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lot of time in the U.S. military. Scott couldn't tell for sure if the man was armed, but he assumed he was. "We have to go, Hitch."
    Hitch gestured to the stack of idling cars in front of them. "How?"
    Scott pointed to the empty lane. "Take that one."
    "It's closed."
    "We're sitting ducks here," Scott said as he checked the mirror again. The man with the buzz cut was walking toward them, slowly, like a cop approaching a suspect car during a felony traffic stop. Scott turned in his seat and looked through the dirty rear window. The second man, the driver, was black and just as definitely American. He was in his mid-thirties and had lots of muscle packed under his tight-fitting olive-drab T-shirt, also tucked into a pair of 5.11s. He was out of the Suburban and cautiously approaching the Ta-hoe on foot. "Drive," Scott shouted and pointed to the far right lane. "Now."
    Hitch turned the wheel hard right, but the lane next to them was backed up just as bad as their lane.
    "Ram somebody if you have to," Scott said, "but get us the fuck across that bridge."
    Hitch bumped the car next to them, an old Buick sedan. The driver laid on his horn and cursed at them in Spanish through his open window. Scott didn't understand the words but he understood the hand gestures and the tone.
    "Punch it," he told Hitch.
    Hitch goosed the motor and with a grinding shriek of metal on metal, the powerful SUV shoved the Buick out of the way. But there was still a third lane of traffic, also backed up to a standstill. A couple of the drivers in that lane, though, seeing the determination of the Tahoe's driver, moved out of the way before Hitch slammed into them. Then they were clear and into the empty far right lane.
    Scott checked the mirror. Both Americans were scram-bling back to the Suburban. "Keep going," Scott said.
    Hitch plowed over the orange cones and blew through the booth. As they shot past the small Mexican customs and immigration office just off the bridge to the right, Scott saw two uniformed Mexican officials, police of some kind, storm out the door and chase after them, but by then it was too late. The DEA agents were on the bridge headed north. Scott checked the mirror again and saw the black Suburban racing after them. "They're still with us."
    Hitch mashed the accelerator to the floor.
    The Suburban tried to pass, but Hitch swerved toward the bigger, heavier vehicle and the driver had brake to avoid a collision.
    "Good move," Scott said as he tracked the Suburban in the side mirror.
    Then the other driver veered away to gain some dis-tance. He cut back hard and slammed the Suburban's left front bumper into the back fender of the Tahoe. Cops called the move a P.I.T., a precision immobilization technique, and the intent was to force the fleeing car into a tailspin that end-ed in a crash. But Hitch knew the technique and knew how to escape it. Instead of turning into the spin, he counter-steered and kept pressure on the Suburban's front end until he forced it off the Tahoe's back fender. Then he cut to the right and rammed the Suburban and sent it spinning into the concrete railing.
    "Fucking-A good driving, man," Garza shouted from the back seat. Hitch smiled but kept his eyes glued to the bridge.
    When they reached the midpoint of the bridge, where Nuevo Laredo's Luis Donaldo Colosio Boulevard became Laredo's San Dario Avenue, Scott looked back and saw the Suburban again. Both front fenders were bashed up, but it was still chasing them.
    On the north side of the bridge, the four travel lanes fanned out into twelve numbered lanes that funneled into a covered inspection plaza manned by U.S. Customs and Bor-der Protection officers. Lane twelve, the far right lane, was labeled OFFICIAL USE ONLY. That was their only chance. Scott pointed at the booth, but he didn't need to. Hitch was already racing toward it.
    The CBP officers saw them coming. Two officers rushed out of the plaza with drawn pistols just as three steel posts shot up from the