"Then let the director take over this fucking watch," Gadgets answered impatiently.

"Can't do it. He's in D.C., romancing Congress for funding. Money for the air conditioner."

Lyons didn't take his eyes off the long lines of cars and trucks waiting to cross the United States-Mexico border. Beyond the multicolored ribbons of autos, the sprawl of Tijuana faded into the gray distance. With Gadgets and the DEA driver, he watched from a van parked on the San Ysidro side of the border, less than a hundred feet from Mexico.

"Think your main man will get enough money," Gadgets continued, "so maybe next time we'll have an air conditioner?"

"No problem with a cooler next time..." the DEA agent replied.

"Far out. Feels good already."

"But next time," the agent said with a laugh, "we'll need a heater."

Twenty steps away, at the San Ysidro port of entry, U.S. Customs officers in inspection booths processed sixteen lanes of incoming traffic. The officers took stock of every driver, looking for nervousness, sweating, forced expressions, then checked the license plate of every vehicle with the aid of federal computers. Each officer — at the rate of one examination every ten to fifteen seconds — waved cars past. Then the vehicles entered the promised land, the United States, accelerating past the van in an unending, monotonous blur of color and glass and faces.

Auto exhaust and diesel soot hazed the crossing, and heat rose from the asphalt in an undulating, vision-distorting curtain. Motionless on the bench seat of the surveillance van, the tinted windows concealing him from the traffic, Lyons watched the thousands of cars and trucks shimmer in the heat and engine fumes. On the Mexican side, peddlers went from car to car, offering painted plaster figures of Jesus and Montezuma and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Other peddlers offered sandals and black flocked bulls and tropical fruit-flavored sherbets.

Lyons glanced to his partner. "Check with the Politician."