“Nice to finally meet you, Sheriff Cherry. Bethel Turner speaks highly of you,” Major Dyer said, shaking his hand firmly and pointing them to any of the numerous free chairs. Harp shook Stackpole’s offered grip and a brief look passed between the two men that Chris barely caught and didn’t understand. Dyer continued, “I was at Sheriff Ross’s funeral and memorial. He was a friend of the Rangers, a living legend. I’m not sure they make ’em like him anymore.”
“No, no they don’t.” And Chris left it at that.
Dyer looked like he, too, was going to add more, but didn’t, either. “Thank you for coming up here to meet with us. I know this is highly unusual. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I don’t think I’ve been involved in anything quite like it.” Major Dyer stared at all the folders on the table, uncomfortable. “Anyway, it’s probably best I let Agent Nichols take it from here.” While the major was talking, Nichols had finished his call and had pulled one of the folders in front of him, opening it up to reveal a thick stack of photos. He was placing them on the table in some exact, specific order that made sense only to him. The pictures were all turned to face Chris and Harp, who was already leaning forward to look at them.
It reminded Chris of another set of photos he’d been shown in the hospital by Joe Garrison, after the shooting at the Far Six. They’d been of the men Chris had killed. He kept his gaze steady on the agent, not on the faces staring up at him from the table’s expanse.
When Nichols was done arranging the photos, he sat back, proud of his work.
“Okay, gentlemen, who do you recognize?”
* * *
• • •
HARP IMMEDIATELY SET FOUR ASIDE.
“Yes, that’s James Wesley Earl, his brother Thomas Robert, and his two sons, Jesse and Bass,” Nichols said, lining them up.
Harp kept looking, before pulling out another. “This one, too, no doubt about it.”
Nichols glanced at it, nodded. “His name is Larry Wayne Hasse. They call him Joker.”
Harp stared longer and was about to give up, when he paused, tapped one more photo, and slid it from its place. He picked it up, brought it close to his face, and then spun it back across the table to where it came to rest in front of the agent. “Him,” Harp said. “His hair is shorter now, but I saw him in Killing, and I think he drove the other two up to Murfee when we interviewed them.”
Nichols was about to take up the picture, but Major Dyer got to it first. He looked at it for a long moment himself, and then turned it around to face both Chris and Harp again. “That’s the photo they take when you join the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Criminal Investigation Division. That’d be the same one on his credentials, if he carried those anymore. But he doesn’t. Not his badge, either.” Dyer put the photo facedown on the table.
“His name is Danny Ford, and up until seven weeks ago, he worked for me.”
* * *
• • •
AGENT NICHOLS TALKED WITHOUT NOTES. Even with all the folders and papers he’d brought with him, other than the pictures, he didn’t refer to anything at all.
“John Wesley Earl has spent the better part of his life in prison, most recently for attempted murder. And let’s be honest, there really isn’t any ‘better part.’ He’s a violent and dangerous bastard and always has been. He probably came out of his mother that way.
“However, he’s far from stupid. I’ve seen the prison psych reports, and in fact, he’s quite intelligent. During his years locked up, more than twenty-five of them altogether, he successfully crawled his way to the top of the hierarchy of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. The ABT is one of the most violent white supremacist gangs in this country, and one of the largest. They are distinct from that ‘other’ Aryan Brotherhood, the white prison gang that got its start in California in the sixties and is now prominent throughout the federal prison system, but they aren’t any less violent or dangerous. The ABT’s constitution reads that it was founded upon the sublime principles of White Supremacy, no pretense is or will be made to the contrary. The ABT remains and always will remain a venerable all-Aryan organization. When you join, you have to go through their study course, which focuses on the ‘Fourteen Words’: We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children. It’s a slogan we’ve seen again and again with other white supremacist groups. Nowadays, though, the ABT isn’t just a white supremacist gang. They aren’t even principally white supremacists. They are, in fact, a highly organized criminal organization involved in a plethora of illegal activities.”
