by Marc Ruskin
Kamal and I passed the test. By some prearranged sign, the other mobsters gave Nicky the green light to proceed. He suggested a drive to Land’s restaurant. We would eyeball the place and have a leisurely dinner. Or so it seemed. Going with the bad guys to an unexpected, impromptu destination—I would be violating at least one of my cardinal principles of UC work. A quick judgment call had to be made. This was not a controlled street buy (as with Kuris and the counterfeit fifties, for example, with covering surveillance galore) or the floor of a financial exchange. Insinuating myself with serious mobsters would require serious risks. Any contrived reason for backing out of the next step would have stretched credulity with the subjects. It would have been an embarrassment to Nicky. He was vouching for us. In all likelihood, bringing the case to a rapid end … And, more importantly, ending any hopes for my renewed UC career. Holmes and his squad would conclude that I had “chickened out,” and my explanations about security measures would have elicited barely concealed skepticism. Word would soon spread. Ruskin doesn’t have it anymore. Okay, he was a great UC in his day, but that day has passed. May he retire in peace.
And so I went for it. All in. With no plausible reason for taking two cars, I left the limo at the hotel. Kamal took the wheel of his UC SUV, with Nicky riding shotgun, providing directions, Land and I sitting in back. It was a long drive, first on the highway, then along secondary roads, followed by a dark, two-lane blacktop along the coastline of the South Shore. The Leather Coats were in the follow car, its lonely headlights bouncing and illuminating the rear window. If the squad agents conducting surveillance had been with us as we left the hotel, their headlights were now nowhere to be seen. An experienced Special Operations Group would certainly have been there, two or three units tailing at a prudent distance with headlights off. Highly trained and experienced drivers, using the brake lights ahead to keep track of the road, can pull off some amazing feats. We used to do this in Puerto Rico fairly often. I used to do it. At age thirty, the eyes are a lot sharper. Now, at night, headlights are the least of my requirements. I need eyeglasses and still have to drive below speed limit. But then I’m no longer dealing with Nicky Gruttadauria and his associates. The rest of the experienced team would have vehicles racing along parallel routes to find discreet observation posts ahead of the two targeted vehicles, the team leader hurriedly reviewing maps and calling out instructions over the encrypted BuRadio. Dicey and complicated? Of course, but at least it might have given Kamal and me a fighting chance, should trouble break out. As it was, we had no chance of such coverage, nothing resembling a safety net. We were alone.
The atmosphere in the SUV was all bonhomie, what with the wine already consumed and the prospect for profit enlivening Nick and Kim Land. When the lights of the Café by the Sea came into view, my concerns were alleviated. Though the adrenaline always flows, particularly with high-risk subjects, it is invariably reassuring when all indicators turn positive, with none of those subtle, almost indefinable indicators that set back-of-the-neck hairs to rise and for the mind to race, searching for a safe exit strategy. We pulled into the parking lot and entered the airy, deliberately ramshackle seafaring-design structure overlooking the waterfront. The ride had taken nearly an hour (it felt much longer). This was a brisk early winter night. Just the right weather for my black three-quarter-length black leather coat. The one with the holster pocket sheathing my .40 caliber Glock, stitched by Pete the Cobbler, years ago. The muscle stayed in their car.
A respectable trout, accompanied by a pleasantly surprising Long Island Sauvignon Blanc, was followed by a tour of the facilities. A clean, well-run kitchen, introductions to the staff. Winks and smiles from Land accompanying the presentation of the beach-bunny waitresses. In his private office overlooking the beach, more serious talk. In due course, I removed the 15K stack from my portfolio and passed it to Land. Large denominations, hundred dollar bills, some fifties, were mandatory, because we were jewel thieves, not drug dealers aggregating multiple sales. Land in turn handed me four postdated checks drawn on the Café’s account at a local bank, totaling $12,600. (I had been adamant about bringing down the 20-percent commission that Kamal had agreed to—without haggling, at least by a token amount. Sixteen percent was still too high, but so be it.) Land made some entries on his workstation, then silently read off figures from the screen. Two sets of books. Aren’t you concerned about keeping all that on your computer? Good question. One that smart, careful Daniel should ask, because the answer affected him directly. By implication: I’m a little concerned. And Land should have his answer ready—and did, and smiled.
