Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 (2 page)

‘
Are you going towards the ferry?’ I asked, trying to sound as if I was asking for the time of day.

‘
Aye,’ he said, looking at me in a strange way. ‘Why?’

‘
Could you give me a lift?’ I asked.

‘
Sure I could,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter? Has your car broken down?’

‘
Aye.’ I lied. ‘I couldn’t get the damn thing to start this morning. Must have been the damp. I have to be at the docks for 6.30 and it’s late now.’ ‘Get in,’ said the man as he opened the door to let me clamber into the front seat beside him. For a minute I wondered whether he was playing with me. If he suspected that I was an IRA man he only had to drive to the nearest RUC station and I would be done for. I must have looked a sight, scruffy, unshaven, my hair a mess and my clothes dirty. I just prayed that he didn’t suspect that I was on the run but I must have shown all the signs of a young man up to no good. I looked at him more closely as he walked across the front of the car towards the driver’s door. He didn’t look like a peeler or even a Special Branch man but I knew from experience that SB men can adopt the most extraordinary appearances. I looked at his jacket to see whether I could detect a bulge at his shoulder but I could see no sign. I examined his clothes – a pair of dark brown trousers, white shirt, plain tie and brown leather jacket – and thought that he might even have worked at the docks. But I would take no chances.

‘
Where are you heading?’ he asked, casually enough.

‘
I’m catching the ferry,’ I said. ‘Seeing some relatives in Scotland.’

‘
Well, by the looks of things you shouldn’t have too rough a crossing. There’s not too much wind about this morning.’

‘
Fingers crossed,’ I replied.

‘
Are you a good sailor?’ he enquired.

‘
Not bad,’ I replied, hoping that the inquisition wouldn’t go on much longer.

‘
Where’s your suitcase?’ he asked. ‘Did you forget it?’ and he laughed.

I didn’t know what to reply. I searched my mind not knowing how to answer. So I decided to say nothing, to change the subject, pretend I didn’t hear the question. ‘We’re nearly there,’ I said as the docks loomed ahead of us out of the early morning mist.

‘
Where do you want dropping?’ he asked.

‘
At the passenger terminal if that’s not out of your way,’ I replied. ‘That would be grand.’

‘
Not at all,’ he replied. ‘It’s a pleasure.’

As he drew up at the passenger terminal I clambered out, wondering if I was in a daydream. I could not believe that this man had been the genuine article, straight and honest and ready enough to believe my preposterous story. ‘That’s very kind of you,’ I said as I stood on the road by the side of the car. ‘Thanks a million.’

‘
Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘See you around.’

‘
Aye. Look after yourself and good luck,’ I replied and slammed shut the door. I walked quickly into the terminal and turned as if to wave but he had gone. I went back to the door to check that he was in fact driving away and not searching out some peeler to tell of the scruffy young man he had found in his driveway acting suspiciously. I watched as he drove his car away to the other side of the docks and I lost him.

‘
Don’t worry,’ I said to myself, ‘remember you’re a lucky bastard. You’ve been in worse scrapes than this and you’ve always come up smelling of roses.’ I was dying for a hot cup of tea and, before checking in, went to the cafeteria. I could smell the hot food, the sizzling bacon, the hot toast but I had this nagging suspicion that if I ate now, rather than on the boat, I would tempt fate and never make my escape. So I sat in a corner, with my back to the wall watching the entrance to the cafe, checking in case the peelers had been alerted and were searching for me. I sat there for 15 minutes, drinking the sweet, hot tea slowly, relishing every sip. After ten minutes I guessed that the coast was clear for if I had been reported to the peelers as a suspicious character they would have been there with their guns in minutes. I was clean, carrying no weapon, and if they had come for me there was nothing I could have done but gone quietly. A smile crossed my lips as I finished my cuppa, gaining in confidence every second, knowing that my luck had held. If luck had gone against me I knew that I would now be in police custody replying to questions I had no wish to answer. I checked through my pockets, searching every one, pulling out the linings to make sure that I had no incriminating evidence on me; nothing bearing my old name, address, driving licence or credit card other than my English driving licence bearing my alias, Martin Ashe. But I was taking no chances. Throughout the 48 hours I was in Northern Ireland I kept the Ashe driving licence hidden in my waistband. If I had been stopped and taken in for questioning by the peelers I had no wish for them to discover my alias. I was clean. I just had £50 in notes on me and nothing else. It was time to go. Forty-five minutes later I stood in the shadow of the ship’s funnel and looked back at Larne docks as the ferry moved out into clear water, the seabirds squawking overhead, and a wonderful relief, a sense of freedom, surged through my heart. I went down to the cafe and ordered the meal I had dreamed of in the early hours of that morning as I lay beneath the hedge. Every mouthful tasted like heaven. As I drank my second cup of hot, sweet tea that morning, however, I became more serious, more sombre, as I realised that I was almost certain that an attempt had been made by British Intelligence to have me kidnapped and murdered by the IRA.

