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.