The police also had the force of logic on their side. There"s an old legal adage: The first to surrender gets the best deal. Taylor, who already had a criminal record, stood to gain quite a bit by cooperating. Brinkman, Knorr, and Gill had been sure to make all these points clear to Taylor and he had started to talk-about who was involved, how the operation worked, and about specific dogs and fights.

How to use the information he provided was one of the topics that arose at the bar, but other questions floated up, too. What about the dogs themselves? Wouldn"t it be great if some of them could be saved? Thousands of letters, e-mails, and a seemingly unending barrage of phone calls had poured into the U.S. attorney"s office encouraging the team to do just that-save the dogs.

Everyone wanted to help, but what could they do? Technically the dogs were still the property of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and lawyers didn"t see any legal way for the federal government to take possession. Even if they did a.s.sume control of the dogs, who would pay for them? The care and upkeep of fifty dogs is an expensive proposition. Jim Knorr thought there was a provision of the Animal Welfare Act that would be useful, and one of the attorneys promised to look into it, but no one was hopeful.

Still, things were better than they had been. They were now in control of the case and moving forward on three fronts: getting what they could from Tony Taylor, forensic examination of the dead bodies, and seizing the dogs. In the purple-blue glow of the Capitol Ale House"s accent lights, a plan was beginning to coalesce.

13.

THE BROWN DOG-SUSs.e.x 2602-COWERS in the back of her kennel. Things have gotten better at the shelter. Another man joins the first and that seems to settle things a bit. There is a familiarity to the days that gives at least some comfort. in the back of her kennel. Things have gotten better at the shelter. Another man joins the first and that seems to settle things a bit. There is a familiarity to the days that gives at least some comfort.

The morning routine begins shortly after daylight comes. Fresh water appears in the bowls. Then the kennels are cleaned, but the procedure is different now. The dogs are taken to an empty stall while their s.p.a.ce is hosed and brushed with disinfectant. When the brown dog goes back into her pen, the floor is cold and wet and doesn"t have her smell to it.

Sometimes the men will put a dog on a leash and walk it around inside the building. The brown dog wants to walk but she can"t make herself. When the man with the leash opens her cage, she lies flat on the ground, shaking. After a while he stops trying. A few of the other dogs won"t walk either, but some of them love to do it. They sit wagging by the front of their pens when the men come. On occasion one of those dogs will get to go outside for a walk.

Two of the dogs, the ones with scars who bark hard and loud, as if they are trying to blow down the walls with sound, have been moved to the other building. There they are put in larger pens, each with an indoor and an outdoor section. The men can close a gate between the two sections, which allows them to clean up and put in food without having to come face-to-face with those dogs.

It is quiet at night, but the moment the men arrive in the morning, the barking starts. As long as they can hear or smell someone sitting in the office, the dogs bark and bark. They want more food, more water, more walks, more attention, any affection.

They want something to break the monotony and boredom. It drives them to jumping and circling in their pens, to chewing at the metal fasteners on the chain link. They chew on the bowls and metal buckets, using time and the pent-up energy of their confinement to crush and flatten them.

And they bark. They bark and the sloped tin ceiling barks back, amplifying their fury and despair and frustration and reflecting it right back down on them. The brown dog can not take much more. One of the men comes to try to walk her, and she becomes so frightened that she loses control and a stream of urine flows out of her, spreading across the floors and soaking into her fur as she lies there, paralyzed.

The brown dog burrows as far into the corner of her pen as she can-as if she is literally trying to become Suss.e.x 2602-and attempting to pretend nothing else around her really exists.

Things are worse at the Surry County shelter. Some of the dogs originally placed there are moving, but not all of them. Thirteen dogs have started out in the small beige building, but only eleven are leaving. Two dogs die during the three months they are held there. The deaths are somewhat mysterious. No official word of the incidents or explanation for them is ever released. Rumors circulate.

The kennels are secured with the kind of U-shaped latches that lift to open. One theory has it that a few of the dogs figured out how to open the latches and, when no one was around, they let themselves out and fought. Another posits that one dog accidently released the latch while jumping in its cage; the gate swung open and the dog attacked another dog that had been tethered to the wall while its pen was being cleaned, and in the aftermath both dogs-the injured and the attacker-were put down. Some worry that something far worse is going on: That somehow, someone is getting into the shelter and forcing the dogs to fight.

