The Last Undercover

by Bob Hamer

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  I told him I wanted him to be comfortable dealing with me and to know I wasn’t wired. Almost embarrassed, he ordered me to put my clothes back on and pick up the cash.

  Darrel never saw the recording device I had strapped to my ankle. We completed the arrangements for the deal, and I got it all on tape.

  Darrel’s method of doing business was unlike any I had ever encountered. In fact, it’s possible my unorthodoxy played into our eventual success.

  Darrel saw the money, but the heroin wasn’t there. Instead, it was in a hotel room in Canada, just outside Toronto in Scarborough, Ontario. I didn’t balk at Darrel’s plan, and my willingness to play by his rules enhanced my credibility. When the time came to make the pickup, an RCMP undercover officer, whom I had never met, posed as my Canadian associate and took the actual delivery of the drugs.

  Once the deal was consummated, Darrel made final plans for his overseas trip. Surveillance confirmed he traveled with an associate to Sydney, Singapore, Rangoon, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul. Overseas surveillance teams spotted the two of them meeting with known drug traffickers.

  Darrel returned to the United States, prepared to deliver the two kilograms of China White I ordered at a cost of a $250,000 per kilo. As with most drug deals, the details had to remain fluid. Last-minute changes were standard, though my administrators seldom understood the need for any deviation from an approved operations order. This deal was no exception.

  On February 7, 1984, Darrel promised to deliver the heroin to a hotel room at the Marriott Hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport. We set up surveillance equipment in the room and hoped to capture the transaction on videotape. When Darrel arrived at the hotel, though, he refused to meet in the room and insisted that all conversations take place in the lobby. I quickly strapped on a recording device and made my way to the lobby, carrying a briefcase containing $500,000.

  Understandably, FBI administrators were apprehensive about letting me walk around the lobby of a hotel with that much money. I was specifically told the money was not to leave the lobby; agents, in and around the hotel, would be watching my every move.

  When I arrived in the lobby, Darrel greeted me and began talking about his trip overseas and his future plans. He was growing more comfortable in our relationship and offered to put me in charge of his distribution network, provided I paid him a percentage of every completed transaction. He would introduce me to his Thai and Canadian connections and continue to educate me on the finer points of narcotics trafficking. It was a tremendous opportunity to fully identify his distribution network, but I knew there was no way I could allow the half-million dollars to walk out with him. I asked for more details and eventually agreed to his offer, but knew that once he delivered the heroin later that day, he and his associates would be arrested.

  Again, however, the plan changed. Rather than flashing a half-million dollars in hundred-dollar bills in the lobby of the hotel, he wanted to walk with me into the restroom, where he could view the contents of my briefcase. The request made sense from a drug dealer’s perspective. I knew I was in violation of my strict orders, but took the walk anyway. My cover team had no idea what I was doing but they had enough confidence in me and were sufficiently street savvy to remain flexible as the deal unfolded. In the restroom, Darrel viewed the money and we quickly returned to the lobby, much to the relief of FBI management.

  Darrel continued to lecture me on the finer points of heroin distribution and periodically pointed out those in the lobby he suspected of being law enforcement. Ironically, agents were in the lobby, but he never picked out the right person. He continually pointed to people not affiliated with the FBI, many of whom were hotel workers. My cover was intact. He did, however, bring it all back to reality when he said that one of his partners was in the lobby with a gun and that if anything happened I would be the first one killed. He had previously played the tough-guy card with me, once saying that if anyone got in his way, he had no qualms about “blowing them away.”

  I was anxiously awaiting delivery of the heroin, which he promised would be within the hour. And then, while sitting in an overstuffed chair, listening to his bluster, I saw a situation arise from nowhere that could have caused Darrel’s armed backup to start popping caps.

