An Acceptable Sacrifice

WEDNESDAY

THEY’D MET LAST NIGHT for the first time and now, mid-morning, they were finally starting to let go a bit, to relax, to trust each other. Almost to trust each other.

Such is the way it works when you’re partnered with a stranger on a mission to kill.

“Is it always this hot?” P.Z. Evans asked, squinting painfully against the fierce glare. The dense lenses of his Ray-Bans were useless.

“No.”

“Thank God.”

“Usually is hotter,” Alejo Díaz replied, his English enriched by a luscious accent.

“You’re shitting me.”

The month was May and the temperature was around 97. They were in Zaragoza Plaza, the picturesque square dominated by a statue of two stern men Evans had learned were generals. A cathedral, too.

And then there was the sun… like burning gasoline.

Evans had flown to Hermosillo from outside D.C., where he lived when he wasn’t on the road. In the nation’s capital-the nation to the north, that is-the temperature had been a pleasant 75.

“Summer can be warm,” Díaz admitted.

“Warm?” Evans echoed wryly.

“But then… You go to Arizona?”

“I played golf in Scottsdale once.”

“Well, Scottsdale is hundreds of miles north of here. Think about that. We are in the middle of a desert. It has to be hot. What you expect?”

“I only played six rounds,” Evans said.

“What?”

“In Arizona. For me to only play six rounds… I thought I’d die. And we started at seven in the morning. You golf?”

“Me? You crazy? Too hot here.” Díaz smiled.

Evans was sipping a Coke from a bottle whose neck he’d religiously cleaned with a Handi-wipe before drinking. Supposedly Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, was the only city in Mexico that treated its water, which meant that the ice the bottles nestled in was probably safe.

Probably.

He wiped the neck and mouth again. Wished he’d brought a miniature of Jack Daniels to use as purifier. Handi-wipe tasted like crap.

Díaz was drinking coffee, to which he’d added three or four sugars. Hot coffee, not iced. Evans couldn’t get his head around that. A Starbucks addict at home and a coffee drinker in any number of the third-world places he traveled to (you didn’t get dysentery from boiled water), he hadn’t touched the stuff in Hermosillo. He didn’t care if he never had a hot beverage again. Sweat tickled under his arms and down his temple and in his crotch. He believed his ears were sweating.

The men looked around them, at the students on the way to school, the businessmen meandering to offices or meetings. No shoppers; it was too early for that, but there were some mothers about, pushing carriages. The men not in suits were wearing blue jeans and boots and embroidered shirts. The cowboy culture, Evans had learned, was popular in Sonora. Pickup trucks were everywhere, as numerous as old American cars.

These two men vaguely resembled each other. Thirties, compact, athletic, with round faces-Díaz’s pocked but not detracting from his craggy good looks, reflecting some Pima Indian in his ancestry. Dark hair both. Evans’s face was smoother and paler, of course, and a little off kilter, eyes not quite plumb. Handsome too, though, in a way that might appeal to risk-taking women.

They were in jeans, running shoes and short-sleeved shirts, untucked, which would have concealed their weapons but they weren’t carrying today.

So far there was no reason for anyone to wish them harm.

That would change.

Some tourists walked by. Hermosillo was a way station for people traveling from the U.S. to the west coast of Sonora. Lots of people driving, lots of buses.

Buses…

Evans lowered his voice, though there was no one near. “You talked to your contact this morning, Al?”

Evans had tried out shortening the Mexican agent’s name when they first met-to see how he’d react, if he’d be pissed, defensive, hostile. But the man had laughed. “You can call me Al,” he’d said, the line from a Paul Simon song. So the test became a joke and Evans had decided then that he could like this guy. The humor also added to the infrastructure of trust. A lot of people working undercover think that saying “fuck” and making jokes about women creates trust. No. It’s humor.

“Sí. And from what he say… I think our job, it will not be easy.” He took the lid off his coffee and blew to cool it, which Evans thought was hilarious. “His security, very tight. Always his security man, a good one, Jos, is with him. And word is they know something’s planned.”

“What?” Evans’s face curled up tight. “A leak?”

