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U.S. CUSTOMS OFFICIAL LIVES FOR THE THRILL OF THE CHASE

Lee Morgan limps into his office, grimacing from the pain.

Ten years ago, his U.S. Customs Service truck flipped and caught fire
during a chase. Eyes full of smoke and blood, he kicked out the window,
then jumped into his partner's car and continued the pursuit.

The back pain came later, a perpetual reminder, along with the melted
machine gun in his office.

On the wall of his office are images of John Wayne, a rattlesnake skin and
"trophy pictures" of Morgan at big drug busts.

Morgan was an Army sniper in Vietnam for 11 months, working mostly with
spooks on secret operations. Then he came home and got a job fighting
America's other war.

He started with the Border Patrol in Douglas and Naco a quarter of a
century ago, then joined Customs in 1987. After 25 years on the job, his
eyes still brighten at the memory - the legal high - of his first drug bust.

"I think everybody loves the chase," Morgan says with a slight Texas drawl.
"The day you don't get that feeling when you've got a load of dope, you
need to go look for another job. You lose your edge."

Morgan, a supervisor, oversees the frontera east of Douglas in a truck with
a pair of handcuffs dangling from the stick shift.

He's got an H&K MP-5 submachine gun at his side, a 9mm handgun in his
shoulder holster. The back seat is loaded with binoculars, a Kevlar vest
and other gear.

From a bluff, he looks down on the San Bernardino Valley. Only a
barbed-wire fence marks the border. It is a barren place of prickly pear
and rocks. Radios and cell phones are beyond range in the badlands.

"You're on your own," Morgan says. "Out here, you're all the law there is."

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