The first rule of undercover work is: The day you’re not scared anymore is the day you have to get out.
It was the summer of 2008 and I’d been working drugs for ten years. Rico Jordan’s cover story led me from the fringe into the heart of the drug scene in New Jersey. I’d picked up some informants who knew I was a cop. One of my best was Jose, a fat Hispanic guy from the neighborhood. His information got more drugs off the street than most detectives. He also elevated Rico Jordan’s profile. In the drug world, you’re only as good as who you know. Jose was connected to all the players, so by extension, so was Rico Jordan.
My new target was a Dominican crew led by two guys named Manuel and King, who used their limousine service to bring drugs down from Spanish Harlem. Billy only agreed to take on the case after the DEA asked us for help. They wanted Manuel’s crew, but they didn’t have an undercover who could do it. My source, Jose, already had an in, so the DEA agreed to front the cash.
We met at the office before the first buy. I sat around the table with Billy; Mike, the case agent who would run our side of the investigation; Steve, who used to work with us before transferring to the DEA; and two other DEA supervisors.
“These guys are pretty badass,” one of the DEA supervisors told us.
I was bored from the jump. I knew how to handle myself. I lived it every day. I didn’t need a bunch of DEA guys in suits who hadn’t made a drug buy in decades—if ever—telling me anything. I zoned out for most of the meeting. Then one of the DEA agents mentioned something about Bangkok.
“Sorry?” I said. “What did you say?”
“We’ve gotten information about a large shipment of heroin coming in from Bangkok,” one of the DEA supervisors said.
I smiled like a junior high school kid. I caught Mike’s eye. He and I had worked together for years. He was a big Italian guy with piercing blue eyes. I was his undercover. We had made a lot of great cases together. We also had the same sense of humor.
Mike giggled.
I snorted, trying to hold in a laugh, and covered my mouth with my hand. The DEA supervisor giving the briefing hesitated for a second. I could feel Billy’s eyes on me. I glanced up. He had the look of an embarrassed parent.
“What the fuck is going on?” he said.
“Sorry, boss,” I said. “He said Bangkok.”
Billy and the DEA agents just stared at me and Mike. Steve knew us too well and laughed.
“Excuse me,” I said.
I stepped out of the room. Looking back, I’m embarrassed. The DEA was about to trust me with tens of thousands of dollars and I’m laughing at “Bangkok.” I was too cavalier going into the operation.
Living up to his reputation, Jose set up an introductory meeting with Manuel at a downtown row house in New Jersey. They were sniffing me out. If this meeting went well, I’d meet the supplier.
The humidity hit me the second I climbed out of my car, but everything else seemed right. My spotters were in place. Jose was waiting in front of the house. He was holding a can of Coke. I never saw him without a can, and never the diet stuff.
Jose knocked and a tall Dominican opened the door. He had a scraggly beard and was wearing a tank top with a pile of chest hair climbing out the front.
“Your boy is downstairs,” he said.
We followed him through the house to the basement door. I cased the place as we walked. There were toys on the floor and the table was clogged with mail. The row house looked lived in and not by a bunch of gangsters. A family lived here.
Jose went down the wooden stairs first. I followed. The Dominican bolted the door. Manuel was standing in the middle of the room with another bodyguard. He had a massive gut. It stuck out like a pregnant woman’s stomach. A skinny beard framed his face. He was still dressed from his shift driving one of the limos; his dress shirt was unbuttoned at the neck and his black slacks were wrinkled.
The basement was unfinished. Everything had a musty smell, but it was cooler than being on the street. A small table sat in the middle of the room. Chairs were arranged around it. I spotted some trash bags in one corner. The only way in or out was through the bolted door at the top of the stairs, but I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t going to die in this basement. Something about doing a drug deal with a guy in business casual set my mind at ease.
We gathered around the table. Manuel and Jose made the introductions. I wanted to buy a few ounces of cocaine to start. My goal was to make Manuel believe this was an ongoing thing. Five kilos a month forever and ever, amen.
“Give me the right price,” I said. “I don’t want it to go up.”
Manuel wanted five thousand a month on top of the price for the cocaine.
“Fuck you, I ain’t paying that shit,” I said.
I was flippant. Dismissive. Cocky. It didn’t matter that I was in a basement with only one way out.
Manuel insisted. The extra money was for delivery. He was offering to bring five kilos of coke to my door once a month.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” I said. “Why am I going to pay so much? I can drive up to New York myself and buy it anywhere in Spanish Harlem.”
The second rule in undercover work is to always deescalate. Don’t take control of the situation like a cop. You don’t control the room. But I wasn’t following the rules. A smirk creased my lips as Manuel explained the economics of drug dealing.
“I get what a delivery charge is,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “But you’re fucking bending me over.”
Jose was looking at me. His eyes asked what I was doing and his face said stop.
“Come on, Rico,” he said when I ignored him. “Let’s just get a taste to start and work out the price next time.”
