But he did not answer anymore. He lost consciousness before entering the operating room.
During the preparation, a nurse cut the uniform. He stopped suddenly discovering the tight bandages under his clothes, the marks on his skin and the truth that the uniform had hidden for months.
Dr. Marcos realized then that the mystery was not a doctor.
He was human.
And far more dangerous than everyone imagined.
When the operating room doors closed, Leonardo stood alone in the hallway, soaked, shaking, with a question stuck in his chest:
If that soldier wasn’t really Ricardo… where was his best friend?
Eight months earlier, the morning of the departure to Chiapas, Leonardo was the only one who noticed that something did not fit.
The military convoy was waiting in the courtyard of the base in Puebla. Soldiers were riding with backpacks, training weapons and dream faces. Captain Ernesto Silveira was reviewing a list with Sgt. Martin Luna, two tough, respected and feared men.
“Miss Ricardo Torres,” Leonardo said, “wlk. He’s never late.
The sergeant snorted.
The army is waiting for no one.
But when the bus engine was already on, a figure appeared running through the entrance. Ricardo gasped up, pale, with a small wound near the eyebrow.
“I had an accident,” he explained. I don’t remember what happened.
Captain Silveira looked at him as if he had seen a ghost.
“An accident?”
“Yes, my captain. I woke up in a hospital.
Silveira and the sergeant exchanged a quick, almost imperceptible look. Leonardo saw her. He didn’t understand, but he saw it.
Since that day, Ricardo was another. He did not remember jokes from the academy, avoided dressing rooms, changed his back and became ill every morning. In the jungle, while the others learned to orient themselves between mud, rain and mosquitoes, he seemed to fight something within himself.
One night, sitting next to the base foog, Leonardo confronted him.
You are not the Richard I know.
The person with Ricardo’s face looked at him for a long time. Her eyes were filled with fear.
I can’t tell you yet.
