by Sally Denton
Dirty cops were hard to catch. Dirty spies even harder.
Already, another summer was approaching Kentucky with its full range of sweltering temperatures and humidity, ticks and chiggers, and tornado watches and warnings. Every year springtime quickly faded into a steamy summer that would last well into September. Spring epitomized the best of Kentucky, those few precious weeks when the tulips, red-buds, and azaleas adorned every household, rich and poor alike; when the silky foals stood shakily on a bluegrass carpet, nursing from their famous mothers; when the April rains were followed by azure skies and puffy white clouds. But all too inevitably, the new greenery would turn a heavy, mossy color and the fluffy clouds would meld into a stifling haze.
Ralph figured the summer of 1981 would take a lot of reckoning. His divorce now a foregone conclusion, he had stored his meager belongings, packed up his clothing, guns, and favorite photographs of his daughters—Connie and Christie—and taken up residence in a modest Frankfort motel. Melancholy about his personal life, Ralph felt blessed by a demanding professional schedule that precluded excessive brooding. The times he felt blue were usually after-hours, when the Kentucky bourbon stopped performing its magic.
The demands of his new position with Neil Welch in the Department of Criminal Justice—commanding nearly fifty men in a blanket operation with unlimited resources and technology—had been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. What semblance of a marriage remained had rapidly disintegrated before his eyes.
Confident he had placed the Rebecca Moore investigation in competent hands, one of the first things on his agenda was to convince the federal grand jury in California to widen its scope. Ralph saw the China Lake indictment as a vital opportunity to bust the whole conspiracy—not just Bradley Bryant.
He was not alone in this belief. U.S. Customs agents had become zealous in their pursuit of some of the Kentucky players they suspected of gunrunning, and were increasingly suspicious of the lack of cooperation they received from both the DEA in Kentucky and the Lexington police. Finally, Ralph’s long-held belief that DEA’s Harold Brown had been corrupted was gaining recognition. The problem with tackling a dirty cop, Ralph knew from experience, is the bureaucratic sensitivity. Law enforcement agencies don’t like to have their reputations tarnished, and will traditionally go to great lengths to avoid a public scandal. As a result, the internal affairs department of any police organization is intensely political, and transfers are routinely used as a disciplinary measure. Among the ranks, such subtle transfers are recognized as demotions, while providing the agency with systematic evasion of the public’s inquisitive eye.
Twice, DEA inspectors from Washington interviewed Ralph about the extent of his knowledge of the compromising of Harold Brown. He thought they were fishing to find out how much he knew. Ralph gave them all the evidence the state police had accumulated that was detrimental to Brown. He told them he suspected Brown’s involvement with the DC-3 that Drew had flown into Calloway County, Kentucky, and that Brown was an active participant in that attempted smuggling venture. Ralph provided them with memoranda outlining intelligence information and suspicions that Harold Brown and Andrew Thornton were partners in the drug business; he provided them with copies of surveillance reports that showed a long-standing relationship between Brown, Thornton, and Henry Vance. He briefed them on the mercenary-training activities at Triad, and told them that he knew Harold Brown frequented the farm.
Shortly after the DEA inspectors left the second time, another DEA agent, who was supposedly interested in making a case against the Kentucky conspirators—Harold Brown included—contact Ralph. Ralph assured the agent the state police would cooperate with him in any way necessary. The agent claimed to be working with the federal grand jury in Fresno, California that had indicted Bradley and Larry Bryant for the China Lake thefts. He told Ralph he had personally been investigating Bradley Bryant since Bradley’s 1980 arrest in Philadelphia. He also claimed to be responsible for Bradley’s more recent arrest in Chicago, and said the Fresno grand jury wanted to expand its investigation to include Drew Thornton, Harold Brown, Bill Canan, Mike Kelly, Dan Chandler, and several other men from central Kentucky. The agent told Ralph the DEA had several snitches working for them who were “spilling their guts” about Drew and Bradley.
