The Problem with Erik | 5. How to Perform a Hit
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That was Adam Carey. Oh, not bad. And this is Red. Well, if you have a second, I'm just going to kind of run by, run you through this little thing. This recorded call took place on September 21st, 2021, moments after Red was approached by the FBI and agreed to work undercover. An FBI special agent and a Nashville detective were sitting in the room with him.

The purpose of the call was to get Adam Carey and Brian Brockway to admit that they'd killed Bill Lanway and Holly Williams. This probably wouldn't just come up in conversation, so the agents had to figure out a way for Red to ease into it. Here's federal prosecutor Rob McGuire.

There's some art to it. You can't be too pushy, you can't be aggressive, and you also have to design a scenario where you think the suspect will talk freely. If you go ask somebody who's committed double murder, "Hey, did you commit that double murder?" They're gonna say no, whether or not that's the truth. So the idea is let's come up with a scenario

that would give these men some comfort to talk freely. So the FBI devised a ruse. The scenario that the FBI came up with was that our confidential source would act like he was hiring for a new murder-for-hire job and that the hook would be it's very similar to the job at Nashville, but I wasn't

there when it actually all went down. So I need your help to tell me what you learned, what we should avoid, how we should do this one. And the idea was, is that if we ask these two men to commit a new murder for hire, they will feel more open to talk about the murders in Nashville. And that's what we did.

Basically, it's a job on the East Coast. I haven't gotten super specific yet. We're kind of in the infancy stages of just planning. I just wanted to get an idea of kind of like, you know, have a plan ready to go just in case they're like, hey, we're going to go forward. Ironically, it's very similar to last March.

Yeah. You dragging? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, I just don't bring up dates anymore. Yeah, yeah, I got you. I got you. Um...

you know, I mean, the last one was kind of shooting from the hip, you know, it was just with, you know, our tattoo buddy, like there was no, there wasn't a lot of planning and stuff. So I'm trying to like get an idea of, um, you know, just kind of what I'm looking at. Like, I don't know if I need to, I mean, like how many people to bring on and I want to keep it pretty close hold, like no outside strangers and shit. Um, and just seeing, I can bring it.

I can bring in two dudes that have done this, one I know I've done this with before, the other guy I've deployed with before, and he's a former 18D and a solid dude. I'll put it this way, on deployment we've done some really fucking shady ass shit like that.

But yeah, I don't want to do the whole escalation bullshit ever again. And I don't know if you have guys that you could 100% trust. Like, I'll get on a stand-in line for these fucking dudes. Right. I don't want to use any of you guys, really. But, I mean, I'd rather keep it in-house as much as possible. Yeah. I will say, these are guys that have done this before. Yeah.

I'm Katie Vine, and this is The Problem with Eric, an original podcast created by Texas Monthly and Anna Wuerl. This is Episode 5: How to Perform a Hit. Red's initial conversation with Adam Carey lasted 20 minutes, and they covered a lot. Under the impression he was helping Red prepare for a situation similar to Nashville, Adam explained how to conduct a hit job from start to finish, as if he was explaining how to make lasagna.

The phone call is long, sometimes a little rambling, but it's wild. And it's important you get an idea of how detailed a conversation this was. Here's Adam Carey again. I mean, so conduct POL. POL stands for pattern of life. It's military jargon for daily routine. Another military term you're about to hear is BDL or bed down location, basically where a person spends the night.

And once POL is conducted, then of course we don't need to do like a goat rope of fucking chasing them around a city and shit. You know, once they start doing their day-to-day errands, if we know their BDL, we just fucking maintain and observe that. And of course, movement in...

