byChrisWhite – 2021

Well now, I’ve gone and put down more than fifty of these chronicles, and it strikes me now, like a lightning bolt out of a blue sky, that I ain’t yet set to paper a single yarn about my first, most distinguished “big-boy” career. How, in the name of all things peculiar, did I manage to sidestep that chapter of my life so completely? Those formative years when I was still green as a gourd but brimming with grit? Seems almost a dereliction of duty, if you’ll pardon me sayin’ so.

But the truth of it is, I’ve just not felt the urge to go dredging up that part of my past, not just yet, anyhow. Maybe it’s on account of me having ambled so far down this new road that those years feel like they belonged to some other fella entirely. Or maybe I just don’t see much sense in stirring up the dust and drama from those times. But, the truth remains, no matter how far you wander, the man you are today is shaped by the roads you’ve traveled, and I’d be a fool to pretend otherwise. The man I am now was carved out of those early experiences, hewn and hammered into shape. Those years taught me how to shoulder the weight of responsibility, how to face down my own swollen pride, and it’s no wonder folks now see me as a bit aloof, maybe even a tad unapproachable.

You see, when the first thing you decide every morning is which coat will do the best job of hiding a heavy piece of iron, and when you make a habit of stepping into places where danger lurks, knowing full well that the odds might turn against you at any given moment, you end up doing one of two things: you either learn to swallow down your fears and bottle up those anxieties, or you pick yourself a quieter line of work. And let me be plain about this, I’ve seen plenty who strutted around with their heads high, brimming with a false sense of invincibility, only to come crashing down when reality caught them by surprise. I’ve watched good men stumble into the very pitfalls they never thought they’d see, and it’s given me a peculiar kind of insight into what makes a man tick, and what breaks him.

Now, I’m the sort that can scarcely tell you the time without wandering into a tale about how the sun casts its shadow on that old Prague Orloj clock, and how that wondrous contraption, all gears and mysteries, keeps track of the hours. So if I’m fixing to tell you a story about my days as an undercover agent, you might as well settle in for the long haul. There ain’t no cramming this tale into a neat little bundle of five hundred words, that just ain’t my way. So pull up a chair, get yourself comfortable, or lay this down and return when you’ve got a stout pot of coffee at hand and a bit of time to spare. Because these stories I’ve got, well, they sure don’t fit into no thimble. They’re more like a winding river, twisting and turning, sometimes murky and sometimes crystal clear, but always carrying something worth telling.

Well now, let me tell you, the investigation I’m about to spin took place way back in ’94. At that time, I was a freshly divorced father to a bright-eyed five-year-old boy, and life sure had me running in circles. Just a year earlier, I’d taken up the mantle of Project Director for the 17th Judicial District Drug & Violent Crimes Task Force. Quite the mouthful, I know, so we just called it the “Task Force” to keep things simple.

Now, for you folks who enjoy a little background, let me paint the picture. Tennessee, bless her, is divided into 95 counties and 31 Judicial Districts. The 17th Judicial District includes the fine counties of Bedford, Lincoln, Marshall, and Moore. And let me tell you, there was plenty to keep us busy out there.

Drug & Violent Crimes Task Forces are special units designed to cut across county lines and take on the worst sorts—the ones dealing in illicit substances and brewing violence. They operate under state coordination, with the District Attorney General keeping an eye on things across every county in the district. Ambitious work, to say the least, and the kind of job that could stir up a whole hornet’s nest on any given day.

Taking on this job, diving into the murky waters of small-town justice, ultimately led me to settle down in the quiet rural Tennessee town I now call home. And, more importantly, it’s how I found my second chance at love. My dear Emily, the light of my life, she came along like a blessing I didn’t even know I was waiting for.

I was young, no doubt about it, to be carrying that much responsibility. I turned thirty that year, making decisions that could shape the course of an investigation, decisions that carried weight. Folks liked to joke that I was born forty years old, serious and solemn straight out of the cradle. It was a good line for a laugh, but I never figured out a way to put that on a resume.

Truth be told, there might’ve been some truth to that, but I’ll be the first to say I was far from fully baked for the role. But the past doesn’t change just because we’ve learned a few things along the way, and there was no turning back anyhow. The challenge was enough by itself, but stepping into a newly reformed task force only made it trickier. My team was green as a summer gourd, and most of them, save one, didn’t have any drug enforcement experience to speak of. And if that wasn’t enough, every single one of them was older than me. I had the responsibility of leading men who had lived more years than I had, and that added an extra layer of irony to the whole ordeal.

