by Dale Brown
trailer and set up thirty feet away.
"Is very simple," the soldier explained. "You not
touch any chemicals. You attach chemical tanks
here and here . . . attach power plug here "He
worked the controls as he explained the hookup
procedures, while a dozen senior Brotherhood members
, highly experienced in cooking methamphetamme
, stood right beside him watching every step.
They would be the ones who would teach the other
chapter members how to use the device. They marveled
at its cleanliness, efficiency, and safety.
An hour later the tank was opened up, and the
specialists examined the result of the first stage of
the process. inside the mixing tank were more than
thirty pounds of clean, pure chloropseudoephedrine.
"Is ready for hydrogenation," the Aryan Brigade soldier
said. "We leave inside. No touch, no filter, no
dry. The machine, it do everything." The Brother- A
hood cookers couldn't believe it-thirty pounds of
absolutely pure chloropseudoephedrine in the tank
ready for hydrogenation, and they didn't have to
race against deadly sulfur dioxide or risk being
burned by hydrochloric-acid gas. There was no
smell, no residue outside the tank, nothing. The
waste by-products,of the first reaction were collected
inside a separate tank, ready for burial.
Even as the second step of the process was began,
discussions started about how the batch was going
to be distributed, how much would go to each designated
member, and how the money was going to be
paid. Thirty pounds of almost-ready methampheti
amine was worth between two and three hundred
thousand dollars, maybe more, and every one of the
members and pledges was arguing about getting his
fair share-plenty of customers were out there waiting
. As the hydrogenator was being sealed up and
pressurized, money was already being collected.
I'l wait here," the German commando said. "We
insp ect product together. I am responsible for unit
until you pay."
"We want you to wait outside, Himmler," said
the president of the Brotherhood chapter. "We don't
need you listening in on our distribution plans."
"Ich gehe nicht! I not leave until product is inspected!"
"You leave now because I tell you to leave!" the
biker ordered. The unarmed German had no option.
They gave him a bottle of whiskey and the woman
of his choice to keep him company, then escorted
him to the propane-refill station in front of Toby's
and told him to wait until summoned. A Brotherhood
pledge was assigned to guard him.
While the commando and his guard took a seat
on a picnic bench behind the propane tank, the
biker woman went into Toby's to pee, buy a pack of
cigarettes, and chat with the clerk. She was gone no
more than ten minutes, but when she came back,
she found the Brotherhood pledge dead and the German
gone. In panic, she dashed back to the barn to
tell the Brotherhood members.
just as she reached the barn, the world dissolved
into a ball of blue-yellow fire and a searing blast of
heat that she felt for a fraction of a second before
she was vaporized. The mile-wide fireball consurned
the barn, the farmhouse, Toby's Market, the
propane tank, and thirty houses and businesses surrounding
the blast site. The column of fire stretched
two thousand feet up into the night sky. The concussion
shattered windows and awoke people from
their sleep for miles around.
But that was not the only such blast. Throughout
the night, in sites all over the state of California,
enormous mushroom-cloud-like fireballs erupted
without warning. In locations as far north as Chico,
as far south as Los Angeles, as far east as Death
Valley, and as far west as Oakland and San Francisco
, huge explosions ripped the night sky, instantly
killing hordes of drug cookers and dealers
and not only wiping out members of the Satan's
Brotherhood, but devastating other biker gangs as
well. In several areas, the methamphetamine hydrogenators
were located in the basements of apartment
complexes and in the middle of crowded
urban areas. Hundreds of innocent bystanders and
residents died in the blasts.
MoIn
a few short hours, the Satan's Brotherhood
rship
torcycle Club, as well as much of the membe
of several other biker gangs and many Mexican
and Asian methamphetamine gangs, had virtually
ceased to exist.
SACRAMENTO CONVENTION CENTER, J STREET,
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
SATURDAY, 7 MARCH 1998, 0708 PT
n times of emergency anywhere in the city or
county, the Sacramento Convention Center in
the heart of the city was transformed into a crisis
nimand center. In a matter of hours, telephone
and radio networks were set up in several of the
hospitality suites, with the brain trusts of the city
and county administration in a command suite and
other staff and support agencies in the others, all of
them connected by phone, runners, and the Central
Dispatch communications center. As the crisis
grew, additional suites were commandeered. All the
rooms were tied in to the various safety, maintenance
, welfare, and administration offices throughout
the county, each with its own command center
in place. Representatives from outside state and federal
agencies also came to the command suite as
summoned.
