Lieutenant Lizco peered across the valley to the lights of the Quesada plantation. One of the largest coffee fincasin El Salvador and the largest and most profitable in the province of Morazan, the plantation spread across the hillsides and fields of a valley in the foothills of the Cordillera Cacaguatique Coroban. With the heat of the tropical sun tempered by the altitude, the hills' fertile soil and year-round streams created a perfect location for the production of high-quality coffee.

Yet the valley had not been developed until twenty years before, when the Salvadoran government received a low-interest loan from the United States Agency for International Development. With American money, road crews improved the road to San Francisco Gotera to make it a highway capable of carrying diesel semi-trucks loaded with tons of coffee. The remote valley suddenly had value. The Quesadas, one of the Fourteen Families who had controlled El Salvador throughout the three centuries following the Spanish Conquest, took title to the land. They paid a national-guard commander to massacre the campesino communities farming the valley, then the family developed the land for the production of coffee — clearing the fertile valley, building roads, laying out irrigation systems. After the coffee plants matured, the Quesadas exported millions of dollars worth of coffee each year to wholesalers in Europe and North America.

The fincahad a grid of roads interconnecting the fields and warehouses. Elegant gardens lush with flowers and tropical fruit surrounded the sprawling complex of homes and apartments housing the individual families of the extended Quesada family. A reservoir and hydroelectric generator provided power for the streetlights and homes and equipment and concentric circles of electric fences that protected the family.