The flaw in the agent’s commitment, Ralph believed, lay in the close relationship that developed between him and the Lexington Police Department. Ralph knew that just because Thornton, Steve Oliver, Jack Hillard, Rex Hall, and others had left the Lexington police to pursue drug-smuggling activities didn’t mean the department was clean. Each of the officers, except Bill Canan, had left of their own volition, and not because of any scrutiny or reprimands by their agency. As far as Ralph was concerned, the Lexington Police Department had never investigated itself, as warranted; he knew from personal experience that security and integrity breaches flourished, and that the Company had high-level sources within the department.
Ralph was slightly perplexed as to why a federal grand jury in California would have the impetus to explore drug-smuggling activities two thousand miles away. He was not yet aware of the extent of the connections between the theft of military equipment from China Lake and the Company. He knew about the one nightscope that had turned up in Bradley Bryant’s Lexington storage facility, as well as the nightscope and radar unit that were taken to Colombia by three of Bradley’s associates. But he didn’t know that Naval Intelligence considered Lexington’s drug smugglers to be a potential threat to national security.
Regardless, Ralph was relieved that some prosecutor somewhere was prepared to pursue the “scroungy rascals.” Ralph had become convinced by the summer of 1981 that no state or federal prosecutor in Kentucky had the courage or independence to tackle the Lexington gang. Neither the state nor federal prosecutors had expressed much interest in empanelling a grand jury to hear evidence against the drug smugglers, despite repeated briefings by the state police about the seriousness of the allegations. Nor had they been inspired to subpoena witnesses in the Melanie Flynn or Rebecca Moore matters. The political stakes were becoming too high: Dan Chandler was the son of an enormously popular former governor; and Drew Thornton, Bradley Bryant, Henry Vance, and Mike Kelly were the well-bred sons of prominent, respected families. The recent Lexington trial of Bradley had made clear that Lexington juries did not respond favorably to accusations against its elite.
Within weeks of the DEA agent’s appearance upon the Kentucky scene, Brian Leighton, the assistant U.S. attorney in Fresno in charge of the China Lake case, contacted Ralph. Leighton asked Ralph to forward copies of all state police reports and memos relating to the group, and asked if he would testify before his grand jury. Ralph agreed, and the next thing he knew he was hit with a subpoena.
That long, oppressive summer had crept up on Ralph, consuming his energies and thrusting him into autumn before he knew what hit him.
At least the continued demands upon his time precluded him from contemplating his abominable personal situation. He moved from the Frankfort motel into a brand-new apartment complex in Lexington called Kirklevington. Located near a busy intersection on New Circle Road—the main beltway around the city—Ralph conveniently situated himself within a five-minute drive of Jimmy Lambert’s home, Drew Thornton’s frequent residence, Henry Vance’s townhouse, Bill Canan’s apartment, Mike Kelly’s house, and the Lansdowne Shopping Center, where “the group” conducted most of their meetings.
At this time, Ralph had a problem with one of his detectives—a seemingly innocuous man by the name of Terry C. Barnes—and immediately took steps to have Barnes removed from the team.
But overall, his job had been eased by the enforcement actions of others. Finally, in late September, the federal grand jury in Fresno had handed down a second superseding indictment—or the third indictment in six months—which charged Drew Thornton, Steve Oliver, and Mike T. Kelly with conspirin
g to import and distribute marijuana. Disappointed that Harold Brown had not been included in the weighty criminal indictment, Ralph was at least relieved that Brown was forced to resign from the DEA.
Meanwhile, Bradley Bryant had been indicted on separate federal fraud charges in connection with his shenanigans with the International Harvester truck dealership in Savannah. Already incarcerated in Illinois for selling pot to undercover DEA agents, Bradley awaited trial for the China Lake thefts. Bradley was being “encouraged” by the FBI to identify the hit man in the Wood assassination. Bradley, Ralph could safely say, was out of the picture. Mike Kelly was also now facing trial in both Florida and California.
One big loose end was Drew Thornton. Drew hadn’t been spotted in Lexington for several months—ever since his federal indictment in Fresno on marijuana-smuggling charges. The presumption was that Drew had fled to avoid prosecution.
Ralph figured Drew would turn up sooner rather than later. Customs intelligence information indicated Drew was operating pretty heavily out of New Orleans; the odds seemed good that it was just a matter of time before he would slip up.
