CHAPTER 9: ALL ROADS LEAD TO THE TABLE

JUNE 1970

TELLER AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR, BUCKHEAD NEIGHBORHOOD, CHARMING / NEW YORK CITY, 1965-1968

The auto repair shop owned by JTs father Cliff was located in an industrial area by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad tracks just west of downtown Charming, well away from the town's main commercial drags, but he still did brisk business. That was because he was one of the best and especially in a small town like Charming, word of mouth was by far the most effective kind of marketing. Today, though, the parking area outside the garage was lined with several bikes even though business hours officially ended a few hours ago.

JT nodded to Clay, who closed the outer gate of the property, ensuring nobody could approach without attracting attention, and if someone did do that, the men gathered here all took full advantage of their 2nd amendment rights. One by one, they made their way through the mechanical area of the garage past several Ford and Chevy pickups being kept for overnight service and into the comfortable back area, to what looked like a large conference room next to Cliff Teller's private office. JT, Clay, Piney, Otto Moran, Lenny Janowitz, and Unser immediately took their seats, with JT at the head of the table.

There were several other men present, men who had been close friends with one or several of the above. Keith McGee was a bike aficionado that ran in the same circles as Clay and Lenny. McGee originally hailed from a Catholic area of Belfast, Northern Ireland, but he didn't want any part of the sectarian conflict between the Catholics and Protestants there. Too many people he knew, including his father, had been jailed for being involved in terrorist activities with the IRA against the British government. He grew up leading a life of petty crime then graduated to smuggling weapons through the "peace walls" separating Protestant and Catholic Belfast. For him it was more about money than ideology, and he had always hoped to eventually leave the streets of Belfast behind.

That day came rather suddenly and unexpectedly when the conflict found him. A tip to British MI5 from an anonymous source within the IRA helped the authorities foil a terrorist plot to bomb a commuter train serving several Protestant neighborhoods in East Belfast. Stopping the attack was this informant's ticket out of the IRA and a new identity, but he remained paranoid and framed Keith McGee as the snitch and outed him to the Irish Kings, the IRA leadership. After all, Keith was an arms dealer so the informant had no qualms about throwing him under the bus. The informant told the Irish Kings that McGee sold them out in an attempt to secure an early release from his father, then faked his own death.

So it was a complete surprise when an IRA hit team assaulted his apartment in West Belfast one day. In fact, he thought it was a rival crime ring or the police. It was only after Keith fought his way out, leaving seven dead gunmen in his wake, that he discovered they were dispatched by the IRA itself, one of his most lucrative business connections. Keith went to the only man he could trust, an IRA-affiliated Catholic bishop by the name of Father Ashby, the priest who had helped raise him, starting with his infant baptism. Despite the fact that Father Ashby was a recruiter for the IRA who preached a warped, violent version of Catholicism from the pulpit, he somehow believed Keith's claims that he was set up, or at least pretended to. Father Ashby then provided McGee with a one-way plane ticket to New York City and fake American documents with the help of a bribed U.S. consulate official with personal ties to Belfast.

Keith tried to turn his life around, living in a working class area of Staten Island and doing menial jobs around the city. Unable to afford a vehicle and unwilling to rely on the dangerous, filthy subway, he purchased a used motorcycle that allowed him to commute all over the five boroughs as well as nearby parts of Long Island and New Jersey. His "legal" status in America actually harmed him. Many employers would rather hire illegals whom they can pay below minimum wage. For McGee, that kind of lifestyle was worse than the poverty he witnessed in Belfast. Things changed for him one day when he met Lenny Janowitz and Otto Moran one day at a small, run-down pub on Staten Island. It was rare for the regulars there to even acknowledge Keith even when he regularly went their after work. New York's older neighborhoods were notoriously clichy and unwelcoming to outsiders, and even the Irish Americans there didn't see Keith as one of them. No matter anyway, cause they were hardly Irish in his eyes after so many generations in America. But Lenny and Otto were also transplants dealing with the unfriendliness of the Big Apple, and they were also avid bikers, so they quickly struck up a conversation.

Lenny and Otto had left Charming for both adventure and business. Lenny became an associate of the Colombo crime family, one of the city's five major Mafia families, and helped them pimp hookers outside the red light businesses near Times Square while Otto was part of a protection racket also run by the Colombos. Keith used his street smarts to his full advantage and were soon taken aboard by Otto and Lenny. As rough as Belfast was, New York was worse. Bodies began piling up as Puerto Rican street gangs encroached on the Mafia's territory and demanded their own part of the business. The running gun battles they had to fight against the Puerto Ricans in the Bronx made Belfast's sectarian violence seem boring in comparison. It was during this trial by fire that Keith and the Charming guys went from business associates to inseparable friends.

