Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 (5 page)

‘
Is that you, Felix?’ I asked when I was put through.

‘
I can tell you, boy, that you are going to cause loads of shit if you keep on turning circle after circle like that. You’re sending our heads in a spin with all your antics.’ And he laughed. His laugh brought a wave of relief to me. The boost to my confidence was wonderful, knowing that the SB were keeping such a close eye on me they even knew how many times I had circled the roundabout. I drove on to my destination, my spirits higher than they had been for days. I parked the car as Felix had advised and walked to the Sinn Fein headquarters. I looked idly around me but saw no one who even remotely seemed like a Branch man in disguise. The receptionist told me that Podraig Wilson had not arrived for work yet but said I could wait as I had an appointment to meet him. Twenty minutes later, two IRA men, both of whom I recognised, walked into the office. One, Paul ‘Chico’ Hamilton, in his 40s was bearded, overweight and liked to think he was one of the IRA’s hard men. Instinctively I hated Chico from the moment I met him because I knew him to be an active member of an IRA punishment squad. Some senior IRA men who had known Chico from the 1970s nicknamed him ‘Budgie’ because he sang to the RUC when arrested in 1977 for his part in the attempted murder of a major in the Gordon Highlanders. He was sentenced to 12 years’ jail. I also knew his companion, James ‘Jim’ McCarthy, a slim-built man in his 30s with a moustache, who also had a reputation for organising and taking part in punishment beatings. Some years earlier ‘Jim’ had himself been disciplined, given a kneecapping by an IRA punishment squad. Jim was known as one of the men who would interrogate victims before deciding their punishment. He also like to think he had the reputation of being a ladies’ man but, in reality, most women despised McCarthy for they believed he would take advantage of his authority to try and seduce them. In 1977 James McCarthy had been found guilty of possessing arms and ammunition and sentenced to five years’ jail. Since then both Hamilton and McCarthy have become the trusted henchmen of Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, employed as his personal bodyguards.

Jim said, ‘Marty, are you waiting for Podraig?’

‘
Aye, I am. Why?’

‘
Podraig sent us to tell you that he’s sorry he can’t see you here. You can either go away and make another appointment or we could take you to where he is now.’ For two seconds I thought about the option. I knew that if these two fellas tried to take me away I would beat the shit out of them and walk away with only a few bruises because at heart they were cowards, all mouth and no trousers. I also thought that if Podraig was happy for me to come back another day then the matter couldn’t be that serious. ‘Okay, I’ll go with you,’ I said and walked out of the office and down the steps to the road.

‘
Marty, did you have a car with you?’ Chico asked casually.

‘
No,’ I replied, ‘I took a black taxi.’

The three of us walked out of Connolly House and around the corner to a white Ford Fiesta. Jim McCarthy drove, Chico sat in the passenger seat and I clambered in the back. Jim drove faster than I expected, speeding through traffic lights that had just turned red and I realised it would be difficult for a pursuing car to keep up. But I felt reassured that RUC-trained drivers would have little difficulty in keeping track of me. Deliberately I never looked behind me because that would have given the game away. I kept looking at other vehicles wondering if any Branch men were in them and keeping an eye on me. The further we drove away from Andersonstown the more vulnerable and isolated I became. And the more worried. Throughout the journey Chico never stopped talking, trying to be friendly and chatty, obviously attempting to put me at my ease. They both knew that I had a reputation for violence if ever I was in a desperate situation. We drove out of Andersonstown, through Suffolk and into Twinbrook, a mainly residential area south-west of Belfast. We came to a halt outside a small four-storey block of flats in Broom Park, a quiet road which seemed almost deserted. As I walked into the block I noticed IRA graffiti daubed over the walls and doors in different coloured chalks and paints and the place smelt of urine. We walked up to the third floor and through a brown front door. I closed the door behind me and my heart sank as the catch clicked shut. There was a third man whom I had never seen before standing in the kitchen and Jim McCarthy went to talk to him. Then Chico went to join them in the kitchen and I could hear them whispering but I had no idea what they were saying. Then the three men came out onto the hallway.

‘
Listen,’ said Jim, ‘Provisional IRA. You’re under arrest.’