And this, Díaz seemed to find funny, “Oh, is always a leak. Every egg in Mexico has a crack. They won’t know about us exactly but he has heard somebody is in town to kill him. Oh, sí, he has heard.”

The “he” they were speaking of was Alonso María Carillo, better known as Cuchillo-in Spanish: “Knife.” There was some debate about where the nickname came from. It probably wasn’t because he used that weapon to kill rivals-he’d never been arrested for a violent crime… or any crime, for that matter. More likely the name was bestowed because he was brilliant. Cuchillo, as in sharp as a. He was supposedly the man behind one of the cartels in Sonora, the Mexican state that, in addition to neighboring Sinaloa, was home to the major drug gangs. But, though it was small, the Hermosillo Cartel was one of the most deadly, responsible for a thousand or more deaths… and the production of many tons of drugs-not only cocaine but insidious meth, which was the hot new profit center in the narcotics trade.

And yet Cuchillo was wily enough to avoid prosecution. The cartel was run by other men-who were, the Federales were sure, figureheads. To the world, Cuchillo was an innovative businessman and philanthropist. Educated at UCLA, a degree in business and one in English literature. He’d made his fortune, it appeared, through legitimate companies that were known for being good to workers and were environmentally and financially responsible.

So due process wasn’t an option to bring him to justice. Hence the joint operation of Alejo Díaz and P.Z. Evans-an operation that didn’t exist, by the way, if you happened to bring up the topic to anyone in Washington, D.C., or Mexico City.

“So,” Evans said, “he suspects someone is after him. That means we’ll need a diversion, you know. Misdirection. Keep him focused on that, so he doesn’t figure out what we’re really up to.”

“Yes, yes, that is right. At least one diversion. Maybe two. But we have another problem: We can’t get him into the open.”

“Why not?”

“My contact say he’s staying in the compound for the next week. Maybe more. Until he think it’s safe.”

“Shit,” Evans muttered.

Their mission was enwrapped with a tight deadline. Intelligence had been received that Cuchillo was planning an attack on a tourist bus. The vehicle would be stopped, the doors wired shut and then the bus set on fire. The attack would occur on Friday, two days from now, the anniversary of the day the Mexican president had announced his most recent war on the cartels. But there the report ended-as had, presumably, the life of the informant. It was therefore impossible to tell which bus would be targeted; there were hundreds of them daily driving many different routes and run by dozens of companies, most of whom didn’t want to scare off passengers by suspending service or cooperating with law enforcement. (In his groundwork for the mission, Evans had researched the bus operators and noted one thing their ads all had in common: they began with variations on Mexico Is Safe!!)

Even without knowing the specific bus, however, Díaz and Evans had found a way to stop the attack. The biggest cartels in Sinaloa and Sonora were pulling back from violence. It was very bad publicity-not to mention dangerous to one’s health-to kill tourists, even accidentally. An intentional attack on innocents, especially Americans, could make the drug barons’ lives pure hell. No rivals or anyone within his organization would challenge Cuchillo directly but the agents had learned that if he, say, met with an accident his lieutenants would not follow through with the attack.

However, if Cuchillo would be hiding in his compound until after the bus burned down to a scorched shell, then Díaz’s contact was right; their job would not be easy. Drone surveillance had revealed that the house was on five acres, surrounded by a tall wall crowned with electric wire, the yard filled with sensors and scanned by cameras. Sniping wouldn’t work because all the buildings-the large house, the separate library and detached garage-had thick bulletproof windows. And the walkways between those structures were out of sight of any vantage points where a shooter could set up.

As they sat bathed in the searing sun, Evans wondered if your mind slowed down the hotter it got. Oatmeal came to mind, steaming sludge.

He wiped his forehead, sipped Coke and asked for more details about Cuchillo’s professional and personal life. Díaz had quite a bit of information; the man had been under investigation for the past year. Nodding, Evans took it all in. He’d been a good tactician in the Special Forces; he was a good tactician in his present job. He drained the Coke. His third of the day.

Nine fucking forty-five in the morning.

“Tell me about his weaknesses.”