The increased level of violence threatened the unofficial arrangements between the Mafia and corrupt elements in the NYPD. The Colombos were pushed to accepting a tense cease fire giving the Puerto Ricans a permanent foothold in the Bronx, but both the Puerto Ricans and the corrupt cops demanded that Lenny, Otto, and Keith leave New York. Silently, they knew it was because their reputation was so feared that the Puerto Ricans wanted to make sure they never had to deal with them again if the truce ever broke down. The timing worked out well as the Colombos had friends in the Bay Area's Cacuzza family, so Keith followed his friends back to California. After only a few months, Lenny and Otto were arrested in a police sting operation against the Cacuzzas and sent to Stockton State Prison while Keith kept his head low in Charming working at the Oswald lumber yard.

With nobody left to turn to, JT, Piney and Clay could only rely on the connections that JT had made during his own time in Stockton following the unfair conviction stemming from his altercation with the student protestors at Fisherman's Wharf.

TELLER AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR, 1970

Also in the room were Wally Grazer and Thomas Whitney, two of Lenny's associates from the Charming area. They had both been acquaintances with JT during high school. They served as Air Force pilots in Vietnam from 1965 to 1967, returning stateside shortly after JT's deployment. While they avoided the kind of traumatic experiences JT faced, they knew fellow pilots who were shot down and captured by the North Vietnamese. The mainstream news media never covered what happened to them, but Wally and Thomas discovered the truth while on leave in Thailand. In a brothel there, a local TV station showed propaganda videos released by the communists. One prisoner they recognized was shown in solitary confinement in the Hanoi Hilton with deep, bleeding welts all over his body being electrocuted by a cattle prod to his genitals. That man had lost at least half of his body weight and was a mere skeleton, like the Holocaust survivors shown in the news after the Allied liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. Another American POW they didn't recognize was shown being fed to crocodiles in a swamp while the commies laughed, cheered, and took shots of Soviet vodka in the background. Having seen combat in Vietnam, Thomas and Wally were both members of the Charming VFW post and were good friends with the older veteran who had been critically burned in the Weathermen attack.

Wally and Thomas had trouble adjusting to life back in America, and even in Charming, they faced intense job discrimination as Vietnam vets. They understood that for many business owners it was an overreaction. They themselves often had no problem hiring vets, yet were afraid of alienating customers who either opposed the war or were uncomfortable having the vets around. It was similar to how many business owners a decade ago had no problem with black customers, but still placed "whites only" signs on their doors out of a fear of community rejection. The two eventually went back into the biking culture they were part of in high school and became involved in petty crimes around the area. Somehow, they had avoided being caught by the law. When Piney informed them of the plan to avenge the events in Lodi and Charming, they never hesitated, not for a single moment.

The last man there was Detective Ray Gao of the San Francisco Police Department. Like Wayne Unser, he was not in uniform and not even supposed to be here. His presence immediately drew some attention from the others despite JT's efforts to keep everyone calm and composed.

"Another fucking cop?" Otto Moran said, giving Gao a death stare, "I'm not even completely comfortable with Wayne here, and we and him go way back to since we were kids, but this guy?"

JT spoke up, looking around the room to make sure everyone around the table was hearing him. "Look, everyone. I trust Wayne on this. We're here on my family's property, if I didn't trust Detective Gao, he wouldn't be here right now."

That did little to assuage some of the suspicions at first, especially from those with criminal records. "But why would he help us? What's in it for him? There's no way any of us can afford to pay for the information, if it's as good as y'all claim it is," remarked Lenny. His time in Stockton prison and earlier on the streets of New York had made him increasingly wary of the world around him.

"Because I hate these commie bastards as much as you all do," Detective Gao replied. "First of all, the Weathermen killed one of my best friends on the force when they blew up a pipe bomb in the San Francisco police station, and we believe it's the Berkeley faction that was responsible even though not a single person on that fucking campus is willing to talk, and the FBI refuses to assist us. Secondly, my parents were born in Communist China and many members of my family were murdered by Mao Zedong's revolutionaries. They thought that as an American, I wouldn't have to deal with this bullshit and now all these attacks start happening right here at home. Yes, I'm a first generation American, but I appreciate and love this country a lot more than many people whose families have been here for much longer. And when I'm in here, I'm Ray, not Detective Gao."

