Caesar Campbell - Wrecking Crew : the brutal true story of the Bandidos legendary sergeant-at-arms

Also by Caesar Campbell

Enforcer

First published 2011 in Macmillan

These electronic editions published in 2011 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

Copyright Caesar Campbell
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Campbell, Caesar.
Wrecking crew : the brutal true story of the Bandidos' legendary sergeant at arms / Caesar Campbell with Donna Campbell.
ISBN: 9781742610481 (pbk.)
Campbell,Caesar.
Bandidos (Gang)
Gang members Australia Biography.
Motorcycle gangs Australia.
Organized crime Australia.
Criminals Australia Biography.
Other Authors/Contributors: Campbell, Donna.
364.10660994

Adobe eReader format: 978-1-74262-831-8
ePub format: 978-1-74262-832-5
Online format: 978-1-74262-830-1

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Cover design by Blandmine

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In memory of Bandido Buffalo, who passed away in December 2010. He was a good brother and I got to know him well when he was out here from Washington, in the United States.

In memory of Michael (Sheepskin) Langbien who died in March 2011 after a long illness. He was one of the hardest outlaw bikers I've known, and next to me and my brothers, one of the best bluers. Here's to you, Sheepy.

I'm sure they've joined up with the rest of the Bandido brothers who are in the Ride Forever chapter, and that Shadow, Wack, Chop and Snoddy will take extra good care of them where the petrol tanks are always full, there's a sunny breeze and a cool drink, and the highways are made to do an easy dollar eighty.

PROLOGUE

SYDNEY, 1991

I pulled up in the main shopping drag of Woodcroft in Sydney's west and got a park right outside the chemist. The missus went in to pick up some pills, while I got out to stretch my legs. The street was humming with people coming and going on their midday missions.

I'd been out of prison twelve months, but after four years of being locked away these everyday trips up the shops still felt good. Just having the freedom to go where you wanted, when you wanted. No one following you around. After the chemist we were planning to go to Woolies to do the shopping, then grab some lunch before heading home.

I was leaning against the warm bonnet of my hotted-up 1978 Fairlane dark chocolate with a white vinyl top when I felt it, whack, in the left eye, and suddenly all this blood started pissing out of my face. I couldn't see. I could just feel it everywhere.

I was hanging over the guard trying to get the blood out of my other eye so that I could figure out what was going on. I heard sheilas screaming, then my old lady, Donna, came running out with all the girls from the chemist. Are you all right, Caesar? What happened?

I was still focused on scooping the blood out of my right eye.

I heard one of them saying, He's been shot. Then someone pressed something into my forehead.

Some fella came running up from the bottom of the car park. I saw a man aiming a rifle from behind an open car door, he said. He shot the gentleman. Even with a head full of lead I found that funny, him calling me a gentleman.

As I vagued out in the back of the ambulance carting me to hospital, it felt all too familiar.

*

LATER I heard that the coppers had rocked up and interviewed everyone at the chemist. I didn't expect them to find anything, and in any case I wasn't interested in what the cops had to say. I had my own thoughts on who it could've been.

Top of my list was the Comancheros.

It was the Comancheros who'd ambushed us at Milperra six years earlier, killing two of my brothers and sending the rest of us to jail. Since then I'd had all those long, lonely nights locked up to plot my revenge. If I were the Comancheros and knowing what I'm capable of I'd be trying to knock me off, too.

But then, the Comos weren't the only blokes who'd be happy to see me six feet under. I'd had blues with other clubs since I'd been out. There were blokes who didn't like me up at the Cross, and there were certain people who thought they could make a name for themselves by taking on the big, bad Caesar Campbell.

You see, most straights assume that, after nearly dying at Milperra, losing my brothers and going to prison, my life might settle down a bit. Maybe I'd retreat to the suburbs with the kids and the dogs and put my finger collecting behind me forever. Well, there's been more drama since I got out of jail than there was before I went in. I was shot six times at Milperra, but I've copped more lead than that in the years since. I've had bullets come through the house, I've been shot in my front yard and out on the bike, and I've been popped in a blue. I've been shot at close range and from snipers. Donna's trusty probe and tweezers have pulled out everything from the biggest shotgun pellets down to .22 slugs. And even with what she's taken out, I've still got that much shrapnel in my body they've had to test me for lead poisoning.

I'm no straight. I've got no plans to slow down. I'm sixty-five now and earlier this year while I was standing in the front yard with my dogs, three blokes wearing bandanas over their faces pulled up and opened fire.

The worst part of it all, though, is that a lot of these bullets have come from people they shouldn't have. See, I was part of the best bike club in the world: the Bandidos. But the biker world started to change after Milperra. Us old-school bikers were pushed aside to make room for the new breed, with their dollars and their drive-bys. It took me a long while to realise just what was going on.

It's only now, looking back, that I can see how it unravelled and how it all began while we were in jail for the shootout at the Viking Tavern.

CHAPTER ONE

FEBRUARY, 1986

T he van came to a stop and I heard the steel gates close. From inside the back of the van I could make out blokes talking. Who've you got in there? There's enough of you here to make up a small army.

We've got the top Bandido.

Who, Caesar?

Yeah.

I'd arrived at jail.

The truck turned around and backed up, beeping, into a dock. As the doors clanged opened, I stood up, all in black with the sunglasses and the bandana, and found myself staring down two rows of helmets and bulletproof vests. Black batons raised. I thought: hmm, I'd like to have a go at a few of you.

A senior prison officer, all in blue with silver buttons on his shoulders, asked my name and led me into reception. Inside was another pipper the blokes with the silver pips on their shoulders and a third screw with stripes. The striper looked me up and down and handed me some prison greens green T-shirt, green pants, white underpants while one of the pippers ordered me to undress. There's a nurse on her way over to check you out, he said.

I took off my gear and was handing it to the screw behind the counter when this little blonde walked in. Her uniform was short and you could just about see through it; she didn't have a bad body. She looked in my mouth, got me to lift my balls then told me to turn round and spread my cheeks. Said she was satisfied I wasn't carrying anything and that I was right to get dressed. Into my new green uniform.