Gods of Mischief (41 page)

“Am I ever gonna see you and the kids again?” he wanted to know.

“Don't know, buddy,” I said. “I honestly don't.”

Joe had grown especially fond of my son. He once told me he didn't want to get attached to any more kids because they grow up too fast and move away. I think my boy was a bittersweet reminder of the two sons he hadn't seen in years. Now Old Joe was being forced to say good-bye all over again, and that gentle man could hardly bear it.

“I was thinking maybe this day wouldn't happen,” he said as he fished. “I guess maybe I was hoping it would never happen.”

“Lately I've been thinking the same thing, partner.”

Joe turned with a questioning look.

“What are these people really gonna do for me, anyway?” I said to him. “I mean, I don't know where I'm going. Hell, I don't even know who I'm supposed to be.”

“Well, whoever you are, I'm gonna miss you.”

I grinned, then fell silent and listened to the waves lap against the pilings.

“Funny the shit you remember. This reminds me of a day I spent with my dad when I was a kid. He wanted to fish from this wooden bridge that ran out to an island in the middle of a lake. So I held the poles with one hand and held on to my father's neck with the other, and he swam us out there. I was seven years old. Man, things were so much simpler then.”

I glanced over at my friend.

“What the fuck did I do, Joe? I used to think my life was gonna be Ozzie and Harriet, you know? Boy, was that a fuckin' joke.”

Old Joe looked out toward the Pacific. “Brother, all I know is, I feel like the loneliest person in the world right now. And you're not even gone yet.”

John Carr arrived in
his SUV shortly before dark. Our luggage was thrown in back and Joe attached the car seat. Then he strapped my son inside, kissed him on the head and closed the door.

I cried tears of sorrow twice in my life. Like I said, tears were reserved for anger, and that always meant victims. But I cried from the heart when my father passed away, and I cried that afternoon when I said good-bye to Old Joe at the curb in Oceanside.

My friend was crying too.

“Love you, brother,” he told me, clasping my hand.

“Guess I'll see you when I see you,” I said, and turned away.

As we drove off toward the airport, I glanced back. Old Joe was in the street watching us. He was still standing there as we turned the corner.

At Los Angeles International Airport we were met in the terminal by three U.S. marshals, two men and a woman. After John turned us over to their care, I had another good-bye moment with my longtime shepherd.

“Been quite a ride, huh, buddy?” I said to him. “I just hope you're not disappointed.”

“Why would I be disappointed? Hey, listen. You did good, George. The Vagos are out of Hemet. That's what you got into this for, right? You should be proud.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, but we didn't get rid of all of them.”

“Dude, that was never going to happen. These gangs are like cancer. You can cut 'em out but they always come back again. So we'll just keep going after the bastards. That's what we do, right?”

He proffered his hand and I shook it. But I felt the moment deserved something more. So I pulled that special agent into a hug and slapped him on the back.

“Hell of a job, Uncle John.”

“You too, George. Take care of yourself.”

“Will do.”

I lifted the bags, Jenna held the baby with one arm and Sierra's hand with the other, and we followed the marshals through a side door that bypassed gate security. As the female marshal led us down the gangway, she made a half-assed attempt to connect with Jenna.

“I know this must be hard for you,” she said, tucking her badge away.

“You want to act like you care?” snarled Jenna.

Oh, shit. Here we go.

“This is your day job, bitch. You're going home to your family tonight. This is my fucking
life
we're talking about.”

Man, those marshals couldn't get us on that plane fast enough.

Our commercial flight from
Los Angeles took us to an airport in Washington, D.C., where we were met by yet another U.S. marshal dressed like we'd interrupted his weekend of fly-fishing. He wore a tan cotton vest covered with small pockets and a firearm holstered at his side. The man was all business as he directed us into a box van with blacked-out windows, then drove us on a long haul to a military base that I can only assume was Langley.