This silenced the doubters in the room, and Lenny even nodded with grudging respect. "So what do you have for us, Ray?"

Ray opened his briefcase and spread out several copies of photos and police documents from various Bay Area police departments to the men gathered around the room. "Don't worry, I also made extra copies," he said, getting a chuckle out of Unser. "Keep in mind that I'm obviously not at liberty to discuss any of this, and that much of this intel comes from investigating that myself and my fellow officers have done off the clock without permission."

"Okay, as y'all are most likely aware, there's been an endless string of targeted violent attacks against current and former members of the military in the last year and there are several cells involved, but we believe the cell responsible for the most heinous ones including the Lodi bombing is led by Walt Rogers, a sociology professor at UC-Berkeley. We ran Wayne's pictures of the missing protesters against our records and they're known associates of several leading Weathermen, including the ones I'm about to show you right now."

Ray placed Professor Rogers's picture on the bulletin board in the room right next to the table. "We believe Rogers radicalized and/or recruited a number of his students into the Weather Underground in the past few years including those we believe to be the chief architects of the Lodi bombing. Comrade Jimmy's real name is James Nelms and we believe he personally detonated the bomb. We also have Deanna Lunsik, an engineering student who we suspect is their explosives expert. She has family in the Charming area and we believe she also scouted targets around here for the attack. Her input is believed to have been crucial in their decision to target the credit union. Lastly, here's another top operative who attends the university under the name Antonio Garcia. He's a illegal alien with ties to Oakland gang members. Nelms and Garcia live in the campus dorms, while Lunsik lives several blocks from campus on university-owned property."

"So you can't just go guns blazing," Clay remarked, staring in hatred at the pictures on the bulletin board and spread out across the table. "That's where we come in?"

"Not just that," Ray told them, "Nelms and Lunsik's families are extremely politically connected. Nelms comes from old money in Boston, and Lunsik's father is a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Nothing we charge them with is likely to stick in the courts. And there's another reason why I think you're right for the job."

"Please entertain us," Piney said. He was also interested in doing anything to get these bastards who had killed Otis Cross and cowardly attacked a VFW post of all places.

Ray carried on with his briefing. "The Weathermen buy their weapons from the Oakland charter of the Mayans motorcycle club, an outlaw biker gang whose members are mostly illegal immigrants like Antonio and he's the connection between them. The Mayans supply the Weathermen with guns for their operations. A lot of their smuggling business is obviously done along the border, but they also own several suspicious properties on the Oakland docks. In exchange, the Weathermen help the Mayans sell drugs on campus. You see, the UC Berkeley student body's one of the most lucrative markets for illegal drugs in the entire Bay Area, but the Mayans can't just dispatch their own people to peddle their own product like they do on the Oakland street corners. For all their progressive politics, the students and faculty wouldn't be too comfortable having that kind of socioeconomic and cultural diversity on campus."

"So they need some white college kids to do their dirty work," JT finished the thought for Ray. "No suspicions, and if they screw up and get caught, they just make one phone call to daddy and everything gets swept under the rug and it's business as usual all over again."

"Just how things work these days," Ray replied.

"The information you provided us was extremely helpful," Lenny said, "More than you probably even expected."

"We'll definitely look into it," JT said, "And if any additional information were to surface, be sure to pass it on to Unser here. That would be greatly appreciated."

SONS OF ANARCHY CLUBHOUSE, TELLER AUTOMOTIVE REPAIR

Unser also excused himself and left the room, leaving only JT and the others.

"I'm already starting to have a plan," Otto Moran said, looking around the table. "Me and Lenny have a friend in the Mayans. Now that we know they're the ones dealing with the Weathermen, we can milk that connection for our own benefit."

"And who would this friend be?" Clay asked curiously.

"With no disrespect to anyone here, I think it's best that we keep that confidential, at least for the time being," Lenny replied with a slight tone of authority.

"Can you at least tell us his motivations for helping us?" Piney followed up.

"That fact would best remain confidential as well," Wally told him.

"Wait a minute here," Clay interjected, "Y'all are saying you have this source that can help us, but you won't even tell us who the hell it is?" Keith was thinking the same thing, but kept his thoughts to himself given that he was still a newcomer in front of these guys. He compared it to meeting with the IRA leaders back in Northern Ireland. JT had the same kind of authority, Keith noticed. It wasn't the kind of brutal authority he saw in the IRA leaders, but a type of authority and respect nonetheless.

