Koresh, page 35
He told Jamar he wasn’t hopeful. “I don’t think anybody else is coming out of there,” he said. He walked out of the compound and, days later, was on his way to Amman.
Perhaps it didn’t really matter in the larger scheme of things. Sometime in mid-March, Jamar had come to the conclusion that David had released the people he wanted to release. His gut told him no one else was coming out of their own accord.
45
Acceptance
THREE WEEKS INTO the siege, the compound was getting rancid. The Davidians couldn’t walk to their outhouses; they used five-gallon buckets as their portable bathrooms. Most of the available water was used for drinking, so they went days without bathing.
It was loud. The FBI continued blasting music, but spliced in other sounds, too. Now the Davidians might hear Tibetan chanting, followed by Christmas carols, Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” trumpets playing reveille, a helicopter’s whirling blades. Bureau technicians sped the music up, then slowed it down. Babies cried, phones rang, lambs bleated as they were slaughtered.
With all the noise, Clive Doyle was getting about two hours of sleep a night. He and the other Davidians were growing thinner, too. Most of the food had run out and the Davidians were on MREs all day, every day.
A police psychologist told the press playing loud music was a common tactic in sieges. The Army had used it on General Manuel Noriega when trying to get him out of his compound in Panama. The sound of animals being slaughtered was in questionable taste, the psychologist admitted, but it sometimes worked.
There were limits, however. “If they go Barry Manilow,” the psychologist said, “it’s excessive force.”
Days later, an angry fax arrived at FBI headquarters, addressed to Director Sessions. It was from the Dalai Lama, objecting to the use of Tibetan religious chants at Mount Carmel. The music was sacred and shouldn’t be used in such a context, the Dalai Lama said.
Sessions told agents to pull the chants.
On March 23, Byron got in one of the tanks and was driven up the driveway. Steve came out of the compound and they talked—Byron’s head and shoulders sticking out of a porthole in the enormous metal armored vehicle, and the slight Schneider standing a few yards away.
The FBI had a new offer. David would be allowed special privileges in prison if he was convicted. He could meet with his incarcerated followers, with a special conference room set aside for them. And if David wished to write a memoir or a book on the Seven Seals—a topic that he and the negotiators had tossed around in previous conversations—a stenographer would be provided to take down chapters of his book.
Steve lit up. The ministry could continue. That night, FBI agents placed a letter on the driveway for the Davidians to pick up. It was written confirmation of everything that Byron had promised.
Afterward, Steve spoke to the negotiators. He told them he’d gotten the letter, went to David’s room, and woke him up. David read the letter, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it across the room.
Ill will bred ill will. Two days later, the FBI issued an ultimatum. Ten to twenty Davidians had to leave the compound by four p.m., or the agency would take action. “Again, this is not a threat,” the negotiator told Steve. “This is a promise.”
Nobody left. The FBI sent in the Bradleys and crushed several vehicles, including Steve’s Honda motorcycle, the one he and Judy used to take on long drives to decompress after David revealed the New Light. Steve watched it happen from a window.
When he got on the phone later, he seemed curiously okay with it. It was as if he was slowly detaching from the world outside the compound windows.
“I thought they did a good job on it,” he told the negotiator. “Man, they planted it good.”
The negotiator apologized.
“No, that’s fine. I don’t mind, you know, it’s only a material thing.”
NEGOTIATOR: Oh, that’s right. you’re not into material things, are you?
STEVE: I really am not anymore; I’ll be honest with you—
NEGOTIATOR: Okay, well, at any rate, the commanders have indicated—
STEVE: I even waved at one of the guys.
NEGOTIATOR: That we, this is no longer acceptable, all right? We need—
STEVE: Life isn’t acceptable.
Steve seemed to be letting go. “A lot of people here are starting to act funny,” he told the FBI. “Maybe if you keep on going, they’ll start getting itchy fingers and we can get it over quicker, I mean, ’cause I’m losing control with people around here.”
The FBI tried to goad Steve into action, but their taunts had less and less effect.
NEGOTIATOR: You know, Steve, I thought you had some strength of character, but the longer I talk to you I think I’ve made a mistake.
STEVE: You probably have.
NEGOTIATOR: I think I have made a mistake.
STEVE: I wouldn’t doubt it.
NEGOTIATOR: Because listening to you, you’re just not getting the job done.
STEVE: I know it.
He grew reflective. Why was he here, in Waco? What had made him abandon a nice life in Hawaii to come live in this place? He and Judy were going to buy twenty acres on Oahu and build a house, live out their lives. He’d been in LA trying to get David’s music thing going. “All of a sudden, I make a trip . . . back to Texas and find myself in the most horrendous, horrible thing that ever could be.”
Steve wasn’t a trickster, unlike David at times. He really wondered how all this had happened to him, a towheaded boy from Wisconsin.
At one point, he asked the FBI guy what he thought about death.
STEVE: Tell me honestly, you don’t have any concerns, huh?
NEGOTIATOR: No. Only the good die young. At that rate, I’ll live forever.
STEVE: John, I don’t understand. Why am I so different from you in that respect?