“Daniel, all I have to do is hit these two keys at the same time”—he pointed at them—”and the entire hard drive will be wiped clean. Same result with a failed login. For that, I paid nearly as much as I did for the computer. Beats going to jail.”
We all chuckled appropriately, and I made a mental note to make sure the arresting agents would have a heads-up and then pick up the duplicitous restaurateur at a safe distance from his workstation keyboard. Then again, given the squad I was working with, what good would my suggestion do? All of us then hopped into the vehicles and proceeded to our next stop, an upscale home in East Meadow owned by the Manhattan jeweler who had agreed to fence François’s diamonds at a respectable price. Or so Nicky claimed. We entered by the front door—always a good sign. Had we entered through the garage or walked down to a soundproofed basement, I would have had some trepidation. (Remember the Goodfellas scene: Joe Pesci and the two made men who killed him entered the house through the garage.) The front door was good, but the jeweler was apparently caught by surprise and not particularly eager to entertain these midnight visitors. However, after we were seated in the den and Kamal unrolled François’s velvet pouch for a second inspection, the jeweler’s attitude improved. He agreed to fence the stones, and we left the merchandise with him. Those diamonds were worth something in the range of $120,000. Stunned, I tried not to show it.
Back in the car, Kamal confirmed to Nicky that he would receive a third of the proceeds from the diamonds as his commission. Nicky smiled. My eyes widened. This was the first I had heard of it. Worse, Kamal then reached into his jacket pocket and removed $5,000 in hundreds and fifties, handing it to Nicky as a down payment. Before Kamal and I had seen one cent. In the course of the evening, we had passed to LCN members and associates a satchel with all those diamonds and a total of $20,000 in cash, and received in exchange … four pieces of paper purportedly worth $12,600. Very professional for a pair of worldly scoundrels with business all over the globe.
We were back in the hotel suite by 1:00 a.m. Time for a nightcap, but Nicky was tired and soon announced that he was going home. Finally. I was exhausted. The Leather Coats were in the lobby lounge, paws wrapped around glasses of Scotch, with a group of chums. All good cheer, they waved over Kamal, who returned and said, “They want to buy us a drink. I think we should accept. At least one.” Was this friendly drink prearranged? Always a possibility. Was a more exhaustive search in the offing? Or worse, had Kamal or I inadvertently done something that compromised our cover? Or had the squad agents somehow burned themselves and set off a chain of suspicions? However, the smiles of these Soprano look-alikes seemed genuine, and we were in the very public lobby area, and most of the squad were stationed in darkened surveillance cars scattered through the lot outside, should things go south and the goons insist on taking us for a ride. Reluctantly, I agreed with Kamal. He was right. There was nothing to be gained by offending these Genovese soldiers, and building rapport with the troops could only help the case.
The alcohol went down without a hitch, and an hour later I emerged from the hotel. Kamal had booked a suite, he’d have breakfast with Nicky in the morning. I walked through the very quiet parking lot to my Dominican’s limo, in which he had by now been patiently waiting for close on seven hours. My oversized transmitter was still on, with its numerous batteries presumably still working, so I said to the surveillance agents
, “I’m headed home, you can break off now. Can one of you flash your lights to acknowledge … (pause) … whoever’s got me in sight, just flash once so that I know you copied.”
Nothing. They had broken off, left the scene. There was no one there. I was stunned. I was furious. It was Friday night, or very early Saturday, actually. If things had gone bad, it would have been Monday morning before anyone became aware that I was missing. At least my trusty Dominican driver was still there. I tapped the window, woke him, and we headed west toward the city. As the limo cruised the nearly deserted Long Island Expressway, I stretched my legs and reflected on the course of this op, weighing the benefits against the risks. I was back on the streets, working one of the most challenging cases yet. This was all good, but for the first time in my UC life I was also feeling in danger. And not due to the Genovese mobsters and their soldiers. I was confident that I could survive them. If—and it was a big if, growing bigger—I wasn’t undone by my own side. How I pined for case agents like SUNBLOCK’s Mark Calnan.