Chapter Two

Only a few weeks earlier, in September 1997, I had answered a call on my mobile phone, a call that would change my life, shatter my illusions and cause me nights of anxiety. I was in my flat at a secret address in England when I answered the phone and heard a voice I thought I recognised talking loudly, ‘Hello, Marty, how are you?’

‘
I’m fine,’ I said, speaking quietly, ‘but who’s that?’

‘
It’s an old friend calling you from Belfast,’ came the reply. ‘You know me from way back and I know you.’

That introduction sounded ominous to me so I decided to play it cool. ‘Will you give me a name,’ I asked, ‘and stop keeping me in suspense?’

‘
You knew me as Mike,’ the man replied in a more sombre voice. ‘I used to work with your two pals Felix and Mo.’

It took me a few seconds to search my memory, trying to remember someone named Mike who had worked with my two SB handlers, Felix and Mo. Suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I could see the face and the build of the man but his voice sounded younger than I expected. ‘What can I do you for?’ I asked cagily for I still wasn’t sure he was the man I recalled.

‘
It’s not what you can do for me,’ he replied, ‘it’s what I can do for you.’

‘
What do you mean?’ I asked, fascinated by his approach.

‘
I’m coming over to England soon,’ he replied. ‘Can we meet somewhere? Anywhere that’s easy for you.’

‘
What do you want to see me about?’ I asked, deliberately sounding suspicious about receiving this call out of the blue. ‘I’ll tell you this,’ he said. ‘I’ve read you book
Fifty Dead Men Walking
and I have some information that you will find very interesting. I don’t want to say too much on this line. Let me put it this way. They’ve taken some liberties with you, and it’s not right the way you were treated. I just want to help.’ The friendly bonhomie, the call from a virtual stranger and the fact that he wanted to see me made me deeply suspicious of his motives. I thought, ‘What liberties, and who has taken those liberties with me?’ It seemed odd, strange even, that someone like Mike, whom I hardly knew, would want to see me. But my interest quickly got the better of me and, I told myself, what possible problem could there be talking to an old SB mate? ‘You’re on,’ I replied. ‘When do you want to meet?’ Mike told me he would be travelling to the mainland in the near future and would be staying in Birmingham during a 48-hour flying visit to England, arriving by train at New Street Station. We agreed a date and a place to meet. I felt I could trust Mike because I had met him a few times in Belfast when I was in the Holywood army base recovering from injuries I sustained in my dive through the window. I also recalled that he was a good mate of Felix and Mo, which meant I could trust him. If he had just been some Irishman, a stranger whose identity I didn’t know, then I would never have dreamed of meeting him. I would automatically have presumed that he was IRA and I knew why they would want to see me. Ever since I had fled Northern Ireland in 1991 I had been suspicious of anyone phoning me, either on my mobile or, more importantly, on my ex-directory BT line at home. I went to the Grand Hotel in the centre of Birmingham one hour ahead of our scheduled meeting to check out the place and see if there were any suspicious characters hanging around. When I walked in, dressed in my black Kicker boots, jeans, shirt and bomber jacket, I felt a bit out of place for the hotel certainly lived up to its name. I was taking no chances and checked out the various entrances and exits. I was not being hypersensitive or suspicious, just sensible. Felix and Mo had drilled into me during my years with the SB that I always had to take care, check everything possible, ensuring that I didn’t walk into some IRA trap. This time I saw nothing to alert me and I went to the lounge, sat in a corner with a newspaper and ordered a cup of tea. I recognised Mike the moment he walked into the room and he came straight over to me, a smile on his face and a firm handshake to greet me. I was relieved to see him for now I was certain this was no IRA trap. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked, in his baritone Northern Ireland accent. ‘You look in fine fettle.’ ‘Aye, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘How are you?’ In the back of my mind, however, I was still somewhat suspicious. I had known Mike for only a few months but never as a great friend or confidant. He had always seemed a man full of bonhomie and light talk and we had never had a serious conversation despite the fact that he was an SB handler. I still wondered what on earth he was doing wanting to talk to me some six years after I had left Belfast. ‘Do you fancy a beer?’ he asked, jovially enough. ‘No, not for me,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Never drink in the middle of the day and very little at night. It’s not good for you.’ ‘Nothing ever wrong in supping a pint of the black stuff,’ he said, and walked over to the bar to buy a pint of Guinness.

