Operation Winter's End (police task force)

"After reviewing the evidence with our colleagues at the Bureau of Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Firearms and Lasers, it became clear that we were, in fact, wrong. Eddie Winter has indeed had a colorful history. But it is not a criminal history. By pursuing our case against Mister Winter, we would simply continue to waste taxpayer dollars and, even worse, condemn an innocent man."

- Capt. Widmark's public announcement

Operation Winter's End was the unsuccessful attempt to crush the criminal empire of Eddie Winter and bring Boston's mightiest criminal to justice.

Overview
Operation Winter's End was started under the auspices of Captain Jonathan Widmark, and intended to remove Eddie Winter from power and put him on trial before court, likely terminating in the death penalty. The situation was complicated from the outset by the fact that Winter managed to buy off or plant moles in almost all of Boston metropolitan area police department, with the sole exception of Cambridge, where the task force's command center was set up. The lead detective, Nick Valentine, transferred to Boston to aid with the investigation after his experiences in Chicago, coming to the city with his fiancee, Jennifer Lands.

Edward L. "Eddie" Winter has been a pox on Boston for nearly two decades, with fingers in extortion, murder, racketeering, kidnapping, every crime known to man. However, he was also the epitome of the cold-blooded, brilliant, slippery crime boss who was too smart to actually be directly implicated in any of the crimes. The task force was formed when Captain Widmark believed that Winter has also developed the most self-destructive of character traits - supreme arrogance. Around 2076, Winter stopped coding his correspondences and began communicating entirely via unencrypted holotapes. Each one addressed to the subject in question and very clearly signed off by Winter himself. Widmark knew that Winter was aware of the authorities monitoring his communications and believed this was him sending a message and believing he's untouchable. Those holotapes were the key to building a case against Eddie Winter, and the goal was to acquire them to build a case, letting the mob boss implicate himself.

In the course of the investigation, the investigators gathered the Eddie Winter holotapes, confirming that Eddie Winter was involved in every crime imaginable, from petty larceny to first-degree murder. The push by the police was not without pull: Winter's goons tried to intimidate the task force and gunned Jennifer Lands down. The BADTFL was monitoring the case and both Valentine and Lands were suggested for a fast track to witness protection, but ranking officers denied the request and let Jennifer die so that the operation would not be compromised.

It wasn't Winter's End. The BADTFL was working together with Boston's District Attorney to take down not Winter, but every other criminal family in the Boston metropolitan area, and Winter was the means to achieve this ambitious goal. In return for his cooperation, Winter was granted immunity from prosecution and simply walked out of the office. The Winter's End task force was disbanded as soon as its purpose - to distract the families and make it appear as if Winter was the genuine target of the investigation - was achieved, leaving the policemen out in the cold. Nick Valentine was particularly affected.

The move shocked and angered the people of Massachusetts, Captain Widmark was forced to publicly clear Winter's name and thank the BADTFL, in a humiliating statement before the cameras. It also surprised the press, which was quick to point out the allegations turned up by the investigation. However, at the end of the day, the city of Boston had nothing more to fear from Eddie Winter. When approached for comment, the alleged crime boss could not be reached by journalists, much to their surprise. His South Boston sub shop has been shuttered, and his harborside residence completely cleaned out. Eddie Winter has disappeared.

Aftermath
Although the operation was technically unsuccessful, Boston could breathe a little more freely with the criminal families under siege by the police, armed with evidence of their wrongdoing. Most of the policemen used by the BADTFL received no recognition or compensation, but Captain Widmark did arrange for Detective Valentine to take part in an experimental CIT brain scanning program to help him cope with the trauma... And granting him immortality when the brain scan was used in an Institute experiment over a century later to create a special synth.

Ironically, this would allow for justice to be served more than two centuries after Valentine and Winter faced off in the streets of Boston. While the original Valentine died, the synth lived on with his memories. And it just so happened that Winter lived as well. When he disappeared, he did so in his personal bunker beneath the aforementioned sub shop. With provisions aplenty, he planned to merge into the brave new world and resume his life as a crime boss. He wanted to enjoy freedom and immortality, however, and to this end he dumped his vast fortune into an experimental radiation treatment that turned him into a ghoul, similar to Desmond Lockheart.

The procedure was carried out by a doctor in East Boston using radioactive material smuggled at Wicked Shipping. Eddie only risked it because he bribed an Army Intelligence officer to obtain the latest projections as to the course of the war, which all pointed to the inevitability of the nuclear holocaust. The experimental procedure mutated him into an immortal ghoul, allowing him to wait out the devastation of the war. He invited his girlfriend, Claire Pozinski, to his bunker, so that she would survive the war too and live out the rest of her life by his side.

He did not suspect that Valentine would come back to haunt him. After all, he had it a Long Time Coming.