First excerpt from Arpaio’s new book

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of five excerpts we’re running this week from Joe’s Law: America’s Toughest Sheriff Takes on Illegal Immigration, Drugs, and Everything Else That Threatens America, the new book by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Len Sherman. On Wednesday, at 11 a.m., Arpaio will answer questions from readers at our Web site, aztalk.azcentral.com.

Almost 50 years ago - can it really be that long ago? - I was one of the first federal agents sent overseas to fight drugs. Unlike what the movies portray with James Bond or Miami Vice, with high-tech communications and surveillance equipment, the most modern weaponry, massive government support, the reality for me was far, far different. I was on my own, and had to make alliances with the local cops, which worked better on some occasions than on others.

I’d been driving for I don’t know how many hours, wrestling with the wheezing, aged truck I had rented a couple hundred miles ago. Up to now, the trek had been pretty much routine. I had driven to Ankara, the capital of Turkey, from my home in Istanbul in my government-issue 1957 Chevy, and picked up Commander Galip Labernas, my counterpart in the Turkish national police. He was an old pro, but his enthusiasm for crime busting had long ago evaporated and disappeared.

Labernas’ lack of gusto in the performance of his task wasn’t exactly an inspiration, but he wasn’t corrupt, and would do what was needed when called upon. In any event, I needed his official police powers. For the most part, the Turkish police were hardly models of law enforcement efficiency, being generally underpaid, undertrained, underequipped, and undermotivated. On the other hand, they were all I had. I had discovered that it was smart to work only with cops from either Istanbul or Ankara, because the rural authorities were thoroughly bought and paid for by the local drug dealers, and would give you away faster than you could spit.

From Ankara, Labernas and I had headed into rural Turkey, away from the bright lights - or any lights - and big cities. Of course, the further we journeyed from the main urban areas, the more difficult the roads became, until they were finally too much for my car, which was six years old and had been worn down traversing the rutted, dirt highways and byways of Turkey. But the heap was all the old Bureau of Narcotics could afford, so that was what I used, unless I managed to borrow the jeep from the U.S. Army colonel who lived next door.

I took the Chevy as far as it could go, and then parked it in some village alongside the road and got the rusty truck.

I’d met the go-between who’d set up this transaction shortly after arriving in Turkey. He was a Lebanese “businessman,â€