I could see them shaking. Then McCarthy pulled out a hand-gun. ‘Lie face down on the floor,’ he said, ‘and don’t try anything.’ I felt the stub of the automatic pushed against my head. At that moment I thought they were about to pull the trigger and I brace myself waiting for the shot. Seconds passed and I was still alive. They took off my trainers, made me lie on the sofa and, with their hands trembling with nerves, took the laces from my trainers and eventually managed to tie my hands together in front of my body and bind my ankles. Then they fetched a blanket from a bedroom and threw it over me. ‘Don’t try anything, Marty, don’t try anything,’ Jim kept repeating nervously as he waved the hand-gun around. Jim went off to telephone, Chico turned on the radio and sat at the end of the sofa reading a newspaper; the young lad was sitting in the chair opposite reading a book. ‘Remember,’ Chico would say every few minutes, ‘don’t try anything, we’ve got a gun in the kitchen.’ The radio DJ was playing melodies and love songs and I thought of all the young people leading carefree, happy lives, enjoying life and many in love with someone. And I thought of myself, still a young man in his twenties, lying on a sofa like a trussed turkey, waiting for a bullet in the back of the head. I knew there was no escape for me. I knew what lay ahead. I knew that I would be interrogated and tortured by what the IRA calls its Civil Administration Team, a polite, innocuous term for a gang of torturers. I knew I was about to be burned with cigarette stubs, given electric shock treatment, beaten and smashed with iron bars and baseball bats, probably given the IRA water torture – my head held underwater until I lost consciousness. And the punishment gang would continue until I confessed to being an informant. Armed with that confession, which I suspected they would tapes, as proof of my guilt, I would be taken somewhere and shot in the back of the head. Even if I had been entirely innocent the treatment would have been the same. If the IRA thought someone was guilty of an offence against the cause they would be tortured and beaten until they confessed. I always remembered what Felix told me from time to time; ‘Marty, remember. If ever the IRA capture you never tell them you worked for us no matter what hell they out you through. Because if you confess then you’re a dead man. If somehow you can maintain your innocence despite terrible tortures you will at least survive. The IRA will only kill you if you confess.’ And he would usually add, ‘I’m glad you understand the score. I don’t want you to think this job is just a picnic, a little bit of fun to earn a few quid. This is deadly serious. I want you to know that a number of my close friends have been killed by the IRA since the Troubles began. And some of those were true professionals. And those thoughts made me think of Felix and Mo and the other SB handlers I had met. Felix had been like a father to me for years now, advising me, helping and encouraging me, treating me as someone he could trust and whom he had affection for. And yet, as the hours ticked by and I still lay on the sofa, bound hand and foot, I wondered why no rescue attempt had been made. I could not believe that the Special Branch had ‘lost’ me on the journey to Twinbrook. I knew the sophisticated tracking equipment the SB employed for just such an operation; I knew that Felix and his team had tracked me to Connolly House; I knew that they were outside the building, watching everyone who was coming and going. They would have known Chico and Jim; they would have known they were part of an IRA punishment gang; and yet it seemed the SB had permitted two known IRA men to kidnap me and take me away and no attempt had been made to rescue me. Every minute that ticked by I listened for the sound of helicopters, for RUC police car sirens, for the distinctive engine noise of army Land Rovers. But there was nothing. I listened in the hope that an RUC or Army squad would suddenly come crashing into the flat but as the hours passed I realised that a rescue was becoming increasingly unlikely. And yet, and yet, ... I could not understand how the Special Branch had managed to lose the Ford Fiesta. Felix had promised me that everything would be okay but as the day drew on I came to realise that no one was going to rescue me. I was on my own. ‘Shit,’ I thought over and over again. ‘How the fuck am I going to get out of this?’ Remarkably, I didn’t panic. In fact, the more time I remained lying on the sofa, thinking and planning, the more positive I became. Given half a chance, I knew that if Chico or Jim left the flat one more time I would risk all in a stand-up fight with the two remaining men. I checked out the lad and realised that two hard blows to the body and a right cross would send him sprawling if not knock him unconscious. Then it would just be me and either Chico or Jim. I gambled on the fact that they wouldn’t dare use the gun; they would be too scared of their superior officers to risk killing me without permission, or, more importantly, without first gaining a confession. And they had never asked me a single question in the hours we had spent together. To pass the time I thought of the escapades and the incidents I had been involved in working as an agent inside the IRA. I thought of the scrapes and near-misses and the luck I had enjoyed during the four years I had spent working with the Special Branch, saving lives, helping people and doing my bit to end the IRA’s reign of terror in Northern Ireland. I had grown up in the Troubles and my mother Kate had always championed the Nationalist cause. I had seen the way the British Army and the RUC treated the Catholic minority and in my teens I had fought them tooth and nail, doing all in my power to ensure they didn’t catch any Republicans who, I believed, were trying to protect the Catholics from those who were hell-bent on maintaining their authority over us, including the British Army and the RUC, the Protestants and the Orangemen. I had grown up understanding that the Catholics had always been badly treated in Northern Ireland, given a rough deal over jobs; lousy housing; poor schools; and being forced every summer to permit the Orange Orders to march through Catholic areas showing their strength and their authority, guarded throughout by hundreds of baton-wielding RUC men. I had thrown stones at army and RUC patrols, manned burning barricades, thrown petrol bombs and harassed patrols but as I grew older I saw the other face of the IRA. At first I only heard stories of kneecapping and punishment beatings. Then I saw the evidence; young men, some only teenagers, walking on crutches, some bearing the marks of beatings around their head and faces. And I saw the fear in the eyes of young people ordered around by the IRA thugs as though they were little more than scum. The beatings and kneecappings came closer to home; young mates, whom I had been at school with, beaten up and left tied to railings in appalling pain’ the swaggering IRA men behaving as if the Catholics were little more than stooges or puppets whose duty was to serve those privileged to be members of the IRA. And the more appallingly those IRA thugs treated friends and acquaintances of mine the more I thought their behaviour despicable, beneath contempt. Ever since I had been a teenager I accepted the IRA’s argument that their first duty was to defend the Catholic minority of Northern Ireland against the RUC and the Protestants. Far from defending the Catholics it seemed to me the IRA’s first duty was to wound, injure, maim and hurt Catholic teenagers. As a result, the older I became the more their actions angered and frustrated me, driving me away from the Republican cause. I had tried discussing the problem with some Republican friends, young men a few years older than me, and they looked at me as though I was mad, speaking some heresy they didn’t want to hear. Over and over again they told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about but they never answered my questions. So I agreed to work with the RUC, hoping in my innocence to set the record straight, to stop the IRA thugs attacking my friends and the other young Catholics from West Belfast. I felt proud when I prevented a shooting or a bombing, though, in reality, all I did was keep my eyes peeled and watch what was going on before phoning my SB handlers and telling them all I knew. But when I eventually joined the IRA and became a part of their intelligence wing I knew that I was heavily involved in serious intelligence work. Once inside the IRA the information I gathered proved invaluable in stopping people being killed, often indiscriminately. And the more lives I save the more I felt I was indeed carrying out a worthwhile task.

