Rush felt the undertow of resistance pulling the agents away.
“Nobody’s happy about this, but if there’s officers who are the same as the thugs on the street, why should they get away with it because they have badges with their guns?”
The meeting risked devolving into recriminations about the investigation’s tactics, even its legitimacy. Almost as alarming as a revolt was the possibility that the agents would simply ignore evidence of criminality while they listened to the calls.
“Does anyone have any questions?” Rush asked, poking a bear that had already been roused from its slumber.
A third-year agent, on his first wiretap assignment, asked: “What happens if we hear something about a crime not covered in the court order?”
An FBI supervisor stepped forward to answer. “If you’re listening in and you don’t hear statements about the alleged conspiracy, then shut off the recording because it’s not covered in the scope of the order. You don’t troll.”
“Of course, you’ve got to listen long enough to tell whether a call is clean or dirty,” Rush said, trying to layer over the supervisor’s directive. “This doesn’t differ from any other intercept—like a narcotics wire—except we’re dealing with more sensitive targets. So when you turn the recorder off, wait a reasonable period of time and listen in again to reevaluate.”
“How long’s reasonable?” asked the same agent.
“Depends on the conversation,” Mercer said. “If it’s about kids getting a ride after school, then the downtime’s gonna be longer. If it’s a conversation between two targets about their work—but not explicitly dirty—then the intervals will get shorter.”
“Makes sense.”
Experienced monitors in the room knew better than Rush and Mercer that the many small decisions about whether to record or not sustained a wiretap’s pumping heart. What was said in the gaps between recordings was lost forever. Whether the last few pieces of the puzzle were in place or missing mattered the most. No hard-and-fast rule existed that forced a monitor to listen in every ten seconds or ten minutes.
The court’s intercept order authorized the monitoring of four mobile (Nokia 1011) and two land phones of officers assigned to the secretive narcotics and gang unit, RAID—the Rapid Action and Interdiction Division. Mercer, as the affiant in the wiretap application, had told the reviewing judge of the stories that cops were using extracurricular means to disrupt drug transactions and skim money from gangbangers. He wrote that defense attorneys had conveyed the allegations to prosecutors and pressed them in court filings and hearings, but the stories had been cast aside or labeled stale. What Mercer and Rush didn’t include in the wire application was the embarrassing reality that cops and prosecutors—and even judges and defense attorneys—shared an informal understanding that the ethical boundaries were malleable so long as the system kept moving forward.
“Any other questions?” Rush asked. “Let’s start the intercept monitoring tonight, in shifts of what—three hours?”
“Three-hour shifts, people,” said the supervisor, who was standing next to Rush.
“Did everyone get their shift assignments?” Mercer asked from the back of the room. “The wire room will have all the call-related stuff, including the logs, so nothing goes in or out during the shift changes, OK? And no personal phones in there.”
A twenty-year agent sitting on the desktop to Rush’s right raised his chin. “Why we doin’ this case? Why can’t the DA handle it?”
“Justice received a referral with enough detail to open a preliminary,” Mercer responded. “The evidence showed the officers were up to no good. The DA hasn’t had a hand in it. It’s ours.”
“Did the allegations come from scumbags?”
“Some of the predication for the preliminary came from informants,” Mercer said, “but not all. Other evidence came from looking at cases from RAID, and drilling down on them. We also found a pattern of missing dope and cash in closed RAID cases.”
“Cause it’d be wrong if this is based on a snitch.”
The agent was expressing the collective sentiment of the bullpen.
“It’s not just a snitch,” Rush said, angry that the agent was so openly disdainful of the work that lay ahead. “Let me show you something.”
Rush walked over to his briefcase, foraged around, and pulled out a case folder.
He held up a single sheet of paper from the file labeled Stash House Incident and addressed the group. “Pass this around. This is a photo taken last year during the execution of a search warrant by RAID at a suspected dealer’s house.”
Rush presented the photocopy to the group much as he would publish a trial exhibit to a jury. The mouthy agent suppressed a snicker when he saw the photo, and other agents looked at it without comment.
“We got this photo from an officer’s ‘informal’ paper file, the one he evidently kept for personal amusement,” Rush explained. “We identified the person in the picture and interviewed him in jail. We didn’t show him the photo or give him any clue about why we were asking questions.”
“The dealer admitted he was a dealer and told us what happened that day,” Rush said. “He told us that RAID was executing a search warrant, and one officer suspected extra cash was hidden in the house. The officer believed this guy knew where the extra cash was, so the officer took a clothes iron, plugged it in, and once it got hot, pressed the hot iron onto his chest.”
Rush paused and looked at the agents. His explanation was both a challenge and a plea.
“The picture shows the clear outline of an iron burned onto the guy’s chest and a pile of cash next to him. A RAID officer took the photo, but neither the photo nor the cash showed up in the case file,” Rush said. “The guy showed us the scar with pride.”
The tale of the tortured drug dealer didn’t win the group over, but the questions stopped.
“If you hear something of value, and that something needs immediate attention, get a message to the supervisor on duty,” the supervisory agent told the monitors, “and please take legible notes.”
