An Acceptable Sacrifice

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