T
IGH MCCLUEN WALKED SLOWLY
along the road, lugging a thick duffel bag over his shoulder. It was well into the evening, and his giant frame, caught in the lights from the cars, cast long shadows that grew and sharpened, then disappeared as the cars passed. He made his way along the O’Brien Highway, which headed into Cambridge from Charlestown, keeping an eye out for his ride. At the same time he took in every visual detail of the neighborhood, memorizing the town that had been his home for more than two decades, ever since the first day he stepped off the boat. This might be the last time he ever saw this place, he knew.
On his way out of Charlestown, he passed Sullivan’s Tavern, a pub established in 1756, whose wide pine flooring and heavy oak bar still held the aura of revolution. That was where they often used to celebrate, in a private room in the back. They’d gather together, a dozen or so of them, and toast their violence and thievery.
The first time Tigh had been included was when he was eighteen, having only recently been recruited as an enforcer. It was right after the Chelsea Street Regulars broke up—right after Joey’s death. Finn was still on the streets, but he’d already begun to drift away, and Tigh felt truly lonely for the first time in his life.
As a newcomer to the elite world of organized crime, he sat quietly at the edge of the crowd, drinking it all in, wondering if this would be his new family. Bravado poured forth from the older crowd as they swapped stories from the days of the long-running gang wars.
After a few hours, Whitey Bulger made his way over to Tigh and sat next to him, introducing himself as though anyone didn’t know who he was.
“You don’t say much, do you, kid?” he said after a moment or two of trying to draw Tigh out.
Tigh shrugged. “I guess not.” He was still a little self-conscious about his accent.
“That’s good.” Bulger nodded. “The less you say, the better. If you want to survive in this game, you’re always better off keeping your mouth shut.”
Tigh nodded back at him, but said nothing.
“Good,” Bulger said. Then he stuck out his hand. “Glad to have you on board. If you ever have any problems, come see me, okay?”
Tigh shook his hand. “Okay, Mr. Bulger,” he said. Then Bulger got up and walked away, heading back to the other end of the table. Tigh wouldn’t find out for another fifteen years that, in exchange for protection, Bulger was already supplying information to the FBI about his enemies.
Tigh didn’t turn for another decade, and when he finally did, it wasn’t for personal gain or to secure immunity down the road. It was out of anger.
He’d spent much of the 1990s running an extortion racket with Freddy Miller, one of the favored sons of the Winter Hill Gang. Freddy was the heir apparent to the Charlestown crew, and he was ruthless. There were few people in the world who’d ever made Tigh nervous, but Miller was one of them. He enjoyed the act of inflicting pain, and was crazy enough to lose his composure over the slightest provocation.
Miller had one redeeming quality, though: his girlfriend, Nikki Raymond. Tigh could never understand what she was doing with him. She was smart and tough and good-looking. She and Tigh became friends, and Tigh often wondered if they might have been more than that if it weren’t for Freddy. Both were well aware, though, that Freddy would have killed anyone who went near her. At least Tigh got to spend time with her, and sometimes it even seemed like that was enough.
Then one day, suddenly, Nikki stopped coming around. When Tigh asked Miller about it, he was nonspecific. “We broke up,” was all he’d say, and Tigh knew not to ask any more questions.
Later that day, Tigh snuck away and went to Nikki’s mother’s house. The mother opened the door in tears. “Get out of here, you bastard!” she shouted. “Haven’t you done enough already?”
Against her protests Tigh pushed his way into the house and made his way to the back bedrooms. He found Nikki curled up on her bed in a room that obviously hadn’t changed much since she’d been in high school a few years before. Pennants and out-of-date rock star posters hung on the walls.
He barely recognized her. Her nose was broken and her jaw was wired shut. Her eyes were frightened little dots surrounded by raw tissue turned bright purple, still oozing from the edges of her wounds. Above her eyes, stretching from her forehead into a shaved patch of skin in her hairline, was a gash that had been stitched together with thick surgical sutures.
When she saw Tigh, she pulled away in fear, crying.