The following week, the monster beeper-transmitter still in my possession, I called Jeff Lum, who had been very active in SUNBLOCK, which seemed now a lifetime ago. Jeff was now the supervisor in charge of SO-7, the NYO Tech Squad, the most highly trained, state-of-the-art sophisticated technical team in the FBI. After a long laugh—he wasn’t aware that such museum pieces as this beeper were still in existence, much less in use—he provided the solution. “We call them rat-phones,” he explained. “They’re cell phones that can record or transmit, depending on how we set them up. And they’re encrypted. Best of all, they can send and receive calls. That’s your ticket. Just have the case agent send me a request and we’ll send it out.
Holmes sounded underwhelmed when I relayed by phone the positive results of my call to Jeff Lum. I’ll talk with our tech agent here in Long Island and get back to you. Perhaps that tech agent had issues with Lum’s squad in Manhattan. In any event, his answer was contrary to what I wanted to hear. We have all the equipment we need as of now.
Inexplicable. From long experience with seasoned case agents, I had come to take it for granted that a UC op proceeds as a collaborative venture. And distinct from a theatrical production not just because it really is “for real,” that the bad guys were still bad guys when offstage, but also because this script had not yet been finished, these closing scenes remained a mystery until actually enacted. And in these productions, the leading man—myself, the undercover—necessarily holds the additional position of coauthor. This scenario should be fine-tuned as called for by the flow of events, enhancing the likelihood of success and maximizing the leading man’s likelihood of surviving to participate in future productions. In TURKEY CLUB (and soon in ALTERNATE BREACH), the twenty-first-century Bureau case agents, supporting personnel, contact agents, tech agents, surveillance agents—virtually everyone—viewed the role of the UC—correctly—as an investigative tool, but incorrectly as a tool to be used just like any other tool. In the new FBI, the UC would have no more input into the operational scenario than would the electronic devices used to intercept and record telephone calls. With the primary distinguishing characteristic being that the UC was more annoying, having a tendency to express differing opinions and having unreasonable expectations, such as modern and secure digital recording devices. The case agents had written the script, and that’s the way the story would go. It was up to the UC—and the bad guys—to conform to expectations. With this approach, disaster would be avoided only as a result of the UC’s experience, and despite the case agents’ and the desk agents’ best efforts. (ALTERNATE BREACH, as we will see, with its twenty-plus subjects, all arms dealers, crashed and disintegrated exclusively as a result of the neophyte Bureau and Justice personnel. I was the only participant to emerge unscathed.)
Before I had signed on to TURKEY CLUB, Kamal had spent a weekend with Nicky Gruttadauria at his place in South Florida. After the successful laundering caper and completion of the diamond deal, Nicky invited Kamal to fly down for another visit, this time accompanied by Daniel. Were this a Hollywood film, in the next scene I’d be sitting in a lounge chair by Nicky’s pool, sipping a cocktail, as his bikini-clad wife looked me over from behind a pair of Chanel sunglasses. As it was, I saw no reason to violate another of my cardinal rules for UCs, the one about getting too close to the subjects. Kamal and I already had Nicky’s confidence. Nicky knew he could “earn” (for obvious reasons, a popular mob term) off us. He already had. Nicky wasn’t active professionally in South Florida, so the likelihood of meeting local mobsters was nil. Turning down the invite would have no impact on my UC reputation; no one would care if I chose not to spend a weekend at a luxury home in sunny Florida. In the middle of winter.
Holmes was not happy. Kamal would be there, and my presence would boost his credibility. He could use my support. But the guilt trip was not going to work on me. I didn’t see any significant benefit from Kamal spending the weekend with the Gruttadaurias, but that was his call. I suggested a compromise. Kamal would explain to Nicky that Daniel has important business to conduct in Buenos Aires, regrets that he can’t spend the weekend with us, but he’ll be flying through Miami on Thursday and will change his connecting flight in order to join us for dinner.
