Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down

338 Pages·2012·3.43 MB·English

by  Robert Fitzpatrick

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For my parents,
who tried
For Father Kenny, Sister Jean Marie, and Brother Elliot,
who made me strong
And, especially, for my wife, Jane, and my children, Brian, Robert,
Alicia, and Erin,
who keep me that way
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Part One: Coming to Boston
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Two: Blowback
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Part Three: Beyond Bulger
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Part Four: After Boston
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Part Five: Vindication
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Appendix Contents
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Appendix 6
Notes
Index
Photographs
Other Books by Jon Land
About the Authors
Copyright
PROLOGUE
SOUTH BOSTON, 1984
“You want a bullet in the head?”
A few hours before he was murdered on a raw November night in 1984, John
McIntyre thought he’d been invited to a party. At least that’s what drew him to a
South Boston house owned by Pat Nee, a top associate of Boston’s Irish crime
boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
Two weeks earlier, McIntyre had been aboard a ship called the Ramsland
when it sailed into Boston Harbor carrying thirty tons of marijuana that would
have netted Whitey somewhere between one and three million dollars. But the
cargo was seized, putting a sizable dent in Whitey’s pocketbook. And it was
seized because McIntyre had told federal authorities about the shipment to keep
himself out of jail. Believing his informant status still to be safe and secure,
McIntyre agreed to go to the party, figuring he’d be able to strengthen his hand
with law enforcement even further. Only when he arrived at the house, Bulger
stepped out of the shadows and stuck a machine gun in his gut.
McIntyre was thirty-two, of average height and weight, and bearded with
dark blue eyes that belied the hardscrabble life of a man who made his living at
sea. He had rough, callused hands from handling fishing nets with the texture of
razor wire. But in addition to fish McIntyre was also known to carry marijuana,
bringing most of his supplies into the Boston area by boat. Small time mostly
and not on anyone’s radar, until he caught the attention of the murderous Bulger
and his Irish Winter Hill Gang, who were determined to muscle in on Boston’s
drug trade in the 1980s.
Whitey was also involved in smuggling large shipments of weapons to the
Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland, for which he commandeered
McIntyre as an engineer on a boat called the Valhalla. A military veteran,
McIntyre kept his wits about him and didn’t view the criminal lifestyle as
anything more than a means to supplement his fishing and boat-building jobs.
The money was just too easy and plentiful to turn away from, and McIntyre
rationalized his actions by the need to support the young family he was
struggling to hold together.
In September of 1984, the Valhalla set sail into the Atlantic with its holds
full of guns and ammunition instead of marijuana, or iced swordfish and halibut.
The voyage was smooth and uneventful, ending when McIntyre supervised the
transfer of arms at sea onto a trawler called the Merita Ann. A few days later, off
the coast of Ireland, British authorities boarded the Merita Ann. The weapons
were seized and the crew was arrested.
The ramifications of the seizure reverberated all the way back across the
Atlantic. Once the Valhalla docked back in Boston, Customs officials took
McIntyre and another crewmember into custody on suspicion of gunrunning
charges. After routinely questioning McIntyre, they released him. But a few
weeks later the Quincy, Massachusetts, police arrested McIntyre on a domestic
assault beef. Facing a potential prison stretch, he agreed to become a government
informant and cough up the information on the infamous Irish gang leader’s
criminal activities. The feds assured McIntyre he’d be safe, that his informant
status would be revealed only to those officials associated with the case.
Now, though, on an autumn night that felt more like winter, John McIntyre
found himself staring at the machine gun barrel propped over his belt. Stephen
Flemmi and Kevin Weeks, two more of Whitey Bulger’s most trusted
lieutenants, grabbed him and threw him on the floor. Then McIntyre watched in
horror as Bulger opened his duffel bag of death. He took out a rope, chains, and
an assortment of weapons that gleamed slightly beneath the naked lightbulbs
with strings dangling from their outlets like spaghetti. Flemmi handcuffed
McIntyre to a chair and then chained him to it as well for good measure.
“We’re gonna have a talk, you and me,” Whitey told him. “I think you’re a
rat. Are you a rat, Johnny?”
According to testimony given in court years later by both Nee and Flemmi,
Bulger proceeded to break McIntyre’s fingers one at a time until he finally