The Pretender Page 23
I slipped back into my seat just in time for the curtain. My mother glanced at me. She knew something was up, but by now she had made her peace with my profession. I squeezed her hand, and we settled in for the wonderful tragedy about to transpire on stage.
* * *
Mark’s wiretaps picked up a call from Gong to Denise Wei, which she had patched through to Richard’s club. Richard’s only comment regarding Alex and the $21,000 buy was a complaint that the quantity was too small to waste the time for a trip to Queens. This elicited an angry response from Gong, with a few Chinese insults, and reminders about who was in charge. And the future sales would be for appropriately significant quantities. Half a fish, at the least. With the phone conversations placed by Gong through Denise Wei’s line, compounding his calls made directly to me, the AUSAs and Bureau management were pleased to see the noose tightening. Mark also intercepted a call between Kevin Mong and Peter Li that featured the same complaint. Mong had asked how “the one from Miami” (that would be me) had obtained Mong’s home number (which was also the number of Mong’s wife, Denise Wei). Li mistakenly blamed Richard, and the two grumbled about Richard’s stupidity and lack of trustworthiness when it came to coughing up the cash due the higher-ups in the organization. Then they shifted their focus of annoyance to include the one from Miami, agreeing that the quantities this small-timer was buying were insufficient to justify the time of Richard and his crew.
By that time, I had handed over close to $35,000, which isn’t chickenfeed, but their complaint goes to show the incredible amounts of money generated by the drug trade in literally every corner of the globe. Since the plan had always been to incrementally increase the size of Alex’s purchases, Mark and I now agreed that it was time to push the volume to the next notch. The intercepted phone call indicated the timing was right. We had no concern that Peter Li might think Hmm, we complain about small buys and the buys immediately increase. It was too remote a connection. In all my prior ops, I had relied on intuition, my feel for the subjects, to make tactical decisions. With Mark’s web of telephone intercepts and informants, we could virtually read these guys’ minds and react accordingly. We knew they would just be happy to see the increased cash flow. Over the next two or three or four calls between me and Richard—given the necessary haggling and the necessary concurrences from Gil and Gong, respectively; it was always a matter of several calls—we reached an agreement for me to buy a half unit, “twelve fish” (twelve ounces) at $4,100 per ounce, for a total of $49,200.
On a chilly early spring morning in March of 1995 I beeped Richard and provided the ID of the hotel (the Ramada) and my room number therein. A few minutes later, one of Mark’s squad-mates assigned to “wire duty” picked up a call to Richard at the Karaoke Club from Chang, a request for marching orders. Go to Alex’s hotel room “right away … take care of it.” Sitting in the hotel room with nearly fifty thousand, I would ordinarily not have been thrilled to learn that the soldier had been ordered to “take care of it.” While Chang was no killer, this was still the heroin business. I wasn’t buying auto parts. Gong was in jail for murder and complacency in undercover operations is not a particularly desirable attitude … I had never seen Chang without the revolver-sized leather handbag.
Mark had already posted a surveillance team at Chang’s place of residence in Chinatown, (as well as at Richard’s club, just in case). They watched as Chang hailed a cab and arrived at the Ramada at about twenty past noon. Moving surveillance of a subject in a taxi is particularly easy—no rearview mirror concerns, no hinky driver. With Mark keeping me abreast of the evolving scenario, I turned on the TV, watched the news, and waited, knowing what to expect. Or so I thought. Chang was somewhat too deferential, not business as usual. Sure enough, a minor inconvenience: he did not have the product with him. If I would be so kind as to let him have the money, he’d be back shortly with the agreed upon half unit.
You want me to front you fifty thousand dollars?
Richard returned Chang’s beep within minutes. The yelling over the receiver was clearly audible, though the Chinese was not comprehensible. Then I took the line. No can do. No fish, no cash. Against company policy. Nothing personal, but my uncle would take an extremely dim view of my losing that kind of cash. Next for Chang was a cab ride home, three minutes inside the apartment, reemerging, now carrying what appeared to be a toiletries bag, and a cab ride back to the hotel. This meant an additional hour of CNN for Alex, who switched to Spanish language Univision when word came of Chang’s imminent return. With only eight ounces, not the full twelve. As agreed in the call with Richard, this would be a two-stage transaction. I made no attempt to hide my continued annoyance with the change in plans, for which he babbled apologies. I paid him $32,800. He left with more apologies and promises for a short wait. Another hour and a half of CNN, and a call from Richard. Chang was on his way. One minute earlier, Chang had called Richard and reported that he had given Alex the “eight people,” and now had “the four.” Chang must have called Richard from the hotel lobby. I just had time to switch to Univision before the knock on the door. Another aluminum brick, smaller this time, in exchange for the remaining $16,400. Done deal, finally.