No fucking cards, hats. Everyone's wearing masks, which is perfect given the times that we're in. Bring fucking gloves. This is the basic shit that everybody should understand. But the exit strategy and if we have to move the individual post-work –

then that all needs to be planned out, dry runned, and everything needs to be scouted before anything is executed. Right. Because the last thing you want to do is roll around and go,

Oh, this is a great spot. And then you come around after everything's gone down. And then you're like, oh, shit, I didn't see that camera earlier, you know. And now you're there twice. And it doesn't look good. Adam and Red talked about how much to charge. If they're shithead nobody, you know, then there's just like that lower rate of no less than 50, 60K per each of us.

Again, a low-level shithead fucking – because it's a big risk. Sure. And then, of course, if this person's in politics, he's well-known. And I'm not talking like well-known, like, oh, the community knows him, but like let's say he's a cop or let's say he's a mayor. The more he is in the public eye –

or whatever authority he has or, you know, whatever icon he rolls into, right? Like, if it was a district attorney, like, the price just went way the fuck up. Sure. They covered wardrobe.

They covered strategy. Close.

Adam even offered to procure weapons and silencers. And then...

And then all you have to do is, after action on that, is get rid of it, which I can assist in that as well. Like, make it pixie dust. Pixie dust. Just like the murder weapons in Nashville. They've still actually never been found.

And don't forget, Adam said, you've got to add the cost of the weapons into the overall price. If you're going to be looking at tools, if you start on the 22 end or even the 9 mil end, you're looking at least, you know, $1,500 just for one setup. Right. And that's going to be expendable because you have to get rid of it immediately. Adam offered some other critical advice before they hung up. Choose a team you can trust.

Right.

If you can't trust that they would do that and protect everyone else, then I wouldn't fucking have them. Sure. So we were really pleased by that first recorded call. We felt like, OK, you know, we're playing on the right field. That Adam Carey gave descriptions of events that were connected to the Nashville murders. And obviously didn't have much compunction about committing a new murder for hire. Next up was Brian Brockway.

The day after talking with Adam, Red called Brian on signal. Again, the FBI was in the room. The ruse was the same. Red was preparing for another job, like Nashville. And he wanted tips.

At one point, Red asked Brian if Gil Pallad was the one who greenlit the murders. Red said he was asking because he wanted clear instructions from the client. He wanted to know if the kill order came from the top, not just from the middleman. But Brian knew better than to talk about something so serious on the phone. I don't actually know who fucking gave the green light, man. Oh, shit. Where are you right now, man? At home.

Brian seemed to trust Red, but talking about Nashville on the phone didn't feel smart. He even told Red that this new job sounded like a setup.

Uh, it sounds like it's straight out of a book. Uh... Like a textbook that, uh, someone would study to fuckin', uh... I gotcha. Uh, fuckin' honey potas. Yeah. And it'd be, honestly, I mean, it won't be straight with you, brother. It'd be an easy way out for you. Sure. No, I, no, that makes, I, I completely get the, you know, we gotta, I mean, my...

Spidey senses have been up for ever since, you know, I left fucking Tennessee. So it's, I'm not, no, no offense taken. No, no, cool, man. That's fine. I just, yeah, I just want to be honest. Our shit's been in the red. Our shit's been in the red. I mean, if we, he will do what I do. I'm still about helping you out, man. No, I get it, man.

They agreed to meet sometime in the next couple of weeks. They did discuss the project briefly before hanging up, though. All right, well, do you know who you're pulling surveillance on? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's on the East Coast, and it's, like I said, it's almost identical to Nashville. Oh, okay. I got you. Yeah, I totally track them out. Yep, same scenario. Awesome.

Right. Yup. So that's kind of what I'm doing, just trying to get the, you know, get that, get that plan sussed out to a degree. Um,

After the phone calls, Red braced himself for the next step. This one would be much more dangerous.

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In the fall of 2021, Red was tasked by the FBI with recording Adam Carey and Brian Brockway in person. First, he planned to meet Adam Carey for a beer in Raleigh, North Carolina, under the guise that he was just passing through town. Adam had already revealed a lot on the phone, but the FBI wanted to know what other details he'd give up. They met on a Wednesday in September at a modern brew pub with $15 burgers, double IPAs, picnic tables, and string lights.

