0:15

Pushkin. About

0:20

a year ago, I got my hands on this

0:22

novel, unpublished but apparently

0:25

based on a true story. It

0:27

was written by this guy, Ned Timmins.

0:34

The overarching plot was pure

0:36

pulp. I mean, you could imagine the movie

0:39

starring Steven Seagal and definitely

0:41

straight to video. It tells the story

0:43

of a newbie FBI agent named Ned

0:46

from Detroit who grows a Fu Manchu

0:48

mustache, goes undercover in a violent

0:51

outlaw biker gang, and infiltrates

0:53

a secret syndicate that's smuggling

0:56

hundreds of thousands of pounds of pot

0:58

into the country, and all that

1:00

leads eventually to the invasion

1:03

of a foreign country and the arrest

1:05

of a brutal dictator. Skeptical,

1:10

Yeah, so, as I see, I'm

1:13

a journalist, and my specialty, if

1:15

you can even call it that, his stories

1:17

that seem too crazy to be true, stories

1:19

that are on the verge of urban legend.

1:22

Most of them turn out to be bullshit, which

1:24

doesn't bother me. That's kind of the crux of

1:26

my job, actually sorting through the bullshit.

1:30

So naturally I had to

1:32

go meet this guy one

1:34

two one two, tell me, tell me where we

1:36

are. Your

1:38

office, Like, describe where we are. We're in a

1:40

commerce township machine. Yeah,

1:44

give me a little bit more than that. How long have

1:46

you had your office here? Eighteen

1:49

years? Ned is now in

1:51

his early seventies, walks with a limp.

1:53

He's bald, but you wouldn't know it because he likes

1:55

to wear a weather beaten camo hat. Nowadays

1:58

he's a private eye. His office is

2:01

beige in a beige corporate park.

2:03

Totally forgettable except

2:06

for the bear. It's the first

2:08

thing you see when you walk up a ten

2:10

foot ground bear taxiger meat in

2:12

the classic rearing up to Eat You pose.

2:15

Ned tells me you got the bear on a hunting

2:17

trip in Alaska. But the real

2:20

trophy that Ned keeps

2:22

in a plastic bag in his desk.

2:25

Yeah, this is a

2:28

bag air

2:30

penises and wolf teeth,

2:33

and the Inuits believe that that will protect

2:36

you. The bear has

2:38

a bone in his penis, and

2:41

I recovered these, like after

2:44

you shot the bear, you would not before I shut

2:46

it. Nobody's

2:49

going to take a bear dick when he's alive. The

2:52

Inuits would make a necklace out of this to protect

2:54

him. I just keep it in a bag because

2:57

I'm gonna wear a bear penis necklace

2:59

around the office. Do do

3:01

you believe in it? It means you believe in the like

3:04

it's power of keeping you safe. Yeah,

3:06

I do. I believe

3:09

in it. I've been all over the Arctic and lived

3:12

two weeks at forty below zero and all

3:15

over Russia and you

3:17

know where there's nothing and keep

3:21

a bare penis with me. I

3:23

think there's something out there that maybe

3:26

it's only in your mind. If it's in your mind and it works,

3:29

I don't know. I'm still here and have had

3:32

many many close calls, so here

3:35

I am

3:38

right. So at first

3:41

read Ned's unpublished novel seemed

3:43

like a classic airport pot boiler,

3:45

typical cloak and dagger X cop

3:48

kind of stuff, like when the hero heads

3:50

it on a case. It reads. A

3:52

quick shower and a breakfast of Alka seltzer

3:54

and aspirin had Ned feeling three

3:56

quarters human again. That

3:59

voice is the actor Walton Goggins.

4:01

We asked him to read from Ned's novel. And

4:04

in this novel there's some great characters

4:07

like the drug addicted pig

4:09

and this pig he guards a drug

4:12

lab while munching on onions

4:14

soaked in meth. The novel tells

4:16

us the dark and well bristled

4:18

pig was eyeing them with the disturbing,

4:20

calculating look that pigs

4:22

give. Many of the details

4:25

in the novel, like the pig, were

4:27

so quirky and distinctive they

4:29

felt like they had to be true. Other

4:31

scenes seemed contrived, pure Hollywood.

4:34

I kind of felt like I'd gotten myself a guide

4:37

book that was about half accurate.

4:40

There was a true story in here, a real

4:42

piece of history. If I could just you

4:44

know, extract it, Yeah,

4:47

easier said than done. I started

4:49

making a to do list, like I was going

4:51

to the grocery store or something. Only

4:54

mine went something like this. One.