“I’m sorry,” was all Tigh could say before he left the room quickly. Two days later he turned over a cache of incriminating information on Freddy Miller to a cop he’d known growing up. With that, his career as a police informant had begun.
Now it was ending, he suspected. After tonight, he’d probably be exposed, and returning to the streets would no longer be an option. His old life was over.
“So who’s this guy we’re going to pick up?” Flaherty asked as they drove through Charlestown.
“He was once an enforcer for the Winter Hill Gang,” Loring replied. “Now he runs a bookie operation out of the Liquor Outlet in Charlestown, and he has big-time contacts. He’s been feeding us reliable information for almost ten years. I trust him.” Loring was driving the car with Flaherty riding shotgun. Kozlowski was bundled into the backseat.
“And you think he knows where Finn is?”
“He should. I asked him to keep an eye on Finn. They were friends growing up, and I thought we might be able to get some leverage if we used him.”
“You’re a manipulative son of a bitch, aren’t you, Loring?” Kozlowski interjected from the backseat.
“Yes, thank you,” Loring spat back.
“What’s he like?” Flaherty asked.
“You can judge for yourself,” Loring said. “That’s him up on the next corner.”
The dark blue boxy Ford four-door sedan slowed and pulled to the curb in front of him.
Why not just wear a fucking sign that says “Cops Inside”?
Tigh thought. Not that it really mattered. After tonight, his cover would likely be blown anyway. He opened the door and got in the backseat.
“Loring,” he said, nodding at the U.S. attorney. “You didn’t mention we’d have company.”
“Tigh McCluen, this is Detective Lieutenant Flaherty. Lieutenant Flaherty, this is Tigh McCluen.”
Tigh nodded at Flaherty. “I’ve seen you on the news, haven’t I? You’re the one who caught Little Jack, right?”
Flaherty heard Loring chuckle as she shook her head. “My partner and another officer had more to do with that than me.”
“She just took the credit,” Loring jabbed.
“What have you got to do with this, then?” Tigh asked.
“It may just be that this mess is connected to one of the murders we’ve been assuming Little Jack committed,” Flaherty responded.
Tigh nodded. “I still don’t like strangers,” he said pointedly, looking at Loring.
“And we don’t like snitches,” Kozlowski interjected.
“You haven’t been properly introduced,” Flaherty said, looking over her shoulder from the front seat. “This is my partner, Tom Kozlowski. We bring him along to handle public relations. You’ll have to excuse his manners.”
“Don’t apologize for him, lass. None of us like snitches.”
“Then why do you do it?” Kozlowski asked.
“We all have our role to play, now, don’t we? Sometimes the role chooses the player, not the other way around.”
“Did you get a location on Finn?” Loring butted in, eager to prevent the conversation from straying too far in the wrong direction.
Tigh shook his head. “I haven’t had time yet, but I brought the tracker with me. It’s here in the bag,” McCluen said, opening the duffel on his lap. He pulled out what looked like a laptop computer and booted it up.
“What’s that?” Flaherty asked.
“It’s a portable GPS tracker,” Tigh said. Then he looked at Kozlowski. “That’s a Global Positioning System tracker for those who’re less educated.”
“That’s funny,” Kozlowski said, sneering. “You planning on doing stand-up in the joint?”
“Where did you get it?” Flaherty asked, trying to push the discussion over the potholes.\
“I gave it to him,” Loring said. “Makes it easier for Mr. McCluen to track certain people we’re interested in.”
“One of my many talents,” said Tigh, winking at Flaherty. “Where’s the transmitter?”
“I put it in a lighter I gave Finn a few days ago.”
“How do you know he still has the lighter with him?” Kozlowski challenged.
Tigh looked at Kozlowski the way you might look at a dog who’s just passed gas. “You didn’t grow up on the street, did you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Trust me, if Finn’s still alive, he’s got that lighter with him.”
The computer screen flickered on, and after a moment a map appeared. Tigh worked the keyboard in the backseat, pressing buttons to reposition the map and cross-reference the coordinates that appeared on the screen. Finally a bright red signal showed clearly in the center. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he said under his breath.
