He could never return to Mexico. His desertion from the Ochoa gang meant his death if his former compatriots ever found him. And his murders of innumerable gunmen and captains of other gangs marked him as the target of a hundred vendettas.

The files of the Drug Enforcement Agency held hundreds of pages of information on the career of Miguel Coral Valencia. According to the DEA, Coral started as an independent operator smuggling marijuana and heroin from Hermosillo in the Mexican state of Sonora, north to Tucson, Arizona. After murdering two Mexican policemen, he sought the protection of the Ochoa gang.

Like the other gangs, the Ochoa organization operated in alliance with the politicians and police departments of the remote Mexican towns. The drug gangs supported the ambitions of the politicians, financing their campaigns for mayor or governor or senator.

The mayors of cities learned to take bids on the position of police chief. Then, like the regional director of a high-profit enterprise, the police chief managed the income and disbursed the profits, distributing wads of cash to each patrolman and suitcases of American dollars to the politicians in higher government posts.

Gang money maintained the life-styles of the police, augmenting their small monthly salaries with thousands of American dollars a week. Police chiefs drove Corvettes and Cadillacs. Policemen who received salaries of only a hundred dollars a month drove Mustangs. Families of police officers enjoyed backyard pools and spending sprees in San Diego, Tucson and El Paso.

The integration of the drug gangs into the municipal and political structures of the western states of Mexico ensured hassle-free operations for the gangs and uninterrupted income for their protectors, despite unending assaults by the American DEA and the federal police of Mexico.

The Ochoa gang controlled the greatest share of the drugs flowing from Sonora north to the U.S. border. The old Ochoa, the patriarch of the gang, the don, managed the gang with the expertise of a corporate president. He directed an army composed of farmers, mule drivers, police and municipal employees. He also employed gunmen. Though he rarely initiated violence — he preferred to be generous with his people and to be reasonable with competitors — when a threat came, his trigger men struck with cold, calculated violence.

In 1977, if he had openly declared his organization's profits, Ochoa, S.A., would have won a position on the Fortune500.

Throughout the late seventies, smaller gangs and the syndicates of Mexico, North America and Europe continually challenged Don Ochoa. The don paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits to the families of his slain soldiers. He supported the hospitals of small towns with the continual flow of bleeding and maimed gunmen. He also felt duty bound to contribute when assassinations and wild firefights caught townspeople in the crossfire.

But Ochoa marketed a substance more precious than gold, something he would fight like a cornered lion to maintain control over. Despite hundreds of assassination attempts on his life, and those of his sons and his gang captains, he never surrendered his market share.

In this endless war without quarter, Miguel Coral rose from truck driver, to gang soldier, to captain, then finally to the most trusted and esteemed position in the entire organization — second, of course, to the don — the position of personal bodyguard to Don Ochoa and his family.

Coral stood always at the side of Don Ochoa. He commanded the subordinate soldiers who protected the patriarch's sons and daughters and grandchildren. When the doctors came to examine Don Ochoa's twisted spine — arthritis had made him a hunchback — Coral searched the doctors and minutely examined every instrument in their bags.

As part of his duties, Coral had also attended every meeting with allied gang leaders. And when politicians and police negotiated payoffs, Coral watched over the transactions.

As a result, Coral knew the name and face of every criminal associate of the gang and the identity of every corrupt public official who served the gang. He was a dangerous and powerful man.

In the instructions to Able Team, the DEA had stressed the capture of Miguel Coral would represent the single most important move against the drug trade in western Mexico. If Able Team took Coral alive and the DEA could persuade Coral to cooperate, the DEA could halt the multibillion-dollar river of heroin flooding the tidal basin of American society.

Though Able Team expected Coral to react with autoweapon fire when they closed the trap on him, they would not return the fire. Gadgets held an Uzi submachine gun loaded with special-purpose slugs for punching holes in tires. Lyons had loaded his 40mm M-79 grenade launcher with a plastic grenade of CS/CN gas. The DEA needed a prisoner. The interrogators could not question a dead man.

Sweating, breathing the fumes of thousands of cars and trucks, the men of Able Team waited for another hour. When it came, the alert was sudden.

"He's in line!" Blancanales's voice crackled over the radio's speaker.

"Which line?" Lyons asked, sweat making the radio slick in his hand. "How far until the gate?"

"We have at least three minutes. I'm on the way down to the other cars."

Gadgets wiped the sweat off his hands and checked the canvas tape holding down the Uzi's grip safety. "Ready to bop," he said.

Looking forward to the driver, Lyons felt the van vibrate as the high-performance engine roared into life. The DEA man called back: "I heard it."

Under the huge, striped awning of the inspection shed, other undercover DEA men got into an assortment of cars and pickup trucks.

Gadgets keyed the DEA frequency radio. All the radios had been tested in the morning, but Gadgets called another test.

"Mr. Wizard to the Apprentices. Roll call before we roll."

"Unit one, ready."

"Unit two, warming up."

"Numero tres. Todos es preparado."

"Four here. Ready and willing."

"Supercool, dudes," Gadgets said, and then signed off. "We're gonna do it," he muttered to Lyons.

Lyons laughed. "If we see that doper abandon his truck, we know he had the frequency."

"Calculated risk," Gadgets admitted. "Some day, the Agency will get hep. Spend money on good stuff." He tapped the NSA-designed hand radio in the pocket of his sports coat.

Able Team did not fear the interception of their radio transmissions. They used hand radios designed and manufactured to the specifications of the National Security Agency. Micro electronic circuits coded and decoded every transmission. Without one of the three radios Able Team carried, a technician scanning the bands would intercept only bursts of static.

Blancanales checked in. "We're ready to go. Loading up a tear-gas round."

Lyons took Gadgets's radio. "What's his car look like?"

"Red Chevrolet pickup with a white camper shell. I didn't see the license plate, but the vehicle's exactly as the informer indicated."

"The Agency seems to have got it's money worth. We'll know for sure in about..."

Gadgets interrupted the talk. "Red Chevy!"

"Get ready, Politico." Lyons clicked off and passed the radio back to Gadgets.

Their driver eased into traffic. Lyons sat in the van's third seat, over the rear wheels. Gadgets scrambled into the second seat. Lyons watched cars through an oversized viewing port. Gadgets looked out through smaller standard windows. They watched for the red pickup as their driver maintained a very gradual acceleration away from the Customs and Immigration Center.

Cars blocked their line of sight for a few seconds, then they saw the red pickup accelerate through traffic. Their driver moved the van over two lanes and accelerated to follow the truck.

"It's the truck!" he called back to the two men of Able Team. "License plate matches exactly."