CLAMPING DOWN ON NC'S CASH CROP

When Black Helicopters Meet Green Thumbs

My Viking soul had been telling me for weeks that something was about to go
down -- the feeling was getting stronger and stronger.

"It will come tonight," I told my photographer friend, Michael Traister.
That very night, the TV announced "it" and the next day North Carolina
launched a fleet of helicopters. I had called the start of " Operation
Bladerunner," the state's air and ground marijuana eradication program,
almost to the hour.

Suddenly there were choppers dropping in on friends living in the country,
choppers doing night sweeps over Raleigh -- choppers everywhere. After a few
days of this, I picked up the phone. I had to find out.

In The Air

Suddenly, I found myself 300 feet above surging, billowing trees aboard a
big, spooky black helicopter -- a UH-60 Sikorsky "Blackhawk." I was the
guest of Lt. Brad Knight of the NC National Guard and director of MANTA (see
sidebar), some of his colleagues, a Sgt. Jester of Yancey County and
associated law enforcement. The UH-60 is just one of 26 fixed and rotary
wing aircraft sweeping the state from the mountains to the sea, ferreting
out pot patches.

Of the six agencies involved in Bladerunner -- DEA, FBI, NC Highway Patrol,
local authority, National Guard and Civil Air Patrol -- National Guard does
most of the grunt work, humping law enforcement to where hunches lead them
or where informants have tipped them off. This sortie consists of a spotter
chopper, a four-seater Bell OH-58 "Kiowa," the Blackhawk, and a ground unit
comprised of elements of National Guard, Crime Control, Public Safety and
local enforcement.

On the federal side, Bladerunner is top-loaded through the Department of
Defense, National Guard and DEA under the auspices of General Barry
McCaffrey -- President Clinton's drug czar. On the state level, Gov. Hunt
and the SBI call the shots.

In a small, brick building at the small airport serving Elkin, we had our
mission briefing. The talk was given by this wily, old bird named Richardson
who's been doing this for years. He instructs us not to photograph the tail
numbers of the birds or the faces of the pilots to ensure their anonymity --
and their physical safety. The briefing is succinct and to the point: what
happens if we are fired upon (it often happens and there is no armor), what
to do in the event of a crash or a field emergency, how to exit the craft
without getting one's head chopped off ("you won't feel a thing, but I'll
have a mountain of paper work," Richardson says, grinning ruefully and
shaking his head).

Lt. Knight and I had met each other outside before the briefing. We smoked a
couple of cigarettes and he gave me a general rundown on the structure of
MANTA. After the briefing, Knight took me aside to emphasize that most of
MANTA's operating budget goes to DARE programs and to pay for in-school
officers. MANTA and McCaffrey's position on marijuana's place in the
pantheon of the drug world is that it is a both a precursor drug and
illegal -- hence missions like Bladerunner.

Outside, we are given an aircraft briefing for the Blackhawk. The pilots
(there are always two pilots -- again, a ground-fire issue) go over the
particulars of the craft. The big side doors slide open and are locked back.
We board and strap ourselves into the four-point harnesses. The crew dons
flak helmets and begins flipping a battery of switches.

There is the whine of electric starters, the staccato buzz of the igniters.
The 50-foot, four-bladed rotor begins to spin -- a slow, gentle spin --
faster and faster until it is a heavy, thudding blur, a noise that's a cross
between an express subway, being stuck in a vacuum cleaner, and someone
beating on your chest.

The craft, shuddering and rocking, taxis gracelessly out to an intermediate
tarmac on the big wheels. The crushing racket goes from general shriek to a
concussive whopping sound, and then. . .the wheel stops turning and the
world suddenly gets small.

Holy smoke. This is like a little day trip to the unconscious -- like every
flying dream I've ever had. My precedents regarding the rules of motion --
all those years on motorcycles and in airplanes -- are null and void and I'm
having an out-of-body experience.

Bladerunner is a search-and-destroy operation. There is no attempt to arrest
people on the ground; that's left for another day via the local authorities
and the SBI. On the federal side, there is one DEA agent allocated to
marijuana. The agent and his computer wonk are building a database of the
business structure of the operatives in North Carolina -- and even then DEA
doesn't mess with less than a hundred pounds.

The strategy is much like a game of hopscotch. The nimble, fast 58, piloted
by Richardson, flies ahead spotting. When there is a hit, the 60 takes
position over the site, providing air cover for the personnel on the ground
that hack their way through the forest. The robust Blackhawk has the ability
to hover indefinitely. When the area is secured and the plants destroyed,
the 60 moves on behind the 58 and so forth.

