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  To my incredible wife … you are … and for … everything … thank you …

  To my challenging but wonderful children … rub some dirt on it.… Part II … thanks for making me bonkers.…

  To thousands of past, present, and future FBI street Agents … hope this helps … and I hope you laughed a little bit … thank you for allowing me into your special club … it was the highest honor and privilege ever to walk among you … the toughest, smartest, and funniest club in the world … hang tough … be safe … and Godspeed.…

  1

  STUNNED

  April 10, 1994, started no differently than dozens of days before it. My internal clock roused me before dawn in the bedroom of our modest three-bedroom home in Swedesboro, New Jersey, and my brain immediately started reminding me of the things I had to accomplish that day at work—evidence tapes to review, transcriptions of phone surveillance logs to check. The life of an FBI Special Agent assigned to a Drug Squad was always busy with cases to investigate, paperwork to fill out, and trials to prepare for.

  Today wasn’t going to be any different. Or so I assumed. What stood out that morning as I lay in bed under the queen-sized comforter next to my beautiful wife, Samantha, was the fact that at this point in my young career as an FBI Agent and father, my life seemed damn near perfect.

  Professionally things couldn’t have gone better if I’d written the script myself. I had what I considered to be the best job in the world, protecting Americans and our way of life from those who would do us harm. I’d served as an FBI Special Agent for seven years and as a uniformed policeman for several years before that. During my first major undercover operation, my dedicated colleagues and I spent two years penetrating an international drug smuggling operation, which ended on the night of October 15, 1992, when we seized forty-six kilograms of high-grade Pakistani heroin, valued at $180 million. It was the largest heroin seizure ever in Philadelphia history, and still ranks as one of the top ten heroin seizures of all time.

  It had been an enormous coup. And the kicker was that we obtained the heroin without paying one cent of U.S. taxpayer money. That’s right. We had convinced the bad guys to front us the drugs. In other words, the bad guys expected us to pay them back, which we did in a sense, but not with money—with arrests halfway around the world in Pakistan.

  In the blink of an eye, I’d gone from an unproven new FBI Agent to “Golden Boy.” High-level management types, who didn’t know my name or those of my colleagues before, were now heaping praise and awards on us. A year and a half later as the case moved toward trial, we still couldn’t do any wrong.

  In terms of my personal life, I’d had the luck and good sense to marry an incredible woman, who was strong, kind, and who shared the same blue-collar values that I had: work hard, take care of your family and loved ones, create a better life and a wider range of opportunities for your children.

  When I kissed Sam and slipped out of bed, she sighed as if to say, I love you. Be safe. I had total confidence that while I went to play cops and robbers in the big city of Philadelphia, she would attend to the needs of our three children with boundless energy, spirit, and love.

  With the lights off, I padded down the hallway in bare feet to look in on them. First, our two sons, Russell and Michael, ages eight and six. Their small bedroom formed a picture of everyday American life Norman Rockwell might have painted. Beds pressed together and sleeping so that their heads were inches apart, baseball gloves and other sports gear on the floor, a half-finished Lego construction tilting in the corner, shelves crammed with plastic guns, dirty clothes, coloring books, and Ninja Turtle figurines.

  Around a corner, I peeked in the little bedroom of our three-year-old bundle of joy, Paige. Her fat cherub cheeks magically taking in and exhaling little breaths of air; a soft black and white blanket tossed haphazardly across her chubby legs. Was it my imagination or did she wink at me when I gave her a quick peck on the cheek and brushed the golden curls away from her eyes?

  Silently I moved to our tiny, cold bathroom and slipped on my gym clothes—running gear and Everlast Boxing T-shirt cut at the sleeves to show off my guns. FBI American Eagle backpack in hand, I crept downstairs, collected my car keys, and passed the dark shadows of the wooden rocker in front of the TV, the expensive new couch we would be paying off forever, and the toys on the floor. It might have struck some people as suburban chaos, but I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

  Outside, still hours before dawn, I noticed in the moonlight that the lawn needed cutting and the front flowerbox with red geraniums had to be rehung, and mentally added them to next weekend’s chores, which would have to be worked around baseball practices, karate lessons, other kids’ activities, and Sam’s weekend job as a bartender. It’s the way she had worked her way through college. Now we needed the cash to supplement my modest salary. Nobody got rich working as an FBI Special Agent, nor did I get overtime for the long hours.

  I wasn’t complaining. Nor did Sam. Life was good. We’d recently purchased our first house on a cul-de-sac in a nice development surrounded by young families like ours—a schoolteacher across the street, a construction worker next door—our kids were happy and healthy, we were both gainfully employed, and my career trajectory was pointing up.

  Feeling good, I fired up the fire-red Pontiac Trans Am in the driveway—a recent government seizure from some flashy drug dealer. It wasn’t ideal for surveillance, but got me places fast, when needed. I checked to see that my formal FBI duds—business suit and tie—hung from a hanger in back. Then I went through my FBI backpack. Inside were two handguns—a duty-issued 9mm Glock and my Smith & Wesson 6906—handcuffs, and flashlights. In tan manila folders were FD-302s (interview summaries), court orders and applications, rough-draft transcripts of phone calls, and handwritten interview notes, which would be needed in various upcoming criminal trials. My badge and credentials were stuffed in a front pocket for easy access. They afforded me powerful legal and law enforcement powers and significant personal and professional responsibility.

  In a separate plastic bag I carried my normal work clothes. Since I was assigned to a Drug Squad they consisted of a comfortable pair of jeans, an oversized Phillies baseball shirt long enough to conceal my firearm in public, and a pair of black running shoes. Working drugs, I needed to dress to blend in on the street with shoes that allowed me to run like hell if chasing a suspect. I also worked SWAT, which explained the long gun locked in the trunk.

  At 4:45 AM, traffic was light on 295 heading north. KYW 1060 all-news radio reported that the downtown Coventry Market Deli was closing after fifteen years, and that the Phillies had downed the Reds 2–1 on a Pete Incaviglia homer in the ninth inning.

  My head was elsewhere, on the massive amount of prep work I had to complete for the upcoming trial. I mentally organized the order of witnesses, the FBI diagrams needed, and considered the legal tricks
and maneuvers defense counsel would likely deploy. Rumor had it that the Pakistani defendants might be pleading guilty. That could make much of what I was planning unnecessary, but I was determined to be prepared nonetheless.

  As I crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, a light mist started to fall turning the bricks of Center City dark red. If that was an omen of what was to come, I didn’t read it.

  A few minutes before 5:15, I turned past the concrete barricades in front of the William J. Green, Jr. Federal Building, and stopped at the entrance to the parking lot. I had to show my FBI credentials to the bored, grumpy security guard, before he pushed the button that raised the security barrier so I could enter the basement and park in my assigned spot.

  Up on the sixth floor, I punched my FBI access code into the cipher lock and display and entered the main FBI reception area. There was no one to greet me from behind the desk, nor would there be for another three hours. Official FBI business hours started at 8:15 AM and ended at 5 PM on the dot.

  Beyond the inner area, concealed behind bulletproof glass, hung triangulated photos of President Bill Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno, and FBI Director Louis Freeh. To the right sat a memorial plaque dedicated to Agents killed in the line of duty.

  A sober reminder of the dangers we faced, as I passed the main conference room—empty except for fifty precisely lined chairs, U.S. and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania flags, and a wooden podium. Down the first hallway on my left sat the Organized Crime Squad #1, where old-timers with noses red with burst blood vessels chain-smoked at their desks as they tracked down mobsters whose names ended with vowels. Across from them was the Drug Squad #2, full of hard chargers who competed with my Squad (Drug Squad #3) for drug arrests, stats, and bragging rights. We were a competitive bunch.

  On my way to my desk in Drug Squad #3, I passed some early arrivers like Pete Jerome, who bleated the FBI’s equivalent of a morning greeting, “Look what the dog dragged in. You look like shit.”

  “Thanks, Jerome. Same to you.”

  If you didn’t have thick skin, you didn’t belong here. “Survival of the fittest” was the modus operandi. Those who couldn’t trade rapid-fire insults were obliterated without mercy.

  In the southwest corner past a long row of gunmetal filing cabinets stood four rows of five desks. Kind of like a classroom in grammar school, except we referred to this as the bullpen. Mine was the last desk in the last row, farthest away from the supervisor’s office. Just the way I liked it. Out of sight, out of mind.

  My desk was arranged my way, too—everything in its place, a place for everything. Neat and symptomatically OCD. I slung my backpack over the back of my chair and started checking my desk phone messages. Then I removed my daily handwritten to-do list from my pocket. Today’s called for arranging Urdu-speaking language translators for the defendants in the upcoming trial, making sure the witnesses, especially the foreign law enforcement officers who helped us, had plenty of time to travel to the United States.

  After roughly twenty minutes prioritizing the day’s tasks, my Squad mates started drifting in. Some looked sleep-deprived, some pissed off, others seemed lost in thought. Ours was a rainbow coalition of black, white, and brown, male and female, young and old, skinny and fat. We got along fine, despite the rough verbal jousting, which usually dealt with premature hair loss, recent weight gain, clothing choices, and choice of spouse or partner.

  This morning’s started up as usual with senior Agent Will Thompson circling his favorite target, Matt Boggs, who looked like the live embodiment of MAD magazine cartoon character Alfred E. Neuman, down to the space between his upper front teeth.

  “Hey, Matt, you get a haircut?” Thompson asked.

  Boggs obviously had and it was a doozy—a brutal Prince Valiant job sitting atop his larger than normal-sized head.

  “Yeah, I got it yesterday,” Matt answered, seemingly relieved that it was a simple question.

  “You actually pay someone to cut your hair like that?” asked Special Agent Green jumping in.

  “Yeah, five bucks,” Boggs answered. “What do you think?”

  A perfect setup for Thompson, who quickly quipped, “I hope they let you keep the bowl.”

  Green and Thompson laughed, and Boggs’s face turned red.

  Now it was Special Agent Tanguay’s turn. With his Clark Gable mustache and gigantic belly, he turned to me and grunted, “Hey, Mike. You still planning to run in the marathon?”

  “What’s it to you, Fat Boy?” I asked without looking up.

  “Run or walk?”

  “Run, wise guy,” I answered.

  “Whoever you hire to carry you better have a strong back.”

  This was Tanguay’s lame way of commenting on my un-runner-like physique, which could be best described as stout or stocky—short of stature with ample upper body strength from lifting weights. Because of my size, I would be competing in the Boston Marathon’s Clydesdale Division for males 180 pounds and up.

  As part of my training, I rode down the elevator at 6 AM to the small gym and locker room in the basement and changed into my running gear. A half-dozen male Agents in less than sweet-smelling shorts, sweats, and T-shirts, grunted hellos. As a way to encourage us, our employer allotted forty-five minutes (classified as 66E Time) each day during working hours for physical training.

  I laced up my gray New Balance 990s and exited the building. As I turned left on Market Street and hit my stride, the sun started to light up the overcast sky. I wasn’t a natural or speedy runner, but once I started something I didn’t quit. In fact, I’d completed my first marathon, the 26.2-mile Marine Corps Marathon, four years earlier with a respectable time of four hours, twenty-nine minutes.

  My goal this morning was a briskly paced five miles along the Delaware River. As I passed the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, I thought about the primary targets in the heroin case, Mohammed Salim Malik and his nephew, Shahid Hafeez Khawaja. Soon I’d be facing them in court.

  I made a quick note to self: Buy a couple new Brooks Brothers suits so you look sharp. I thought of them as a reward for making the big case that had taken us to Canada, Europe, and Hong Kong. Second note to self: Hide the credit card bill when it arrives at home.

  Seagulls barked overhead. To my left and right, I glimpsed the facades of upscale restaurants, brick colonial townhouses, small neighborhood bars, and tugboats moored at the shore.

  I’d first laid eyes on heroin kingpin Malik in January 1994 when the Pakistani government put him and his nephew on a plane and they arrived at Philadelphia International Airport in shackles escorted by U.S. Marshals. I stood waiting to slap handcuffs on them and read them their Miranda rights, per the FBI custom whereby the Agent who makes the case gets the honor of taking the defendants into custody.

  I’d met the much younger Khawaja before—a goofy kid who loved strip joints. We’d spent many hours watching him ogle half-naked women, while I was trying to get him to focus on the details of the deal. He looked shocked and scared when he stepped off the airplane, which was kind of what I had expected. It was his uncle Malik who surprised me.

  He was a tiny man with a regal bearing and a gentle, calm manner. Not the fearsome Pakistani drug warrior who sat at number-five on the DEA’s most wanted list that I had expected.

  But looks were deceiving. As kindly as Malik appeared, the thousands of kilograms of heroin he’d sold around the world weren’t agreeable at all—not to countless individuals and families whose lives it affected. The forty-six kilograms of heroin we had seized from him had been measured at 90 percent purity. If consumed, even by a longtime junkie, it would induce immediate cardiac arrest. Cut three, four, or five times before it reached the street by middlemen and criminals it would inevitably inflict damage on college kids from good families, guys in the military, fathers with promising careers, and, even, mothers pushing baby carriages.

  I’d seen the damage heroin could do as a uniformed cop working the streets of Bu
rlington, Vermont. One night, I was sitting in the station house at the end of my shift, when I heard car tires screech at the rear of the station where we gassed up our cars. The occupants of the speeding car pushed someone out, and tore off. I arrived to see a young well-dressed man lying on street, convulsing. When he slipped into unconsciousness, I tried to resuscitate him by using mouth to mouth.

  While I was working on the kid, my colleagues called an ambulance. Unfortunately, the young man died on the way to the hospital. I found out later that he was a student attending a nearby college and came from a good family. As a father myself, I couldn’t imagine their loss.

  After my run, I showered and dressed for street-work with my baby S&W stuck in the back waistband of my jeans.

  Upstairs, the Squad area was full and the verbal insults were flying. Seconds later our supervisor, Al Packard—aka “The Colonel”—strode in wearing a starched white shirt, blue-and-red striped tie, and military-style crew cut. He shot us all the evil eye as if to say: Get your asses back to work. We did.

  No one fucked with The Colonel. Not only was he a real Lt. Colonel in the Marine Reserves and physically imposing with massive forearms, he was also an excellent boss, who deflected the administrative bullshit so we could do our jobs.

  Sony headphones over my ears, I began to attend to the nonglamorous task of painstakingly listening word for word to a criminal conversation, and comparing it to typed transcripts to make sure that the pages were a true and accurate representation of the words captured on tape. It was tedious, dull, and boring, and not the kind of FBI activity depicted in movies or TV shows, but absolutely critical to the success of our upcoming federal criminal prosecution.

  After a couple of hours hunched over an outdated tape recorder, I took a break and walked around the office to kibitz with some of my buddies and check the SWAT training schedule to make sure I knew where and when I had to be over the next couple of weeks.