Before I found myself running the show in the 17th, I spent five years as an assistant project director for the 23rd Judicial District Task Force, serving five counties in west-central Tennessee. Most of those years were spent working undercover narcotics. Before that, I cut my teeth as a patrol officer and later a deputy sheriff. It was during those years, back when I was a deputy in Humphreys County, that my marriage to Tammy hit the skids. Tammy, my first wife, had taken me westward to live in Houston County, but by the time this opportunity came around, our paths had already split.

I started my rookie career in law enforcement in Murfreesboro, a decently-sized city, but Tammy wanted us to move closer to her folks. It all felt like a grand adventure at the time, moving out of Murfreesboro to the rural countryside. Governor Ned Ray McWherter, a man as big in personality as he was in politics, got the first Drug Task Forces up and running around 1987. I was chomping at the bit to get involved, even though I was only twenty-three at the time. I wasn’t the first agent they hired, but I was mighty pleased to be their second choice.

The 23rd Judicial District covered five counties: Dickson, Cheatham, Houston, Humphreys, and Stewart. If you look at a map of Tennessee and find that odd little notch along the northern border, the one that juts into Kentucky between the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, that’s what we locals call “The Land Between the Lakes,” and it’s part of Stewart County.

From Stewart County, the district stretches south, hugging the east bank of the Tennessee River through Houston and Humphreys Counties, then veering just south of Interstate 40 before bending east toward Nashville in a nearly perfect “L” shape, passing through Dickson and then Cheatham County. Cheatham sits right up against the western side of Metro Nashville-Davidson County.

The 17th Judicial District, where I finally settled, lies in southern Middle Tennessee. It includes Bedford, Marshall, Lincoln, and Moore Counties. If you’re still puzzling over the geography, Lincoln County nudges right up against Alabama, close to Huntsville, and Moore County, well, that’s the home of the world-famous Jack Daniel’s Distillery. So, my journey took me from the very tip-top of Tennessee right down to its southern reaches. Quite the change of scenery, but one that would bring its own adventures.

Now, the fella who was Director of the 17th before me, a man named Steve, well, he had a knack for getting himself tangled in trouble, a rather peculiar brand of trouble, if you catch my drift. Steve had gotten himself mixed up in some criminal shenanigans that were interesting, sure enough, but serious as the devil himself. Things got so tangled that both the FBI and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation came knocking, and before long, our erstwhile Director found his new accommodations came complete with bars and a lack of privacy. The Task Force itself, as a result, had been torn down and shut up tight for about a year. The whole mess left the team in tatters, with the experienced agents out on their ears, their reputations smeared by an investigation into their own leader that made them all suspects at one point or another.

Now, you might wonder just what sort of foolishness led to all this. What was the particular brand of criminal activity? I thought you might be curious. It turned out, our notorious bachelor director fell headlong into the arms of a Memphis lady of the night, who not only stole his heart but also seemed to have stolen his common sense clean away.

This lady, whose skills were no doubt honed through, let’s say, vigorous professional practice, managed to convince our bright police official, an alleged member of Mensa, no less, to dip into the evidence room and lift a few ounces from a kilo of cocaine. He replaced the real deal with some equally white but decidedly less potent powder, and off she went, setting about her new enterprise on the streets of Memphis.

But as luck or fate, or perhaps sheer idiocy, would have it, this unlikely romance hit the rocks when his sweetheart got herself arrested for pushing that very same cocaine. And wouldn’t you know it, the folks who made the arrest were mighty interested to know just who had been supplying her with such pristine product. Street-level deals don’t usually come with that level of purity, you see.

In a turn of events worthy of any dime novel, she suddenly found herself stricken with selective amnesia, and the only name she could come up with was that of her very generous, very smitten beau, Task Force Director Steve. The rest of the story played out about as predictably as a hog on ice; she sang like a canary, walked out the door, and left Steve to face the music all by his lonesome.

Now, I ought to mention that none of the other agents were found to be part of Steve’s ill-conceived foray into love-fueled crime. Still, the District Attorney General felt it’d be a mite too awkward to bring any of them back into the fold, given all the scandal. So there I was, young, green, and new to town, the lab rat they picked to try and put Humpty Dumpty back together with nothing but some duct tape and a rubber mallet. Too ignorant to realize just how colossal the task was, I jumped at the chance, eager to prove myself.

