Chapter 45
We Learn Whom Gordy’s “Insider” Is
On the last day of our drive to visit Skip’s sister, driving north on Interstate 77 through the Carolinas, the weather unpleasant, the windshield wipers on then off, Rocky did most of the driving and Skip spent a good amount of time in the navigator’s seat, occasionally talking on his cell phone. Everyone else was reading or snoozing. Back in California, Ken had been on his phone talking with Lisa (his sister back in Minnesota) and meeting-up with Gordy (his buddy – who had warned him away from going to that Dodgers game).
Skip, holding his baseball cap by the side of his mouth to keep anyone in back from overhearing, whispered across the driver’s console to Rocky: “That was Ken I was just on the phone with. Says he’s talked with Lisa and Gordy, and they are both on board with our plan to go to the authorities to break-up the sex ring. Says he’s ready to tell us everything, but only if I promise not to go to the authorities unless it’s absolutely necessary – but even then not until he okays it first. Says Lisa is going to call Max and let Max know we can hold off on going to the authorities a bit longer.”
“Tell him you promise not to go to the authorities without asking first,” Rocky said.
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Back in California, Ken had had a heart-to-heart with Gordy. They met at a park in front of the state capitol building, not far from Gordy’s Sacramento apartment where Skip had stayed while the Land Yacht was getting its make-over. It was the third overcast day in a row, so much for sunny California weather. The temperature was in the low-50s. Ken had his bomber jacket on.
Sitting on a park bench, waiting for Gordy to show up, gazing at the Capitol dome, Ken smiled to himself thinking about the thin line between inside and outside politics. Here he was waiting to meet with a 1970s revolutionary, who once had picked up the gun as the way to bring about political change, and now was working as a double agent to stop bombings and chaos from being the way to bring about political change.
Turning sad, he started thinking about his buddy, Tom Hayden, now deceased. Tom had also been a 1970s revolutionary, married to Jane Fonda, famous for going to Hanoi during the Viet Nam War to stick up for Ho Chi Minh. Tom eventually chose the inside route as the way to bring about political change, serving 20 years as a legislator (inside the very dome he was staring at).
Then his thoughts wandered to his new buddy, Skip, who like Hayden had chosen the inside route as the way to bring about change, but was now on to a sort of hybrid strategy holding mock elections outside to bring about a revolution inside.
Abruptly his daydreaming came to an end. It was Gordy’s voice, “Hey Bro’, whassup?”
Ken (talking):
“We got a problem, Brother. Somehow my sister has it that Rafferty is into sex-trafficking. She’s calling him “Dougherty” – or “Dough-Boy.” So, so far, she doesn’t know that’s an assumed name. But what the fuck, man. Really, sex trafficking? You know anything about that? She says she’s going to the cops with what she knows unless we have a solid plan for putting all this shit to a quick end. She wants to know the plan by this time tomorrow – else I don’t think I can stop her.”
Gordy:
“Well, I already told you, I’m getting my informant out of this before I enlist any law enforcement effort, and your sister needs to understand my informant has to stay inside until we get the dope on whatever is being planned next. Tell your sister the sex-trafficking is brand new – which is true – I only learned about it recently. In fact, that’s what got my informant to finally cross-over. Tell your sister it’s going to require a little patience before we have the goods to put these guys behind bars, probably for life.”
Ken:
“I’ve already explained all that to her. Maybe it would help if you told me who your informant is, what’s the plan the two of you have, and how sex-trafficking became part of the deal.”
Gordy:
“I’ll share the name with you, but your sister only finds out after she promises to let me call the shot on when we bring the cops in.”
Ken:
“Deal.”
Gordy:
“I don’t think you ever met her, but while I was in prison, I had a girlfriend, name of Jane. They even allowed conjugal visits. Jane was in the SLA with me, but was never caught or implicated. And like you know, Rafferty was my cellmate. Well, he got to know Jane too. After I got out, I pretty much quit seeing Jane – just stayed in touch a little bit. But after Rafferty got out, he started seeing Jane. Eventually Rafferty found his way to Canada, took up an assumed identity as ‘John Dougherty’, and joined a posse comitatus. That fit with how I knew the guy. As cellmates we often talked about sharing an anti-government sentiment and he kept lots of ‘posse-type’ reading material.
“Next time I hear from Jane, she had joined Rafferty up in Vancouver. Apparently, he had convinced her that her SLA days didn’t need to be over. Mostly she described it as a ‘Let’s Not Pay Taxes’ kind of group, sitting around dreaming up outlandish plots that she never expected them to pull off.
“Well, that was until the Dodger Stadium bombing. At first Jane thought it was just another wild idea, but then it was actually going to happen! Apparently, she has the complete trust of those around her – she even agreed to be the carrier. By then the group had added some new recruits, real terrorist types, and she realized they were deadly serious. That’s when she got wind that these new guys, Syrians, were raising money for their terrorist operations by bringing young girls from Thailand to Canada and the United States to sell into the sex trade, so she made the decision to get out and started talking to me about how and when.”