Shannon's phone, part IV

By nessie

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Rahab would have probably preferred payment in cash rather than in immortality. Whores are like that. Can't say I blame 'em. A good story can be worth more in the long run, but cash is a whole lot easier to spend, and also to launder. Some stories are pretty hard to launder without losing their meaning. Some stories just have to be laundered before they can be safely told, and there's just no way around it. Parts must be left out. Names must be changed. A solid case can be made for not wanting your name and your story all that widely known if you make a living at espionage, at least not till after the war's over, and even then sometimes. At the very least, it's bad for business. A equally sound case can be made for not wanting your name widely known even if you didn't make a living at espionage, but somehow got tangled up in it anyway, just because you know the wrong people. Things like that do happen to people sometimes. Make friends with a spy – you'll inherit his enemies. The kind of people who don't like spies, don't much like their friends, either. This is partly because it's ever so hard to tell spies and their friends apart. People are known by the company they keep.

It has been publicly alleged that a hacker based industrial espionage operation currently being run out of Germany is code named "Rahab." One hears so much slander about hackers these days, one scarcely knows what to believe. If you must know, try asking a hacker. Of course, you'll have to ask the right one, and probably in German. You'll probably have to make friends with him first. Making him come is probably a good way to start. They like that. It sorta breaks the ICE.

Make friends with a whore, you'll inherit her friends. Whores tend to have a lot of friends. Now days they keep them listed in little black books. In the old days they must have had little black scrolls. Some lists are worth more than their owner's skin. It's good not to be caught with a spy's name on yours. Having the right list is what really counts, not having a long list. Knowing the difference is a job skill of use in a number of other trades as well. It's not as easy as it looks. Having a lot of friends is easy. Tell lies, spend money. No problem. Put a sheep on the spit and spring for a keg. Not to worry. They'll show up. It doesn't take a whole lot of skill, either. Making the money is what takes the skill. Ask any pro. You also want to live to spend it, which is a special skill all its own. It always pays to have a little insurance up your sleeve.

From planting audio bugs, it's only one step more to taking pictures. Imagine being a fly on a wall in a session room in a bondage parlor. (Very good. Now mop it up the with a tissue and finish the rest of this story. You'll learn something, and who knows, maybe you'll get your nut again.) The fiber op cable that took DeLorean's picture with the suitcase full of cocaine looked like a fly on the wall. He fell for it. You would too. Once you have some really clear pictures of His Honor in lingerie, you're pretty well set in this life. So I hear.

At the time Shannon started working for Chuck, a womyn named, um, "Ambrosia" worked there. Ambrosia's address book is the hinge upon which this tale swings. Ambrosia is an Earth First!er. Don't be surprised. Earth First!ers work all kinds of jobs. One might even be your trusted servant. You never know. Some work as moles. Hey, it's a living. You gotta do something. Moles come in handy. Many Earth First!ers are incognito, especially the moles. Deception is part of war. For some, it is the very essence. Ambrosia is not one of these. She's an up-front, in-your-face kind of person. After all, this is her religion we're talking about here. It takes a special kind of person to convincingly deny their religion. Ambrosia is special in a number of ways. That ain't one of 'em. She ain't the world's best secret agent, either. On the other hand, she's honest and fun, which puts her ahead of a lot of you. She just didn't know that when their primary affinity group is being investigated as if they were terrorists, the prudent don't carry real address books when dummies filled with wild goose chase bait would nicely do instead.

Is it her fault for getting involved in things she didn't completely understand? Or is it mine for not enlightening her? I just assumed she knew. It seemed fairly obvious to me. My mistake. Ability to perceive the obvious varies widely between individuals. In individuals it varies widely between occasions. I, of all people, should suss this by now.