  During the second semester of my first year of law school, I lived with a family in Cincinnati, Ohio. Pat and Don were a great couple from the church, and they gladly welcomed me into their home. I hadn’t seen them in years, and as I sat in the lobby with Darrel, who should walk into the hotel but . . . Pat and Don! They had traveled over two thousand miles and just happened to stroll in, minutes from the takedown of a major international heroin trafficker and his associates, at least one of whom was armed.

  My heart began to pound. I was wearing a body recorder with the microphone taped to my chest. When reviewing the tape after the arrest, I could actually hear my heart pounding.

  Thankfully, I had stayed in touch with Pat and Don through the years, often by means of a Christmas newsletter in which I would detail some outlandish undercover assignment I had been on. Pat, a devout Christian, also told me later that I was on her mind as they flew into L.A. She knew my work and suspected I was probably doing something dangerous, so she had been praying for me earlier that day.

  I leaned back in my seat, away from Darrel’s view, caught Pat’s attention and slowly shook my head. The look on my face must have communicated this wasn’t the time for hugs and greetings. Thank God she understood and whisked her husband away in another direction.

  Within minutes, Darrel said that the load car had arrived and I was to accompany him outside. I walked to the parking lot as his two partners, known to me because of our investigation, passed us. I said, “Now, those two look like cops.” He laughed and told me they were his partners. He gave me the keys to the car. I walked over, opened the trunk, saw the two kilos, and gave the prearranged signal. In a perfectly executed arrest plan, FBI agents swooped in from every direction, arresting Darrel and his two partners.

  I was pleased with our success and looked forward to the next investigation. The evidence was solid and the case seemed like a slam dunk. As we were fond of saying, Darrel and his cronies “were bought and paid for.”

  I only wish it had turned out that way.

  New York NAMBLA Conference

  It seemed as if we stayed forever at the railing in Toys “R” Us. Finally, Peter directed us toward a restaurant several blocks away. We continued the walk. Until this time, the location of the actual conference had not been disclosed. I was told earlier we would receive specific instructions later in the evening. NAMBLA feared that publishing the exact location of the meeting well in advance would allow law enforcement to set up appropriate surveillance and disrupt the yearly gathering. As we walked toward the restaurant, Peter stopped and pointed out New York Spaces, a building at 520 Eighth Avenue. “This is where we will be meeting tomorrow,” he announced. “No one knows who we are. If asked, tell them we are with Wallace Hamilton Press, who is hosting the conference. This is a publishing seminar. Be very discreet.”

  We continued walking a short distance to a restaurant on Thirty-fourth Street where we broke up into smaller groups for dinner. After all I had already heard and observed, I didn’t have much of an appetite.

  I sat with Jeff Devore and Joe from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Joe was small and thin, with a “Mr. Clean,” shaved-head, in his late forties or early fifties. Joe initially described himself as a composer. Later in the conversation, we learned he was actually a night lobby guard who had written two symphonies and an opera, none of which had ever been performed. Like many aspiring would-bes in Hollywood, Joe was a “slash” careerist: in his case, a composer/night watchman. He said he and his black lover were both BLs and, like Jeff and me, this was his first conference.

  Joe’s interests brought up another issue that troubled me as I played out my role. I have little interest in mu
sic, other than country and western. I see very few movies, unless they involve murder, mayhem, and mystery. And my tastes in literature run along the same lines, with an occasional biography to complement the fiction. Although boy lovers can cover the entire social and economic spectrum, many of those I interacted with were gay, and their interests were not my interests. I did not read the same books they read, nor did I see the same movies.

  One night during dinner, when the question “Who’s your favorite boy actor?” was asked, I had to fall back on an earlier answer—“Ricky Schroder, Silver Spoons” —even though I don’t believe I ever saw an episode. I was often asked about specific movies with a boy lover theme and each time had to punt with some nebulous answer, usually responding with a question of my own. On other assignments, when interacting with gamblers, or with drug or weapons dealers, it was so easy to converse about Monday Night Football or the World Series, and if they didn’t care it didn’t matter. But the BL philosophy permeated the entire lifestyle. It was a part of them 24/7, but it wasn’t a part of me. I was afraid that would show.

