by Howard Marks
I finished packing my bag, rolled a huge strong joint and put what hashish I had left in my underpants. I puffed away frantically. The cell doors opened. Hashish smoke and fumes billowed out and enveloped the funcionario. He burst out laughing and walked away. John Parry went running after him.
‘Funcionario, funcionario, look at Marco Polo. He is smoking chocolate. You must bust him. He must do some time in prison here. You can’t let him go to the United States.’
‘No, no,’ said the funcionario. ‘Marco Polo can do what he likes. Only America will make him pay. I allow him to smoke the hashish. But he must hurry. Interpol is waiting.’
‘I don’t think that’ll cause Marco Polo too much bother,’ said John. ‘He doesn’t really like Interpol. And anyway, I have to carry his bag. I always used to carry his bag.’
‘Yes, okay, you can carry his bag. But please be quick.’
John Parry carrying my pillowcase and I smoking my massive joint were led down the corridor. We were met by about ten uniformed guards and a few serious-looking men in sober suits.
‘This is where I say so long, Howard. Stay strong.’
We were both in tears. We hugged and said our goodbyes.
Very quickly I was bundled into a van, taken to Madrid police station, and placed in a holding cell. Although very firm in denying me the opportunity to communicate with anyone, the police were more than friendly, almost apologetic, and plied me with food, coffee, and cigarettes. When locked up for the night, I swallowed the lump of hashish and fell asleep.
Very early the next morning, I was brought up from the cells. Alongside the Spanish police stood three very obvious Americans, one Hispanic, one Black, and one Irish.
‘Are you Dennis Howard Marks?’ asked the Hispanic.
I nodded.
‘We are the United States of America Federal Marshals Service. We have a warrant to take you to the United States of America. You will now be relieved of all your possessions other than the clothes you are wearing. I will now perform a strip-search on your person.’
‘He has already been searched,’ lied one of the senior plain-clothes Spanish police.
‘I would have preferred to search him myself. Please note that for the record. Mr Marks, kindly hand over those cigarettes of yours, and slip your hands into these handcuffs.’
‘I’m a heavy smoker, particularly on planes.’
‘We will administer you cigarettes when you require them.’
‘I want one now.’
‘You will have to wait until we get to the airport. We are pressed for time. We have been waiting for you since Friday. There was a lot of paperwork to do. In any event, I doubt if my Spanish colleagues would allow you to pollute their office with your cigarette smoke.’
‘Por favor, hombre!’ said the Interpol man, and handed me one of his cigarettes.
At breakneck speed, the three marshals, the Interpol man, and I were driven to Madrid airport. After an hour in a holding cell, I was taken at gunpoint aboard an absolutely empty Pan Am 747. A marshal sat each side of me, one behind. Regular passengers were beginning to board. The Hispanic marshal suddenly looked very proud of himself.
‘This is American territory. An American aircraft is on American territory wherever it is. Read him his Miranda rights.’
And they did, like they do in the movies.
Sixteen
41526-004
I hated every minute of the journey. Once we landed at New York, the Hispanic US Marshal put a chain around my waist and led me like a pet chimpanzee through a maze of corridors. At first the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service wouldn’t let me through because I did not have a US visa and was a convicted, drug-dealing felon. Then the US Marshals were prevented from boarding because they had lost the onward flight tickets to Miami and had overlooked getting permission for the firearms they were carrying in order to kill me if I decided to jump out of the plane. Shortly before midnight, we arrived at Miami International Airport, where we were greeted by another US Marshal, a very young, very big, bald Black wearing a hideously multicoloured Mickey Mouse tee-shirt. The four US Marshals and I got into a large limousine driven by yet another US Marshal and drove down a freeway to a large complex containing apartment blocks, factory, chapel, and a lake. It looked like a garden village. A notice indicated that it was Miami Metropolitan Federal Correctional Center (Miami MCC), United States Federal Bureau of Prisons. An obese female sporting a semi-automatic and a grotesquely short mini-skirt waved us through to the reception area. I was the only arrival. The prison guards, called hacks rather than screws, took away all my personal possessions, stripped me naked, looked up my arse, and made me pull my foreskin back. I was assigned a number, 41526-004, had my photographs and fingerprints taken, and marched to a solitary cell. I couldn’t sleep. Two hours later, at three o’clock in the morning, a guard shouted through the door.
