"Pass out the handkerchiefs, Politician. This scum is a cop-killing dope soldier who got paid in gold," Lyons snapped. "Why didn't he come north and make a better life for himself in the land of opportunity? Half the Mexicans in the U.S. are illegal. They get phony papers and presto, a new life. Nobody held a gun to his head and told him he had to work in the dope business."

"It wasn't the gold. Not at first," Blancanales continued. "Think of it from his viewpoint. One, if he gets deported and the federalesrecognize him, he goes straight into a Mexican prison, for life. Two, if he works in the United States, what does an illegal alien fugitive with a grade-three education do for a living? He digs ditches, he washes dishes. All the time watching for la migra— the Immigration and Naturalization Service — at the door. Or he could be a bodyguard for a gangster. Did you know that he's got two teenage daughters at the University of California? He never could have done that digging ditches."

"You make the shit sound like a working man's hero," Lyons grunted.

"He's bad from the hair down, all right," Blancanales conceded. "But I think he'll cooperate with the Agency."

"Cooperate?" Gadgets asked, incredulous. "El Pistolero in there's a one-man data bank. Too bad the printout's all past tense."

"Past tense?" Lyons asked.

"Yeah, the Ochoa gang is history. From what he says."

Lyons laughed cynically. "Forget the Ochoas! Now we have the White Warriors organizing a billion-dollar dope operation in Sonora. That's only driving distance from the border."

Blancanales shook his head. "Only a name. Doesn't mean there's any connection with the White Warriors down in El Salvador and Guatemala."

Gadgets laughed. "They own Central America. Why do they want Sonora? It's a desert."

"Heroin," Lyons insisted. "Sonora and Sinaloa and Chihuahua ship billions of dollars of heroin into the U.S. every year. A billion dollars buys armies and helicopters and jets."