A confrontation began when a tall Russian man refused to pay his bar tab, traded harsh words with Jason, and shoved him. Kingston, a Garifuna smuggler, suddenly intervened and delivered a brutal beating that continued inside the club. Jason, Snoop, and a man with one leg named Chuy restrained Kingston and fled in a car, with Chuy using his crutch to operate the pedals while inhaling paint thinner. Kingston apologized to Jason, explaining he was protecting him.

Jason reflects on the escalating violence and psychological toll of his three-year project. He experiences paranoia, hypervigilance, and nightmares but continues justifying the risks as necessary for his research. He recognizes he is in over his head.

The narrative shifts to a crowded safe house in Lechería, on the outskirts of Mexico City. The building was controlled by MS-13 and housed young Garifuna smugglers. Andy, the 31-year-old den mother, maintained order while earning money through begging at traffic lights and charging rent. His Mexican visa application was denied after he filed a complaint against an immigration official who assaulted him. Jason explains that Garifuna migrants, who are Afro-Indigenous, face intense racial discrimination in Mexico and must travel differently from Central Americans of other races or ethnicities. They rely almost exclusively on smugglers from their own ethnic communities and move quickly through hostile territory, due to being more easily identified as non-Mexican than other immigrants.

When Kingston entered the safe house, his young soldiers all deferred to him. Jason describes his imposing presence: tall, muscular, covered in prison tattoos from his time with the Bloods gang. In the courtyard, Kingston questioned whether Jason was a police officer. Jason explained he was an anthropologist researching smugglers and promised to destroy his materials if trust was ever broken. Kingston invited him to Veracruz and began teaching him about the smuggling business, emphasizing that success depended on community recommendations and trust. He outlined his payment structure and warned that subcontracted border crossers often extorted or abandoned clients. Kingston stressed that modern guides had to be willing to negotiate with cartels and confront violence, concluding that his entire life had been a catastrophe.

In present-day Veracruz, Kingston smoked crack cocaine during a rainstorm and recounted his traumatic childhood. Flashbacks reveal that at age eight, his mother regularly hung him upside down and whipped him with electrical cords. His father had died the previous year, and after enduring constant abuse, Kingston fled home. He survived by singing for money and washing buses, during which time older gang members began recruiting him. At nine or ten, they gave him a gun and tried to make him kill someone, but he missed.

When Kingston was 12, his mother died of cancer, leaving him completely alone. He escalated to armed robbery and began wandering through Mexico and Central America, acquiring knowledge that would later prove valuable. When a high-ranking Bloods member formalized the local gang, Kingston joined. Shortly after, the Honduran military forcibly conscripted him and other neighborhood youth. As an orphan, he was an ideal candidate for a child soldier. The military placed him in a special unit where he experienced severe mental and physical torture but learned advanced weapons skills and tactical planning.

At 14, Kingston witnessed his best friend’s murder. The killer pointed the gun at Kingston and challenged him, a moment that shattered him. He went on a violent rampage that made him a wanted fugitive. Fleeing to Guatemala, he was robbed by police but received help from a compassionate stranger who drove him to Guatemala City and gave him clothes and money. He traveled north on freight trains, eventually crossing into Texas.

In the Bronx, a half-brother helped Kingston obtain a Green Card. He found work but was quickly drawn into the Bloods, commanding dozens of young members. When someone slashed his friend’s face, Kingston retaliated by pistol-whipping the attacker until his face was unrecognizable. At 16, he received a sentence of 25 years to life for attempted murder. An older inmate helped him file appeals, and after nearly a decade—much of it spent in solitary confinement—his sentence was commuted. Upon release, he was immediately deported to Honduras. Within weeks of returning to his village, an intruder shot him in the head and shoulder. He survived and immediately returned to Mexico as a smuggler.

Chino and Jesmyn arrived in Pakal-Ná looking exhausted. Chino had been separated from Santos on the train and sustained a severe injury while attempting to slow it down to search for him. He showed Jason a large, infected puncture wound on his torso and was running a fever. Despite his condition, Chino appeared unusually cheerful and clear-headed.