JT spoke up, and like always, Clay and Piney listened carefully to what he had to say. They seemed to gravitate toward him, just like they had in the Army. "I agree with Lenny here. Look, guys, we must not kid ourselves about what we're about to get into. We're going to be operating on the other side of the law against some very determined enemies. This may very well get ugly. We need to think of it like the way we used to in the Army. We're about to start this war now and we don't know when or how it's going to end. Let's say that hypothetically one or more of us gets kidnapped by either the Weathermen or the Mayans. They're going to torture us for information just like the commies did. The less we know, the better. We can't afford to risk compromising whatever sources we have."

"That does make sense," Clay conceded. Yes, JT certainly did have a point.

"I'll contact my source in the Mayans ASAP. Should be able to reach him within a couple days," Lenny told JT.

"I also believe getting revenge for Otis isn't enough," Clay added, "We need to send those bastards a message so strong they won't ever dare to fuck with us again. And we ain't gonna do that just being a bunch of gun-toting Charming hillbillies who know how to shoot a few guns. We need to do more than simply teach these people a lesson. We need to wipe them out!"

JT and Clay had discussed this in private and hinted for the other ones too. They were all bikers, and starting a new club, especially under these circumstances, was a logical next step.

JT looked around the table. "So you're also thinking about an organization, a club, giving ourselves a name that they'll learn to fear and respect. I wish it didn't come down to this, but I agree with you."

"We ride together, die together, like we've always said," Piney added. "Any ideas?"

JT nodded. "How about the Sons of Anarchy? The Weathermen, they want this revolution and chaos. The feds refuse to pursue justice or do anything about everything's that's been taking place. It's anarchy out there, and it's our enemies and the powers that be that created it. And it was this chaos and anarchy that gave rise to us and what we're about to do."

"I do like that," Piney replied, and around the table, they all nodded one by one. "Forming an outlaw MC. That's….we've always joked about it. I can't believe its for real. But if we're do to it, we need you at the head of the table."

JT looked hesitant for a moment. "I was thinking maybe we could all…."

"You've always been our leader, JT, and we're back on the battlefield," Clay told him. "You know how to fight this war better than any of us. And make no mistake, if those dirtbags who killed Otis want to run their fucking mouths in the newspapers about bringing the war home to us, we're going to show them and what war's really like."

"I accept, but I want to make everything clear here though. I don't want a single one of you to ever feel intimidated or afraid to voice your opinions. We need everyone's honest input if we're to survive this thing. The major decisions of this club have to be unanimous. And lastly, we're not a traditional MC like the Mayans. Those are all formed for the wrong reasons. The Sons of Anarchy will not be about running drugs or whorehouses. That's not our vision and we need to make that very clear. We are about protecting our families and our town, and doing the right thing when nobody else is capable of doing so."

JUNE 1970

THE CLUBHOUSE

JT opened the double doors to the private room and all of the members filed in after them, taking their seats. By this time, all of them official positions within the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club were established. Piney was the Vice President, Clay was the Master at Arms, and Lenny, known as Lenny the Pimp because of what he did in New York, was the Secretary. Lenny and Otto had come to an amicable agreement with the Cacuzzas in that they could still call on them and their club for assistance if an extreme scenario ever arose, but allowed them to end their association. Not being of Italian descent was a double edged sword when it came to the Mafia. It meant they could never be a made man, but at the same time as an associate, they were free to distance themselves from the Mob the way a made man would never be allowed to do.

All of the men also wore leather kuttes with the Sons of Anarchy logos emblazoned on the back and their officer patches on the front as applicable.

JT nodded in Lenny's direction. "Lenny, you suggested that we call this special meeting today because you have some very actionable info for us. We're eager to hear it."

"My source inside the Mayans confirmed everything our friends in blue told us about that club's dealings with the Weathermen. The Weathermen are asking to more than triple the amount of cash, drugs, and weapons involved in their arrangement. The word on the street is that Comrade Jimmy's faction is planning more attacks and are ordering a tremendous amount of weapons."

"Jesus Christ," Clay cursed. "And you think they're going to hit Charming again?"

