Games of State

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The three-story brownstone on Christopher Street in the West Village was built in 1844. The door, the windowsills, and the two-step stoop were the originals.

Though the decades-old coat of brown paint was peeling, the appointments were handsome in their timeworn way.

Because the building was so close to the shifting grounds by the Hudson River, floors had buckled slightly and many of the unpainted bricks had shifted. Their movement created gently waving, symmetrical lines across the building's facade. The mortar had been refilled where it had cracked and fallen out.

The building stood between a corner flower stand and a candy shop. Since coming to America in the early 1980s, the Dae-jungs, the young Korean couple who owned the flower stand, paid no attention to the men and women who came and went from the century-and-a-half-old building. Neither did Daniel Tetter and Matty Stevens, the middle-aged men who owned Voltaire's Candied Shop next door. Only a handful of times in the twenty-seven years that they'd been in business had Tetter and Stevens ever seen the offpremises owner from Pittsburgh.

Then three months ago, thirty-two-year-old Special Agent in Charge Douglas diMonda of the New York bureau of the FBI and forty-three-year-old NYPD Division Chief Peter Arden visited the Dae-jungs and Tetter and Stevens at their homes. The shopkeepers were informed that four months earlier, a major case squad had been formed by the FBI and the NYPD, and that they were investigating the occupants of the brownstone. The florists and the candy-makers were told only that the lessee, Earl Gurney, was a white supremacist who was suspected of having masterminded violent antiblack and anti-gay activities in Detroit and Chicago.

What the merchants weren't told was that the paramilitary group to which Gurney belonged, Pure Nation, had been infiltrated by an FBI agent a year earlier. Writing in code to his "mother" in Grenda Hills, California, "John Wooley" reported on the Pure Nation training facility in the Mohawk Mountains of Arizona and their plans to hire themselves out as the military arm of other white supremacy organizations and militias. The agent knew that some enormous New York operation was being planned, something much larger than the ambushes that left three black men dead in Detroit and five lesbians raped in Chicago. Unfortunately, the agent was not sent to Manhattan with the strike force and did not know what Pure Nation was planning. Only Commander Gurney knew that.

After months of surveillance from the street and from parked cars, of taking fingerprints off bottles and cans in trash bags and running background checks, diMonda and Arden were sure they had a team of Pure Nation's most dangerous members in their midst. Six of the seven men and one of the two women living in the building had rap sheets, many involving violent crimes. However, the major case squad didn't know what Gurney might be planning.

Phone taps picked up only conversations about the weather, jobs, and family, and there were no faxes. A search warrant to examine mail and parcels also turned up nothing. The occupants almost certainly assumed that they were being watched and listened to, a tacit indication that something was up.

Then, in the two weeks prior to approaching the Daejungs, Tetter, and Stevens, the stakeout team had seen something which made it imperative for them to begin moving in a force of their own. They noticed that the nine people who lived in the brownstone were bringing in more and more boxes, duffel bags, and suitcases. They would arrive in pairs, with one person always empty-handed, wearing a jacket and keeping both hands in pockets. The stakeout team did not doubt that there were guns in those pockets, as well as in the boxes, duffel bags, and suitcases.

But diMonda and Arden didn't want to grab just a bag of guns. If there were a weapons cache upstairs, the major case squad wanted it all.

The idea of obtaining a search warrant to examine the premises was rejected. By the time a team reached the third floor— headquarters were usually located on the highest floors— any incriminating documents or computer diskettes would be destroyed. Besides, diMonda and Arden didn't want to play softball with these creatures. Bureau head Moe Gera agreed, and gave the go-ahead for a strike team to be put in place, quietly and unobtrusively.

The florists and confectioners gladly allowed their shops to be used as staging areas. They were frightened, not only of the assault but of possible repercussions. But they had all marched in the Village protest against skin-head attacks in the summer of 1995, and said they could not live with themselves if others died because of their inactivity.

DiMonda promised that the NYPD would provide protection for them both at home and on the job.

The positioning of the team was done over time.

Korean-American FBI Agent Park was sent to work in the Dae-Jung shop. Tetter and Stevens hired Johns, a black sales clerk who was a detective with the NYPD. Both employees spent a lot of time outside the shops, smoking cigarettes and being seen by the people who entered. After two weeks, they brought in three more assistants each, so there was a total of eight additional agents at the site. All of them worked the day shift, which was when the brownstone was most active. The legitimate employees of both shops were paid to stay home.

Each new employee made sure that they were noticed by the people coming and going at the brownstone. Noticed often, so that they would become invisible.

The cop on the beat was temporarily reassigned, replaced by Detective Arden. Concealing his bodybuilder physique under loose-fitting clothes, diMonda, worked the street as a homeless man who occasionally slept on their stoop and had to be shoved or kicked off. Gurney himself actually complained to Arden to "keep that useless shitstink" away from his home. Arden said that he would do his best.

