Authors: David Lowe
‘I hope you’re right. Don’t worry about me. I was the brigade leader of the Tyrone Provo’s. I’ve been in worse situations than this,’ Murphy said, feeling he had to remind his caller he had plenty of experience of dealing with the security services and added, ‘don’t forget, in the old days we had to deal with RUC’s Special Branch as well as Army Intelligence and the SAS, and they were real bastards.’
‘I just hope that helps you get out of the fix you’re in. I’ll ring you in a couple of days. Remember don’t contact me unless something major happens that’ll affect our plans,’ and Murphy’s phone went dead as the caller terminated the call.
Chapter
Seventeen
Crossmaglen, Northern Ireland,
08.10 hours, Friday, 6
th
July
Driving one of MI5’s unmarked Ford Mondeo’s south along the B30 towards Cullaville, memories of previous investigations he was involved in during the Troubles in Armagh came flooding back to David. Passing the telegraph poles alongside the road, he remembered the haunting homemade triangular warning signs that were nailed on them with the picture of a Provisional IRA sniper, underneath which were written the sinister words, ‘Sniper at Work’. They had long since gone, but he still had a fear of coming across road-blocks recent intelligence stated were carried out by the Real IRA in the area, just like the Provisional’s did the last time David was here. As he was thinking about it, one incident came back to him from the first time he assisted the RUC in the Province.
‘A penny for them,’ said Louise Dorman, a Belfast based MI5 officer. The thirty-one year old was born in Northern Ireland, but had no real memories of living in the Province during the Troubles. When she was two years old, her parents moved over to Britain where she was raised in Bristol. Pretending to be a married couple, she stayed the night in the same room as David at a hotel just outside Crossmaglen. That was where the pretence ended. David slept on a small couch in the hotel room, while Louise slept in the bed.
‘I’m sorry,’ David said, ‘I was remembering how it used to be when I last worked in this area and one incident in particular.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was over here to lift a PIRA suspect believed to be hiding in south Armagh wanted for offences in Manchester. I was travelling along a single track road to the farm believed the suspect was using with an RUC officer when we came across a PIRA roadblock. The RUC officer slammed on the brakes. As the car came to a halt, he slammed into reverse gear as the Irish terrorists realised the car was either plain clothes RUC officers or undercover British Army soldiers. Hitting the accelerator hard, the car’s engine screamed, as the terrorists opened fire, one of whom had a high velocity armourlite rifle with armour piercing bullets. I took my Biretta out.
‘With the car rocking as the RUC officer reversed I couldn’t return fire. There was nothing I could do. I could only watch in horror as two of the terrorists jumped into a car they had by the roadblock, while the other three ran up the lane towards the car. Being in reverse gear, the ability of the car to evade the bullets coming towards them seemed limited until the driver approached a farm entrance. Slowing slightly, the RUC officer reversed into the entrance hitting the gate post. Then crashing the gears into first, he slammed his right foot on the accelerator pedal causing the engine to scream once more. As he took his foot off the clutch, smoke belched out from the front tyres, followed by an ear piercing screech as the drive gear engaged the front wheels.
‘By now there was a hail of bullets coming our way and the officer shouted to keep my head down. By this time the terrorists who ran after the car only seemed feet away. Driving out of the farm entrance, one of the armour piercing bullets crashed into the window of the back door behind me, causing glass to fly around the cockpit of the car. That was followed by a loud dull thump as another of the armour piercing bullets entered the boot and came through the rear seat into the dashboard of the car. At that moment it was simply a case of surviving and the RUC officer abandoned all caution and drove as fast as he could through the narrow country lane.’
‘It must have been scary then.’
‘Just a little. With my English accent, it wasn’t safe for me to be out here on my own in the nineties.’
‘You’ve got a strong Liverpool accent. I thought you lot in Liverpool got on well with the Irish?’
‘Well they do say Liverpool is Ireland’s second capital, and I’m half Irish on my mother’s side.’
‘Are you a Catholic as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘With a provenance like that, you should’ve been alright with the locals. In all seriousness, I can’t imagine what it must have been like then. It’s hard to believe this is a tourist area now.’
