When the bombs stopped falling over Yugoslavia last June, a flood of humanity swept through the Balkans as thousands of Kosovar Albanians returned home from refugee camps. But over the craggy mountains separating Yugoslavia and Albania, a far less innocent traffic returned. A fleet of Mercedes sedans without license plates lined the streets of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, and young men with hooded eyes and bulky suits checked into the top floors of showcase hotels such as the Rogner in Tirana, the Albanian capital. It was time for criminal elements with close ties to America's newest ally to reopen the traditional Balkan Road-one of the biggest conduits for global heroin trafficking.

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