Episode Transcripts
Episode 2: Inside A Dangerous Hate Group
Ethan (narrating):
What Cole has just told me is difficult to imagine. A case team inserted to work against its own objective, threatening the safety of an undercover agent.
I know I only have Cole on the line a few more minutes, and I’m concerned this may be the first and last time we talk. I still have a lot of questions…but there is one that seems to rise above the rest:
Ethan:
If it turns out you’re right…if the new case team is there to keep you from being successful…to keep The Preserve operational…your work is compromised…your life is in danger. I mean…you said it yourself…. your career in the FBI is over. Why haven’t you gotten out of there?
Cole Tyler:
I’ll leave you with this… I’ve shared my concerns and suspicions with the people I have at my disposal, I’ve documented the behavior of my team for months….and I’ve been brushed back…at this point I don’t know who is going along with it and who is just afraid to act. I’ve stopped wearing my wire. I just told the team they had a wand they use randomly for employees to detect the electronic signal, but really, I just don’t want to risk being doxed.
Until that happens, the way I see it, while the situation may seem dire, I’m not being forced to do anything just yet.
… I could run like hell, shit, turn in my badge right now…I guess that’s one way to handle this – maybe what they’re hoping for. But, I’ve spent a lot of time to get in with these guys and there is a lot at stake.
Plus, whoever’s behind this at the Bureau has a paper trail to deal with…when the new team was brought in, I had already spent months at The Preserve…it’s probably easier for them to manage my effectiveness with a team than dox me or pull me out.
Naw man…the way to handle this is the way I was taught when I was young.
Ethan:
How’s that?
Cole:
Where I’m from, there’s a saying… “if you climb in a saddle…. be ready for the ride.” I’m as ready as anyone. It was my idea to get on this horse …for me to stop riding, someone’s gonna have to come pry the reins from my dead fuckin hands.
Ethan (narrating):
Cole and I are complete strangers. We’ve only known each other for thirty minutes…but oddly, I understand him. It’s not about finding help. He could get out right now and find safety. Cole is focused on the bigger picture. He’s placing his trust in a journalist he’s never met because it’s the only way to guarantee….the preservation of the truth.
(music)
This is probably the right time for me to share what I’d eventually learn about Cole Tyler.
Talking almost daily, and in some cases, several times per day, we developed a familiarity and a sense of trust. I trusted that what he was asking me to do was worthwhile - that he was sharing everything. He trusted me to clear my schedule when he called and to record the conversations and formulate a story…securely of course until he gave me the green light to share it.
After we had spoken about twenty times over several weeks…we were on a call one evening….and he shared more than I expected.
At the time it caught me off guard. It’s a mistake for a UC to ever share personal details with a journalist, certainly not while actively working cases at the Bureau.
It started when he was telling me about a conversation he had with a new employee who was helping him set up the gun range one morning before a client visit.
Cole:
The guy, probably thirty or so – seemed like a bright guy, had packed up and left his family back in Tennessee to work at The Preserve, making next to nothing. There was this moment when I asked him why he left his family and his income behind just to fuck around with people at a gun range in the hills of Virginia. The dude responded emphatically…. he said he couldn’t imagine anything more important than ensuring his children could go through life……(awkward pause)…..without having filthy jews, trans, gays, black, and brown people infect America.
Ethan:
Clearly just repeating that sentence bothers you…
Cole:
Everything about these motherfuckers bothers me. He can’t imagine anything more important…Jesus Christ. I can’t imagine telling my children that there are people like him in the world.
Ethan (narrating):
For weeks I had refrained from asking him anything personal…but he had just cracked the door slightly, so I pushed:
Ethan:
So you have a family?
Cole:
Yeah, I’m a lucky man – I have a beautiful wife, obviously a very patient and supportive wife….and two incredible kids - boy and a girl.
Ethan:
Can you tell me about them?
Cole:
Naw…I’ve….I’ve said enough. Next question.
Ethan (narrating):
We quickly went back to debriefing, but it wasn’t long before we wandered into his personal life again when he was telling me about a recent incident at a lumber yard:
Cole:
We were at Lowe’s getting some wood to build another gantry…a gantry is just a frame that allows us to winch the dead hogs up in the air before we bleed, and clean, and quarter them… and anyway, we’re walking though the store and a young guy walked past us wearing a bucket hat made from an IKEA bag – you know one of those big blue bags. I didn’t think a thing of it….but one of the idiots, a guy who goes by the name Vult, big Jerusalem Cross tattooed on his forearm, went on a rant that started out about liberals, then went into anti-corporate bullshit…his voice getting louder, then he suddenly took a hard right into an anti-semitic and racist tirade…right there as we’re standing in the isle staring at pressure treated 4x4s. There were people walking past us, several of them were Latino.
One customer, a white guy, walked past us and told him to shut the fuck up….Vult went at him right there….and he woulda gotten his little Nazi ass kicked if we didn’t hold him back.
Which only emboldened Vult so he yells, at the top of his lungs…mind you, the customer he’s yelling at is a big dude with a goatee, probably a contractor who voted Republican every time he’s been in a voting booth…as we’re holding him back, Vult yells “you fucking liberal commie pussy,”….man…the entire store must have heard it.
Couple Preserve guys shuffled him away – but they all loved it – they were all laughing.
The big dude just stood there – shocked – unsure what even think of that insult. Man. So fucking ridiculous. All because of an IKEA hat on a dude’s head.
Ethan:
Is politics part of this whole thing?
Cole:
I don’t really think so – I don’t hear much of it, but when I do it’s always the alt-right perspective.
Ethan:
Is that difficult for you? Are you not on the right politically?
Cole:
You think I’m a liberal?
Shit….no. But I’m not alt-right.
I mean, I’ve been thinking about this lately. What is liberal, anyway? We live in a liberal democracy. Liberalism is baked into our form of government, right? I don’t know.
Ethan:
Were you raised one way or another?
Cole:
No, my family didn’t obsess about politics like other people did. Don’t get me wrong, both my parents understood politics, they were just skeptical about the entire thing. Daddy used to quote this woman from Texas, an old actress I think…I forget her name, but she said “a politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.” Haha…That quote stuck with me.
