Traffic Page #12

The strange man holds David tighter so that he's no longer

having fun. He begins to wriggle --

STRANGE MAN:

Mrs. Ayala --

This gets her attention --

STRANGE MAN:

Your husband owes a lot of money.

Enough that snapping this kid's neck

wouldn't nearly cover it.

David begins to cry. Helena looks around wildly for help.

STRANGE MAN:

You better come up with it in a hurry

or your kid is going to disappear,

and he won't turn up until the evening

news.

He drops David who runs to his mother.

STRANGE MAN:

You get exactly one warning.

The strange man moves away across the field.

STRANGE MAN:

The first payment is three million

dollars.

He continues walking away.

INT. TELEPHONE REPAIR VAN - DAY

Gordon and Castro stare with rapt attention.

GORDON:

Are you getting this on tape?

CASTRO:

I love my job. I love it. The next

time I'm having a bad day you gotta

remind me of right now and I'll get

over it.

CUT TO:

EXT. BARRACKS - NIGHT

Javier and Manolo stand guard outside the front door of the

dining hall. Javi smokes a cigarette.

MANOLO:

A group of us are going out tonight.

JAVIER:

Who?

MANOLO:

Guzman, Tomas, Esteban --

JAVIER:

Your new friends.

MANOLO:

Yeah. It should be fun. You wanna

come?

JAVIER:

Not this time.

INT. DINING HALL - BARRACKS - NIGHT

Francisco and Salazar eat at a beautifully set table. They

are waited on by military officers who serve perfect flan at

the end of the meal.

FRANCISCO:

In my home I have B&W speakers. I

recently purchased a compact disc

burner. I can make my own cd's,

with whatever music I like, as if I

bought them at the store, only I

don't have to pay these crazy prices.

SALAZAR:

We have much in common. We both

attended school in the United States,

and both of our fathers are engineers.

FRANCISCO:

I got into stereo equipment when I

was a kid. Some people don't notice

the difference but it is very

important to me.

SALAZAR:

Of course it is. Have some more

wine.

A soldier pours another glass of red for Francisco.

SALAZAR:

Now, Francisco, my friend... I must

know where these men are who killed

my captains. Not where they were

last week, but where they are today,

and better still, tomorrow.

You are clever. You can predict

where they will be, can't you?

Francisco begins to weep.

Salazar slides a pad of paper toward Francisco who slowly

begins writing.

EXT. TIJUANA NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY

Manolo and Javier pound on the front door of an apartment.

A MAN opens the door and they grab him.

EXT. TIJUANA STREETS - DAY

A MAN walks down the street. Two SUV's pull up in front of

him. He starts to run. Salazar's men jump out and chase

him.

Francisco is in the backseat of one of the SUV's, watching.

EXT. TIJUANA - DAY

An SUV pulls up to a curb.

INT. SUV - DAY

Javier and Manolo and Francisco sit in the SUV. Francisco

is weeping.

FRANCISCO:

I can't go home. I don't want to

go. Please don't make me.

He looks beseechingly at them.

JAVIER:

It's not our decision.

FRANCISCO:

I'll be killed.

JAVIER:

Stop complaining. Nobody knows what

you've been up to.

They push him out of the SUV.

CUT TO:

INT. SAN DIEGO JAIL - DAY

Castro and Gordon sit with Eduardo Ruiz in a conference room.

They are recording his statements.

RUIZ:

Carlos, I mean Carl, started out in

the family connection business: real

estate in Tijuana, fishing boats out

of Ensenada, hydroponic raspberries.

He met up with the Obregon brothers

of the Tijuana Cartel who were

interested in two things: entering

society and using his fishing boats.

GORDON:

So you pay off our customs officials?

RUIZ:

In Mexico law enforcement is an

entrepreneurial activity, this is

not so true for the USA.

(condescending)

Using regression analysis we made a

study of the customs lanes at the

border and calculated the odds of a

search. The odds are not high, and

we found variables that reduce the

odds. We hire drivers with nothing

to lose. Then we throw a lot of

product at the problem. Some get

stopped. Enough get through. It's

not difficult.

CASTRO:

You'd think he wasn't sitting here

facing life in prison.

RUIZ:

This has worked for years and it

will continue to work for years.

NAFTA makes everything more difficult

for you. The border is disappearing.

(pointing at them)

You people are like those Japanese

soldiers left behind on deserted

islands who think that World War II

is still going on.

(with total disdain)

Let me be the first to tell you,

your government surrendered this war

a long time ago.

GORDON:

(to Castro)

This attitude's not gonna help him

any, is it?

RUIZ:

I got greedy. I decided to bring a

little in on my own and somebody

tipped you off. That was my mistake.

Carl would never be so stupid.

GORDON:

He hired you. That was a mistake.

RUIZ:

Carl and I were friends from

childhood. He was loyal, that's not

a mistake.

EXT. TIJUANA - SAN DIEGO BORDER CROSSING - DAY

Car after car, an unending multi-lane stream of vehicles

moving into the U.S. Any of these cars could be carrying

drugs.

INT. CUSTOMS CONTROL BOOTH - DAY

On an elevated walkway, this booth commands a view of

everything. Robert and Sheridan listen to an OFFICIAL give

the spiel.

OFFICIAL:

The busiest land border crossing in

the world. Over forty-one thousand

vehicles per day, twenty-two thousand

pedestrians on foot. I think we do

a pretty good job but we know a lot

of drugs are still getting through.

ROBERT:

Any idea how much?

OFFICIAL:

I've read official estimates but I

wouldn't bet my house on them. I've

heard the entire cocaine supply for

the United States can fit into four

tractor-trailers.

(gestures to the

traffic)

At least a half-dozen of those cars

right out there are carrying a load

of dope, with drivers employed by

people who don't give a damn if

they're caught or not.

ROBERT:

What do you look for?

OFFICIAL:

We ask questions and measure the

answers. When something doesn't

ring true, a fact that doesn't make

sense, a slight hesitation, then

it's off to secondary for a closer

look. Before NAFTA we had about 1.9

million trucks a year. Now it's

almost double. Pretty soon there'll

be Mexican truck companies that will

have as much freedom in crossing the

border as American truck companies.

ROBERT:

Any way we can do it better?

OFFICIAL:

Sure. More money in intelligence on

their side of the border. So we

have a better idea who we're looking

for. More dogs. More people.

Supposed to be getting some giant x-

ray machines to run the trucks

through. Outside of martial law

that's about the best you're gonna

do.

(beat)

But, I should tell you, there are

two things that really have us on

edge right now.

(beat)

In the last six months seizures have

tripled, even though we're pulling

over the same number of cars. What

does that tell you?

ROBERT:

That triple the amount of stuff is

going through.

OFFICIAL:

Right. But, that's not the biggest

problem. One of our Intel officers

picked up information from DEA that

traffickers have come up with a

process, a chemical process, to turn

coke into something else. It doesn't

smell like coke. It doesn't look

like coke. And what's worse, it

doesn't react to field test. It

could be anything. Maybe it's already

happening. I mean, how would we

know?

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