The truth remains unknown but the reality is certain-after months of confinement eleven dogs find themselves inside a truck heading for Hanover County Animal Shelter. Many stand and bark at the beginning, but as the truck turns onto the highway, the straight-line ride and steady hum eventually calm them. They settle into their little pens and blink into the afternoon light.

When the truck stops, they can sense something new and different. It smells different; it sounds different. Different could be bad. So many painful and scary things have happened to them when they"ve been taken from a familiar place to someplace new. But after so many weeks in Surry County, staring at the same walls, bouncing off the same wire fencing, watching the clouds through the same tiny windows, different is exciting.

The truck opens and light pours in. One by one the dogs are carried into a new building, this one bigger and brighter. There are fifty kennels on two levels. Some hold new, different dogs; dogs that have never even seen the clearing or black sheds or Moonlight Road. There are still fans spinning overhead and small windows, but there are now soft, st.u.r.dy beds in the kennels. A washer and dryer make interesting noises all day and people come and go through the back section of the building regularly. More people parade through the front, the adoption area, and the dogs can hear those people talking and cooing and whistling.

There is still barking, incessant barking, and long hours with nothing to do, but at least there are new things to look at and listen to. Little curiosities and mysteries to explore that provide the slightest bit of stimulation.

These things help because even the most stable dogs in the group are growing less and less sure of themselves every day. All their instincts and desires are blunted by a four-by-six chain-link enclosure. They don"t hunt, they don"t chase, they don"t explore or mate. They have no pack and what they thought were dens have become nothing but traps. They are no longer kinetic, but each is simply potential energy now, a possibility, a hope, a dog waiting to happen.

Many are still afraid every time the people come to open their gates. But some want to be a part of whatever team those people are leading, and their excitement gets the better of their anxiety, allowing them to wag and lick and follow along. Others can not deal; they whine and bark or crouch and crawl across the room when they are taken out. These are the ones that hide in the backs of their pens and flatten to the ground when anyone comes near.

For the strong ones, those that can muster the courage to walk across the shelter and out the back door, there is great reward. These dogs are taken to a large fenced-in area. The ground is covered with concrete, but they can see and smell trees and gra.s.s and birds and squirrels. The people who take them out will drop the leash and suddenly these dogs are free in a s.p.a.ce big enough to run and jump. Some of them stand bewildered, unsure what to do; some just amble around, sniffing and gazing; but a few take off. They bolt in one direction, skid to a stop, nails sc.r.a.ping against the concrete, then sprint back across the s.p.a.ce. Their muscles pump and burn, their hearts pound, their ears fly back in the wind.

14.

AS MELINDA MERCK SURVEYED the beer options at the Capital Ale House, the prevailing mood around her was almost giddy. With her were Mike Gill, Jim Knorr, and Bill Brinkman, sipping his Miller Lite from a mug. They were part of a group of about ten, which included various federal agents and some people from the U.S. attorney"s office. the beer options at the Capital Ale House, the prevailing mood around her was almost giddy. With her were Mike Gill, Jim Knorr, and Bill Brinkman, sipping his Miller Lite from a mug. They were part of a group of about ten, which included various federal agents and some people from the U.S. attorney"s office.

It had been a big week for the good guys. On June 28 Tony Taylor officially flipped. He came into the office and told everything. He had dates, places, names of dogs, and details of specific fights, including amounts of money bet and results. Best of all, Taylor"s information corroborated what the investigation"s other sources had said. And he gave them the name of Oscar Allen, a retired New York City transit worker known as Virginia O. Allen had been fighting dogs up and down the East Coast for years and had served as an advisor to the Bad Newz operation. The authorities quickly moved in on Allen, who agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

The team followed that up with a July 2 forfeiture filing that would allow the federal government to officially take ownership of the dogs. Knorr had been right. The Animal Welfare Act did allow such a transfer and one of the attorneys had also found a provision that allowed the feds to pay for the upkeep out of a fund that held the auction proceeds of all the items seized in federal cases-all the houses, cars, boats, jewelry, etc. taken from drug dealers and corporate cheaters and others who run afoul of the law-so it wouldn"t cost taxpayers a dime.

