Priceless (15 page)

“Right, because we could get in a lot of trouble.”

“Right, we could.”

I had more than enough on him now. “Twenty-eight thousand. Cash, OK?”

“Yeah, if I had a cashier’s check, I’ve got to show that to Uncle Sam and I’d like to see if I can get around that.” I started to get up, thinking, I’ll be sure to let the IRS boys know.

Wilhite said, “Isn’t it a great piece? I told you it was.”

“It is,” I said, twisting my nose with my thumb and forefinger—the go-sign. “It could only come from a museum.”

“Yes, sir—” Wilhite’s head snapped to the right as three agents in FBI raid gear opened the adjoining door and told him to put his
hands on his head. Stupidly, he jumped up, ignoring the agents, and began yelling at me. “Who
are
you? Who
are
you?”

He took an awkward step toward me, and the agents pinned him to the floor.

I’
VE FOUND THAT
I can read up on a stolen artifact, talk to experts about it, even hold it in my hands as the bad guys explain its black market value. But I know I won’t truly appreciate an object’s deeper meaning until I’m finally able to return it to its rightful owner.

And, as it was with Alva and the backflap, so it was with a group of black Civil War re-enactors and the Army’s chief historian.

A few weeks after the Wilhite arrest and battle flag seizure, we convened in Washington for a remarkable ceremony in which the FBI formally returned the flag to the Army. It was February and so the return was hastily inserted into the bureau’s annual Black History Month program at headquarters.

I rode to Washington with Vizi, the agent who handled the press, and the agent-in-charge of the Philadelphia office, Bob Conforti. Once inside the auditorium, they took seats of honor near the stage. Mindful of the cameras, I lingered in the back.

The long-ago-invited keynote speaker, an African American space shuttle astronaut, wowed everyone with tales from outer space, but the flag, a last-minute addition, stole the show. Flanked by an honor guard of African American re-enactors from Philadelphia, the flag loomed over the seated dignitaries, the astronaut, FBI Director Louis Freeh, and a pair of Army generals.

Joseph Lee, who leads the Philadelphia-based re-enactors group, took the podium in the Union blue full replica regalia of the United States Colored Troops, Third Regiment. He opened by describing his experience the previous month, when I had invited him to see the rescued battle flag in our Philadelphia office. “I was admonished not to touch it,” Lee recalled. “And having served in the United States
Marines and Air Force, and being the sergeant major of our group, I knew how to follow an order.” He paused, wiping his lower lip with a white dress glove. “But that was one order I could not follow. Touching that flag sent chills through my body. Even thinking about it now, tears well in my eyes. They cause my heart to palpitate. Because this was true, living African American history. I had heard about it, read about it, dreamt about it, but now I was part of it.” Lee saluted the flag. “The dead still lie in shallow graves along the field of battle, where they fought and died. This flag honors them all.” Lee removed his hat and held it to his breast. “God have mercy for the deeds committed there, and the souls of those poor victims, sent to thee without a prayer. All hail, all honor, the gallant soldiers who fought for Uncle Sam.”

Even the stone-faced Freeh seemed moved. I now realized our case had handed Freeh and the FBI a remarkable public relations coup—not only the rescue of a significant historical artifact, but an opportunity to help improve the bureau’s poor record on race relations. It certainly didn’t hurt my quiet aspirations to expand my art crime horizons beyond Philadelphia to the national and international stage.

Before I got too carried away with such grandiose thoughts, the Army’s chief of military history, General John Brown, took to the microphone.

As he spoke, I couldn’t help thinking about my parents, the soldier and the Japanese bride.

Santa Fe, 1999
.

T
HE
P
ALACE OF THE
G
OVERNORS ON THE
S
ANTA
F
E
Plaza is said to be the oldest continuously used public building in the United States, and it is a must-see stop for any visitor. Built by the Spaniards in 1610 as the northern seat of power for New Spain, the low-slung, block-long adobe and timber structure remains the gravitational center of Santa Fe culture. The Palace houses the popular Museum of New Mexico and, outside, along the balustrade that overlooks the Plaza, Native American craftsmen peddle handmade jewelry to tourists.