The mayor of the city of Sacramento, Edward
Servantez, strode into the side entrance of the convention
center, escorted by a plainclothes police officer
who had been assigned to him, as to most
other major city officials, after the Sacramento Live!
shooting. Servantez, a short, dark, handsome lawyer
and former state legislator in his late fifties, was
accustomed to starting his day early. Accompanying
him this morning was one of his aides; the chief
of police, Arthur Barona; and the city manager.
Servantez was in his third and last term as mayor
of Sacramento, and as such he had been through
several crisis-management-team exercises and a few
real ones, mostly for natural disasters such as the
devastating floods of 1986 and 1997. But no matter
how many times he and his staff practiced or implemented
the crisis-management plan, it always
seemed to turn into a barely controlled bedlam.
During the exercises, the staff would often call
time-outs to discuss what they were doing wrong
and how to get back on track, but it never helped.
And during real emergencies, of course, there was
no such thing as a time-out.
. Servantez removed his jacket, loosened his tie,
and took his seat at the center of the head table,
situated on a raised platform at t
he rear of the suite.
To his right were the other city representativesthe
deputy mayor, city manager, city attorney, fire
chief, director of public works, city council repre-
.sentative, and Barona. To his left were the chairman
of the county board of supervisors, Madeleine
Adams; the sheriff and undersheriff; the district
attorney; the county fire chief; and the county commissioner
for public works. Places were also reserved
at the head table for representatives from the
California Office of Emergency Services, the governor's
office, the California Highway Patrol, the National
Guard, the state attorney general, the FBI,
and other state and federal agencies. A briefer's podium
, rear-projection screen, and PA system were
set up opposite the head table. There were two tables
of staff members to the right of the table, and a
communication center and refreshment table on the
left.
All the necessary players were now present, so
Servantez said to Chairman Adams, "Let's get
started, shall we? Can we please get a situation and
update briefing?"
"Yes, Mr. Mayor." She nodded to the Sacramento
County undersheriff and he stepped up to the lectem
. A map of Sacramento, El Dorado, Placer, and
Yolo counties came up on the large rear-projection
screen. "At ten-thirty-seven last night an explosion
and fire was reported in the area around E Street and
Market in Rio Linda," the undersheriff began. "The
first fire units on the scene reported several homes
and businesses on fire or heavily damaged by an explosion
, and the call was upgraded to four alarms.
Four square city blocks were affected by the blast.
Upon further investigation, firefighters discovered
remnants of precursor chemicals used in the manufacture
of methamphetamines . . ."
"Precursor chemicals?" the city public works director
asked. "What's that?"
"In simple terms, they're the intermediate chemicals
that are produced before making the final product
," the undersheriff explained. "It's a felony to
make or possess these precursor chemicals, just as it
is to make or possess meth itself.
"The fire captain called in both county
HAZMAT teams and sheriff's narcotics investigators
, who took command of the scene," the undersheriff
went on. "The death toll appears to be quite
high: Investigators estimate over a hundred deaths
and several dozen injuries as a result of this one
blast."
"Are you suggesting this was basically a narcotics
case?" Mayor Servantez interjected. "That's a
staggering loss of life."
Captain Tom Chandler of the police department's
Special Investigations Division stepped up
to the lectern to respond. "No, Mr. Mayor; we don't
believe so, because approximately twenty minutes
later, a similar large-scale explosion occurred in the
Oak Park section of the city. it was of comparable
intensity, destroying homes within one block of the
blast and damaging every structure within four
square blocks. The casualty count was similarly
high-in this case, over one hundred and forty
deaths and almost a hundred injuries. Then there
was another explosion in the Northgate and Levee
Road section of the city just a few minutes later.
This one occurred in a storage room under a multifamily
apartment building. The death toll is expected
to exceed two hundred."
"My God," Servantez breathed, shaken by the
numbers. "What do we have here? A serial
bomber?"
"Perhaps, sir," Chandler replied, "but it doesn't
quite fit the pattern. The blasts were close together
time-wise but spread out in terms of distance. Serial
bombers, even a group of bombers, usually strike
targets close together but spread out time-wise."
