Adam Higginbotham - A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite

The helicopter thundered over thedarkened forest, heading west, rising into the mountains beneath analmost full moon. Even for FBI special agent Dell Rowley, a slightfive foot nine, the narrow cargo space behind the two front seatswas a tight fit. The helmet and Kevlar vest he wore over his blackfatigues, and the weapons he carried, did not make it any morecomfortable. But the pilot was supposed to be alone, so Rowley hadto stay where he was. Besides, the copilots seat was occupied bythree canvas money bags, stuffed with cut-and-bound bundles ofnewsprint calculated to match the weight and volume of almost $3million in $100 billsand $1,000 in cash, to complete theeffect.

By the ambient glow of the instrument panel, Rowley read thesecond letter from the extortionists whose giant bomb currently satin the second-floor offices of Harveys Wagon Wheel Casino, 20miles away, back in Stateline, Nevada. The bomb was silentlycounting down to an explosion that the nations best techniciansstill had no idea how to prevent. The author of the letters wasgiven to grandiose turns of phrase and idiosyncratic language andhad provided complex instructions for the ransom drop: ahelicopter, a lone pilot, a flight along Highway 50 into themountains, a signal from a strobe light, a clearing for a landingzone, the $3 million in used bills. No weapons, no one ridingshotgun. The first note had concluded with an ironic flourish.Happy landing, it read, a subtly misaligned row of letters bangedout on an electric typewriter.

But the FBI agents had no patience for such arrangements. Theyknew that the money drop was the weak point in any extortionattempt. Up in the night sky above Rowley, high enough for the windto carry away the telltale throb of its rotors until it was toolate, was a Huey carrying a six-man SWAT team from the bureausSacramento office. In Rowleys hands was an MP5 submachine gunfitted with a silencer. In his head was a simple plan.

As the skids of the Bell Ranger touched down on themountainside, the pilot would douse the lights and kick open thedoor, and Rowley would roll unseen to the ground. He would scuttleinto the trees, switch on his night-vision goggles, and locate theextortionists.

Then, if necessary, he would kill them.

Jimmy Birges walked up the steps to the front porch of his olderbrothers house in Fresno, California, and rang the doorbell. Thenhe rang it again, and again. On the fifth ring, Johnny Birgesreluctantly opened the door. He was high.

John Birges Jr. was 19 years old. He liked weed, beer, girls,and the Stones. Decades later, the brassy disco strut of Miss Youwould still remind him of the day he finally dropped out of highschool, packed his gear and his motocross trophies, and turned hisback on the family home and the father he detested. Two months pasthis 16th birthday, hed started busing tables at Tinys OliveBranch, a 24-hour diner out on Highway 99, and sleeping on couches.Now he shared a place with two friends from school, made good moneyworking as a roofer, and grew a little pot on the side. He soldsome and smoked the rest.

A diligent anthropologist seeking the embodiment of a certainkind of California lifestyle at the end of the 1970s would behard-pressed to find one more potent than Johnny Birges. He wasblond and tanthe result of nailing shingles six days a week in thefierce Central Valley sunwith narrow green eyes, a wispy mustache,and shaggy hair down to his shoulders. He moved his tools from jobto job in the back of his snub-nosed Dodge Tradesman cargo van,which on Saturday nights he still used to take his bike to races.The van was plain white, but Johnny had fitted it with mag wheelsand wide tires. On the driver-side door was a sticker that read,When the vans A-rockin, dont come A-knockin. On the dashboardwas another: Ass, grass or cashnobody rides for free. Johnny washigh every waking moment of the day. His brother couldnt standhim.

As smart and composed as his brother was hazy and unkempt, JimmyBirges was 18 but skinnier and taller than Johnny, and a student ina high school program for gifted kids. He had grown his dark hairlong, too, but it was neatly parted in the middle, and he favoredbutton-down shirts and Top-Siders. He had a smooth charm, which hewould later put to use as a car salesman at Fresno Toyota. Thestoner and the straight arrow were predictably at odds. After hisbrother had left home, Jimmy tried sharing an apartment with him,but they couldnt get along. In the end, he moved back in with hisfather, in the familys house on North Fowler Avenue in Clovis, aquiet northeastern suburb of Fresno. The two boys had barely seeneach other in three years.

How did you know where I live? Johnny asked.

I dont want anything from you, Jimmy said. Big John sent meto tell you he needs your help.

The Birges boys were still bound together by at least one thing:a terror of their father, a cantankerous Hungarian migr whom theyand everyone else called Big John. Johnny hated his father butstill yearned for his approval. He waved Jimmy into the house,where he was cooking breakfast for his girlfriend, KelliCooper.

Then Jimmy told his brother what their father had in mind.

Big John was going to extort a million dollars from HarveysWagon Wheel Casino in Lake Tahoe, and he planned to do it bybuilding a bomb.

The two boys had a good laugh about that. Kelli laughed, too.Another of Big Johns crazy schemes. It would never happen. Thenagain, it wouldnt be the strangest thing their father had everbeen mixed up in.

Janos Birges arrived in the United Statesin May 1957 a penniless 35-year-old political refugee. He was darkand handsome then, with an intense gaze, a high forehead, and anaquiline nose; beneath his shirt, a tattooed eagle spread its wingsacross his chest. He had fled Hungary six months earlier, whenSoviet tanks rolled into Budapest, crushing the popular uprisingagainst the countrys Communist government.

Born in 1922 in Jszberny, an agricultural town in centralHungary, Janos was the only child of a landowning and farmingfamily; hed say later that he considered himself upper middleclass. But his father was a ferocious drinker and hated having theboy around. He sent Janos to live with his grandparents at the ageof three, and Janos spent nine happy years with them. In 1933, theysent him back, and several years later, at 15, Janos ran away forgood. He went to Budapest, where he was taken in by a butcher andhis family.

The stories he told his sons about what happened next are hardto verify. He was always secretive about his past, and the boysnever asked too many questions. Knowledge is power, he often said;the more people know about you, the weaker you are. But the accounthe gave them was by no means unlikely. At first, he told Johnny, heworked as the butchers apprentice, and was soon running the shop.Then, in 1941, Hungary entered World War II on the German side andsent troops to support the invasion of Russia. That was the yearJanos enrolled in the Royal Hungarian Air Force MilitaryAcademy.

By the time he graduated and entered the Royal Hungarian ArmyAir Force as a pilot, in 1944, the tide of the war had turned: TheNazis had formally occupied Hungary, and the Red Army wasapproaching its eastern borders. Janos was put at the controls ofan Me 109 fighter plane and sent up to fight the Russians. He likedto tell his son that he shot down 13 Allied planes before being hitby anti-aircraft fire over Italy and captured by Allied troops.U.S. records show only that in 1945, a month after the Hungariancapital fell to the Soviets, Birges was arrested by the Gestapo inAustria. He was charged with disobeying orders but escaped; he wasarrested again in 1946, by Hungarian military authorities, butreleased without charge.