One of the five drug agents I’d inherited was in the midst of bringing in a new confidential informant, a CI, who’d last been working for a neighboring Task Force just west of our four-county patch of southern Middle Tennessee. This informant had wrapped up a big operation for them and was itching to keep working in the undercover world. To keep himself safe, he needed to make a swift exit from where he’d been operating and find fresh ground to work on. For simplicity’s sake, let’s just call him Kenny.

Now, I knew the Director from where Kenny had been working, Mike was his name, a crusty old former Green Beret who’d seen his share of action in Vietnam. Mike was a character, to say the least. I remember him sitting there, nursing a highball glass of Jack Daniel’s, turning to me with that wry grin of his and saying, “If my damn coon dog could piss Tennessee whiskey, I’d suck his dick ’til we both passed out!”

Now, I’m the first to admit that cop humor can be rough around the edges, but narc humor, well, that’s a whole other level of bad. And Mike, bless his heart, was a shining example of that particular breed.

Now, setting aside Mike’s colorful personal musings for a spell, I’ll tell you about the favor he called in. He asked if I could take Kenny on, as a personal courtesy. Mike wanted Kenny to have steady work, something to keep him occupied and close by, just in case they needed him for court testimony now and then. I couldn’t turn down Mike, not after all the times he’d gone out on a limb for me.

Kenny was a young fellow, brought up without the care of his parents. It was his grandmother who took him in, giving him a roof over his head in her subsidized public housing apartment. I make it a point not to judge folks I’ve never met, that wouldn’t be Christian nor proper, but from what I could tell, Kenny hadn’t had much by way of a guiding hand. As folks down here say, “he’s a natural-born durn’d fool.” Put a different way, if Kenny couldn’t con you out of something, well, he’d just as soon help himself to it when you weren’t looking.

Now, Kenny was a white boy raised in a predominantly Black neighborhood, but he fit in just fine no matter where he went. He was most assuredly a type-A personality, outgoing, bold as brass, and a curious social paradox. I’ll ask y’all to indulge me for a moment. Picture, if you will, the famous rapper Eminem. Kenny not only had the same look, the same swagger, and even the same urban lilt to his voice, but he also went and tattooed “Slim Shady” right across his neck. To this day, I can’t see Eminem on TV or hear one of his songs on the radio without my mind drifting right back to Kenny.

Kenny’s real gift as an informant was his uncanny knack for fitting in just about anywhere, provided that “anywhere” was filled with thugs, petty criminals, and drug peddlers. He was, in a strange way, tailor-made for the job. Only in the world of government operations could such a combination make any kind of sense.

From the moment Kenny joined up, he hit the ground running, and before long, he and his assigned control agent were bringing in case after case involving small amounts of crack cocaine. But it didn’t take much time before I began to get the sense that Kenny was getting a little too comfortable, taking advantage of his handler’s lack of experience.

The agent I paired with Kenny was a seasoned police officer in his forties, with over a decade of service under his belt, mostly working patrol. But this was his first rodeo as a drug agent. He’d never had to manage a confidential informant or work undercover, and that put him at a disadvantage. Kenny, on the other hand, was a natural-born hustler. He didn’t see much difference between conning a cop or conning some low-life on the street, it was all part of the hustle to him.

Now, there are some hard-and-fast rules when it comes to developing and managing CIs. The first and most important thing is to understand their psychological motivation. Why does a person choose to become an informant? Is it the lure of power, a thirst for revenge, jealousy, repentance, altruism, or good old-fashioned greed? Perhaps it’s ego, wanting to play the hero, or fear of jail time, or, in some twisted cases, a desire to gain information on the police. Folks have all kinds of reasons for doing what they do, and not all of them are noble. And the trick to managing an informant is to figure out which of those reasons are driving them. With Kenny, I suspected his motivations were far from altruistic.

Now, you see, when it comes to informants, you’ve got to figure them out, know what makes ‘em tick. If what motivates them ain’t a good match for the work at hand, you best cut ‘em loose, and fast. Informants can be the key to success or the wrecking ball of a police career, depending on how you handle them.

If you can’t grasp what’s driving the folks you’re risking your neck alongside, you’re liable to find yourself blindsided sooner or later. By and large, the greedy, mercenary kind can make for the most productive informants, simply because greed is straightforward. All they want is money, plain and simple. That makes them easy to predict, and when you know what they want, you can steer them true, and they’ll be plenty effective in the process.

On the other hand, the egotistical informants are another matter altogether. They’re the ones itching to play a bigger role in the investigation, angling for more praise or a heftier payout. These fellows will drag an investigation on longer than it needs to be just to pad their pockets or garner more acclaim. They’ve got this peculiar drive to exert some kind of control over a world that’s all too familiar with the art of manipulation. They need to believe they’re the mastermind behind every success. And sure, they’ll take the money, but it’s the praise from an authority figure that really lights a fire under them.