4:57

Reach out to your contact at the FBI, make

4:59

sure ned's not a kuk. Two

5:02

call the CIA here like

5:05

they'll tell you anything. Three

5:07

visit the guy who smuggled three hundred

5:09

thousand pounds of pot into the US

5:12

in a single shipment, supposedly now

5:14

lives in Hawaii. Four track

5:17

down that long lost mistress who's

5:19

living somewhere in South America. Shit.

5:23

All of a sudden, the story felt like one of

5:25

those five thousand piece puzzles that

5:27

my kids like to open up on vacation

5:29

and just spill across the floor, and

5:33

then you see a corner piece and

5:35

a matching edge piece, and damn

5:38

if they don't fit, and then well

5:41

there goes your vacation. I'm

5:48

Jake Halbern and this is

5:50

Deep Cover, Episode

5:52

one, The Masked Man. All

6:19

that I really remembered about the drug wars

6:22

of the nineteen eighties was there

6:24

was this huge problem that the government

6:26

was trying to fix with slogans. You

6:28

might remember, just say no.

6:31

That was the battle cry of President Reagan

6:34

and his wife Nancy, distributed all

6:36

the way down to our teachers in high school. I

6:39

remember these lectures and thinking even

6:41

then that they were an idiotic remedy

6:43

to the drug war. I even wrote an op

6:45

ed in my student newspaper just saying

6:48

no. Know to

6:50

just say no, corny, I

6:52

know, I was fourteen. A

6:55

little slogan was not going to kill the

6:57

demand for an entire drug market, and

6:59

it sure as hell wasn't going to stem the flow of marijuana

7:02

that was pouring into the country. And

7:04

he kind of had to wonder where

7:07

was all that marijuana coming from

7:09

anyway, and how is it getting in?

7:13

Historians are still debating this question.

7:16

You can find reams of conspiracy

7:18

theories, like it was the CIA

7:20

behind all the drug smuggling. That's still

7:22

a hot one. In fact, the CIA

7:25

will eventually figure into this story,

7:27

along with celebrities, politicians,

7:31

heads of state. But we're getting

7:33

ahead of ourselves now, because this story

7:35

really starts in Detroit

7:38

with Ned Timmins at a rowdy

7:40

roadside biker bar. The

7:46

bar was a roadhouse out in the sticks. The

7:49

dirt parking lot was full, mostly

7:51

with motorcycles, nearly all

7:53

of them Harley Davidson's Those

7:57

are the opening words of Ned's novel, and

7:59

where we'll begin our story. It's

8:02

the early nineteen eighties. Ned Timmins

8:05

is in his mid thirties and early in his

8:07

career at the FBI. He's

8:09

working fugitives, just basically

8:11

going down at checklist and rounding

8:14

up wanted men. This

8:16

was not a desk job. It was an

8:18

assignment for guys who wanted some action.

8:21

As Ned tells it, he got a tip

8:23

about a fugitive who was supposed to be

8:26

at this biker bar in the outskirts of Detroit.

8:29

So Ned grabs his jean jacket

8:31

and his three fifty seven Smith and Wesson

8:34

and heads out. There

8:38

was some mean motherfucker was in there. You

8:40

know. There was a hard ass, hirdcore

8:42

biker bar. They're doing shots

8:44

and drugs. And it was a scene

8:47

out of a movie or

8:49

a novel. In fact, here

8:52

it is in Ned's novel. A

8:54

single sodium street light out on the for edge

8:56

of a parking lot, shone down on a pay phone

8:59

from that lonely pool of light. The darkness

9:02

of the parking lot reached out a good twenty

9:04

five yards before the glow of neon

9:06

beer sign signaled the borders of another

9:08

America. This was

9:10

the lawless America. This

9:12

was the rebel yell. This

9:15

was easy money, fast bikes

9:17

and girls that were easier and faster than

9:19

both. Nowadays,

9:24

it's hard to appreciate just how right

9:26

our novelist is about the lawlessness

9:29

of biker botters in the eighties. Today

9:31

we might think of these guys as old graybeards

9:34

who putter around and three wheeled Harley's,

9:37

but not back then. These were dangerous

9:39

men, drugging, partying

9:41

and fighting. Here's ned

9:44

novelist again. The

9:46

smell was the first thing that hit old

9:48

beer piss, bo reefer

9:51

smoke and puke. The second

9:53

thing to hit was a cover charge two

9:55

bucks and a guy demanding it

9:58

was the size of a freezer. Bikers

10:00

seemed to come in one of only two sizes,

10:03

big and really fucking

10:05

big. Probably

10:14

smells like sweat

10:16

and beer and Jack

10:18

Daniels all mixed up together all the

10:20

time. That's Kathy Timmins,

10:23

also an FBI agent in the Detroit

10:25

office and Ned's wife at the time.