Red started recording in the car before he walked in. "Time is 4:50. Potential meetup with Adam Carey." He was testing the device the FBI gave him, a watch that recorded video. Red must have been nervous. If he did his job well, this conversation could get Adam locked up for life. And Adam was trained to notice when something was off. He might be onto him. He might think he's acting weird. He might notice the watch.

It was a beautiful afternoon with puffy clouds dotting blue skies. Red sat outside at a dark wood picnic table and waited for Adam. A few minutes later, Adam approached wearing a red and black plaid checkered button-down, polarized sunglasses, and a baseball cap. He sat across from Red. Howdy. What's up, man? Long time no see. Right away, Adam seemed more cautious than he was on the phone.

He didn't order anything, not even a beer, and spent the first moments just looking around, like maybe somebody was watching. Red tried to reassure Adam that he'd been careful, and he left his phone in the car. But that didn't seem to calm Adam's nerves, so he went a step further. I don't know if you want to give me a hug real quick. Yeah. You can see on the video...

that Adam Carey hugs the source as a way to cover the fact that he's actually patting the source down for listening devices, which was very unnerving for everyone involved, the source most particular, but certainly for law enforcement. Because again, there's a lot of danger when a civilian is working as a source for the FBI, even somebody who had been a former highly trained soldier, there's still a lot of danger.

After his pat-down, Adam took his seat again across from Red. Are you okay to talk here? I'm okay with it. I chose this because there's no cameras on this anywhere in here, and it's spread out enough to where it's flippin'. Yeah, this is fine, but number one is we don't bring up old shit. Yeah. They chatted for a bit, but Adam still didn't seem settled. You chilling, bro? Nah, man, I'm good. And at one point, he noticed the watch.

This was not good. If Adam was onto the setup, he could lie to throw them off or sabotage evidence. He could do something to hurt Red right there at the table or go home and orchestrate a plan to punish him later.

I mean, he'd told Red how he felt about betrayal and the lengths he'd go to to protect himself. But Red kept his cool, even while Adam kept looking around. All I know is that it's the residence. You good? You just checking? Paranoid asshole. Bro, this is sensitive. Oh, I know. I get it. Red kept up the ruse he'd established over the phone.

He explained that the person hiring him had deep pockets, and Red said he wanted zero confusion about what he was being asked to do. Yeah, I mean, my worst fucking fear is to be like, you know, yeah, hey, yeah, green light, go ahead. And it was like, we do one thing, and he was like, I meant, like, beat him up. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, and shit like that. Do you know what he's being extorted for?

Same shit. Okay. Yeah. And he's just trying to protect his ass or kids? Both. Kids and wife. That's what they came back with was the wife will fucking, wife will find out. Why don't these guys hire soft dudes to go get them the right profit too? Right? Like, just bring me along on your travels. I'm going to bring you a chick that's going to do everything you want and this will never happen.

They try to do it because they try to be shady. It's like, dude, just fucking, the rest of the world does this. Fucking goddamn. Yeah. It's not hard. It's just, you know, idiots with money. Fucking being idiots with money. As the conversation continued, the sun set, changing the sky from periwinkle to royal blue. Folks around them were drinking and laughing, and Adam loosened up a bit. He leveled with him.

Adam told Red that he'd recently had a conversation with Brian, and they were both a little freaked out that Red wanted to bring up Nashville. Did Red really need to talk about this? He knew the danger of it. So Adam didn't use the words kill or murder, but he did explain how to make sure a client wanted to take someone out. And nobody wants that. So that's the way I'd put it and just be like, do you understand what I'm talking about? What one? All right? What do you want?

- Right. Yeah. It's, you know, playing that whole game of saying it without saying it type thing too, you know. Especially with people who don't, who have no idea what the fucking world they're in right now, you know. - If he's a businessman, I'd maybe bring it up in a fashion that he would understand of like, do you need to, you know, file for bankruptcy and cut all losses and you're stuck with that decision? Or do you want to try to find loopholes?