Now, this sort of informant often finds himself at odds with the ego of the investigator handling him, especially if that investigator is new to the game. Kenny was a classic case of an egotistically motivated CI. No amount of praise or credit was ever enough for him. He was always craving more, more attention from me, more acknowledgment, and, if possible, the approval of someone even higher up the ladder.

The first thing that made me raise an eyebrow was that Kenny kept bringing in counterfeit crack cocaine. Now, here was a guy who knew the difference, he’d been around the block enough times to tell real from fake without even trying. If it had been an inexperienced agent working with an inexperienced CI, I might’ve chalked it up to a mistake, but Kenny knew better.

There was something else, too. Every time Kenny brought in this counterfeit crack, it just so happened that the audio recordings were either missing or downright useless, either completely inaudible or simply non-existent. I took a good, hard look at the fake drugs he’d turned in, across dozens of different cases, and wouldn’t you know it, every single one of those counterfeit rocks looked like they’d been made by the same pair of hands, using the same bar of soap and the same toothpick. It was almost as if someone had a little cottage industry going, churning out bogus crack just to keep Kenny busy.

Well, it didn’t take long before it became as clear as a moonlit night that Kenny was playing the inexperienced narc for a fool, getting paid for his soap-carved masterpieces. And it wasn’t just a one-time scam; Kenny was pocketing fifty bucks for each undercover buy and keeping the buy money, too, since there weren’t any real defendants, just a figment of his own imagination, paying himself handsomely for his ingenuity.

His ego, already larger than life, had well and truly run amok. He seemed to relish toying with his control agent, pulling the strings and basking in the thrill of it. To put a stop to this charade and teach the rookie a lesson or two, I arranged a little meeting with both the agent and Kenny. I explained that from here on out, the agent himself would be working undercover right alongside Kenny for all future buys.

But before that, I set a scene that Kenny wouldn’t soon forget. I took some bars of soap, cut them into irregular chunks, and poked and prodded them with a toothpick until they bore a striking resemblance to counterfeit crack, complete with little faux air bubbles and surface indentations. I spread these mock rocks on the table for effect, and in my best drill-sergeant fashion, I let Kenny know I was wise to his act, and the show was over.

I made it perfectly clear, in rather unkind terms, that he’d now be working without pay until he’d made good on all the phony cases he’d turned in. And I spelled it out for him that filing a false police report is a crime, and if he tried pulling this stunt again, or failed to make amends, he’d be the one facing charges.

In many city police departments, it’s pretty common for detectives to “handle” or “work” CIs without ever stepping foot into the field undercover. It’s rare for a detective to buy drugs directly from a dealer. More often than not, they wire up the CI with an audio transmitter and a recorder, sending them into the fray to make what we call “controlled buys.” The detectives, meanwhile, sit outside, eavesdropping from the comfort of their vehicles, recording it all to use as evidence later.

But in a task force like ours, it was practical, and often preferable, for us to do the undercover work ourselves. It made for stronger cases, free from the limitations that came with using CIs. After all, a CI might be happy to set up a few rivals, but they’d rarely have any interest in targeting their own friends or, more importantly, the reliable sources they depended on. Each informant had a boundary they weren’t willing to cross.

When we, the officers, went undercover ourselves, we had the freedom to follow each lead to its natural conclusion. Controlled buys, on the other hand, were a different animal, ripe for manipulation by the CI, making the resulting cases unreliable at best. But going undercover is no picnic, and it’s not something everyone’s cut out for.

At first, my agent was a little uneasy about this new arrangement, he’d never been asked to work undercover before. But in time, he got used to it, even began to take to it. Meanwhile, I put a temporary hold on Kenny’s buying activities, tasking him instead with introducing his handler around to his friends and associates. My aim was for the folks on the street to think the narc was a small-time dealer himself, with Kenny buying some of his stash from him.

See, drug dealers are naturally wary of any new face in their circle, especially if that face is looking to score. But they’re far less curious about someone who’s just there, not trying to buy anything. So, I sent my agent out to simply hang around with Kenny, get to know the players, learn the landscape, and lay the groundwork. Of course, we gave him a backstory that would make future buys seem more plausible.

After a couple of months or so, Kenny had introduced the agent all over the area, and they’d begun to make the occasional small buy here and there. But the cases were downright lousy, nothing substantial. It was clear Kenny was holding back, not opening the right doors for the agent to meet the bigger fish.

