A NEW CASH CROP

The Fresno area is known for meth labs as well as orchards and vineyards.

On the side of a darkened two-lane road in Fresno County, a team dressed in
camouflage gathers in a fire department parking lot.

For miles around, rows of fruit trees and grapevines are emblems of cash
crops that drive the local economy. But orchards and vineyards also harbor a
clandestine industry that has been a money-making fixture since it crept
into the Central Valley more than a decade ago.

Methamphetamine.

In barns and houses, sheds and silos, Mexican drug traffickers secretly cook
a white-crystal stimulant that will eventually course through the veins of
users across California and the United States.After police agencies in
Southern California joined together to combat methamphetamine, cartels
started making more meth in the Central Valley.

But with its smaller population, the Central Valley cannot muster the police
deterrent that traffickers face in urban Southern California. Isolated farms
and the region's large Hispanic population also give Mexican traffickers
valuable cover.

"They fit in so well here," said Robert Pennal, special agent with the
Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in Fresno. "They want to minimize their
contact with law enforcement, and they want seclusion."

On this brisk October night, Pennal and members of the meth-lab task force
he oversees prepare for a reconnaissance mission. The target is a house in a
vineyard. Agents followed a known drug trafficker to the property and have
seen more than a dozen other men staying at the home.

There is no evidence they are farming. Pennal thinks they might be making
meth.

A five-man team will creep through the vineyard and use a night-vision scope
to pierce the darkness. They are looking for evidence of drug activity,
which can be used as probable cause for a search warrant.

The operation could be dangerous. Meth manufacturers often are armed with
assault rifles and other weapons.

And guard dogs alert traffickers when someone is approaching. A bark can
send lab workers into the night with flashlights and guns, scanning for
intruders.

"You become one with the dirt," Agent Randy Buford said.

As the crawl begins, Buford and a handful of agents in vehicles fan out
along roads on the property's perimeter.

Slinking on the ground in the dark can be nerve-wracking for the crawl team.
But backup agents on the perimeter endure another torment.

Stray too close, and you might tip off the suspects. Too far out, and a
partner could die by the time you arrive to help.

"It's so hard, because you've got to stay away. But goddang it, you want to
be close in case it goes to hell," Buford said.

At 10:48 p.m., almost a half-hour after the crawl began, Buford's radio
hisses.

"We're three-quarters of the way, and everything is still OK," a voice
whispers.

At 11:07 p.m., the team nears the house. Time drags, then stops dead at
11:52 p.m.

A noise on the radio sucks the breath out of agents on the perimeter teams.
They hear five clicks over the radio, a signal that suspects are near.

Agents in the vineyard cannot speak for fear of being detected. For five
minutes, Buford sits in nervous silence.

"Come on, guys," he implores, thinking out loud.

Ten minutes more. No word.

"Come on, guys! This is the worst part," he said.

It seems like an eternity. Nine more minutes pass before Pennal's voice
breaks the quiet. The crawl team is approaching the pickup point. The danger
is done.

Buford sighs.

Later, Pennal says the close call was actually the wind blowing a door open
and closed. Agents raided the house a few weeks later and found a marijuana
processing operation.

Police discovered the first Mexican cartel lab in the Central Valley in
1989, Pennal said. Soon after the discovery in Kern County, agents found a
large operation in Tulare County that used identical glassware and filter
material.

Agents have found cartel labs in the area ever since.

In 1998, 20 of the 52 labs in the region were large-scale operations that
could cook more than 20 pounds of methamphetamine in a day or two, according
to state drug-lab statistics. Some labs make more than 100 pounds at a time.

As the Central Valley methamphetamine problem grows, agents use new
techniques to catch traffickers who change their operations to avoid
detection, Pennal said. Investigators follow trails from the clues left
behind when meth makers dump lab waste.

Now, Pennal is organizing an expanded team funded with federal money
received when the region was designated a High Intensity Drug Trafficking
Area.

The money will add six agents to fight meth in the Central Valley.

Agents will have resources to do more than just react to labs, Pennal said.
"We're going to be able to conduct a lot of follow-up to dismantle these
organizations," he said.