Betrayal: Whitey Bulger and the FBI Agent Who Fought to Bring Him Down Read Online Free PDF Page B

And they were positively ecstatic when they learned that the caretaker in the boardinghouse where the fugitives were hiding was an informant for the New York office.
    What a field office’s dream! Opie and the New York agents were glowing over the fact that a couple of Boston muffs, dangerous muffs, had walked into their lion’s den. The FBI in New York had plenty of time to devise a plan to capture these stone killers from Boston. Precautions would be taken to assure that the operation was conducted in absolute secrecy, preventing anyone on either side from screwing it up.
    Back in Boston, Richie continued to play both sides of the fence with his usual aplomb. Bulger and Flemmi were treating him like gold and Richie responded in kind by organizing a lucrative boatrace for the Winter Hill Gang. He put together the mother of all horse race scams at Suffolk Downs, calling in his chits from those who owed him. Bulger and Flemmi took part, and word of their participation brought others in as well. Richie even offered his new FBI pals a piece of the action. They refused.
    At Boston FBI headquarters, Opie regaled agent John Connolly and his supervisor, John Morris, with his coup. Connolly was a “cock of the walk” agent who had a swarthy complexion and imitated the ethnic dress of the Italians he was committed to jailing; some even quipped that he looked like Richie. Morris dressed more simply and somberly, like a conservative businessman in dark suits, simple ties, and white shirts—in keeping with a silver-haired agent always looking straight ahead. Connolly and Morris were veteran TE developers and had had their share of glory. Like Opie, the other agents didn’t really know which informants Connolly and Morris handled. Unlike Opie, they fumed over the success of others on turf they considered theirs and theirs alone.
    Later, over beers, Opie bragged a little too much about his recent success, especially to Connolly, and revealed that his snitch had put the “nose” on Joe McDonald and James Sims in New York.
    “No way!” Connolly exclaimed.
    Opie embellished the details, savoring Connolly’s unabashed jealousy at his score. He could see Connolly chomping at the bit over the whole story, suddenly second-guessing himself for outing his own informant. But alcohol drowned out his concerns, and Opie finished the evening on a high note. Connolly, meanwhile, soaked up every word instead of booze. He had other things on his mind.
    The Organized Crime (OC) squad was supervised by a senior agent at the time who had about thirteen agents under him. Connolly charged into his office a few days later with John Morris in tow.
    “This better be good,” the supervisor said, mincing no words.
    “It’s better than good,” Connolly told him, after Morris had taken a seat. “We got people about to get dimed.”
    Connolly proceeded to carve out the details of the secret New York operation Opie had shared with him, and the supervisor listened pensively through the whole tale.
    “McDonald and Sims are supposed to give us key intelligence about Angiulo’s group in the North End,” he finally said. “Seems to me the mission of the Three Squad’s larger than a couple of muffs.”
    “Yes,” Morris agreed.
    Even though McDonald and Sims had been declared Top Ten fugitives, the OC squad’s mission was to get the probable cause needed for the wire to penetrate the Boston Italian mob. Arresting McDonald and Sims at this juncture would “queer” the whole priority objective for the squad. “Management by Objectives” had been the hallmark for the organized crime priority and all of them knew it.
    “Fuck Opie,” the supervisor said. “His shit is penny-ante against ours.”
    Although successful in gaining the supervisor’s support, Connolly and Morris blanched. They knew that Opie would now know they’d ratted him out and busted his operation to save their own. And they had an even bigger problem to contend with: Bulger and