Operation Greylord by Terrence Hake Read Free Book Online Page A

all busy in the field, or maybe they had come down with the disappearing itch known to afflict government employees on summertime “federal Fridays.” For a moment I thought no one really cared what was happening in the courts. But with my next quarter I reached Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Reidy.
    â€œCostello just gave me a hundred dollars,” I told him. “He said it was for past favors, but I haven’t done any for him yet. It’s my first bribe, if you can call it that.”
    â€œThat’s great,” Reidy said, and set up a meeting for that afternoon across from the old Chicago Stadium, home of the Blackhawks and Bulls. I slipped out of the phone booth feeling excited for the first time since agreeing to go undercover.

    Waiting for me in a white Chevrolet outside the parking lot where the United Center now stands were Reidy, federal prosecutor Scott Lassar, and an FBI agent originally from Texas, James Hershly. I climbed in and slammed the door. Costello’s money had been in my pocket for nearly two hours, and I was eager to get rid of it.
    Hershly told me to date the two bills and mark them with “TH” for Terry Hake, then he jotted his own initials and recorded the serial numbers. Those bills and all the other bribes I eventually would receive went into a vault at FBI headquarters as evidence in future trials.
    With that out of the way, Reidy turned to me with an adrenaline gleam and said, “Let’s hear it, Terry, I want everything that happened between you and Costello, word for word.”
    â€œWhen he gave me the money, I told him I didn’t want it.”
    â€œPlease repeat that,” Hershly murmured, while taking notes for the team.
    â€œI told Costello, ‘Jim, it’s not necessary, you’re a friend.’”
    They had an “is that all?” stare when I didn’t add anything. So for nearly an hour I went over with them everything that had happened and didn’t happen.
    â€œWell,” Reidy said finally, “at least they can never say you tried to entrap the guy. But in the future, Terry, just take what they give you. You have to go back and get him to acknowledge on tape that he gave you the money and that it was for something you did in court. Those favors he mentioned when he gave you the money could mean anything, you could have mowed his lawn or something. Take him to lunch on Monday and firm it up.”
    That meant wearing a wire for the first time, something I had been dreading.
    Reidy must have sensed I was feeling a little guilty about firming up evidence against a friend, and assured me before I left the car, “By the time we’re done, Terry, you’ll be glad we’re kicking them all out.”

3
WEARING A WIRE
    June 1980
    By now I had an apartment in Evanston, a generally nice suburb adjacent to Chicago. Living by myself gave me a little more freedom for my undercover role. Three months earlier, Jordan had shown me in his light Southern drawl how to thread a tape through the Swiss-made Nagra, a commonly used body recorder for federal investigations at the time. Forget high-tech spymaster images. Anyone could rent a Nagra from an electronics shop, and who knows how often this one had been used and abused?
    The Nagra’s advantages were that the tape ran for two and a half hours of reasonably good sound, even when the recording was made under clothes. The device was four inches wide, five and three-quarters inches long, and one inch thick. The microphone was no larger than a pencil eraser, but the wire was long enough to tape it practically anywhere.
    Standing in my flat at seven in the morning, I used a few strips of surgical tape to secure the mike vertically on my chest so my tie would cover the bump. Then there was the problem of hiding the three-thousand-dollar Nagra, which went into the pocket of an elastic band. No matter where you placed the Nagra it was too tight. Many undercover