‘Name?’
‘Marks,’ I answered.
‘Number?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve only just got here.’
‘Number?’
‘I don’t know.’
The guard disappeared and came back with three more. They took me to a cold holding cell full of Colombian and Cuban cocaine dealers. I gathered we were all being taken to Miami Courthouse. Most of the Colombians and Cubans were on trial and were absolutely shattered. Each day they were woken at 3 a.m., kept in holding cells for five hours, handcuffed and shackled by US Marshals, taken by bus to the courthouse, produced in the actual courtroom for a maximum of four hours, held in the courthouse’s ‘bullpen’ holding cell for several hours, and taken back to prison. They never got to sleep before midnight and were not allowed any books or papers during the hours they were awake. In these conditions, they fought the US Government for their freedom.
I was in the courtroom for a mere few minutes. The magistrate told me to come back tomorrow. For four or five days I was shunted between the prison and the courthouse, each day appearing for a few minutes. There was no DEA and no press. On the last occasion, I saw Robert O’Neill, the prosecuting Assistant United States Attorney I had seen in Spain. He told me I had now been arraigned. I had been assigned a lawyer, a federal public defender whose fees would be paid by the US Government. O’Neill advised me to pay for a better one.
After this last court appearance, I was taken back to Miami MCC. Having completed the first few days of mandatory isolation, I was now taken to dormitory accommodation in the main compound of the prison complex. The next morning was beautifully sunny, and at the permitted time I took a walk around the lake. There were ducks on the surface and a plastic alligator on the bank. Concrete tables and benches were scattered around. Racket-ball courts, tennis courts, outdoor gymnasium, jogging track, football field, horseshoe-throwing pitch, basketball court, bowling pitch, cafeteria, shop, library, outdoor cinema, pool rooms, television rooms, vending machines, lay conveniently close at hand. A man came running towards me. It was Malik.
‘D. H. Marks. So we are here together. It is wish of Allah. And this, American bastard say, is God’s country, land of free.’
‘How the hell did they manage to extradite you, Malik?’
‘Political reason. With Zia, it would not happen in blue moon. But Benazir, she is now in charge. She wants American dollar. Appeal Court judges in Pakistan extradite me. Next day American pig give them US visa and Green Card. Now they live handsome life in Washington. They think they have left Third World for better life. DEA ask me to plead guilty and co-operate and become snitch. Then they will send me back to Pakistan. I say “Why not?” I will tell them the bullshit.’
‘Malik, you’re not going to testify against me, are you?’
He smiled.
‘If I do, D. H. Marks, then you can do the cross-examine. You will see what harm I do. I am just going to tell them the bullshit. We are in paper-mill business.’
‘What’s happened to your nephew Aftab?’
‘He has become snitch against me.’
‘Will he testify against me, too?’
‘If DEA ask, he will do.’
Jim Hobbs and Ronnie Robb joined us. Both had been unceremoniously extradited from Holland and then offered immediate freedom if they agreed to plead guilty, become snitches, and grass up everyone they knew. They had declined the offer and were awaiting trial. Then I saw Ernie for the first time in ten years. He had lost all his excess weight and looked exactly like he did in 1973.
‘Ain’t this some shit?’
‘Ernie, I’m sorry about all the goofs I made,’ I said.
‘Aw! Forget it. I made a few myself. Prison don’t bother me, but I can’t stand the thought of my Patty being inside for seven years. I’ll do anything to get her out. Anything.’
Patrick Lane joined us. It had been five years since I’d seen him. Like Ernie, he looked remarkably healthy and suntanned.
‘You must be pleased getting only a three-year sentence. That’s close to an acquittal.’
‘That’s where you are wrong, Howard. The prosecution are appealing.’
