Gods of Mischief by George Rowe

clubs began turning on each other like children fighting over the same sandbox. This roughhousing was tolerated to a point, but when the bullies stepped outside the box to brawl with the rest of us, law enforcement began smacking them down. For the ATF, this evolved into a marathon game of Whac-a-Mole. Every time the feds clobbered an outlaw on the head, another popped up. They simply wouldn’t go away.
    The Los Angeles Field Division of the ATF has been whacking away at Green Nation and its international president, Terry the Tramp, since the late 1990s. In 1997, Darrin “Koz” Kozlowski, one of the ATF undercover specialists out of Los Angeles, managed to infiltrate the Vagos Hollywood chapter posing as an outlaw. The agent’s cover was soon blown and the operation folded, but two years later the ATF went after the Vagos once again, this time using a confidential informant named Hammer.
    Hammer was a full-patch Vagos and known narcotics trafficker doing time on a parole violation. With only a handful of months to gobefore his release, he was ordered to do an inside hit for the Nazi Low Riders, a white supremacist prison gang. Hammer declined the job, which pissed off the Low Riders and put his life in jeopardy.
    Hammer was desperate to get out from behind the walls, and his parole officer put him in touch with ATF. In exchange for a “get out of jail free” card, Hammer agreed to inform on the Vagos, going under with his old chapter in Pasadena. Operation Green Nation folded prematurely but resulted in the arrests of a dozen Vagos members on firearms and narcotics charges. Mission accomplished, ATF relocated Hammer to Utah, where he was later found drowned in a Jacuzzi, done in by a drug overdose.
    Since that time, no special agent or CI had been able to penetrate the Vagos membership. And for good reason. Tired of cops and rats sneaking in the back door, Terry the Tramp and his nervous minions squeezed their butt cheeks tight.

    Hammer (right) while undercover with the Vagos in 1999.
    The sheriff from Riverside understood this, which was why he was dangling money and motorcycles before me like carrots on a stick. That lawman knew damn well that any stranger who tried buddying up to the Vagos now would make those assholes pucker up. But George Rowe was a different story. I was no stranger. Both the chapter president and his second-in-command had tried recruiting me into the club. The Hemet Vagos wantedme on their team; all I had to do was walk through the door and announce, “Here I am, boys, I’m all yours!”
    But that wasn’t going to happen—at least not with the sheriff as my partner. I’d survived forty-two years on pure instinct, and there was just something about that lawman that set five-alarm bells ringing. So when I called Detective Duffy the next morning and told him I might be willing to hook up with the Vagos, the offer came with a caveat: I’d put my ass on the line, but not for his task force buddy.
    At first Kevin tried changing my tune; the special investigations unit had the experience . . . his man could be trusted. But my mind wouldn’t be changed, and when the detective realized that, he stopped trying.
    â€œAlright, you go with your gut,” Kevin said at last, “and I’ll see what I can do.”
    I’d be lying if I said there were no second thoughts as I waited for Kevin Duffy’s return call. Matters weren’t helped by the sheriff, who kept hounding me on that throwaway phone. He was hot for an inside man. I just wanted him out of my life. So I blew up the call minutes and tossed that phone in a nightstand drawer.
    Within a few days Kevin called back with news. He’d found someone he thought I could work with, an ATF agent working out of the Bureau’s Los Angeles field office. Because Kevin didn’t trust his brothers in blue, he suggested another meeting at the dump off Warren Road. As an alternative I