He’d pass by a mirror and be shocked at what he saw there. His hair had grown long and unkempt. He’d always been proud of his appearance, but there was no way to look clean at Mount Carmel. He had wrinkles he’d never seen before.
Steve was at a low ebb. “I’m looking forward to God bringing an end to this world of six thousand years of death and disheartened, unfulfilled lives,” he told a negotiator, “and people trying to make something of their lives and . . . broken marriages and families and drugs and disease.”
The FBI got Steve’s sister Sue to speak to him again. “We don’t have much time,” he told her. He believed in David even more strongly now than he had before. Everything he prophesied was coming true.
Steve gave the FBI a suggestion on how to end the standoff. Put a match to the building and the Davidians would be forced to leave. “Some time when you have a chance, read Isaiah 33:14 about people living in fire and walking through it and coming out and surviving . . . Seriously . . . It says, ‘Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?’ That’s the question.”
Steve was confident he’d come through the refining fire. He was looking forward to the FBI running over his carcass so he could get a brand-new one.
The Davidians’ families, meanwhile, were trying to remain optimistic. David’s mother, Bonnie, hired an attorney, Dick DeGuerin, to represent her son and hopefully negotiate his surrender to authorities. Jamar agreed to let him talk to David.
It was an unpopular decision among the feds. The ATF, the Texas Rangers, the prosecutors on the ATF case, the other SACs on-site (excepting the spokesman Bob Ricks), and a good portion of the FBI thought it was outrageous. The guy might tell David how to destroy evidence, give him ideas about a possible defense before anyone had a chance to question him.
But Jamar stuck by his guns. A well-respected lawyer like DeGuerin might advise David to think of his own interests. Tell him that he could avoid the death penalty, or that he might even get off completely if things went his way.
On March 27, Jeff told Byron he wanted him to take DeGuerin to the compound so he could meet with his client. The HRT would put the two men in a Brad and drive them up close to the front door.
That’s a terrible idea, Byron thought. He was supposed to walk around escorting the lawyer for the guy who killed four ATF agents? What were the guys in the field going to think of that? But Jamar had asked him, and he said yes.
Byron and DeGuerin went out to the Bradley. One of the HRT guys came over to Byron and shoved a Kevlar helmet into his belly.
“What the hell’s this for?” Byron asked.
“Trust me. You’re gonna want to wear it.” DeGuerin got a helmet, too.
The two loaded into the back of the Brad and sat on the benches that served as seats. The tailgate came down and the vehicle shot off like a spooked rabbit. The two men reached for the bars overhead to try and steady themselves, but the Brad was rocking and swerving so violently that he and DeGuerin flew from one side to the other, smashing into the steel walls. After one particularly vicious swerve, DeGuerin was lifted off his bench and came crashing down on Byron, sprawled on his lap.
When they reached the drop-off spot, the driver slammed on the brakes and the Brad nearly stood on its nose before rocking back down to the dirt. Byron heard a door slam shut. Somebody was laughing. Must be the driver, he thought.
He was mortified. This dude driving the Brad had embarrassed Byron, embarrassed the bureau, and embarrassed himself. Byron hated to see the bureau besmirched.
DeGuerin took off his helmet and thrust it at Byron. You could see he was fucking pissed.
“Was that really necessary?” he barked.
“Mr. DeGuerin,” Byron said. “You have to realize these guys aren’t used to driving track vehicles. And the road . . . it’s chewed up.” It wasn’t true, but he had to try.
DeGuerin shot him a look and went off to meet with Koresh. Byron got out of the vehicle and found the driver. The guy was standing there grinning at him. He was a big dude, six-foot-four at least.
“What the hell are you doing?” Byron said.
The agent stared. “What do you mean?”
“Do you have any idea,” Byron said, “how unprofessional that was?”
“I don’t give a shit. He’s just a murderer’s lawyer.”
Byron told the agent he should give a shit, because if they got Koresh out, the bureau was going to face DeGuerin in court. And the agent would be called up to the witness stand to explain why he nearly bashed the defense lawyer’s brains out in the back of a government vehicle.
The driver scoffed. Byron couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “We’re on the same side here, right?” he said.
The driver took a step back, looked Byron up and down.
“Are we really,” he said.
Shit, it’s real bad, Byron thought.
As March drew to a close, no more Davidians emerged. Livingstone Fagan, the firebrand from England, had been the last, and the FBI suspected he’d been released simply to get David’s message out. Byron got on the line and expressed his concern for the people inside the compound. Steve was genuinely touched. “You don’t know how much I appreciate that you would have that in mind and that you would warn me about it in a . . . in a decent way.”
If Steve was feeling melancholy, David had his moments, too. “Yeah, my babies,” he sighed over the phone line. “My life is over.”
More and more, there was the feeling of having come to the end of a road. A black humor informed the talks.
STEVE: Half the time I’m losing track of time these days.
NEGOTIATOR: Well, you know, when you’re having fun, the time just gets away from you.
STEVE: Well, this is exactly it. I’ve never had such a great time.
When David was in a good mood, the negotiators tweaked him about his musical abilities.