10:28

She remembers going to one of these biker bars

10:30

with Ned on another night just to

10:33

serve as cover, you know, his actual

10:35

wife pretending to be his girlfriend. And

10:37

then if people actually need to breathe, they go outside

10:41

because the smoke in the bar would be

10:43

just that thick that even a smoker couldn't

10:45

tolerate it. You know, I mean

10:47

people, you know, the big fight going on

10:49

over here, and everybody else over here just sitting and talking.

10:52

Other people are shooting pool, just

10:54

chaos. On this particular

10:56

night, Ned says he was looking for a fugitive

10:59

named Toby Anderson. Toby

11:01

had quite a rap sheet. Apparently Toby's

11:04

file was about six inches deep

11:06

and a lot of real violent stuff.

11:09

You know, someone guns down on Kentucky

11:11

and you know this guy was a

11:13

crew of criminal. He also happened

11:15

to be a country western singer, and his

11:18

band supposedly had a gig that night. This

11:21

was one of their hits,

11:23

snitches that Rivol must

11:25

die, Vol

11:29

Must Die. I've

11:31

been called the sucker, but I killed

11:34

the pick. Motherfucker that tries

11:36

still something of mine. As

11:40

Ned tells it, the bar was crowded

11:42

with outlaw bikers. Ned

11:44

knew that walking in here as a plainclothes

11:46

agent was extremely dangerous. Everything

11:49

was about the brotherhood, the code,

11:52

your fellow bikers, even the music.

11:55

So Ned had his eyes on the band, looking

11:57

at the singer. He knew

12:00

that Toby was supposed to make an appearance on stage

12:02

tonight. But could it be that the lead

12:04

singer of this band, the guy

12:06

up on stage right now, was

12:08

his guy. There are a lot of good

12:11

people sitting in jail,

12:14

Mom, punk to the pigs, what they've

12:16

done, well, we get

12:18

in all of that. If

12:20

it took our ball math start

12:23

killing the snitches for fawns,

12:28

So Ned says, He saunters up to the bar,

12:30

takes a seat on a stool, and just waits

12:32

for his partner to show up. It

12:34

wasn't his regular partner, just a guy

12:37

providing backup that particular night. In

12:39

the novel, Ned describes him as a blue

12:42

blooded preppie who arrives at this

12:44

biker bar dressed in penny loafers

12:46

and to tie.

12:52

The two of them watched the stage together

12:55

trying to find their fugitive, figure

12:57

out just who Toby was. All

13:00

they had was one flimsy clue, a

13:02

picture that was six or seven years out of

13:04

date. There wasn't really any

13:06

mark, scars or tattoos, which is nice if

13:08

the you know, the guy's got a swashtick

13:12

on his cheek or something that. There was nothing we

13:14

could look at other identifiers.

13:17

We just we weren't sure. Ned

13:19

waited for the band to take a break, and

13:22

then he went to suss things out. I

13:26

followed him in the bathroom and um,

13:30

you know, I was taking a piss beside him, and I

13:32

said, hey, aren't you Toby Anderson. He goes,

13:34

nah, yeah,

13:36

okay. I was down in

13:38

the keys with Toby and I swear

13:40

you're Toby. You just canna

13:43

know, man, you get the wrong guy.

