Blown for Good Behind the Iron Curtain of Scientology (21 page)

Intruder Drill #2

We were on the night shift in Tapes. It was Tony Cifarelli, Agnese Bertolina Johnson and I. It was just like any other night and we had been back from our meal for about an hour or so and I needed to use the facilities. It must have been around 2:00
 a.m.
The bathrooms are no more than 20 feet from where Tapes was.

I was sitting on the toilet when Tony came in. I could tell it was him because he always checked to see if someone was in the head when he entered. “Marc?” he said, knowing I had just left to go to the bathroom one minute earlier. “Yeah,” I answered back. He was taking a leak. I could hear him humming as he did so. I am one of those people who needs some privacy in order to do my business. Tony coming in and humming had chased it back up and I was not about to be able to go.

All of a sudden Agnese came busting in the door and screamed at the top of her lungs that there was an intruder drill and we needed to get back into the Tapes area right away! Crap! Without even standing up, I pulled up my underwear so quickly that they literally ripped right off my legs into my hands.

I pulled up my pants and zipped up as I ran back towards Tapes. Tony was right in front of me. We ran into Tapes and got under the desk. Agnese had already drawn the blinds, closed the doors and was under the desk when we got back in there. The phone rang! I answered. It was the security booth. “You and Tony need to come to the main booth right now!” Danny Dunagin blurted out.

“Tony, we have to go to the main booth right now!” I yelled as I headed for the door. I was at the main booth within a minute. Tony took an additional minute to get up there.

As I showed up, Danny was in the booth and had a phone in one hand and was talking on the radio with the other. He was trying to reach the guards sleeping at Old Gilman’s house and was having no luck. Danny told us a perimeter alarm had gone off up above Bonnie View at the top of the property. Danny still couldn’t get any of the sleeping guards on the radio and Tony and I were the totality of the security force besides him and the rover who he had sent to go wake up the other guards. Not only could he not get the other guards on the radio, he could not reach the rover either. The rover was the one who was supposed to be waking up the other guards. Danny, frustrated with the no answers, told me, “Run down to Old Gilman’s house, wake up the other guards and tell them we have an intruder. If you run into Deacon (the rover), tell him to answer his damn radio! I ran. Since this was a security drill, I ran straight down the highway as opposed to taking all the many paths that weaved through the property. Normally, security would bust your ass for being on the highway for any reason. As I was almost to Old Gilman’s house, I ran into the rover, his radio was dead and his bike was out of gas! Talk about Keystone cops.

I told him that that I was going to wake up the other guards as I ran past.

I busted into the security dorm, started yelling for them to get up and that there was an intruder drill happening. I turned on the lights and told them that I was heading back to the main booth.

As I got back to the main booth, I told Danny that Deacon was down by Old Gilman’s house out of gas and that the other guards were on their way. Just then, a few guards pulled up on one of their bikes. Tony was sitting on the curb by the booth watching me catch my breath. Turns out that the security radios were deader than doornails and that most of them did not work unless charged all night long. Well they’d only been on charge a couple of hours, so the radios were mostly still dead from the prior day’s use. Between the bikes being out of gas and dead batteries, this intruder picked the perfect time to bust onto the property! Danny had seen something on the cameras but lost it and now Tony and I needed to help patrol the villas until they located the intruder. Awesome! Some excitement. The adrenaline was pumping.

“You and Tony go up to the villas and keep an eye on things up there,” Danny said. “And take these.” He handed us two long flashlights.

“What are we supposed to do with these?” I asked. “Illuminate him to death?”

Danny was not amused, “Only turn those on if you see something, and then get a hold of the booth and let us know - and be QUIET when you go past the lower villa!”

Tony and I crossed the highway and walked up the path towards the villas. We had to be real careful as we passed the lower villa because the last thing we wanted to do was wake up COB.

