by Alex Caine
“In Blaine, Washington,” he said. “A friend of mine is with the DEA there. He’d like to talk to you. His name is Andy Smith.”
I was somewhat suspicious as to why Scott would be dangling another opportunity in front of me when he knew that I’d agreed to take the Bangkok job. Still, I was intrigued and flattered, even though I had no idea what the Blaine job was about. I called Smith the next morning and was off to see him that very afternoon.
Blaine was only a half-hour drive from Vancouver and all I expected was a casual chat with Smith. But when I arrived at the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) building, I was shown into the office of the top guy, special agent-in-charge Larry Brant, where a welcoming committee of five or six cops was waiting for me. Most were DEA, but also there to meet me was Corky Cochrane from the FBI. With both agencies represented, I knew the meeting was going to be more formal than I’d anticipated.
Smith, who had been recently transferred from New York City, started right in by asking me what I knew of bikers in general and the Bandidos in particular.
“Nothing,” I said, adding that I’d never been on, much less driven, a motorcycle. That was only partly true: I had been a passenger on a bike once or twice, but I thought it best to start building a back door.
Smith didn’t appear concerned. He outlined their problem and what they wanted to do about it. Members of the Bellingham chapter of the Bandidos, he said, were working with Hells Angels from Canada, and running drugs, guns and other contraband over the border. Whether this business was being done on a chapter-to-chapter basis or was happening simply between a few individual bikers the DEA didn’t know, but they sure wanted to. If the smuggling was chapter-to-chapter, the cops could go after the bikers as organized crime using the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statutes. Otherwise, it was just garden-variety criminality. This was where I would come in. The DEA wanted me to infiltrate the Bandidos to find out just how organized the smuggling was. They also hoped I would “build a book” for them—establish a comprehensive list of local Bandidos members and associates as well as their addresses and places of employment.
There was a bit of pressure on them, Smith admitted. “The President of the United States,” he intoned, apparently expecting me to jump to my feet and salute, “has declared war on the big four outlaw motorcycle gangs: the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Outlaws and the Pagans.”
The DEA, the FBI, the ATF (the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives)—all the federal agencies—were under pressure to produce results, he suggested. The “war” had been sparked by the suspected involvement of the Bandidos in the assassination of a federal judge, and by the shooting-at of an assistant U.S. attorney in Texas two years previously. Apparently, police in the Pacific Northwest hadn’t been doing their bit.
After listening to Smith describe the job, I explained to him about waiting to go to Thailand. “And if you’ve done your homework, and I assume you have, you know my area is Asians,” I added.
The truth was, Ronald Reagan’s exhortation notwithstanding, I didn’t think I was the right man for the job anyway. I didn’t have all that much experience in infiltration, but I had enough to know that the key to survival in that kind of work was to know your limitations. When it came to bikers, I felt out of my element. Not to mention that, like almost everyone, I was a little intimidated by their image.
Smith was fully aware of my Bangkok commitment, but he pressed his point, saying they could use help in the short term while I was waiting to ship out.
At that point another cop joined us, this one from the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Department. Andy explained where we were in the discussion. Acting as if I wasn’t there, the deputy had just one thing to ask: “Does that mean he’s in or not?”
I didn’t like the deputy from jump and felt provoked, as if he was challenging me.
“It means I’ve agreed to take a look at it for thirty days,” I announced.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Border Bandidos
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After the meeting in Blaine, I went back to Vancouver to figure out a plan while the DEA, as the “double A” (anchor agency) on this case, drew up the paperwork for my involvement.
One thing I knew for sure, bluffing my way in as a biker was not even a consideration. So the only real option in my mind was to appear on their turf as a regular crook and border runner.
Still, I figured that a bike would be a good thing to have, insofar as it would at least provide an excuse to make small talk with the Bandidos. There was no way I could handle a Harley—they are just too big and powerful for novices—so Andy had rounded me up a 900cc Norton Commando. It was a good choice. Back then, anything other than an American or European bike was considered “Jap scrap.” For example, Mongo, one of the more colorful—and color obsessed—Bandidos I was to meet, had a sticker on his bike that read “Better to have my sister in a whorehouse than my brother on a Honda.” Many of the hardcore bikers had started their careers on Nortons, Triumphs and BSAs, so the 900cc Commando would do fine.
Andy also had Scott Paterson register me for a one-day course given by the B.C. Motorcycle Safety Association. It took place at a municipal airport and I learned the basics—shifting, braking and handling—by bombing down a disused runway on a small Honda. I figured I’d learn the rest as I went. (And never told Mongo about the Honda.)
Scott also made arrangements for me to visit the RCMP “barn” in Victoria that week, where a new license was made up in my name, one that had a motorcycle permit added to it. I was almost ready to go.
The last thing to do was to move the Coachmen trailer stateside. Liz’s stepfather and a buddy of his from the fishing club took care of that, driving it to a trailer park off Highway 5 between Blaine and Ferndale. Frank wasn’t fully up to speed on exactly what I was doing, but he began to figure things out when Andy Smith greeted him at the border crossing and just waved him right through, the customs officers deferring to his DEA badge. It must have been reassuring to see that I was working with the good guys.
