Fair Game

by Steve Cannane

  After another hour of talking, Fernando came round to Terri’s point of view. ‘You’re right,’ he told his wife, ‘but do you realise the repercussions of this?’ Having one of Hubbard’s original messengers and one of Scientology’s most senior executives escape in the dark of night would be a big deal. But the Sea Org veteran was adamant they had to leave. ‘I know and I don’t care,’ she told her husband. ‘I’m past all that now. We have to get out.’53

  Fernando still had the keys to the musicians’ vehicle. The black Dodge van that drove the band around, and had previously been Miscavige’s private vehicle to take communications to and from Hubbard, now became their getaway car. The pair climbed out their first-floor window into the dark of night with a handful of belongings. They started up the van and headed for Los Angeles. But Terri and Fernando were not in the clear yet. Not by a long way.

  While Fernando had been working at the base near Hemet, Terri’s office was in Hollywood. As an executive who worked long hours for Author Services, she was provided with a room inside the Scientology complex in Los Angeles. Before she left the Sea Org, Terri wanted to go back to her room and retrieve some personal items. Fernando had to drive the musicians’ van to Scientology’s famous ‘Big Blue’ building in LA and hope they could get in and out without being seen. ‘We had to get there, get everything loaded and get out by 8 am at the very latest,’ says Terri, ‘because the RPF starts coming out then. I didn’t want anybody who knew I was on the decks up at Int [International Base] to see me and report on me as then they would come after us with security guards.’54

  The Sea Org fugitives arrived at the Big Blue building after the sun came up. Terri took the stairs to avoid the early morning activity in the elevators. She gathered her most prized possessions and loaded up the van. The couple were closing in on their 8 am deadline and getting ready to make their final escape. But Terri knew she was leaving forever and insisted on getting one more load of personal belongings. Fernando was adamant it was time to go. ‘No! No!’ he yelled. ‘Get in! Get in!’55

  Terri insisted she had time for one more load. She headed up to her room for the last time, but on the way up the stairs ran into her brother-in-law, Paul Grady. ‘He was surprised to see me,’ says Terri, ‘and I’m thinking oh no, he’s going to report it because everybody reports everything.’ Terri and Fernando got lucky. Paul said nothing. She went back into her room and using a trolley and some bungee cords secured her final load before making her way back down the stairs. They were almost in the clear.

  As she headed out the back door Terri saw the RPF pouring into the garden to work on landscaping right next to the stairs she had used to get to the van.

  As she made her way towards Fernando, the bungee cord detached and her belongings spilled everywhere. There, staring her in the eye, was the last person she wanted to see – the Bosun, the head of the RPF, with a platoon of Sea Org members scurrying around him. Fernando watched on from the van. They were desperate to avoid the RPF. Despite his protests, Terri had gone back for one last load. Now it seemed as if that one small trip would cost them their freedom and that they would soon be joining the RPF on landscaping duties.

  As Fernando watched from the van, he could not quite believe what he saw. Suddenly the RPF swung into action and started helping Terri.

  The Bosun didn’t know I was busted and on the decks. And he said, ‘Sir, can we help you?’ And I quickly said, ‘Yes, please.’ So we had five RPF members loading up my stuff – and they say, ‘Where would you like it, Sir?’ I said, ‘Right there in the van’ and they loaded it up. I said, ‘Thanks, guys,’ and acted as if everything was normal and as if I was still the head executive at Author Services.’56

  Terri hopped in the front passenger seat and slammed the door shut. She urged Fernando to put his foot on the accelerator and get the hell out of Hollywood. ‘We took off and Fernando was like, “What the hell were you doing going back again?”’ says Terri. Once the adrenaline stopped pumping they were able to laugh about what had just happened. The RPF had helped them escape from the Sea Org.

  Fernando and Terri had two immediate problems to solve. They had get rid of the van and pick up two horses. The first task proved easy enough. They rented a vehicle and drove to a suburb near Chick Corea’s studio, parked the musicians’ van on the side of the street and put the keys in the mail. As an executive for Hubbard’s business management company, Terri had been paid fairly well in Sea Org terms. She had enough money in the bank to buy a replacement vehicle – half with cash and half on credit card. Dealing with the horses proved more complicated.