For the next three hours, we walked around and tried to spot the intruder. It was pitch black around the villas. There were a few lights outside the doors that led into the villas but the surrounding roads and bushes were pitch black. Around 5:00
 a.m.
we saw something moving way down near the lower villa. It was definitely a person and they were heading straight for us. We could make out the outline of the body and it looked like they were carrying something. Maybe the intruder was a thief trying to steal something? We didn’t have time to make any calls to the security booth, we had to deal with this guy on our own. Tony and I decided that we were going to step to either side of the foot path and as he came by, we would whack him a few times with the flash lights and then call the booth. He was now about 50 feet away and we were right up by the upper villa waiting for him on either side of the path. 40 feet. 30 feet. 20 feet. 10 feet. 5 feet. “Oh damn!!!!” Tony and I cried out in unison. “What the hell are you doing up here!?!” I asked. “Bringing a submission to COB’s office,” she answered in her condescending French accent. It was someone from the Hubbard Compilations unit, Denise Delderfield.

“You came a split second away from getting your friggin’ head cracked open, you crazy lady!” I told her.

She looked at me like I was high and said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hello? There is an intruder drill happening right now! There is some dude running around the property and you are walking around all ‘Ho-de-hum’ and we almost beat the crap out of you with these flashlights,” I said, just about calmed down from the adrenaline rush you get right before you are about to bust someone up with a flashlight.

“Go back to your office and stay inside! Tony, maybe you should go with her,” I told them both.

“Okay. I will be back in a bit,” Tony said, walking off with her back towards her office.

By the time Tony got back, it was starting to get light outside. “Damn dude, what took you so long? The sun beat you back up here.”

“I had to use the restroom,” he answered defensively.

Damn, I thought to myself. I still needed to take one. I never did get to go a few hours back and now that I was thinking about it, I REALLY needed to go.

“Besides, it was a good thing I did. I called the security booth and the drill is over for now,” he added.

“Wow, dude! Thanks for telling me! You could have told me that before you took a thirty minute crap!” I said as we walked back towards our building.

We got back to the security booth and told Danny about how we almost killed Denise and asked him what the deal was.

“We found the intruder on the other side of the property when the sun started coming up,” Danny said.

“He is walking down the highway now,” Deacon added.

“Well, we’re going back to work,” we told the guards as we walked off towards our building. It was almost 7:00
 a.m.
, so in reality, I was going to take a crap, clean up my workstation, eat breakfast and go home.

We got back to our areas and did our normal end of shift work, cleaned up and took out the trash. We went and ate breakfast and told Agnese about our lame adventures. Denise was in the dining hall and we told everyone around how we almost killed her with our flashlights. She was not amused. We got on the bus to go home and JB was our driver. JB told us that HE was the one who spotted the guy coming down from the mountain above the property while he was driving a bus in and alerted the Main Booth. Good thing he did or we would have been up at the villas indefinitely. So in the end, he never even climbed over the fence! What lame ducks the security guys were. We asked ourselves what would have happened if there actually was an intruder with all of the Keystone cops stuff they pulled with the dead batteries and no back-up guards, etc. God forbid. At least we had some fun.

Intruder Drill #3

This Intruder drill will go down in the books as the one that changed the security force forever. It was a normal Tuesday night, around 10:00
 p.m.
There were staff on post and it was not yet time to go home. Danny was in the security booth. Deacon was on the rover bike driving around the base. Danny saw an alarm outside the perimeter by the garage and dispatched Deacon to check it out. Deacon drove down the highway and pulled up in the area where the alarm went off. Almost 90% of the alarms they got on gates were from wind and small animals passing through. Deacon left the bike running and pointed its headlight at the fence. He saw something move by the fence. Danny called and told him the alarm had been tripped again. Deacon got off the bike, put down the kickstand and approached the fence slowly. He got up to the gate and confirmed there was nothing there. Just as he turned around to make his way back to the bike, he saw someone dressed in black drop out of the large tree by his bike, get on and take off!

“Danny, my bike has been stolen!” he shouted into the radio.