For the time being, Liz and Charlotte would move in with her mother and stepfather. I stayed with them for most of the first month and didn’t use the trailer across the border more than three or four nights a week. I knew the guaranteed way not to get in with a criminal group was to be pushy. If I was always around, they’d start wondering what my game was and question my motives. The best approach was to let them invite me into their world. So I had to get noticed without getting in their faces.
Andy and Co. had told me that the local Bellingham Bandidos chapter held their weekly “church” meetings every Tuesday evening, after which they would repair to the Pioneer Tavern in Ferndale for a round or ten. As far as the cops knew, that was the only routine that, as a group, the Bandidos kept to.
So, at dusk one late summer Monday, I went to the Pioneer to familiarize myself with the bar’s layout and say hello. I had brought over my new car, a souped-up Firebird, in an attempt to even the scales on the mechanical end. Bright purple with a red air breather on the hood (a hood, by the way, that was held down by padlocks), it was not a car meant to be subtle. Completing the muscle-car look were rear air shocks, wide tires made for pulling out in a squeal of burned rubber, and a chromed chain steering wheel. When the car idled, it vibrated and sounded like a snarling beast waiting to pounce—that is, if the deafening sound system wasn’t drowning out the engine noise.
Driving the Firebird into Ferndale, I felt like a Texas Ranger riding into town to take on the bad guy. Before pulling into the Pioneer’s lot, I did a little prowl and growl around town. It was sleepy quiet. The Pioneer wasn’t much more happening, which was fine by me. I ordered a Pepsi and hung out for a while, playing pool by myself until another customer came in and challenged me to a game. He was a huge man named Chuck who in due course told me that he owned the local bike repair shop. It was a good start—I figured there was no way he could operate such a business without be
ing on good terms with the main bikers in town. I didn’t tell him anything about myself, in such a way that he could only suspect I did something shady.
“So, what’s it you do?” he asked at one point.
“The first thing I do is I mind my own business,” I said definitively. Then, having slammed a door on him, I opened a window, saying something friendly such as “Nice shot,” or “Hey man, it’s your turn.”
Gradually people started to drift in. Every Monday at the Pioneer they held what they called a Turkey Shoot—a small pool tournament. Chuck’s regular partner didn’t show, so he and I teamed up. We did okay but eventually were knocked out, at which point I called it a night.
The next evening I was back not long after eight, again drinking Pepsi and playing pool by myself. Toward nine or nine-thirty the Bandidos started to drift in in small groups. By ten o’clock there were almost a dozen members in the bar and me in the back by myself. It was suddenly a very lonely place to be.
When Chuck came in, I was relieved to see him. He said hi to most of the Bandidos but wasn’t invited to sit with them. Instead, he came and shot some more pool with me. I made a mental note of his status, or lack thereof.
I half expected one of the bikers to come up and challenge me, sneering, “Who the fuck are you?” So I made myself extra small and even avoided going to the bathroom. That would not be a good place to have to explain what I, a stranger, was doing on their turf. But they seemed to have decided on a wait-and-see approach. If they were really wondering who I was, they could always question Chuck later. They might also have noticed the Canadian plates on the Firebird, which may have made them more cautious; their relationship with Canadian bikers and crooks was their financial lifeline. Still, it didn’t make them any friendlier that first evening. If looks could kill, I would have died several times over.
I didn’t push my luck and slipped out before any of them got too drunk and decided to have some fun at the stranger’s expense. At least I’d got on their radar. Certainly, Andy was thrilled that I had been in the same place with so many of them and been able to walk out—even though it meant he had lost a friendly bet with one of the other cops that I wouldn’t make it through the night.
Over that first month, I’d go to the bar two, maybe three nights a week, and always on the Tuesday. Still, I didn’t exchange a single word with any of the Bandidos. I just played pool with Chuck or whoever and played it cool, chatting with the staff and the regulars, sipping my Pepsi in the back. The gang sat around a few tables in the front, ignoring me in their disdainful way.
I also took to visiting Chuck at his bike shop during the day and shooting the shit with him and whoever else was around. Often these were guys who had cordial relations with the Bandidos, so I knew that getting in good with them could help me penetrate the gang. On a couple of occasions I’d invite them back to my trailer for a beer or whatever. Increasingly I would make allusions to my work, which I let on to be smuggling and border running. “I was sneaking across the border a few days ago when this-or-that happened,” I would say. But going any further would have been silly—admitting, for instance, that I was moving drugs across in the trunk of my car or illegal immigrants across by foot; no self-respecting crook would have copped to that.
Still, after a month or so I hadn’t made any real progress and something had to give. Especially since my regular absences from Ferndale had started to become an issue with Corky. Theoretically, he and all the other cops could appreciate that it would only hurt the infiltration if I was around the whole time. I wouldn’t have any mystery, I wouldn’t be away on my nebulous business. Still, Corky was a nine-to-fiver and some part of him deep down must have wanted me to be one too, especially since I was getting a salary that likely eclipsed his.
“We’ve noticed how many times you’ve crossed the border and how long you stay,” he said at one of our meetings. “This isn’t a part-time job, you know.”