“Finally—and I mean this—no matter what your personal feelings might be, keep this on the hard QT.” For Mercer, that point was the whole reason for the meeting. “As you might have figured out, it would be a nuclear explosion in this town if it were known outside this building that we’re intercepting cops’ conversations. I don’t need to remind you that an unauthorized disclosure of a wiretap isn’t just for the professional responsibility, folks; it’s a direct violation of the court order and the intercept statute.”
Rush sighed. His colleagues in DC had warned him that while he might be able to get the wiretap approved by the court, getting the agents to actually do it would be a battle of agendas, loyalties, and egos. Given the sensitivity of investigating officers, the intercept only magnified the usual tensions between federal prosecutors and special agents.
Even without a mutiny by the agents, the investigation into the Lynwood Police Department risked severing long-standing relationships with local law enforcement. For Rush that was a consequence of the mission, but to the agents who lived in Lynwood, the wire was high voltage and capable of inflicting pain without warning. The corrupt cop case might advance, but only with casualties strewn along the way.
Rush glanced over the heads of the listless agents. He tried to catch Mercer’s attention. Rush needed company even if it only was an acknowledgment of the no-win nature of case. He saw Mercer in the back standing fast against the herd of agents rushing to escape. Even after the agents passed, Mercer remained, a solitary figure at the far end of the room. Rush started to walk over, but Mercer’s expression told him to stay away, at least for now. Rush knew the wiretap would push Mercer even further away from the other agents, but there was a job to do.
30
LISTENING IN
The monitors worked their shifts while hitched by headphones to stationary terminals. The terminal controls allowed them to switch the recording equipment
on or off depending on what they heard. They turned the recorder on and off dozens of times over the course of a shift. Determining whether an exchange was just cheap cop talk or a coded discussion about criminality was a game of anonymous charades with unintentional clues. The process repeated itself for each line for the entire wiretap, like checking the temperature of running water for days on end.
The order authorized the feds to intercept lines associated with personal phones used by the suspect police officers. Organized crime members discarded their mobile phones after only a few days, but the officers had kept using their cell phones for months. That clumsy habit provided the investigators with what they needed to get the intercept approved and up. Why the officers didn’t burn the phones remained a mystery.
Amanda Gill, a special agent assigned to her second FBI field office, took the headphones from the monitor just about to complete his shift. After he left, she settled into his still-warm seat and examined the previous shift’s call logs for her assigned target line. She sat through the first hour with no calls being made or received. Then she heard three rings, and the line went hot.
SUB #2: Yeah. [Crackling on line.]
SUB #1: You near Columbus?
SUB #2: Man, you know I ain’t up there.
SUB #1: If I knew, I wouldn’t ask. I hear littl’ Richard went to get on with Angel.
SUB #2: I seen ’em ’round. Somethin’ might be up. Ask Peterson, but don’t say nothin’.
SUB #1: I might could get on a [unintelligible] myself.
Gill put her index finger on the switch. She thought it was shoptalk and leaned forward to toggle the device off. At the last second, she hesitated.
SUB #2: Why Sarge upset?
SUB #1: He’s gettin’ some shit from up high in the tower ’bout evidence. McCarron know his work. Them papers are butt clean.
SUB #2: That’s not it.
Gill kept recording, made a note to check the name McCarron, and flagged the conversation on the log as one of interest.
SUB #2: The paperwork might check out, but if they start lookin’ on shelves, they gonna be problems.
SUB #1: No fuckin’ way they know to check.
SUB #2: Just sayin’, it’d be fucked up if they knew.
SUB #1: Don’t get your panties all twisted.
SUB #2: Later. When you go on clock?
SUB #1: Eleven.
SUB #2: Remember to screw ’em, before [unintelligible] fuck with us.
Gill scribbled notes in her illegible cursive on the log entry sheet and tried to describe why the exchange was dirty. Intent on getting her impressions onto the paper before they escaped, she stopped listening to the conversation.
SUB #3: What up?
SUB #2: Nothin’. Remember you an’ the hood dude awhile back? Kind that got extra hate on you. I saw some shit on the news sayin’ it’s two years on and all’s quiet.
SUB #3: That’s fuckin’ prehistoric, bro. I [unintelligible] him for talkin’ trash. Motherfucker called me a nigga. Find out, the prick is Klan. Even had the pointy hat.
SUB #2: Was he wearin’ it?
SUB #3: The hat or his shit-eatin’ grin? [Laughter.] The dumb-ass costume was boxed up, but I put the hat on him. I left that cracker cuffed to a chair for the takin’. Little shit peed in his pants an’ spit up about them crosses.
SUB #2: Plain fuckin’ felony stupid. Klan man in a hood left in the hood. [Laughter.]
SUB #3: They sent him away to the federal zoo. Had to get me some protection ’cause the fucker got a big mouth. Hey, what ’bout—
Temples pulsing with intention, Gill stopped writing when she realized she hadn’t turned off the switch. She glanced up at the screen, embarrassed that she had forgotten, and cut the recording with a curt flip of her finger. She hadn’t heard a word of the second conversation.
She finished the session without intercepting anything more. However, the exchange she recorded and took notes about was the same kind of prize miners spent years searching for in the creeks and streams of the Old West. One or two gold nuggets could sustain a forty-niner for a long time.
31
PROGRESS REPORT
By the terms of the wiretap order, Rush and Mercer had to draft a progress report and submit it to the judge who had authorized the intercept. The status reports provided key information about the ongoing interception of calls made to or from the target lines. They also gave a statistical summary of the number of calls dialed, received, minimized, monitored, and, for those calls that were recorded, how many were hot or dirty—that is, useful as evidence of crimes.
Mercer flipped through the log entries as if he were scanning his beloved Sunday paper. The only way for him to draft the report was to know about the calls captured so far through the intercept. Monitors usually updated him if they heard a call of value, but sometimes they simply logged the calls and made notes with varying degrees of fidelity to the English language.
“Not much here,” Mercer said to no one. Agents nearby milled about desks in neat rows. Mercer tossed the binder for line 2041 back onto the desk and retrieved the binder for another line. The log entries were more detailed for line 9081, so he read them with more interest. He was partway through reviewing the binder when he came upon an entry in bold cursive with underlined comments. Mercer couldn’t make any whole sentences out of the scribble, but the entry appeared of consequence. Agent Gill was the monitor, so he found her number.
“Amanda? It’s Lee. Lee Mercer. You around?”
“I’m coming in now,” Gill said. “What’s up?”
“I’m looking at entries for the wire. A couple of days ago, you labeled a call possibly dirty? I’m trying to decipher your handwriting. One might accuse you of being a doctor.”
“Sorry. I know it’s atrocious,” Gill said. “I left you a message about it. I meant to, at least. I’ll come and translate.”
He didn’t recall receiving a message from Gill, but she was someone Mercer looked forward to seeing. Gill had fended off innumerable advances from other agents, and Mercer had no interest in being yet another jerk masquerading as Don Juan. Plus, he had a wife he was lucky to have found. He simply liked Gill and considered her part of the new, more diverse bureau—the one he had been told about when he started at the FBI Academy, and that his father had been promised thirty-five years before that.
Gill arrived at the office. She was petite at five-four and had her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had her service weapon secured in a waist holster and her bureau badge hanging around her neck on a chain.
“What can I decode for you?” Gill asked as she pulled up a chair next to Mercer.
Mercer had the binder for line 9081 open, some pages marked with yellow sticky tabs. He placed the binder on the desk and ran his finger across the flattened page.
“This call.”
Mercer pointed to the entry and the adjacent mixture of words and markings. With a few more pictures, the thing might have qualified as a graphic novel.
Gill studied her own penmanship. “Damn if I can’t read my own writing.” She flashed her snow-white smile with perfectly aligned teeth.
“In that case, we wouldn’t be able to use it.”
“No pressure!” Gill tried to read her log entry. “I got worked up about it.”
“OK. Why?”
“It was the way they talked,” Gill explained as she continued to decipher her own writing.
“It’s about skimming weapons, money, and dope,” Mercer said.
“I know,” Gill responded.
“It takes a lot to keep the scam going. The carrots and sticks these guys use. What do they log in versus what goes into their pockets?”
“I’m not naïve,” Gill said, sounding a little defensive.
“A planted weapon can make a simple drug possession case a minimum mandatory,” Mercer added. “An extra kilo of coke can make the low-level dealer a lifer.”
“Controlling the physical evidence,” Gill said. “I got
it.”
“Their biggest problem is, everything’s got a paper trail. Like how we’ve got to file this or that, keep surveillance logs, record every time we fill up the bureau car, what time someone takes a piss—”
“How did RAID get so far gone?”
“RAID’s off-site, it’s independent, and when questions get asked, it closes ranks,” Mercer said. “They produce a steady flow of cases, so the ADAs stay busy. The prosecutors might not like the evidence hiccups, but they like the stats. Prosecutors back the officers as long as it doesn’t bite ’em in the ass.”
“Their evidence-room talk smelled foul.”
“So let’s pull the call and listen,” Mercer said. “Hearing ain’t smelling it, but it’s good enough for us government types.”
Gill and Mercer both laughed, oblivious to the land mine that awaited.
32
THE WIRE’S SECRET
Mercer and Gill settled into an office to listen to the intercepted call. They sat on opposite sides of the dark-brown wood desk, a modest upgrade from the metal utility desks in the bullpen. In the privacy afforded by the walls, they didn’t have to use headphones, so Mercer was free to pace the dozen feet across the room. Gill flipped through her notes to find the record of the call.
“I remember it was the middle of my shift. Nothing was happening.”
She fumbled with the equipment as she tried to match the counter number with her notations.
“I’m not sure I want this to be dirty,” Mercer admitted.
“Why’s that?”
“If this goes public, it’s gonna be a bloodbath. Rush leaves when it’s over; we don’t.”
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