A van with tinted passenger windows glides into the vacant parking lot behind a roadside hotel in Turlock. At 10 a.m. sharp, its side door scrolls open.

The rules of the interview: No name, no hometown, no details. Sit inside the van. You have an hour. The van door closes. Two agents from the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement monitor the questions and answers.

The informant sits in the dark. Jesus Christ on a gold cross presses into his shirt. His hands are soft, his nails clean. Pressed blue jeans and a sports shirt belie his former work as a ranch hand. That work, he says, was long ago. Now, he buoys precariously between drug agents and drug traffickers - his former colleagues.

He left the state of Michoacan, Mexico, to come El Norte, a land with better opportunities, better work, better pay. He arrived in a Central Valley dust-bowl town, surrounded by almond orchards, peach trees and cow pastures. He was 17 and alone.

He worked on a dairy farm, tending cows and acres of sun-dried ranch land. It was hard work, he says, and low pay. He sent money to his family in Mexico.

One night a few friends from his hometown invited him to an apartment to meet some people, to talk business. It was a short conversation. Two men flashed sticky wads of dollar bills wrapped in rubber bands, and told him he could make more money in one day doing what they did than what he could make in a month on the farm.

The job, they said, is easy. We get the drugs. You sell.

The teen-ager was a good worker. Someone, he doesn’t know who, arranged a meeting with the boss. The boss, he says, is well-connected on both sides of the border and presents himself as a polished professional. He takes care of his employees, offering them meals, cars, places to stay and places to play. More importantly, he offers them work.

When he got the call, he "worked.” He would pick up the product - about 2 pounds of meth -- and deliver it to a specified location. Three regulars would dole out the meth to street dealers. In less than three hours, the informant says he made $500.

He would make an additional $300 for cleaning a meth lab after a cook - rinsing flasks and buckets, discarding trash. He could earn an extra $200 for cleaning the boss’ home, and another $400 for completing various errands before a cook - gathering lab equipment, trash bags and sheets. He watched the cooks, learned the process. He once saw 60 pounds of meth produced during one cook, but typically, he says, the crews would manufacture about 30 pounds.

He says he never became a cook, or cared to sample the "dirty drug." Today, he loiters around some labs, and answers anonymous calls to deliver dope. But now, he works under the watchful eye of law enforcement.

The agent in the front passenger seat turns around.

“Time is almost up.”

The informant mentions family.

He often calls his parents in Michoacan to tell them not to worry. Life is good, work is fine, he tells them.

"They don't know what I do here. I tell them I'm working on a ranch, 8 or 9 hours a day. And they tell me, 'Please look for a clean job.'"

-- By Crystal Carreon