Neither sincerity in devotion to a just cause, nor the justice of the cause itself, should ever be taken to imply any sort of competence at the craft required to see the cause through. Competence at one craft in no way guarantees competence at another. Ambrosia was in over her head and didn't even know it. She knows what she does really well, but she was doing something all together else. She didn't even know for sure what exactly it was. How deep it ran? She was clueless. If you're going to get in over your head, you really do wanna know about it. You probably wanna know how deep, too, though one school of thought says once you're over your head it doesn't matter how deep. I disagree. Sometimes it matters a lot.

Ambrosia's first mistake was to assume that the government plays by what it says are the rules. While transfixed by this seductive illusion, she let herself be lulled by her innate will to believe the better of life. This is always a mistake. Life is out to get you. Don't ever forget it. She was lulled, too, by the myth that America is a free country. There is no such thing as a free country. The terms contradict each other. You're more likely to find hot snow and dry water. Countries are prisons. The guards are heavily armed. America is (on the whole) still a fairly minimum-security prison, as such prisons go. At least so far. But that don't make it not a prison. No prison can ever make you free. This one don't even make us secure. Do you feel secure? Show of hands please. What good does it do to feel free if you're not? If you want to actually be free, you have to do it yourself. It's not as easy as it looks, and it doesn't look easy. If you want security, dream on. There isn't a single damn place on the whole planet's surface that's safe. Science saw to that. You paid for the research.

Ambrosia should have known better. As a whore, she should have been able to extrapolate a valid model of the basic facts of political life in America today, just from the basics of whoring, which she most definitely does know. A commodity is a commodity, is a commodity. As a commodity herself, Ambrosia should have been first to notice this. She's not dumb, she was just complacent. So are most Americans. We are a lazy and cowardly people. It is far safer and easier to believe the dubious lies we are taught by school, church and TV, than to find out the truth for ourselves. Truth is elusive. It's guarded by lies and assassins. Hunting it down is hard work. Sometimes it's dangerous as well. Ask Danny Casolaro.

Cowardly, Ambrosia is not. Lazy? Well, not in the sack. If she just stayed in bed, she'd get herself into a whole lot less trouble, and have just as interesting time. Don't bother telling her this. She's on a mission. You know how people get on a mission. This gurl's mished out. At least she has her priorities straight. That puts her ahead of most Americans. Earth really is first for her, no bullshit. Earth is really first, period. Consider the alternative. Ambrosia has. Have you?

Best of all Ambrosia's attributes is that she acts on her convictions without getting paid. That puts her on a very short list in America. She lives for meetings. How much monkey wrenching she's involved in, I have no idea. It's none of my business, yours either. Probably none, these days, all things considered. That's certainly not all that Earth First!ers do. The main thing that they do is to educate. They also pick up trash. Picking up trash is a civic duty. To some folks, it's a religious duty, as well. Ambrosia's a witch, a practitioner of Europe's version of the Old Religion. The name comes from an old fashioned word for "to bend." The word "wicker" comes from the same root. Everything has roots, everything, no exceptions. Witches have first dibs on the word "holocaust." Estimates run as high as nine million, most of them wimmin. It was truly a war against wimmin. The war's wound down some since then, but it ain't over yet. It ain't over till the Fat Lady sings. Never was there a time when no wimmin resisted. Some still persist in worshipping Mother Nature the way She likes to be worshipped. Can't say I blame 'em. Keep the Bitch happy, I say, she holds all the best cards. Think Mother Nature ain't a bitch? Piss Her off. See what happens. Better still, count Her pups. She's a fecund bitch, and glad we are of it. Witches are right about God's gender too, assuming, of course, that S/He has a gender. Think about it. How could a man give birth to the world? And if he did, what part of his body would it have come out of? I think witches are wrong about the calendar, though. Some days are different than others? Not fucking very. If you've seen one day, you've seen 'em all (by and large). There are isolated exceptions.

