There's a war smoldering along the southern border of the United States. It's not a war of ideologies or religions; or even about oil. It is, however, like all wars, fundamentally about economics and markets and over the last six years more than 60,000 people have lost their lives on its battlefronts, a body count that exceeds the US's losses in Vietnam. The market is, of course, America's insatiable appetite for cocaine. And while the combatants and victims are largely the soldiers employed by Mexico's enormously wealthy, hugely powerful and grotesquely bloodthirsty cartels, there has also been considerable collateral loss of innocent life. With the Mexico city of Juarez, murder capital of the world and epicenter of cartel activity sitting just across the border from El Paso like an evil conjoined twin, this iconic west Texas town finds itself on the front lines of the war. And it's for exactly this reason, after spending several weeks sniffing around the cocaine trail taking in the Colombian cities of Bogota and Medellin, as well as Panama City, Panama, that I've come to El Paso. A sizable chunk of the book I'm currently researching, a political thriller titled STANDOFF, is set here against the backdrop of this dirty drug war and I've found that there's no better route to authenticity than to walk the weeds of the places I'm writing about. There are things, I've discovered, that never make it into the Lonely Planet. Long before I arrive my US technical editor, Lieutenant Colonel Mike ˜Panda' Pandolfo (USAF ret.), has organised several activities for me here, most of which involve engagements with various law enforcement personnel. Today, for example, first up I'm to accompany El Paso Sheriff's Deputy Manuel Manny' Marquez on a "ride-along," followed by a session with the Sheriff's CSI team. I meet the deputy at the reception desk of the EPCSO's large concrete-bunker-like HQ, a fit, compact, 53-year-old law enforcement veteran. I'm soon to learn that this is a guy who doesn't pull his punches. Not surprisingly with a name like Marquez, the deputy's of Mexican descent, which is not at all uncommon in El Paso. It's a crisp morning in early spring, the sky a cloudless powder blue that seems to go on forever. As we walk through the parking lot, I ask for a little of his background. He tells me he began at the EPCSO more than thirty years ago. Over that time, he has pretty much done it all, including a stint in EPCSO's prestigious SWAT outfit. These days, Manny tells me, he's working intelligence as well as being on the interdiction task force. We eventually arrive at a massive black and white Ford F-150 extended cab pickup with oversize wheels and tyres. The thing has "authority" written all over it and looks to me like something out of Robocop. My next questions concern the deputy's weapons loadout, much of it waggling off his belt. He runs me through it: a baton, a Taser, two cans of pepper stray, one Smith & Wesson 9mm semi-automatic pistol (which he purchased for himself) with two additional magazines, and an AR-15 (the semi-automatic civilian version of the military M-16 rifle) mounted on the gun rack in the Ford's interior. Deputy Marquez also sometimes brings along a pump action Remington 870 for extra authority. Today, though, he's left it behind. We climb up into the vehicle, the driving and passenger space restricted by various computer information systems and that AR-15 up behind Manny's head. He logs into the computer after starting the engine and we're ready to roll. ˜Where do you want to go?' he asks. Oddly, it's a question that catches me off guard. ˜You don't go into the city, do you?' He shakes his head, ˜No.' Dumb thing for me to ask. Law enforcement in America is a little more complicated than it is in Australia. Here, innumerable agencies divide turf and responsibilities. Whereas we have state police forces and a single federal police force, generally speaking, American cities have a local police department handling law enforcement within a city's limits. Beyond it, in the outlying counties, responsibility for law enforcement falls to the sheriff's office. In addition, there's usually state police with a state-wide responsibility and, in Texas, there's also the elite of the elite “ 144 Texas Rangers. And in El Paso, because the city is where it is, there's also a thick layer of Federal law enforcement bureaus with a heavy presence: there's the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE, part of the Department of Homeland Security or DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). I have a sudden brain fart over where we should go and say, Horizon Airport. This is a privately run, public airstrip on the edge of the EPCSO's area of responsibility, out to the east, mid-way between El Paso and Horizon City. The Deputy doesn't ask but he has to be curious, right? I mean, of all plac