A dozen mind-twisting conversations with Gong later and I was back in a hotel at LaGuardia. This time the Marriott, and again only the delivery boy, Chang, represented the other team. Their comfort level was rising. They never asked what seemed to me to be an obvious and potentially troublesome question. Why was Gil’s number one, the top lieutenant, still making the buys personally and not sending a soldier to handle the high-risk task? Perhaps they decided it wasn’t any of their business. The money was coming in, and all was going well. That was enough. But if they did ask, Mark and I had scripted my answer: Professional courtesy. Gong had been sending his top lieutenant, Richard (at least until now). Gil was responding in kind. Chang had brought a “half-menu,” and my manila envelope contained $50,000—a special price for Gil. When I asked Chang about the quality, he looked at me, puzzled. With the language issue—his facility with English was somewhat limited—the question had perhaps lost or gained something when translated in his mind. His response nearly caused me to fall off the corner of the hotel room bed where I was seated.
“I just sell this”—nodding toward the aluminum foil brick with a look of disdain, disgust—“I don’t use it.” The implication was that if others wanted to poison themselves, it was no concern of his, particularly if it resulted in a large tax-free cash flow. Until that very moment, I had believed that such a reply was something only a UC, an amateur UC, would say. But if a real heroin distributor could say it, I could as well. And I did, years later, in 2010, buying volume oxycodone from a Dominican in the Bronx while adding, with a chuckle, derisive remarks about the tarados (knuckleheads) who actually swallowed these poisoned pills. As with everything I said and did, the idea was to enhance my Alex Perez persona as a legitimate hard-case professional criminal who would use and discard addicts as easily, as heedlessly as he would tissue paper.
* * *
I’ve mentioned that one of the first confederates that the earliest physical and electronic surveillance of Gong’s troops identified was one Paul Kwok, of Toronto, Canada. (This was many months before Mark Calnan recruited me for the UC job.) As it turned out, Gong’s heroin originating in Malaysia was smuggled first to Toronto, ultimately arriving in New Jersey and New York for coast-to-coast U.S. distribution. Other shipments went elsewhere. This was a global network. From the beginning, therefore, the Canadian angle—Canada and beyond, all the way to Malaysia, ideally—was a major attraction for the SUNBLOCK investigation.
I would discuss with Richard my Uncle Gil’s intention to expand our Canadian operation by starting to distribute heroin as well as cocaine through our existing network, which was based in Montreal and Vancouver. Of course, Gil and I could not openly know about the Canadian connection. As experienced professionals, we had never asked, nor did we care about, the source of the heroin. What we ca
red about was price, quality, reliability, and security. All of which Gong’s organization could provide to our satisfaction. It would be up to Gong, or Richard, to suggest that I meet with and start doing business with Paul Kwok, and ultimately Kwok’s associates, in Toronto. With time and luck, if the volume justified it, Gong or Richard might even put me in touch with the exporters in Malaysia. As the buys became significantly larger, Gil would have the leverage to insist on dealing directly with the principals, using his own (purported) cocaine network to securely transport the product. Gong would not object—Gil would assure that he still received his percentage.
The Canadian connection dictated that SUNBLOCK therefore become a joint investigation with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. At one of the “all those involved” planning sessions, I met the two principal Mounties who would be handling the Canadian end of the op, which they had codenamed PROJECT ORDAIN. (In this narrative, I’m sticking with SUNBLOCK.) Their case was being developed using traditional investigative techniques. They were conducting physical surveillance of Paul Kwok, Gong’s Toronto source for the heroin, and other players in Canada, and they had set up a number of phone intercepts. Important early questions for the Mounties were how Kwok and his minions got the heroin past Canadian Customs, and what the organizational chart looked like. What the Mounties could use in the worst way, but did not have, was an undercover agent in place. Not due to lack of highly skilled UCs in their service (as I would learn personally a decade later in the TURKEY CLUB sting against the Italian Mafia), but rather due to lack of a means to penetrate this tightly knit, professional, closed group of drug-dealing confederates.