Well, kind of. Adam didn't reveal much new information at the brewery, but the FBI had already gotten a lot from his phone call. So it was time for Red to move on to Brian. He set up a similar meeting at a brewery in Austin, just before Halloween.

Red texted Brian beforehand to put him at ease. He said, "I apologize for freaking y'all out. Just trying to get this potential project squared away and need guys I can rely on. Truly didn't mean to get your blood pressure up." When they met at the bar, the possibility of getting caught was on Brian's mind. The tape from inside the brewery is a little noisy, but if you listen closely, you can hear Brian tell Red he'll never go to prison. Ever.

I'll go on the ground, but I ain't going to fucking do it. Yeah. Fuck that. They talked shop for a while over a couple of beers. You can hear chatter at neighboring tables, kids running around, a baby crying, all while they discuss the cost and logistics of killing people. Brett said his client wanted to take out a couple, just like last time. Oh, shit, dude. Deja vu. Yeah.

but then on the recording they go outside and when they go outside brockway invites the source to get into brockway's car and they close the doors and it is as clear as you and i talking right now and

Ryan Brockway then goes on to chillingly describe exactly how the murders of Holly Williams and William Lanway went down. Fucking sexy head, man. I totally thought it was fucking one. I didn't know it was two, which is fine, man. It's a fucking couple. It's the exact same scenario. Some of the problems that we ran into last time is we had a fucking...

take him at the same time, dude. I took the big dude. He's a fucking fighter, man. He fucking caught my hand in the fucking door and everything. But I still got him. In the car door? Yeah, dude. It was fucking tough. But what happened is when he did, it bent the entire frame of the fucking door. And we're not going to use our fucking car. So we put him in the fucking back seat.

I jumped in the fucking car, took off, but couldn't get the fucking door closed and the windows broke. Oh, God damn. The crime scene investigators had noted that the driver's side door frame on Holly's car was bent. Now they knew why. And to a cop, you could fucking see that a mile away. Like, oh, dude, so let's not go far. We changed our route immediately, just two fucking turns, and we'll go reassess the situation. She wound up breathing.

It's a little hard to hear because he whispered, but Brian just said that Holly wound up still breathing. Bill and Holly had been shot in her parking lot, but while Bill stopped responding, Holly was clearly still alive when they got to the construction site. That was about an eight-minute drive from her apartment, and all that time, she was in the car. Bill was probably already dead beside her, and she had no idea where these strangers were taking her.

When they got to the construction site and Brian and Adam realized she'd survived the first gunshot, they tried to convince Holly she was safe, and they weren't trying to kill her. They told her, "Okay, we're not here for you, we're here for him, whatever, blah blah blah blah." And he finished it in the backseat. And he totally got my respect for that dude. A lot of guys with females,

Now you'll fucking have a bleeding heart. Sure. He'll do whatever I tell him, man. He's like my little fucking kid brother, dude. Yeah, that's kind of the impression I got. He trusted me 100% man. Sure. I would give him so fucking much. And like you said, he's never been to fucking war. So he's looking for the mentor. He's looking for that fucking edge. He's looking for the fucking game. Brian Brockway says he, which we argued was a clear reference to Adam Carey. He wanted him to take care of it.

And he said, you know, a lot of times guys have hesitation with females, but he didn't. And I really respect him for that. He said that Adam Carey got closer to Holly Williams, tried to reassure her that they weren't there for her. They were there for William Lanway. And he said he finished her, meaning that he killed her. And Holly Williams did have a gunshot wound to her temple.

It was like almost a 20-minute shit show, man, because we had two, man. It fucking worked out. But long story short, same scenario, fucking two people. Red's recordings gave the government enough to seek indictments for Adam Carey, Brian Brockway, Gilad Pallad, and Eric Mond. Then the FBI started working on the next step, a coordinated takedown planned for early December 2021. Eric and Gil did not see this coming.

