American Radical

Chapter 1

Super High

I was Rico Jordan before I was Tamer Elnoury. Hell, I was a lot of people before I ever got in front of a terrorist. I spent a lot of days looking and acting like a criminal. I had a knack for being able to relate to people. To pull them in and make them feel comfortable, even drug dealers.

I became Rico Jordan as soon as I tied my do-rag.

I stepped in front of the mirror and smoothed out my thick mustache and goatee that grew six or seven inches off my chin. Two hoop earnings went into my left ear. I tucked my baggy pants into my black Timberland boots and slid a pistol between my waistband and the small of my back.

It was close to 6:00 p.m. on September 10, 2001. I was working narcotics in New Jersey, so most of my days started when everyone else was headed home. For months, I'd been looking for the distributor of Super High, a potent batch of heroin coming out of New York. When Super High hit the streets, overdoses skyrocketed.

My target was Kit Kat's crew. She and her two sons ran a network of dealers working the towns and cities in central New Jersey. After months of buying from them, they agreed to let me meet their Super High source. The supplier's street name was Black. We'd heard of him, but we'd never gotten eyes on him. That was my job. Identify him and wait for the SWAT team to make the arrest.

Traffic was thick with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd coming home. Kit Kat's crew worked out of a row house at the end of an alley with lookouts positioned on the roof. I parked my green Mazda 626 behind the house after circling the block a few times. Most drug dealers will make a couple of passes to make sure the block isn't hot, and I needed to look the part. It also let me relay information back to the waiting SWAT team. While I drove, I narrated what I saw into a Nokia cell phone.

"Four guys at the front of the house," I said. "No one on the porch."

Billy, my sergeant, was on the other end of the line. He passed each mental picture back to the staging location, a makeshift command center. At the mouth of the alley, I saw the spotters on the roof watching me. With each step, everything slowed in my mind. I'd come a long way since my first drug buy three years ago.

My first buy was for "dip"-shards of crack cocaine chipped off a bigger rock. My hands were sweating as I approached the dealer. I pressed a twenty-dollar bill into his hand and waited for him to fish out a shard from a plastic bag. I was anxious. I couldn't catch my breath. My fingers tingled with adrenaline. I probably looked like a junkie. The dealer put the shard into my hand. I barely felt it as I ran back to the undercover car.

"How did it go?" Mike, my handler, said.

"Good, man," I said. "Look."

I held out my hand. The dip was just a smear. The rock melted in my sweaty hands.

"That's great," Mike said. "What was his name?"

"Who?" I said.

"The dealer," Mike said. "What was he wearing?"

I stared out the windshield trying to conjure an image.

"Was he black or white at least?"

I didn't know. I found out later the dealer had an enormous eagle tattoo on his neck. I was so full of nerves and fear I missed everything. It was embarrassing.

After that, I started to study. I found a junkie who taught me how to cook crack, cut heroin and cocaine. But the biggest lesson was the power of addiction. Just the thought of getting high aroused him. He carried a razor blade in his pocket. If he got arrested, he sliced up his leg through his pants and poured heroin into the wound. It was the only way to stave off withdrawal in jail. Rico Jordan was born out of those meetings. There was no respect in the drug world for a user. I had to be a dealer.

The key to a good cover story was keeping it close to your own experiences. I was a college graduate, so Rico Jordan had a few credits but no degree. He was a former business major-like me-who'd turned entrepreneur drug dealer. Rico Jordan was all business, which earned respect on the street and avoided the hassle of explaining why I wasn't using.

I'd been Rico Jordan for about a year and a half. People didn't know if I was Hispanic, light-skinned black, or Middle Eastern. All they knew was that I wasn't white. I didn't earn a second glance in the neighborhood.

A guy near the front of the alley-security-was sagging to the left as I approached. He likely had a gun on his right hip. He nodded to me as I passed. Kit Kat's crew knew me and I was ushered into the house.