The FBI obtained a layout of the building from the landlord, who thought he was showing the brownstone to a prospective buyer. The blueprints were scanned into a computer at the New York bureau. A three-dimensional image of the interior was constructed from it, and an assault plan was worked out. The day was chosen, and an earlymorning time was selected, when the narrow, one-way street would be the least crowded. People who were going to work would have already left, and tourists would not yet have made their way to Greenwich Village.

Earlier on "M-morning," when it was still dark, undercover police officers made their way into the shops.

Five officers were placed in each shop, and their job was to handle arrests once the vermin had been flushed out.

The primary squad in the two shops had been instructed to go into action when diMonda shouted, "Hey." Either it would come when someone pushed him, or when Arden tried to move him from the stoop. Once the primary squad moved, a twelve-person backup team would leave their van, which was parked around the comer on Bleecker Street. Six of them would go in only if they heard gunfire.

When they went into action, police would seal off the street and make sure no one else left their apartments. If the neo- Nazis managed to get out of the building, the other six agents in the support group would be in position, in the street, to pick them up. An ambulance was also parked and waiting on Bleecker, in case it was needed.

It began at 8:34, with diMonda settling down on the stoop with a cup of coffee and a bagel. For the last few weeks, the first two people usually left the building between 10:00 and 10:30, took the PATH train to Thirty-third Street, and went to an office on Sixth Avenue. The office made no attempt to conceal what it was: a small editorial and advertising sales office for the racist magazine Phrer. The visitors left the office with whatever they were supposed to bring back to the apartment. The FBI had examined cartons being shipped to the magazine and found no weapons of any kind; they could only assume that staffers were buying guns, ammunition, and knives on the street and storing them there for disbursement to Pure Nation or whoever else needed them.

The door to the brownstone opened at 8:44. When it did, diMonda threw his coffee cup to the right, in front of the candy shop, and fell back into the lobby. Arden, who had been waiting in the shop, made sure he stepped out when he saw the flying cup.

A young woman, dyed-blond and hard, stepped over diMonda.

"Officer!" she said. "Get this creature out of here!" A tall, mustachioed man picked the much shorter diMonda up by the shirt and made ready to heave him to the sidewalk.

"Hey!" diMonda yelled.

An agent came from the flower shop and stood behind the woman. When she went to push diMonda, the agent jumped between them and pushed her back, toward the flower shop. She screamed at him as a second agent came out and told her she was under arrest. When she resisted, two officers cuffed her and hauled her into the back room.

Meanwhile, Arden had stepped into the lobby of the brownstone.

"What the hell are you doing?" the neo-Nazi yelled at Arden as his struggle with the scrappy diMonda moved onto the street. There, two agents were waiting to pull him into the candy shop.

"Don't worry, sir," Arden yelled. "I'll make sure this bum doesn't bother you again." That was for the benefit of anyone who might be listening from upstairs. Arden had already drawn his sleek 9-mm Sig Sauer P226 and was standing against the wall on the left side of the stairs.

DiMonda moved in on the right, holding his Colt.45 automatic. Then the eight remaining agents entered in pairs.

The first two agents covered the first-floor room, just beyond the stairs. One crouched beside the door; the other remained near the stairs with a view of the first lending. The second two agents moved in between diMonda and Arden and took up positions on the first landing. They walked carefully up the stairs, staying to the middle of each step and climbing with their torsos straight. By centering their weight, they not only moved more efficiently, but caused less creaking on each of the old steps.

Then the next two agents went in, stopping halfway up the second flight of stairs. The fourth pair of agents went up and staked their claim on the second-floor landing. One agent covered the door, the other the stairs. The last pair of agents went halfway up the next flight. Then diMonda and Arden ascended to the last landing. DiMonda stood in front of the door while Arden took his position to the right of the door, beside the steps. His gun was pointing up, his eyes on his partner. He would be taking his cue from diMonda. If the FBI man went in, he'd follow. If he backed away, Arden would cover his retreat and follow.

DiMonda reached into the pocket of his tattered jacket and removed a small device which looked like a hypodermic syringe with a receptacle underneath that was roughly the size of three stacked dimes. He crouched, his gun in his right hand, and carefully inserted the thin tip of the device in the key slot. Then he put his eye to the back.

The FOALSAC— Fiber-Optic Available Light Scope and Camera— gave the user a fish-eye look into a room without generating any light or sound. The tiny receptacle underneath contained a cadmium battery and film to record whatever the camera saw. DiMonda carefully swept the device from the left to the right, tapping the bottom of the film cartridge each time he wanted to take a picture. When, it came to trying these bastards, photographic evidence would be important. Especially since the FOALSAC revealed stacks of machine guns, a couple of M79 grenade launchers, and a small tepee consisting of FMK submachine guns. There were three people in the room. A man and woman were eating breakfast at a table in the right-hand corner, and the third person— Gurney— was sitting at a computer table, facing the door, working on a laptop computer. That meant the other four neo-Nazis were in the bedrooms downstairs.