I watched him walk away, looked to check whether he was carrying a gun in a shoulder holster or in the back of his trousers but could see no suspicious bulges. As he sat down Mike trotted out all the polite chit-chat, asking how I was, asking about my mother and what I was doing for a job. I understood he was trying to be jolly and likeable, putting me at my ease, cracking the odd joke, and I kept wondering why. His approach was making me nervous. After a couple of minutes I had heard enough. I looked at Mike straight in the eye. ‘What is it, Mike? What do you want? What do you want to see me about?’ ‘Let me finish my pint and we’ll go for a walk,’ he said. ‘I want to talk.’ The idea of going for a walk, with someone whom I had never had to trust in my life, sent a warning shock wave through my mind. I recalled the times that such an invitation had been made to me in Belfast; that the same invitation had been made to dozens of people; and nearly always such a request meant only trouble, if not a punishment beating, a kneecapping or worse. But I realised that I wasn’t in Belfast but in an English city, crowded with lunchtime passers-by, a place where it was most unlikely that someone would try to knock me off. However, I was taking nothing for granted. ‘Why can’t we talk here?’ I asked. ‘There’s not many people around.’ ‘Those days are long gone,’ said Mike. ‘Stop worrying. We’re not in Northern Ireland now. No one’s going to take you out. In any case you should know from all your training that neither of us would talk in a public place like this.’ ‘Honest?’ I said and half-smiled, making sure that he realised that I was very much on my guard whatever surprise he had in store for me. As we walked through the city centre we turned into the churchyard surrounding St Philip’s Cathedral and found a bench where we could sit and chat in privacy, where no one could overhear our conversation. I deliberately sat on his right side because I had taken with me my Olympus microcassette recorder which I kept in my left-hand pocket nearest to him. I was taking nothing on face value, not even someone allegedly bringing me news I would want to hear. In the background, however, was the constant noise of city centre traffic. It was a perfect place to sit and chat because no one could overhear our conversation but I hoped the noise wouldn’t drown out his words on the recorder. ‘Spill the beans then,’ I said. ‘What’s this all about?’ ‘This is difficult,’ Mike began, ‘but I believe the Branch owe it to you.’ ‘Owe me what?’ I asked in my naivety. ‘I’ve had a pay off.’ ‘I’m not talking about that,’ he said. ‘This is far more serious.’ I looked at him, waiting for him to continue, saying nothing.

‘
I read and I re-read your book
Fifty Dead Men Walking,
’ he said. ‘I should think most of the RUC and the SB read it. It was good, very good. You caught the mood of Northern Ireland and the chances you ran as an agent working for the Branch. I liked it.’