13:45

And UH said, don't

13:47

you remember Sow and Sow his boat

13:49

on Big Pine Key. H We partied

13:52

down there and he

13:55

was yeah, Oh yeah, I'm Toby. You know

13:57

what the fucks that to? You said? We

14:00

just you know, had a good time the night. Will I

14:03

reach out to shake hands with him, and

14:05

I and I get his hand and I'm shaking hands with him,

14:08

and I just lean up to his ear

14:10

and said, Toby, FBI and

14:12

nine. He goes, fuck you and he starts

14:15

to swank. Okay,

14:19

let's freeze frame right there in midpunch,

14:21

because this is not exactly textbook

14:24

or rest protocol. I mean, there were

14:26

other ways to handle this, like waiting

14:28

until Toby headed out to the parking lot,

14:30

or even just following him home. But

14:33

this is the first thing you need to understand

14:35

about Ned, and it's also the

14:37

first thing that Kathy ever knew about him,

14:39

going back to when they first met as smalltown

14:42

cops. If somebody was

14:44

in a foot chase, you know, you might

14:46

you know, we got his ID, we got his car,

14:49

you know, we can pick him up tomorrow or whatever. Ned

14:51

would chase that guy down until you

14:53

got him. She tells the story about

14:55

Ned. Before they even started dating. Ned

14:58

knew where her family would be celebrating Saint Patrick's

15:01

Day, so he just showed up and

15:03

blended right in as if he were some long

15:05

lost cousin, chatted up her dad

15:07

got along famously with everyone. Most

15:10

people don't have that level of confidence to be

15:12

able to just walk in and just

15:15

immediately become a part of the

15:17

crowd. So cornering Toby

15:20

in a bathroom aggressive

15:22

a bit reckless, classic Ned

15:25

okay, back to the biker bar, and

15:31

I just lean up to his ear and said Toby,

15:33

FBI and he

15:35

goes, fock you and he starts to swing,

15:38

and right then Ned's partner

15:41

comes into the bathroom. We kind of overwhelmed

15:43

them, so we

15:46

get him in cuffs. We're

15:48

going through the bar and everybody's starting to realize he's

15:50

in handcuffs and he's like they're superstar

15:52

and people are pushing a Shelvin

15:55

and Ned says, he and his partner Frog

15:57

March Toby threw a bar of drunk bikers

16:00

and out the front door. I had Toby

16:02

on the hood of the Bronco and he's still wrestling

16:04

around, but he's handcuffed behind himself, behind

16:07

his back. So we had told I

16:16

actually can't be sure if this story at

16:18

the bar is one hundred percent true.

16:21

I talked to Ned's partner from that day,

16:23

and he didn't remember it. I talked

16:25

to another biker who knew Toby very well,

16:28

and he remembered hearing some version of

16:30

this story at the time. Unfortunately,

16:32

I can't ask Toby himself since he died

16:35

back in two thousand and four. But

16:37

I did track down Toby's son,

16:39

who gave me at least a better

16:42

sense of who this guy was. I

16:48

remember right on the motorcycles with him, with me

16:50

on the back. He was just kind of reckless and dangerous.

16:52

I was screaming, holding on for dear life,

16:54

right, and he just thought it was funny. Today,

16:57

Jesse Anderson is an executive in the auto

16:59

industry. Back when he was a kid,

17:01

he got out real close view of all the

17:03

madness and chaos that his father was

17:06

in. Yeah. I was afraid of my dad. Everybody's

17:08

fraid. Yeah, so yeah

17:10

he was. He was reckless, which

17:13

is what everyone said. The friend of Toby's

17:15

told me that Toby would cut you or

17:17

even shoot you without hesitation, and

17:20

this gave Toby's street cred in

17:22

the criminal world. He was the real deal,

17:25

which appealed to Ned. When

17:28

we come back, Ned interrogates Toby

17:31

the prisoner. Look at Toby

17:33

here fucked. Okay, you've been, You've

17:36

done time in seven fucking federal

17:38

pens. This time you're

17:40

going back for life for a long time. So

17:44

what do you want to do? Snitcher

18:01

the rebolse must die. Snitchbols

18:06

must die. It's

18:09

squeal all friends,

18:13

so they golf just should

18:15

die. This

18:17

is Toby Anderson singing one of his hit songs

18:20

with the legendary chorus Snitches

18:22

and rip Offs must die ned.

18:26

Timman still remembers going to question Toby.

18:28

He brought him breakfast pancakes

18:31

and he ate him with his hands. He

18:33

had syrup all over his face and all over his fingers

18:35

and probably hadn't eaten in a day

18:38

or so. You can see he was just

18:40

I mean, he's just like totally burned out

18:42

and weak. Now I didn't have all those buddies that we're

18:44

going to help him. Let's look at Toby.

18:47

You're fucked. Okay, you've been, You've

18:49

done time in seven fucking federal

18:51

pens. This time you're

18:53

going back for life for a long time, So

18:57

what do you want to do. We spent several

18:59

hours with him, you know, and finally says,

19:01

well, there's probably a couple of things I can do. So

19:04

they started working together. Toby knew

19:07

better than anyone the dangers of working for Ned,

19:09

of becoming an informant for the FBI. They

19:12

had to be careful. Ned says. They spread

19:14

a rumor that the charges against Toby

19:17

were dropped because no one wanted

19:19

to testify against him. This story

19:21

would keep any of his biker buddies from

19:23

thinking that he'd flipped. Even

19:26

while cooperating, Toby tried to maintain

19:28

his own kind of biker ethics. He

19:30

would not write out friends or members of his

19:33

own gang, but he willingly

19:35

betrayed his enemies. So he and

19:37

Ned would find a target, for example,

19:39

a drug house we'd set up undercover

19:42

surveillance, sent him in there, and

19:45

you know, we had vans and different stuff

19:47

with high tech cameras and stuff

19:49

that we're on. Periscopes, just

19:52

little pariscope comes out of the top of the van. Oh

19:55

the good old days when the drug dealers

19:57

didn't know what every TV writer knew.

