After all that he'd endured, Eduardo had replied, he was prepared to demonstrate his gratitude and contrition with relish, even if it meant getting down on his knees to kiss their bare bottoms.

"Everything in life is easier to get into than out of," the driver had commented with a chuckle.

Now the Rover slowed as he guided it up a side street lined with grimy, leaning hovels that seemed on the verge of collapse, took a series of turns along nearly identical streets, then guided it onto a narrow gravel lane running between a stretch of empty lots. Eduardo, who had been paying little attention to their dismal course through town, suddenly furrowed his brow in puzzlement. A glance through the windshield showed that they were heading toward a dead end, their way blocked up ahead by a sentry gate, beyond which was a low, gray, flat-roofed structure with six or eight tractor-trailer trucks parked on either side of its cinder-block walls--presumably a warehouse of some kind.

"Perdoname, donde esta la estacion?" he said in Spanish. Asking where the railway station was.

The driver smiled and motioned to the right.

"Solo al norte de aqui, " he said, slowing as he approached the sentry gate. "It's just north of here."

Eduardo glanced in that direction, and saw nothing but the wide, muddy lot. Then he heard Ramon's pushbutton window roll down, jerked his eyes back toward him, and saw him reach out the window to swipe an identification card through a gatepost security scanner.

Eduardo felt a cold spark of alarm as it swung open to admit them and Ramon pulled to a halt several yards in front of the building.

"Que es esto?" he blurted. "I don--"

Its movement a blur, Ramon's hand had shot beneath the dash and come back into sight gripping a pistol that must have been clipped to the dash's underside.

"Open your door and get out," he said, brandishing the gun at Eduardo. "Slowly."

Eduardo swallowed thickly, dumbfounded. One look at the weapon had told him it was a Sig Pro .40 semiautomatic--a standard-issue DEA sidearm. The thought that he'd fallen for another anti-drug squad setup flashed through his mind, and was quickly dismissed. What sense did that make? He had not escaped from confinement, but been willingly freed by his jailers. Nor had he uttered a peep about his business dealings to his driver or the plainclothes men who had escorted him to the border crossing.