Louie lives in a house that once belonged to the famous abolitionist, and reputed underground railway conductor, Mary Ellen Pleasant, who at one time was one of the wealthiest people in California. She is alleged to have put up $30,000 to finance John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. Hard evidence is lacking. Many historians doubt at least the amount. Among the evidence seized in Browns bust was a note signed "M. E. P." Detectives read the rough signature as "W. E. P." The search for her was foiled by the letter "W." Under an assumed name, she escaped back to California, traveling in steerage. Her tombstone in Napa, California is inscribed, "She was a friend of John Brown, Mary Ellen Pleasant." White historians call her "Mammy" Pleasant, and claim she ran a string of bordellos and was a "voodoo priestess." Black historians claim she owned a number of boarding houses, practiced Dumballah (an African version of the Old Religion), and was a famous matchmaker. She ran a finishing school for "young ladies," where they were taught how to behave in polite, refined company. She then fixed them up with wealthy businessmen in search of wives. Wimmin were pretty scarce around here for a while. Refined, polite, single wimmin were the scarcest. Whether you consider this style of matchmaking to be is pandering or not depends on how you view the sacred institution of holy matrimony. On paper, at least, marriage is primarily an economic relationship. Love, though not precluded, is ancillary. There is documentary evidence (for what ever that's worth) that Mary Ellen Pleasant actually made a lot of her money loansharking (at 10 percent a month). I don't know. I wasn't there. People lie about this kind of stuff. Misunderstandings abound. A lot depends on how you look at it. She started out in California with $45,000 dollars that her late husband, Alexander Smith (reputedly a Cuban planter) had left her to assist the abolitionist cause. That was a lot of money in those days. She apparently turned the money over a couple times first. Can't say I blame her. Whether she loved him or not is open to conjecture, and of primary relevance only to them, perhaps only to one of them. Shortly after his death, Mary Ellen married John P. Pleasant (Pleasants?) a former overseer on the Smith plantation, about whom little is known. The rest is history. As with all history, there are several versions. The belief in any requires a leap of faith. I heard this version of the story from local black history buff, Chet Helms. Chet is a local character of some historical note himself. He's white, but honest. I believe him. He cited Logan and Winston, as well as Wilhelmena Robinson. There's nothing like footnotes to make a story appear credible. Just because a story appears credible, doesn't mean it is. Just because a story is credible, doesn't mean it's true. One can hope or not. "Don't call her 'Mammy,'" says Chet, "You'll just piss people off." This part can't not be true. Take his word; show some respect. Call people what they want to be called. If you don't know, ask 'em.

Judi Bari left David Kemnitzer's house and began driving back towards Jim Squatter's. The bomb under the front seat went off. The car skidded to a smouldering halt. Blood pooled in the gutter. David was driving his own car, five minutes behind her. He pulled over. The local cops on the scene detained him without charge. The Feds searched Jim's place for twelve hours and took everybody there downtown. They searched David's place three times. While they were searching Jim's place they had access to the Seeds of Peace Collective's computers and their extensive mailing list. I'm on it, too. Are you?

For a while Judi and her passenger Daryl were charged with possession of the bomb. A Seeds of Peace Collective member named Sarah, a pacifist, did some amateur detective work on her own (for the first time in her life) and got them both cleared. Charges were dropped for lack of evidence. The Feds had lied about some so called evidence and Sarah caught them at it red-handed. She beat them at their own game, by their own forensic rules. Some of my best friends are pacifists, but that's no reason you should be. Peace is preferable, though not at any cost. Survival, freedom and justice are certainly worth more, and in that order, ". . . and hokey religions are no substitute for a good blaster at your side." The mortal danger in becoming even the second to last convert to pacifism is obvious. I, personally lack the intestinal fortitude necessary to face it. Besides, I seriously doubt that such a thing will ever come to pass, let alone in my presence. One can merely hope. In the meantime, it is reasonable to presume that the Feds had possession of Judi's and Daryl's address books for at least one reason. Peaceful intent is seriously doubted, especially in light of their track record. The Feds are not pacifists. Ask any Native American. Start with COINTELPRO frame up victim, Leonard Peltier. While you're at it, ask him what he thinks of Special Agent Richard Held. Held is the guy who reputedly mastermind his frame up, as well as Geronimo Pratt's.