20:00

Unmarked vans with periscopes meant

20:02

trouble. So then we'd develop

20:04

a raide plan and get a search warton, kicking

20:07

the doors all

20:12

the way up to the nineteen seventies, the

20:14

Bureau wasn't really focused on drug suppliers.

20:17

That had been the job of the Drug Enforcement

20:19

Agency, the d EA. Now,

20:21

the DA did have some big investigations,

20:24

but they were mostly one off busts.

20:26

You know, they'd seize the drugs, lay

20:29

them out on the table, big photo op, busted,

20:32

end of story. But

20:35

by the early eighties this approach wasn't

20:37

cutting it anymore. President Reagan's

20:39

Attorney General empowered the FBI to

20:41

get involved in the drug wars. After

20:43

all, the Bureau were the ones taking

20:45

down the mob. Something big

20:47

had to be behind all of this. The feeling

20:49

was this couldn't be just a bunch of local,

20:52

mom and pop drug dealers. Here's

20:54

what the Attorney General, William French

20:56

Smith said at the time. Quote

20:58

The popular notion that the syndicate

21:00

or traditional organized crime stays

21:03

out of drugs is simply not true. Many

21:05

of the syndicates families have developed elaborate

21:08

drug network works. Virtually every

21:10

one of them is involved in drugs in

21:13

one way or another. End quote. But

21:15

that's not all. Smith also told

21:17

Americans precisely who was

21:19

distributing all the drugs for the syndicates.

21:22

Quote. Over the past decade,

21:24

some eight hundred outlaw motorcycle

21:27

gangs have developed around the country

21:29

and in foreign countries, and drugs

21:32

represent their primary source of revenue.

21:35

The strategies of the Attorney General

21:38

and Ned Timmins had what you

21:40

might call synergy. As

21:43

Ned saw it, Toby was his way

21:45

in and up the ladder. So

21:48

the FBI came up with a plan Ned

21:51

would go undercover and become

21:53

a biker. Ned's

22:00

wife, Kathy, remembers how quickly

22:02

things changed. I didn't

22:04

like that. He of course started growing

22:06

his hair out and he had a Fu Manchu

22:09

stash, and when we would go out,

22:11

we'd always people look at us and we'd get seated

22:13

like way at the back of a restaurant, you know,

22:15

like like we were creepy.

22:20

The mustache was just the beginning. Ned

22:22

knew he needed to up his skills as a biker,

22:25

so, like any good FBI agent,

22:27

he went to school the Ontario

22:29

Provincial Police Motorcycle School. Ned

22:32

says he learned to ride his bike upstairs

22:35

and lay the bike down at high speeds.

22:37

I rode a bike a lot for the FBI,

22:41

and you're very vulnerable and

22:44

after you've been to school, you realize just

22:46

how dangerous a motorcycle

22:49

is. After graduation,

22:51

Ned went back to Detroit. He created

22:54

a new persona and carefully chose

22:56

a new name, Ed Thomas,

23:03

because you wanted something that was close

23:06

to Ned. A couple of times I was undercovered

23:08

an airport and old colleagues, buddies, Tarryann

23:11

and Tolman, they're going, hey, Ned, and it's

23:14

an awkward situation if you're with a bunch of bikers,

23:18

Ed Thomas. It was close enough that you

23:20

can stumble through it. Ed

23:22

Thomas a badass biker

23:25

with money and connections. If

23:27

you wanted the chemicals to make meth, Ed

23:30

Thomas is your guy, and the

23:32

ruse worked. Ed

23:34

helped the FBI take down other outlaw

23:36

bikers on at least one occasion.

23:39

Ned told me that they cuffed him as well

23:41

at the arrest, made sure it look like

23:43

he really was a criminal. The FBI

23:46

wanted to protect his cover because

23:48

Ned he was really good at this.