“What is it?” Loring asked as he drove the car. “Did you find him?”
“I found him,” Tigh replied.
“Where is he?” Flaherty demanded.
“He’s at the Castle,” Tigh said. He looked up and caught Loring’s eyes in the reflection of the rearview mirror.
“That’s bad, isn’t it?” Flaherty asked, witnessing the visual exchange between Loring and McCluen.
Tigh nodded. “It doesn’t get much worse, lass.”
T
HE VOICE CAME OUT
of the darkness beyond Finn’s sight, which was severely limited by the light that was being directed into his eyes. He now understood why some cops still liked to use bare lightbulbs in their interrogations. It was effectively disorienting. He felt helpless as he strained to make out the shadows that kept shifting just beyond the corners of the fireball that burned his irises. He could tell there were two, maybe three other people in the room, but they looked like faceless phantoms. Still, he recognized the voice.
“McGuire,” he said simply.
Finn saw the shadows behind the light shift, and McGuire moved forward so that his silhouette was more clearly visible. He pulled up a folding chair and sat within a few feet of Finn. “How’s it going, Finn?” he asked evenly.
Finn looked down at the plastic restraints binding his arms and legs. Then he looked back at McGuire. “I’m not sure,” he replied, feeling his way into the conversation. “What do you think?”
McGuire arched his eyebrows and tilted his head noncommittally. “I guess that’s what we’re here to find out, isn’t it.” He leaned forward and put the tips of his fingers together contemplatively. “You should have listened to the warnings, you know? You’re a decent guy for a lawyer. It’s a shame things had to come to this.”
The fear sent a shot of adrenaline through Finn’s body. “In Charlestown?” he asked. “Your guys?”
McGuire nodded. “It would have been better if you’d paid attention.”
Finn looked down at his hands and legs again, twisting them slightly to test the bindings for weakness, but they held tight. He sat there for several seconds as McGuire regarded him in an oddly detached way. Finn wondered what would happen next, but the silence stretched out endlessly, until he could stand it no longer.
“What do you want?” he asked, thinking that the best defense in the situation might very well be a strong offense.
“What do I want?” McGuire considered the question. “I want world peace. I want an end to starvation in Africa. I want the Red Sox to win the World Series again.” He leaned forward again. “But most of all, what I really fucking want is to know what the fuck you were doing with this.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of paper. It took a moment for Finn to realize he was holding the list of names Finn had retrieved from his office.
Finn looked at the papers nervously, but could think of nothing to say. “How did you know?” he asked at last.
McGuire laughed. “Oh, Finn,” he mocked, “you’re not nearly as smart as I thought you were. It’s my business to know things, and I’ve got the right people on my payroll.”
Finn stared at McGuire without comprehension. “Who?” he asked feebly. But even as the question escaped his lips the answer became plain to him. He felt dizzy as his mind spun through the events of the past days, and the realization of his betrayal came into focus.
It can’t be
, he thought, but he knew it was true, and the force of the truth was almost too much to bear.
He looked up at McGuire, who was watching him closely. The man laughed again, shaking his head. “You really are a fucking patsy, Finn. You know that?”
At that moment, that’s exactly how Finn felt.
F
ORT INDEPENDENCE SAT LOW
and heavy at the edge of the water, a stone pentagon on a peninsula jutting out from the edge of South Boston, guarding the entryway to Boston’s Inner Harbor. The first fortress built on the strategic spot stood from 1634 until the British burned it during their retreat from Boston during the Revolutionary War. It had been rebuilt several times, and the current incarnation was commissioned during the presidency of Andrew Jackson in 1834. The five-turreted stone and earthwork structure covering the nine acres of Castle Island had long ago been given the nickname “the Castle,” and its lore had been secured when a young Edgar Allan Poe was stationed there, and later based his descriptions of the catacombs in his short story “The Cask of Amontillado” on the fort’s layout. No longer a military installation, it was run by the Massachusetts District Commission as a tourist attraction.
Flaherty, Kozlowski, Loring, and McCluen parked on Day Boulevard at around 11:45 that Saturday night, about a half mile down the access road from the giant structure.