Joshua Baer positioned his Indian art and antiquities gallery half a block away from the Palace, at 116 East Palace Avenue. A discreet wooden shingle read,
GALLERY UPSTAIRS—OPEN.
A poster at the entrance read,
WHY TAKE RISKS? BUY AUTHENTIC ART
.

On an unseasonably cool summer afternoon in 1999, my undercover partner and I headed upstairs, fake identification and tape recorders stuffed in our pockets.

The sale of counterfeit Indian art is a $1-billion-a-year problem, but it’s still dwarfed by the illegal trade of Native American religious objects, particularly those featuring eagle feathers. The crime had vexed law enforcement and tribal leaders for years, and it
didn’t help that many in New Mexico, including some judges, Indian leaders, and state officials, openly criticized the federal law protecting eagle feathers. It was easy for law enforcement to target the low-level “pickers,” the scavengers who scoured reservations, acquired religious objects from dirt-poor Indians, and sold them to Santa Fe dealers. But it was a lot tougher to target the dealers. Dogged federal agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had launched a major investigation six months earlier, and now suspected that Baer and four other dealers were illegally selling Indian religious objects, including eagle feathers. But they couldn’t prove it. They knew the only way to snare the dealers was to set up a sting, yet the tight-knit and suspicious nature of the Santa Fe arts community made it almost impossible to use local agents undercover.

So Fish and Wildlife had enlisted two outsiders, an FBI agent from Philadelphia and a Norwegian police detective, to try to make a bust big enough to frighten nefarious dealers and put them on notice. They chose me because of my background in art crime and the Norwegian because Native American religious artifacts—eagle-feather headdress, Zuni corn mothers, Hopi ceremonial masks—are popular in Europe, where their sale is perfectly legal. Wealthy Europeans often travel to Santa Fe to buy Native American artifacts, and they often bring expert American brokers along for advice. Here, I’d play broker to my undercover rich Norwegian friend Ivar Husby, with his Nordic good looks, borrowed Rolex, and Hugo Boss suits.

Husby and I bounded up the brown-carpeted steps to the second-floor gallery. An affable-looking man, six foot three, 220 pounds, stood in the center of the gallery, beside a bureau filled with a collection of Hopi kachina dolls. High-end Navajo rugs covered two walls opposite windows looking out onto Palace Avenue. The man gave us a minute to take it all in. Then he stuck out his right hand.

“Josh Baer. Welcome.”

“Hey Josh. Bob Clay, from Philadelphia.” I nodded at the rugs. “These are amazing.”

The Norwegian stepped forward. “Ivar Husby,” he said, shaking Baer’s hand. “I am living in Oslo in Norway.”

“Ivar’s a collector,” I said, slapping the Norwegian on the back. “I’m helping him out a bit because his English isn’t very good. He’s a good client of mine.”

Baer turned to Husby. “What business are you in?”

Husby was fluent in four languages, but he spoke to Baer in broken English. “Family business is oil. I own Internet company.”

Baer’s brown eyes widened. “Let me know if I can help you.” He showed us a few Navajo rugs, but I soon let him know that we were more interested in ceremonial pieces. “Ivar collects religious artifacts of the Laplander tribes in Scandinavia,” I said. “They’re similar to the Native American. That’s why we’re here.”

I handed him my card:
ROBERT CLAY, ACQUISITIONS CONSULTANT
.

Baer dipped into a back room. He brought out a Mimbres ceremonial bowl that dated to
A.D.
900 (price: $6,000), a four-inch-high Acoma wooden kachina doll ($5,500), and a Kiowa Ghost Dance shield ($24,000). We spent about forty minutes with him but didn’t buy anything. As we began to leave, Baer invited us to an antique postcard show at his gallery that evening. We dropped by the reception later that night for a few minutes and spoke with him briefly. “Swing by tomorrow,” he said, with a tantalizing hint of promise. “I’ve got a few things to show you.”