23:51

You know who was not so good at this whole

23:53

undercover thing. Toby,

24:00

Ned's wingman. Toby was still living

24:02

the biker life, and increasingly

24:05

there were problems. Like

24:08

the time that Toby was out at a bar and

24:10

watching another band play. The

24:12

lead singer was playing this fancy and

24:14

very pricy less Ball electric

24:17

guitar, and Toby liked it a

24:19

lot. What happened next

24:22

is kind of a legend. I heard it from

24:24

a few different people, including another biker

24:26

who was there that night at the bar, So

24:29

out of nowhere, Toby screamed FBI

24:32

at the top of his lungs, whipped out

24:34

his gun and started shooting. He

24:37

snatched the guitar and bolts

24:39

out of the bar like he deputized

24:41

himself as an FBI agent or something, and

24:43

then totally went rogue and for

24:45

a while he got away with it.

24:48

Toby now has this sweet Les Paul

24:50

electric guitar, and right away

24:52

he started touring his local haunts with it.

24:55

Not a worry in the world because

24:58

that's Toby, and because it's

25:00

Toby, that's not the end of the story.

25:02

A few weeks later, Toby's performing

25:04

up on stage and he

25:07

gets shot. We

25:09

don't know who did it for sure, but everyone I

25:11

spoke to said it had to be the guy

25:13

he robbed and stole the guitar from a

25:15

few weeks earlier. So Toby

25:17

he's shot and bleeding out on stage

25:21

across town. HiT's bedtime

25:23

at dad's house when the phone

25:25

rings and

25:29

I get a call again, like ten o'clock at night, So

25:32

you'd better get down to this bar. Toby's

25:35

been shot, and

25:39

so I raced down. It's like a forty five minute

25:41

drive. He's still laying on the floor in the bar shot.

25:44

I get there and say, look at you gotta go to the fucking hospital.

25:47

It's okay, I'm going of if you'd go with me. Well,

25:53

I got a call from somebody in my family to

25:55

say that my dad has been shot, and that

25:57

was that it was pretty severe. That's

26:00

Jesse Anderson again, Toby's

26:02

son, and that day, the day

26:05

his dad got shot, it's always stayed

26:07

with him. On the

26:09

way to the

26:11

hospital, they got stopped by a

26:14

train and he almost

26:16

bled out in the ambulance because the train

26:18

was so long. And at this time I

26:20

now think, I think I'm about twelve

26:22

years old. But again, for

26:25

me to hear that my dad

26:27

was shot, it's like going

26:29

to the store. I mean, it's the

26:32

stuff happened all the time. Something

26:34

like this happened all the time. Toby

26:39

recovered from being shot and just kind

26:42

of carried on. As crazy

26:44

as that sounds, this was normal

26:46

life for the Anderson household. In

26:48

fact, hearing Jesse talked about his dad

26:51

like this, it helped me understand what life

26:53

was like in Toby's world. Mayhem

26:55

just seemed to follow this guy everywhere. Everything

26:58

was topsy turvy. Even jumping

27:00

in the car to pick up a pizza became an

27:02

event. All I remember

27:04

is pulling up to a stoplight and

27:07

up in front of us is a guy

27:10

mugging another guy, and

27:13

my dad's like, well, I'm not going to stand for this, puts

27:16

the car in park, sets

27:18

his beer up on top of the roof, gets

27:20

out, beats the living

27:22

crap out of the guy who was mugging the other

27:24

one, stole all the money

27:27

that he had, split it with the other

27:29

guy, got back

27:31

in the car with me, grabbed his beer,

27:34

and just drived on. And you know, Son,

27:37

looks like we've got some dinner money or something like that, and

27:39

just no big deal. Didn't

27:41

say another word. That's

27:43

my dad, a little

27:46

vigilante justice. That was

27:48

a good night. But

27:51

it could get darker with Toby, a

27:53

whole lot darker. Let

27:55

me come back, ned wades

27:57

deeper did Toby's world. He

28:19

had that dark look

28:22

you know what I'm talking about, Yeah, that crazy

28:25

look in your eyes that you think this guy

28:27

is a psychotic person.

28:30

I better not push his button. Ned's

28:33

wife, Kathy met Toby on a number

28:35

of occasions. I remember telling

28:38

Ned that he resembled to me Charles

28:40

Manson, and Kathy knew the telltale

28:42

signs of a dangerous guy at

28:44

the FBI. She works street gangs

28:46

in Flint, Michigan. Toby didn't

28:49

aspire to anything other than the moment,

28:52

when people only aspire

28:54

to you know, how

28:56

am I going to get out of here in the next

28:58

fifteen minutes? And they don't

29:00

care if they don't think consequence, They

29:02

don't think of any of that. Gang kids

29:04

are like that. They just do

29:07

in the moment what they have to

29:09

do, and if

29:11

it means killing you, they'll

29:14

think about that later. So

29:17

why did Ned just walk away from him,

29:20

let him go back to prison, move on?