Now it was July 5, the eve of the second federal search. Merck had come in that morning from Atlanta to attend the final planning meeting. From the start she had been blown away, if not nearly overwhelmed, by the level of detail in the planning. Now she had a front-row seat for the final ministrations.

She was also impressed by Gill. For every move he made he considered all the possible outcomes and potential countermoves a defense attorney might attempt. As the case built, Merck could see Gill slowly but surely backing the suspects into a corner. With each search, with each expert, the prospect of evading the charges became a lesser possibility. He wasn"t one step ahead, but three or four.

She thought she"d been keeping up with his thinking, but he had a surprise for her, too. When the entire team met face-to-face in a conference room at Gill"s Richmond office, Merck took a seat in the middle of the table and got ready to listen, thinking she was just one more member of the team. But when the meeting began, Gill looked directly at her and said, "Okay, tell us how you want this to go." For the first time, Merck realized that she was not simply riding along in an advisory role; she was in charge. Suddenly, she felt a lot of pressure.

The next morning Merck was up at 5:00 A.M. for the ride down to Vick"s place. She hopped in Jim Knorr"s car and they spent the two-hour drive talking about the case, telling dog stories and gossiping. When they reached Surry County the scene was almost jokingly familiar for Jim Knorr. The team a.s.sembled in the boat launch parking lot. They made the twisting drive down Moonlight Road. The SWAT team busted down the door and once again secured an empty house.

The heat was similar, too. By 7:00 A.M. the site had been fully secured, and it was already 75 degrees. At least it was dry, making the ground harder but lighter. The procedure was much different this time. For starters, the USDA"s emergency response team, which had just received forensics training, would do the digging. There would also be a few FBI agents along to help out.

Before digging, the agents tested the ground by inserting metal rods into the dirt. Ground that has been dug up will not be compacted in the same way as undisturbed soil. Even years later, the area will be softer. Using the probes, the agents were able to map out not only the area they"d dug up earlier but the full area of the original burial site.

Once that was done a few of the FBI agents took the probes off to check other parts of the property for additional burial sites. Meanwhile the USDA team began removing the dirt from the dig site one six-inch layer at a time. They were looking for more than just dogs. Merck instructed them to keep an eye out for footprints, which could be used for identification, and shovel marks from earlier digs, which often helped define the boundaries of the excavation area.

On top of that, they carefully preserved any plant life, since the depth of the roots could give clues about how long it had been since the ground was disturbed. And each shovelful went through a sifter to separate out bone fragments, bullet casings, and bugs. Not just any bugs, but developing flies. The various stages-larval, maggot, adult flies-grow at prescribed rates, so they too can be used to establish a timeline.

Barely a half hour after they had begun to dig, one of the agents checked his BlackBerry and found an e-mail from a friend: "I can see you on TV." A helicopter had been pa.s.sing overhead, but Merck and the others had hoped that the trees provided enough cover to hide them. Now, they stopped work for a few minutes to construct a portable canopy over the dig site to give themselves some privacy. Knorr later learned that several media outlets had paid off the neighbors to call as soon as they heard or saw anything going on at the house.

Under the canopy, progress was slow, a situation made worse by the heat, which climbed to 91 degrees with 88 percent humidity. The temperature contributed to another disturbing factor: Long before the excavation reached the depth of the dogs the agents were hit with an even more powerful odor than they had endured last time out. Decomposition begins the moment any animal dies, but when it is encased in the ground the process slows considerably. The previous dig had exposed the dogs to the air and that had accelerated the decay. Jim Knorr tried not to think about what the bodies would look like once they were uncovered.

Merck was used to the smell and unbothered, but as the morning wore on she fielded more and more requests for nose plugs. As lunchtime came and went Merck noticed that no one had much appet.i.te, but the state police had brought coolers full of water and everyone drank to fight the heat. Knorr once again kept his distance, pacing the grounds and talking on his cell phone. There was plenty going on away from the main dig.