He calmed everything down with one sentence. Manuel looked at him and then at me.
“Let’s get the taste and then we’ll see what’s what,” I said. “We can finalize the price when I meet your guy.”
I made the first buy without incident. Now we were in business. Manuel agreed to deliver one kilogram of cocaine and a thousand pills of Ecstasy. He also agreed to bring the supplier.
Billy was pissed when he heard we met in a basement.
“We’re not meeting there again,” he told me during the debrief. “Find a new place.”
We set the next buy in a row house we could control. It was wired with video cameras and microphones. Billy staged the arrest team around the corner. Jose and I waited for Manuel and his boss, King, to show up. They were driving down from New York. We had them under surveillance the whole ride.
Mike picked them up when they got near the house. He was driving a gold Ford Taurus and drove right up behind the limousine as soon as they got close.
“Got ’em,” he said over the radio.
Mike was notorious for bumper-locking suspects. Instead of shadowing them on parallel streets, he jumped into their backseat and hounded them like a guy late for a meeting. I warned him about it before the buy, but he ignored me. Mike followed Manuel for a few blocks and then peeled off just before they arrived.
Jose and I saw the limousine pull up. It sat idling for a few minutes. No one moved. I could hear Manuel put the car in gear. He eased it off the curb and drove off.
“Where is he going?”
Jose just shrugged.
“We’ve been burned,” I said. “Fucking Mike.”
I lit a cigarette just as Manuel rolled to a stop at the curb again. He walked to the trunk and took out a gym bag. King climbed out of the back and joined Manuel in front of the house.
King was about forty years old with a lean build, short cropped black hair, dark brown eyes, and a scar on his forehead. He was dressed like a drug dealer trying to look like a businessman. Nice pants, but baggy. A designer button-down dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves and opened in front so you could see his Guinea tee and gold chains. He wore a gold pinky ring. His pinky had a very long fingernail—a coke nail—used to scoop and sniff cocaine.
Manuel and King were speaking in rapid-fire Spanish as they walked up to the house. It took Jose a second to figure out what was being said.
“There was a white guy in a gold car,” Manuel said to me in English. “He was following us.”
“You’re talking about crazy Eric,” I said, waving my hand like I was shooing him away. “That fucking guy follows people around all the time out here.”
To this day, I still have no idea how I pulled that out of my ass. Even now, guys in the department still talk about Crazy Eric. Manuel wasn’t sure if I was kidding or not. But it wasn’t what I was saying. It was how I said it. I was calm and they believed I was taking the same risk as they were.
“He’s a crazy white guy that follows everybody,” I said, shrugging and turning to enter the house. “Don’t worry about him. He’s a nobody.”
Jose laughed.
Manuel relaxed.
Ice broken.
We settled into the living room. King’s English wasn’t very good, so Manuel translated. King took out a kilo of cocaine and started to unwrap the tape. Then the foil. Then the plastic. At one point, Jose handed King a butcher knife to cut through the wrapping. I shot him a glance. Nice job giving the drug dealer a weapon. King got through the tape and plastic, but he couldn’t get through the foil. I was losing my patience.
“Who the fuck wrapped this?” I said.
King stopped and looked at me.
“I did,” King said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, nodding like I approved. “You’ve got to keep that shit tight.”
My frustration changed to a compliment in a breath.
King finally got it open enough for me to dip a finger into the powder. Cops can’t take drugs. Well, they can in extraordinary situations, but it becomes a lot of paperwork. But I had this trick. I dipped my middle finger into the cocaine and moved my hand up to my mouth to taste it. I turned my head just a bit so King couldn’t see my hand and I swapped my middle finger for my pointer finger. The movement sent a subliminal message to King that I tasted it. But I really put my clean pointer finger into my mouth.
“Yeah, that’s good,” I said. “Jose, why don’t you go and get the cash.”
We didn’t want Jose in the house when the raid happened. Plus, a good drug dealer would never have the money and drugs at the same location, so it didn’t seem out of place for Jose to leave.
Jose knew to leave the front door unlocked for the arrest team. He had a cold Coke in his hand and left the can on a table by the door. I stubbed out my cigarette. I knew once Jose left it was only a matter of time before we got hit. I tried to chat with Manuel and King, but it was hard. I just wanted to get arrested so I could finish up my paperwork and go home. I had plans that night.
The front door opened with a bang. We all froze. I knew they were coming, and it still scared the hell out of me. There’s nothing like staring down the barrel of a dozen Glocks and machine guns.
The DEA agents crashed into the table, spilling the soda all over the linoleum floor. Manuel bolted for the front door and ran headlong into Steve. They scuffled for a second and then Steve slipped on the spilled soda. They both tumbled to the floor.
“That is a classified DEA technique,” Steve told me later as we watched the video of the takedown back at the office. “I can’t tell you any more about it.”