Ethan (narrating):
At first, I had I assumed Cole was suddenly opening up about his personal life because he was either exhausted, or resigned to the fact that his time at the FBI was all but over…but later, I realized that wasn’t it, it was quite the opposite… instead, he saw that he was caught the most dangerous situation of his career…and he trusted me…so he was sharing the things he knew and believed, in his own words….for someone else.
Cole kept going…so I kept listening…
Cole:
Yeah, I was born and raised on a ranch in New Braunfels, Texas. It was a Christian home. Daddy was a hard-nosed cowboy and ran the ranch - he cared about character, not social status. Momma was the same.
She was a schoolteacher before I was born, and she tutored kids on the ranch here and there while taking care of us. She was a wonderful mother. Very compassionate when it mattered….always there for me and my sister, but she was tough at the same time….she wasn’t about to let us whine about anything.
But no, there was almost zero politics in the home…no, it would have been, as Daddy used to say “floggin’ a dead horse” to spend much time on it - he didn’t trust any politician – said they were all too comfortable with doublespeak.
But I do vote…and in my life I’ve mostly voted Republican. I’ve thought they best represented the values instilled in me when I was a boy: Being responsible for my actions. Defending our country against our enemies at all costs. I spent years on the Navy, in the Teams, and I continued to align with Republicans because they always fought for the military, so it was a no-brainer.
Politics has changed though…or maybe I have. It doesn’t seem as transparent. It’s not about principles that regular people can relate to – it’s turned into sport…funded by hard-working Americans for the entertainment and benefit of those who are connected. Seems like a game between the left and right that gets people all riled along that axis, but the more I pay attention, the more I realize the game isn’t about left and right…. it’s about top and bottom and where that line between the two is drawn.
I’m sitting in my apartment yesterday listening to a Klein administration official talk about trans people being guided by demonic forces….and all I can think is man, I don’t understand trans people…but I don’t believe they’re demons trying to hurt anyone ….this so-called Jesus loving Christian politician…who is wearing crosses for cufflinks, sounds just as hateful as the Neo-Nazis I spent all day with.
And the further right you go…. the worse it gets…..similar on the other side…. the far right and far left start soundin’ a lot alike - it all wraps around like a fuckin’ horseshoe.
You know, I’m seeing liberals…. American citizens on college campuses protest in support of an Iranian-backed terrorist group that kills Americans – a damned Iranian terrorist group. I’m seeing people act like victims – who don’t take responsibility for their actions. People these days argue that supporting terror and sowing chaos is some inalienable right? I mean…what?
I don’t know…whenever I can’t make sense of it…I drift back to the ranch… and I think about my parents and what I learned as a kid.
Don’t get me wrong, when I was a boy, I had my issues. I got in a lot of fights. I had a seat with my name on it in the principal’s office, and it wasn’t a big deal to my parents as long as I was fighting for the right reason….if I was standing up for myself or someone else in the right way.
I remember one time I called a black boy at school, a…you know, a name, after he started taunting me when his team beat us in a kickball game…and one of the girls in the class told our teacher, which landed me in the principal’s office. To me it was just another trip to the front office, so I didn’t think much of it until Daddy showed up at the school…. he was in his boots and gloves…literally drove his truck right off the ranch….and let’s just say the whoopin’ I got was the easy part. That evening my momma cooked up extra food and before we even ate, we all got in the truck and delivered the meal to the boy and his family. I had to knock on the door and apologize to each of them separately. It was all about how to carry myself and treat other people. Just like I was taught in Sunday school.
Ethan:
Are you close with your parents?
Cole:
……yeah…they were both killed in a car accident when I was eleven. Drunk driver ran em off the road on I-10, just west of San Antonio. Tore me and my sister up.
Ethan:
I’m sorry. That must have been…incredibly difficult.
Cole:
After the accident, we were about to go to the state, you know, separated and placed in foster care, but, we ended up being able to stay with Diego and his family on the ranch.
Ethan:
So, who is Diego?
Cole:
Oh yeah, Diego and his family live on the ranch. He’s always been like a father to me and my sister. His pa worked for Granddaddy and so our families were like one large family. His wife, Carmen, and his children, they’re like my own blood. He’s a little older than Daddy but they basically grew up together, so they were best friends.
Ethan:
How did that moment change you – when your parents died?
Cole:
You know, that’s a good question. (pause) If I were to say one thing, it would be that it made me think about who my parents were, and who I was, sooner in life.
Ethan:
How do you mean?
Cole:
I just think, a lot of people, call it stubbornness or independence, don’t really want to reflect much about their parents until later - once the parents are no longer strong, or after they die – then they’re comfortable acknowledging, you know, who their parents were and what they learned from them. I was given that opportunity at a really young age, and it changed me. Focused me on understanding their legacy, and that led me to what I wanted mine to be.
Ethan:
That’s really interesting.
Cole:
Yeah…anyway….Daddy was a good man. Everyone called him Champ…because…from the time he was a kid he was always a champion for other people – for their interests, their rights. It didn’t matter what color they were, or where they were born, or what their religion was – and trust me, where I’m from that approach wasn’t necessarily popular. He simply cared about good, hard working, honest people. As soon as someone he cared about was in need, or being picked on, or got somethin’ they didn’t deserve….he was always there to fix it.
And he talked about guns and fighting the same way…how you should always train to use ‘em…but the goal is to never have to rely on either. It’s funny because when I was really young, I thought Daddy was a big fighter. He’d go out with Diego on a Friday night and the next day he’d have a shiner, or a bloodied lip, and cut up knuckles. Naw, I learned he never started a fight, only fought when he had to – but he always finished ‘em.
Diego’s face always looked just as bad as his. They had each other’s backs, in town and anywhere else.
We all spent a lot of time together on the ranch. Working hard. Did a lot of huntin’. From the time I could shoot, Diego started calling me AughtSix, which is why I like to use it now. Calls me Six for short – he always had a lot to say about how I handled a rifle.
After the accident, I think it was the day of the funeral he knew he needed to keep me busy, so I remember we went to the workshop. He took out this Mexican stone Daddy had given him once for a birthday – this unique Sonoran turquoise stone that was flat.
For probably five hours, hell, it could have been ten I don’t know, we worked together and ground it down and shaped it into a perfect hexagon. Polished it up. Then, once it was right, he went into the house and got Daddy’s good belt buckle. I always loved that buckle – it was oiled bronze with patterns on it that he wore for nicer events like church and Aggies games.