He escorted Merck around the Bad Newz compound. She noticed things others had not. The original investigation had found canine blood in and around the pit on the second floor of the biggest shed, but Merck noticed that there were little starbursts of blood on the wall next to the stairs, right about the height a dog"s head would pa.s.s if it was being carried down the stairs and it sneezed or coughed up a gob of blood.

She also oversaw some digging that was going on at two other areas away from the main site. The FBI agents had found a few promising spots with their metal rods and they had been working those patches of ground. They had found several bullet casings, bone fragments, and a canine skull with what appeared to be a bullet hole in it, but no full bodies. Eventually, with Merck"s okay, they put aside the probes and shovels and explored using a backhoe.

Finally, the bodies emerged from the dirt. They looked far different than they had the first time. There was significant decomposition. So much that in some places it was hard to tell which parts went with which dogs. Merck helped unravel the mysteries, gridding out the site and making a sketch to show how the dogs were oriented.

The bodies, or what was left of them, were very fragile and the team feared that they would come apart if they tried to lift them out of the ground. Merck showed the others how to make slings out of plastic bags, then to slide them under each dog and safely lift it out.

One by one the eight dogs they had found a month earlier were slipped inside two plastic bags each, loaded into large white coolers that were packed with ice, and slid onto a rental truck. But there was one addition. This time the more careful approach had led to a wider, deeper dig that revealed an additional chamber off one of the graves that had gone undetected previously. In it lay one more body. It was a small red dog.

On Monday morning, Melinda Merck prepared for work. Fair-skinned with light blue eyes and an aquiline nose, Merck pulled her wavy hair back, removed her silver pinky ring, and slipped into a set of scrubs. She snapped on the rubber gloves and pulled on a cap so she would know for sure that she hadn"t done anything to contaminate the evidence.

She had long ago learned to put aside her sentimentality and compa.s.sion so that she could focus on the science of her job. She was helped by the knowledge that what she discovered would help deliver justice to the people who were cruel to animals and save other creatures from the same fate.

After the raid, the dead dogs that were recovered had been loaded into the van, and two USDA agents drove them to Merck"s offices in Atlanta, so they were never out of direct custody. By the time they completed the fourteen-hour trek, Merck was there in her lab waiting for them.

The Vick dogs presented a daunting challenge. Ideally, she would have been on scene at the original raid to doc.u.ment everything from where each dog was kept to the condition of the water in the bowls to the temperature. Had she been present then, she would have carefully sketched, photographed, and charted the entire scene. She would have combed the fur for evidence and examined the bodies inside and out for damage. Instead, she was faced with one dog that had never been uncovered and eight that had already been dug up once, which disturbed the purity of the site and the bodies, and accelerated the decomposition process.

Her initial examination of the bodies confirmed what she had expected to be the case: only three dogs had enough flesh remaining to perform an external examination. For the rest she could do only a skeletal a.n.a.lysis. A dog has 321 bones in its body, and each bone would need to be labeled, catalogued, and studied under a microscope, a process that would likely take weeks. Time was running short.

NFL training camps were only a few weeks away. In private meetings Vick had a.s.sured league commissioner Roger Goodell and Falcons owner Arthur Blank that he had not been involved in whatever was going on at the house. They had taken him at his word, but for the rest of the world there was an urgency to know if Vick would be there when the season began. For some Falcons fans it was unthinkable that he would not be, but for animal lovers and those who suspected the worst, the idea of Michael Vick out on the field being cheered by thousands of people while collecting millions of dollars was repulsive.

Merck was aware of the controversy, so she did the only thing she could. One by one, she lowered each carca.s.s into a vat of hot water that reduced it to nothing more than a pile of bones.

15.

