The FBI has the X-Files. Customs has X-Sector, a challenge that can be just as unpredictable as anything encountered by Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Twenty-four hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, dozens of Sector Enforcement Specialists (SES) sit around a horseshoe-shaped console in Orlando, Fla., at the other end of a telephone number known only as 1-800-X-Sector.

On a busy shift, a SES can get up to 150 calls - 50 to 70 when it isn't as busy. The calls come from Customs agents and inspectors, their families and kids, local and state police, DEA, IRS, DOJ, HHS, HUD, Social Security, and the Border Patrol. People dial into the 1-800-BE-ALERT line to report suspicious activity, possible smuggling or narcotics dealing. A lot of calls come from elderly people - victims of fraud - who say someone from "Customs" told them there's a $100,000 check waiting for them if they only send us a $1,000 processing fee.

The first thing you have to understand about Sector is that they know everything. And they generally know it first. 1-800-X-Sector remains the telephone number of last resort, its operators a lifeline for anyone who's run out of time and needs an answer now. Sometimes the question becomes the stuff of legend: "Sector," shouts an inspector on the Alaska-Canadian border, "a moose just ran the port - please advise!"

"Sector," a Customs officer reports, "we've observed a wheelchair driving down Highway 405 at excessive speed - suggest you call the California Highway Patrol."

Not all the calls are so benign. Sometimes, when the console at Sector starts flashing, it means radio traffic is exploding. What you hear next can start your heart pumping. "Sector, sector, sector - we have shots being fired, repeat, we have shots fired!" On April 17, 1997, when an elderly man at the port of Calexico shot and wounded two Customs inspectors there, it was Sector that sent the information speeding across the wires to Internal Affairs, to local and state authorities, to medical personnel, and to the friends and families of the wounded men. "Personnel responsible for answering calls from the other regions didn't have a lot going on that day," recalls a supervisor. "They got real quiet when they overheard the shouting and our responses on the telephones and radios. Then they all pitched in. Everyone helped."

Sector, its people will tell you, is a family. Not the kind you hear about in the recruitment slogans or in agency speeches, but a group of people bonded together by crisis, tragedy, grief, tension, and the overwhelming catharsis that occurs when everything happens right. The good guys win. The bad guys are caught. No one get hurts. And it couldn't have happened without Sector.

For some people, of course, it's just another telephone number. Someone to talk to. Someone who listens. A supervisor who's worked the console for 13 years says everyone knows "Mike," a guy who used to call to complain and ramble on about his woes and the government's failings, but who ended up building a rapport with the men and women on the other end of the line. The supervisor says, "When Mike started calling, years ago, he'd just ramble on and never leave his name. It was just complaining and a lot of anger. Eventually, he'd called so many times and for so many years, we got to know him, he got to know us, and he told us his name and the story of his life. So now, if I get a call from Mike and it's a slow night, I take the time to talk. I say, "Hey, Mike, how's it going?" And he tells me."

Stan Yates, another Sector supervisor, remembers being sound asleep at home, getting a call in the middle of the night, picking up the receiver and yelling "Sector!" at the guy on the other end. It turns out the fellow was a coworker and Stan's devotion to his job, even during his off-duty hours, became a story that still makes the rounds.

There are hundreds of other stories about other calls as well, calls that started routinely enough, but ended up testing every skill the enforcement specialist on the other end of the line could muster. What every call has in common is the certainty that someone will be there to answer it, someone who is ready for absolutely anything. Around each of the 21 consoles at Sector sit some of the finest, most dedicated Customs officers in the service, men and women who have learned the hardest lessons that law enforcement, and life, can teach. 1-800-X-Sector. Make a note of it.

For more information, check out the June 2000 U.S. Customs Today story, On Location at the National Law Enforcement Communications Center in Orlando, Florida.