The sun is below the rooftops when Scotto and I heft our bags and slip from the stuffy boxcar. Warmer on this spring night than Moscow on the hottest summer day, Miami lolls beneath a magenta sky that silhouettes the booms of freighters and skeletons of bridge cranes straddling the lines of railcars. We make our way through a maze of narrow corridors created by the hundreds of shipping containers on the wharf, then turn a corner and come upon a massive containerized freighter straining at its hawsers. In the distance, the white, military-style shirts of Customs agents catch the fading twilight. Armed and vigilant, they’re posted at the entrances and along the perimeter of this section of the terminus. Signs that proclaim RESTRICTED AREA OFF LIMITS TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL appear at intervals along a high fence that encloses it. “The place is crawling with cops,” Scotto whispers. “You think Customs or DEA somehow beat us to the container?” “Sure as hell hope not; they could blow the whole business before we—”