AS JULY STRETCHED ON and the investigation moved toward its pinnacle, Jim Knorr and Bill Brinkman realized they had a dog problem. Or was it a man problem? Brownie continued to be a thorn in Knorr"s side. He called too much; he didn"t call at all. He showed up where he wasn"t supposed to; he disappeared. Brinkman and Knorr were constantly dealing with Brownie. Driving him back to Virginia Beach, moving him from one hotel to another, sc.r.a.ping together money out of their own pockets to keep him full of McDonald"s and Wendy"s. Now, as things were getting serious, Knorr planned to send Brownie to a safe house in Florida. and the investigation moved toward its pinnacle, Jim Knorr and Bill Brinkman realized they had a dog problem. Or was it a man problem? Brownie continued to be a thorn in Knorr"s side. He called too much; he didn"t call at all. He showed up where he wasn"t supposed to; he disappeared. Brinkman and Knorr were constantly dealing with Brownie. Driving him back to Virginia Beach, moving him from one hotel to another, sc.r.a.ping together money out of their own pockets to keep him full of McDonald"s and Wendy"s. Now, as things were getting serious, Knorr planned to send Brownie to a safe house in Florida.

The thought of a trip to the Sunshine State didn"t do much for Brownie. He remained irascible. He did what he wanted, which kept Knorr up at night as much as the phone calls. Among the things Brownie wanted was his pooch. One of the dogs in Vick"s compound, a giant male presa canario, belonged to him, but it had been taken away with the rest. Knorr thought if he could get the man"s dog back, maybe Brownie would be so grateful that he"d be more cooperative.

Finally, after months of trying to spring the dog through legal channels, Brinkman and Knorr took matters into their own hands. They finagled some paperwork and showed up at the shelter where the dog was being kept, flashed their badges and the letter, and walked out with the dog. Problem solved. At least for one dog.

The forty-nine pit bulls that were now the property of the federal government were a different story. The forfeiture statutes that had been used to seize the dogs gave the court a role in deciding what would become of them. Gill and the other attorneys knew that judges preferred to receive some sort of guidance or suggestion about how to rule when odd things like this popped up. The natural inclination is to look at what has been done in the past and use that as a precedent, but since dogs from fight busts are usually put down, that was a bleak alternative.

To the surprise of many, this was exactly the course prescribed by some of the loudest voices in animal welfare. Wayne Pacelle, the president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States, told the New York Times New York Times he thought the dogs would and should be destroyed. "Officials from our organization have examined some of these dogs and, generally speaking, they are some of the most aggressively trained pit bulls in the country. Hundreds of thousands of less-violent pit bulls, who are better candidates to be rehabilitated, are being put down. The fate of these dogs will be up to the government, but we have recommended to them, and believe they will eventually be put down." he thought the dogs would and should be destroyed. "Officials from our organization have examined some of these dogs and, generally speaking, they are some of the most aggressively trained pit bulls in the country. Hundreds of thousands of less-violent pit bulls, who are better candidates to be rehabilitated, are being put down. The fate of these dogs will be up to the government, but we have recommended to them, and believe they will eventually be put down."

PETA took an equally dim view. "These dogs are a ticking time bomb," a spokesperson for the organization said. "Rehabilitating fighting dogs is not in the cards. It"s widely accepted that euthanasia is the most humane thing for them."

The a.s.sistant district attorneys in the office of the Eastern District of Virginia weren"t sure they agreed. Gill brought it up one day in a conversation with Merck and she got the sense that he was not terribly concerned about what had been done in the past or what outside forces thought should happen. He seemed to feel that a lot of those experts were more interested in getting their names in front of the public to spur donations than they were in the welfare of the dogs.

Gill didn"t even have any idea what the rehabilitation options were, but he wanted to know. Merck suggested he speak with Dr. Stephen Zawistowski, the ASPCA"s top behavior expert. At fifty-two Zawistowski, known universally as Steve Z or Dr. Z, was stout with white hair, a bushy white beard and mustache, rimless gla.s.ses, and apple cheeks. Affable and avuncular, he peppered his speech with thoughtful tugs at his facial hair and spiced up his outfits with ties that had flying doghouses and cat prints on them. He was the animal rescue world"s Santa Claus. Santa Claws, maybe.

With a Ph.D. in behavior genetics and a specialty in animal psychology, Dr. Z could bring the combination of science and compa.s.sion that Gill sought. In twenty years at the ASPCA Dr. Z had tackled everything from pet overpopulation to issues of behavior and welfare. During that period he"d risen from vice president of education to executive vice president of national programs and science advisor. The twenty books he either auth.o.r.ed or edited included a history of the ASPCA, and he was fond of telling tales of the organization"s flamboyant founder, Henry Bergh, who got his start breaking up illegal dogfighting and bear-baiting exhibitions in lower Manhattan in the 1870s.