When Kenny first interviewed with us, he’d made big claims, written down, no less, about his connections with major dealers. Yet here he was, keeping our undercover man out of those circles. I had a strong suspicion that Kenny was once again working an angle, manipulating the situation to stretch things out and squeeze more money from us than we’d planned to spend. And now, this whole operation was starting to feel like more trouble than it was worth.

Well now, Kenny, bless his self-centered heart, wanted all the glory for himself, didn’t want to share a lick of it with his undercover handler. The more I watched, the clearer it became that my UC agent was in over his head. He was just too green to understand how downright dangerous it was to be led around by an informant who knew far more about him than he knew about the informant.

I pulled the UC agent from the case for his own safety, and I won’t lie, he was furious. He stormed into my office, fire in his eyes, and said, “That’s my CI! These are my cases!” I looked at him, serious but soft, and said, “Listen here, son, all informants are resources for the Task Force, they don’t belong to anyone.”

After that, I brought Kenny in for another sit-down. I made sure to let him know that I appreciated his skills, but I also made it clear that I was wise to his games. I flattered him a bit, stroked his ego, because that’s the way to get through to a fellow like Kenny, but then I laid it out straight. I told him I was taking over all his investigations personally, and that he was no longer to call or deal with any of my agents. “From now on, Kenny, you work with me directly. No one else.”

I leaned in, looked him right in the eye, and said, “Kenny, you’ve already wasted months of our time, and we’ve paid you more than these pitiful cases are worth. If you’re going to earn another dime from this Task Force, it’s going to be for a real case, a real dealer, not some sad street addict just looking to get high. You’re better than that, and I’m not interested in wasting your talent, or my time, on these nonsense cases. Call me when you’ve got something real. Until then, I don’t want to see you.”

Kenny looked amused, but I could tell I’d caught his attention. He threw out a teaser, said he might have a lead on some folks down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Claimed they were well-connected, serious players. He gave me what little he had, just enough for me to start digging around, but then, true to form, he wanted payment for the information.

I wasn’t born yesterday, and I could smell a hustle a mile away. I figured he was shopping this so-called lead around, seeing which Task Force might pay him the most. I had a hunch he was courting Alabama law enforcement, maybe even another Tennessee Task Force, though I wouldn’t find out the full extent of it until much later.

“Look here, Kenny,” I said, “I don’t pay for talk. I pay for prosecutable cases.” He shot back quickly, “Alright, so what do I get if I buy a key?”—meaning a kilo of cocaine. He couldn’t resist dangling the big prize in front of me.

I didn’t blink. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks for every recorded call or conversation, as long as I’m the one setting up the recording. And two grand for the controlled buy itself, but I make the buy, not you.”

He grinned, leaning in. “What about seized goods? Money, cars… Can I get paid on that?” It wasn’t unusual in big drug cases for us to seize property used in the crime or believed to have been bought with drug money. Sometimes those seizures amounted to a pretty penny, but we had to prove it all in court, in a civil proceeding separate from the criminal charges.

“Alright,” I said, “I’ll give you ten percent of the value of any assets seized, after the court awards them and they’re sold at auction. That’s the best deal you’ll get.” Kenny shifted, his interest piqued. “What if I sell them the key? What do I get then?”

I didn’t miss a beat. “If you can help put together a reverse sting, I’ll give you ten percent of whatever cash we seize, after the court awards it to us. But understand this, you won’t be the one selling it. I will. You’ll just help set it up. If a key sells for thirty grand, you’ll get three. Same deal on seized property.”

Now, a reverse sting, that’s where we sell the drugs instead of buying them. It’s a risky move, not done too often because it walks a fine line with entrapment laws. If we’re not careful, the whole case could get thrown out, and we’d end up looking just as crooked as the criminals we’re chasing.

Entrapment happens when the police entice someone to commit a crime that they wouldn’t have ordinarily committed. It’s a tricky defense to navigate around. Offering drugs at a price too good to resist, or using sexual enticement, those are examples of things that could cross that line into entrapment.

And considering that I’d just inherited a Task Force where the last guy went to jail for selling drugs, there was no way I was going to touch a reverse sting without having control over every last detail and the District Attorney General’s blessing to boot. Kenny’s ego wasn’t ideal, but I figured I could make it work for me, the stakes were high, the reward was tempting, and more than anything, Kenny wanted to show off.

