stop everything,” he said.
“We have a problem.”
He replayed the security footage five times in his office.
The embrace.
The whisper.
The transformation.
“What did she say?” he demanded of the closest guard.
“I didn’t hear it, Colonel. But whatever it was… he changed completely.”
Méndez leaned back in silence.
He had seen false confessions.
He had seen guilty men collapse.
He had never seen certainty ignite like that.
He called the Attorney General.
“I need a seventy-two-hour suspension.”