29:22

Because Toby was, yeah, definitely

29:24

dangerous, but also kind

29:26

of like a dead end. I mean, he wasn't

29:28

some kind of kingpin or even a trusted

29:31

lieutenant. He was just a violent and

29:33

unpredictable guy. But

29:35

Ned, he just had a hunch

29:39

he felt that by slipping deeper

29:41

and deeper into Toby's world, somewhere

29:43

along the way there'd be a payoff.

29:46

And because he was spending so much time with bikers,

29:50

Ned kept hearing chatter well

29:52

ahead sources up in

29:54

northern Michigan bikers,

29:56

and they would talk about,

29:59

Okay, there's a shipman in or whatever. The

30:01

bikers would get their supply of weed when

30:04

these big shipments would come in, you know, which is fifty

30:06

thousand pounds, one hundred thousand pounds or whatever into

30:09

the Detroit warehouse. If such a warehouse

30:12

really existed. It was the

30:14

El Dorado of drug houses

30:17

and confirmed what the Attorney General had

30:19

said that elaborate

30:21

drug networks lay behind all the small

30:23

drug busts that have been happening. So

30:26

Ned goes and tells his bosses, there's

30:28

this huge deal out there and

30:31

involved shrimp boats and barges and airplanes.

30:34

And so I told my bosses about

30:36

it, you know, and they kind of said, yeah, you know, you

30:38

know, right, Tim is when he's smoking. Around

30:41

the same time, Ned says he arrested another

30:43

biker and tried to flip him, just

30:46

like he'd done with Toby, only it

30:48

didn't work. In fact, during the arrest,

30:50

the guy just taunted Ned. He

30:53

says, well, he says, you're

30:55

missing the boat on one of the biggest fucking

30:58

deals going out there. You don't even know what's under

31:00

your own nose. But he alluded

31:02

to this massive deal where

31:05

there's hundreds of thousands of pounds

31:07

of weed and coke coming in and then

31:09

basically said fuck you. And that was

31:11

any wasn't going to cooperating for

31:14

Ned. This intel was just too

31:16

enticing. His bosses might have been

31:18

skeptical, but Ned stuck with

31:20

it, kept hanging with Toby.

31:23

It's just I knew he was out with them all

31:25

the time. I just until

31:28

I would hear from him. I would many

31:30

many times just sit there and think, oh

31:33

my god, something's happened, and

31:35

then he'd call, and then I'd be relieved, and then

31:37

I'd be mad because because

31:40

of all distress and the worry, and

31:43

it wasn't just Ned's safety that concerned

31:45

her. Will you hang around Matt Long with a

31:47

bunch of bad guys and fitting

31:50

in with them, your behavior is going

31:52

to change, and your your

31:56

own personal bars,

31:59

you know where you draw the line

32:02

changes. This would

32:04

be the first, but not the last time

32:06

that Cathy was right to worry about her husband

32:09

and where he was drawing the line, especially

32:12

when it came to Toby. You

32:17

know, I was supposed to meet him or whatever. And I went

32:20

down to the house on my motorcycle and pulled

32:23

up in the yard and put down the kickstand

32:25

and walked in and there's

32:28

dead guy laying there in a pool of blood. And

32:30

I go, Toby, what the fuck? And

32:33

he goes, Bros. Masked man came

32:36

through the door, shot this guy. I guess he didn't like him

32:39

and ran. That's all I know. A

32:43

masked man. Come on.

32:46

Really, this was Toby's story.

32:48

A strange guy wearing a mask

32:51

breaks into his apartment, shoots this guy

32:53

who's currently lying on the floor, and

32:55

then runs away, leaving Toby

32:57

to take the rap. I mean,

33:00

this has got to be the homicidal equivalent

33:02

of the dog ate my homework. I

33:05

later asked Toby's son about it, whether

33:08

his dad was the kind of person who was capable

33:11

of committing murder. It

33:13

pains me to say it, but I

33:17

don't. I don't blink when I when I say, you

33:19

know, could he have done it? Did he do it? Has

33:21

he done it? I'm sure the answers

33:23

ysked all of them, and I don't

33:25

I don't think twice about it. Ned

33:28

didn't tell Kathy about this whole episode

33:30

with the masked man and the dead body. Oddly

33:33

enough, he seemed to take the whole episode

33:36

in stride. So

33:39

in a way, if you're one hundred percent certain it was Toby

33:41

to kill him, it was just a technicality that you weren't

33:44

there to witness it. I'm

33:46

not a witness. I'm not in charge of collecting evidence.