It worked wonderfully. Kamal spent a long weekend with Nicky, which he seemed to enjoy (though no new business was discussed, no new subjects introduced). Daniel’s reputation as an international wheeler and dealer was enhanced by the (purported) business travel to Argentina, and the Gruttadaurias had enjoyed a very expensive Italian (of course) dinner in Miami. Daniel’s treat, bien sûr. All of which led to the next act in TURKEY CLUB, written by Holmes and Co., and accepted without question by the eager-to-please, compliant Kamal. It was relayed to me as a fait accompli via a phone call from Kamal:
“You’ll be flying down to Miami twice a month. With twenty-five thousand for laundering. I’ve talked to Nicky.”
“That’s nice. I’ll be flying down. Did it occur to you to maybe talk to me about it first? Before talking to Nicky?”
No, it had not occurred to Kamal to confer with his fellow UC about operational covert travel, meets with LCN subjects, carrying large sums of cash. Issues that I might have some small interest in.
“Oh … Tom Holmes told me to set it up, to call Nicky.”
“How much are they charging us?”
“Twenty percent.”
“That’s a bit high. A bit very high. Especially for the volume we’re moving. Normal is eight, ten, maybe twelve. Did you negotiate at all?”
I knew the answer to that one. Kamal, with case agent Tom Holmes’s okay, agrees to a ridiculous price, without haggling, giving off the scent of something fishy, and Daniel Martinez—me—makes the deliveries. To Nicky and friends of his with names like Fat Tony, Crazy Pete, Jimmy the Barber, and Vinny the Trigger. And, of course, security for Daniel in Miami would be worked out later.
“To fly down to Miami twice a month, it’s going to take up nearly half my time. Pre-travel planning, testing tech equipment, making travel plans, the actual flying, meets, hotels, travel back, vouchers, reports. I’m working other cases. I can’t be Daniel Martinez and Leonardi simultaneously.” (Leonardi was Mario Francis Leonardi, a role I was developing for a domestic terrorism UC op.) “What I can do is fly down once a month, with fifty thousand. It’ll accomplish exactly the same thing.”
Good idea. They hadn’t thought of that. This was now four or five months after the initial close call with François the Mountie in the parking lot of the mob-owned Garden City Hotel. And as the covert side, the dark side of the op progressed, the overt side with the Long Island squad deteriorated. I made plans for an important family function on an upcoming Saturday. Knowing that the first money-laundering trip to Florida was about to be scheduled, I told Kamal not to schedule anything with me that weekend. I couldn’t and wouldn’t make it. I was serious.
On the Friday afternoon before the Saturday of the family function, Ka
mal called to say a meet was on in Long Island for the next day. Nicky was expecting me to be there.
“No, it isn’t happening,” I said, “call and tell them Daniel’s not available. We’ll do it next week.”
Kamal pleaded.
“Absolutely not,” I repeated. “I told you about Saturday.”
“Please, I can’t go alone.”
“I’m not asking you to. Cancel the meet. Reschedule. Real criminals do it all the time. Real businessmen who aren’t criminals do it all the time.”
This went on for an hour. Kamal did not cancel the meet. The case agent would not budge. Kamal went alone … But that was the last straw for Daniel Martinez and the TURKEY CLUB op. By mutual implicit agreement, my colleagues would henceforth have to get along without the cosmopolitan crook who was now too busy fencing jewels in Europe, in South America, in Asia. No problem. My former colleagues soon harvested a bunch of indictments and convictions anyway.
And Kamal? What happened to him? Four or five years later, I flew into an unnamed city to conduct a presentation at a UC school on one of my False Flag cases (related in the next chapter). At that evening’s Starlight Lounge, among the usual assortment of faux villains, was Kamal chatting up a couple of cute UC wannabe agents. I walked up and he gave me a broad smile and introduced me, “Meet Marc Ruskin, without a doubt, one of the best UCs in the FBI, ever.”
The compliment I accepted with several grains of salt, coming as it did from a now-experienced and professional BS artist. That is, a fellow UC.
“That’s right, I’m a legend in my own mind.”
Kamal smiled sheepishly when talking about TURKEY CLUB. It was my first Group I. You put up with a lot, and I learned a lot. I left him to continue to regale his ripe-and-ready audience with tales of heroism, but I was comforted to see how he had grown, and that he had sufficient perspective to assess critically his earlier experiences. Approaching my mandatory retirement, it was refreshing to observe the maturing of a next generation of UCs.