The local Federal Prosecutor's Office has one of the 42 legal copies of PROMIS, the famous Inslaw software whose theft reporter Danny Casolaro was murdered for investigating too closely. PROMIS is a very powerful piece of software. It can find dossiers that everyone else forgot about, and see links between them that Einstein and Holmes would have missed on a clear day. In places like Israel, Iraq, and Iran (among others) PROMIS is used to track dissidents. It was reportedly part of the payoff loot in the October Surprise. The damned thing must work like all hell. If it didn't, it wouldn't have generated so much fuss and bother. It rates nomination, at least, to the damned things' hall of fame.

Presumably, the local FBI team investigating the Judy Bari case would have had access to PROMIS. That investigation was the responsibility of hereditary COINTELPRO specialist, Richard Held Jr. Judi Bari is currently suing Held. She's not the first to do so. He has many enemies. Some still expect the fox to guard their chickens. A coverup definitely took place; this much is known for sure. Evidence was lost. Lies were told. Shortly after the suit was filed, Held retired from the FBI early, and took a job as head of the credit card fraud division at Visa. He never would have gotten this job if it weren't for his FBI connections. He never would have gotten his first job if it weren't for his father, COINTELPRO founder Richard Held Sr. He's better at talking about his work than doing it. That's how he got to be appointed media spokesman. If he had any skill as a detective he wouldn't have lost the Bari case evidence or, if he "lost" it intentionally, he wouldn't have gotten caught in the act. If he had any talent as an administrator, he wouldn't have sent a salt and pepper team to investigate the racist melieu to which all the main clues in the case point. These guys could have been the best in the Bureau, and never gotten one straight answer between them per day. White racists lie to "nigra" cops as a matter of principle. Held should have known this and sent a white team. Racism is a dominate factor in human affairs for some people. The right wing paramilitaries of northern California are among them.

Perhaps one (or more) of Held's subordinates were responsible for the bombing itself. If he knew, his complicity in the crime is defined by RICO, at well as local statutes. If he didn't know, he should have; that's what he got paid to do. In that case, he was clearly derelict. Perhaps he's just not brave enough to discipline his subordinates. Or maybe he's just not smart enough to not let himself get used as a patsy by his superiors. Perhaps, even more humiliating, he was used as a patsy by his subordinates. Or maybe he's not a patsy at all – maybe he actually did it. I think not. He lacks the respect that getting hired for a job like this requires. One can inherit position, but respect must be earned. This crime was clearly the work of a gentleman of respect. A patsy don't get no respect, no way, no how, no where. Either way, he can kiss my ass. Tell him I said so.

Presumably, a thorough PROMIS search was used to enhance and facilitate a call detail recorder analysis of all the phones that came up in the course of the rest of the investigation, as well as the phones on the lists brought to light by the call detail recorder analysis itself. Everyone loves a good list. What a list of dossiers this investigation must have turned up. What a list of links between them. What a misperception of Shannon they must have gotten from analyzing her phone record. What a surprise they must have gotten from actually listening to the tap. What I wonder is, did the guys whose job it was to actually listen to the tap tapes tell their superiors that Shannon's phone was a waste of time to tap? Or did they lie to their superiors, and continue to get paid to be amused? I know what I'd have done. You gotta earn your way in this life somehow. It may as well be fun.