"That I don't know," Lenny replied, "But because of these high-stakes negotiations, the Weathermen have requested a meeting between their top operatives and senior members of the Mayans leadership. This meeting will take place at the Macy's parking garage of the Sunvalley Mall next Thursday afternoon. Comrade Jimmy will personally be there, as will Antonio Garcia, who's their liaison with the Mayans, plus Deanna Lunsik. As their weapons expert, she'll have to be there to confirm they really are getting bang for their buck. Our source has attended several past between the Mayans and the Weathermen, and if it's anything like before, the Weathermen will bring a large terrorist crew for security purposes."

"Large as in how many?" JT asked, his mind already spinning at the possibilities.

"Usually at least six of seven. For an important meeting like this, it's likely they'll bring even more, maybe close to a dozen in various locations. If we wipe out that many of them in one fell swoop as Clay suggested at our last meeting, we'll cripple the Weathermen once and for all as well as send the message we need."

"What about Professor Rogers? Is he going to be there?"

Lenny shook his head. "I don't think so. He's always dispatched his top lieutenants."

"No doubt the good professor always stays nice and insulated back in Berkeley. Gets his students to do all the dirty work for him. Fucking coward," commented Piney.

"Rogers inspired and directed this attack," JT said, "As much as I love to get all the bastards we can, he should be our top priority. And if he stays alive, he can brainwash some more of these impressionable students into joining his cause, and a few months, a few years from now we'll be right back where we started."

"There's no way to find out when he's going to together with the rest of his crew, and as we all know going into Berkeley with guns blazing is out of the question. He's protected by layers of cops and campus security and we're not about to shoot it out with law enforcement. JT, this is the best we've got right now, and a chance like this may never happen again," said Lenny.

JT sighed. "I guess we'll have to save Rogers for a different day, but you're right, this is going to cripple their organization for now. But what about the Mayans? We don't want to get ourselves in a war with them. They'll be pissed off enough when we take out their business partners leaving nobody to sell their drugs in Berkeley for the time being. If we kill any of their people, it's not going to turn out good for us."

"The Weathermen, being paranoid as they are, usually show up at least ten minutes early," Lenny informed the rest of the club. "We'll be there an hour before the meet to scout the area. If we're lucky, we'll hit them before the Mayans arrive on the scene. Or, we can ambush them on the way to the parking lot."

"Also, if I may," Keith spoke up for the first time in his thick Northern Irish accent. "Perhaps there is a way to get Professor Rogers."

"What do you have in mind?" JT asked hopefully.

"It may add a few more challenges to the plan, but instead of killing all of the Weathermen on the spot, we can capture the girl alive and offer to make an exchange with Rogers. His life for hers."

"You think Rogers will negotiate for her? He probably thinks all of his operatives are expendable. For him to sacrifice his own life for Deanna?"

"The possibility is there, guys," Keith continued. "I've been around very committed terrorists my entire life. Maybe Deanna isn't expendable like the others. She's the expertise behind their weapons. Even Rogers himself can't entirely replace her. If Rogers is a true believer in his cause, he very well may be willing to sacrifice his own life for the future of his faction. Deanna is critical to the faction's future success."

"And if he doesn't negotiate?" Otto asked.

"Then we'll kill the terrorist bitch, like we had initially planned to anyway," Keith answered.

"I like that," JT said, a dark smirk forming on his face and he filled with determination. "Our second order of business while we're here, is the question of how we're going to procure weapons for this operation. My initial plan had been to hunt down these bastards one by one, but I like going with this idea of finishing as many of them off at once, but that would require more hardware."

"I should be able to get some military style weapons from the local militias," Lenny said. He indeed had many friends in the locally active militia groups, some of them would jump at the opportunity to support a fight against the Weather Underground's left wing terrorists. "Isaac Daniels comes to mind first. He's got a large arsenal of weapons that he can probably spare. I've known him for years. We can trust him. He may not want to be on the front lines like us, but he is sympathetic toward us. These weapons should get us through this operation. I honestly don't know about the future."

"If we succeed this time, we won't have to worry about the future," said Clay, "Once we wipe out their faction members and capture Deanna, our regular firepower should be more than enough to deal with Rogers. In fact that part's going to nice and personal, just a good ol' fashioned pistol or knife."

"I agree," JT said. I'm going to put this up for a vote now. Everyone in favor of attacking the Weathermen next Thursday and capturing Deanna Lunsik, say aye."

Each and every man around the table raised their hands and said "aye" quite loudly.

"Okay," JT said, "It's a go."