Four months earlier, Carlos traced 119 packages of generic Valium and Viagra to a Chester shipper and two Indian graduate students. The shipper was an ex-con. The Indians looked like small-timers, couriers maybe.

The identity of the real targets - the Internet pharmacy kingpins - wasn't clear yet. But already a clue found at the shipper's storefront had led to something called Rx-mart.com, and from there to an Australian pharmacy with global tentacles.

So far, DEA had identified suspect Web pharmacies in Australia, India, Germany, New York, Virginia and Philadelphia. The pharmacies bought generic drugs for pennies a pill, then sold them online, without requiring a prescription, for a dollar apiece.

In a report Carlos shared with Homeland Security, he wrote: "Early investigative findings indicate... sales of $108 million annually... . This organization generates enough revenue per year to purchase a virtually unlimited supply of drugs."

In short, a public-health nightmare - people, even teens, buying highly addictive pills online, generics made cheap overseas, from who knows where.

Carlos approached DEA supervisor Jeff Breeden to begin putting together a team with other agencies. At a minimum, they would need people to trace Web sites, track bank accounts, run surveillance, supervise wiretaps, and trace passport and customs data.

Carlos sat in his DEA cubicle on Eighth Street, looked at the ferns, the Puerto Rican flag, and his Emiliano Zapata poster, and tried to think of a sexy title for the investigation, something to remind everyone who was top dog.

Carlos called it "Carlito's Way."

N.J. TURNPIKE

Akhil drove as fast as he dared, rolling through toll plazas with E-ZPass, toward Jersey's congested north and Manhattan.

He loved driving, just as he loved computers and business.

He missed India's hectic traffic with its Darwinian rules. For a young man who hated video games - they wasted valuable computer memory - driving was the ultimate reality game.

At home, he'd snake through Agra's clogged, 16th-century roads, then break onto the highways that split farmland between Agra and Delhi, or roar east to the Himalayas and Nepal. He'd push his Korean sedan to 80 m.p.h., crank up the air, and blast his 12-CD stereo, the woofer thumping Phil Collins or a Hindi cover of "Pretty Woman."

Using the horn more than the brake, like any good Indian driver, Akhil would lean low, bouncing from lane to lane, zooming past cows, chickens, scrawny dogs, motorized rickshaws, camels carting rice, semis hauling flammable fuels, pickups stacked with wind-whipped riders. He'd fly by grimy green buses jammed with lesser castes, by women ferrying jugs on their heads, by motorbikes balancing families of four.

The sight of the Manhattan skyline with its steel canyons jolted Akhil back to the task at hand.

He did his best to act cool, but he was glad his roommate had come along. Patil was 30, five years older than Akhil, though his receding hairline made him appear older than that. Patil read books on the art of negotiation. Patil knew what he was doing.

They were on their way to meet Corrina Meherer, an executive for Interphar, a Costa Rican-based Internet pharmacy that also operated strip clubs. Interphar, looking to expand its business with the Bansals, had sent Meherer to New York to eyeball Akhil and his operation.

Akhil viewed the meeting as a different kind of test. He had built his father's U.S. business into an efficient, assembly-line operation, largely by phone and e-mail. But now he was headed for his first face-to-face business negotiation.

Could he close the deal? Or was he some young poseur playing businessman in a fantasy league?