Having recently been sworn in as an arm to a newly empanelled special, federal grand jury mandated to investigate political corruption, Ralph was expected by Welch to expand his functions. The Justice Department in Washington had dispatched a team of special prosecutors and FBI agents to Kentucky; these agents operated outside the control of the local U.S. attorney’s office, reporting directly to the Public Integrity Section of Justice.
Neil Welch had offered the feds the full cooperation of Ralph Ross and the Special Operations division of the Kentucky State Police. In fact, Ralph learned that Welch had “strategized” in Washington with those directing the wide-scale probe even prior to Welch’s accepting a position in Governor John Y. Brown’s cabinet. Tight-lipped about their ordinance, the D.C. attorneys, though green with naiveté sent shock waves through Lexington and the state capital. The federal courthouse was swarming with whispers about pending indictments against high-level public officials and powerful members of the state’s Democratic party. Reaching near-frenzy proportions, what became commonly referred-to as the “Special Grand Jury” easily overshadowed all developments from the “China Lake” grand jury seated thousands of miles away in California.
Welch assigned Ralph to act as a liaison between the state police and the “Eye,” which meant Ralph needed to free up enough of his time to be available at the whim of the FBI, Neil Welch, and the grand jury. The first thing Ralph did was to transfer his surveillance team— which had intensified its watch on Jimmy Lambert—to Colonel Don Powers. Although Ralph would continue to devise the team’s strategy, and would stay apprised of the progress of the case, Powers would handle the day-to-day operations.
By December 1981, Ralph was pleased with the progress his team was making; he had recruited all of his men and they seemed to be a loyal and competent bunch. Though some of them were already working surveillance, most were in schools or in training.
The Lambert surveillance, while interesting, didn’t provide much insight to Drew Thornton’s movements. Before his indictment, Drew had regularly dropped by the Old Dobbin residence, but rarely seemed to stay for the parties. It seemed to Ralph as though Drew made routine deliveries of packages to Lambert. The content of those deliveries was but one avenue Ralph intended to explore.
As the state bureaucrats around him began their holiday timetables—coming to work an hour late, leaving an hour early, and sneaking out for last-minute shopping—Ralph’s slacked off a bit as well.
He should have known better. History had shown that the Christmas season was traditionally the most active time for his band of smugglers.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Andrew Carter Thornton II leaned against the wall in the lobby of the Royal Orleans Hotel. Dressed in a sport coat and oxford shirt open at the neck, his polished Gucci shoes gleaming against the wood floor, he could have been mistaken for a stockbroker or real estate developer. Comfortable amid the opulence of the French antiques, Drew was not the type of man who attracted attention to himself. Handsome in a Marlboro-man way, Drew feigned more self-confidence than he genuinely commanded. He would have been disappointed at how mainstream, predictable, moderately attractive, and insecure, he appeared to those who studied him. His vision of himself was one of grandeur and otherworldly courage. He believed himself to be a man with a mission superior to the mundane designs of common society; a man free of the restraints of civilization; a man immune from the checks and balances of a democracy. He believed he possessed supernatural powers, that he had been sanctioned by a higher force to use those powers in any way he saw fit.
Not even forty-years-old and larger-than-life rumors had made their way into the intelligence files of a network of enforcement agencies—that he was a lone operator, driven by adrenaline, who made secret parachute jumps into Southeast Asia long after the Vietnam War was over; that his inconspicuous red Dodge van cruised the quiet streets of Lexington, equipped with machine-gun mounts capable of firing rounds at 360 degrees; that men under his direction systematically infiltrated U.S. military bases, stealing explosives, weapons, ammunition, and warfare supplies to be used as a commodity in sundry foreign narcotics and intelligence operations; that he was a participant in a government-directed operation that trafficked drugs from South America to the United States to finance America’s covert activities in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and South Africa; that he belonged to a network of renegade intelligence operatives who were running amok across the globe, hiding behind a right-wing ideology, while reaping gargantuan personal profits; that he was a decorated war hero and dedicated soldier who served some shadowy, elite arm of the U.S. Government that was above accountability to Congress and internal oversight; that he possessed credentialed status in some vague, but intensely important, government capacity; that he used his facilities at Triad to train a personal army, consisting of nearly one hundred individuals, who did Drew’s bidding in the unsavory warfare of drug smuggling; that he had killed Melanie Flynn, strangling her with his bare hands, deciding she could not be trusted to guard the secrets of his nefarious dealings; or another scenario, that he was a mere accessory to Melanie Flynn’s disappearance, risking his involvement because of his intense loyalty to her real killer—a trait of allegiance that had become legendary; or that he was a cold and calculating drug smuggler who thought nothing of ripping off his associates and setting up his competitors and uppity underlings to be killed or busted.