Maybe they thought she was talking in code. Part of the evidence against me in Connecticut had been a bunch of telegrams that I had sent one night to everybody I knew in the world, to celebrate having just found out how to send free telegrams. It wasn't code. It was a joke. They all got boxes of very bad chocolates delivered by the same method. Those were the days. Each telegram had consisted of randomly selected, 100-word-long segments of Bob Dylan's (at the time still) suppressed book Tarantula, which my friends and I had recently bootlegged as a fund raiser to help pay for legal defense for the staff of the local underground paper, View From The Bottom. They had been busted by an incredibly clever deep cover narc named George Miller. Everyone in the New Haven rad scene trusted George. He grew up with most of them. He had neglected to mention joining the police force. He bagged 52 collars, most of them radicals, when he surfaced. Most of the collars stuck. I trusted George. He came well recommended by childhood friends. That's as good as recommendations get. The only reason that I didn't sell to him is that I was in traction while he was going around collecting the warrants. He never visited me in the hospital. He knew he could make quota with out having to wait for an elevator. I wasn't worth the effort. I lucked out, big time. I only did one deal while I was in traction, and that was only out of necessity. Necessity is a mother. Evidence is what the cops say it is.

Then there's the little matter of Ambrosia's address book. One day at Fantasy Island, a few months later, the Richmond vice squad showed up on a raid. Ambrosia and Shannon were in the house, along with "Tara," a Frontdoor loyalist. The cops had search warrants for the premises, and for any phone books and video tape. Ok, so far, so normal. That's how it's done. They handcuffed the wimmin to chairs, and thoroughly tossed the place for three hours. Ever been handcuffed to a chair for three hours? If it couldn't be made fun, it wouldn't sell for more bucks per minute than cocaine. In this case, it was no fun at all. Still normal. This is how a vice raid progresses. The cops rip off all the cash and take the wimmin downtown. Sometimes they rape them. They always go for the trick book. There's always a guy or two in the trick book who will part with some cash if you squeeze him. Guys in the trick book are easy to squeeze.

There are some things the vice squad does not normally do on a raid. As is common, these particular raiders wore wind breakers with emblems and lettering which indicated which branch of law enforcement they represented. Most said that they were from Richmond. This was to be expected. However, according to the markings on their wind breakers, members of the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms accompanied this raid. The SS and the BATF do not go along on small-time vice raids out in the provinces, looking to bust a couple of small-time kink whores. That does not happen. This was no ordinary vice raid. This vice raid was a front. They didn't come to bust whores. They came for exactly what they left with. Cops do this whenever they can. Speed traps leave with your money and narcs leave with your dope. Real vice raiders always go for the trick book. It's the real prize. The Fantasy Island trick book was in plain sight. They never touched it. They weren't interested in the (non-prescription) bottle of Valium, either. They didn't arrest anybody. They confiscated some video of Tara's ample butt doing its famous stuff. They returned it a few days later, presumably when they were finished jerking off. They confiscated Ambrosia's address book. That's what they came for. That's what they left with. I'm in that address book. So is Shannon, Chris, Dierdra, and Sloth. I don't know who else is. Imagine. I have. They also came to show off their wind breakers, or else they wouldn't have worn them. Why, pray tell, did they do that? You tell me.

Chuck fired Ambrosia the next day.

Two weeks to the day after the raid, I sat in a coffee house called the Du Coin, on the corner of Geary and Leavenworth, in the heart of the Tenderloin. I had a date to meet Shannon at 9:00 p.m. Her shift was over at eight. To pass the time, I sipped a double cappuccino and watched San Francisco's finest strutting their stuff on the stroll. This town has the best looking whores on the planet. Fuck Vegas. Vegas ain't shit. We also have the most flagrant cops. They think nothing of cruising by in a squad car to collect their share of the take, right out there in front of gawd'n'everybody, and a coffee house window full of witnesses. After all, why shouldn't they? Who's gonna stop 'em? The cops aren't. Neither are you.

This tradition predates the discovery of gold.

"If any of the girls were discovered by the alcalde (mayor) to be open livers, they were whipped, and kept at work sweeping the square of the presidio, and carrying the mud and brick for the buildings; yet a few reals would generally buy them off." – (eyewitness) Richard Henry Dana, in Two Years Before the Mast, first published in 1840, in the Harper's Family Library series.

Hi, guys. See ya in hell.

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