Since everything was going to be on video, Billy had reminded us to be professional just before we started the operation. He didn’t want his men to look stupid in court.
“Let’s put everybody in custody,” he said. “Once the house is secure, shut that shit off.”
I went right down. No slapping. No fighting. I didn’t talk shit. The agents arrested Manuel and King. Both men were on the couch and I was facedown on the floor. Billy was the last one inside. He saw the drugs on the table. A smile spread across his lips.
“Po-lice, muthafuckers,” he said, like a true professional.
A few weeks later, I had to listen to all of the recordings. We were preparing the file for court. I sat for hours at my desk listening to myself talk with Manuel. That was when it hit me. I didn’t give a fuck. I wasn’t scared anymore. Contrast that with my first buy. That was fear. I was so scared I missed an eagle neck tattoo. Somewhere in between, I found the happy middle. Just the right amount of fear to keep me focused and safe. But after ten years on the street, I had traded my fear for arrogance. I refused to acknowledge it because I was the unit’s eyes and ears. But I knew it in my heart. I was burned out.
—
Billy came by my desk the night before we started a new investigation.
“Hey,” he said. “You need to go down to the state police office tomorrow at ten and get a new license. It’s all set up. They’re waiting for you.”
The New Jersey State Police had a special office for undercovers. I arrived wearing my scumbag clothes. I skipped the lobby and snuck into the office from a side door. I didn’t want to sign in or be seen. The office wasn’t far from where I made my buys.
“Hey, Sarge, I’m here for my ten A.M.,” I said to the state trooper in the waiting room.
The state trooper waved me toward a line of chairs along the wall.
“Have a seat,” he said. “I’ll be right with you.”
I found a chair near the end and stretched out my legs. Even in our special DMV we still had to wait. A few minutes later, a man stomped into the room in black jeans and motorcycle boots. He looked like the love child of a mobster and a biker. He was Joe Pesci short, with a slicked-back salt-and-pepper ponytail and a huge cross tattoo on his right forearm. He took a seat nearby.
Who the fuck was this guy? Why was he back here with me?
I could feel my blood pressure building. I couldn’t believe they let a shithead in here with me. I looked over at the state trooper. He was shuffling papers and didn’t notice the guy.
The biker fished a silver BlackBerry out of his jacket and powered it up. He held it at arm’s length, like it might bite him. The font on the screen was huge. I could see the screen from where I was sitting. The first e-mail header was from the Department of Justice. I relaxed.
“Yo, my man,” I said. “Who you with?”
He took off his tiny round John Lennon sunglasses and looked me up and down.
“Who you wit?”
He sounded like an extra from Goodfellas.
“How are you doing?” I said, breaking the ice. “I work undercover narcotics.”
“I’m Vinnie,” he said. “I’m the assistant undercover coordinator for the FBI’s Newark division. Great to meet you. What are you doing here? Is it for a case?”
I shook my head.
“Nah, it’s not for a case,” I said. “It’s all I do.”
Vinnie cocked his head. He wasn’t tracking. Most local departments didn’t run long-term undercovers.
“What do you mean?” he said.
I just do undercover drug work, I told him.
“Really,” Vinnie said. “What nationality are you?”
“I’m Egyptian.”
He turned his whole body to face me. Ten minutes later he knew I was born in the Middle East. He knew I spoke Arabic and I had ten years of undercover experience.
“When we’re done here, can I buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” I said.
I found out later the FBI was having trouble getting Arabic speakers through the undercover program. Vinnie was of the mind-set that it was great if you could speak a language, but the undercover skill set was even harder to find.
We found a coffee shop a couple of blocks from the office and took a table near the back. At a glance, we looked like two scumbags enjoying coffee. The Wire meets The Sopranos.
“It’s funny, I reached out to the Bureau right after nine-eleven,” I said. “I went in there to offer my services.”
“Listen, after nine-eleven, it was a cluster fuck,” Vinnie said. “We’ve come a long way since then.”
We talked for a little while longer. He was interviewing me. Finally, he gave me his number.
“We’d love for you to come and help us out with a case,” he said.
Back at headquarters, I went into Billy’s office and shut the door.
“I met this guy,” I said. “He is with the FBI. They want me to help them with a case.”
Billy folded his hands. The urgency of the attacks on September 11 had worn off. It was 2008. He wasn’t keen on losing his only undercover. But he also knew this was something I wanted to do. It was something I needed to do.
“Have him reach out to me,” Billy said.
A few days later, Vinnie called Billy. Vinnie’s team was investigating a gang of Turks bringing in Middle Eastern illegals from Mexico. The FBI feared the human traffickers were also bringing in terrorists. None of Vinnie’s men could get close to the ringleaders. They needed a Middle Easterner.
Billy knew once I was exposed to the Bureau there was no way I was coming back to drug work. But he couldn’t say no to the FBI’s request. He knew what it meant to me. So when Vinnie called, Billy had only one request.
“Look out for my boy.”