“I can go home right now for good if you want,” I shot back at him. I wanted to force him to shut the fuck up. I was all they had, and even if by that point my work still hadn’t produced any useful evidence, I knew they were in no position to flush the probe.
In general, though, my relations with my handlers, Corky included, were solid right from the start. One reason: we were all Vietnam vets.
Andy Smith had been a captain in the Army Rangers, doing special operations that included ambushes and recovering POWs held by the Viet Cong. In fact, he occupied a notable place in the history of the war: he was one of the last eleven people helicoptered off the roof of the U.S. embassy in the early morning of April 30, 1975, during the fall of Saigon. He had a crushed hand to prove it—it had been slammed in a heavy door leading to the roof. Andy was an aggressive, get-it-done type of guy, the kind that moves ahead like a freight train. He’d recently been transferred from New York and his attitude wasn’t always appreciated by the more laid-back northwesterners, but it suited me fine.
Corky Cochrane, meanwhile, had been an Air Cavalry chopper pilot flying ammo in and body bags out. It had left him permanently wound up, borderline shell-shocked even. Once or twice I took cruel pleasure in sending him back into his past. On one occasion, after he’d left the office for coffee, I hid behind the door. When he came back in, I yelled: “Incoming!” He threw his coffee in the air and dove under the desk. I thought I’d split a gut.
For his part, Larry Brant was the quintessential administrator and go-between. He was so perfectly turned out in both manners and appearance that you knew he had been an officer and had stayed in the rear with the gear. Still, Larry had his place: he was our bridge between the street and head office, and a very good one.
Soon enough, however, I’d learn that not all vets were on the side of the good guys. I’d also find out that having smelled the same smoke could make for a strong bond with even the nastiest of people.
The thirty-day evaluation period was drawing to a close and I was still not much further along in penetrating the Bandidos than I’d been after that first Tuesday night. The terms of my employment were pretty loosey-goosey, little more than an understanding that after a month we would meet to assess the operation and take it from there. I still fully expected to be heading off to Bangkok to join Gary Kilgore and could have left the Bandidos behind in a heartbeat with no worries financially. Still, there was a certain professional pride involved. I wanted to impress the Americans and it was weighing on me that I hadn’t yet.
So, late one afternoon, sitting around at the Pioneer with Chuck, I made my move and asked him what the gang thought of me. He replied that the jury was still out.
“Some really don’t care one way or another. Others think you might be a cop.”
I exploded. “Me? A cop? Who the fuck is saying that?”
Chuck was taken aback. He said it wasn’t him, that the idea hadn’t even crossed his mind and he hadn’t doubted me for a second.
I kept up the theater, demanding to know where I could find the members of the gang that instant.
Chuck said that some of the guys were at his shop. In fact, that was why he was at the bar—they’d told him to make himself scarce while they used his facilities to work on their bikes.
I jumped into the Firebird, peeled out and drove the block and a half to the shop in a matter of seconds. Chuck’s shop was divided in two: in front was the retail section, at the back a garage. I screeched around back and into the open garage door, squealing my tires to a halt. Three Bandidos were standing around talking. To say they were surprised would be an understatement. I jumped out and walked up to them.
“Chuck told me you guys think I’m a fucking rat, or even a pig!”
They just looked at me as if I was totally nuts. Getting no response, I continued my rant.
“Where I come from, that’s done face to face!”
The same confrontational technique had worked well for me in Hong Kong. But for the act to work, you need a response from the bad guys that you can wor
k with. In this case they just weren’t saying anything. Finally, though, one of the guys, who I later learned was Vinny Mann, the chapter president, took a few menacing steps in my direction. Well over six feet tall and solid, with a scraggly beard and unkempt hair, he pointed a finger at me.
“If I thought you were a pig, you would be dead already laying in a ditch,” he growled in his gravelly way.
Even if it didn’t provide much of a way out, it was at least a response. I jumped at it.
“That’s what I heard about you guys—you were solid and didn’t play around. That’s why I was so surprised when Chuck told me that.”
That led to more silence. I knew I was talking too much, but they weren’t helping. I relaxed my pose and added, “You can’t blame me for overreacting—in my business reputation is everything!”
Vinny muttered under his breath that Chuck talked too fucking much. Then he threw me a lifeline. “It takes balls to do what you just did. I would have done the same thing.” Another pause before he continued. “By the way, I am checking you out. In the meantime, be cool.”
A biker I would later know as Karate Bob—he had a couple inches on Vinny and a foot on me—added menacingly, “Who knows, you may still end up in the ditch.”
“It’s a hazard of the trade,” I said, getting a laugh out of them. Or at least a smirk. Then I went to my car, without a glance in their direction, pulled out—slowly this time—and went home.
Even if I had just scored a few points, I was extremely happy to be out of there. I couldn’t help but notice that my hands were shaking.
Back at the trailer, I wrote up my notes about the encounter and later left them in the night drop box behind the DEA building in Blaine. It was the routine procedure we’d agreed to when I’d signed on and wasn’t considered too much of a security risk in those more reckless days.