Slipping out his hand radio, Gadgets keyed the transmit button. "Hot Box calling Mr. Cool. Qui pasa? Donde esta Senor Pistolero?"
A customs officer in a booth signaled a driver to stop for a search. The driver, a middle-aged Hispanic man with two young Mexican girls in his Mercedes, argued. Lyons watched as other customs officers motioned the driver toward a parking place. Finally the driver steered the Mercedes under the awnings. Officers on each side of the expensive sedan thumped the fender panels while a third officer waited for the big Hispanic to open the trunk. Another customs official walked a drug-sniffing German shepherd around the Mercedes.
"Hey, Politico!" Gadgets keyed his hand radio again. "Digame. What's going on?"
"Relax," Rosario Blancanales answered, his voice coming without tone or inflection through the National Security Agency encoding-decoding circuits of the hand radio. "Nothing's going on."
"Any word from Fantasyland East? What's the D.C. scam on our man?"
"The teletype printed out quite a biography." Blancanales spoke from the DEA offices only a few steps away. The windows of the office overlooked the thousands of cars crawling into the United States. "Our man is most definitely a killer. I'll give you a copy of the bio when I bring down some food."
"Forget the food. I want ice."
"Hot down there?"
"I'm the incredible melting man."
"You might be down there all night again."
"Yeah, I'm a regular owl," Gadgets said, and then he signed off.
Able Team had received the directive the day before: Go to the San Ysidro port of entry. Wait for Miguel Coral. Suspect known to kill without hesitation. Capture for interrogation.
The directive included — courtesy of a DEA informer in Culiacan — the license number of the truck and the name appearing on his valid California driver's license. But the informer did not supply the time Coral would cross the border. Able Team had waited through the night, watching the endless stream of traffic. Perhaps Coral would come today, perhaps tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.