“Cuchillo? He has no weaknesses.”

“Whatta you mean? Everybody has weaknesses. Drugs, women, men? Liquor? Gambling?”

Weakness was a very effective tool of the trade in Evans’s business, as useful as bullets and C4. Usually, in fact, more so.

Díaz added yet one more sugar to his cup, though there was only a small amount of coffee remaining. He stirred elaborately. Figure eight. He sipped and then looked up. “There is maybe one thing.”

“What?”

“Books,” the Mexican agent said. “Books might be his weakness.”

The weather in Washington, D.C. was pleasant this May evening so he picked a Starbucks with an outdoor patio… because, why not?

This was in a yuppie area of the district, if yuppies still existed. Peter Billings’s father had been a yuppie. Shit, that was a long time ago.

Billings was drinking regular coffee, black, and no extra shots or foamed milk or fancy additives, which he secretly believed that people asked for sometimes simply because they liked the sound of ordering them.

He’d also bought a scone, which was loaded with calories, but he didn’t care. Besides, he’d only eat half of it. At home in Bethesda, his wife would feed him a Lean Cuisine tonight.

Billings liked Starbucks because you could count on being invisible. Business people typing resumes they didn’t want their bosses to see, husbands and wives typing emails to their lovers.

And government operatives meeting about issues that were, shall we say, sensitive.

Starbucks was also good because the steam machine made a shitload of noise and covered up the conversation if you were inside and the traffic covered up the conversation if you were outside. At least here on the streets of the District.

He ate some scone and launched the crumbs off his dark blue suit and light blue tie.

A moment later a man sat down across from him. He had a Starbuck’s coffee, too, but it’d been doctored up big time-almond or hazelnut, whipped cream, sprinkles. The man was weasely, Billings reflected. When you’re in your forties and somebody looks at you and the word weasel is the first thing that comes to mind, you might want to start thinking about image. Gain some weight.

Have a scone.

Billings now said to Harris, “Evening.”

Harris nodded then licked whipped cream from the top of his coffee carton.

Billings found it repulsive, the darting, weasely tongue. “We’re at the go/no-go point.”

“Right.”

“Your man down south.”

“Adam.”

As good a code as any for Harris’s contracting agent in Hermosillo, presently dogging Alonso María Carillo, AKA Cuchillo. Harris, of course, wasn’t going to name him. Loud traffic on the streets of D.C. is like cappuccino machines, only loud. It masks, it doesn’t obliterate, and both Harris and Billings knew there were sound engineers who could extract incriminating words from cacophony with the precision of a hummingbird sipping nectar in a hover.

“Communication is good?” A near whisper by Billings.

No response. Of course communication would be good. Harris and his people were the best. No need for a nod, either.

Billings wanted to take a bite of scone but was, for some reason, reluctant to do so in front of a man who’d killed at least a dozen people, or so the unwritten resume went. Billings had killed a number of people indirectly but, one on one? Only a squirrel. Accidentally. His voice now dropped lower yet. “Has he been in contact with the PIQ?”

Person in Question.

Cuchillo.

“No. He’s doing the prep work. From a distance.”

“So he hasn’t seen, for instance, weapons or product at the compound?”

“No. They’re staying clear. Both Adam and his counterpart from the D.F.” Harris continued, “All the surveillance is by drone.”

Which Billings had seen. And it wasn’t helpful.

They fell silent as a couple at a table nearby stood and gathered their shopping bags.

Billings told himself to be a bit subtler with his questions. Harris was on the cusp of becoming curious. And that would not be good. Billings was not prepared to share what had been troubling him for the past several hours, since the new intelligence assessment came in: that he and his department might have subcontracted out a job to assassinate the wrong man.

There was now some doubt that Cuchillo was in fact head of the Hermosillo Cartel.

The intercepts Billings’s people had interpreted as referring to drug shipments by the cartel in fact referred to legitimate products from Cuchillo’s manufacturing factories, destined for U.S. companies. A huge deposit into one of his Cayman accounts was perfectly legal-not a laundering scam, as originally thought-and was from the sale of a ranch he had owned in Texas. And the death of a nearby drug supplier they were sure was a hit ordered by Cuchillo turned out to be a real traffic accident involving a drunk driver. Much of the other data on which they’d based the terminate order remained ambiguous.

