Two deputy U.S. Marshals picked me up Monday morning and brought me into court for arraignment. When my case was called, an assistant United States attorney fresh out of law school stood up and read the charges against me. “Anthony Parrino, convicted felon in possession of a firearm.” The judge asked if the arresting agent was present. The prosecutor looked around the courtroom and said in a meek manner, “I don’t think so, your honor.”
“Is there an arresting agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms present?” the judge boomed.
Just then, the ATF agent who severely handcuffed me came into the courtroom accompanied by the agent in charge. They both approached the prosecutor and huddled with him. While they spoke, the lawyer kept turning to look at me as if I was a circus freak of some kind, then he finally nodded to the deputy marshal to release me. He approached the bench to explain to the judge. As soon as I was released I walked out into the hallway to the men’s room, followed by the agents. We searched the room without speaking to make sure no one else was in there, and the young agent instinctively propped his foot against the door to keep anyone from entering. I couldn’t control myself another minute. “What the fuck is going on?” I yelled at the veteran.
“Look, Tony, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? Where the hell were you at booking?”
“There was a mix-up. Confusion. I thought you were sprung.”
“My ass. Because of you I had to spend the weekend in the tank with puking drunks and some guy with green teeth who never shut up.”
The agent was around forty, and surely had been involved in many of these cases. His dark eyebrows raised apologetically as he stammered out an explanation. “We found out you were still in jail when you didn’t show up at the office this morning.”
“I don’t mind being locked up when there’s a reason. But right now I’m a day overdue from contacting my wife in Miami and she’s probably going nuts. Understand?”
“Completely. Again, I’m sorry. We’ve accomplished our mission on this case and we’re shutting it down.” He hesitated for a moment, then continued, “ I’ve got a message for you. You are to report for a Secret Service detail in Arizona. Tomorrow.”
“Well, isn’t that great, I won’t be home for thirty more days.”
He sheepishly handed me the orders, which directed me to be in Phoenix. We stared at each other for a moment, then I extended my hand to shake. Relieved at the gesture, he smiled and gripped my hand tightly. The young agent stepped away from the door and out of my way. As I exited, I pointed at him and said to the senior agent, “Show him how to properly handcuff a prisoner.”
* * *
CHAPTER 2
The aging prop-job creaked and jammed its way to the ground at LaGuardia airport. The afternoon was cold, and the sky was as clear as it gets in New York. I peered out the window at the Manhattan skyline from the World War Two vintage airplane. It was hard to believe that a presidential candidate couldn’t, or wouldn’t, afford better transportation during the campaign. U.S. Congressman Morris Udall of Arizona was among more than a dozen Democrats taking a shot at the 1975 nomination. He had reached the shaky ground in the campaign where he would either raise enough money for a sustained run, or fizzle with the also-rans.
It was the seventeenth day of my thirty-day detail on Secret Service protection, and far enough into the assignment that the days and places began to blur. Plane hopping to five or six cities every day had taken its toll on the Treasury agents, as well as the campaign staff and press corps who were forced companions aboard the ancient aircraft. The only other protection detail that rivaled the bare-bones campaign of Udall up to that point was that of Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer ex-governor of Georgia. His staff passed out small bags of peanuts at every whistle stop and Democratic caucus meeting. After the meetings many in the crowd would leave the little bags behind on their chairs or on the floor, and his campaign staff retrieved them for redistribution at the next stop.
Mo Udall was a tall, strikingly physical man with one eye who had briefly played professional basketball with the old Denver Nuggets. His sense of humor was legendary. Whenever things got boring during the tedious travel, he threatened to take out his glass eye to amuse the reporters. His political expertise was demonstrated by his repetitious speeches and canned answers in jousting with the press. He favored gun control legislation, but in keeping with the political art of reaching out to the masses, whenever he was questioned about the subject he always began his answer by saying, “Let me first state that I represent the old Tombstone Territory in congress.” This conjured up thoughts of the old west when everyone carried firearms. In short order, the nature of protecting Udall’s life had forced me to listen to his rhetoric over and over again at each campaign stop, to the point that I could have given the speeches myself, verbatim.
He often opened his speeches with a joke, and told his audience how, during the New Hampshire primary, he walked into a barber shop and announced that he was running for president. The barber replied, “We were just laughing about that this morning.” Udall was well-liked on both sides of the congressional aisle and eventually served thirty years in Washington.
Each time the old plane revved up its propellers or landed I couldn’t help drawing a comparison to the sleek, shiny 727 the detail had traveled on several months earlier which transported former California governor Ronald Reagan across the country. He became the only serious challenger to the incumbent Republican, Gerald Ford, and his campaign set the stage for his eventual election to the White House four years later. The Gipper traveled in style and the trappings of his campaign belied the fact that in the end, he would be the also-ran for the Republican nomination while his counterpart, Jimmy Carter, swept his party’s nomination, and eventually the presidency, in a groundswell of popularity. The Secret Service was stretched out farther than ever before in history during this presidential election for two major reasons.