"G-Money's in the kitchen," he said.

I'd been in the house before, so I knew the way. The house stunk like feet. Weed smoke hung in the air. The TV was on, but no one was watching it. About a half dozen men were too busy joking, talking, and smoking. No one acknowledged me as I walked into the dining room.

Two men-one of the guys was part of the crew-looked up. Money was being counted on the table. Glassine bags of heroin were piled in the middle. One of the guys had a bulge-likely a pistol-in his waistband. They kept talking.

I took a snapshot of each room. This wasn't about protecting the SWAT team any longer. This was self-preservation. If the deal went south, I knew my escape route and the room's biggest threats.

G-Money was leaning against the counter. I have no idea how he got the nickname. Probably because he thought it sounded cool. He was scrawny with short-cropped hair. I never saw him in anything but a FUBU shirt or a baggy sweatshirt and jeans.

Scumbag chic.

"Yo, what's good?" he said. "Where's your whip?"

I nodded toward the back of the house.

G-Money nodded.

"Black should be here any minute."

I looked around the kitchen. No one used it to make food. The counter was grimy and sticky. The sink stunk of stale beer.

"Good looking out putting him in front of me," I said.

"You're good people," G-Money said. "Don't forget me when you start moving up."

I laughed. He didn't have to worry about that.

"How much do you think he'll shave off?"

"If you buy twenty bricks, he'll knock it down," he said. "Just get to know him first."

Heroin is packaged into bags or decks, bundles, and bricks. In New Jersey, a brick of heroin is five bundles, or fifty bags. The street value of a bag of heroin is about ten dollars. I wanted a bulk discount.

I heard Black's Acura pull up outside the back door. I could see the car's rims and spinners from the window. He grabbed a black gym bag out of the backseat. G-Money greeted him with a handshake that turned into a hug.

Black was tall and thin with skin so dark it looked like it hurt. He had baggy black jeans that he had to constantly pull up over his ass. Black wore his tan Timberland boots untied. A comically large gold medallion hung around his neck. When he got to me, we shook hands.

"This is Black," G-Money said. "This is Rico, short for Tarico."

Black's face changed. His hands went to his sides as he eyeballed me, skeptical of what he'd just been told. The look startled me. Did he know me? Had he seen me somewhere? Had he made me as a cop? The mental pictures started flicking through my head. Threats. Escape routes. Seconds started to drag. Then he smiled.

"My name is Tariq," Black said.

"No shit," I said, my stress bleeding away.

Black chuckled.

G-Money had a big smile on his face. It was the best possible icebreaker. Before we could get to business, Kit Kat staggered into the kitchen. She walked like a sailor on deck in a storm. She smiled at Black and then hugged me. I could feel her skeletal body against mine.

"Hi, baby," she said, kissing me on the cheek.

"What's good, Kit Kat?"

My luck was getting better and better. I could see Black checking us out as the matriarch of the family was hugging me. G-Money was making jokes about my name. Black was relaxing.

"Since we sort of share a name, you have to hook me up," I said.

"I got you," Black said. "I got you."

There were seventy-five cops staged around the house. Everyone was waiting for him to open the bag. This part always got my heart racing. He unzipped the bag and I looked at the bricks of heroin. A calm came over me. We had him.

"Let me grab a couple of bricks now," I said. "I'll get the rest later."

I had money to buy twenty bricks. Once we made the deal, his charge went from possession with intent to distribute to distribution in a school zone. An elementary school was only a block or two away.

"Yeah," Black said. "That works. Here, take these."

He stacked the bricks on the kitchen counter. My heart started to race again, because I knew when I gave the word SWAT was going to hit the house.

"Want to give me your number?" I said. "I'll hit you up later for the rest."

Black was closing the bag.

"Absolutely," he said.

Every operation had a takedown word and a distress signal. The distress signal meant "Come and get me, I'm in trouble." The takedown word signaled "The deal is done. Take it down." This operation's takedown word was "soft pretzel."