Nichols opened another one of his folders and pushed it forward to Chris. It was filled with dozens of photocopied newspaper articles. Chris thumbed through a few, offering them to Harp, who shook his head. All were about ABT-related murders and criminal cases throughout Texas, very few of which seemed to have occurred behind prison walls. One detailed an FBI operation called La Flama Blanca—The White Flame—which had culminated in the arrest of more than two dozen ABT members in central Texas, all for meth distribution. The article had a color picture of Nichols standing at a lectern, pointing at a board full of head shots not much different from those he’d brought with him to this meeting.
Chris closed the folder and slid it back.
Nichols picked up Earl’s picture and put it front and center. “John Wesley Earl was part of what they call the Steering Committee, or the Wheel. He was a general, as powerful as they come, and he was heavily involved in some of those ABT ‘illegal activities.’ Specifically, he ran all drug distribution for the ABT throughout the entire Texas prison system, and a couple of federal facilities as well. He had the connections and spearheaded that little ABT profit-making enterprise, along with another general, George ‘Big King’ Chives. Together, Earl and Chives made themselves and the ABT a lot of money, and Earl was probably responsible for more crime, more murders behind bars, than he was ever charged with on the outside.” Nichols stood and moved the photos around with his slim fingers. The only ring he wore was some sort of signet or class ring. “However, a little less than a year ago, like clockwork, he was due for another of his mandated parole hearings. And he would have been denied again, like every other time before that, but this go-around he wanted a thumb on the scales in his favor. He decided to do something he’s never done during the two-plus decades he’s been locked up. He wanted to deal. He agreed to talk.” Nichols sat back down. “He wanted to become a cooperating informant.”
“Bullshit,” Harp said, almost laughing.
Nichols shrugged. “That’s what I thought, too. In fact, he was already being looked at for the recent murder of one of the few ABT generals that had as much, maybe even more, clout than him, that man Chives I just mentioned. Word was that Chives had brought Earl up through the ABT, but that didn’t stop Earl from burning him to death in his jail cell. No honor among thieves, I guess. Anyway, there was nothing we could prove on the Chives murder, so when Earl offered to talk, we listened. And I’m glad we did. After a few months of running his mouth, Earl did more to undo the ABT than either the FBI or state or local law enforcement has been able to accomplish in years.” Nichols pointed to the folder with the newspaper articles. “He gave it all to us on a silver platter.”
Chris asked, “And so you paroled him. But why talk now, after all this time? What did he really want?”
Nichols steepled his hands in front of him. “Well, it seems he got disillusioned. It’s hard to imagine that with someone like Earl, and God knows I tried, but he claimed he didn’t like the in-house decisions being enforced by all the newer, younger gang members working their way up the hierarchy. He said they were too violent, had no respect, and he didn’t like the fact they were targeting kids and girlfriends on the outside. Even for a bunch of murderous psychopaths, family is supposed to be out of bounds.” Nichols paused. “Personally, I think he just got tired, worn-out. He’s a big-time cardplayer, so maybe he wa
s sick of the shitty hand life had dealt him, and decided to do something about it. He’s been locked up a long, long time and didn’t want to spend his last few healthy years behind bars. He doesn’t believe any of that white racist bullshit anymore, and it’s a hard life to stay on top for as long as he did. Look what happened to Chives.”
Chris shook his head, reluctant and unconvinced. “No, look at what he did to Chives. But whatever, there has to be more to it than that, right? Does someone like John Wesley Earl really wake up one morning with that sort of conscience?” Chris glanced at Harp, who was nodding in agreement, as if he was glad that Chris was finally the one to say it first and not him. “I’m not sure, not if what you’ve told us about him is true.”