“I look forward to it, Josh,” I said.

U
NDERCOVER WORK IS
like chess.

You need to master your subject and stay one or two moves ahead of your opponent.

I’ve taught hundreds of federal agents. Forget what you’ve seen on television, I always tell them. That’s not real life. The FBI’s training is fine, but the best undercover operative relies on his own
instincts. I learned more from my years selling advertising for the
Farmer
newspapers than from any FBI manual.

These aren’t skills that can be learned in a class—an agent who doesn’t possess the natural instincts and traits to work undercover probably shouldn’t. You either have the innate sales and social skills to do the job—to befriend and betray—or you don’t.

You start with a name. Every undercover agent needs a false identity. Unless your first name is unusual—say Ulrich or Paris—it’s best to use your real first name. This adheres to my cardinal rule of working undercover: Tell as few lies as possible, because the more you tell, the more you have to remember. The less you have to remember, the more comfortable, natural you’ll be. Using your first name can also protect you if you happen to run into a friend or colleague who doesn’t know you’re working undercover. In the opening minutes of the battle flag case—when I met Wilhite at the airport—I unexpectedly ran into a neighbor. “Hi, Bob,” he said. I nodded, quickly said hello, and kept moving with Wilhite. If that neighbor had called me by any other name, it might have blown the case.

The last name you use should be bland and fairly common, something hard to pin down with a simple Internet search.

Once you’ve picked a name, you’ll need a paper trail. The FBI calls this backstopping—the false-identity paperwork you need to do your job. To help an undercover agent create a second identity and backstop his persona, the FBI employs teams of agents, analysts, and support staff in Washington.

Because the FBI’s undercover rules tend to be tedious and bureaucratic, I did a lot of my own backstopping. I filled my undercover wallet with secondary identification—a Philadelphia library card, a U.S. Airways frequent-flyer card, discount cards from Barnes & Noble and Borders, a family membership card for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a random gallery receipt with my false name. I also created a few undercover Hotmail e-mail accounts. I suppose I should have filled out paperwork for those, too.
But if I’d followed every FBI undercover rule to the letter, I’d never have gotten anything done. Most supervisors understood this. Usually, they looked the other way.

The next step is to create your bona fides—professional but understated business cards, phone numbers, and, if possible, a public-records history. For my small one-man operation, I didn’t need much. Mostly I simply used my cell phone and e-mail. That’s all it took. If necessary, I knew I could always rely on the bureau. In special situations, I might even approach a private corporation or university. Sometimes, real companies help undercover FBI agents establish false identities, loaning a company’s good name, stationery, and identification badges.

Backstopping is relatively easy. It’s largely a game of paperwork and patience. Almost anyone can do it. The next steps take guts and a special set of personal skills.

What follows is my
personal
approach to working undercover.

Going undercover is a lot like sales. It’s all about understanding human nature—winning a person’s trust and then taking advantage of it. You befriend, then betray.

Every undercover case is different. But I think most can be boiled down to five steps: You assess your target. You introduce yourself. You build rapport with the target. You betray. You go home.

Step One: Assess the Target. Who’s your target? What’s he peddling? A sure-thing investment? A tax scheme? Bribes to a city councilman? Drugs? Whatever it is, you’ve got to master that realm.

Let’s say your target is selling cocaine. You’ve got to master the drug as it’s used today, forgetting what you’ve seen on television or witnessed in college. You need to know how to handle cocaine, how to cut it, how much the average person might snort. You’d better know the current street prices in your hometown—from a kilo to a gram. You need to master the lingo: With cocaine, you should know that an
eight-ball
equals three and a half grams;
soft
means cocaine powder;
hard
means crack; a
hammer
is a gun. And while you can
still call cocaine
blow, yeyo
, or
powder
, you’d better not use dated terms like
nose candy
or
snow
—or worse yet, use law-enforcement-only terms like
user
—as in, “He’s a user” or “She uses cocaine.”