I'll admit, most of the details reside in the background for a time. This
ride is absolutely hallucinatory -- the stark, brilliant clarity of the
young day, the bracing air, the movements of the machine defying my past
experiences -- rising at five feet per second, stopping, twirling around at
a fixed altitude, side winds blowing the six-ton craft aside for a
gut-dropping instant, then off in a swirl of petroleum fume.

We bank lazily over Yadkinville -- over the neat, modest homes, faded
trailers, tire shops and store fronts. Citizens emerge from their homes and
gawk. I spot a sweet old granny holding a toddler. She tries to convince the
child to wave. He finally does, but still looks worried.

Forget thermal imaging. They do all that (and they're working on a
satellite), but not on this mission. No hocus-pocus; this is strictly
daylight observation, I am the only one on board with even a pair of
binoculars. The only concession to the study of the dream-like landscape for
these intent men is the occasional removal of their black-wrap shades.

We fly on, circling broken field and forest and an amazing number of junked
cars. Creatures panic at the arrival of the Blackhawk. Deer struggle through
high grass, looking like fleas crawling through the fur on a dog's back.
Cattle stand, front legs stiff and cocked out, dumbly assessing this new
horror, eyes bugged out. Horses flee at full gallop, their manes and tails
like flowing corn silk in the morning sun.

Like tornadoes, these helicopters seem to be attracted to trailers. Hovering
over a group of mobile homes, the occupants emerge from their sad little
dwellings, stand on their stoops, blinking and stunned by our appearance.
One guy talks on a cell phone, shaking his head. Past the edge of town, we
slow and spin over forest, the deputies pointing, directing the movement of
the thunderous machine.

Professional spotters say with a little practice the patches aren't hard to
find. They tell me that the telltale signs are proximity to water, paths
through the woods, clearings in forest canopies and signs of cultivation.

We have a hit. The Blackhawk lowers to the earth and soon a raging wind
buffets the forest canopy, kicking up a blizzard of leaves that dance
through the understory. The powerful rotor wash bends trees, snapping a few
fairly large limbs. Warm, spicy aromas of bruised plants ride the cold wind.
From a small cleared area in the forest surrounded by a circle of black
fencing, I see men in camo and black shirts. One gives a thumbs up. The
deputies move about swinging machetes.

After several minutes, the bird swings around and with that distinctive
popping, we're gone -- pushed back in the seats by acceleration. With the
only reference the now-distant ground racing past, we're suddenly going a
hundred or so and we're on to the next pull.

The next seizure was a tip from someone who had observed the flights and
called the sheriff. One of the MANTA guys explains that sometimes tips come
from hunters and locals, sometimes from growers who don't like competition.

The take for these two missions was a hundred or so plants. The value is
assessed by MANTA at $2,400 per plant. One of the deputies commented that
the trip had paid for itself. The Blackhawk costs $300 to operate, the 58
somewhat less.

Miller time. We high-tailed it back to Elkin, the pilot messing with our
minds by flying in a series of high arcs to give us a taste of zero G --
hanging us loose in the harnesses for a few seconds at a time, the big
machine purring along like your grandma's furnace.

Back on the deck at Elkin, the 58 hangs five feet in the air 100 feet from
us, rotor churning. The pilot of the Blackhawk holds the 12,000-pound craft
at a grand altitude of one foot, dead motionless. Then the beast relaxed and
settled on the asphalt with the unheard sigh of sturdy expensive hydraulics.

On the Ground

"Abdul growing any this year?" one deputy asks another. We're waiting for a
helicopter, this time at the airport outside Siler City.

"Told me he hadn't had time to plant."

"Who's Abdul?" I ask.

"Arab dude. Moroccan, I think. Most every year he grows some behind his
house and most every year we bust him. Doesn't try to hide it and he's
always cooperative. He sends us a card every year. He's always saying,
'Invest with me.' He buys these rings and watches overseas and sells them at
his little store. Nice guy. Blesses goats and sheep at the slaughterhouse."

This is the other side -- the ground operation. This one has a distinctly
multicultural feel: Chatham County Sheriff Randy Keck and his deputies, a
couple of good old boys, a black dude and this tough little gal; the MANTA
people, a young guy named Jason Pleasant, Torres (a big, happy Puerto Rican
guy) and an SBI agent named Parrish.