To Jason’s surprise, Chino announced he was considering leaving the smuggling life to stay in Pakal-Ná with Jesmyn. They planned to rent a room and find legitimate work or possibly move to Guatemala, where Jesmyn’s mother might help them. Jason recalled Chino’s recent suicidal ideation and wondered if this relationship represented his escape from a dangerous existence. The couple was clearly in love.

Jason took Chino to a pharmacy and gave him medicine, making him promise to drink water instead of alcohol. The sight of an Electrolit bottle triggered a painful memory of finding an identical bottle beside a migrant woman’s body in the Arizona desert.

Meanwhile, Santos spent the afternoon giving tattoos with his homemade gun before receiving a call summoning him for a smuggling job. Before departing, he read from his pocket Bible, pointing out a grim passage from Revelation about locusts from the Abyss. He told Jason he preferred traveling alone on the tracks because he could not trust others. He explained his desire to get away from the dangers of the tracks and find normal work in the United States.

Jason reflects that both Chino and Santos stood at crossroads. Chino had chosen to stay with Jesmyn, while Santos had to continue his journey north in search of a better future.

At a safe house in Lechería controlled by MS-13, Flaco told a man named Lalo not to smoke around his young children. Flaco had arrived with badly blistered feet after evading an immigration raid. Contemplating Lalo’s children, he spoke about his own seven children and explained that providing for them motivated his work. He recounted nearly being killed by the Zetas in Coatzacoalcos, where he paid $750 to escape, and said he planned to retire after three or four more trips. When Lalo’s toddler asked for beer, Flaco lectured about setting good examples for children, insisting he wanted his son to see him working rather than robbing people.

On the rooftop, Flaco warned Jason about three Salvadoran contract killers on the stairs. Despite his nervousness, Jason befriended them by sharing photos of his children. As night fell, Flaco received a call from Goodwin arranging transportation to Guadalajara for $500. During an emotional goodbye, Flaco invited Jason to his son’s birthday party in Honduras and began crying as they exchanged declarations of love.

Over the following weeks, Flaco sent videos documenting his journey north: scenes from atop speeding trains, his baby son in Honduras, and parties in a caboose with Pirate, Acid, and Jorge. In one of the last videos from the journey, Jorge appeared thin and exhausted.

At a safe house in Mexicali, Flaco and his crew recovered from a night of heavy partying. When asked about smuggling, Flaco said it was all about money. He explained his pricing structure and profit margins, showing Western Union receipts for money sent to his family. He claimed Jorge was safely in the United States and working. Three days later, Jorge called Jason in tears, revealing that Flaco took the $5,000 his family sent for the border crossing and then disappeared, abandoning Jorge and a friend on the streets of Mexicali.

Jason drove through Chiapas with Kingston and his collaborator Mike Wells. They struggled to keep straight faces at Kingston’s outfit, which included skintight shorts and a fedora. When Kingston spotted exhausted migrants by the roadside, he had Jason pull over. He shared a joint and cigarettes with the men and warned them about an upcoming immigration checkpoint. Learning they had no money for transportation and still faced 50 to 60 kilometers to reach Pakal-Ná, Kingston gave them a beer from the car’s cooler. The grateful recipient kissed the beer can and pointed to the sky. Kingston mused about opening his own shelter where he would provide beer and marijuana to migrants.

Kingston reflected on the difficulty of leaving smuggling. Financial need and requests for help constantly pulled him back. He described the emotional volatility of the work but said the best moments came at night after getting paid, when everyone could relax and party. He detailed the high costs of bribing drivers and officials during the southern Mexico leg of the journey.

At a Mexico City safe house, Jason photographed the crew. He focused on Priest, a silent and intimidating enforcer who refused to smile. Kingston explained that Priest was a reliable soldier capable of carrying out violent assignments without question. He confirmed that 90% of smugglers were gang members because such connections provided necessary protection. Around 2007, Mexican gangs began systematically attacking Garifuna migrants, prompting Kingston to arm his crews with machetes and guns. His violent reputation meant there were now places in Mexico and Honduras where he could not safely travel. He explained that poverty in Honduras drove people to become contract killers for as little as $25 and that, on the Mexican tracks, murder was similarly cheap and common.