Kenny told me he was headed down to Alabama to meet with the targets and asked for some travel money. I flat-out refused. “You go down there, cultivate your relationships, and when you’re ready to start recording calls or meetings, let me know. I’ll come down and set it up, and then I’ll pay you for what contributes to the case.” He wasn’t thrilled, but he listened.

I didn’t hear from Kenny for about two months. When he finally paged me, there was a “911” tacked onto his number. Back then, it was common to use numerical codes like that on pagers to signal urgency. I knew better than to ignore it, if a CI says it’s urgent, you call back, or you risk missing something big.

When I called him back, Kenny was buzzing with excitement. He told me he’d moved in with the targets, they’d let him stay at their house. He wanted to arrange a deal right away. Really, he wanted cash, but I saw something else: an opening, an enormous vulnerability in their organization that we could exploit. If we played this right, we wouldn’t just make a big bust, we could cripple them.

Kenny was convinced he could arrange the sale of a kilo, but I suspected the potential here was far greater. My biggest concern was trusting an unreliable informant like Kenny. This was a complex operation, and I knew I needed to take the reins myself. I told Kenny we’d move forward, but we’d play hard to get.

I instructed him to keep the targets confident, convince them a deal would happen eventually, but that he needed time to bring me around. That would buy us some time, let us build a record of recordings and evidence that could withstand an entrapment defense.

Kenny was eager for a quick deal, but he understood what I was doing, and, surprisingly, he seemed fully on board. He wanted the payoff, but more than that, he wanted to show off.

I had an idea for an approach that would allow me to be blunt, even offensive, without it being taken personally by the targets. I needed them to hear me say harsh things, to convince them I was the real deal. But I couldn’t trust Kenny to say what needed saying, not from another state, not without me being able to record him. So, I devised a system that worked like a charm.

From that day on, Kenny and I had two kinds of communication. One was the standard pager and phone number for our private conversations, used to strategize. The other involved paging with a number and the code “#99”—which meant Kenny would encourage the target to secretly listen in on our call from another phone extension.

This setup served three purposes. First, it let the targets think they were getting a peek behind the curtain, a glimpse into my mindset that they weren’t supposed to have. It made them feel like they had an edge.

Second, it let me issue orders without speaking to them directly. Kenny could pass along the bad news, and it gave him a chance to appear like he was advocating for them, something they appreciated.

Third, it helped build trust and credibility. The targets saw Kenny as their guy, someone who was constantly standing up for them against a dealer (me) who was hard to convince and reluctant to trust. It was all a part of building the illusion, brick by careful brick.

Now, let me tell you, I had my reasons for playin’ the role of the ornery cuss, always doubting, always questioning their motives. It was a curious kind of strategy, but it worked like a charm. It built me a reputation as the man they needed to convince, the one who kept his cards close and his doubts even closer. It put them in the uncomfortable position of tryin’ to win me over, bending over backward just to keep me satisfied, all while I kept them dancin’ on a string.

I wanted the freedom to say the most outlandish, incendiary things, to throw suspicion around, threaten to call off the deal, or whatever else struck my fancy at the time. It was all about maintaining control over the tempo of the dance, buying time when needed, and keeping folks on their toes. I explained to Kenny that his role was simple, he needed to do whatever was necessary to keep me interested in doing business with his friends. His job was to play the mediator, to smooth over ruffled feathers whenever I threw a tantrum, and to always keep that door open for negotiation.

To cultivate the deal at the scale I suspected it could reach, I had to keep these fellows guessing, always on their heels. They needed to understand, in no uncertain terms, that they required me, but I had no particular need for them. That was the only leverage that mattered—the leverage to push for the unconventional terms that would get the nod from the District Attorney General.

Now, why all this complexity, you might ask? Well, I had a predecessor who’d managed to find himself on the wrong side of the law, and that particular episode left a sour taste with the higher-ups. You could understand why the General, the sheriffs, and the police chiefs held a wary eye toward anyone in our task force after that fiasco. It made them cautious, skeptical, and frankly, downright hard to convince.

This reverse sting I had in mind was not your run-of-the-mill maneuver. It was the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that set the General’s nerves on edge. I had to borrow a considerable amount of cocaine from another law enforcement entity, then sell it off to our targets for a substantial sum of cash. There was a whole mess of risks tied up in that proposition, not least of which was the chance that the cocaine could vanish, with the General having his name stamped on the approval.

Reverse stings are tricky business, not just legally, but practically, too. It’s like stirring up a hornet’s nest of potential dangers. Robberies, rip-offs, violence, just the nature of the beast. Not long before this, another agency had tried a reverse sting that went south in a hurry, ending with an undercover officer shot because he got too wrapped up in makin’ the deal happen and ignored all the warning signs.

