Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 (22 page)

‘
Jesus, that’s a nice car, Marty. Is that yours?’

‘
No,’ I replied, ‘I stole it.’ And he burst out laughing.

I wanted to stop and chat to Sean because we had always been friends but I also worried that Arlene may have told people she met her latest piece of gossip; that she had just seen Marty McGartland at the top of Moyard Parade, though she would not have meant me any harm. I guessed my arrival back on the scene might have caused some tongues to wag. And if any Provo heard I was back they would be out looking for me within minutes. In that instant I realised I was putting my mission in jeopardy by indulging in my emotions and driving around Ballymurphy and I cursed myself for not acting in a more professional way. I knew I had to get out of the area, and quick.

‘
Where are you going?’ I asked Sean.

‘
Top of the Rock,’ he replied, meaning the Whiterock shops near the Springfield Road.

‘
Jump in,’ I said. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

I dropped Sean near the traffic lights at the junction of Whiterock and Springfield roads and waved him goodbye. ‘Goodbye and good luck,’ he said.

‘
Same to you, too,’ I shouted after him as he slammed the car door and walked off to the shops with a wave.

Seconds later, Sean was walking past a group of young jobless lads who were standing around chatting together when one asked him, ‘Who owns that smart car you just got out of?’

‘
It’s Marty’s,’ he replied, without thinking.

‘
Marty who?’ another asked.

‘
Marty McGartland of course, who else?’ he replied.

‘
Marty McGartland?’ someone shouted and the call was taken up. The dozen or so lads hanging around all gathered together and began earnestly discussing the dramatic news as Sean walked off.

I would hear what happened after I returned to the safety of Newcastle and it made me realise, if I needed any further proof, that for my own safety I should never return to Belfast again. More importantly I also heard what happened to Sean and what upset me was that it had been my fault for taking such risks. Later that day as he was walking back home two IRA members, whom he recognised, came up to him. He sensed he was facing trouble, if not danger, from the way they came and stood looking at him, menacing him.

‘
We want you to come with us,’ one said.

‘
Where to?’ Sean asked.

‘
Mind your own fucking business and come with us,’ the leader said.

‘
What do you want me for?’ Sean asked.

‘
Did you see Marty McGartland today?’ asked the other.

‘
Aye,’ he replied.

‘
We want to talk to you, so shut the fuck up and come with us.’

He knew there was no way out and reluctantly turned and walked off with one man either side of him. They took him to a house not far distant and he feared he was facing a beating. They asked how he had met me. Where was I going? Where I was living? Who else was with me? Was I asking any questions? Did I visit anyone in the area?

These questions were fired at poor Sean as he stood trembling, trying to answer the barrage of questions quickly enough before more were fired at him. He was shaking with fright because he believed that if he did not give the answers they required they would try the rough treatment and he knew that he might be severely injured. He had seen others given severe beatings before and it wasn’t a pretty sight. But he had one asset. He knew nothing about me or my whereabouts. All he could tell them were details of the car I was driving but he had no idea of the registration number.

One important question that worried him was when they asked, ‘Was Marty carrying a gun?’

Sean, of course, had no idea and he told them so, but that didn’t mean they believed him. ‘Listen,’ Sean told them time and again, ‘I was only in the car a few seconds, as long as it takes to drive the few hundred yards. He told me nothing, nothing.’

Finally, he convinced the IRA men that he knew nothing but before he was allowed to walk free he was given a warning. ‘If you see Marty again you don’t talk to him and you don’t get into his car. You come and find us straightaway and tell us. Do you understand?’

‘
Aye,’ he replied.

‘
Now fuck off,’ one said.

I decided to get the hell out of Ballymurphy and West Belfast because it was obvious that I had already chanced my arm too often that day and to take further risks would be unprofessional, if not crazy. I hadn’t returned to Northern Ireland to indulge my personal emotions but to try and determine the facts around my kidnap. I had permitted my personal life to interfere with the job in hand. I drove away determined to focus on my mission and fuck my emotions.

Chapter
Ten

I drove back to Peggy’s place very, very relieved to be away from West Belfast but knowing that my mission was only half-completed. As I approached her farm I realised that I needed to spend time alone, to sort out my mind and decide how I should tackle the final hurdle. I tuned off the A6 towards Magherafelt and found the road all but deserted. I parked the car and decided to take a walk to collect my thoughts and check what I was about to do, making sure that I would take no further crazy chances, putting my balls on the line.

I now knew that my abduction and escape from the IRA had caused loads of trouble inside the Republican movement, making this so-called professional army look like a bunch of amateurs, unable to hold an unarmed man in a block of flats when the gaolers were holding the guns. I was really pleased that Chico and Jim had been given such a hard time, having the piss taken out of them by their IRA mates. It was obvious that there was no love lost between other IRA members and the two men and, to my mind, they deserved all the shit they received. But they could be of no further use to me.

I realised that Chico and Jim had only been obeying orders and that it was their incompetence that had let them down. Indeed, when in 1994 I saw that Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, had appointed them as his personal bodyguards, I was somewhat taken aback because I believed he would have wanted more professional bodyguards around him than those tough-talking tin-pots. I also knew that any would-be assassin would find it so easy to take out Gerry Adams with those two guarding him. But that was Gerry Adams’ concern.