Ground support means a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, but I'm assured that
Chatham County is fertile ground -- old hippies, farm workers and a whole
lot of forest.

We're outside now. The team is hustling their gear out of a variety of
federal GSA sedans and a shiny state Crown Vic into a rag-tag assortment of
private four-wheel-drive hunting trucks.

The sound now buried in my brain, my ears prick up. I hear the helicopter
before I see it, a speck above the trees.

It's a lone HP Bell piloted by two fairly menacing NC State Troopers in
black flight suits, packing Beretta 92s in some very elaborate gun leather.
Outside, the ground team examines the chopper. I explain the cable cutters
to one of the deputies. Power lines are a huge, invisible hazard, so the
machines are equipped with cutters that work like large letter openers,
hopefully severing power lines before they can do real damage.

After a short briefing, we gird ourselves for the ordeal, and we're off. It
is hot and humid, temperatures in the 90s.

We drive in big circles for an hour or so, meeting back at the airport to
confer and exchange personnel. The force settles on two sites and then it's
back in the vehicles. We stop at a convenience store to wait for
confirmation.

After a 15-minute drive, we're on a dirt road leading to cutover timberland;
the property line plainly marked "No Trespassing." Our convoy powers right
on through and we disembark, the team preparing -- gathering radios,
machetes and putting on camo vests.

We hustle down a weedy path at the boundary between the cutover and the
forest, pushing through blackberry vines and poison ivy. At a certain point,
directed by the spotter, we turn and forge full on into the jungle,
crouching and at one point crawling, sweating and grunting though the dense
thickets, the burly men hacking their way through the gloomy, sweltering
understory.

The SBI guy, Parrish, had warned me about booby traps.

"That's why I'll be way in the back and you'll be in front," I told him.

Then we are upon a dark, cool creek, jumping on flat rocks, pausing to
reconnoiter -- quiet voices and the crackle of radios, the Bell thumping
over us, occasionally visible through the canopy 50 feet overhead. We move
down the creek about 25 yards or so.

I smell it before I see it. The patch is immediately adjacent to the creek,
a light green, sun-dappled clearing amid the much darker forest shades. We
climb up the creek to a small, flat area surrounded by chicken wire. The
officers commence chopping the foot-high plants, kicking down the wire and
generally wreaking destruction.

There is no gloating or celebration -- this is business. The plants are
collected, tied with cord and taken to be "dried and incinerated." As the
deputy holds the seizure, the only thing I can think of is a fishing trophy
photo. Parrish stands off, his Glock in hand, vigilant.

Keck leads the way to the next site, waving to most everyone he sees. This
one is more of the same: a dirt road marked with a sign for a security
service, which we just about run over. Pleasant has had to bail, so Traister
and I are forced, humorously, to press his Sentra into a counter drug
operation, the little Nissan surprisingly jolly about following in the
swirling dust left by the four-wheel-drive trucks bouncing along the rutted
lane.

This is a genuinely eerie setting -- an odd, well-made concrete house with
two wings like the ends of a dumbbell. It's a hippie house of sorts that
seems to have been abandoned a few years ago -- as if the inhabitants just
walked away. Pushed up in chest-high weeds is a nearly identical Sentra with
'97 tags and a Nine Inch Nails sticker on the back glass. The female deputy
and I walk over to examine an abandoned flower garden overrun with weeds;
baked dry by neglect and the suffocating heat.

At the end of the driveway, we find the patch: 10 feet by 10 feet, boxed
with 2x6s, blue tarp laid inside the box, hundreds of pounds of potting soil
filling the void. Twenty-seven one-foot high plants fall to the blade, the
box kicked apart, the blue tarp hacked to ribbons.

I feel bad. I know the stuff's illegal, but it was someone's little project.
It lay now in ruins, the classic "Oh, fuck!" when whoever, kids it looked
like, returned. The deputies don't leave a business card as they sometimes
used to, so this one will remain a mystery to the growers.

Accompanying that twinge of regret is a curious feeling. If I was to be on a
marijuana eradication mission with all these large, armed people in heavy
field clothing and magnificent thundering equipment, I wanted to see me some
pot, man -- I mean I wanted vast waving fields of green instead of this
wilted, hacked up bunch of what could have been $3 worth of basil from a
grocery store.

One would have to be nuts to try and grow pot outside when they fly. . .
unless you're really careful.