Gill first approached Dr. Z in early July about other possible outcomes for the dogs. Dr. Z said there was some chance that a few of the dogs could be salvaged, but there was no way to know without meeting them face-to-face. It was possible, he suggested, to put together a panel of experts to individually evaluate each dog and make suggestions about what should become of them.

Even as Gill plotted a course for the live dogs, Melinda Merck continued to focus on the dead ones. Within a week of receiving the bodies, she gave Gill a preliminary report of her findings. It was good news. Most of what she found backed up Brownie"s account. The insect evidence-the fly larvae, the maggots, the flies themselves-indicated that the dogs had been in the ground for about two months. Almost every dog had little puncture marks or scoring on the bones, especially on their legs and faces, that indicated they had been bitten by other dogs. Based on the depth of the markings, the other dogs had most likely been pit bulls. Even more d.a.m.ning were the preponderance of facial fractures, which almost always resulted from fighting. And a few of the dogs had broken necks, which suggested hanging.

But it went beyond that, too. There were broken legs and vertebrae, some severe bone bruising. Most of the dogs, seven out of nine, had skull fractures, at least one of which appeared to be the result of a blow from a hammer. Brownie had reported that he"d once seen a Bad Newz member kill a dog by beating it with a shovel. Vick and friends had not simply eliminated these dogs with a cold efficiency, they"d beaten them first. The revelation added another layer of brutality to the already nasty case.

And then there was one last body that stood out from the rest. It had signs of bruising on all four ankles and all along one side. Its skull was fractured in two places and it had four broken vertebrae. Brownie had said that all of the dogs that didn"t die from being hanged were drowned, except one.

As that dog lay on the ground fighting for air, Quanis Phillips grabbed its front legs and Michael Vick grabbed its hind legs. They swung the dog over their head like a jump rope then slammed it to the ground. The first impact didn"t kill it. So Phillips and Vick slammed it again. The two men kept at it, alternating back and forth, pounding the creature against the ground, until at last, the little red dog was dead.

Most federal indictments are one or two pages long, giving the names of the accused, the crimes they"re being charged with, and little else. On July 17 a federal grand jury heard testimony from Brownie and Oscar Allen, read the affidavits of the imprisoned drug dealers who"d fought dogs with Vick, and heard Melinda Merck"s findings. When Mike Gill was done, the jury accepted an eighteen-page indictment against the four founding members of Bad Newz Kennels. It was part of a carefully planned approach to bring the case to a quick and just end.

The doc.u.ment, known as a walking indictment, laid out the actions and offenses of the accused in painful detail. As much as it was meant to ensure a charge, it was also intended to send a message to the defense: We have a lot of information from multiple sources and we"re not afraid to spell it all out for the jury and the public.

The reaction was swift. Protests sprung up outside the offices of the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons, and Nike. Nike suspended the introduction of a new Michael Vick footwear line and Falcons owner Arthur Blank called a press conference at which he deemed Vick"s actions horrific. Reebok stopped selling Vick jerseys and Upper Deck removed all Vickrelated products from its Web site.

Nine days after the indictment there was a line outside the federal courthouse in Richmond as both protesters and supporters waited to get a seat at the arraignment. For the first time in longer than anyone could remember the court had to funnel onlookers into overflow rooms where they could watch the proceedings live on closed-circuit TV. Those who didn"t make it inside lined the streets outside, chanting and carrying signs.

All four of the accused-Michael Vick, Purnell Peace, Quanis Phillips, and Tony Taylor-pled not guilty to the charges: conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce in aid of unlawful activities and sponsoring a dog in an animal fighting venture. For the first time since late April, when he denied ever being at the house, Vick spoke: Today in court I pleaded innocent to the allegations made against me. I take the charges very seriously, and I look forward to clearing my good name. I respectfully ask all of you to hold your judgment until all of the facts are shown. Above all, I"d like to say to my mom I"m sorry for what she has had to go through in this most trying of times. It has caused pain to my family and I apologize to my family.