33:49

FBI doesn't investigate homicides. It

33:53

wasn't my job to investigate a homicide.

33:56

Just don't kill somebody in front of me. That's

33:58

it. Yeah, pretty much. Ned

34:02

says that he did call the police, and

34:05

so when De Tray police came and told

34:07

him the same story, and they didn't

34:09

really give a shit. You know, it's just some shit head biker.

34:13

Ned now had his line in the sand.

34:16

The trick was keeping Toby on

34:18

this side of it, which

34:20

you don't make progress. And unless

34:23

you're dealing with sociopathic,

34:26

homicidal crazy people,

34:28

that's who are in the inner circle of drugs,

34:32

violence and whatever. So

34:36

this is just part of the deal. It's

34:39

part of the deal. Yeah, so

34:45

what are you saying to him in that situation? You

34:51

know, I just thought him would be advantageous

34:53

not to continue to have bodies laying

34:56

around in your house or in your yard, And

34:59

I said, tell the fucking mass man to stay

35:01

away.

35:09

After listening to Ned's story, you

35:11

know, in the shadow of his ten foot stuff

35:13

bare, I still just didn't

35:16

know what to make of it. When I got home,

35:18

I reread his novel. Ned

35:20

and his ghostwriter were giving me everything

35:23

they thought I wanted, with all the film

35:25

noir settings and Raymond Chandler dialogue.

35:29

In the novel, Toby's like that two dimensional

35:31

villain depicted on a target at a shooting

35:33

range, you know, lone bad

35:35

guy with a gun drawn. But what

35:38

struck me most was what was

35:40

missing from the novel. There's no mention

35:42

of Jesse the Sun, or what it's

35:44

like to grow up with Toby as

35:46

your dad. And Ned's wife

35:49

and colleague, Kathy, she doesn't

35:51

even make a single appearance in the novel. I

35:53

guess her Midwestern accent and by

35:56

the book thinking didn't fit into the hard

35:58

boiled narrative. It

36:00

became clear to me that the truth,

36:03

if I could extract. It

36:05

was way better. But

36:07

this wasn't going to be easy. Honestly,

36:10

I didn't know if I could fully trust all of Ned's

36:12

memories. Part of the problem was time.

36:15

All of this happened thirty five years

36:17

ago. I mean, memories fade and

36:20

then those same memories had been taken off

36:22

the shelf and reworked into fiction.

36:25

But I was all in, and so for

36:27

the last year and a half, I've been trying to

36:29

put all the pieces together. I've

36:31

been to dive bars and horse farms,

36:34

to back water swamps and pirate museums.

36:37

I've poured through FBI reports in court

36:39

transcripts. The story is taking me

36:41

to North Carolina, Maryland, Florida,

36:43

Michigan, Hawaii, and the Cayman

36:46

Islands. I've talked to agents from

36:48

the FBI, the d e A, and u S, Customs,

36:51

to US attorneys, pilots, ex

36:53

girl friends, Detroit felons, and

36:55

a bunch of big time drug smugglers,

36:59

and all of this to find out whether

37:01

a rookie agent from Detroit could really

37:03

make a random bust in a biker bar one

37:05

night and set off a cascade

37:08

of events. The discovery of

37:10

a gigantic drug warehouse, the

37:12

collapse of a nationwide smuggling ring,

37:15

a war in Central America, and

37:17

the overthrow of a brutal dictator.

37:37

Next time a deep cover, you

37:39

know, you don't have to choose that path. You don't

37:41

have to choose to work a case

37:43

in that way. You don't have to choose

37:46

to go deep cover, you know. But

37:48

I know for him, he felt like

37:51

it was just spinning into the

37:53

next, into the next, into the next, and he

37:55

told me that he felt like he didn't

37:58

know how he was ever going to get out of it. Deep

38:13

Cover is produced by Jacob Smith and

38:16

edited by Karen Shakerge. Our

38:18

story editor is Jack Hitt. Original

38:21

music and our theme was composed by Louise

38:23

Gera and Flawn Williams is our engineer.

38:26

Fact checking by Amy Gaines. Mia

38:29

Lobell is Pushkin's executive producer.

38:32

Ned's novel is read by Walton Goggins.

38:35

Special thanks to Julia Barton, Heather

38:37

Fain, Carl mcgliori, Leta

38:39

Mullad, Maya Caning, Eric

38:42

Sandler, Maggie Taylor, Kadija

38:44

Holland, Zoe Gwenn and Jacob

38:47

Weissberg at Pushkin Industries. Special

38:49

thanks also to Jeff Singer at Stowaway

38:52

Entertainment. I'm Jake albern