Billings had hoped that Adam, on the ground in Sonora, might have seen something to confirm their belief that Cuchillo ran the cartel.

But apparently not.

Harris licked the whipped cream again. Caught a few sprinkles in the process.

Billings looked him over again. Yes, weasely, but this wasn’t necessarily an insult. After all, a sneaky weasel and a noble wolf weren’t a lot different, at least not when they were sniffing after prey.

Harris asked bluntly, “So, do I tell Adam to go forward?”

Billings took a bite of scone. He had the lives of the passengers of the bus to save… and he had his career to think of, too. He considered the question as he brushed crumbs. He’d studied law at the University of Chicago, where the theory of cost-benefit analysis had largely been developed. The theory was this: you balanced the cost of preventing a mishap versus the odds of it occurring and the severity of the consequences if it does.

In the Cuchillo assassination, Billings had considered two options: Scenario One: Adam kills Cuchillo. If he’s not the head of the cartel and is innocent, then the bus attack happens, because somebody else is behind it. If he’s guilty, then the bus incident doesn’t happen and there’d be no bus incidents in the future. Scenario Two: Adam stands down. Now, if Cuchillo’s innocent, the bus incident happens. If he’s guilty, the bus incident happens and there’ll be more incidents like it in the future.

In other words, the hard and cold numbers favored going forward, even if Cuchillo was innocent.

But the obvious downside was that Billings could be crucified if that was the case… and if he and Harris and Adam were discovered.

An obvious solution occurred to him.

Oh, this was good. He finished the scone. “Yeah, Adam’s green-lighted. But there’s just one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Tell him however he does it, all the evidence has to be obliterated. Completely. Nothing can trace the incident back here. Nothing at all.”

And looking very much like a crossbreed, a weasel-wolf, Harris nodded and sucked up the last of the whipped cream. “I have no problem with that whatsoever.”

Díaz and Evans were back in the apartment in a nice section of Hermosillo, an apartment that was paid for by a company owned by a company owned by a company whose headquarters was a post office box in Northern Virginia. Evans was providing not only the technical expertise but most of the money as well. It was the least he could do, he’d joked, considering that it was America that supplied most of the weapons to the cartels; in Mexico it is virtually impossible to buy or possess weapons legally.

The time was now nearly five p.m. and Evans was reading an encrypted email from the U.S. that he’d just received.

He looked up. “That’s it. We’re green-lighted.”

Díaz smiled. “Good. I want that son of a bitch to go to hell.”

And they got back to work, poring over data-mined information about Cuchillo’s life: his businesses and associates and employees, household staff, his friends and mistresses, the restaurants and bars where he spent many evenings, what he bought, what he downloaded, what computer programs he used, what he enjoyed listening to, what he ate and drank. The information was voluminous; security forces here and in the U.S. had been compiling it for months.

And, yes, much of this information had to do with books.

Weaknesses…

“Listen to this, Al. Last year he bought more than a million dollars’ worth of books.”

“You mean pesos.”

“I mean dollars. Hey, you turn the A.C. down?”

Evans had noticed that the late afternoon heat was flowing into the apartment like a slow, oppressive tide.

“Just little,” Díaz said. “Air conditioning, it’s not so healthy.”

“Cold temperature doesn’t give you a cold,” Evans said pedantically.

“I know that. I mean, the mold.”

“What?”

“Mold in the ducts. Dangerous. That is what I meant, unhealthy.”

Oh. Evans conceded the point. He actually had been coughing a lot since he’d arrived. He got another Coke, wiped the neck and sipped. He spit Handi-wipe. He coughed. He turned the A.C. down a little more.

“You get used to the heat.”

“That’s not possible. In Mexico, do you have words for winter, spring and fall?”

“Ha, funny.”

They returned to the data-mined info. Not only was the credit card data available but insurance information about many of the books was often included. Some of the books were one of a kind, worth tens of thousands of dollars. They seemed to all be first editions.