Remember, Gill had continued to work for Eric, and Eric had left that glowing review on Google. Gill commented on the review, quote, Thank you for the kind words. Always a pleasure working with you. That was on December 7th. Three days later, Adam Carey was arrested. When the FBI searched Adam Carey's home in North Carolina, they found almost $60,000 in bundled cash hidden around the place. Between the mattress and box spring,

stuffed in the center console of his black truck and something else. When we searched Adam Carey's phone, there was a screenshot of passwords, kind of like anybody would do, like I do. If I can't remember a password, I'm going to take a picture of me writing it down or leave myself a note or something so I can remember this password. And the passwords that he chose were Hitman 3A, which we thought was pretty significant.

The other thing that Adam Carey did was he adopted the username or user ID of Agent 47. And we learned that Agent 47 is the protagonist in a very popular video game and movie series called Hitman. What exactly are you? An assassin. And you're here to kill who?

You should really let me go. Most people pick a password that is going to be meaningful to them, their spouse's name, their dog's name, a movie quote, and he picked Hitman 3A. And most people pick their username as some variation on their real name and their birthday, and he picked Agent 47. More intelligent than normal people. We thought it was a real window into who Adam Carey saw himself to be. They're called agents.

The same morning, on the opposite coast in San Diego, Brian Brockway pulled up to his son's graduation from Marine Corps boot camp. When the families arrived, they drove up to a routine security checkpoint. Here's Brian's brother Chad. You heard from him in episode 3. He was the person Gil first contacted to identify the blackmailer. I saw them pull my brother aside.

and they were talking to him. I had seen that they had placed him in cuffs and were taking him, you know, to one of the police vehicles there. And you don't put somebody in cuffs unless you've got something going on, right? And, you know, I knew my brother didn't represent a physical risk or a danger. Even though Chad and Brian both worked on this job, Chad's involvement ended before the team went to Nashville.

He told us he had no idea what happened after that. You know, I was sitting there with his wife. I'm like, do you know what this is for? She's like, I have no idea. We were calling friends. We were calling everybody we could. They took him to the FBI field office there in San Diego where they processed him and then moved him to the prison facility in San Diego. And then we got a call from Gil's wife. She had called and said they just arrested Gil at the airport.

Gil was flying back from a conference in Las Vegas. When he arrived at the Austin airport, 10 FBI agents were waiting for him. They pulled him into a room for questioning. The FBI then basically told him, you know, look, we know what you did. We know the bank records. We know a lot of who's involved. We are interested in who paid for these murders.

So Gilad Pallad started telling his story. Gil knew he was trapped. He told the FBI it was all Brian's idea. Then he said, no, actually, it was Brian and Adam's idea. Then he said Eric was on speakerphone when Brian suggested they take out both Holly and Bill. Then later, he admitted that was a lie. The guy was all over the place. Eventually, though, the truth came out.

He told investigators how Brian Brockway had proposed murdering William Lanway and later Holly Williams, how Eric Mond had jumped on the offer, had paid him $50,000 a month for the last year for the murders. And then he agreed to make a controlled phone call.

Gil, Brian, and Adam were all in custody. There was just one person remaining. The guy at the top who paid for this whole operation. The guy who came to Gil with the problem in the first place. For Gil's conversation with Eric, the FBI created yet another ruse. That one of the shooters in Nashville was causing trouble and wanted another 25,000 to keep quiet. The agents hovered nearby as Gil opened signal, then dialed Eric's number.

Eric was driving up I-35, headed back to Austin after a couple days hunting with friends in South Texas, when he noticed a missed call from Gil Pallet. Hey, bro. Hey, man. For some reason, when you call me on the signal, it doesn't pop up. I just see a missed call. You know, it's that signal thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I don't know. It's crazy. Yep. What are you up to? What's up?