“Oh no!” was the message that Danny’s brain sent to his mouth. Just as Danny’s mouth was processing the message, his brain received a message from his eyes. Two more alarms had just gone off! One on the South side by the levee and one by the east entrance to the property!

“Repeat last message to mouth,” Danny’s brain commanded.

“Deacon, we just got two more alarms!” Danny said into the radio. As if Deacon could do anything, he was huffing and puffing his way back to the security booth on foot now that someone had practically jacked the rover bike right out from under him.

Deacon made it back to the booth and hopped into the security truck.

“Get to the east entrance!” Danny yelled to him.

Deacon headed out to the east entrance to check out the alarm down there. As he climbed out of the truck, he decided to take the keys with him this time. Good thinking Deacon. You would not want to have two vehicles jacked in one night. There was nothing there.

“All clear here,” Deacon said over the radio.

While Danny and Deacon were freaking out and trying to catch the intruders setting off the alarms, unbeknownst to them, someone was climbing over the fence above the villas and carefully NOT setting off any alarms. He was dressed in black like a Ninja. He had a gun and seemed to know where he was going and what he needed to do.

Meanwhile, Danny and Deacon had received back up guards and vehicles. Two guards headed down to check out the alarm at another location. Who knows where the guy on the bike went? Was it the same guy setting off the other alarms?

“Eagle, do you see anything?” Danny asked.

The guard at Eagle could see the whole property from the perch on the mountain. If there was a motorbike driving around anywhere on or near the base, you could see it from Eagle.

“Guy on Rover Bike has been spotted; he is driving around in the riverbed on the south side!” Eagle answered.

Two guards raced down to apprehend Rover Bike Guy.

Meanwhile the Armed Ninja Dude up by the villas made his way to the middle villa, where the Religious Technology Center offices were located.

As the guards came closer to getting the guy on the bike, Deacon reported that he couldn’t find anyone at the east entrance. Deacon headed down to the river to meet up with the other guards and get his bike back.

The door to Warren McShane’s office in the middle villa opened. Armed Ninja Guy entered. Warren McShane was sitting at his desk typing on his computer. As quietly as Armed Ninja Dude entered, he took out his gun and came up behind Warren’s chair.

Back to the riverbed. “Where is this guy?” the guards asked themselves.

“Looks as if he has turned the bike off!” Eagle said. ”I don’t see him anymore.”

“We have the bike!” The guards exclaimed over the radio, as if they had anything to do with getting it back. It was parked in the riverbed with the key in it. Rover Bike Ninja Guy was nowhere to be found.

“We are heading back to the booth,” the guards told Danny.

Back to the villas.

“Bang – you’re dead!” were the words Warren McShane heard at the precise moment the cold gun barrel made contact with the back of his head. Of all the words in the English language, those three are probably not among the few that you would want to hear while the cold muzzle of a gun was being pressed against the back of your head.

Back at the booth, the guards were just starting to catch their breath and recover from what was probably the equivalent of having your shorts pulled down in front of the whole school at the championship basketball game.

The hotline phone in the booth rang. This was the direct line that is used only by Religious Technology Center staff in urgent emergencies or serious security situations. The guards in the booth looked at each other. Danny picked up the phone knowing that no matter what the reason for the call, no good would come of it.

“You guys are toast!” the voice said. “Someone just broke into Warren’s office in the villas with a gun!” He hung up.

You could picture the look on Danny’s face and the steamy pile that he dropped into his pants as the words hit his ears. I can imagine it probably took place somewhere in between “toast” and “gun.”

Danny put the phone down and the guards gave him the “Well?” look. Danny told them that someone broke into Warren’s office with a gun. Before they could even do anything, the phone rang again. It was Warren’s number this time on the phone’s digital display.

“Hello?” Danny picked it up hoping to hear Warren’s voice and then immediately realizing that if he did, that they would all soon be dead instead.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” Warren screamed. “You guys have royally screwed up! You are ALL assigned a condition of CONFUSION! Oh yeah, the security chief is OFF POST!” Danny did not need to say a word. That was the end of the conversation. Warren hung up.