First, a large number of Democrats sensed a political kill on President Gerald Ford, the Vice-President who was elevated to the office by default when Richard Nixon resigned amidst the Watergate scandal. Congressmen Morris Udall of Arizona and Lloyd Bentsen of Texas, United States senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, Henry “Scoop” Jackson of Washington, and Frank Church of Idaho all had campaigns cranked up, as well as former senator George McGovern. They all had correctly smelled blood and each wanted to be the Democrat to take advantage of the vulnerable president who had not been elected to his office. In addition, former senator Eugene McCarthy, California governor Jerry Brown, and Alabama governor George Wallace, who had been cut down and paralyzed by gunfire while campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 1972, were all running campaigns as independents. Indeed, it was the assassination attempt on Wallace in a Maryland shopping center parking lot that nudged congress into expanding the protection responsibilities of the Treasury Department to include major presidential candidates.
Second, the manpower shortage was heightened by the fact that 1976 was the Bicentennial of the country. There were many celebrations and tributes paid by foreign dignitaries and heads of state, all of which received Secret Service protection while on American soil. The protection details, especially in New York because of its location of the United Nations, often ran over and into each other’s radio transmissions due to the large number of personnel involved. Agents from various assignments literally bumped into each other. To make matters worse and more complicated, there were protection details from the State Department whose agents handled security for the U.S. Ambassadors to overseas countries who returned for the Bicentennial functions. At times it seemed like half the city of New York was populated by gun-carrying agents or their protectees. By having ATF, U.S. Customs, and IRS special agents assigned to the unprecedented number of Secret Service details, the Treasury Department’s law enforcement agencies were stretched to the breaking point while struggling to maintain their daily investigative missions.
The l
ong and irregular hours, lack of days off, extensive travel, and the rigors and intensity of protection work took its toll on all of us. Normally, gripes from agents were summarily dismissed by the detail leader, who was always a supervisory agent of the Secret Service. But on Udall’s detail that happened to be Ernie Chinn, a classmate of mine just a few years earlier at the U.S. Treasury Law Enforcement Academy in Washington, D.C. Ernie was a Chinese-American from the west coast who, on rare days off during Treasury basic training, had given me surfing lessons at Ocean City, Maryland. We were both ex-cops from big cities which made us kindred spirits apart from the Phi Beta Kappa’s with newly-minted college diplomas hired by the Powers That Be in the Treasury Department to be molded into Treasury’s desired image. We also shared an affinity for 50's music and on nights off we had gone to a little bar in Frederick, Maryland to participate in the trivia contest. The band would play a number and the first to name it and the original artist was awarded a magnum of champagne. After several visits there, the manager gave us the bubbly as soon as we walked in and asked us to keep quiet during the contest.
Ernie had a wild sense of humor and called me “Muss,” which was short for Mussolini. His good-hearted dig at my Italian heritage had originated from my constant complaints about scheduling on the detail. He made an analogy to Benito Mussolini’s promise during his dictatorship to make the trains in Italy run on time. After we completed basic training, Ernie and I went separate ways and began careers with our respective agencies, but we kept in touch and remained under the same Treasury enforcement umbrella. I hadn’t seen him since the Washington days until I showed up for the Udall detail and found that he was my boss.
“Hey, Ernie, why don’t you call D.C. and tell them this plane is a flying piece of crap and we shouldn’t be on it,” I snorted to him as we stood up to stretch while the plane taxied to the terminal.
One of the press reporters also stretching in the aisle looked Ernie right in the eye while pointing a finger toward me and said, “I’m with him.”
As we descended the steps to the tarmac, a young agent approached with a written message. Ernie read it and turned his foppish, blue-black hair toward me and with a sarcastic grin punctuated by ultra-white teeth he snarled, “Okay Muss, you got your wish about not flying on this plane. Looks like you’re off the detail.” I waited for some sign that it was a joke, but he shoved the note in my fist. “They want you to call Washington from a pay phone. Call me at the hotel when you find out what’s up.”
Several things flashed through my mind, not the least of which was that I wouldn’t again have to board that poor excuse for a flying machine. I surveyed the note and recognized the phone number as an ATF Headquarters exchange. I wondered what was in store and what the importance was of pulling me out in the middle of a protection detail. But foremost was the anticipation that I would soon be home with my wife and one-year-old, first-born child, a bright, wiry boy whose personality duplicated mine.
The protection details during this election year were assigned for thirty days at a time, alternating thirty days at my assigned ATF district office performing the varied and demanding “routine” duties. Criminals of all descriptions run afoul of the laws enforced by ATF and the agency is in daily combat with a variety of dangerous individuals and groups. ATF’s mission is far-reaching and the demands on physical and mental agility are great, as evidenced by the fact that ATF has had more agents killed in the line of duty than any other federal agency. Despite my puzzlement at being yanked from the detail, I was indeed looking forward to what I thought was the rotation back home.
* * *
CHAPTER 3
I called the ATF Headquarters number from a pay phone in the lobby at LaGuardia. A female voice answered in a most businesslike manner, “Covert operations.” I wasn’t expecting to reach the sneaky squad.
“This is Special Agent Palumbo from the Miami office. I’m on protection detail in New York and just received a message to call.”
“Just a moment.”