Gil asked if Eric was alone. He wasn't, though. A hunting buddy was also in the car. At this point, Eric pulled off the interstate and walked out on an embankment.

He didn't spot the FBI agent who'd been following him at a distance. You ready? Yeah. Are you by yourself? Yeah. Okay. We got a problem with one of the shooters in Nashville. Uh-huh. I don't know how, but he found out that that's the other guy. That's not Brian, so he never knew of you. But he found out that you were the client that paid for this, for the job. Mm-hmm.

And I guess he's hurting for money and now he wants to get paid. So, I mean, he wants like $25,000. These are professional guys. I don't know how, you know, this thing is coming back. Usually those guys don't do stuff like that. They have a code of honor. When they get a job, they get a job, I guess. Yeah, but if I give $25,000, when's it going to stop? I know, I know. But, I mean, what do you want to do?

I'll pay the guy $25,000 but I think it needs to go away after that. So we need to take care of him? Well, I mean, don't you think he's not going to fucking stop? I don't know. It's not like that guy that extorted you initially. That was a criminal. This guy is not threatening your family. I know you wanted to get this thing taken care of initially because he was threatening your family. This guy is just a soldier that I guess needs money. I don't think he's going to come back.

Okay. Let me talk to him. I'll try to prevent that. Hopefully, you know, I'll talk to Brian. Maybe he can talk to him and get this...

gone completely where you don't have to pay the 25 but worst case scenario is that the 25 is not a big deal I don't care about that I don't give a shit about that but I just don't want you know in 3 or 4 months to get the same call again I understand at that point we gotta take care of something that you know at that point that could backfire and completely blow back on us you know yeah

Hold on, let me text Brian. You know what, can you hold on the line? Let me call Brian and tell him. I'm trying to prevent this thing. Just hold on for one second. Of course, Brian was already in custody, and Gil knew it. Eric. Eric.

So Brian will try to take care of this, but if this thing is turning into a problem, do you want him to take care of this? Give me a number. 100? Yeah. Honestly, I think I'd rather take care of it permanently than do the 25. Got it. You know my stand on these things. I don't want to get involved in stuff, but...

And then I'll just run 150 through spear tip like we did last time. Cause it would take a long time for me to put up a hundred grand cash. I can get it probably, but it just might take me a little bit of time without, you know what I'm saying? Got it. All right. Let me talk to Brian and see what we can do. All right. I'm on the, I'm traveling back from South Texas. So, you know, if you, if you got to call me, I'll have to pull over, which is what I just did. That's why you heard all those cars. Got it. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll check it. So what are you heading back home?

Got it. All right. Back in Austin in a couple hours. Got it. Okay, thanks. All right. Bye. All right, that was December 10th. That was a phone call between Eric Mond and Gilad Pallad. Those present in the room are Special Agent David Somm, SSA Brett Shields, and SSA Dan Brust.

As far as Eric knew, he still lived in a world where he paid people off and moved on with his life. I mean, he had just tried to pay someone to kill the hitman he hired to kill two other people. He was about to find out that his reality had changed him.

The Problem with Eric is an original podcast created by Texas Monthly and Anna Wuerl. Our executive producer is Megan Kreit. The show is reported and written by me, Katie Vine, and written, produced, and reported by Anna Wuerl. It was produced and engineered by Brian Standifer, who also wrote the music.

Story editing and production by Patrick Michaels. Additional production is by Aisling Ayers. Additional editing by Karen Olson. Jacqueline Colletti is our fact checker. Studio musicians were John Sanchez, Glenn Fukunaga, and Pat Manske. Artwork is by Emily Kimbrough and Victoria Milner. Our theme is Entrance Song by the Black Angels. Hitman Agent 47 is a copyright of 20th Century Fox Film Corporation 2015. See y'all next week.

You can listen to the next episode now by becoming a Texas Monthly subscriber. Go to texasmonthly.com slash audio to subscribe today.