I wasn’t sure how to tackle the SB. I knew that if I phoned my former handlers they would be bound to find some way to trace me, pick me up and put me on the next flight back to the mainland. I had to assume that I wasn’t welcome in Northern Ireland, poking about, causing strife, trying to find out what really happened to me and what part the authorities had played in my kidnap. And in my heart I wasn’t certain that the SB or the RUC hadn’t been involved. It seemed extraordinary that MI5 would have planned my kidnap on their own without informing someone what was at hand. I believed it unlikely that my handlers knew of the plot because of the close relationship they had built with me during the four years we had been working together.

In his book, however, Ian Phoenix had pointed the finger of suspicion at the TCG, suggesting that they had been involved, but to what degree I had no idea. After all, I told myself, no one, no official and no organisation had to take any positive action against me on that fateful day. All that had been necessary was negative inaction, for all someone had to do was withdraw the surveillance unit watching me and leave the dirty work to the Provo’s hitmen. It had been a neat plan, so neat in fact that it was difficult putting my finger on one single person who would have the vital piece of information necessary for me to challenge and nail whatever agency had been responsible for trying to get me killed.

I realised that, in all probability, there were two sets of people who had taken an active part in the plot – the planners and the operatives. I could easily imagine those high-minded snobs in MI5 planning my abduction from the safety of their offices behind the protection of well-guarded headquarters but I also recognised that they wouldn’t have been directly involved in undertaking any of the dirty work, not when there were so many security agencies on hand in Belfast. I suspected that senior RUC officers might well have been kept informed of what was happening so that no one lower down would have ensured that when I went to the meeting at Sinn Fein headquarters I was being given the appropriate protection.

I recalled in as much detail as I could what I had seen and what I had not seen that morning. I had expected the SB to ensure that either some plainclothes SB officers were brought in to watch Connolly House or at least members of E4A, the surveillance department of the RUC Special Branch, who were experts at keeping people under close observation. But I couldn’t recall seeing anyone around that morning and even at the time that had worried me. As I walked down the narrow country lane, with the hedges protecting me from the wind that was squalling quite hard, I recalled some of the extraordinary episodes when E4A had carried out long and difficult surveillance operations. One involved a stake-out over several days and nights in January 1990 when a team from E4A had watched a house in West Belfast where they believed the IRA were holding Alexander ‘Sandy’ Lynch, an RUC informant. When the RUC finally raided the house and rescued Sandy they discovered the Sinn Fein publicity director, Danny Morrison, whose nickname was ‘Lord Chief Executioner’, in attendance along with eight other IRA men, all of whom were arrested and charged. Lynch had taken a terrible beating and he told later how he feared he would never leave that house alive. The RUC believed that Sandy was on the point of being murdered. The RUC also found a film of Lynch’s wedding day which the IRA security team had shown him, telling him that if he did not confess to working for the Special Branch he would never see his wife again. That had been a highly professional surveillance task and yet, seemingly, it had been impossible to track me once I had left Connolly House even though I had walked out of the front door with two well-known IRA thugs!

Whenever I thought of that time I would get mad as hell, for the more I concentrated on what happened the more I realised I had been hung out to dry, deliberately. But now I had to nail the bastards once and for all.

Ideally, I realised that I needed to find someone who knew the details surrounding my abduction, someone involved with the Tasking Co-ordination Group, which included senior officers from the SAS, MI5, Special Branch and military intelligence. I needed to talk to just one person who worked with the TCG and whom I could trust from any of these agencies. I felt sure there must be a number of people who would have known the truth and would have utterly disapproved of what happened to me. I knew there must be some honourable people in TCG, as there were in the Special Branch, who would happily tell me what really happened that day. But how to find them and how to get to them? If I took too many risks as I had done earlier that day I could even find myself taken out, for I figured that if they were capable of arranging my funeral in August 1991 when I was a well-known informant it would be a fucking sight easier for them to get rid of me now when I was meant to be living in England. All these thoughts weighed heavily on my mind as I considered how to proceed.

I decided to sleep on it and drove back to my secret hide-out at Peggy’s place. As I walked through her open front door which was only held by a latch it seemed I had entered a different world. All seemed so peaceful and relaxed and my new-found little furry friend came up to me, pressing herself against my legs until I bent down and stroked her for a few seconds. ‘It’s only me,’ I called, not wishing to frighten Peggy who I knew would be sitting on her bed resting her legs. It seemed extraordinary that life out here could be so calm and peaceful when, in reality, just a car ride away such devilish machinations could be going on day and night, when even trusted friends could be killed without a moment’s thought.

I decided to phone Mike, my SB pal, and ask to meet him. I knew I would be giving him the shock of his life, visiting Northern Ireland with no protection and conducting my own one-man-band detective agency, but I believed he would be strong enough to take it and agree to see me though he would be putting his neck on the line. I recognised that Mike had already broken RUC rules by informing me that a secret plot had been organised to have me killed. I went for a stroll and a mile or so from the cottage dialled the number he had given me on my mobile, which I had brought from England for just such an eventuality. I knew that there would be no hope of anyone tracing such a call if I made it from a mobile some distance away from where I was staying. I knew the SB and other security agencies had the most sophisticated bugging and tracking devices but I had been led to understand that no one was yet capable of tracing a mobile phone call with any accuracy, especially of the call was made in the middle of the country.

I dialled and waited. A minute or so later the phone was answered. It was a woman who, I presumed, was his wife. I knew it would be crazy to ask for Mike’s number so I left a message saying that his friend from Birmingham had called and would call back later that evening. I knew I was taking something of a risk but believed that Mike would understand that I was only phoning him because I needed his help. He had told me to phone him if ever I needed him. That time had now arrived and I only hoped he had meant what he said.