One thing that’ll spell doom for any undercover operative is gettin’ too invested in a deal’s success. You have to be ready, at any moment, to turn your back on it, no matter how much effort’s gone in. The problem is, ego gets involved. You pit your wits against the target’s, and pretty soon, it’s not just a case, it’s a competition. And that, my friend, is a dangerous path.

When your sense of self starts getting tangled with the role you’re playing, especially one where you’re living a different life, you’re on shaky ground. The moment you let it become personal, every misstep feels like a personal failure, and you get emotionally blind to the risks. You start ignoring the signs of trouble that might be plain as day to anyone else. Your focus narrows, and that’s when you make mistakes.

So, I made arrangements with the Metro Nashville Police Vice Squad, they agreed to lend me however many kilos of cocaine I needed. The understanding was simple enough, they’d send the stash to the crime lab for analysis before I got it, and then again after I returned it. That way, there’d be no question about whether I tampered with it.

You know those scenes in the movies where the bad guys shove a knife into a kilo, pull some out, and taste it to see if it’s the good stuff? Well, there’d be none of that here. I couldn’t afford to let a single gram be altered, couldn’t risk the analysis comin’ back short. It meant I had to pull another trick out of my sleeve.

The bad guys, for their part, were showing more interest. Instead of one kilo, they now wanted three. So, I’d tell Kenny, with them listening, that I wasn’t about to waste my time with amateurs. “Kenny, get the hell out of there,” I’d say. “They’re either cops or they don’t know what they’re doin’.” Kenny, of course, would defend them, sayin’ they were just cautious. And I’d come back with, “Well, I’m cautious too, Kenny. Let’s just cut our losses and move on. I don’t need these clowns.”

About six weeks in, Kenny asked if his new friends could come up to Nashville to meet me in person. I knew they were listening in, so I played it reluctant, like they had to twist my arm just to get me to agree. And even then, I made it clear that there’d be no talk of business, just a chance for me to size them up.

They picked a date, and I got busy. I called in a few favors from other Task Force units, gathered up about twenty undercover agents to help set the stage. I also got in touch with an old childhood friend who’d done well for himself, he owned the fanciest strip club in town.

On the day of the meeting, I met Kenny and his crew at the Renaissance Hotel. I kept my distance, didn’t say much, just enough to be polite but not enough to put them at ease. My job was to stay aloof and make sure they were the ones doing all the guesswork.

There were three of them with Kenny. The oldest, maybe fifty, looked like he was just there to get a read on me, his name was Jay. Then there was Bertrum, about thirty, eager as a kid with a new toy. He was the one talkin’ the most, clearly tryin’ to make something of himself. And lastly, Reynard, a gang-banger who was there for muscle. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes were always watchin’.

I learned a lot about human nature in those days, but one thing that always played in my favor was that I had a knack for being a bit aloof, maybe even a little hard to know. Not that I tried to be that way, but it’s just how I came across. My wife would tell you the same. And in this line of work, it was a blessing. The less you pretend, the more genuine you seem. Folks can sniff out a phony, and street folks have the keenest noses of all.

You never want to finalize anything illegal when there’s even a whiff of suspicion in the air. If they think you’re lying, things can go south fast. Maybe they don’t peg you for a cop, maybe they think you’re there to rob them instead, and then you’re in a different kind of trouble.

So, I kept it simple and real. I took them to a BBQ place in downtown Nashville. I’d set up four tables, each with undercover agents who were to greet me as if I were someone of significance. As we walked through, each group stood up, greeted me by name, shook my hand, and made it seem like I was someone worth knowing. It worked beautifully, by the time we got to our table, my guests were trying to figure out just who they were dealing with.

Dinner was light, casual, good food, no business talk. Then I suggested we go see some girls, and soon enough, we were at my friend’s club. The setup was the same, undercover agents at different tables, all acting like they knew me. When I reached Robert, my assistant director, I introduced him as my “banker.” Gave them just enough to let their imaginations run wild.

The night ended without a hitch. I dropped them off at their hotel, and with Kenny living among them, I knew I could keep feeding them the story I wanted them to believe.

Back in Muscle Shoals, Bertrum and his crew had a meeting with their higher-ups, and Kenny was there. He called me afterward, buzzing with excitement. One of the senior members hadn’t been convinced, hadn’t heard the phone calls or seen Nashville for himself. Reynard, though, stepped up. “No, y’all, this white muthafucka’s for real!” he said.