  Back when Pat Broeker was in a position of power, Terri had been allowed to keep a horse at the corral at International Base along with a couple of other Sea Org members who also had a horse. Terri and Pat shared a deep love of horses. Eventually Terri bought another horse, Dasher – a Thoroughbred/Quarter Horse cross-bred on the ranch at Creston. She kept Dasher in private stables at Los Angeles. As soon as Terri escaped from the Sea Org, the Scientologists placed two guards outside the stables 24 hours a day, waiting for her to come and reclaim her horse.

  Terri not only had to get Dasher out, she had promised a Sea Org friend she would sell her the horse, as she was still stuck at International Base and could no longer care for it. Fernando and Terri snuck in to the stables through a back entrance. ‘We got the horses and led them out the back way down the side of a big wash basin so they couldn’t see us,’ she says. ‘We got the horses out and put them at the stables next door without them knowing.’57 From there they were able to sneak them out the back and have them transported interstate.

  The Scientologists didn’t realise the horses had been collected, and continued their 24-hour watch outside the stables. The security guards were spooking Terri’s riding instructor. ‘She told me they are scaring away my clients, can you please call them off,’ she says.58 Terri rang Greg Wilhere, who at the time was Inspector General of the RTC, second in charge to Miscavige. She told him the horses were gone and he should remove the guards. Wilhere said he would only do that if Terri agreed to meet with him.

  The pair met at a hotel near the Californian city of Burbank. Terri pulled no punches about why she had left. ‘I spent three hours telling him about my disagreements with Miscavige,’ Terri recalls. ‘His evil treatment of staff, his craziness, the bad management, his stat pushing, his false stats, his lying to staff and I could tell I got to Greg. I could see it by the end when he said to me, “You know, Terri, despite all this, you know the Sea Org will always be around, whether it’s with Miscavige or whatever.” In other words, he was trying to say this will pass one day.’59

  While Greg tried to convince Terri to return to the Sea Org, Fernando was chewing the fat with his old band mate Ronnie Miscavige, the father of Scientology’s leader. ‘Greg brought him with him so he could try and handle Fernando while Greg tried to handle me to try and get us to come back,’ says Terri.60 Fernando had a genuine connection with Ronnie. He loved his sense of humour and the two talked intimately about why Fernando had left.

  Despite their close relationship, Ronnie was not the ideal man to try and haul Fernando back in. ‘He asked what is it like being out?’ says Terri. ‘He was all enamoured by the fact that we were out, because he had wanted to leave years before and DM [his son] talked him out of it. He said to Ronnie that he would never see his family again if he left and that he would make sure of that.’61 It would be another 22 years before Ronnie finally acted on his instincts and escaped from the Sea Org.

  The following morning, Terri and Fernando packed up and left. They would never return to the Sea Org. The pair had decided to head for Florida where Fernando’s family were based. Through their lawyers, the Church of Scientology arranged for private investigators to tail them. It would be a long drive from California to Florida.

  When Terri and Fernando made it to Colorado a few days later, they started having problems with their car. As their SUV made its way up the mountains,
it began spluttering. Fernando called the car dealer in Los Angeles, who explained that it was just the high altitude. The car dealer had some further information for him. ‘You know you are being followed?’ he said. ‘Three guys came in here right after you bought the vehicle and said they were the police, they wouldn’t show us any ID, and they wanted to know where you guys were going.’62

  Terri believes Scientology’s Office of Special Affairs (OSA) got the car dealership address from her credit card transaction. ‘OSA is notorious for obtaining credit card information and tracking down departed staff and bringing them back,’ she says. ‘They have everybody’s social security card numbers and are able to run credit reports and obtain all bank and credit card accounts. They then call up the bank as if they are the card holder and request an account statement.’63

