Thirty years of undercover, crappy pay and putting his life on the line on an almost daily basis. And the drug problem had only gotten worse.

These days, people would drink a gallon of cough syrup if they thought they could get a buzz off it. Cal had heard of kids sealing their nostrils shut while sniffing glue, housewives who had been hospitalized after guzzling rubbing alcohol and one case where a teenager had died after sucking on the nozzle of a can of spray paint.

Society was crumbling. Cal Dreeder was charged with the impossible job of holding it together. As a result, Cal had been depressed for more years than he cared to remember.

The young punks around him didn't get his bitter joke. It had been a stupid thought. Drugs weren't going anywhere. Not as long as there were people willing to pump the junk into their veins and snort it up their noses. Not as long as there were creeps eager to push it in schoolyards and playgrounds. And especially not as long as it was profitable for the bigwig scum-suckers abroad and at home who supplied it.

No, Cal Dreeder's job was secure. And on this mid-January night on a back road in Jersey, the cold stink of the factories in the distant frozen swamps curling on winter's wind into the van's fetid air, the thought that he would never be out of work filled Cal with an infinite sadness.

They drove for another half hour.

The road became almost impassable. The men who were sitting were practically thrown from their seats. Those standing banged their heads on the steel roof more than once.

"They could've picked a better location," one of the young men complained.

"Better for who?" another grunted.

Eventually, the van slowed to a stop. What little conversation that had been going on within the confines of the truck died along with the engine.

Guns were pulled out of holsters. Safeties were thumbed off. The men formed a silent sweating row as the side door of the van rolled open.