We took the turquoise stone and secured it to the center of the buckle. Then he drew this pattern around it – another larger hexagon with curved sides. We taped it off and brushed it with a chemical to remove the buckle’s patina in this cool shape around the stone.
Finally, when we were done, he handed it to me. Said it symbolized my past, present, and future. He said Daddy’s buckle was my foundation…. it was the solid place where I was from. The Sonoran turquoise stood for the present…. for protection and healing. The six sides of the hexagon of course were for his nickname for me, but he said the hexagon shape was also the strongest shape in nature and it symbolized strength in cooperation…you know, civic duty – how we are all stronger when we lean on each other and stand up together. He said the bright, brushed hexagon shape around the stone stood for my future – for who I was going to become – taking what I had been given and shining it like a bright light.
Anyway…
So, what was your question….am I liberal? Naw. Not the way you mean it.
I don’t know what the fuck I am right now.
(music break)
Ethan (narrating):
For me, understanding how Cole processed his past and saw the world, was essential to understanding why AughtSix, the unsupported FBI undercover agent imbedded in a dangerous Neo-Nazi accelerationist cell in the hills of Virginia, was driven to continue on, alone.
The daily conversations with Cole rattled around in my head, rendering me almost useless at my day job. I begged for extensions and missed deadlines. By June my employment at the Dispatch was dangling by a thread. Instead of running down sources and writing, I was compulsively checking my phone, wondering what was happening with Cole, anticipating his next call.
Most days we talked, he’d report conversations he had the day prior, explaining what he’d learned, methodically piecing together the smallest details about what powers The Preserve, but information was hard to come by. There was no information on who funded the property, how the money flowed, or who was calling the shots for Doc.
Early on, they were able to establish that the operation was running as a non-profit corporation under the name The Preserve, Inc, registered in Delaware, and all paperwork came back to the original landowner, a farmer in his eighties named George Williams with no record or ties to any of these organizations and spent his time with his wife on an adjacent property.
There were other questions Cole tried to answer – like the helicopter, an Airbus AS350, and why the tail number had been redacted in the FAA’s online directory. When his original case team subpoenaed the Department of Transportation, they were stonewalled until they finally connected it to Mr. Williams, however there was no record of him earning his pilot’s license, and he paid for the helicopter in cash.
As time went by, Cole’s days began getting longer. He’d get pulled into hunts, giving guests lessons on tracking the wild Russian boar, and then after, he’d be responsible for field dressing the animals they killed. Mornings he was up early at the range, setting up the training course. When we’d talk, I could hear in his voice and with what he said, how the long hours were adding up and his frustration with the team and the predicament he was in weighed on him. He started having less time to escape and talk, which meant he called less often and the calls were shorter.
Then, one day, nearly six weeks after we’d first talked, he shared that his involvement in The Preserve was changing.
(ring, ring)
Ethan:
Hey, it’s Ethan.
Cole:
This a good time?
Ethan:
Yep, all good. How are you?
Cole:
Man, shit just keeps getting’ weirder and weirder… still not doxed, so I’ve got that going for me.
Ethan:
How much time do you have?
Cole:
Yeah, I don’t know, probably around 15. And it’s probably good….I’ve been starting to worry all this hiking was going to ruin my goal of turning into a complete fatass and having the FBI just cut me loose for destruction of government property…haha
Ethan:
I guess that would solve a few of your problems.
Cole:
Hah…yeah, maybe just a few.
No, I’m good…If there’s one thing I learned in the Teams it was how to Embrace The Suck.
And I got plenty to embrace. Tonight, I get to spend my evening studying up on Chuck Robb, trying to figure out what makes him tick…why making $30 million a year podcasting ain’t enough and he needs to be involved with these accelerationist motherfuckers.
Ethan:
Chuck Robb the podcaster – that Chuck Robb?
Cole:
That’s the one, my friend.
He’s gettin’ picked up from Dulles tomorrow about 4pm…I guess he’s a big game hunter...and I don’t know if you know this but he’s an Air Force veteran, so I got called on to come in and join the winin’ and dinin’ and and hatin’ tomorrow night.
Ethan:
This is now a second time you’ve joined a dinner with a guest, right?
Cole:
Yeah, it seems Doc thinks I’m good at buttering up celebrity racists. What I’ve learned is that when you join a guest, you’re gonna eat well…and you’re gonna drink…and drink hard until he politely tells you to get the fuck out.
The drinking is tiring man… I dump drinks in the nearest sink whenever I can. I just can’t be sharp with seven bourbons in me – and I need to be setting up the range and training area at 5:30am the next morning.
So, yeah Doc just wants me to tell stories from the SEALs – thinks it’ll help cement the deal with Robb – Doc calls him a “pure partner” – which means he’s going to be a major donor AND he’s going to help with strategy and operations.
Ethan:
What do you know about how the money is handled?
Cole:
I think I’ve mentioned – it’s where a lot of my time has been spent recently, trying to find this money trail, but it’s not easy. I need a lot more before we have anything that’ll hold up in court. Not to mention, I’ll need direct money transfers to known domestic terrorism groups. Right now, it’s just angry people, a beautiful property and some hunting.
I can see that donations have been collected and they’re being held in The Preserve’s account and the belief is, that a percentage is going to be handed out to different accelerationist cells across the country. Believe it or not, The Preserve is a non-profit, so eventually they’ll file a tax return, or Form 990, which will help, but we don’t have anything yet.
Anyway…
Where was I …so, yeah, joining a guest….for the dinner portion I need to wear all black, more formal. We’ll eat in the dining room, which I must admit is fantastic, and then the way it went last week…it’s to the theater we go…
Ethan:
You never shared the details….what do you watch in the theater?
Cole:
So, the hunting preserve includes hundreds of motion sensors, lights, and cameras. Each wild boar is tagged and tracked, so last week we started out watching the Live Cam…seeing the animals move around the grounds for a while – they have a digital map with moving dots up on one giant screen, and then the there’s live camera footage on another. Each boar is tagged – it has a number and is fitted with a camera, and at any moment they can select the camera attached to a hog’s neck and watch it live. So the guest gets to see how they move and watch them hunt other animals…it’s a good way to get guests fired up.
