Actor and Terry had worked a long, long time in the desert that night. Because of Jimmy Carter's gas rationing for the Border Patrol, no Agents had been assigned to work day shift on the desert area East of the Port of Entry at San Luis, Arizona. It is a vast region which included a few asparagus farms, citrus groves and the MCAS Yuma bombing range.
When they finally got to their AO on the 4P-12A shift in the desert, it was 1730 and the last recorded sign cutting run had been at 0800 that morning. Terry picked up a drag at Avenue 5E and Actor picked one up by the airstrip near the Port and, to save time, they started dragging toward each other.
When you're working a drag there's not much to do. If you do it right, you're not driving move than 5 miles per hour so time passes slowly. Since Terry was dragging toward the sun, the lines and shadows of the sign he was dragging-over appeared more prominent than if he had the sun at his back. He crossed-over numerous pieces of sign that was obviously hours old. Each time he did, he called the characteristics of the sign in to the station to be labeled as "got-aways". Actor did the same.
Along about 1E, a different sort of sign caught Terry's eye. It was sign of Tonks carrying burdens. Terry un-hooked his drag and followed the sign a short ways into the desert. Then he called Actor.
"Actor", Terry said, "I've got a group of ten headed for the groves. It looks as if they're mules."
Actor knew the drill. He had to finish the entire drag by himself (
somebody had to do it) while Terry started following the sign. Actor speeded-up his drag to ten miles per hour so as to get in on the big chase as soon as possible.
By the time Actor had completed the drag, Terry has already found the sign in the citrus groves and was on foot (by then, it was somewhere around 2130). Actor cut for sign perpendicular to Terry's route of travel in the groves and found it on the other side: back in open desert and heading for still more groves.
This time, it was Actor who was on foot; going through grove after grove of lemon trees - on the sign. Terry cut perpendicular to Actor's route of travel and found the sign leaving those groves and headed for a hard surface road. Actor raced back to his vehicle (a dodge Ramcharger) and joined Terry in following the sign.
In the end, it was Actor who found the mules. They were hunkered down in a drainage ditch by the hard surface road. In the ditch with them were bales of kilos of marijuana with ropes attached to them to make them into huge backpacks. Near the road was a overturned Coca Cola can (the marker for the driver of the load car so he'd know where to stop and take on the load).
Processing Tonks is easy enough but processing a drug load is a huge headache. The Agents have to take sworn statements from everybody - translating them from Spanish into English and then back again. After that, the apprehending Agents have to "mark" all of the kilos. Actor and Terry marked each one with their initials and the date of apprehension. After all that was done, they had to transport the drugs to the DEA (in those days, that's the way it was done). Actor and Terry photographed the load, put it into their vehicles and drove it to the DEA's office in San Luis.
The story didn't end there; at least not for that particular load of drugs.
About a month later, Actor was working the railroad yards and Terry was working the area around Morelos Dam. The Patrol Agent In Charge called both of them on the radio to report to the station. When they arrived, what they saw made them angry; angry enough to loose any trust they had ever had in the DEA.
There, on the Station floor, were numerous kilos of marijuana. Each had Actor's and Terry's initials on them along with the original date of apprehension. A couple of Agents working the 12A-8A shift had apprehended that load. No one said anything. They just stood there and fumed.
Deo Vindice
