Next: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n101/a01.html

NARCS LIE IN WAIT, WATCHING THE NIGHT FOR 'CONTRABANDISTAS'

A Border Patrol agent uses a night scope to monitor a frontier through
which drug smugglers and illegal immigrants often slip unnoticed.

It's a moonless night on the cactus and scrabble slopes of Huachuca
Peak, just north of the Mexican border.

High on a ridge, the Arizona National Guard has parked a van and
covered it with black tarp.

Inside, U.S. Customs Agent Marvin Tigert sits with eyes glued to a
video screen. He's watching images transmitted by an automated scope
mounted on a swiveling tripod outside.

He can see most of the San Pedro River Valley below, thanks to optical
gear that turns night into day.

Surveillance team members have spent five hours watching for drug
smugglers, seeing only cows.

Around midnight, a deer bounds down the mountain. A guardsman named
Guido swings the remote lens around and up, then blurts in hushed
excitement, "There they are!"

Smugglers loom as pale apparitions on the video monitor. They are
about 300 yards away, descending single-file toward the stakeout.

Tigert marvels at the determination of the contrabandistas. These have
climbed like mountain goats, hauling loaded packs in the night through
catclaw and over cliffs. He makes a radio call for backup, then waits.

A ROUTINE MISSION

Hours earlier, surveillance teams were briefed in an abandoned
building at the Fort Huachuca Army base.

Tigert, looking over a map of the area, pointed out major smuggling
routes.

There's a place called "The Hole," just east of Naco, where Mexicans
opened fire on U.S. agents. At Ash Canyon, agents ambushed 30
backpackers, commonly known as mules, and seized 1,100 pounds of pot.
There were shootouts along the San Pedro River and up near Hereford.

All the narcs have these war stories, plus trophy pictures back at the
office to memorialize big busts.

They are like big-game hunters, pursuing a prey that sometimes shoots
back. They thrive on the planning, the excitement, the capture -- even
the sound of bullets ricocheting overhead.

"Zing! Zing! Some people say they're just shooting to scare you,"
Tigert says. "I don't care. There are a few cowboys out there who want
to make a name for themselves by taking one of us out. They'd have a
song written about them."

Tigert took down about 15,000 pounds of pot during the past year. Most
often, the mules ran for cover. But times are changing. The smugglers
have better communications gear. They're trigger-happy. And, in a car
chase, they'll smash into an agent's vehicle and make a run for the
border.

"Nowadays," Tigert says, " "Alto' means run like hell. And the louder
you yell it, the faster they run."

A WAITING GAME

Tigert's assignment at Huachuca Peak grew out of an intelligence
report: Mexican soldiers were camped on the border in a corral
routinely used by smugglers. Agents found bootprints on the American
side and assumed that the federales were scouts for a
narco-cartel.

National Guard members were posted on opposite ridges overlooking the
valley. A truck with a Long-Range Operations Infra-Red System, or
LORIS scope, was stationed to the east. Tigert's crew would look down
from Huachuca foothills to the west.

Tigert climbed into the four-wheel-drive Pathfinder and pulled a Steyr
AUG machine gun across the seat.

"I hope you don't mind sitting next to my girlfriend."

Tigert nodded at a hole in the windshield. A fence post did the damage
when he crashed into barbed wire while chasing a smuggler's vehicle.

Tigert followed Arizona 92 south of Sierra Vista, veered onto a dirt
road and flicked off the headlamps. The drug war is fought mostly at
night, and soldiers on both sides are used to working by feel.

The National Guard van was in position, its LORIS scope humming. Even
in inky night, the monitor revealed cattle more than three miles away.

The job is half science, half art. Depth perception is iffy. Shapes
are fuzzy, as if viewed underwater. A warm rock may be mistaken for a
man, or vice versa.

Guardsmen huddled against a frigid wind and joked about spying on
4-Charlie - a nickname for steers. After mistaking yet another cow for
a smuggler, Tigert grunted, "Sneaky bastards, huh?"

He grumbled because Washington won't buy him the newest, brightest
night scope on the market, a thing called CYCLOPS that costs $150,000
and detects a rabbit from five miles off.

The watchers spotted two men creeping along the highway below, but
carrying no loads.

A truck pulled into a thicket by the river, but it turned out to be a
Border Patrol agent.

Finally, the deer spooked at midnight.

MISSING GHOSTS

As Tigert watches the video screen, the figures drop into a ravine.
Bright spots on the monitor could be humans lying low, or not. The
waiting game goes on for an hour. Nothing moves.

Finally, Tigert calls in other agents who have assembled down the
road. They rumble up the hill, grab weapons and start climbing.

The searchers scramble in darkness, not daring to use flashlights that
would make them targets.

On the monitor, they stumble and backtrack to the ravine: No
smugglers, no dope. Nada.

The team traipses back down the mountain. One has cactus needles in
his butt. Another's leg is bloody from a tumble.

A guardsman apologizes for losing sight of the smugglers.

Tigert shrugs and lights up a cigar.

"It's not your fault, man," he says. "They're clever. You've got to
admire 'em. But now we know they've got a new route."

One week later, another surveillance team works the same location.
Seven smugglers are arrested with 936 pounds of marijuana.

The narcs have a new war story to tell.

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