The first stop in the WITSEC program comes belowground. The marshal maneuvered the van through a sally port and down into a cement bunker with a heavy metal door that closed behind us. From there we were escorted through the bunker's cement bowels, led down corridors lined with doors numbered like any aboveground hotel. Only this Hilton had no windows, the staff never smiled, and room service offered nothing but frozen dinners and microwavable pizza.

Jenna called it the Bat Cave. For me it was purgatory all over again. We were back in limbo, waiting for new identities and our next destination.

The medical staff gave the whole family physicals, including a vaginal for Jenna and an attempt by the doc to poke his finger up my ass, which I politely declined. After that came fingerprinting and paperwork, including the documents establishing our new WITSEC identities. We each had the chance to submit four names—first, middle and last—filled out like a multiple-choice exam. Jenna wanted Sierra to choose her own, but the kid kept opting for names like Lightning, Thunder and Snow, so Mommy chose one for her. Apparently our youngest was exempt from all this. Baby Doe could keep his given
name because he was born into protective custody, a child of witness protection.

A serious-minded young marshal with burn scars on his face gathered the paperwork.

“You understand that from this point on, you won't be able to contact anyone who might have known you in the past,” he explained.

“Yeah, we get it,” I told him.

“In twenty minutes you'll be taken back to the airport and flown to your final destination. Upon arrival you'll be met by your handler. You'll be given twenty-five hundred dollars to get you started and a new place to live.”

“And where will that be?” I wanted to know.

“You'll find out when you get there,” replied the marshal as he exited the room.

With George Rowe now consigned to history, I downed a few slices of shitty frozen pizza and told Jenna I was heading out to the patio for a much-needed smoke.

“George?” she said before I could leave.

When I turned she looked like she was about to cry.

“I know I've been an angry bitch. But I want you to know I love you. I always will. If it wasn't for you I doubt I'd be alive right now.” She paused a moment, then added sadly, “I just wish you had set me free.”

I
'm on a sniper-proof patio surrounded by concrete walls fifteen feet high. I can't see a damn thing from here except the patch of twilight above, and every now and then a jet fighter goes blasting through it, flying so low I can smell the exhaust. In a few minutes the U.S. marshals will escort my family back to the airport and we'll fly off with our new names to a new place and a new life courtesy of the United States government. But as I draw on my cigarette, watching those fighters scream overhead, I'm not thinking about the future. I'm thinking of the road that led me here—to this fortress three thousand miles from home. And I'm asking myself . . .

Man, what the fuck happened?

Life was pretty damn good before I shook hands with the ATF. Now it's all gone to shit. The man with nothing to gain and everything to lose lost everything: a son I'd never see grow up, my home, my business, my friends, the town I risked my neck to defend. Hell, even my own identity—all of it gone like a fart in a fuckin' hurricane.

Not that I expected anything in return. I knew the deal going in. But what exactly did those three years buy me? A federal agent has his retirement, an informant gains his freedom. But for me there was no reward. No thank-you speeches. No key to the city. Just a slap on the back
and a boot in the ass that landed me in witness protection, left with one suitcase, two kids and a crazy old lady.

Don't get me wrong, I love those children to death, and Jenna's great when she's not using, but fuck's sake, how did things get so complicated? Used to be just me and Old Joe when this whole thing began. Hell, we could have gone into the program as gay lovers. That would have been easy. But this . . .

Damn it, George. What the hell did you do?

Ah, well. They say no good deed goes unpunished. Maybe this is just some kind of karmic payback for all the sins I've committed—God's way of spanking my naughty ass.

Maybe it's what I deserve.

I drag on the Marlboro and think back to that day John Carr and I first met in Bee Canyon. And I wonder, given a second chance, would I still shake his hand? I mean, knowing the destination, understanding the price, would I take that journey again?

Another jet screams overhead. I toss my spent cigarette and crush it underfoot.

Time to move on.

S
ix years after our police escort out of Hemet on that deserted I-10 freeway, there's not a day goes by that I don't think of my old hometown or ask God's forgiveness for the pain I caused there. And that includes the shit I did but can't remember.