‘What! On what grounds?’
‘Because I carried on doing business with Lord Moynihan after November 1st, 1987. That means I should have been sentenced under the Sentencing Reform Act, which demands a higher sentence than the one Judge Paine gave me. The prosecution say I should get fifteen years without parole. That makes it a worse sentence than Ernie’s. At least he’ll get the chance for parole before that. I won’t. I’ll be in prison until well into the next century. I can’t do this to my wife and kids.’
The six of us sat around discussing old and present times. I hadn’t had a joint for almost a week.
‘Can we get any dope here, Ernie?’
‘Forget it.’
In the afternoon I interviewed a number of Miami attorneys, all wearing the trappings of dope-dealing wealth and most claiming to have close friends within the prosecution with whom they could negotiate a favourable snitching deal. One of the lawyers, Steve Bronis, behaved very differently from the others. He was cold as ice and didn’t smile.
‘Mr Marks, let me make one thing clear before we start. If you intend to plead guilty or co-operate with the US Government, I am not your lawyer.’
‘You’re my lawyer. As long as I can afford you. What will you charge?’
‘I’ll get the papers from the court and read them. Then I’ll let you know.’
In the evening, I talked to some other prisoners, again mainly Cuban and Colombian. The message was obvious. Unless one was absolutely as innocent as the driven snow and could prove it without the remotest shadow of a doubt, one would get convicted. The only way to avoid the resulting heavy sentence was to become, or pretend to become, a snitch.
My mind was troubled when I tried to get some sleep. No way can I become a snitch, a grass, a chivato, a stool-pigeon, a squealer, a rat, a traitor, a wrong ’un, a betrayer, a Judas, and lie at the bottom of Dante’s hell for all eternity. I wouldn’t be able to look my kids or my parents in the eyes if I did that. If Patty was convicted and got seven years, what would happen to Judy, presently languishing in a nearby jail? She was equally incapable of grassing and might have to spend years in prison. I might have to spend forever inside. How would our children survive without us? But then I mustn’t give up. When I asked the US Marshals in court what had happened to my personal belongings, they said the DEA had them. John Parry’s idea had worked. The DEA are now reading my phoney defence. I’ll stick it right up them in trial. If I can get acquitted at the Old Bailey, surely I can manage it in downtown Miami. I’ll talk to Hobbs and Malik in the morning and get them to agree to say the Pakistani load was for Australia, not America. I drifted off.
‘Name?’
‘Marks.’
‘Number?’
‘41526-004.’
‘You’re going to court, Marks. Leave everything behind in your locker.’
Thirteen hours later, in the Miami Courthouse’s bullpen, the court proceedings finished for the day. I had not been called. I managed to get a US Marshal’s attention and asked him what was happening.
‘What’s your number?’ asked the Marshal.
‘41526-004.’
‘You are being transferred to another facility.’
‘Where?’
‘North Dade.’
I’d heard that name before. That was where Judy was being held. I turned round to face the other prisoners.
‘They’re sending me to a women’s prison,’ I exclaimed. ‘North Dade. That’s where my wife is. Fantastic.’
‘That’s not just a broads’ joint,’ said one of the prisoners. ‘It’s where they put stool-pigeons. You’re getting a break, Limey.’