‘When I was last in this area, the countryside used to be dotted with Army towers. I soon found out why the Army needed the towers. Whether you were in the police or the Army, to travel safely, you had to go everywhere by helicopter. Even then, it wasn’t totally safe. The Provisional’s had surface-to-air anti-aircraft rockets they got from Libya. It only seems like yesterday, yet it’s so quiet now. You can see why tourists come here. Just look at these deep green fields and rolling hills. The countryside’s so beautiful you can see why Ireland’s called the Emerald Isle.’
‘You’re right, it is lovely here.’
‘If I was an English tourist, I still wouldn’t feel safe around here. Too many of the locals around here are raised to hate the British.’
As David spoke, Louise’s mobile phone began to ring. ‘We’re still on the B30. We’ll pull up and wait for you. Speak to you in minute.’ Louise terminated the call and said to David, ‘Pull up on the left. Stuart’s got a call from the officers watching McCrossan at the farm outside Cullaville. He left it this morning and drove to another farm that’s just across the border close to Inishkeen. Stuart wants to have a chat over what we do next.’
‘I suppose we’ll have to inform An Garda Siochana we’re coming over to their patch?’
‘I think you’re forgetting, this is not a police operation. Stuart’s chat will be about how we conduct the surveillance at the farm McCrossan’s gone to.’
Bringing the car to a stop in a lay-by on his left, David said, ‘I suppose he won’t want me to go along with you now McCrossan’s in the Republic?’
‘I think he does.’
‘If he does, now we’re going to cross the border, once I give you the nod the target’s definitely McCrossan and identify who he’s with, that’s my job done. If I stay with you, it’ll only makes things more difficult for you and I’ve no jurisdiction in the Republic.’
‘Stuart doesn’t see it like that.’
‘He better had, because I want no part in what you do after I’ve ID’d the targets for you. The less I see, the less I can be questioned about it if things go tits up.’
* * *
At the lay-by, Stuart Stroud and Lisa Greening joined David and Louise. Stuart made it clear it was still a surveillance operation and that David should go with them across the border into the Republic, ‘. . . but we won’t inform An Garda Siochana we’ll be in their patch just yet, not unless we have to. If McCrossan makes contact with whoever it is that’s going to take his place in London, we can follow them, even if they travel to Dublin to leave for London. Trust me over here we can’t afford to take anyone out. I’ve a feeling McCrossan’s realised that and to make him feel safer, he’s gone to stay with a sympathiser south of the border.’
‘If that’s the case, I’m happy with that,’ David said, ‘Seeing how you’ve got the co-ordinates of the farm by Inishkeen, I’ll follow you. Ideally we could do with changing the cars for ones with Irish plates. Having two cars with Northern Irish plates could look too suspicious if anyone’s keeping an eye out for us on the approach to the farm.’
‘That’s a good point. I’ll call through and see if we can muster one. I think we only need the one. If we can’t, we’ll have to use both of these cars. The problem is, time’s against us,’ Stuart said.
As he turned away to call the Belfast MI5 office, Lisa said sarcastically to David, ‘So, you do have your uses.’
‘It might not be my op, but I know this country well,’ he curtly answered back.
‘I forgot, you’re half Irish and you’ve got family over here. I hope you don’t have any sympathies with this outfit we’re watching. I heard McCrossan’s got a police officer tipping him off what we’re up to. It’s not you is it?’
‘I’m not biting. If you’ve already forgotten, the man we’re after tried to kill me last week.’
‘And how convenient he missed.’
David glared at the MI5 officer. Keeping his temper under control he said, ‘Being half Irish and a Catholic has been thrown at me before when we were dealing with the Provisionals. I might have Irish blood, but I have an English heart.’
‘I hope that English heart doesn’t get contaminated by that Irish blood.’
‘For such a small woman, you’ve got one big mouth. If I were you, I’d be careful how you use it, someone might knock it the other side of your head,’ David said walking up to Lisa.
‘You’re not threatening me are you DS Hurst,’ she replied, sneering at him.
‘Just what the fuck is your problem?’
‘Nothing, just remember this is our op not yours.’
‘I do and trust me, I’ll be glad when my part in it’s over and I get away from you.’