Nichols smiled, but it was thin, barely there. “Me, either, and maybe you’re right . . . maybe he wasn’t just suddenly nostalgic about the good ole days in the gang . . . but this is where his son, his older son, Jesse, enters the picture, as well as a man named Thurman Flowers.” Nichols pulled Jesse Earl’s photo front and center. “Despite all that ABT nonsense, Earl is really no more of a racist than your garden-variety cracker redneck.” Nichols avoided looking at Harp or Dyer. “He doesn’t believe any of that Heil Hitler shit, at least not anymore. It was always a matter of convenience for him, jail survival. Trust me, right now, the ABT is more of a criminal organization than anything else, and the Wheel isn’t about to order up cross burnings and lynchings. That’s bad for business when your business is moving drugs, both inside and outside of prison, and increasingly, more of the latter. I saw that firsthand in La Flama Blanca. Where do you think the ABT is getting all that weight? Not from a bunch of hotel and bathtub meth labs run by some Nazi Low Riders, but instead straight from the source, the Mexican cartels. That was Earl’s strength, his forte. He brokered those deals. Jesse Earl, though? That’s a whole different story. While Earl was away doing his time and building his little business empire, Jesse got himself neck deep in the ideology, white race purity. He’s a true convert, a zealot. He’s ready for a race war, and wants his finger on the trigger when it happens. He’ll fire first.”
Harp looked up, smiled through his teeth. “He’s got guns tattooed on his arms.”
“Yes, yes he does.” Nichols pulled out another photo from the ones on the table, and held it up. “This is Thurman Flowers. Although Jesse’s been half raised by his uncle and the mother of Earl’s younger son, a woman they all call Sunny, whose real name is Mary Deshazo, it’s been this character, Flowers, who’s really been Jesse’s father figure while Earl was locked up. They’ve met in person maybe a dozen times, and they’ve kept in constant touch for years. He’s Jesse’s mentor, his teacher. There’s nothing original about Flowers at all, he’s simply following a trail already blazed by the old guard of the white power movement. But that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. A drive-by shooting of a federal prosecutor in Terrell, a shooting in a traditionally black church in Georgia, a young black man beaten to death in Arkansas by some Hammerskins, and most recently, a bombing of a Jewish community center in Oregon, all have Flowers’s fingerprints on them. He’s the one standing in the shadows, urging others like Jesse Earl to do his dirty work. He’s trying to build something bigger than the Aryan Nations. He calls it the Church of Purity, and calls himself Pastor Flowers, but all he preaches is hate and terror and violence. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a whole bookshelf on him, and he’s on every domestic terrorism watch list. He created some that didn’t exist before.”
Chris took the picture. The man was nondescript, with thinning hair and cheap wire-rim glasses; the eyes behind them muddy water. His Adam’s apple seemed too big by half, and in some ways, all of them bad, he reminded Chris of Duane Dupree. He turned the photo so Harp could get a good look, and the other man shrugged and shook his head.
Chris put the photo down. “I’ve never seen him in Murfee, and apparently Ben didn’t see him when he was in Killing.”
“No, I expect not. But you will, and soon. Jesse and his group have been on the move for months. We wouldn’t have had any idea that they’d finally camped out in Killing if it wasn’t for John Earl. Our information is that Flowers is on his way there, too. He dropped off the radar after that bombing in Oregon, but we’ve been monitoring some Internet chat groups, and our best intel is that he and Jesse are planning to meet up in Killing and turn it into another all-Aryan settlement, like Elohim City or Hayden Lake, or Leith, North Dakota. Flowers put out the word to his followers to come there and start their new world order with him.” Nichols studied the ring on his hand. “Back in the sixties there were these places, these ‘sundown towns,’ that excluded African-Americans and other minorities. They had signs up . . . Nigger, don’t let the sun go down on you here . . . that sort of thing. Of course, most of those are all gone now. Or at least you can’t see the signs anymore.”
Harp put his hand solidly on the table. “Be careful, Agent.”
Chris waved him off. “No, it’s okay. Look, Agent Nichols, Murfee and the other towns around the Big Bend have the same racial issues any border community does, and I’m not going to pretend we don’t. Still, I don’t think anyone around our area is looking to join up with someone like Flowers.”
