Dave Atwell had a promising career in personal security before getting involved with the Para-Dice Riders, later becoming a “full-patch” member of Toronto’s downtown chapter of the Hells Angels. An arrest during a 2007 police sweep — the charges against him were eventually stayed — led him to start seeing things in a new light. In this excerpt from The Hard Way Out: My Life with the Hells Angels and Why I Turned Against Them, Atwell describes his biggest risk.

I was free, but I wasn’t really. After the arrest, I began to see the club in an entirely different perspective. The guys weren’t Hells Angels because they wanted to ride bikes and have a good time together; they were all in it for themselves. TC’s insatiable greed had gotten us all in big trouble, and when it did, every guy just seemed to want to take the easiest way out, no matter who got hurt.

And as soon as the charges against me were stayed, I was expected to go back to work for the club — after all, they had essentially ruined my ability to work for anyone else — and pay a huge bill even before I got back to my job. I was trapped, not by bars, but by the limitations the club had put on me and my life.

Just a few years ago, I was happy in my security career and loved making a few bucks on the side with the clubs. Riding and partying with the Para-Dice Riders, the Vagabonds and Satan’s Choice made it even better.

But, after the patch-over, after I became a Hells Angel, that all changed. I had no career — unless you count being a criminal — I had been behind bars, I had disrupted the lives of everyone I cared about and I had to break up with a woman I really cared about because my being in the club had endangered her career. I had become a bum surrounded by bums. It wasn’t fun. I wasn’t rich. I had had enough.

I wanted out. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I couldn’t just quit. Then I would just be an ex-Hells Angel whose name had been in every newspaper. In the media, I was convicted. It didn’t matter that the charges were stayed. That might make looking for a job tough. I had no skills other than security, and nobody would hire me for that because of my affiliation with the club.

(One day) a guy I knew and trusted from my security days introduced me to a pair of Mounties, and we set up a meeting. They told me they wanted me to inform for them. You know, tell them exactly how the club operated, who was selling dope, that kind of thing. I was surprised that they didn’t offer me a big cash reward, just a few hundred bucks here and there.

They also pointed out that if I was arrested, they would not acknowledge any relationship with me, meaning that I was totally on my own. If the club found out I was telling the feds what they were up to, there would be nobody to come to my rescue. It was essentially a death sentence.

It wasn’t much of an offer, but I decided to explore it further anyway, in large part because I was interested to see how these kinds of things worked. So they gave me a test to see how well I could follow instructions. They sent me to a phone booth and instructed me to wait for a call. The caller told me to dial another phone number, and that person would give me further instructions. I was then instructed to get on the Yonge subway line, get out at College St., buy a newspaper, get back on the subway headed in the opposite direction, then go eastbound, then westbound, then back downtown to Dundas St. and then Queen St.

I was finally directed to the Royal York Hotel, where they laid out their plan to me in the public dining room. Not a hotel room with a lock and key and some security, but a restaurant where anybody could come and go or sit beside us and listen. In broad daylight, yet. I asked them what our story would be if we happened to run into a club guy. Flustered, they told me they didn’t actually have one.

Here was their deal: no acknowledgment, no protection, no real money. I would be a minimum-wage spook. And if I got caught? Well, that was my problem. My first thought? God, no. My second thought, after I realized that they didn’t know enough not to conduct business in one of the most popular public places in Toronto? F---, no.

I told (Hells Angels) Sean and WR what had happened. They could barely believe what they had heard.

I had two or three more meetings with the RCMP contacts, which I’m sure were recorded, but they didn’t make a better offer — nor did they inspire any more confidence in me. So eventually I stopped answering their calls and they stopped calling. It just went cold and died.

Things changed, however. I was later approached by two officers from the Ontario Provincial Police Biker Enforcement Unit, which was running a multijurisdictional task force focused on destabilizing OMGs (outlaw motorcycle gangs, which is what they call 1-percenter clubs), particularly the Hells Angels.

Without a doubt, these guys — we’ll call them Bob and Bill — were pros. They knew exactly what they were doing, and exactly who I was. They wanted the Downtown chapter pretty badly and knew they needed a full patch on their side to have a fighting chance. But that didn’t mean it was easy. Bill just did not get me at all. Bob did, though, and immediately recognized me as a valuable asset.

We met for a few hours. They asked me a lot of questions to establish that I was who I said I was and that I knew everybody they were interested in and what they were doing. It was obvious stuff, like what happens at church, how many members Downtown had, how many chapters there were in Ontario, who held which ranks and what their duties were. They knew all the answers, of course; they were testing my credibility.

I aced their test. Once they were satisfied I was telling the truth, things got a bit more intense. When they started asking me about security measures at the clubhouse, I told them I wouldn’t say another thing until they made me a deal.

They suggested I talk with a lawyer. They told me I had the right to get my own — of course, I couldn’t use the club lawyers — but they suggested I use this guy who often handles these sorts of things for them. I took their guy, and I’m glad I did. I can’t say who he is, because I don’t want to endanger any of his other clients, but he clearly knew his stuff. When it comes to people like him, you just let them do their jobs.

The deal they made me was amazing — certainly a far cry from what the two bumbling RCMP officers put on the table. The OPP were putting together a multijurisdictional operation called Project Develop that would target the Hells Angels and associated clubs in Ontario. They said that they would need me for 18 months.

Over that time, they would place $15,000 per month in trust for me to receive at the project’s conclusion, and provide $1,800 per week in cash so that I could continue to live the Hells Angels lifestyle without breaking the law for it. There would be another $1,000 per week for any post-arrest testimony. And, if all went to plan, I would be placed in witness protection at the end of the 18 months. That was, if I qualified for it.

Unlike most people who agree to be police agents, I wasn’t desperate to get out of a long prison sentence. I just wanted to get out of the life and start over again. The club had evolved into something entirely different than what I had signed up for, and it had taken over my life, changing it to something I never wanted. A new identity and a few bucks were just what I needed. So I signed up, even though I knew I’d never see my dad again.

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At a subsequent meeting, Bob introduced me to detective Todd Dennis of the Durham police. I remember thinking that if we ever made a movie out of all this, Bruce Willis could be perfect for Bob and Tom Cruise could be Todd.

They were both about my age, but had little else in common. Todd was a meticulous note taker, and he had me go through even the most minute steps of every buy and every conversation in painstaking detail. Bob’s job was primarily to provide moral support; he had to keep me from falling to pieces. They all kind of did that from time to time, but it was pretty obvious that Bob had drawn the short straw to get that duty.