Drew perpetuated much of the mythical status that accompanied him. Careful to maintain subtlety in his boasting, he merely hinted at his larger-than-life exploits and high-level contacts, inspiring the imaginations of others to run rampant.
Ralph Ross, Drew Thornton’s nemesis, believed that Drew’s psychological makeup was a montage—neither as monumental, nor as petty—as Drew’s own fantasies. A legend in his own mind to Ralph, Drew was a dirty police officer. Nothing more and nothing less.
Drew considered Ralph to be a country bumpkin, beneath Drew’s social and economic class. To friends, Drew made condescending remarks about Ralph’s intelligence and education, claiming Ralph was too inferior to be considered a serious threat. But by Christmas of 1981, Drew was finding it increasingly difficult to dismiss Ralph Ross as a nonentity. Even Drew could no longer pretend that the silver-haired fox could be ignored. He had to admit, at least to himself, that “ole Ralph” was personally accountable for Drew’s sudden life on the lam.
Drew direct-dialed the 800 number for his Cincinnati answering service, dropping fifty cents in the pay phone slot. After two rings, Drew heard a steady tone on the other end, indicating he should punch in a four-digit code in order to retrieve his messages. Seconds later, a woman’s voice came on the line.
“Hello, Mr. Johnson,” the woman said, addressing Drew by his most frequently used alias.
“Hello,” D
rew responded. “Any messages?”
“Several,” the woman said. “You haven’t checked in for a while.” The operator asked Drew to repeat his code. Satisfied, she began listing the calls:
“Matthew called. He said today’s quotation is 4955010604. Please call him to confirm.
“Rex called and said it was very important that you return his call collect, as soon as possible at 809/445-3111.
“Mike called. He said the optics will arrive in Lexington at 10:25 p.m., Delta flight number 686.
“Gil returned your call. He said you have the number.
“Matthew called again. He said today’s new quotation is 4996952314. Confirmation is number 116.
“Mr. Merrill called. He is expecting you for lobster dinner tomorrow evening.
“Mary Jane Knuckols wants you to call her at 606/846-4521. “Tim Clark called. He says you have the number. “Mr. Slone called. It is important. “Matthew called again. Today’s quotation is now 5942063154. “Chad called. The transponder is finished. But the indicator still has problems. You can reach him at home until 11:30 p.m. tonight. “Rex called. Call him at Julian’s ASAP. It’s very important. He says he’s doing the best he can. “Mr. Merrill called. He will be at Allied Marine in Miami until he hears from you. “Oliver called. Return his call this evening. “Queen in Chicago called. Call her tonight. “Bill Canan called. Call him tonight in Lexington at 606/252-8640. “Lorie called. The girls are checking in and are doing fine. “Mike called. The valve will not arrive until Wednesday morning. “Bill Canan called again. He’ll try to reach you tomorrow. “Matthew called. He says he has taken a more conservative point of view. The new quotation is 6070237883. Exercise your option every hour on the hour and you are sure to hit once. “Henry Vance called. The quote he received is in error. He needs a new quote. “Ruby called. She’s changed her plans. Either come to town to see her, or call her later tonight. “John Kellar called. Please call. “Louie called. He has the part that you are interested in obtaining. “Carl Knight from Knight Aircraft Corp. If he does not hear from you within one week, he is turning his problem with you over to federal authorities. He said you have his address and phone number. “Rebecca called. She has an important message from a friend of yours. “That’s all, Mr. Johnson. When can I expect to hear from you again?” the answering service operator asked.