Nichols shrugged. “No, probably not. But he’s going to bring plenty of his own with them. Trust me, eventually they’ll come. And he’s coming now.”
“And Earl is going to somehow help you stop this?”
Nichols started pulling together all of his photos. “Flowers is the real prize. He’s been talking about blowing up a courthouse, another Oklahoma City bombing, among other things. He’s actively looking for money, weapons, explosives. Earl is going to find out the how, the where, and the who, and in exchange for his cooperation and testimony, we’ve agreed to work out a deal for both of his sons, mainly Jesse. He doesn’t want Jesse to spend years locked up the way he was, not over Thurman Flowers’s fantasies. Once Flowers is in hand, we’ll unseal all the pending RICO indictments we have on the ABT, again thanks to Earl, and then roll everyone up. After Earl works through several months of open court testimony on both the ABT and Flowers, he goes into witness protection.”
Harp laughed. “A lifetime of causing shit and misery, and now he walks free? Must be a nice job if you can get it.”
“WITSEC is not a walk in the park, Deputy.” Nichols hit the word deputy hard, and kept going. “He’ll spend the rest of his life being monitored. Plus, he’s already done over twenty years behind bars. He’s walking free now, and yes, I helped make that happen, but it’s always been a two-for-one deal, the ABT and Flowers. He could have told us to fuck off and he would have been denied parole again, but who knows? In two or three years, maybe he would’ve been granted it anyway, only then we’d have nothing to show for it. Just another ‘reformed’ criminal on the streets. Right now he’s on a leash, a tight one, and when this is over, he’ll still have a collar on his neck. I think the ends justify the means.”
Nichols paused, collected himself. “You know, the ABT and most of the current prison gang problems are remnants, relics, of the old building tender or trusty system, when the job of guarding and disciplining these inmates fell to other prisoners, so-called inmate trusties. It was cheaper to run and manage the prison that way, but it also set up a brutal hierarchy. The most trusted were even armed, the ‘trusty shooters.’ They had the full authority of prison guards and controlled the lives of their fellow inmates. Many times, it was a white trusty overseeing black inmates. It was de facto racial segregation, and it flourished in these prisons. Federal rulings abolished most trusty systems in the seventies, but Texas held on all the way into the eighties. I didn’t create the system that gave birth to men like Earl, but I won’t shy away from using him and the current system if I can.”
“Is this personal for you, Agent Nichols?” Harp asked.
“Are you asking me that because I’m African-American? No, of course not. It�
�s purely professional.”
Harp shook his head. “Well, you know, for most cops, I think it helps sometimes if it is personal. If nothing else, at least you can be more honest with yourself. It provides a moral clarity of purpose. If this was personal for you, I’d understand it better.” Harp turned to Chris, ignoring the others. “Because this is where he tells us our Terlingua murder takes a backseat. He doesn’t want us spooking those folks in Killing or running Flowers off before he even shows up. He said the ends justify the means, and that means getting his shot at Flowers is worth letting Earl get away with another murder.”
Nichols sat silent for a moment. “That’s one way to put it. But JW Earl didn’t kill anyone in the Big Bend. You know it and I know it.”
“Well, I’d say that’s the only way to put it,” Chris offered. “This so-called leash of yours must be pretty damn long, because you’re sitting here and he’s way out there, outside my town, my home. But you are talking to him, right? What did he really tell you about Terlingua, about Billy Bravo?” Chris pressed. “Harp’s right, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Earl did. He told me there was a homicide in Terlingua and that your department wanted to question his brother and Jesse regarding it. I directed him to have Jesse and T-Bob cooperate, and he followed through on that. That’s why they came and met with you, and maybe the only reason they did, so you can thank me for that. Consider it a peace offering, a sign of good faith. Concessions had to be made to even make this work. He lives with these people. He’s with them twenty-four hours a day. He’s taking great risks, and there’s no way to keep eyes on all of them, all the time, but I’m in daily contact with him. Earl’s not going to jeopardize his deal.”
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