DiMonda held up three fingers and pointed to the room.

Arden looked back down the stairs. He held up three fingers and pointed to the room. Then he waited for the other agents to finish checking out their rooms.

Word came back that the other Pure Nation thugs were accounted for, two in each room. DiMonda gave the others a thumbs up, meaning that they were to proceed to the next step.

The men worked quickly, lest anyone inside decide to go for a newspaper or a walk.

DiMonda put away his FOALSAC. Because chances were good that the doors had been reinforced with metal bars, the age s would not attempt to kick them down. They attached plastique to the doors, to the left of the doorknobs.

The charges would be powerful enough to blow the locks and jambs away. A small metal shield was placed over each plastique to direct the blast, and a magnetized, quartersized clock was attached to it. There was a plastic pull-strip in the top of the clock: when removed, it would start a tensecond countdown. At the end of the countdown, an electric charge would travel from the clock through the metal and trigger the plastique.

DiMonda cocked his head back. The man on the landing was watching him. When diMonda nodded, so did the other man. And so did the man on the steps below him. At the count of three, marked by diMonda nodding his head, all the agents pulled the plastic tab from their clocks.

As the silent countdown progressed, the agents on the landings moved quickly to the doors. During the planning of this assault, they'd considered every possible distribution of Pure Nationals. Now they were disbursing accordingly. For this configuration, agents Park and Johns went upstairs.

Park stood behind diMonda and Johns was on the steps, beside Arden. The remaining two agents took up positions beside the first- and second-floor rooms.

DiMonda had moved to the left, lest he be struck by the doorknob when it blew off. He pointed to himself, then to Park and Johns in turn. Once inside, this was the order, from the left to the right, in which they would cover the Pure Nationals. Detective Arden would be their agent-at-large, assisting anyone who might need help.

The clock finished counting down and the plastique ignited. There was a boom, like a popping paper bag. As the brass knob blew out, the door swung in.

DiMonda went in first, followed by Park, Johns, and Arden. Smoke rolled in from the explosion and the men ran ahead of it, fanning out in a line. As they did, each man shouted "Don't move!" The cry came from the gut, loud and raw, designed to intimidate as much as possible.

Two of the white supremacists, a man and a woman, rose at the blast but stood still. Gurney did not. He rose, threw the laptop at Park, and reached his right hand under the table.

Park lowered his gun and'caught the computer. "Take him!" he shouted to Arden.

Arden was ahead of him. He swung his 9mm over as Gurney drew a Sokolovsky.45 automatic from a holster attached to the underside of the computer table. The.45 spat first, the first bullet catching the edge of Arden's Kevlar bulletproof vest. His left shoulder was shattered, but the impact threw him away from the fan of bullets. As they struck the wall behind him, Arden squeezed off rounds of his own. So did Park, who had crouched, set the computer down, and fired.

One of Arden's bullets caught the neo-Nazi in the left hip, the other in the right foot. Park put a hole in Gurney's right forearm.

Snarling viciously from the pain, Gurney dropped the.45 and fell to his left. Park hurried over and put his gun to the man's temple. During the four-second exchange, neither the woman nor the other man had moved.

There was no gunfire from the floors below, though the brief exchange on the third floor had brought the backup team racing into the building. They ran upstairs as Park was cuffing the bleeding gunman. DiMonda and Johns had put their own prisoners against the wall, face in, hands behind their backs. As they were handcuffed, the woman screamed that diMonda was a traitor to his race, and the man threatened retribution against his family. Both of them ignored Johns.

Three members of the backup team arrived and entered in two-one formation— two agents rushed in, fanning left and right, while the third dropped to her belly in the doorway, covering them. When they saw Arden and the white supremacist lying on the hardwood floor, and the other two neo-Nazis cuffed, they called for the ambulance.

As the backup team took charge of the prisoners, diMonda hurried to Arden's side.

"I can't believe this," Arden gasped.

"Don't talk," diMonda said. He knelt by his head. "If something's broken, you don't want to displace it even more." "Of course something's broken," Arden wheezed. "My goddamn shoulder. Twenty years on the force and not one injury. Man, I had a no-hitter going till that prick tagged me.

And it was a sucker punch. The old gun-under-the-table." Despite his wounds, the gunman said, "You're going to die. You're all going to die." DiMonda looked over as he was loaded onto a stretcher. "Eventually, yeah," he said. "Till then, we're gonna keep beating the bush and flushing out snakes like you." Gurney laughed. "You won't have to flush." He coughed, and said through his teeth, "We're coming to bite you."