Then we watched a highlight video of previous guests killing animals on the property. There’s this one of a guest who got out a vehicle and was walking along, and had a boar stalk him….almost got killed, and the video is from the vantage point of the hog, so it’s wild.
After that we got into some white-race-affirming shit. News clips of the President subtly supporting the ideology, and other important people in the news speaking in hate code. Basically, they’re trying to reinforce that this evil shit is mainstream. Then, it got awful, man…we watched videos of people killing other people….saw videos of accelerationists who have live-streamed their killings. Clips of the coverage of successful killings. Morbid stuff.
Then we left the theater and headed outside to the fire pit for nightcaps where the conversation got really dark.
Ethan:
Wow, that must be difficult to sit through.
Cole:
Yeah, mind over matter – in situations like that I try to drift away to somewhere nice. It is exhausting to participate in this shit and then unravel it and get back to thinking clearly.
Anyway, I need to make this one quick today, I got a lot of shit to do and I’ve only been getting a few hours’ sleep for about 4 weeks straight.
Ethan:
Wow, that’s not healthy
Cole:
It’s fine. So, I need to tell you about a strange conversation I had with Doc today.
He pulled me aside into one of the side rooms in the main building – we sat in some chairs, sort of a quiet space away from people, and he tells me he has some bad news.
For months, since I got to The Preserve, they’ve been constructing a set of condos for the staff on the property. I’ve seen it being built and we were told it was meant to house a lot of us employees together and get us out of the shitholes we’re staying in in town. But he tells me that plan has changed – it’s no longer an employee complex. He tells me not to worry though…that it would work out for me.
Then out of nowhere he asked me if I’d ever tortured anyone…like, from my time in the Teams. Complete left turn in the conversation. I don’t ever overplay my hand…you know, that’s how UCs get killed…but at this point in the case I need to make progress….so since I do know some torture methods, you know I’ve had to practice some… I played it off like of course…I absolutely had, which seemed to make him happy, and he just stares at me with like a shit-eating grin like he’s proud of me. Really creepy.
Which, I can tell….this gets him to the part of the conversation he’s been looking forward to….he invites me to join him and Robb for a tour of the property tomorrow. It’s a little out of the ordinary…but since I’m part of the dinner, I figured he just wants me around. Then he says that my role at The Preserve is about to expand significantly….and I’m going to like what this means, so, I pretend I’m excited.
Meanwhile, my mind is still stuck on why he asked me about torture… as he’s talking I’m wondering what I’m about to be asked to do.
As we wrap up…as he stands up, he mentions there are actually two groups of guests coming in tomorrow, which is news to me. Mr. Robb at 4pm and then while we’re doing a tour of the grounds, he says there’s another group scheduled to arrive at 5pm, but shares nothing else. I’m not sure how they’re getting in here, maybe by vehicle, which rarely happens. Doesn’t look like our helo is providing the ride… I have access to the calendar, and at 5pm it’s marked as on the property, so I’m not sure what’s going on.
Anyway, I need to roll man…need to get ready for tomorrow.
Ethan:
Cole, are you good?
Cole:
Yeah. I’m good.
Ethan (narrating):
This is the first time I’ve gotten the sense that Cole may be burning out. I know he’s trained to handle stress, but everyone has their breaking point…so, I feel the need to push a little harder to see how he’s holding up.
Ethan:
I mean I guess what I’m asking is…well, I’m not exactly sure how to ask this question,
But…um…do you need…
Cole:
Hey Ethan. I appreciate you, my man. I really do. You know, very early in my career in the Teams, I was on a break after my first tour in Afghanistan, and since I didn’t have a family at the time, I was restless, and I was able to take part in a counter-narcotics op in Columbia. It all went very badly, not really anything we did wrong, but that’s how clandestine ops go sometimes. I found myself in a prison in the middle of the jungle with shrapnel in my leg and a broken arm which I re-set myself. Long story short, I escaped, and completed as much as the mission as I could solo and evaded in the Amazon for 61 days before I found a village and was transported across the border into Venezuela. Ended up being taken to Caracas, treated, and the U.S. Government secretly negotiated my release. Two weeks later I was in Afghanistan again. I’m not telling you this to say I’m all that, but just want you to know this ain’t my first rodeo. I’m gonna be fine.
Ethan:
Ah…I see…so you’re going to let me know if you need my help.
Cole:
Ha. Yes. I got this. Thank you, man.
Ethan (narrating):
As a journalist covering a real-time FBI op, I’m finding it hard to understand the mindset necessary to manage the everyday stress of operating undercover with Neo-Nazi’s. I realize that just because you were brave when your wife drove you to the emergency clinic a week prior to get antibiotics to treat an infected big toenail, doesn’t mean the UC you’re talking with needs your help to stay safe.
I beat myself up for weeks over this exchange with Cole, but in the end, I’d forgive myself for being human. It didn’t mean I was wrong – it just meant I’d need to trust him to know when enough was enough.
Cole was focused on the challenge in front of him…preparing to spend time with one of the richest and most influential far-right-wing personalities in America.
What he’d soon find out is his situation was about to get much more intense.
(music)
Cole:
Ethan…I gotta tell ya, this shit’s not right. Something is very wrong here.
Ethan (narrating):
Cole called me at 6:15pm the next day, after his tour of the grounds with Chuck Robb and Doc. He said he had about fifteen minutes to talk before he needed to get changed and head back to The Preserve for dinner.
Ethan:
What do you mean?
Cole:
Robb arrives and we did the normal tour and then…we jumped in a vehicle and headed out to check out the new facility being built. It’s been a few months since I’ve seen it, but when we get there, about a half mile into the hunting preserve, I see it’s basically finished.
I always thought it was going to be the residences for staff, but we go inside and it’s not at all what I expected. I mean, it’s basically a prison. There’s a cement floor and a long hallway lined with small rooms with toilets in each one – security doors….I mean, the entire building has a sophisticated security system.
Doc is giving us the tour…Robb is super excited and I’m just nodding my head, like trying to act excited….
We walk up to a freight elevator and Doc hits the up button.
Doc says something about it being time for the operation to evolve.
It was like Doc was speaking in code, but Chuck Robb already knew exactly what he was saying and I’m just trying to go along with what the fuck is happening.
I hear a helicopter. They both get excited, and Doc looks at me and says “they’re here.”
We get into the elevator and climb. When we get out, we go up some steps and on the roof is the helicopter that was overhead.
Eventually two guys in black suits get out of the helicopter and shuffle their way over to us and we head back down the steps. I can hear the helo cut the engines as we get back into the elevator and the door closes.
Everyone’s got big smiles on their faces and then once things quiet down, Doc turns to me and Robb and introduces them as Witt and Drones, new friends of his. They’re each in shape, pretty big guys, Witt’s about 6’ and Drones is about 6’2”, slightly thinner. They laugh at how Doc chooses to introduce them, but they don’t fucking say anything else. Just two robots.
I’m just thoroughly confused.
We get out of the elevator back on the main floor and while Robb and I small talk while Doc walks the two guys down the hallway and back – I can hear them talking and seems like they approve of what they’re looking at.
We get back in the elevator and go down one floor. We step out into an unfinished basement, basically all concrete, with showers and hoses and all sorts of shit laying around. There’s a massive roll up door in the center of the far wall.
My head is swirling, and I think Doc just expects me to understand what the fuck this place is….because he turns to me and says…
“This is where our guy is gonna do his dirty work…isn’t that right, AughtSix?”
I just smile and nod and everyone gives me a fist bump.
I mean….I’m in trouble, Ethan.
Not only am I on the hook to participate in…I don’t know…something terrible ….but, that helicopter was an H-60…. no markings, painted black. Auxilliary fuel tanks. IR sensor. Spotlight.
Ethan:
I don’t know. What…what is that? Why is that significant?
Cole:
When I was in the Teams, every op we went on we were in some version of the H-60. Slightly different set up, but…..these aren’t your average aircraft.
Ethan. That helicopter…belongs to the United States Government….
Episode 1: White Supremacy In Virginia
Episode 1: White Supremacy In Virginia
…ring….ring…
Ethan Wolf (Narrating):
Hello, this is Ethan….
Cole Tyler, talking to Chris from Phone (slightly out of breath, walking outside on trail):
…hey….before we go further, I need you to confirm that you are encrypted?
Ethan:
Yes…I am…
Cole:
And you are alone and recording?
Ethan:
Yes.
Cole:
All right then, my name is Cole…I’m an FBI UC….or, undercover agent….I’m currently working a very important white supremacy case just outside of D.C.…and uh…well, just having this phone call marks the end of my nearly 10-year career in the FBI…and if you’re willing to have this conversation with me, your life will never be the same either…… you there??
Music / intro
Ethan (narrating):
My name is Ethan Fox, at the time of the exchange you just listened to, recorded in May of 2025, I had just started on staff covering crime and law enforcement at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the primary newspaper in Richmond, Virginia. That morning, I had received a text message from an unknown number, requesting a phone conversation on a certain encrypted voice app. I was asked not to tell anyone about the call, but to just trust that it was “supremely important.” It all sounded ridiculous but, being a journalist just trying to get stories published, I agreed.
Within ten minutes, I was speaking with a man who said his name was Cole Tyler, calling from a burner phone while on a trail hike, so that he could speak with me without anyone knowing.
Cole (running):
I’m contacting you because of your article. I think you might be one of the only people in the world who will understand what I’m about to say and you have the skill to correctly document what’s about to happen…
Ethan (narrating):
The article Cole is referring to is a freelance piece I wrote in March of 2025 that ran in the Washington Post. It was focused on curious budget cut that had been recently made at the FBI. The article ruffled feathers at the Bureau and even within the Klein Administration, including the President who was forced to answer questions on it in a press conference.
I stand by the article. It was well researched, and I had a few good internal sources describing how the FBI had gutted its support for DT, or Domestic Terrorism efforts. I wrote the article because of where the budget cuts had occurred - specifically to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (or JTTF) that handles neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups. It turns out these cuts all happened at the direction of President Klein, who, ever since he announced he was running for president in 2023, has been under attack for his long history of affiliating with neo-Nazi sympathizers. The American electorate looked past it on his way to being elected - either didn’t care or they forgave him for it.
This forgiveness, as I wrote in my article, was “the greatest public endorsement of fringe hate groups our Nation has ever seen,” and I warned that these cuts would directly lead to a rise in domestic terrorism targeting Jewish people, immigrants, and LGBTQ.
The Bureau, the U.S. Attorney General, and the President, trashed the article as conspiracy, and it put a very awkward spotlight on me – not something I’ve ever experienced before and I wasn’t comfortable with all of the interviews that followed….but the takeaway was my reporting clearly hit a nerve, and in this business, when you hit a nerve with people in positions of power, you keep pressing.
So, when I got the text, and then heard this from Cole...it’s fair to say he very quickly had my undivided attention.
Ethan:
So, I need to make sure I have this right - you’re currently undercover….and you’re offering to provide me an exclusive story, a story that will end your career, about something troubling you’ve seen inside the Bureau? Something related to the JTTF and white supremacy groups?
Cole:
That’s right. That’s just part of it though. I’ll also give you the bag – I’ll feed you all the files on this case from here on out. I’ll treat you like my case team. I realize that sounds insane…but when I’m gone…assuming I’m gone, this entire story must be told clearly, and it must be credible.
It’s either you agree to my conditions and you play a vital role in this case, keeping it only to yourself until I’m either dead or I tell you to publish what I’ve shared…or, you delete this recording and we never had this conversation.
Ethan (narrating):
At this point in my journalism career, I’ve spent enough time covering the FBI and UC work to know that this….is…. unprecedented. An undercover agent would like to send me incredibly sensitive information about an ongoing undercover case to protect himself…. if I promise to share it with no one…that is unless he suddenly disappears, dies, or he gives me the green light.
Ethan:
Why are you coming to me? Why not handle this internally?
Cole:
Ethan, I know enough now that I can’t do that. If I’m doxed, all bets are off and I’m fighting my way out, and I won’t discriminate when it comes to who I need to fight against. …. before I go further, I need to know if you’re in or out.
Ethan (Narrating):
I just wrote a piece, published nationally, publicly calling out the FBI...so I have a great deal of hesitation in believing that Cole is who says he is.
However, it’s a subject matter I’ve researched thoroughly, I’m heavily invested…and I know there’s more to the story…not to mention, Cole is persuasive…as I’ll learn later, he’s a 6’3” ex-Navy-SEAL from New Braunfels, Texas, with a degree from Stanford, and 10 years of FBI experience, 8 of which have been undercover….so he knows something about getting people to do what he wants
I’m feeling pressured, and I know I can’t say no.
Ethan:
Cole, I don’t know you, and I don’t fully understand why we’re having this conversation, but – I don’t know what else to say...I mean, yeah, I’m in.
Ethan (Narrating):
At this point…I’m going into this blind on several fronts – not to mention, I need to keep this under wraps and still do my regular day job – all while trying to be a husband and father of two children under ten years old. But, my calculation is, it’s worth at least a little time to find out if there’s something here.
For the next several months, Cole and I will talk several times per week, some weeks we’ll speak daily…and what he said earlier…about my life never being the same?....well, he was right about that.
But before I get ahead of myself…on this first phone call with Cole…I wanted to know exactly what he meant when he said there was something about to happen.
Ethan:
Can we get back to a comment you made earlier? You said you wanted me to document what was about to happen. What’s about to happen?
Cole:
I’m not going to be able to explain this in the next 30 minutes…but there’s a much more centralized, sophisticated, and well-funded effort than what we’ve seen with The Base.
Ethan (narrating):
The Base. This is probably the right place to start.
The Anti-Defamation League describes The Base as a small militant neo-Nazi organization that emerged in mid-2018. They’re a derivative of the white supremacist terrorist organization, Atomwaffen Division, which disbanded in 2020, but they aren’t much different.
The Base operates in small, decentralized cells, although they do have an organizer, a man by the name of Rinaldo Nazarro, who also goes by the names Roman Wolf and Norman Spear. He’s a in his fifties, from New Jersey, but fled the United States and currently resides in Russia.
More than just neo-Nazi white supremacists, The Base is a group pushing for an all-out race war. They espouse accelerationist rhetoric. In this use of the word, accelerationist, or accelerationism, refers to a desire to accelerate the demise of society by encouraging extremely violent action from their members on many fronts. Poisoning public water sources. Disrupting energy production. Disabling rail systems. Mass execution events. The goal of all of this is to speed up the impending societal collapse, so that white men can then re-establish a white ethno-state atop the food chain.
By 2019 they had an east coast training facility on a property in Rome, Georgia, owned by the father of a Base member. This was their rallying point in the Eastern United States, allowing members to fire weapons, share ideas on how to successfully murder groups of innocent people, and conduct pagan rituals, where in one case they sacrificed a goat, and members drank the blood in between chants as they gathered around a fire. Training activities were recorded, and videos were produced for recruiting purposes on social media. If you’ve ever seen Al Qaida propaganda, what they produced didn’t look much different.
While their videos look unsophisticated, their hatred for non-whites is refined. To help put this group in perspective, members of the Klu Klux Klan have called the police after hearing members of The Base talk about their ideas.
And it’s not just talk. Accelerationists like The Base have claimed responsibility for many of the most horrific mass shooting events in recent years:
· The 2019 massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand where 51 people were murdered at two mosques and the event was live streamed by the attacker.
· 2019, 23 people killed in an attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
· 2019, One person killed at a mosque in Poway, California.
· 2019, two people killed as they entered a synagogue in Halle, Germany.
· 2022, 10 black people shot and killed at a Buffalo, New York supermarket.
· 2022, Colorado Springs, Colorado, five people killed in an LGBTQ nightclub.
· 2023, Three black people shot and killed at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida.
In addition to violence, members of The Base believe they can achieve their goal of societal collapse by driving wedges between Americans. So, they escalate political divisions wherever they can, they stir hate on social media with AI-generated content, they stoke identity politics, and they espouse false narratives about Jewish people, LGBTQ, and immigrants. Ever see a random comment on a social media post that really stood out as hateful and radically divisive? There’s a chance that was posted by a member of The Base.
For years the FBI has built teams to infiltrate these accelerationist groups….and they’ve had some success.
In 2019 and early 2020, several different cells of The Base were infiltrated by an undercover agent by the name of Scott Payne, who went by the codename Pale Horse. Once Scott retired in 2022, his story of infiltrating The Base found its way into the mainstream in a Rolling Stone article.
What we all learned, was that over a period of months in 2019, Scott gained the trust of Nazarro and other members, and eventually collected enough evidence to have law enforcement intervene just as a violent event was about to unfold at a gun rally in…strangely enough, the city in which I live…Richmond, Virginia.
Several cells were planning domestic terror events at the same time, and arrests were made in several states on crimes ranging from firearms charges to criminal gang charges, to conspiracy to commit murder. This undercover work by Scott and other FBI case teams, is what first drew me in to better understand this dark and expansive underworld, and for the next several years, I obsessed over it.
And then fuel was added to the fire.
Klein was elected president. A proud Georgia native, in his election victory speech in November of 2024, he specifically called out the discrimination that patriotic groups in Georgia had seen in the past several years while exercising their right to free speech. At the time there was confusion as to what he meant by that, but I heard what he was saying.
In the following few weeks, several important things happened. First, President Klein boasted about receiving 100% of the votes from members of patriotic groups like The Base. Then his newly appointed Attorney General, a rumored white supremacist himself, fired the FBI Director and Assistant Director, replacing them with Klein loyalists. Right out of the gates…. not one week after the new FBI leadership took control, they cut funding to the JTTF, the unit assigned to dismantling these dangerous neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups.
At that point I knew I had to write an op-ed covering what I had learned and summarizing what I saw happening inside the Oval Office and the Justice Department.
Interestingly enough in March of 2025, at the time my Washington Post story ran, there was another FBI undercover agent who was in his seventh month inside a new accelerationist group…. wondering how this pullback from funding would affect his work. He read my article…and weeks later, he’d me, desperately seeking my help.
Cole:
I’ll try to outline this as clearly as possible. What would help most is if I can get you 302s on the previous 7 months but let me sort out the logistics of that. For now, I’ll just give you the basics:
Ethan (narrating):
302s, or FBI FD-302, is the formal report that a UC writes and then uploads to an internal system in order to document interviews, or in this case, recaps of conversations from the day. These reports become powerful tools as cases are prosecuted in court.
As I hear this, I’m not sure how Cole plans to get these to me, but this one detail for whatever reason, is what makes me first think Cole is telling the truth, and the heaviness of this situation begins to set in. I feel my chest tighten.
Cole:
So, in early 2020 when Scott Payne and company stepped in and stopped the violence that was planned at the gun rally in Richmond, which led to the arrest of several Base members in Georgia, Maryland, and Wisconsin, I was out in Republic, Washington ingratiating myself with a group of Base members who had just purchased a property out there to use for a future training site. I had used being a former SEAL as my cover, which was easy since I spent 11 years in the Teams, so they latched on to me immediately and were talking about me being the head of tactical training and running the gun range.
However, after the shakedown on the East Coast, things went quiet…so I moved on to a big drug case and my involvement with The Base just sort of went dark….I still stayed in the chatrooms and went back and forth about things from time to tome…but nothing significant. However, in early 2022 we started to notice a large increase in activity with some members. I pieced together that there was a new group being formed….and they had access to a serious amount of cash and had supposedly secured a massive property in Northern Virginia that was going to…quote/unquote….change the game…
Ethan:
How credible was it?
Cole:
Well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from these guys is they’re big on talk….so I wasn’t sure what to think…but the chatter only grew louder, and by late-2022 it was clear the time had come to get back in. So, I started to peek my head into chatrooms more often. It didn’t take long. I kept the same handle I had used before, AughtSix, which is short for the Thirty Aught-Six, a long gun, the one I learned how to shoot with when I was a boy in Texas, known for accuracy and reliability – so anyway, when I jumped back into the chat, people already knew me and I had instant credibility.
Ethan:
Cole tells me his intuition was right…there was something happening, and it wasn’t long before he was asked to participate.
Cole:
It was December at that point, and I was invited to an in-person meeting by a guy who went by the name OmenZulu, or OZ. He said he heard about me from a Base member, and he was looking for the right guy to handle a training project in Virginia he couldn’t talk about online. I assumed it was for this new group that other guys had been talking about. He gave me very little information, just a location and a time to meet.
It was in the parking lot of an abandoned funeral home of all things in the town of Winchester, a 90-minute drive west from D.C.
Ethan:
Aren’t you working other cases at this point?
Cole:
At the time, this is like early November 2024, and I was working a drug case in New York….and, you know, we’re used to jumping around between cases, so I just came up with a reason to leave what I was doing in New York, and made the easy drive down I-95 for this meeting.
So, the day we meet, I get there early. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. I had my team nearby if anything went wrong. I was wearing a wire woven into the liner of my denim winter coat, and it was small so I didn’t worry much about getting patted down, which I expected would happen.
I’m parked in the back of the funeral home, away from the street, and they finally arrive in a brand-new black Suburban with blacked out windows – must have been a $90k vehicle. There’s a clean-shaven guy behind the wheel I didn’t recognize and a guy in the passenger seat with a beard.
(Someone interrupts him on the trail – woman asks him a question, little dog is barking….he gets distracted)
Sorry about that…
So, I get out of my truck and as soon as I do, the back doors to the Suburban open and two big fellas get out – dressed in black. They escort me to the SUV and motion for me to get in the vehicle. It’s dark as shit in there and now my pulse quickens. Four pretty strong dudes in an SUV and they’re telling me to jump in. I hesitated and said “You realize I’m putting a lot of faith in you motherfuckers, right?” Not a word.
I get in and it’s dark in there, and I’m sandwiched between two dudes almost as big as I am. The doors close and the guy in the passenger seat turns back toward me, and I instantly recognize him to be Drew Fulton, who goes by the name Doc. He’s a former adviser to Navarro, and he’s got a PhD in psychology from Villanova and can’t let anyone forget it. He’s a white dude with a long, narrow, dark beard slightly graying, and he’s wearing a black wool hat pulled down low – it’s his signature look. We’ve worked with a lot of the same people, but I’ve never met him, which possibly explains why the first thing he does is point a Glock directly at my forehead and tell me to “strip.”
Doing my best not to shit myself, I ask why…he doesn’t say anything, so I follow up with “But it’s only our first date” hoping to ease the tension. This doesn’t buy me any points. Again, he says “Strip.”
As I remove my clothes, they driver starts to move through the parking lot back out onto the street. The big dudes on each side of me collect my things, including my denim coat, and put them in a suitcase and then throw it in the back of the Suburban. All I’m thinking about now is if team can hear any of this, and whether they’re tailing us.
Once I’m down to my boxers, feeling cozy, Doc lowers his weapon and smiles really big at me and says:
“AughtSix, I’ve been excited to meet you. Welcome. My name is Drew, but call me Doc.”
He then follows up with “I’ll let you wear your clothes next time, but I always like to know who I’m dating before I get into a relationship.”
I tell him I understand. You can call me AughtSix, but my name is Cole, a detail I always try to keep constant when I go undercover only because things get confusing if I don’t.
His response was chilling, he says, “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll stick with AughtSix, it’ll help me stay focused as we kill together.” It wasn’t as much as what he said, as it was how he said it. Hateful. Cold. Zero empathy for our target…. whatever that was going to be.
Ethan (narrating):
Cole continues. He tells me that Drew Fulton, or, Doc, introduces himself as the Ops Director for The Preserve, a property not far from where they are, which he claims is a new “Entertainment and Recruitment Post” for the cause. He doesn’t share what they’re doing on the property, but he is more than excited that Cole may bring his extensive weapons training and tactical experience. Cole tells me they drove around for thirty minutes talking about Cole’s background in the SEALs and what he was involved with in Republic, Washington helping Navarro start to set up the property as a training site. Doc nods his head and not 15 minutes into the drive, offers Cole the position.
What Cole is told is that the job requires him to move to Winchester, Virginia, live in an apartment in town until the other residences are built on The Preserve property.
He can’t hesitate in his response to this offer and immediately says he’s in. His start date is set for one week later, and just like that, the SUV is back in the funeral home parking lot, Cole steps out, realizing he never even got to see The Preserve, and then the SUV is gone.
For the next twenty minutes of his trail hike, Cole does his best to bring me up to speed on the most ambitious hate development group America has ever seen.
Cole:
The Preserve is much different from The Base. The Base is an execution cell - decentralized, poorly funded, and the members were unsophisticated with their operations.
The Preserve is operating on a different level – it has a starkly different purpose and there’s an unknown party shoveling money in and making sure it’s operating according to plan. Everyone at The Preserve has a role, and the group’s focus is less about sowing mayhem and the collapse of society like other accelerationist groups – and more focused on recruiting America’s cultural elites: musicians, actors, athletes, politicians, and businesspeople by providing them an experience like no other. The Preserve believes the more influential Americans they can bring into their entertainment empire and inspire, the faster the accelerationist movement grows.
Ethan:
How do they do this? What’s so entertaining and inspiring?
Cole:
From the moment a guest arrives, like when you step foot on a Disney property, every single detail is choreographed to perfection.
The drinks and food on the helicopter. The greeting on the helicopter pad…the aroma in the residence at the foyer. The staff is there to nail every detail. And it’s all a means to an end.
Ethan:
What’s at the end?
Cole:
It’s all about the hunt.
Ethan (narrating):
The hunt. In this case…big game hunting with long guns. Shoulder-fired weapons with long barrels and large rounds.
If there’s one thing that dilates the pupils of a neo-nazi, white supremacist, it’s the prospect of killing something that scares them.
The bet this group is making is that the thrill of a unique killing experience, combined with plush helicopter rides, linen tablecloths, 15-years old bourbon, all wrapped in a little hate, will have a similar physiological effect on their guests as well.
But hold on, I need to set the table a bit so you understand.
Before guests arrive there’s a staff meeting…all of us, kitchen, residence, training, gaming, maintenance…. someone pounds on a table, then yells “We will!” and then the group follows in unison: “Entertain. Indoctrinate. Annihilate.”
Ok…if that doesn’t wake you up, I’m not sure what will.
I’ll start by explaining the property of The Preserve: 100,000 acres of land just outside the city of Winchester, Virginia. This area is beautiful rolling horse country, so 100,000 acres is not inexpensive by any means.
The entire 100,000 acres has been re-zoned as large game hunting preserve, and the perimeter, which is something like 60 miles, is surrounded by an 8’ electric fence, which alone probably cost $5 million and took months to install.
The main residence, where guests stay, is a 6,000 sqft, pristine white colonial style farm house, beautifully decorated, sleeps 8 – clearly built for entertaining guests, with an elaborate dining room, an entertainment room, billiard room, and a commercial kitchen and staff.
Guests can enter the property by vehicle if it’s pre-arranged, but just about everyone I’ve seen enters by helicopter – and there’s always a pilot on standby. Most people fly into Dulles and then with the helicopter it’s only a 10-minute ride.
Ethan:
So what happens over these two days?
Cole:
Like I said it’s all focused on getting the guest to relax and align with the agenda, which of course is white supremacy. The first night is hosted by one of several people, and it totally depends on the guest. If it’s a musician, let’s say, the host will be a very slick piece of shit named Ben. If it’s a businessperson, the host will be a fuckin’ MBA, named Irvin. Oren is our guy for politicians. And so on.
Ethan (narrating):
Now my mind starts to race. I start thinking about different politicians, businesspeople, or actors, who may have signaled that they’d put up with a hate group like this…much less spend a weekend rubbing elbows and talking about white supremacy and violence.
The first night is all about relaxing and digging into the white agenda. Ensuring our guest is on the same page…there’s been some vetting ahead of time, but this first night is mean to ensure that this rich motherfucker hates Jews and non-whites as much as the rest of the group. By the end of the night, the propaganda machine is in overdrive and the guest heads to bed with their hate-meter pegged.
The next morning, as I said, is the hunt. The gaming property, which is accessed just off the back of the residence, contains over 1,000 Wild Russian Boar ready to hunt and be hunted. After I conduct a second training session on the morning of the second day, our guests are driven around in hunting vehicles high enough off the ground and with enough armor to protect them…and it’s necessary because a mature male Wild Russian Boar can weigh well over 350 pounds with 4” tusks and they are incredibly aggressive.
Ethan:
So, hunting these, I would assume fairly rare animals, is the purpose of the trip? It’s the entertainment?
Cole:
By the way, I’ve got about five minutes.
Yes, and no….the hunt isn’t the goal of The Preserve. The relationship is the goal, the hunt is just what makes the guests salivate. By the time they get on the helicopter after their hunt, they’ve been wined and dined, and shown an incredible hunting experience by some of the most polished white supremacists on the planet. They get home, all they want to do is talk about it…and all they want to do is come back for more. It’s when they ask to come back that The Preserve begins to ask for something in return.
Ethan:
What do they want in return?
Cole:
Loyalty…. which means, access to their network of other rich people. White supremacy is much more acceptable from someone you know and trust.
Ethan:
This is sick. So what exactly is your role?
Cole:
Its twofold. When a guest is on the property, it’s training the guests in big game marksmanship. First, it’s how to handle the weapon and how to hit a moving target. It’s not that exciting, trust me. But, the second thing I do, when there are no guests, is I train low-level recruits on tactics. There is no shortage of angry white idiots begging to come to this place and workout in our training facility, and they get bussed in from all over the country. It’s as good as it gets for young, dumb, white supremacists – and word is spreading so we can’t fucking keep up.
Ethan:
This is a lot to take in. So, I know you only have a few minutes….and I need to get back to a few things you’ve told me. What is about to happen…. why are you talking to me?
Cole:
I had a feeling that was coming next. Well, I don’t know what exactly is about to happen, but there’s something big being planned on the property, but I’m not a part of the planning, and it’s very tight-lipped. But that’s not the main reason why I contacted you.
Ethan:
Ok, what’s the main reason? Why are you on a burner phone having an encrypted call with a journalist so your team can’t hear you?
Cole:
Hold on to something, bud, because that article you wrote was dead-on, but it was only halfway there.
After the leadership change at the Bureau, and then the JTTF funding was slashed, there was an internal FBI memo that informed undercover agents that their teams were being replaced – this was after your article was published. It was incredibly sudden, but most of all it was dangerous. My case agent and my surveillance team, they knew everything about what I was doing and the threats I was facing by infiltrating this hate group, and just like that they were gone – replaced with a handful of guys I don’t even know – but I kept going.
I know I haven’t been doxed, but for the last five months….the new group I rely on 24/7 …. I have this gut feeling they are assigned to this case with the sole purpose…of protecting The Preserve.