Deep Cover
Deep Cover
Edward Bungert
©
Edward Bungert 2013
Edward Bungert has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 2001, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1993 by Penguin Group
This edition published in 2013 by Endeavour Press Ltd
Table of Contents
Chapter
1
I arrived at eight forty-five A.M. An envelope had been placed on my desk, probably the night before. I imagined Higgins, the desk sergeant, swearing as he signed for the delivery, then asking one of his men to drop it on my desk. "Fucking feds think we're this guy's personal secretary," he had probably said, even though it had been more than six months since any hand-delivered correspondence was sent to me. I placed my jacket on the back of my chair and read the neatly typed label: MARTIN J. WALSH, FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION-CONFIDENTIAL.
I
sat down and picked it up, my elbows resting on the desk as I read the label over and over again.
Could
1
finally
be
getting
a
new
assignment
? I wondered. For three years I had been working as a liaison agent with the Los Angeles police department. A joint task force had been set up in response to a wave of bank robberies, muggings, and assaults believed to be the work of a leftist group called The People's Movement. I had coordinated efforts between the Bureau and the LAPD. Within two years the group had been so well infiltrated that nearly a quarter of their membership were either undercover police or FBI.
Aside
from a few arrests for the Bureau and some requests for information by the LAPD, the past year had been uneventful. I still had a desk at the police station, but my phone seldom rang. I was all but forgotten, except for the direct deposit of my biweekly pay. I often wondered what would happen if I stopped showing up. Would anyone at headquarters ever notice?
Inside
the envelope was a memo from the district chief ordering me to report to Senior Agent Richard Atwood.
Atwood
?
That's
the
Organized
Crime
Unit
. My wish could be coming true. Finally, some investigative work that would allow me to utilize the criminology techniques so painfully acquired in numerous courses and seminars.
I
put my hands behind my head, tilted my chair back, and thought,
Whatever
it
is
they
want
me
for
,
it's
got
to
be
better
than
this
assignment
. But the little voice inside my head reminded me:
Be
careful
what
you
wish
for
,
you
just
might
get
it
.
After
an hour of fighting Los Angeles traffic, I arrived at the Federal Building. I parked my silver Dodge Spirit ES in the subbasement lot. For the last six years, Amy and I had driven secondhand wrecks. This was our very first new car. I wiped a smudge from the side-view mirror as I locked the door. I fumbled for my identification card to summon the elevator to the basement. Nervous anticipation almost immobilized me. All the years of training and experience suddenly seemed dwarfed by self-doubt.
As
I rode up the elevator, part of me wanted to run straight back to my do-nothing, go-nowhere job at the police station. Part of me also needed to know what lay ahead.
When
I approached the reception desk on the eighth floor, I was greeted by a pleasant-looking woman in her early forties.
"Mr.
Atwood is expecting you, Mr. Walsh. You can go in," she said warmly. "It's the second office on the right."
"Thank
you," I said.
The
window in Atwood's office door had a hairline crack, which made a pattern resembling that of the profile of a person's face. I found myself staring at it, my hand on the doorknob, when the sound of At-wood's voice brought me back into focus.
"Come
on in, Martin!" he said robustly. His voice was hoarse from years of smoking cigars.
"Good
morning, Mr. Atwood. You... wanted to see me, sir?" I said.
Calm
down
,
for
Christ's
sake
.
You've
been
out
of
the
academy
for
over
six
years
.
Stop
acting
so
tense
.
He
motioned for me to sit in the chair across from his desk, and he lit his cigar.
Atwood's
office was a shrine to his career. Awards, citations, press clippings, and photos covered the walls. He also had the most incredible collection of police department patches I had ever seen. Many agents collect and trade them like baseball cards. He must have had a thousand of them.
"Cigar,
Martin?" Atwood stood, leaning over his desk. He held the cigar between his index finger and what was left of his left thumb. I remembered hearing that he had lost it while investigating the Petricci organization in New York. He'd been assigned to get in tight with Fortunato Petricci, the then Godfather, and gather evidence to convict him of racketeering. While working as Petricci's number-two man, Atwood found himself in the middle of a squabble between the Petricci and Bonavici crime families. He was jumped by a couple of Bonavici thugs and they sliced off his thumb with a tin-snipper. They must have figured that if they could show Petricci how easily they could get to his number-two man, he would curtail his expansion into the firearms market. The story around the Bureau was that even as they were threatening to cut it off, Atwood had told them to go fuck themselves.
"You
might want to start, Martin." He laughed, and then started to cough violently.
"Would
you like a drink of water, sir?" I said.
Atwood
motioned no with his good hand and cleared his throat. He spit into the garbage pail and fell back into his desk chair.
"I'm
gonna give these things up someday," he said, taking a puff on his Macanudo.
"Martin,
you are, of course, familiar with The Henchmen?"
"Of
course. I mean... yes, sir!"
I
sure was familiar with The Henchmen. These guys were the most notorious motorcycle gang in the country. I had personally handled the liaison efforts between the LAPD and our offices in a case involving Henchmen just eight months ago. Three of those boys are now doing twenty to life for killing a guy who they said was breaking into their clubhouse. They murdered this poor bastard by hanging him from the ceiling by his feet and playing piñata with his skull. Two of the bikers actually had pieces of the guy's brains sticking to their clothes when they were arrested. When the LAPD requested information from the Bureau on the two suspects, we supplied them with details of six different cases in which the two bikers were wanted for questioning.
"There
is sufficient evidence, Martin, that motorcycle gang members have heavy ties to organized crime. By the way, it's 'Richard.' Can that 'Mr. Atwood' and `sir' shit, okay?"
"Sure,
thanks."
"We
have reason to believe The Henchmen are involved in extortion, murder for hire, arson, and a host of other nasty activities. Let's face it. It's never been a secret that these guys are criminals. Only now it seems they've become well organized and have expanded their operations to major cities around the country. A sort of Mafia on wheels. Take a look at these."
He
tossed four black-and-white photos to the edge of his desk. I picked up snapshots of the bodies of two Mexicans who had been murdered three weeks ago.
"What
a mess," I said. "I read the police report on this one. These guys actually had their testicles cut off. Their throats were cut, and the medical examiner found evidence that they were tortured for hours before they were finally killed."
"Exactly,"
said Atwood pointedly. "There's only two possible reasons for this kind of overkill. Either the killer or killers wanted to send a message, or they're complete psychopaths. Or both."
"And
you think The Henchmen did this?"
"Damn
right I do, Martin. Nobody goes farther, faster, and more viciously than The Henchmen. And a witness saw two bikes outside the victims' apartment building around the time of the murder. She said the riders were wearing colors. Her description of their jackets matched The Henchmen's insignia very closely."
"I
don't remember reading that in the police report," I said.
"That's
because it wasn't there. We conducted our own investigation."
"Isn't
this a local matter?"
"Not
since we've learned who the Mexicans were. They were identified as Pedro Morales and Juan Mendez. Both from Queens, New York. Both suspected of running drugs and guns around the country. They were known to have frequented The Henchmen's clubhouse in New Jersey."
"A
little interstate commerce," I said.
"Precisely.
We suspect The Henchmen operate cross-country, moving drugs and weapons and generally controlling activities in some areas—either in concert with or in the place of traditional organized crime."
Atwood
looked me up and down, the way an inspector general surveys his troops.
He
wants
me
to
go
out
, I thought to myself.
This
son
of
a
bitch
wants
me
to
go
out
!
No
way
!
I'm
married
and
have
a
kid
.
Investigations
are
one
thing
.
You
interview
potential
witnesses
,
question
suspects
,
study
documents
,
make
reports
.
But
undercover
?
Deep
cover
?
No
thanks
.
"Mr.
Atwood, if you're thinking of sending—"
"Martin!"
he interrupted powerfully. "First of all, it's 'Richard,' remember? And I would like to give you the opportunity of a lifetime. A chance to make supervisor. You can write your own ticket. Any assignment. Anywhere."
Supervisor.
Any assignment. I felt myself being drawn in, seduced by the promise of a promotion. A second ago I'd been ready to flatly refuse. Now I wanted to hear more. It can happen like that, in a moment. Sometimes things that are the furthest from your mind pop in and
Blam
! your whole life is never the same afterwards.
I
thought back to the time in my life when I'd first decided I wanted to work in law enforcement. I was nine years old. On my way home from school I found a wallet with over eighty bucks in it. Eighty bucks! To a nine-year-old that was all the money in the world. There was no identification in the wallet, only a receipt from Jovino's Shoe Repair. I wanted so badly to run to the nearest toy store and buy Mr. Machine, the walking, talking robot, but part of me wouldn't go for it. I ran straight to the shoe shop and Mr. Jovino identified the owner through the repair ticket.
The
owner turned out to be a retired Treasury Department agent by the name of Roger Wolfe. Wolfe had spent much .of his career as an investigator for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, often going undercover in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana to bust up moonshine operations. He told me that I was made of the right stuff: integrity and brains. He gave me a ten-dollar reward and told me he could use some help around his house on the weekends if I was interested.
The
pay was fifty cents an hour, and every Saturday from then until I went away to college I mowed Roger Wolfe's lawn, painted, scrubbed floors and, when I was really lucky, helped him clean and oil his gun collection. On those occasions Mr. Wolfe would tell me stories of how he and his special team broke up moonshine operations in Mississippi, and how they were considered the real "Untouchables" by the press. Becoming a government agent was all I thought about. To me there could be no better life than one spent enforcing the law. Integrity and brains.
Atwood
stood up, walked over to the window, and looked out.
"We
want these bastards, Martin," he said with his back to me. "And I think you'll be the man who gets them." Atwood turned abruptly and looked straight at me.
My
move
. I could have said, "No, thank you" and walked away. Instead I blurted out: