gods of mischief by george rowe--start reading today!

7/29/2019 GODS OF MISCHIEF by George Rowe--start reading today!

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Gods

Mischiefgeorge rowe

A TouchsTone Book

Pbld by sm & str

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Touchstone

A Division o Simon & Schuster, Inc.1230 Avenue o the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Copyright 2013 by George Rowe

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions

thereo in any orm whatsoever. For inormation address Touchstone Subsid-

iary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue o the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

The names and identiying details o several individuals described in this

book have been changed. In addition, some surveillance methods used by the

Bureau o Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have been altered or let

vague to saeguard present and uture undercover operations.

First Touchstone hardcover edition February 2013

TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks o Simon & Schus-

ter, Inc.

For inormation about special discounts or bulk purchases, please contact

Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonand

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speakers.com.

Designed by Joy OMeara

Manuactured in the United States o America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rowe, George.

The gods o mischie : my undercover vendetta to take down the Vagos

outlaw motorcycle gang / George Rowe.

pages cm

1. Motorcycle gangsCaliornia. 2. OutlawsCaliornia. I. Title.

HV6489.C2R69 2013

361.406'6dc23 2012041994ISBN 978-1-4516-6734-9

ISBN 978-1-4516-6736-3 (ebook)


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PrologUe

hmt, calfra; Trday, Mar 9, 2006

Aew hours beore dawn Im wide awake and skittish as hell, wait-

ing or the shitstorm. My fance lies asleep beside me, nine monthspregnant and blissully unaware her world is about to shatter. For three

tense years Ive been living on the edge as a ederal inormant, operat-

ing deep undercover to gather criminal evidence against one o this

countrys most violent motorcycle gangsevidence that will lock my

brothers away. My fance knows me as a patched member o the Vagos

Motorcycle Club, but thats only hal the story. I wonder how shell take

it when she learns the rest: that the man she loves is a man she neverreally knew . . . that our time together was a lie.

Talk about a rude awakening.

Too restless to stay in bed, I head into the kitchen or coee and

cigarettes. Leaning against the counter, chain-smoking Marlboros

while the coee drips, I check the clock on the microwave.

5:36 a.m.

Almost time.In less than thirty minutes theres no turning back. At precisely

6:00 a.m. (PST), more than seven hundred heavily armed law enorce-


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4 Prlg

ment ofcers will sweep through Southern Caliornia in one o the

largest gang busts in United States history.

And it all starts with me.In the winter o 2003, the year I went undercover, my hometown

was under siege, its citizens terrorized by a group o crank-ueled out-

laws no one could control. I was a local businessman with a shameul

historya one-time drug dealer and two-time elon haunted by the

sins o my past. Though Id spent much o my lie in the company o

Harley-riding outcasts like the Hells Angels, or the sake o the commu-

nity I turned against the brotherhood and vowed to end their violenceand intimidation.

When I volunteered or that thankless mission, shaking hands

with Special Agent John Carr in Bee Canyon, my path seemed clear

enough; a ew months riding with the Vagos and wham-bam-thank-you-

maam, Id have my hometown cleaned up and those uckers in cages.

Dumb bastard. What the hell were you thinking?

Beore that handshake I had the world by the balls, brother. OlGeorge Rowe was sitting pretty. Now everythings gone to shit. The lie

I knew, like the man I was, is slipping awayand theres not a damn

thing I can do about it.

Guess I should have known where this was headed. I might have

been three years under, but its taken a lietime to get here. Ive been

riding a hell wave, and theres no breaking ree. Nothing to do but let

the waters take me.


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1a Bnin Pc

Ninety miles east o Los Angeles, out beyond the San Bernardino

Mountains and down into the scorching heat o the San Jacinto Valley,youll fnd the city o Hemet, Caliornia. My old hometown was still a

ranch and arming community when Mother orced it down my throat

in the summer o 71nothing but potato felds, low buildings and a

ew at streets skirting the western edge o the Mojave Desert. But with

Caliornians migrating inland rom the coast in search o aordable

property, the valleys population was booming.

From the Santa Rosa Hills on Hemets south ank to the city o SanJacinto, which shares the valley oor to the north, came a growing ood

o retirement communities, trailer parks and stucco subdivisions. In just

ten yearsrom 1970 to 1980the citys population nearly doubled,

creating opportunities or anyone looking to make a buck . . . legal or

otherwise.

For the lawless ew, geography was the key to scoring big money.

Hemets ounding athers would have shit their Levis had they knowntheir little start-up would become the ass-end o a pipeline delivering

marijuana, cocaine and heroin rom Mexico, one hundred miles to the


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6 GoDs oF MischieF

south. Starting in the 1960s, Hemet became a banging place or outlaw

biker gangs hungry or a slice o that Mexican drug connection, many

rolling in rom neighboring cities like Riverside and San Bernardino,birthplace o the Hells Angels.

As a boy, I grew accustomed to the roar o their straight pipes blast-

ing through the valleyiron horses arting thunder, ridden by barbar-

ians with wild manes, greasy leathers and uck-you attitudes. I wanted

some o that. I too raised my middle fnger to authority and shared a

passion or motorcycles, which Id been riding since I was seven years

old, barely tall enough to reach the shit lever o the little Hodaka myather bought me beore he died.

He was tough, my old man, a ull-blooded Yaqui Indian and deco-

rated Korean War veteran. But the warrior was no match or malaria

and alcohol, a one-two punch that ried his brain and ravaged his liver.

Terminally ill, Dad wanted to spend his last years teaching his boy how

to hunt and fsh in the mountains, but or that he needed custody rom

Mother, a mean-spirited drunk with a ace like leather, ridden hard andput away wet by more men than I can remember. When I was a toddler

I swear I spent more time napping in bars while Mommy trolled or bed

partners than I did sleeping in my own room.

Warren Road in Hemet, biker paradise.


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A Bagg Pla 7

Custody was hard ought and harder won by athers in those days,

but when I jumped to my eet at the juvenile court hearing and

screamed, I dont want to live with her, I want to live with my dad!the judge heard me loud and clear. Mother got my sisters, Carol and

Lin Ann, while Dad pulled me rom kindergarten and took me into the

Cascades up near the Caliornia-Oregon border.

Those were special years we shared in the high country, the abso-

lute best o my lie. But watching your ather wither away rom cirrhosis

and thrash on the ground in fts o epilepsy, eyes rolling in their sockets,

was asking a lot rom a ten-year-old.So in 1970, with the end near, the

old man packed our belongings

and came down rom the moun-

tain, returning to Southern Calior-

nia to die.

Dad was orty-one when his

wasted body fnally quit. In myminds eye I can still picture the

end like it happened this morning.

We were sitting on a couch watch-

ing television when he slumped

sideways and ell across my lap. At

frst I thought hed passed outit

had happened beorebut as hisskin grew cold I realized there was no waking him up again. Four hours

later my uncle stopped by and ound me still pinned beneath Dads

stiening body. Truth is, I didnt want to let go. I was ten years old and

terrifed o a uture without him. Araid o being alone.

I became a ward o the state, bounced between oster homes until a

kind woman rom Buena Park took me under her wing and tried teach-

ing me how to read and write, lessons this kindergarten dropout hadmissed while learning survival skills in the Cascades. The world turns

Me at five years old, just before dropping out of

kindergarten.


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8 GoDs oF MischieF

unexpectedly, and certainly nothing is guaranteed in lie, but I believe

my uture would have been dierent had I stayed with that woman. I

really do.But then Mother returned, looking or custody o the Social Secu-

rity checks Id been collecting since my old man passed away, and once

they were hers I was dragged into the backseat o her Oldsmobile 88

and shanghaied to Hemet. I still remember heading east on the San

Bernardino Freeway, desperately trying to memorize the road signs

that would lead me back to that oster home in Buena Park. Instead the

bitch dumped my ass on the county, and I ended up in a cage at juve-nile hall trying to fgure out what incorrigible meant.

The couple that rescued me owned the Hemet property where

Mother was shacking up. With her blessing, they adopted me a ew

months later. Guess I should have been grateul or a roo over my head

and three squares on the table, but lie was never easy with that dys-

unctional crew. There was a shitload o drinking and fghting in that

house, with much o the anger directed at me.My new dad was a tough little sonoabitch, strong and tanned rom

working with the towns park and recreation department. Pat was a frm

believer in old-ashioned spare the rod, spoil the child discipline. And

when that man doled out punishment, the lessons came hard. To be

air, I was never a choirboy and probably deserved the occasional butt-

kicking, but Pats brand o abuse was an entirely new experience. The

dad Id lost had raised his hand to me only once.This one broke my arm.

Had my old man been alive, I know how he would have handled

things. When my uncle back in the San Fernando Valley gave me a

black eye, dad gave him two. When a perect stranger in a Burbank

mall slapped me upside the head or mouthing o, my ather lited him

up and dropped him on his skull.

Son, he said as he knelt beore me, dont ever let anyone pushyou around.

Later in lie I took Dads advice to heart, but when youre an eleven-


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A Bagg Pla 9

year-old getting pounded by a grown man, its easier said than done.

For now my best deense against my adoptive ather was vaulting the

six-oot backyard ence whenever he was ater me.That boy sure can jump, Pat would boast to his drinking buddies.

Tough as he was, though, my new dad was no match or his

250-pound wie. Pat might have worn the pants in the amily, but no

one messed with Mama Cassthats what I called her when she was

saely out o earshot. Pat came through the door shitaced one night and

mouthed o as his wie was in the middle o ironing. Big mistake. Dodi

pinned him to the wall and ironed her hubbys chest. Swear to God,that woman had a heart as big as her appetite, but piss her o and youd

best run or cover. Whatever Dodi had in her hands youd get clobbered

with. Garden tools, spatulas, skilletsyou name it, shed wing it. I saw

more spaghetti on the walls than in the pots.

In the back bedroom o the house, my alcoholic mother was shack-

ing up with Pats brother, John, the town drunk with a heart o gold.

Down the hall lived my little sister, Lin Ann, and my older sister, Carol,fteen years old, knocked up and soon to be married. In the basement

slept my adoptive brother, Keith, a machinist in town who was good

riends with a couple o biker brothers rom the neighborhoodone

who rode with the Vagos Motorcycle Club, and the other a patched

member o the Hells Angels, named Freight Train. Vagos and Angels

mix like oil and water, but in the brothers case blood was thicker than

club loyalty.Keiths hal brother, Gary, the only amily member missing rom

that Hemet nuthouse, was a twenty-our-year-old roughneck whod lost

his oot in a Texas oil feld accident. As gangrene crept in, the doctors

chased the inection up his leg, amputating it one chunk at a time.

Wasnt long beore the poor bastard lost that entire limb, ollowed by

his wie and kids. Homesick and depressed, Gary came limping home

on a prosthetic leg, rented a house with Freight Train and got busydrinking himsel to death.

Freight Train had earned his road name with the Hells Angels or


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10 GoDs oF MischieF

good reason. The man was a our-hundred-pound behemoth with

hands the size o baseball mitts. His hair was long, his beard wild, and

he had a silver-plated ront tooth that gleamed when he smiled. Andwhen Freight Train smiled, it meant someone was about to get hurt.

Gods truth, I once saw that man-mountain ip a police cruiser on

its topwith the cop still inside. Another time he took on a platoons

worth o shitaced marines outside a bar in Winchester, Caliornia. Ol

Freight Train was outnumbered and surrounded, but then came that

slow smile, out popped the silver tooth, and down went nine o those

jarheads. It took a pool stick punched through his gut to fnally derailhim, but by then the damage was done. For his one-man assault on the

United States Marine Corps the government charged Freight Train

withI shit you notdestruction o ederal property . . . a charge they

later dismissed.

I earned a ew bucks mowing Garys lawn back then, and watched as

motorcycle outlaws rom across the valley come thundering in on their

Harley-Davidsons to raise a little hell. These were tough mothersmany o them Vietnam War vets searching or the same camaraderie

theyd ound in the service.

They wore patches on their backs with club names like Mescaleros,

Hessians and Hangmen, and boasted o being one percenters, the

outlaws badge o honor since 1947. That was the year a bunch o shit-

aced bikers rioted at a motorcycle rally in Hollister, Caliorniaan

event made amous by Marlon Brando in the 1953 biker ick The WildOnethen got slammed in the press as the deviant one percent o an

otherwise law-abiding motorcycling public.

Over in San Bernardino, the Hells Angels took that as a backhanded

compliment and began wearing a 1% patch on their jackets, identiy-

ing themselves as outsiders who ollowed nobodys rules but their own.

Many o the bikers who hung at my brothers place wore that diamond-

shaped badge o honor, and it wasnt long beore I was ditching thelawn mower and sneaking inside to be nearer those larger-than-lie

characters.


12/13

A Bagg Pla 11

Sure, they sometimes got pissed o and ran my scrawny ass down

the road, but Id always worm my way back in. Eventually I was adopted

as a kid brother and came to know their ironclad code o loyalty andcommitment, which placed the brotherhood above all else: above jobs,

above riends . . . even above their own amilies. To me those bikers

were modern-day musketeers, saluting each other with bottles o beer

while shouting, Fuck with one, you uck with all!

FW1-UFWA: the universal battle cry o the motorcycle outlaw.

But by the late 1970s, the beer-guzzling, gang-brawling characters

Id grown up with were a vanishing breed in the San Jacinto Valley.Tired o the lie and increasing pressure rom law enorcement, outlaws

like Freight Train had become more interested in raising amilies than

raising hell. O course, tur-pissing contests were still ought over the

patches on their backs, but with the old dogs slowing down and the

young pups lying low, the roar o straight pipes quieted in the valley,

and a biker ying his colors became a rare sight on the streets o Hemet

or almost two decades.Then the century turned and a new, more aggressive generation o

outlaw rolled into town, one pumped on steroids, ueled by testosterone

and always looking or a brawl.


13/13

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