DAVID: Well, some people have said that I’m one of the hottest guitar players in the nation.
NEGOTIATOR: You ought to get out more [laughter].
The comfortableness opened David right up. Sometimes, it was like he was talking to a therapist, getting deep.
DAVID: You know . . . I could be the Devil himself, you know what I mean?
NEGOTIATOR: That’s true.
DAVID: Instead of being the Lamb, I could be the Devil here . . . getting ready to put people in Hell.
NEGOTIATOR: That’s true.
DAVID: Seven Seals.
NEGOTIATOR: Probably some people have thought that, too.
DAVID: Oh, yeah. More so than the other way.
The negotiators felt statements like this showed that David didn’t really believe he was the messiah. Another time, he told the FBI if he was really God, he was going to punish WhatABurger for their low-quality meat. The negotiators thought long and hard about that “if.” But David had been doing this for years. Playing devil’s advocate on himself, telling people to prove he was who he said he was.
It may have been that David had a lot of scam artist in him, as many in the FBI thought. But he did indeed have doubts about himself that were real and long-standing. The teenager who thought he was just a bucket of filth hadn’t entirely disappeared.
Even the tactical guys joshed with the Davidians. One morning the guys in the Brads shouted good morning to the people in the compound. “Time to get up!” they announced, like Waco was a summer camp and they were the eager beaver counselors. Eggs and bacon are frying on the griddle, they called. Anyone hungry?
And then, mock-solicitous: What would you like to hear this morning as far as music? Any requests?
David answered back, “What about a little Joe Satriani?!” Someone else called, “How about something classical?” The kids yelled out for the sounds of barnyard animals, their favorite.
Good, wholesome fun.
Early in April, Marc Breault arrived in Waco. He quickly became a resource for journalists on the scene, as a decoder of David’s theology.
David had announced that the world was in the middle of the Fifth Seal. If the End Times were approaching, as he claimed, certain things would soon be apparent to all. A darkening sun, a blood-red sun, stars falling from the sky. The Bible said, in Revelation 6:9–11, that the apocalypse would not occur until a fixed number of martyrs had died for Christ. Koresh believed that number to be two hundred million, which included everyone since the creation who had given their life for God.
As the days went on, and signs of the Apocalypse failed to appear, there could only be one explanation, in Marc’s opinion: The figure of two hundred million had not yet been reached. More people had to die.
“He has to figure how to get out of the box he made for himself,” Breault said. “The Fifth Seal is his worst nightmare at the moment.”
On April 9, David sent a four-page letter out to the FBI. In it, he issued a warning about catastrophes to come. He signed it “Yahweh Koresh.”
He specifically mentioned a dam close to Waco. There would be an earthquake soon and the dam would burst. Steve was really worried about that. “The thing about the Lake Waco area,” he told the FBI, “Old Mount Carmel being shaken, about the dam being burst? Guaranteed, guaranteed, that is serious.”
There were several dams nearby, and Waco did sit near the Balcones Fault, which ran from near Del Rio in the southwest up to the Dallas area. It had been dormant for millions of years. City officials ordered the structures examined for cracks or explosives. Maybe some Davidians or their sympathizers had planted dynamite up there. But the dam was pretty massive. If the Davidians were going to blow it up, it would take a hell of a lot of nitroglycerine.
Marc read the four-page document and wasn’t impressed. “I’m pretty sure it’s an old letter,” he told journalists. “If he had written one now, it would probably be about the Seven Seals. I think he did this just to stall for time. Now the FBI will have to try to figure out where he’s coming from. It’s just throwaway theology.”
Two things did stick out to Marc. The first was when David quoted a passage from Psalms that mentioned the words “it raised him up.” He had talked about that years before. “Vernon used to teach that when it said it raised him up,” Marc told reporters, using David’s given name, “it meant he was resurrected.”
The other was David quoting Revelations 6:11: And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled. “He’s trying to tell the FBI that he’s the one who is going to conquer them,” Marc told the reporters. “He’s talking tough. He’s not thinking about coming out at this stage, not based on the Scriptures that he’s giving out.”
The FBI sent the letter off for analysis. Dr. Murray S. Miron, a Syracuse University professor and a psycholinguist, went through it line by line. The note bore “all the hallmarks of rampant, morbidly virulent paranoia,” Miron wrote in his report. He believed that Koresh saw himself as God’s agent on earth, and that this was causing him to disassociate. “This multiple personality–like condition provided him with a shield of imagined invulnerability and unmitigated power.”
The professor believed that this unsettled state would cause David to fight. He saw no suicidal ideations in the letter and doubted that David would surrender. He even thought that the Davidian leader might launch a counterattack on the FBI. “In my judgment, we are facing a determined, hardened adversary who has no intention of delivering himself or his followers into the hands of his adversaries . . . His is not the language of those at Masada or Jonestown. He intends to fight.”
Two other experts combed through David’s letter. Dr. Joseph Krofcheck was a psychiatrist who’d provided threat assessments to the FBI before. Cliff Van Zandt was the head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science unit. Their conclusions:
