Hella Nation - Evan Wright [71]
Langdon, Southland and Simberg were arrested fewer than seventy-two hours after the staged break-in. Langdon refused to speak. Simberg, who had been in bed with his girlfriend, Ksenya, when the police arrested him, fell apart in his first interview with Britt. “He broke down crying like a baby,” Britt says. “This kid was not cut out to be a career criminal.” Simberg spilled every detail of the crime, from his first contact with Southland through Ksenya, to Southland’s recruitment of him the previous summer, to the recent staged burglary. Simberg told Britt that on that night outside Peak Physique, Southland used a crowbar to smash the window of the already empty storeroom. Simberg climbed through the shattered window and ran around the room to leave footprints, intended to give the appearance of the place having been robbed by a gang.
As Britt saw it, the crime was garden-variety insurance fraud, which had been horribly executed from the start. With the mountain of evidence he’d gathered and Simberg’s incriminating testimony, bringing an indictment of multiple fraud and conspiracy counts against Langdon and Southland would be a slam dunk.
In his first interview of Southland, Britt had no need of his cooperation given the strength of the case. But given Britt’s own background with the Russian community, he was curious as to why Southland seemed so adept at manipulating Russians. When Britt sat across from Southland in an interview room, Southland appeared calm and expressed an interest in being helpful. But he explained to Britt that he could not divulge certain secrets surrounding his dealings with Langdon and the Russian community. Southland retrieved an official-looking but outdated military ID from his wallet, showed it to Britt, then lowered his voice and spoke a few words of Russian. Southland informed Britt that he was a former CIA employee now working as a “secret agent” in a capacity that he could not disclose under penalty of law.
“Oh, really?” Britt replied.
9. THE CIA AGENT
SOUTHLAND AND LANGDON POSTED BAIL and left jail within days of their arrests. Simberg was held until November, when his parents paid his bond. Britt had advised Simberg to remain in jail. He hadn’t offered the young Russian any kind of deal because he didn’t want him to have the appearance of cooperating with police, as he was doing. The longer Simberg stayed in jail, the safer he would be. Britt’s worst fears were borne out when Simberg was murdered on December 15. Britt was certain that the murder had been ordered by Southland and Langdon, that a ho-hum white-collar crime had ended with the shooting and immolation of Simberg in the Yavapai woods. It was among the cruelest murders he had ever investigated. And it eliminated his key witness in the insurance fraud case. But as of early spring 2002, Britt remained unable to link Simberg’s killers to Southland or Langdon.
When I visit Southland’s house by the Wildfire Golf Course in March 2002, he greets me at the door with a friendly smile. I had phoned Southland a few days earlier and he had invited me over to “chat.” On bail for the robbery and fraud charges and with a cloud of murder hanging over his head, Southland exudes an easy calm as he shakes my hand in the white marble foyer. He is about five-ten, with chestnut-brown hair and curiously soulful eyes. He has broad shoulders, with disproportionately huge arms, like Pop-eye’s, which are a tribute to the power of working out, HGH and probably steroids, too. (DEA representatives informed Britt around the time of Southland’s arrest that in an unrelated investigation, their undercover agents had made illegal buys of steroids from Southland at Christie’s Cabaret, and he was believed to be a major player in the steroids scene.) The only signs of stress I detect in Southland’s features are puffy bags under his eyes the color of mud.
Southland leads me across the two-story great room of his