Without divulging that his goods in fact came into the United States from Canada, Gong had told Gil that he had reliable people in Toronto, and suggested that Gil have Alex travel there. Richard would be there as well and personally make the introductions. During my next call with Richard, made to his office, the Chinatown Karaoke Club, I relayed the news that my brother had been speaking to his brother about new restaurants—Richard knew the code—and we needed to meet. I’d be passing through New York in a few days. I’d book my flights to allow a few hours to get together. As per our now-established routine, I’d page Richard as soon as I had a room in one of the hotels by LaGuardia. As usual, Mark Calnan and I would have booked adjoining rooms the previous day, and by the time I beeped Richard, all the technical surveillance equipment complete with video, would have been set up and tested.
Fifteen minutes after I sent the beep, he was knocking at the door of my hotel room. Unusual alacrity—impossible alacrity. He must have already been in the area. As I later learned from the wiretaps, Gong had made it clear in his call to Richard’s club the night before that this meet was going to be important, and he wanted to hear good news afterward. That is, he had better hear good news.
Chang stood by Richard’s side in the doorway. I invited them into the hotel room, and after the obligatory cigarette—I was beginning to look forward to them—I told Richard of my uncle Gil’s plans. He wanted to open Chinese restaurants in Florida, California, and Canada. I explained that we already had a number of Mexican restaurants in Miami, L.A., Montreal, and Vancouver (code, obviously), and as we were making so much money with the Chinese menus that we were buying in New York, it just made good sense to follow the same pattern at our other existing franchises. Richard said he just happened to have a friend who managed Chinese restaurants in Canada and could provide us with menus there, and at a good price. Coincidentally, he was planning to travel soon to meet with his friend, and it would be his pleasure to arrange a dinner where we could all meet and discuss the ins and outs of running this kind of restaurant in Canada. Miami would also work. They had people in place to cover the southeastern U.S. market. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to service us in California. (Gong later explained to Gil that he had agreed to remain out of the West Coast, so long as his California Chinese heroin boss counterpart stayed out of the East Coast.) Gong would personally vouch for Gil’s organization—and for Alex Perez as its number-one man on the outside—to Paul Kwok in Toronto. Richard, Chang, the other guys—they didn’t have the authority or credibility to handle the task.
By vouching for a new customer, Gong was putting his own credibility and reputation on the line. Whenever a confidential informant (or a subject, unwittingly, as in this instance) vouches for a UC, he is bestowing his entire credibility on that UC. He is saying you can trust Alex as much as you trust me. In a world where misplaced trust can lead to prison or worse—when perhaps the customer pays not with cash but with gunshots—this Vouch, with a capital V, is a matter of no small import, and Canada was now an open door. It just remained for my case agent Mark Calnan and his Royal Canadian counterpart to work out the details and draft an operational plan to send to the corner offices in D.C. and Ottawa.
This is where I came into the picture: everyone wanted me in Toronto, meeting with Kwok and Co. I agreed, but raised two preconditions. First, FBI agents would participate in the surveillance of the UC meets. Second, I would be authorized to carry a firearm. In the United States, of course, a weapon is a given, but this is not the case for UCs in Canada. Especially foreign UCs. No problem on either count, replied the Canadians. They would obtain the necessary approvals. But their approvals were just the beginning. An international UC op would require all kinds of approvals, including the FBI Legal Attaché office (LEGAT in BuSpeak), the special agent liaison officers assigned to the U.S. Embassy. We would need a little time. Possibly a problem, if the approvals dragged on too long, but we caught a break: Gil called with the news that Gong had been caught with heroin in his cell and would be in Administrative Segregation for the next three months. Gil expected me to be upset. Not really. The bureaucracy might need that much time. Richard and I therefore kept the Canadian date loose, agreeing only that the meeting in Toronto would be after his “brother” got his phone privileges back.
Over a month later, Mark heard back from the Canadians. Regrettably, the Mounties’ management could not (or would not, who knows?) obtain authorization for American participation in the surveillances on Canadian soil. Not to worry, their teams were highly experienced, knew the terrain and the players, were accustomed to covering UC meets, and would take all necessary steps to assure my safety. Do we see where this part of the SUNBLOCK saga is headed? I have to admit, when I thought of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in action, I did not visualize the FBI Hostage Rescue Team fast-roping from helicopters onto rooftops with full auto MP5s slung over their back and flashbangs strapped to their web gear. Nor did I visualize the Israeli Shin Bet crashing into Hezbollah safe houses. Nor the Argentine National Police or French CRS. Rather, the image I conjured was of a more … diplomatic … non-confrontational agency. It’s Canada, after all. I started to imagine a nighttime meet with Kwok, Richard, and others yet unnamed, in an unknown suburb of an unknown city in a foreign country, its crack surveillance team—keeping careful distance to avoid being burned—losing me. Or, worse, one of the Mounties doing something that did in fact burn me, inadvertently compromising my covert identity, and then the rest of that team not rushing in to save the day, but rather seeking a “peaceful” resolution, while the Chinese narco-traffickers opted for the other kind.
Does this sound too U.S.-centric of me? My enthusiasm for this gig was diminished, and then a few days later, with one additional phone call from Mark, it was extinguished altogether. Profuse apologies from our friends up north, Mark reported, but I would not be allowed to carry a firearm. No exceptions, foreign lawmen can’t be armed while in Canada. Not to worry, their teams were highly experienced, knew the terrain and the players, were accustomed to covering UC meets, and would take all necessary steps to assure my safety, blah, blah, blah.
That was it. I wasn’t going. The Mounties could try to complete their case without a UC. And that wasn’t all they could do with their case. Clearly, they had known full well that they would not be likely to obtain the authoriza
tions they had promised. Like true bureaucrats, rather than telling us the truth upfront, or making the effort with the hope that they just might succeed, they chose the disingenuous and lazy route. Expecting, no doubt, that I would be swept into the operation by the tide of events, by the momentum of the extensive preparations that were well under way, and by pressure from FBI management. They were wrong. Mark and C-25 Supervisor Geoff Doyle backed me up. I never again raised the topic of Chinese restaurants in Canada with Richard, and when Gong returned from Administrative Segregation to the general population in Lewisburg and raised the subject, Gil told him that the timing no longer worked, that for now he wanted to concentrate on opening more restaurants in the United States, a territory he was comfortable with, and would look into expanding his Canadian operations later. In this way, Gil skillfully shifted the onus of the lost Canadian opportunity to Gong. It was now Gong’s fault that the expansion into Canada was no longer viable. In the world of crime, as in real estate and finance, timing is everything.
* * *
Behind bars in Lewisburg, Gil understood that one major investigation, albeit targeting a global narcotics operation like Gong’s, would be just the start of his just barely conceivable long journey home (“home” being out of prison and secreted somewhere in the Witness Protection Program). He had by now developed a useful “friendship” with another Lewisburg inmate, Carl Abbot Armstrong, a West Coast free spirit convicted for importing marijuana from Mexico. By the ton. And beware to anyone who stood in his way. Even though he was behind bars in Lewisburg. Armstrong, like Gong, was still in business. Gil and I brainstormed how we could credibly pitch our desire to get into Armstrong’s business. For us Mexicans, who grow so much pot ourselves, to be buying pot—like selling ice to Eskimos, the true salesman’s greatest mythic challenge. What we came up with was typical of our synergistic teamwork, what made Gil and me a seamless pair. And, as time rolled by, and the weeks became months (then years, long after SUNBLOCK was closed out), we would talk about personal matters, his daughter’s college applications, his mom’s health. I gave my opinions, advice. Sometimes I even talked directly with his mom or daughter or brother in El Paso (after Mark had obtained the necessary approvals). Gil and I were developing a relationship that to all outward appearances truly was that of an uncle and nephew, with close professional and family ties, mutually dependent. A dependency that was enhanced by a never-articulated truth, the consequences of which we both fully understood: we each held the other’s life in his hand. An error on my part, revealing my true occupation, would inevitably result in a shiv between Gil’s ribs and a premature completion of his natural life in prison. A slip-up by Gil when talking with Gong or, now, Armstrong, an overheard telephone conversation, and I would encounter a very unwelcome surprise at the next meet. A bullet, presumably. Not a shiv. No need for homemade daggers outside of the federal penitentiary.