  The car dealer refused to give up the pair’s destination, but it didn’t matter. Terri and Fernando were soon being followed. At one point they drove off the road to try and shake the person tailing them when they suddenly saw the tail car switch with a second car that took over following them. They decided to follow the first car and see where he went. He stopped soon after at a 7/11. ‘He came out with a newspaper and a cup of coffee because he’s off duty so I said, “Hey, who is paying you to follow us?”’ Terri says. ‘And he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”’ The man lowered his head and scurried away, pretending he was getting into a truck across the parking lot. Terri and Fernando lingered while the private investigator kept peeking at them through the windows of the other side of the truck hoping they would leave.64

  As they drove across the country tailed by private investigators, Terri continued to check in with Greg Wilhere. He had made her promise she would call him along the way. Terri thought it might minimise the harassment if she cooperated. As they closed in on Florida, Greg insisted they meet once more in Nashville. Terri and Fernando headed to Tennessee’s capital in the hope it would keep relations smooth with the church.

  THE HOME OF COUNTRY music was an appropriate place for Marty Rathbun to turn up in. In the late 1970s, Rathbun had been chosen to work at one of Hubbard’s secret locations at La Quinta. Marty’s real name was Mark. As Steve ‘Sarge’ Pfauth drove him there, Rathbun was told he’d need an undercover name. The old Marty Robbins country and western hit El Paso came on the radio station they were listening to. ‘How does Marty sound?’ Rathbun asked. Sarge looked at the radio and grinned. ‘Perfect,’ he said.65

  Rathbun had impressed Hubbard’s executives by displaying extraordinary courage in defending a young Scientologist named Diane Colletto. Rathbun agreed to ride home with the 25-year-old after she had received a threatening call from her husband John who had just escaped from the RPF. As they approached the Scientology complex in Los Angeles, a Volvo driven by Diane’s husband sideswiped her car. John Colletto leaped out of the car and shot her in the leg.

  Rathbun could have done a runner, but instead he tried to protect Diane. He ran towards the gunman and got him in a headlock, but then blacked out after he was smashed over the head and neck repeatedly with the gun barrel. When he regained consciousness, Rathbun renewed the struggle, narrowly avoiding being shot as he wrestled the 100-kg man to the ground. Eventually John Colletto freed himself and shot his wife dead.

  Rathbun was lauded for his bravery and considered worthy of promotion. Soon after, he went to work for Scientology at La Quinta where Hubbard was living at the time. Later on, when Terri Gamboa and Norman Starkey left the ‘All Clear Unit’, Marty was promoted to take it over. He later became the Inspector General for Ethics in Miscavige’s RTC.66 By the time Terri and Fernando decided to leave in 1990, Rathbun had become Miscavige’s most trusted and effective enforcer over both the Ethics and Intelligence arms of Scientology.

  When Terri arrived in Nashville, she thought the meeting with Greg would be just like the little chat they had had in Burbank – another harmless attempt at getting her and Fernando to come back to the Sea Org. But Terri soon realised that something else was up. Into the meeting walked Wilhere and four more of Scientology’s most senior executives – Marty Rathbun, Norman Starkey, Marc Yager and Ray Mithoff. Terri saw it as an act of intimidation. According to Terri, the only one missing was David Miscavige. ‘He always sends others to do his dirty work,’ she says. ‘He likes to have somebody else to blame things on.’67

  Scientology’s top executives went to work on Terri and Fernando, putting the hard word on them to return to the Sea Org, but the couple were adamant they would be not be coming back. The conversation lasted for over an hour and became heated. Terri and Fernando were accused of being ‘criminals’, ‘liars’ and ‘out ethics’ – the usual claims made against people trying to leave. When Marty Rathbun excused himself, saying he needed to take a break, Terri became suspicious. ‘I waited a minute till he went outside and I got up to follow him,’ she says.68 Norman Starkey tried to stop Terri, but Fernando intervened, throwing down his coat as a signal he was willing to fight Starkey if he did not let his wife go.