  Remembering my earlier admonition from the disaffected NAMBLA member, I asked very few probing questions at dinner and was surprised when Jeff volunteered so much about his life. He was a fifty-two-year-old ordained minister from Orange County and taught at a chiropractic college in Whittier, California, one of the many smaller cities that make up the greater Los Angeles area. It was obvious he was relaxed among his like-minded, newly found friends, and he spoke openly of his quest to identify his sexual desires.

  He admitted to being openly gay, spoke of his twenty-plus-year marriage that ended in divorce, and talked about his three grown children. He shocked me, however, when he admitted to having sex with a sixteen-year-old boy in San Diego’s Balboa Park three years earlier. He described in graphic detail their meeting online, the arranged appointment, his drive from Orange County to San Diego, and the sex acts they performed once they met. Joe giggled with excitement as Jeff described the scene—I stopped eating. I regretted I wasn’t wearing a wire and wondered if I would ever again have a chance to get such “smoking-gun” admissions on tape.

  Across the narrow aisle at a larger table sat Peter and several longtime members of the organization. I glanced over at them occasionally, and we always seemed to be the object of their attention. My paranoia kicked in, and I questioned whether my infiltration had been discovered. I also wondered whether they could hear Jeff describing his sexual adventures. Did they want to participate in the conversation, or silence him for being so open in a public place? I cautiously avoided any efforts to elicit admissions from Jeff or Joe, especially any questions Peter could overhear.

  As dinner broke up, we went our separate ways. My disgust continued when I learned that many of the out-of-town attendees were staying at either the YMCA or the Youth Hostel, places that in my youth served as sanctuaries from evil, or at least so I thought. I was on the government dole and selected a very nice hotel with many of the New York amenities, located on East Thirty-first. I kept my location a secret from the other members by avoiding answering the question. I ambled back to the hotel—at a slightly faster pace once I knew no one from NAMBLA was watching—and prepared for the first session of the conference the next morning.

  6

  A NAMBLA SAFETY LECTURE

  Early Saturday morning, I entered the building at 520 Eighth Avenue and joined several other attendees I recognized from the night before. We waited in the lobby for only a few minutes before Peter Herman and Ted from New Jersey pulled up curbside and began unloading food for breakfast and lunch. Others helped carry the food as we boarded the elevator and made our way to the fifteenth floor. My “handicap” always prevented me from doing any heavy lifting, and I milked this aspect of my cover for all it was worth, whenever it suited me.

  Apparently as part of the continued secrecy surrounding the entire organization, we took the elevator to the fifteenth floor, walked down a long hallway, and made our way up the stairwell to the sixteenth floor, where the meetings took place. This internationally recognized organization, celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary, had to secretly access stairways to the conference venue.

  The accommodations also failed to reflect the dignity the membership claimed society owed them. It was small and plain—a rehearsal room—with no wall decorations or amenities. Metal folding chairs circled the room. The floor had one restroom—a “one-holer” that was supposed to accommodate all the attendees—and the group of teenage boys rehearsing a play in a second room on the same floor. My fellow attendees were delighted when they learned they would be sharing bathroom facilities with teenagers. More eye candy for the predators.

  Although it is unfair to say we were “locked” in the room for the day, Peter made it clear we would not be coming and going as we chose, which was the reason for breakfast and lunch being provided. His admonition was concise: “Nobody can leave the building.” There was a fear someone might slip out and alert law enforcement of the locale of the meeting. Paranoia gripped this organization like no other group I ever infiltrated—just another reason I constantly had to be on my toes.

  Approximately thirty men gathered that morning, more than had been at Grand Central Station the night before. All were white and, with few exceptions, all looked as if the best accommodations they could afford would be the Y. Many appeared qualified for AARP cards; they were over the hill and, from what I could observe, they’d had a pretty hard climb.

  Noticeably absent from the conference were boys. Although I never specifically asked in any communication I had with the NAMBLA leadership, I knew of no boys who were members. It seemed odd that this “First Amendment–protected” organization, so intent on “empowering” youth, would fail to have a single juvenile member. Why weren’t boys lining up to join and seek their legal sexual emancipation? By contrast, the membership of Little League and Boy Scouts is dominated by boys. If NAMBLA was so intent on “the sexual liberation of boys” and, as the organization claimed, boys desired such liberation, it seemed that juveniles would be joining in droves, pressuring their parents and Congress for sexual freedom.

  I was now wearing a wire, and as my recorder ran, Peter Herman called the meeting to order and welcomed us with a short talk. He then turned to Rock Thatcher, who was sitting near me, and asked him to give the “safety lecture.” Rock was from Phoenix, in his late fifties, stocky, and articulate. At first I thought he was going to give an AIDS advisory. Wrong! Rock said,

  The most important, the most definite stand that we have ever taken is simply against any age of consent. We’ve debated, and we’ve never been able to draw a line and come up with a recommendation for a specific age of consent. So on principle, we say you can’t draw a line and you have to take each case on its merits as to whether or not there was abuse, whether or not there was consent. That’s our most basic position.

  From all my reading, Rock’s statement came as no surprise. NAMBLA’s view was clear: The organization believed men and boys should be allowed to engage in mutual sexual relationships, regardless of the age of either participant, as long as both parties “consented.” If the adult did not “abuse” the child or “force” himself upon the boy, that was understood as tantamount to “consent,” and the organization saw nothing wrong with the actions of the adult. I wasn’t quite sure why this was part of a “safety lecture.” Rock went on.

  We don’t advocate that anybody break the law, even though we advocate changes in the law. We’d like to urge you not to break the law, and we’d like to urge you not to talk about breaking any laws while you’re here on this occasion.

  Rock was taking great pains to reinforce the position that NAMBLA was opposed to breaking the law. In other words, the organization believed sex with boys was morally okay but illegal by statute. I wasn’t clear as to who was supposed to benefit from this admonition. His next statement provided the answer.

  We have been infiltrated by the media. We’ve been infil
trated by law enforcement officials, and I have to say candidly, I don’t know most of you well enough to say that you’re not an infiltrator. There certainly have been times in the past when a similar warning has been given at our conferences . . . and the infiltrator sat right there [he gestured toward my seat!] and listened to it. One of them has even filed an affidavit against us in the lawsuit we are defending, so this is a concern. . . . Specifically this weekend we request that you not talk about anything that might even be considered illegal . . . even privately. If you don’t know the person you’re talking to, then you shouldn’t be talking about anything that could possibly sound illegal.

  Rock was playing to the infiltrator, and apparently I had chosen the “infiltrator chair.” Skilled fiction writers disdain the use of coincidence to advance plot, but this was truly an instance of truth being stranger—or at least more ironic—than fiction. I have to admit, it was unnerving to see him pointing to my seat, but the membership didn’t pounce, so the coincidence was apparently just that. It was obvious they anticipated some legal challenge to holding such a meeting and wanted to make the record clear that the organization did not “condone” criminal behavior. The point was made, but by all appearances it was a matter of form over substance. For most members, it was a “wink-wink, nudge-nudge” kind of thing, not a warning to be taken seriously.

  Ted, the retired schoolteacher from New Jersey, apparently growing impatient with the standard caution, interrupted: “No confessions, no asking where to get child pornography in Manhattan, and no asking where you can travel someplace in the world—that’s not why we’re here. I think that’s very clear.”

  Rock Thatcher continued. “We’re here, basically, I would say, for two purposes: one is social, and the other is administrative. And there will obviously be a certain amount of sharing of information about items of interest that we all share, but they don’t need to get into anything like discussing specific activities that could lead . . .”