An Acceptable Sacrifice

you find this out?”
    “I got the data-mined information on the American in the bar, the one who was drinking with Carmella. I found records that he was making calls to the book dealer. And he used his credit card to buy electronic parts at a supplier in town—the sort of circuits that are used in IEDs.”
    “Yes, yes. I see. They threatened Davila to help them. Or paid the bastard. You know, I suspected that man, Abrossa. I suspected him for a moment. Then I decided, no, he was legitimate.”
    Because I wanted the Dickens so much.
    “I appreciate what you did, José. That was a good job. Would you like a drink, too?”
    “No, thank you, sir.”
    Still calm, Cuchillo wrinkled his brow. “Considering how the American tried to kill us—and nearly destroyed a priceless collection of books—how would you feel if we instructed our people on Highway 26 not to get the women and children off before setting fire to the bus?”
    José smiled. “I think that’s an excellent suggestion, sir. I’ll call the team.”

     
    Several hours later the bomb had been slipped into a steel disposal container and taken away. Cuchillo, the engineer explained, had unwittingly disarmed it himself. The panicked throw had dislodged the wires from the detonator, rendering it safe.
    Cuchillo had enjoyed watching the bomb-disposal robot—the same way he liked being in his parts manufacturing operation and his drug synthesizing facilities. He enjoyed watching technology at work. He had always wanted the Codex Leicester —the DaVinci manuscript that contained the inventor’s musings on mechanics and science. Bill Gates had paid $30 million for it some years ago. Cuchillo could easily afford that, but the book was not presently for sale. Besides, such a purchase would draw too much attention to him, and a man who has tortured hundreds to death and—in the spirit of mercy—painlessly shot perhaps a thousand, does not want too many eyes turned in his direction.
    Cuchillo spent the rest of the night on the phone with associates, trying to find more details of the two assassins and any associates they might have, but there was no other information. He’d learn more tomorrow. It was nearly midnight when finally he sat down to a modest dinner of grilled chicken and beans with tomatillo sauce.
    As he ate and sipped a very nice cabernet, he found himself relaxed and curiously content, despite the horror of what might have happened today. Neither he nor any of his people had been injured in the attack. His 22,000 volumes were safe.
    And he had some enjoyable projects on the horizon: killing Davila, of course. And he’d find the name of the person masquerading as Abrossa, his assistant, and the shooter who’d fired the shots—a clumsy diversionary tactic, he now realized. Probably the American. Those two would not die as quickly as the book dealer. They had destroyed an original Friedrich Schiller (albeit a third printing with water damage on the spine). Cuchillo would stay true to his name and would use a knife on them himself—in his special interrogation room in the basement below his library.
    But best of all: he had the burning bus and its scores of screaming passengers to look forward to.

F RIDAY
     
    At one a.m. Cuchillo washed for bed and climbed between the smooth sheets, not silk but luxurious and expensive cotton.
    He would read something calming to lull him to sleep tonight. Not War and Peace . Perhaps some poetry.
    He picked up his iPad from the bedside table, flipped open the cover and tapped the icon to bring up his e-reader app. Cuchillo, of course, generally preferred traditional books for the most part. But he was a man of the 21st century and found e-books were often more convenient and easier to read than their paper forebears. His iPad library contained nearly a thousand titles.
    As he looked at the tablet, though, he realized he must have hit the wrong app icon—the forward camera had opened and he found he was staring at himself.
    Cuchillo didn’t close the camera right away, however. He took a moment to regard himself. And laughed and whispered the phrase he’d used to describe himself earlier, “Not so bad, you old devil.”

     
    Five hundred yards from Cuchillo’s compound, Alejo Díaz and P.Z. Evans were sitting in the front seat of the big Mercury. They were leaning forward, staring at the screen of Evans’s impressive laptop computer.
    What they were observing was the same image that Cuchillo happened