“And look,” Díaz said, looking over the documents. “He never sells them. He only buys.”

It was true, Evans realized. There were no sales documents, no tax declarations of making money by selling capital items described as books. He kept everything he bought.

He’d want them around him all the time. He’d covet them. He’d need them.

Many people in the drug cartels were addicted to their own product; Cuchillo, it seemed, was not. Still, he had an addiction.

But how to exploit it?

Evans considered the list. Ideas were forming, as they always did. “Look at this, Al. Last week he ordered a book inscribed by Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop. The price is sixty thousand. Yeah, dollars.”

“For a book?” the Mexican agent asked, looking astonished.

“And it’s used,” Evans pointed out. “It’s supposed to be coming in, in a day or two.” He thought for some moments. Finally he nodded. “Here’s an idea. I think it could work… We’ll contact this man-” He found a name on the sheet of data-mined printouts. “Señor Davila. He seems to be Cuchillo’s main book dealer. What we’ll do is tell him we suspect him of money laundering.”

“He probably is.”

“And he’d pee his pants, thinking if we announce it, Cuchillo will… “Evans drew his index finger across his throat.

“Do you do that in America?”

“What?”

“You know. That thing, your finger, your throat? I only saw that in bad movies. Laurel and Hardy.”

Evans asked, “Who?”

Alejo Díaz shrugged and seemed disappointed that he’d never heard of them.

Evans continued, “So Davila will do whatever we want.”

“Which will be to call Cuchillo and tell him his Dickens book arrived early. Oh, and the seller wants cash only.”

“Good. I like that. So somebody will have to meet him in person-to collect the cash.”

“And I’ll come to his house to deliver the book. His security man probably won’t want that but Cuchillo will insist to take delivery. Because he’s-”

“Addicted.”

The Mexican agent added, “I’ll have to meet him, not you. Your Spanish, it is terrible. Why did they send you here on assignment?”

The reason for sending P.Z. Evans to a conflict zone was not because of his language skills. “I like the soft drinks.” He opened another Coke. Did the neck cleaning thing. He cleared his throat and tried not to cough.

Díaz said, “We’ll need to get the book, though. That Dickens.” Nodding at the list.

Evans said, “I’ll make some calls to my people in the States, see if they can track one down.”

Díaz asked, “Okay, so it is that I’m inside. What do I do then? If I shoot him, they shoot me.”

“Effective,” Evans pointed out.

“But not the successful plans you’re known for, P.Z.”

“True. No, what you’re going to do is plant a bomb.”

“A bomb?” Díaz said uneasily. “I don’t like them so much.”

Evans gestured to his computer, referring to the email he’d just received. “Instructions are nothing’s supposed to remain. Nothing to trace back to our bosses. Has to be a bomb. And one that produces a big honking fire.”

Díaz added, “Always collateral damage.”

The American agent shrugged. “Cuchillo doesn’t have a wife. He doesn’t have any children. Lives pretty much alone. Anybody around him is probably as guilty as he is.” Evans tapped a drone picture of the compound. “Anything and anyone inside?” A shrug. “They’re just acceptable sacrifices.”

He liked his nickname.

Alonso María Carillo was actually honored that people thought enough of him to give him a name that sounded like it was attached to some Mafioso out of a movie. Like Joey “The Knife” Vitelli.

“Cuchillo”-like a blade, like a dagger: How he loved that! And it was ironic because he wasn’t a thug, wasn’t like Tony Soprano at all. He was solid physically and he was tough, yes, but in Mexico a businessman must be tough. Still, his voice was soft and, well, inquisitive sounding. Almost innocent. His manner unassuming. His temper even.

He was in the office of his home not far from the upscale Hidalgo Plaza area of the city. Though the compound was surrounded by high walls, and sported a number of trees, from this spacious room he had a view of the city’s grandest mountain, Cerro de la Compana, if a thousand-foot jut of rock can be described thus.

