Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(73)
Rathbun grabbed Colletto, and they spun around in the street. He got Colletto in a headlock, but Colletto pistol-whipped him and Rathbun momentarily lost consciousness. Both of them tumbled to the ground.
When Rathbun recovered, he saw Diane on all fours, crawling on the sidewalk, and Colletto running toward her with the gun. Rathbun says he got up and tackled John. They crashed through the picket fence and wrestled on the lawn. More shots were fired. At one point, according to Rathbun, the barrel of the revolver was pressed against the nape of his neck and Colletto pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire, but Rathbun went exterior, viewing the scene from twelve feet above his body.
Colletto broke free and caught up to his wife. He stuck the gun in her ear. Rathbun says he saw what was happening and did a “flying sidekick,” but at that fatal moment the gun fired.
Colletto was knocked to the ground by Rathbun’s blow and the gun skittered across the pavement. Rathbun picked it up and tried to fire it at Colletto, but the chambers were all empty. Colletto got in his car and screeched away.
Rathbun went back to Diane. Blood was gurgling and spewing from her mouth. He thought she was drowning in her own blood. Rathbun took off his shirt and put it under her head. As he heard the sirens screaming, she died in his arms.6
Three days later, John Colletto’s decomposing body was found. He had slashed his wrists and bled to death on the shoulder of the Ventura Freeway.
Because of this incident, Rathbun was singled out for his fearlessness, or what Scientology terms his “high level of confront.” Soon after that, he was sent to La Quinta, Hubbard’s winter headquarters, where the old man was just then building up his moviemaking enterprise. Miscavige had appointed Rathbun head of what was known as the “All Clear” unit. The object was to resolve the dozens of lawsuits around the country that had named Hubbard as a defendant. He was also the target of grand juries in Tampa, New York, and Washington, DC. Hubbard wanted to be able to return to his moviemaking full-time, but he was afraid to show himself until he was assured that he wouldn’t be hauled into court. (He died before that happened.)
Like many Sea Org members on the secret base, Rathbun adopted an alias for security reasons, one that was similar to his real name but that separated him from his previous identity; it also made it more difficult for anyone to find him. Mark became Marty.
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AS THE NEW CHURCH LEADER, Pat Broeker quickly sought to exert his influence. He had a special uniform made up for himself, with solid gold epaulettes, and a “Loyal Officer” flag that was to be flown wherever he was in residence. He announced that he was going to issue a new “Grade Chart” on Sea Org Day in Clearwater. He justified the alteration of Hubbard’s sacred material with his own divinations because he claimed to be in telepathic communication with the founder. His Sea Org Day speech was stymied, however, when he was told that church authorities expected that a government raid would take place if he showed himself in public. That wasn’t true, but it wasn’t out of the question. For several years, the leaders of the church, including Hubbard, Miscavige, and Broeker, had been targets of an IRS criminal investigation. Church lawyers persuaded Broeker that while the investigation was still ongoing he should confine himself to another ranch near Creston that Hubbard had purchased. Broeker was content with that arrangement. He seemed more at home with the quarter horses that he so lovingly purchased with the church’s money than he did with the bureaucrats in the church hierarchy. He continued shopping for exemplary breeding stock even after Hubbard’s death, claiming he was carrying out the founder’s vision. He seemed to think he could run the church from the sidelines.
Other than Hubbard’s imprimatur, Broeker had few assets on his side. He had the unfortunate combination of being garrulous without being articulate. Many of the executives he had been close to had been forced out of the church or had fled. Even people who didn’t like him, however, were fond of Annie. She was in many ways her husband’s opposite. She was measured where he was goofy and impetuous. Sweet and shy, with a fragile beauty that some compared to the actress Jessica Lange, Annie had been born into Scientology and was one of the few original Messengers who hadn’t been purged. In 1982, Hubbard had made her Inspector General of the Religious Technology Center, the highest post in the church bureaucracy, in charge of protecting the sanctity of Scientology’s spiritual technology. It was a job she was ill suited for, by nature and also by circumstance, as she was not an auditor, and for years she had been living at the remote ranch as Hubbard’s caretaker, away from the administration of church affairs. In March 1987, Miscavige seized control of the RTC, making himself the Chairman of the Board. He downgraded the Inspector General’s post by dividing it into three parts. His new lieutenant and henchman, Marty Rathbun, became the IG for Ethics.
Still, both Pat and Annie remained untouchable because of Hubbard’s final decree. And, most tantalizingly, only Pat seemed to know where the new OT levels—which he now claimed went all the way up to XV—were hidden. They were his insurance. Nothing could be more precious in the world of Scientology—to its members, who sought to gain Hubbard’s final revelations on the Bridge to Total Freedom, and to the organization, which profited from that journey.
At Miscavige’s direction, Rathbun hired a team of private investigators to follow Broeker and dig into his private life. One of them was a former cop who met Broeker at a gun show, then began frequenting Broeker’s favorite tavern. He would chat him up whenever he came in. They got to be so friendly that at Christmas the ex-cop gave Broeker a cordless phone. Because such phones emit a weak radio signal, Rathbun’s minions were able to record Broeker’s calls. The detectives followed him everywhere, but there was no clue as to where the secret OT levels might be hidden.