North Dade Detention Centre is a Florida state jail rather than a federal prison. State jails normally house offenders against that state’s law. International dope smuggling is a federal offence, but the US Federal Government has taken to renting state jails from the state authorities and using them for its own purposes. Some of North Dade was used to house the increasing number of female federal prisoners; the rest was used to cultivate snitches and protect them from those who would wish them ill. The jail itself conformed somewhat to the American movie stereotype, with metal-grilled, electronically controlled cell entrances. Facing the array of cells were televisions that were never switched off. There were telephones. The outside recreation area was a small cage containing a table-tennis set-up and a weight-lifting machine and could be used by only a handful of people at a time. There were no facilities other than those required for basic hygiene. Almost every male prisoner was a self-confessed snitch who had been caught smuggling cocaine. They had agreed to testify against their business partners and friends in return for lower sentences. One man was giving evidence against his mother. Each had his own justification: he’d been ripped off, it wasn’t his fault he was busted, he told them to stop, he couldn’t stay in prison for years because it wouldn’t be fair to his family, everyone would have to become a snitch soon, there was no other way. The American ‘War on Drugs’ was fulfilling some hidden and sinister agenda. Demand for confessions had been a characteristic of political repression in many countries at many times. It probably reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution in Communist China. Loyalties to families and friends have to be replaced by loyalty to country. Forget individual ethics and obey the laws and regulations. Enjoy yourself, but do it our way: watch TV for as long as possible, then practise using your firearms. If you don’t do it our way, we’ll kill you. If your brother is doing something illegal, you should stop him. If you don’t, you’re as bad as him, and we’ll get both of you.
The jail regime was loose. The guards had been instructed not to upset the snitches; they were valuable government property. Not all of the inmates were Hispanic. One was of Italian extraction. His name was Anthony ‘Tomak’ Acceturo, the once-reputed boss of the New Jersey Lucchese crime family. We discussed our loathing of snitches and the US Government which had created them. At the same time, it was obvious we each suspected the other of being a snitch. Why else would we be here?
Judy and I were able to talk to each other on the phone. She was twenty yards away. Although keeping up her strength, she had been bitterly upset by the treatment meted out to her by her brother Patrick’s wife. Their home was within a twenty-minute drive of North Dade, and it had been understood that at least someone would visit her. No one did. Not even her lawyer, Don Re, had been to see her. She was very, very lonely and cried for her children.
Steve Bronis came to see me the first morning, and I said I had not become a snitch. He said he knew and explained that the likely reason I had been transferred was to remove any possibility of my persuading Malik, Ernie Combs, and Patrick Lane not to become snitches. These days there were more snitches than non-snitches. Soon they’d have to build very small special prisons just for stand-up guys.
Bronis had already reviewed the transcripts of the trials of Ernie, Patrick, and others. He felt
that the defence lawyers had not put enough effort into getting the telephone taps thrown out of court. He had contacted the DEA and Gustavo in Madrid. Gustavo had sent Bronis the papers I’d left with him. The DEA claimed that there were no defence notes in my personal belongings. Read your heart out, Lovato.
Bronis arranged to have Judy accompany us during his legal visits. I hadn’t seen her for six months. She looked different: more worried and more strained. Judy’s choice was simple: admit to something she’d never done, get a sentence of time already served, and go home as a convicted felon; or wait for months, maybe years, in a county jail and attempt to establish her innocence before a brainwashed jury. She chose the former. A few weeks later, Don Re’s able assistant, Mona, represented Judy in front of Judge Paine, who convicted her and set her free. The relief was the greatest I have ever known. Her and our children’s intense pain and suffering were over. We might not see each other for a while, but Judy’s plea agreement made provision for US Government assistance to be granted to help her to enter the country in the future and visit me.
Talking to the snitches, I quickly discovered what small fry I was. I had been charged with somehow being involved with a grand total of about a hundred tons of dope over a period of almost twenty years. Now I was associating with Cubans who had done more than that in a single shipment and had documentary evidence to prove it. Lovato and his DEA buddies had certainly done a remarkable job in getting the world to believe I was its biggest-ever marijuana dealer. Part of me really loved the attention I was getting because everyone thought I was the greatest smuggler in the universe. American media, journalists, and authors began to take an acute interest in me. I had been the mystery cartel leader, absent from a trial having all the ingredients that Americans yearn for: a British Peer of the Realm running knocking-shops full of Filipino whores and snitching on his buddy from James Bond’s organisation, MI6, who had been smuggling dope in Pink Floyd’s equipment and banking in Hong Kong and Switzerland. It was really international: not just a bunch of Hispanics from south of the border, but real foreigners from Europe and Asia. ABC’s peak-viewing news programme, Prime Time Live, wanted to interview me. I said yes, of course.