It was quitting time-he’d been working here since six that morning. No breaks. He put his work aside and went online to download some apps for his new iPhone, which he would synchronize to his iPad. He loved gadgets-both in his personal life and in business he always stayed current with the latest technology. (Since his companies had sales reps throughout Mexico and he needed to stay in constant touch with them he used the Cloud and thought it was the best invention of the last ten years.)

Rising from his desk, declaring it the end of the day, he happened to regard himself in a mirror nearby. Not so bad for an old man.

Cuchillo was about five nine and stocky and resembled Fernandez, Mexico’s greatest actor and director, in the businessman’s opinion. Though he was in scores of films, Fernandez was at his peak as Mapache in The Wild Bunch, one of the few truly honest films about Mexico.

Looking over his face, thick black hair. Keen brown eyes. Cuchillo thought again, No, not so bad… The women still appreciated him. Sure, he paid some of them-one way or another-but he also had a connection with them. He could converse with them. He listened. He also made love for hours. Not a lot of 57-year-olds could do that.

“You old devil,” he whispered.

Then he gave a wry grin at his own vanity and left the office. He told his maid he’d be staying at home for dinner.

And he walked into his most favorite place on earth, his library. The building was large: sixty feet by forty, and very cool, as well as carefully humidity controlled (which was ironic in Hermosillo, in the heart of the Sonoran desert, where there were two or three rainy days a year). Gauze curtains kept the sun from bleaching the jackets and leather bindings of the books.

The ceilings were thirty feet off the ground and the entire space was open, lined with tall shelves on the ground floor and encircled with levels above, which one could reach by climbing an iron spiral staircase to narrow walkways. In the center were three parallel shelves ten feet high. In the front of the room was a library table, surrounded by comfortable chairs and an overstuffed armchair and a floor lamp with a warm yellow bulb. A small bar featured the best brandy and single-malt scotches. Cuchillo enjoyed Cuban cigars. But never here.

The building was home to 22,000 titles, nearly all of them first editions. Many, the only ones in existence.

On a night like this, after a long day working by himself, Cuchillo would normally have gone out into the relatively cool evening and eaten at Sonora Steak and then gone to Ruby’s bar with his friends and-of course-his security. But the rumors of this impending attack were too real to ignore and he’d have to stay within the compound until more was learned about the threat.

Ah, what a country we live in, he reflected. The most philanthropic businessman, and the most hardworking farmer, and the worst drug baron all are treated equally… treated to fear.

Someday it will be different.

But at least Cuchillo had no problem staying home tonight, in his beloved library. He called his housekeeper and had her prepare dinner, a simple linguine primavera, made with organic vegetables and herbs out of his own garden. A California cabernet, too, and ice water.

He turned on a small high definition TV, the news. There were several stories about the ceremony in the D.F. on Friday, commemorating the latest war against the cartels. The event would include speeches by the country’s president and an American official from the DEA. More drug killings in Chihuahua. He shook his head.

In a half hour the food arrived and he sat down at the table, removed his tie-he dressed for work, even when staying home-and stuffed a napkin into his collar. As he ate, his mind wandered to the Dickens that his book dealer, Señor Davila, would be delivering tomorrow. He was delighted that it had arrived early, but pleased, too, that he was getting it for a lower price than originally agreed. The seller whom Davila had found apparently needed cash and would reduce the price by five thousand if Cuchillo paid in U.S. dollars, which he immediately agreed to do. Davila had said he would reduce his percentage of the finder’s fee accordingly, but Cuchillo had insisted that he receive the full amount. Davila had always been good to him.

There was a knock on the door and his security chief, José, entered.

He could tell at once: bad news.

“I heard from a contact in the Federales, sir. There is intelligence about this bus attack on Friday? The tourist bus? The reports are linking you to it.”

“No!”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Dammit,” he muttered. Cuchillo had uttered only a few obscenities in his life; this was usually the worst his language got. “Me? This is absurd. This is completely wrong! They blame me for everything!”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Cuchillo calmed and considered the problem. “Call the bus lines, call the security people, call whoever you have to. Do what you can to make sure passengers are safe in Sonora. You understand, I want to be certain that no one is hurt here. They will blame me if anything happens.”