As for the people I left behind, well, thanks to WITSEC I've lost touch with most of them. Occasionally I'll speak to John Carr. He and Koz are still busting motorcycle outlaws for the ATF. But my old friend Detective Duffy is gone. Few years back Kevin checked into a Motel 6 and shot himself. ATF Special Agent Jeff Ryan was another casualty of the profession, committing suicide in 2011. Charles, aka Quick Draw, got a taste for life undercover and continued working as an informant-for-hire. Bubba, the biker cop with the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, retired after twenty-eight years on the job and went back to the real world.

Old Joe? Well, John Carr kept his promise, taking my buddy under ATF's wing and relocating him to a safe place. Jenna relapsed into heroin a few months after entering federal protection, told me she'd fallen out of love and went to work as a stripper. Took a few years, but once she climbed down off the pole, she went back to school, found a job in a professional field and was eventually reunited with Sierra.

And the Vagos? Contrary to claims that the club had been “dismantled” following Operation 22 Green, the “Nation” is thriving—by some accounts nearly doubling in size since the takedown in 2006. Vagos chapters are now found in Hawaii, Canada, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and on the far side of the world in New Zealand and Japan.

And, yes, there's even a chapter back in Hemet.

I'll let someone else handle that one.

Rhino, the former international sergeant at arms, was charged with murder in the execution of “Shorty” Daoussis and is serving seventy-five years to life in state prison. His accomplice, Kilo, is doing fifty. “Twist” Foreman from the Victorville chapter, who murdered Little Jimmy in that botched robbery in Lucerne Valley, got life behind bars after his partner in crime, Victorville VP Ryan Matteson, testified against him.

So much for brotherly love.

Terry the Tramp, the “God” of Green Nation, was ousted as the Vagos international president in 2010, but not before the man had squandered over a million dollars of the club's money. When the feds finally busted Tramp and sent him to prison for failure to pay taxes on all that loot, there was a measly sixty-five bucks left in the account. Almost every cent had gone to the mortgage, the utilities and the casinos.

Big Roy did his prison time, then got the hell out of Dodge. With two felony strikes against him, and one more triggering an automatic twenty-five-to-life sentence, he booked for Hawaii, where he and his wife opened the latest incarnation of the Lady Luck.

Roy's good pal, Todd, wasn't so fortunate.

The outlaw life finally caught up with Big Todd in August 2010, when three members of the Brotherhood Motorcycle Club ambushed him in Valle Vista and put a bullet in his head.

And what of those other Vagos I helped put behind bars? Except for
Jack Fite, who died in county jail, every one of those boys is back on the street.

Me? I'm serving a life sentence. I'll be watching my back until the day I die.

George Rowe

Somewhere, USA

F
or their invaluable contributions to this book I'd like to thank ATF Special Agent Jeff Kerr for hooking me up; my agent, Barry Zucker at McGinniss Associates, for his tireless energy and enthusiasm; Matthew Benjamin, senior editor at Touchstone, for believing in my story; and KC Franks, who gave me a voice and helped tell it the way it was.

For their invaluable contributions to my life I'd like to thank Sergeant Pike of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, who, along with his father, gave me a hand when I needed it most; my adoptive parents, Pat and Dodi, for taking me into their family; and SA Darrin Kozlowski, who was instrumental to the success of 22 Green.

I'd also like to thank Dave Hale for giving me a chance when no one else would; Rick Dean, who brought me into his church; his wife, Peggy, who fought to keep me on the straight-and-narrow; and Jeremy, for that life-altering kick in the ass. Thanks, also, to the foster parent in Buena Park who taught me the importance of family; my old man, who taught me how to survive; and Darlene, who taught me how to love and behave like a man.

Last, but by no means least, my deepest gratitude goes to Detective Kevin Duffy for pointing me in the right direction; ATF Special Agent John Carr, who shepherded me safely through the valley; and my best buddy, Old Joe, who faithfully walked beside me.