The skeptic kept pushing, and Reynard wasn’t having it. He got up, squared off, ready to fight to defend his judgment. Kenny was shocked at how far Reynard was willing to go, and honestly, so was I. It meant all the effort, all the little details, had paid off in a way I couldn’t have managed on my own.

In the end, they decided to trust Bertrum and Reynard. They agreed to put nearly $200,000 into the deal. Kenny told them I wouldn’t settle for less than six kilos for a first buy, and they accepted. When Kenny called to say they were ready, I knew we had them.

Secretly, I told Kenny we’d go ahead but that I needed some conversations where Bertrum could listen in. There were important rules they had to understand. Kenny wanted to know what they were, so I told him, “They can’t test the coke. No cutting into it, no taste tests. The Vice Squad’s lending me six kilos, but they won’t let me tamper with it, not even a little.”

Kenny thought it was absurd. “They’ll never go for that,” he said. But I told him to leave it to me.

When the time came, Kenny called and said they were ready to buy. He asked, as planned, if they could test it. I acted like I’d been insulted. “What? Is this Romper Room, Kenny? Who are these fools, they don’t know real coke when they see it? They’ve gotta be cops. I’m out! Don’t call me again!”

Kenny played it perfect, sounding desperate, begging me not to walk away. He turned to Bertrum, who nodded. “No tests,” he said. Kenny came back on the line, apologizing. “It was my mistake, not theirs. They’re cool.”

I sighed, acting relieved. “Damn, Kenny, you had me paranoid. Took three years off my life! Alright, I’ll figure out the next steps and let you know tomorrow.”

And just like that, we were set. Now, I just had to deliver six kilos of cocaine to these fellas without getting myself killed, robbed, or worse. The first step was a meeting with Eddie, the Assistant District Attorney, a man larger than life, with the swagger of John Wayne. But that, my friends, is a story for another day.

Now, I reckon it didn’t take much to get both the Sheriff and the District Attorney General all wound up and grinning ear to ear, once they found themselves on camera, posing with heaps of cash like it was a harvest of gold. You’d have thought they’d just single-handedly wrangled a whole convoy’s worth of cocaine, the way they were talking. Truth be told, it was about thirteen pounds, certainly no tractor trailer load, but who was I to quibble with a good bit of theater? Folks do love a spectacle, after all.

But naturally, the fella who’d sworn up and down that our bust would never come to pass suddenly found himself reconsidering things. Now that the dust had settled and the cash was laid out, he decided their department was entitled to twenty percent of the haul instead of the agreed-upon ten. Mind you, this was after they’d put in little more effort than showing up to clap the cuffs on Bertrum and pose pretty for the victory photo. Well, they got their snapshot, but I sure wasn’t inclined to renegotiate our terms just because they finally saw the light.

Meanwhile, down Alabama way, I’d made sure the task force in Muscle Shoals was kept in the loop. I’d given them a heads-up on our plans so they could have eyes on Bertrum’s crew once they crossed state lines with that sack of cash. The idea was simple enough: if we nailed them on our end, Muscle Shoals would swoop in, search warrants in hand, and finish cleaning up the mess. And that’s just what we did.

By the time the sun had begun to settle low, my team and I were already barreling down the highway toward Alabama, ready to lend a hand. That evening, we rounded up several more pounds of cocaine and a hefty pile of cash, several hundred thousand, if I remember rightly. It was a proper ending to the day’s work, and we all allowed ourselves a moment to feel we’d earned our keep.

As for Kenny, well, he got his payday too, a tidy sum for his troubles. But that boy had a talent for pushing his luck. He went ahead and decided to rack up a few charges on the sly, all those phone calls from the hotel room he’d been holed up in, he billed straight to my task force. It took me a couple of months to catch on, by which time my phone bill had doubled, and every call traced back to a little room in LaVergne. A friend of mine had set Kenny up there to give him a fresh start, but Kenny just couldn’t resist testing the limits.

Well, I had to make an example of him. I charged Kenny with theft, and he ended up serving ten days in the Marshall County Jail, the very same place we’d stashed Bertrum. For a man as driven by his ego as Kenny, I’d given him his fair share of highs and lows, and this was about as low as it got. Ten days to sit tight and think things over, though truth be told, I’d made sure his hide wasn’t in any real danger. The Sheriff and I had an understanding, and Kenny’s safety was part of it. He did learn, though, that when I make a promise, I aim to keep it, whether that promise comes with a payday or a stint behind bars.