“I’ll do what I can, sir, but-”

His boss said patiently, “I understand you can’t control the entire state. But use our resources to do whatever you can.”

“Yessir, I will.”

The man hurried off.

Cuchillo finally shrugged off the anger, finished dinner and, sipping his wine, walked up and down the aisles enjoying the sight of his many titles.

22,000…

He returned to his den and worked some more on the project that had obsessed him for the past few months: opening another auto parts fabrication plant outside of town. There was a huge U.S. automobile manufacturer here in Hermosillo and Cuchillo had made much of his fortune by supplying parts to the company. It would employ another 400 local workers. Though he benefitted from their foolishness, he couldn’t understand the Americans’ sending manufacturing away from their country. He would never do that. Business-no, all of life-was about loyalty.

At ten p.m., he decided to retire early. He washed and walked into his large bedroom, thinking again of The Old Curiosity Shop he would receive tomorrow. This buoyed his spirits. He dressed in pajamas and glanced at his bedside table.

What should he read now, he wondered, to lull him to sleep?

He decided he would continue with War and Peace, a title that, he thought wryly, perfectly described a businessman’s life in Mexico.

In the living room of the apartment with the complicated ownership, P.Z. Evans was hunched over his improvised workbench, carefully constructing the bomb.

The care wasn’t necessary because he risked getting turned into red vapor, not yet, in any event; it was simply that the circuits and wiring were very small and he had big hands. In the old days he would have been soldering the connections. But now improvised explosive devices were plug and play. He was pressing the circuits into sheets of especially powerful plastic explosive, which he’d packed into the leather cover after slicing it open with a surgeon’s scalpel.

It was eleven p.m. and the agents had not had a moment’s respite today. They’d spent the past twelve hours acquiring the key items to the project, like the surgeon’s instruments, electronics and a leather-bound edition of the play The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller, which their new partner-book dealer Señor Davila-had suggested because Cuchillo liked the German author.

Through a jeweler’s loupe over his right eye, Evans examined his handiwork and made some small adjustments.

Outside their door they could hear infectious norteño in a nearby square. An accordion was prominent. The windows were open because the evening air teased that it was heading toward the bearable, and the A.C. was off. Evans had convinced himself he had a moldinduced cough.

Alejo Díaz sat nearby, not saying anything and seemingly uneasy. This was not because of the bomb, but because he’d apparently found the task of becoming an expert on book collecting and Charles Dickens daunting, to say the least.

Still, Díaz would occasionally look up from Joseph Connolly’s Collecting Modern First Editions, his eyes on the bomb. Evans thought about diving to the floor, shouting, “Oh, shit! Five… four… three…” But while the Mexican agent had a sense of humor, that might be over the line.

A half hour later he was gluing the leather into place. “Okay, that’s it. Done.”

Díaz eyed his handicraft. “Is small.”

“Bombs are, yes. That’s what makes them so nice.”

“It will get the job done?”

A brief laugh. “Oh, yeah.”

“Nice,” Díaz repeated uneasily.

Evans’s phone buzzed with an encrypted text. He read it.

“Bait’s here.”

A moment later there was a knock on the door and, even though the text he’d just received had included all the proper codes, both men drew their weapons.

But the delivery man was just who he purported to be-a man attached to the Economic Development Council for the U.S. consulate in northern Mexico. Evans had worked with him before. With a nod the man handed Evans a small package and turned and left.

Evans opened it and extracted the copy of Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop. Six hours ago it had been sitting in a famed book dealer’s store on Warren Street in New York City. It had been bought with cash by the man who had just delivered it, and its journey to Sonora had been via chartered jet.

Killing bad guys is not only dangerous, it’s expensive.

The American wrapped the book back up.

Díaz asked, “So, what are the next steps?”

“Well, you-you just keep on reading.” A nod toward the book in his hands. “And when you’re through with that, you might want to brush up on the history of English literature in general. You never know what subject might come up.”

Díaz rolled his eyes and shifted in his chair, stretching. “And while I’m stuck in school, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going out and getting drunk.”

“That is not so fair,” Díaz pointed out.

“And it’s even less fair when I’m thinking I may get laid, too.”