"Man, you guys eat yet?" I said. "I missed lunch. All I had to eat today was a soft pretzel."

Black didn't answer. He just gave me his mobile number. I put it in my phone while Black and G-Money made small talk. Black started to pack up.

Hurry the fuck up, I thought.

Then I heard it.

"5-0! 5-0!"

The spotters saw SWAT coming. Everybody stopped. Fight or flight took hold. G-Money and one of the guys in the dining room bolted for the back door. Black froze. His eyes darted back and forth as his mind tried to figure out his next move.

I pressed my back against the refrigerator. My eyeballs went to Black's hands and waist. If he went for a gun, I was going to shoot him.

I heard the front door open with a crash.

"Police! Search warrant! Get down! Get the fuck down!"

Black's mind finally engaged. He grabbed the gym bag and went out the back door. SWAT officers with MP5 submachine guns met him on the steps. He came barreling back into the kitchen and tossed the bag as soon as he got inside. The heroin went everywhere.

Twelve seconds of yelling. Furniture breaking. Chaos. One of the guys in the dining room got slammed on the table, shattering it.

I knew Bobby, one of my closest friends, was coming for me. A few hours before the operation, I briefed the team dressed as Rico Jordan. That was common practice so that everyone knew what I was wearing. It was an officer safety thing.

"I'm going to put the cuffs on him this time," Bobby said during the briefing.

Bobby was Jewish. I am Muslim. I called him "Jew Boy." He called me "Camel Boy." The unit nicknamed our corner of the office the Gaza Strip. Political correctness had no place in our office. Every day was about the mission and the brotherhood in that order.

I could hear Bobby yelling at suspects to get down. His voice got louder and louder. Bobby hit the kitchen at a sprint. He was headed for me.

"Get down! Get down!"

I stepped to one side and bitch-slapped him. The crack of my hand hitting his face cut through the chaos. Everyone stopped for a second. I tried not to laugh just as hands grabbed me and slammed me to the ground.

"Get the fuck down, asshole."

I covered my head as Bobby and the guys flipped me on my face and cuffed my hands behind my back. You don't hit a cop without getting your ass beat, and I took a few slaps too. But it was worth it to see my handprint on Bobby's face a few hours later.

Bobby took me out to a waiting car. I could see the guys from the living room lined up along the wall. Everyone had their heads down. At the police station, Bobby took me in the back door. Billy, my sergeant, met me at processing. He dressed in old faded jeans and white Reebok sneakers. His disheveled brown hair needed a comb. When he was doing undercover drug work, we called him Charles Manson because of his long brown hair and thick beard.

"You all right? You good?"

I nodded. We spent about an hour going over the buy. It turned out to be a huge hit. We flipped some informants and found the source of Super High in Spanish Harlem. We also broke up Kit Kat's drug ring. After the briefing, Billy led me to a cell where they held the others.

"This fucking guy has a warrant," he said.

The fake warrant was from another town.

"I took care of that shit," I said, playing along.

"The fuck you did," Billy said. "It says it here. They want you."

A sheriff's deputy escorted me out of the cell. Right after we were out of sight, the cuffs were off.

"Just because I'm going home doesn't mean I won't get those overtime hours," I said.

Billy waved as he headed back into police headquarters.

"You'll get it. Get some rest," Billy said. "You've got that crack buy in the morning."

Chapter 2

I Am a Muslim

I was back on the street the next morning.

It was before 8:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001. The weather was perfect. Not hot, but not cool yet. The only hint of fall was football dominating the morning sports talk. Week one was over. My Bills dropped the season opener to the Saints, but it was week one. There was still hope.

I was tired as I drove my Mazda to the buy. Even though Billy cut me loose early, it still took me hours to come down. When I finally got to sleep, the alarm went off. I dragged myself to work praying for a weekend.