The Pretender Read online

  Since the fugitive wasn’t going to interact with the subjects, we weren’t concerned about his level of familiarity with his new identity and history. An appropriate shelf-ID would be sufficient, and I chose one Lester Banks. Even shelf-ID requires additional backstopping. A driver’s license and other documents do not, on their own, create a sufficient presence. And particularly in this scenario, of critical importance, the alias would need to have a serious criminal history in the appropriate law enforcement databases. This was vital. The targeted detectives would never actually meet the fugitives, but they would definitely check the cover story that Lester Banks was a dangerous felon. The cooperating Florida sheriff handled that end of the backstopping with Janus Miami, greatly facilitating my task. Our fugitive soon had prior arrests and convictions for assault and robbery and a variety of other violent crimes. Residential burglaries were a major crime problem in the Greater Tampa area—the Mount Vernon detectives needed to understand that this was an important request, one that called for a serious effort.

  Surveillance, that is highly professional surveillance, not the case agents’ squad-mates getting in a little overtime, was going to be a key element. SO-13, my old squad from pre-UC days, was selected. Thom Nicoletti was no longer the supervisor—he was headed for Guam—but my old buddy Jim Hanstein was now the supervisor. Jim had been a sheriff’s deputy in upstate New York and was noted for his sidesplitting comic impersonations of other agents, mostly those in management.

  In the field, day after day, Albert and Tina went out to find and rent suitable apartments in a mostly black low-income neighborhood, then returned to Craig with excuses for failing to do so. As the Mount Vernon PD had not yet been put on the alert for Lester Banks, there was no cause for them to show any interest in a new face in the ’hood. Nor any likelihood that they would even notice. Craig finally got fed up and sent me out on real-estate duty. It took a few hours to find a landlord, an Italian guy, who I thought would be sympathetic to the situation of this white guy—alias Sal Morelli for a day—in his neighborhood: I told him the apartments were for “my girls.” He knew what that meant, and he had no problem with it, and I carried the leases back to the office in the Ramada that afternoon. We now controlled a one-bedroom second-floor walk-up in a run-down tenement, 30 East 4th Street, and a fourth-floor, equally squalid flat across the street, complete with line of sight. Albert and Tina were now supposed to create a “presence” in the neighborhood among the local residents. Tina would move in, or create the appearance of moving in, spend some time in the apartment, get to know the neighbors a bit, develop a local persona. A couple of months later, Albert would show up, a felon on the lam from Florida. Though he would keep an appropriately discreet low profile, Albert would still make a point of being seen by other residents, shopkeepers, and local street people. Even a fugitive will need his cigarettes, Blue Ribbon, occasional nickel bag. Moreover, when the MVPD detectives got their tip from Florida and showed up, their sources and the ordinary residents of East 4th would need to have something to tell them.

  When the time finally came for our Florida-fleeing felon to make his appearance in Mount Vernon, Albert refused to sleep in the apartment. Although the sleepover requirement had been discussed months before, he justified the sudden reversal on security concerns. I had furnished the place with old nondescript items from a Bureau warehouse; it had a phone line and cable TV. Admittedly, it wasn’t a doorman building, but we were only asking Albert to stay there a couple of nights a week. Nope. We had to get him a hotel room in Dobbs Ferry (not our Ramada), and he’d come by the apartment and hang out awhile, long enough to get known, as he put it. Tina (who had rebuffed the proposition from the outset) was not as much of a concern; her role was incidental. The detectives would be focused on finding Lester Banks.

  Now this was an opportunity to participate in one of the FBI New York Office’s most significant police corruption investigations in years, yet these two relatively young agents displayed zero enthusiasm. Where was their careerism? Craig shrugged. As he saw it, their role wasn’t particularly demanding, they could do little damage to the case, and with the backstopping already in the works, looking for two other UCs would cause excessive and costly delays. There were several experienced black UCs, but it would be a hassle to free up two of them on short notice.

  Next step in setting the stage was a call to SO-7, the Tech Squad, comprised of technically trained agents, experts in all aspects of communication intercepts, audio and video recording, and surreptitious entries. Critics of that latter category often condemn such entries as burglaries executed by FBI agents. Well, burglary is defined as breaking and entering into a dwelling with intent to commit a crime. Tech agents only enter when they have an order signed by a federal judge. Sometimes the purpose of the perfectly legal entry is to conduct a search that the occupants won’t be aware of. (One example: in San Juan, my SOG squad conducted surveillance while tech agents snuck into an apartment to find the weapons of a couple of terrorists, members of a Machetero splinter group.) More often the goal is to plant recording devices, as per the judge’s authorization. These are not burglaries, by any stretch.