That sounded good but it had little bearing on reality. Legally, Vick had only one hope of "clearing his good name." He needed the other three guys to tell the same story and stick to it. But any dreams of a united front were soon quashed.

Gill and his a.s.sociates had never stopped negotiating with Tony Taylor"s lawyer and on July 30, less than two weeks after the indictment, Taylor pled guilty and agreed to cooperate with the investigation. He sat for an extensive interview and then signed a thirteen-page summary of facts in which he detailed the Bad Newz operation, including many of the fights the group hosted and traveled to.

He admitted to the original plan to start the operation, buying the dogs, and having the sheds, the kennel, and eventually the house built. Organizing the fights and training the dogs. Handling the dogs in the ring and placing bets. Killing dogs. The most d.a.m.ning part of Taylor"s confession was not where he detailed his own role, but where he laid out Vick"s partic.i.p.ation. The star quarterback had not only bankrolled the operation, he"d become involved in running it. On numerous occasions when the group tested dogs, Vick was present. He attended fights and bet large sums of money, although he never kept any of the winnings.

The pressure on the remaining three defendants increased dramatically. Lawyers for Peace and Phillips reached out about deals for their clients. They were willing to accept a plea bargain but they didn"t want jail time. They had a point. Although the maximum sentence for the crimes they had been accused of was five years, the government"s official sentencing guidelines, based on factors that included criminal history and cooperation with the prosecution, called for zero to six months in jail. And even with previous records it was not unreasonable to think they could avoid being locked up.

But that didn"t work for Gill. He felt all four men needed to serve time. The negotiations dragged on, until finally on August 17 Peace and Phillips pled guilty, accepted a recommended sentence of twelve to eighteen months, and agreed to testify against Vick. In his post-plea interview, Peace stated that on several occasions he proposed giving away dogs that refused to fight, but Vick had vetoed the suggestion, insisting that the dogs be killed.

Now, only one month after he was officially indicted, Vick was on an island, with an ocean of federally acc.u.mulated evidence surrounding him and all three of his former partners implicating him. Still, he appeared determined to go to trial. Perhaps he felt he had too much to lose to give up, but little did he know that Gill had saved one last piece of ammo. In mid-August he let Vick"s attorneys look at a photo that he had acquired. It showed Vick, Peace, Phillips, and Taylor at a dogfight wearing headbands and T-shirts that read Bad Newz Kennels and holding Jane, their grand champion fighter.

Vick"s lawyers knew the impact the photo would have, not just in the courtroom but on TV and in newspapers and magazines around the country. Gill also added pressure by making it known that if the case went forward he"d seek additional charges, including racketeering and tax evasion, crimes that carried even stiffer penalties.

On August 23, Michael Vick signed his plea deal, admitting his guilt and agreeing to pay $928,000 in rest.i.tution for the care of the dogs, including any that were deemed worthy of saving after a government team had evaluated them.

Vick submitted the plea to District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson, a hard-line conservative known for meting out harsh sentences and also a dog lover who had a bichon frise at home. Vick appeared before the judge in a plea hearing on August 27. Hudson asked, "Are you entering the plea of guilty to a conspiracy charge because you are in fact guilty?"

Vick replied, "Yes, sir."

"I totally ask for forgiveness and understanding," Vick said afterward. "I take full responsibility for my actions. I made a mistake in using bad judgment and making bad decisions. Dogfighting is a terrible thing." The NFL suspended him indefinitely without pay and Nike terminated his contract.

It was in many ways a stunning moment. It had been less than four months since the initial raid at 1915 Moonlight Road and less than three months since the federal government moved to act on the case. The two lead investigators had overcome indifference or outright hostility from their managers, the U.S. attorney had agreed to take on a case that many others might have deemed too messy and uncertain, and for possibly the first time in a legal setting, dogs were viewed not as the implements of a harsh and brutal undertaking but as the victims of it.

Now, if only a few of them could be spared.

PART 2.

RECLAMATION.

September 1, 2007, to December 25, 2007

16.