  When Terri left the room she spied Marty in the hotel corridor with the private investigator she had previously seen at the 7/11. The investigator had been walking towards Marty carrying a slim jim, a strip of metal used for breaking into cars. When he recognised Terri he tried to hide the slim jim behind his leg , and turned away from Marty and continued down the hallway as if there was nothing happening.

  Terri turned to Marty and said, ‘Hey, what’s going on, what are you up to?’ When she didn’t get a straight answer, Terri went downstairs to check on their car and then their room. ‘They had neatly removed everything from the glove box of the car, gone through it and left it on the floor of the car,’ she says. ‘They had gone through all of our suitcases and belongings in both the room and the car. They weren’t even careful about it and didn’t put things back in the right place. I went back up to the room and I said to Fernando, “They went through our stuff, let’s get out of here.” So we left.’69

  Years later Terri was told what the Scientology executives were looking for. ‘Miscavige told them to go through all our stuff because I might have had the combination for the safe where all of LRH’s estate papers and valuable documents are and I might have taken something important. In actual fact Miscavige wanted to make sure I didn’t have anything to use against him or the church.’70

  Terri Gamboa believes Miscavige wanted to make sure she did not have any documents that showed she was a top executive in the church or anything embarrassing she could use against him. ‘He didn’t know if I had bad intentions,’ she says. ‘He didn’t know if I had taken anything that I could blackmail him with or use against him or the church. He didn’t want me to have any ammunition that I could use to weaken his position or power. Tom Cruise was already becoming an important person to the church and knew me well as the head of Author Services; he wouldn’t want me to have anything that could harm that relationship with Tom. I didn’t take anything, but he had to make sure of that to keep his position secure.’71

  Marty Rathbun agrees that Miscavige had grave fears about the kind of information Terri could have revealed. ‘She probably had more potentially damaging information than anybody else who had left the church up to that point besides Pat Broeker,’ Rathbun told me. ‘She knew a lot about what was going on with Broeker and Hubbard and his last days and all the coups that occurred to get Broeker out of the road.’72

  Terri didn’t just know the truth about Miscavige’s abusive past. As a former Executive Director of Author Services, she knew better than anyone how Hubbard’s business management company worked at a time when they were trying desperately to convince the IRS they should be given tax-exempt status. She also knew the truth about Hubbard, both the good and the bad. Terri had seen the culture of abuse up close on the Apollo, and she knew how appallingly the Church of Scientology could treat its followers, including its best and brightest, like her mother.

  Terri’s parents, Yvonne and Peter G
illham, had been two of the most successful disseminators of Scientology in its history, both while they were married and in the years after they went their separate ways. ‘People would follow them in droves because they truly were the essence of what we all believed Scientology to be,’ says Terri. ‘Their charisma, their deep devotion to both LRH and Scientology, their application of the Scientology technology that made people feel better, feel lifted, feel larger than life as a spiritual being.’73

  Yvonne, with her charm, energy and hard work, had secured many influential followers for Hubbard. Yet at various stages she had been treated woefully. She was separated from her children, declared ‘suppressive’ and sexually harassed by Hubbard. Somehow she kept bouncing back and remained faithful to Scientology. In 1969, Yvonne had set up the Celebrity Centre in Los Angeles and it had flourished under her leadership, recruiting marketable stars like John Travolta and becoming the largest single Scientology organisation in the world.74

  Despite its success, Hubbard had ordered an evaluation of Celebrity Centre (CC) in early 1977. The Guardian’s Office (GO) had contempt for the way Yvonne had connected with writers and performers through her concerts, tie-dye classes and candlelit poetry readings. The GO made sure they dropped negative reports about Yvonne into the evaluation. After the report was handed down she was dismissed from the organisation she had conceived, founded and run so successfully. She was reassigned to set up the PR organisation without adequate funding or support. Later, as punishment, she was made to clean the pool at Scientology’s base in Florida. By the time Yvonne returned to Los Angeles in June that year, her health had deteriorated. She was suffering from intense headaches and her sight was failing.