  As it happened, two of my best BuFriends, Ron Norman and Dave Swanson, were the “lock guys” for the NYC metro area (and for much of the rest of the country, for that matter; Ron and Dave were on the road a lot). Looking like a mole just coming into sunlight, with a way-receded hairline, blinking eyes behind his glasses, and a frequent sly grin, Ron could not have looked less like an FBI agent, but he had been the SO-13 team leader who shot and killed two bank robbers in Brooklyn in 1989 (on a day I had taken off to pick up my Key Biscayne girlfriend at JFK). He knew what he was doing in the field, and then he learned everything about locks and alarms. He and Dave opened all doors and circumvented all alarm systems so that the audio-video techies could plant their equipment. All quite specialized and quite demanding. Case in point, related to me by Ron: entering the Mafia don’s home in Staten Island that had been a near disaster. The usual pre-survey lasting a few weeks had determined the routines of the residents and recommended the best time for the installation. The entry took longer than expected because of the exceptionally sophisticated alarm system. The techs’ handi-talkie squawked: The don was on his way home, his Mercedes just a few blocks away. My old boss, maniac “Crazy Thom” Nicoletti, who was still SO-13’s supervisor at the time, didn’t hesitate. As the Mercedes entered an intersection, Thom raced his Jeep Renegade through a stop sign, smashed into the Mercedes fender, then immediately jumped out of the Jeep and launched into an indignant tirade directed at this don. This was a gutsy, split-second decision. If it didn’t work out, Crazy Thom might have faced some repercussions. (Then again, he faced repercussions throughout his career, survived, and even thrived.) This worked out fine. By the time the police reports had been completed, the entry crew was long gone, mission accomplished.

  In Mount Vernon, Ron and Dave installed serious locks and deadbolts in both the target apartment and the “perch” with line of sight to that crib. Why? The high-value surveillance equipment in the perch would include parabolic radar antennas, audio and video recording equipment, a high-power telescope, miscellaneous devices and cables, as well as remote controls for the equipment to be secreted in the target apartment. Many thousands of dollars’ worth of gear. The second-floor apartment theoretically inhabited by the fugitive and his old lady would eventually house a large amount of the BuCash (purportedly the loot from the home invasions). Locks installed, two SO-7 tech agents met me at the scene. Driving a covert car, these two nondescript tech guys were dressed like a couple of blue-collar working stiffs ready for some maintenance work. First order of business was a comprehensive survey of the target apartment. I was impressed. They suggested building a drop-down false ceiling and secreting several CCTV cameras and audio recorders to provide total coverage throughout the apartment. Another option was to build a faux protruding concrete ledge or corner concealing the lenses and mics. V
ery cool. Better than a Hollywood espionage thriller. They would send me a written proposal. Back at the Ramada, I recounted to Craig and Ed the sophisticated set-up we were going to be using.

  After a polite couple of weeks interval, I called. Hey, guys, just following up. How’s it going on the proposal for the installation? They were working on it … lots of requests were backlogged. I continued working on all the other details, and I started getting antsy about this glitch. When the target date was less than a month ahead, I started to feel really uncomfortable. Group I ops are approved in six-month increments. A renewal proposal is almost as burdensome as the original proposal. And a new budget has to be submitted, and it is subject to new questioning, of course. The Florida sheriff was doing a big favor for the FBI; it would be inappropriate to keep him involved indefinitely. On the legal front, for the prosecutors, probable cause becomes “stale” when too much time has elapsed. Pushing the date back was not an option, absent exigent circumstances. Delay on the part of the tech guys didn’t qualify. While not particularly knowledgeable in the construction arts, I imagined that building a new ceiling for the entire apartment, or false ledges, or whatever, would take some time, especially since it had to be done with a bit of discretion, without alerting the landlord or neighbors. I had dark fantasies of the ferret-like, always-suspicious Italian landlord getting wind of unexplained activity on his property, demanding to inspect the apartment and finding an installation half complete, inexplicable wires and cables dangling from a new ceiling he knew nothing about. That would be a disaster.

  With only a week to go before the time constraint dictated that we roll the cameras and spring the trap, the tech boys finally called. They’d meet me in the perch the next evening, late, to avoid attracting notice. They pulled up in a van, from which we discreetly unloaded cases of equipment. In the perch, they set up the parabolic antennas and showed me and Ed how to work the audio-video recording equipment. But where, precisely, were they installing the all-important recording equipment for the target apartment? In the unbuilt drop ceiling? The as-yet-unconstructed faux beams? When was all that going to happen? Not to worry. Change of plan. Instead of all that labor, two trick table lamps: one for the bedroom, one for the living room. Proudly they demonstrated their inventions. The camera in each was in the base. The electricity provided by the ordinary plug would operate the camera, mic, and transmitter. With no backup battery. The lightbulb could be turned on and off like an ordinary lamp, making the ruse totally convincing. Wow! Gee, thanks, guys. Appreciate the effort you put into this. If they noticed the sarcasm, they concealed it well. Why couldn’t someone have told us about this change to a much simpler installation? Not wanting to be seen walking across the street from the perch to the crib, Ed and I repacked the lamps and then stashed them in my trunk for later transfer to Albert and Tina. A couple of days later, our UCs arrived home with their new purchases, to be placed in the appropriate rooms close to a window and plugged in. (I was no longer taking anything for granted.)