While I was on hold I tried to figure out what they wanted with me. Did something go wrong on the Suitcase Tommy Ranzino case? The receiver clicked and my musing was interrupted. “Hello, Tony, this is Phil McKinney. How’s it going?”
“Okay I guess, except I’m punch drunk from travel. This morning I had to look at the phone book in my hotel to find out where I was. How about you? I haven’t seen you in some time.”
“As well as can be expected. I’ve kept track of your undercover work. We have one we think you’ll fit perfectly and it has to be moved on right away. It’s being run out of New Orleans. I’d like you to come here for a briefing before you return to Miami. We’ve already checked the flight schedules and you can be here by eight-thirty.” I knew better than to talk about it on the phone, so I exchanged pleasantries with McKinney and hung up. It was now early evening and my flight to Washington didn’t allow time to go to the hotel in Manhattan. I waited long enough for the detail to arrive at their quarters, then called Ernie Chinn at the Loew’s Summit on Lexington and Fifty-first.
I gave the hotel operator Ernie’s code name and was plugged into his room. “No more freezing my ass off with you guys. I’m on my way to D.C. tonight. Can you have my things forwarded to Miami?”
“You got it, Muss, you lucky bastard. Now I’m short again on the detail. You owe me.”
“Try to collect.”
“Up yours.”
I didn’t give Ernie any indication what this was all about, but he was seasoned enough to know it wasn’t routine. He also knew the significance of losing a man off the detail during the critical manpower shortage. As he got off the phone he instinctively said, “Hey, Muss, take care and tell Gina hello for me . . . and wherever you’re going, be sure to cover your ass.”
The flight to Washington was a welcome respite from the daily travel intensity of the detail. Because of the short booking notice the only seats available were in first class and I enjoyed the amenities. For the next hour I truly relaxed physically for the first time in several weeks. The horizon darkened outside the window and I thought of my family at home. They didn’t have a clue where I was or where I was going. I made a mental note to call Gina when I arrived in Washington. I turned out the overhead light and placed my head against the backseat, which vibrated from the plane’s engines. I had become accustomed to falling asleep in that position.
I thought about how much time I had been away from home in the first year of my son’s life and that I hadn’t planned it that way. I had wanted children for several years but Gina resisted, wanting first to complete her college degree and later to attend graduate school. Although her mother was Italian – Sicilian, moreover – she considered herself somewhat liberated from the traditional views about having children right away and wanted to put off the demands of parenting until she was educated and ready for the challenge. Even my own relentless desire to have kids was tempered by the fact that all around me were agents who were living testimonials to the broken homes caused by a job that cared little for anything except its mission. When we agreed to have Nick I was ecstatic and pledged to be the best father I could.
The flight attendant appeared with the drink cart and I instinctively waved her away, then suddenly sat up and ordered vodka. I sipped the clear liquid slowly, and enjoyed the burning sensation that passed across my lips and down my throat. The relatively odorless drink wouldn’t leave a smell on my breath but might relieve some tension. I wasn’t much of a drinker but had acquired a taste for vodka by frequenting bars and nightclubs working undercover. The shot relaxed me even more and I dozed off for several minutes. I was awakened by the dong dong dong of the signal that we were making the approach to Dulles International. I shook out the cobwebs and concentrated on the meeting ahead. I usually took all assignments in stride, but apprehension began to build because of the way this was handled.
In the airport lobby I called home, but there was no answer. I jumped into a taxi and headed to ATF H
eadquarters in the Treasury Department building. The cabbie’s radio blared continuous coverage about the Super Bowl to be played in Miami that weekend. I walked past the statue of Alexander Hamilton and up the steps to the night entrance of the impressive, staid old building near the White House, and recalled the hours of target practice spent in the basement there on Saturday mornings while attending Special Agent basic training. I flashed my I.D. folder and badge to the guard and signed into his logbook. I walked down the old marble corridor past the glass doorways of the offices, most of which were dark. My pace quickened as I approached the Covert Operations office where the lights were on and there was office activity.
Jim Fenton greeted me. He was a jovial law school grad I had worked with several times before. He was a constitutional law scholar and taught the block of courses on search and seizure in the ATF Academy. We had worked together teaching a series of training schools for local and state police officers conducted by ATF and funded by the Justice Department. I was tapped to instruct on the history and modus operandi of the mafia and other organized crime groups. Our dog-and-pony show had taken us to many cities, and I particularly enjoyed working with him.
“Jim, are you working here now?”
“Don’t curse me like that,” he grinned as we shook hands firmly. “They called me into this for a little legal advice, and I’m the guy who knows as little as anybody.” He hadn’t disappointed by greeting me with a joke and we both laughed. I felt more comfortable chatting with him for a few minutes. He had reached the mandatory retirement age for federal law enforcement of fifty-five, but had been granted extensions because of his expertise. He began his career chasing bootleggers in Brooklyn, and eventually became the top legal mind in ATF. He refused many times to become the agency’s general counsel in favor of remaining a Special Agent. Although he was part of the Headquarters staff, we had often bitched to each other about the stumbling blocks the bureaucracy placed in the path of the agents working the streets.
Assassin Hunter Page 3