Finding Gary, Part 2

The lie, Lou Buttino said, wasn't about Airlift. Rather, it involved the central theme of the book, that the agent was drummed out of the agency because it was discovered by his superiors that he was gay. Though it made the former agent a hero in the gay community, Lou Buttino said that the book was full of fabrications designed to help his brother win a settlement from the Justice Department. When he realized A Special Agent was fiction, he says he sued his brother, whom he now is convinced is a "sociopath," for fraud and won a judgment of $300,000. "[Frank Buttino] went underground, I guess to avoid paying me, and nobody knows where he is today," the professor explained. "It broke my heart and destroyed my family."

Of the bureau, he added: "The FBI is almost like the Mafia. They adhere to omerta, the code of silence. They don't reveal the things that are going on."

Donna Weaver suffered in that silence for years. But the cover-up of the attempted bombing, the widespread corruption within the FBI, and the criminal nature of Mitrione convinced her that someone at the bureau knew what had happened to her husband. Particularly terrifying to her was the revelation that Mitrione's father had been accused of torturing people in the family's basement. She wondered if Gary had been tortured before he was killed, and the thought of it was almost too much to bear.

"They are supposed to help me, but they won't," she says of the FBI. "And all I can wonder is, 'Why? Why won't they do their jobs? Why won't they help me?'"

The stone wall extends to BSO as well. Donna tried for weeks to contact Brennan to glean some clues about Krugh. He ignored her calls. When contacted by New Times, BSO officials refused to discuss the case.

Without the help of the authorities, Donna was forced to conduct her own investigation, which led to a chief suspect and, ultimately, to the Bahamas, the place where her husband had disappeared.

Next week: Will Donna's case stand?