“It’s a perfect spot for this sort of thing,” Tigh pointed out. “Because it’s out there on the peninsula, there’s really only one approach, and that’s down this long bottleneck, so they can see anyone coming. There’s a boat tied to a jetty at the waterside, so they can always get away quickly if there’s a need. And it’s remote enough that there’s little chance anyone will overhear them as they work people over.”
“How the hell do they get in?” Loring asked.
“The city posts a civilian guard at night, but it’s a patronage job, and the Southie representatives in the State House are always told who to give that job to. Right now, it’s Lefty Sullivan.”
“Howie Sullivan’s son?”
“The very same. So you can see how he might not object to some of his father’s associates using the place when needed. He gets paid on the side, too, to act as a lookout, although they usually leave a little muscle by the entrance with him, just in case.”
“So how do
we
get in?” Flaherty demanded, impatient with all the talk.
“I’ll be walking in,” Tigh replied, rubbing his fingers across his chin. “They know me, and Lefty’s afraid of me. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“That’ll be enough for you to get in?” Kozlowski sounded skeptical.
Tigh shrugged. “We’ll see. I’ll tell them I have some important information about the man they’ve got in there.”
“Okay, that takes care of you, but there’s got to be several of them in there, so how do the rest of us get in?” Flaherty demanded.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Tigh said. “On the other side of the fort, down near the water—just to the left of the jetty— there’s a door that leads to a tunnel. The tunnel comes up through a trapdoor into an old storage room in the heart of the Castle. It was designed as a way to sneak supplies into the fort if needed during a siege. Other than the front door, that’s the only way in.”
“Won’t they see us as we walk down the road toward the fort?” Loring asked.
McCluen pointed to the high wooden fence that bordered the access road. “That fence was put there to block the view,” he said. “On the other side is a commercial shipping yard’s holding area. The fence runs all the way to the water down by the Castle. I’ll give you a ten-minute head start, then I’ll go in the front door. You need to get yourselves down to the water, around through the tunnel, and into the storeroom. That room is about twenty yards away from the place where they take people for questioning. When you go out of the storeroom, go to the right, and then stay out of sight and wait for my signal.”
“What’s the signal?” Flaherty asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Tigh admitted, “but I’ll make it obvious enough that you’ll have no doubt.”
The epiphany left Finn devastated, and he had to struggle to keep his composure.
Preston.
He searched his mind, fumbling with the pieces of the puzzle. How could he ever have missed it? How could he have been so stupid? Natalie told him she was sleeping with someone older—someone who could help her with her career.
Preston.
Besides Linda, only one person knew that Finn suspected McGuire and Huron of scamming the state.
Preston.
Only one person knew that Finn was going to the office to collect the evidence he needed to prove his suspicions to the police.
Preston.
The puzzle was coming together in his mind now. Finn had never even considered that Preston might be involved in any of this mess, because he viewed him as untouchable. He was the paragon of everything to which Finn aspired. More than that, he was one of the few people who’d ever given Finn a chance. Preston was his mentor, and his friend, and the thought that he’d betrayed him felt like a knife carving out his heart.
But it all made sense. Preston was in charge of all of Huron’s legal work, and the security company was one of Howery, Black’s largest and most profitable clients. In addition, Preston had the political connections necessary to protect Huron.
All of a sudden, Finn felt more lost than he ever had before. When Preston had showed up at the police station to help him, Finn had drawn such strength from his unwavering belief in him. Now he understood that Preston was only interested in having him released so he could lead McGuire to the evidence. He’d believed Preston when he said that Finn was the future of the firm. Now he knew that his boss had merely been playing him, much the same way others had played him throughout his life. Until that moment, Preston had been the only figure in his life worth looking up to. Now that image was gone, and there was nothing to take its place. There seemed to be no hope left, and so little to live for. With Preston helping McGuire, Finn would simply disappear, and Natalie’s murder would be pinned on him. No one would care.
“Let’s talk about this list,” said McGuire, interrupting Finn’s thoughts.
Finn looked at the papers again. He sighed heavily. “What do you want to know?”