Before the argument could escalate, Stuart finished his call to the Belfast office and said, ‘There’s no way we can get a car on Irish plates in the next hour or two. I suggest Lisa and I go in first and meet up with our two who are already watching the farm in Inishkeen.’ Stuart handed a small piece of paper to David and said, ‘I’ve got the co-ordinates here. Put these into your sat-nav. We’ll park up a safe distance away and RV so we can sort out the best obs spots we can take up. I’ll give you a shout when we see a good place to park up.’ Stuart walked back to the car he was using. Opening the driver’s door, he shouted back, ‘Give me a ten minutes start and we should meet up within half an hour.’
‘OK,’ Louise said, ‘see you later.’
* * *
‘It’s been twenty minutes since I heard from the two we had watching McCrossan. I’ve tried to raise them but they’ve not got back to us,’ Stuart Stroud said to David and the other two MI5 officers outside their cars parked a quarter of a mile away from the farm by Inishkeen. ‘We can see the roof of the farmhouse from here. It’s just by the trees over there on the left,’ he added pointing to building. ‘We’ve been here for just under a quarter of an hour and just before you arrived, I went to have a reccie to see if I could find them, with no joy. There’s a clump of trees over there on the right about five hundred yards from here. I went over there before and you get a good view to the front of the farmhouse. I suggest Lisa and I move in as close as we can to the farmhouse from the back, while you two go over by the trees and keep an eye on the front of the house. As soon as you see any movement, let us know. We’ll try and get as close as we can to the back of the building. There’s a barn to the left hand side of the front of the farmhouse, we’ll use that as cover. Don’t try to contact us unless you see anything or you hear from me.’ Both David and Louise nodded that they understood. ‘Right,’ Stuart said, ‘you two go off to the tress, but stay low, Lisa and I’ll set off towards the rear of the farm.’
David and Louise walked across the narrow lane and climbed over the dry-stone wall that surrounded the fields. Crouching, they ran over to the trees where both of them lay down using the thick growth of ferns beneath the trees as extra cover. Once they settled in by the ferns, David took his small spy glass out from his jacket and raised it to his right eye. Focusing it with his left hand until he had a clear view of the house, he slowly scanned the area around the front of the farmhouse. It was quiet. Apart from a couple of hens strutting around the front door occasionally bending down to pick up the odd morsel of food, no one was to be seen. There were not even any cars parked near to the farmhouse. ‘Can you see anything?’ Louise asked.
‘Not a thing, there’s not even any vehicles near the farmhouse,’ David said passing Louise the small spyglass. As she put it to her eye, David said, ‘I just hope he hasn’t moved to another location and your two officers are following him. One reason we’ve not been able to contact them or they us is their phones might not be able to pick up a signal here as we’re on the Republic’s mobile system.’
‘Possibly,’ Louise said as David took out his phone to see if it was picking up a signal.
‘There again, we’re just over the border, so we should be able to get a signal from the masts in the North. I’m getting a signal on mine. Is yours?’ he asked.
Louise checked her phone, ‘Yes.’
‘Something’s not right. If they’re around here, the other two would also get a signal on their phones. I’ve been on enough ops to know that no one disappears without giving a situation report.’
Putting the spyglass back to her eye, Louise saw the front door of the farm open slowly. With the door only being partially open, Louise said, ‘Someone’s coming out of the front of the house.’ Putting the spyglass on the ground, she reached for her phone.
‘Ring Stuart and tell him we’ve got movement,’ David said picking up the spyglass. Putting it to his eye he watched as the front door opened enough to allow a male in his early twenties to come out of the farmhouse. Standing on the doorstep he began looking around, mainly in the area David and Louise were keeping observations.
Louise’s call was answered, but it was not Stuart. ‘Are you the back-up for these two MI5 officers we found?’ Momentarily surprised, she was not expecting a male with a strong Northern Irish accent to answer her call.
‘Who are you? Where are the officers?’ Louise asked her voice a little shaky realising her two colleagues could be captured by members of this Real IRA terror cell.
‘They’re alive for the moment. Don’t piss me about or they’ll die. How many of you are there?’ the Irishman asked.
‘What is it?’ David asked quietly.
Louise pointed to the front of the house and continued to talk on the phone, ‘How do I know they’re still alive.’