"Then what? A gang war? Clumsy drug chemists
?"
"Perhaps all of the above, Mr. Mayor," Chandler
replied. "These were not the only explosions that
occurred last night. in all, there were four blasts in
the city, six in the county, and seven more in El
Dorado, Placer, and Yolo counties. Similar explosions
have been reported in San Francisco, Oakland,
Stockton, Bakersfield, and Los Angelesa total of
almost thirty powerful explosions, with death tolls
ranging from a few dozen to over three hundred and
extensive injuries."
"So what the hell have you found out?"
"All of the explosions have two things in cornmon
: traces of methamphetamine precursor chemi-
cals found at the blast scene, and a large number of
gang members at each location, usually members
of biker gangs," Chandler said. "The large numbers
of gang members indicate a gang chapter meeting,
maybe even an instructional meeting on how to
cook methamphetamines. The pattern of the deaths
at each location suggests that there was very little
or no warning, possibly ruling out intentional explosions
or an attack by outside forces. Those killed
in the blasts seemed to be very close to the blast
center, as if observing or guarding the site.
"At the very least, it appears likely that everyone
at the blast scenes wanted to be there-these do not
seem to be executions or assassinations," Chandler
concluded. "And while this or any other particular
blast could have been a booby trap or experiment
gone wrong, the similarity to other explosions
throughout the state does seem to rule out an accident
. One or two such blasts in one night could be a
coincidence. Almost thirty of them, even if spread
out in terms of distance, is no coincidence."
"We've had meth-lab explosions in the past," the
county fire chief pointed out. "But compared to any
others, these blasts are enormous."
"That's right," Chandler said. "A regular-size
meth-lab explosion might substantially damage or
set fire to a two-bedroom house or typical barn, or
destroy a storage shed. These explosions destroyed
entire city blocks, perhaps eighteen homes, and
damaged many more. This means that the labs in
question are many times larger than the usual labs
we've seen. Plus, there are a lot more of them. So
someone is making large meth-labs, big enough to
destroy or damage almost two dozen homes at a
time but disguised well enough to escape notice. Ws
a very serious development. We're wondering how
many labs like these didn't blow up.,,
"Any estimate on how much meth these labs can
make?" the mayor asked.
"Hard to say, sir," Chandler said. "We're guessing
as much as twenty pounds or even more-that's
at least a quarter of a million dollars' worth at a
time. The power of the explosions suggests that the
meth cookers are using hydrogen gas as part of the
&n
bsp; cooking process, which is highly explosive when
mixed with oxygen. A small meth lab might use a
few cubic feet of hydrogen pressurized to thirty or
forty psi-pounds per square inch. These labs must
have been using perhaps two or three hundred
times that amount. And the quality of the drug produced
by the hydrogenation method is very goodthe
product can be cut several times to increase its
value and distribution tremendously."
"So what's the situation now?" the county commissioner
asked.
"Critical," the undersheriff replied. "We've
called for this crisis team because our resources,
both city and county, are stretched beyond the
limit. Both the city and the county have split up our
narcotics-investigation teams and made them primaries
on pieced-together narcotics-investigation
teams, augmented by other detectives and patrol officers
. We're using firemen and reservists to secure
crime scenes, and because every blast scene involves
hazardous materials, these untrained personnel
are in great danger. We can't borrow Narcotics
officers from neighboring counties because most of
them are involved with investigating their own
meth-lab explosions. And all of the area hospitals
are clogged with casualties. We've got a real emergency
situation here, Mr. Mayor, Madame Chairman
.
Adams spread her hands and looked at the city
officials to her right. "It sounds to me like we need
some help in handling the emergency, " she said.
"Undersheriff Wilkins, what are you specifically requesting
?"
"We need immediate help in securing and investigating
the crime scenes and getting as many of our
cops back on patrol as possible," the undersheriff
replied. "Since the California Bureau of Narcotics
Enforcement is likely to be busy investigating all
the lab explosions statewide, we should request
immediate support from the Drug Enforcement
Agency, the FBI, and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms-and
we should ask the governor to mobilize
the National Guard. We're requesting that the Infrastructure
Protection and Security Plan be implemented
immediately, and we simply don't have the
manpower. All of our communications and utilities
could be shut down."
"Excuse me, Chairman Adams, Undersheriff Wilkins