  Now it was time—at long last—to plant the false tip from Florida and raise the odor of easy pickings for the targeted detectives. The sheriff’s lieutenant-deputy in Florida called Astorino (believed to be the ringleader) and reported that a tip from a trusted source put a dangerous fugitive from the Tampa area in Mount Vernon, driving a black late-eighties Camaro, with stolen plates. The name was Lester Banks, and he had apparently stashed some cash in the trunk of the Camaro as “running green” in case he needed to make an emergency departure. Astorino took the call around 6:00 p.m. Always happy to help. We’ll alert the patrol units, and I’ll also have a couple of my guys looking. Of course, we had carefully entered the plate number into the databases, so any inquiry would confirm that they were indeed stolen. The Florida detective also faxed copies of the arrest warrant for Lester and mug shots of UC Albert. Because one of the victims of the home invasion had died from his injuries, the warrant was for murder.

  One hour before the bogus tip was delivered, I had parked the vehicle “salted” with $5,000 on a two-way street at a major intersection in Mount Vernon. Not wanting to take any chance the fugitive’s getaway car could be missed, I had parked it number-one at the corner, with the front aligned with the crosswalk. No cars would be able to park and block the clear view of the plate. And with the absence of functioning streetlights, there was sufficient obscurity at the rear of the car to allow for some of the cash to evaporate if one or more of the detectives took the bait and checked the trunk. Once parked, the car would have to remain under constant surveillance. Not only to observe police activity but to forestall another eventuality: should heaven forbid someone break into the car and steal the cash, I would have had some unpleasant explaining and a load of paperwork facing me.

  It was just after sunset. I was accompanied by Bim, the bodyguard and driver of Alex Perez’s Mercedes for his first appearance at Holyland, back in RUN-DMV. Armed with powerful binoculars, Bim and I parked the unpretentious covert Honda a comfortable distance from the Camaro. I was accompanied by Bim rather than my co-agent Ed Cugell because Bim was black and Ed was white, very white. In this neighborhood, the combination of Ed and I sitting there would not have conveyed the unmistakable odor of easy pickings to the MVPD. Feds! more likely. Bim and I could have been rousted, that was always possible, maybe even flaked (that’s when cops plant a small amount of weed or coke), but there was no chance of jeopardizing the op. With the tip planted, we were on full alert. A few other surveillance cars were cruising in the area, with alternating cars eyeballing the police department’s garage from time to time to give us a heads-up if there was any movement … no movement. An hour later, finally, a patrol car rolled out. Which drove through our intersection—the one that counted—without slowing down. Around eight, one of Astorino’s detectives drove out of the garage—and returned after a short stop at Pizza King, carrying a couple of pizza boxes—and, no doubt, an envelope for the chief of detectives.

  By 10:30, Craig was getting pissed. He and Ed were at the Ramada, a mini-command post. The MV detectives’ shift ended in an hour and a half. Craig decided on a last-ditch ploy (last-ditch for that evening, at least) and called Hillsborough County and asked the lieutenant who had passed along the first tip to call Astorino a second time. Any luck up there? Sorry to bother you guys, but the sheriff is breathing down my neck. He really wants to nail this guy. Astorino: We’ve been combing the whole town and the uniformed patrol officers are looking extra hard. Craig was livid. These liars might avoid getting ensnared in stage one of this op not because they were suspicious, they were just “too fucking lazy to be bothered.”

  The detectives’ shift was over. We waited an extra hour to be sure nothing was happening. Now the Camaro with the painstakingly registered stolen plates and the $5,000 in the trunk had to be driven through Mount Vernon and five adjacent townships, each with its own police department, to the safety of the New Rochelle office. The obvious candidate for this chore, someone who could take an arrest if necessary, was, of course, alias Sal Morelli. So Bim took the wheel of the Honda, and I pulled out in the Camaro. In an effort to limit the view of the plates to any passing cops, Bim drove directly behind me, with one of the surveillance cars in front. When the lane pattern allowed, such as on the Cross County Parkway, other surveillance cars flanked me. And so we hobbled our way back to the Ramada, where I took the plates off the car while Ed took responsibility for the cash. Altogether, a disappointing night’s work. Still, the wheels had been set in motion with the tip about Lester’s car, and now it was time to set the stage for the final act. (Albert and Tina were out of the picture. They had never slept in “their” apartment, had never ordered pizza or fried chicken to be delivered. Tina had never cultivated any acquaintances among the neighbors. Whatever impressions they had made in the neighborhood would have to suffice.)

  Thanks to Commissioner Isley in Mount Vernon, we knew the shift schedule for Astorino and company. Two days after the car adventure, on a Thursday
, the three main targets would pull a 4:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m., then an 8:00 a.m–4:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. After that, they would not be regrouped until the following week. Daytime didn’t suit our purposes. Police everywhere prefer to pick up a fugitive when his guard is down, ideally sleeping or relaxed, watching TV with a few beers. Alert, in the middle of the day, is not good. So it would have to go down on Thursday, where their shift extended into the dark hours. That morning I did a final sweep of the target apartment before planting the cash, $31,000 in various denominations, stuffed into a large, very expensive gym bag I brought with me. Every single bill had been photographed, every serial number entered into an Excel worksheet.