But during those years – from 1987 to 1991 – I also had some fears. I remember that Felix, the handler with whom I had the closest relationship, would on occasions warn me of my fate if ever the IRA suspected I worked for the Branch. But after discussing the shit they would put me through Felix usually ended the conversation by going out of his way to reassure me. ‘Listen, Marty,’ he would say, ‘we will always do all we can to protect you. You can rest assured that we will never put you in jeopardy and if we hear anything about you from any other source we will take you out immediately. I can promise you we will never put you in danger.’ But then I had found myself in August 1991 bound hand and foot and lying on a sofa with three IRA men, at least one of whom was armed, standing guard over me. I thought of all that had happened in the few days before the kidnap when Felix had reassured me time and again that I should go ahead with the planned meeting with Podraig Wilson, head of IRA discipline. Felix knew that I was deeply concerned about the meeting and yet he continued to pressure me to attend. And yet, I remember as I lay there, Felix had never told me why he wanted me to go to that meeting. As I lay on that sofa waiting for the interrogation and frightening torture to begin I would find myself shaking, sweating with fear wondering how I would cope with such treatment. I tried to remain calm but as the minutes ticked by and the day became longer I felt that the IRA were deliberately prolonging my agony. I told myself that I would choose the moment to strike back. If the IRA Civil Administration Team did indeed begin to torture me then I was determined not to go quietly. I had never feared anyone and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I had no idea exactly what I would do but I knew that I would take at least one of the bastards with me. Those very thoughts gave me courage to face the evil fuckers who carry out this dirty work for the IRA. As I heard the radio announce the time was 4 p.m. and realised I had been kidnapped and held for more than six hours I told myself that, somehow, I had to engineer my own escape. Whatever the reason, it seemed to me that the SB were not about to make a dramatic rescue or, indeed, any rescue. For whatever reason, I was on my own. But what the hell to do? I was in a flat three floors above ground and the men guarding me were armed with at least one hand-gun. Then I heard a helicopter overhead and looked up through the net curtains of the living-room window to see a chopper whirring above the block of flats nearby. For a matter of minutes I hoped and prayed that it had come for me and that all my thoughts about being abandoned by the Branch were simply fear playing on my nerves. But minutes later the chopper flew off and my fears returned once more to haunt me. Then I thought I heard what sounded like an English voice shouting ‘shut up’ and convinced myself it was the voice of a soldier with an army foot patrol out searching for me. I also thought I heard the unmistakable engine noise of a Land Rover outside the block but I feared my mind was playing tricks with me for nothing happened and my hopes were dashed once more. I remembered the day I joined the IRA as though it was yesterday. Davy Adams, one of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade intelligence officers whom I had been ferrying around Belfast for 18 months or more, had asked me whether I wanted to join the IRA and, instinctively, I replied, ‘Yes’ with great enthusiasm. I also wondered how my SB handlers would react when I told them of the invitation fir I knew they had wanted me to join the IRA ever since I had started working for the Branch two years earlier. I went by appointment to a house in Andersonstown and the door was answered by a scruffy-looking man in his 30s. ‘I know why you’re here,’ he said. ‘Listen to me carefully. I want you to be sure about what you’re getting involved in. There are lots of people who have joined the IRA for all the wrong reasons. Some have been caught while on active service and have been sentenced to long jail terms up to 25 years. After they have been sentenced they have complained that they didn’t know what they were getting into, and my job is to make sure you don’t make the same mistake. If you want to join Oglaigh nah Eirann [Gaelic for the Irish Republican Army], you have to promise to promote the objects of the organisation and obey all orders and regulations issued by the Army and its officers.’ He then told me to go home and think hard about my decision, warning me that joining the IRA could end in being killed by the SAS or serving a long jail term. As I walked back home that night I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I was now within 24 hours of finding myself between a rock and a hard place – the SB and the IRA – and I feared I would end up as mincemeat. Yet, the following day I returned to the IRA man’s house and felt like a lamb to the slaughter, convinced that I was making the gravest mistake of my life. During the oath-taking ceremony I not only had to swear allegiance to the IRA but the man also took me through a number of Army orders contained in the IRA’s Green Book. I listened with a sickening heart to three particular pledges the man read out; ‘One; No volunteer will succumb to approaches or overtures, blackmail or bribery attempts made by the enemy, and will report such approaches as soon as possible. Two; Volunteers who engage in loose talk will be dismissed. Three; Volunteers found guilty of treason face the death penalty. Those three pledges came to haunt me during the next two years of my secret life. For no apparent reason the worlds would come tumbling back into my mind and I would realise that I was forever within an inch of my life. I knew there would be no second chance; I knew the IRA would blow a hole in the back of my head if they thought, for one moment, I was working for the Special Branch. And yet, somehow, I continued doing my damnedest to save people’s lives, stop bombings and shootings and try to bring some pressure to bear to stop the IRA hit squads from inflicting kneecappings and punishment beatings on high-spirited Catholic teenagers. Some months later I remember I had felt a twinge of excitement the night Davy Adams, the nephew of Gerry Adams, the President of Sinn Fein and the former commander of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA, told me to go to a house in Kerrykeel Gardens in the Suffolk area of Belfast to meet some IRA personnel. I knew I was entering the lion’s den but the idea excited me though I carried no weapons and knew that I would have to survive on my own wits. A freckly faced teenager opened the door and motioned me to go into a downstairs room. Once inside, he told me to sit on the single chair which was facing the wall and wait. Five minutes later I heard some people enter the room and my heart beat faster, but at no time did I even think of turning round. ‘Okay, Marty,’ a voice said. ‘Did Davy tell you why you’re here?’ ‘No,’ I replied. ‘He just told me to come to this address.’ ‘I’ll tell you what it is, Marty,’ the voice continued. ‘We want to know some things about you.’ That remark put the fear of God in me. In that instant I became convinced that my true identity had been rumbled and I wondered what would happen next. I listened instantly for the click of a hand-gun being cocked but heard nothing. After asking a few innocuous questions the voice continued, ‘Marty, tell us, why did you join the IRA?’ I had been briefed by my Special Branch handlers as to how to react if ever asked why I wanted to be part of the organisation. They hadn’t told me anything specific to say, never giving me the exact words to remember, but they said that I should reply that I wanted to serve the cause. ‘I joined because I believe in what the IRA is doing,’ I lied, ‘and so that I can help protect the people in the area where I grew up.’ The two men who had been asking questions wanted to know how I knew Davy Adams and another mate of mine, Harry Fitzsimmons. Then the men trooped out and told me not to move. I feared that I was being watched through a spyhole and never turned round though my heart continued to thump, worrying that I had made a mess of the interview. Ten minutes later they returned. ‘Okay, Marty,’ said the first voice, ‘you can turn round now.’ I recognised the two men who had been questioning me from the Special Branch files I was asked to look through every few days. The man who had asked most of the questions was Spud Murphy. The other face belonged to a man in his 30s, about 5ft 7ins tall, of medium build with a high forehead. I didn’t know his name. Spud then became much more friendly. ‘Now I can tell you why you’re here. I’m sorry you had to face the wall while we questioned you, nut it’s for everyone’s safety. We’re setting up a completely new IRA unit, a new cell, and we have been told a lot about you. We think you would fit in well for what we have planned. Basically, we need people who can get in and out of areas where UDR soldiers and peelers live, where they feel safe from IRA attacks.’ ‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘I’ve been in that position many times; stopped by the army and the peelers, made to show my licence and insurance and things and then told to be on my way.’ ‘Do you want to come in with us then?’ Spud asked, looking directly into my eyes, judging my reaction. ‘Yes, I do,’ I told him. ‘No problem.’ ‘You’re on.’ Spud replied. ‘Now listen. I’ll tell you what I want you to do. I want to put together a new cell and recruit young men who have never been in any kind of trouble, totally unknown to the RUC. I intend to use these recruits to carry out operations where the enemy feel safe; in their own homes.’ At the first meeting of the new cell a week later I searched the faces of all the men present trying to determine if I had ever seen them before while looking through SB files. Except, of course, for Spud, I was sure that I had never seen a single one of them before which I knew would worry my handlers. So I did my damnedest to remember their faces, their height, weight, colour of hair or any feature that would identify them. I knew this new cell would spell real trouble for the SB because the members were unknown to them. I also feared that other new IRA cells, with more unknown recruits, were being assembled. As I went home that night, however, I felt the thrill of actually working with an IRA active service unit, leading a dangerous, secretive life while working for the RUC Special Branch. In that moment of heady enthusiasm I had no fear for my future yet I was risking my very life. However, my initiation into the IRA was not yet complete. I was ordered to attend a meeting in the Turf Lodge area of Belfast where I would become acquainted with a man they called ‘The Interrogator’. Felix advised me to go ahead with the meeting to see what it was all about. As he would tell me time and again, ‘Remember, Marty, the more we know about the IRA, the better equipped we are to stop their bombings and shootings.’ The Interrogator was a balding, well-built man in his 40s with bright intelligent eyes. He told me that if I was ever suspected of being involved in the IRA the RUC could arrest me and hold me for seven days before I was charged or released. He warned that in that time the CID would question me non-stop, taking it in turns to wear me down, trying to catch me out, break me. He warned me, ‘Their intention will be to break your spirit so that you will tell them everything they want to know; details of operations, of bombings, the names of other cell members and even names of your friends and relations. But it will be your duty to tell them nothing, absolutely nothing. And I’m going to tell you how to do that. If you are arrested you will say absolutely nothing and you will never answer any question the CID asks you. You will simply tell the custody sergeant that you will refuse to co-operate but that does not mean that you are guilty.’ At another lecture The Interrogator told me what to expect should I ever be arrested. ‘They will usually come for you early in the morning, while you’re still asleep, sometime around five o’clock. They will bang at your door and invade your house, making a lot of noise. They will try to confuse you, order you to dress quickly and come with them immediately. But you must refuse to do that. You must tell them that you have the right, as you do, to make yourself respectable. Take your time; go to the bathroom and wash and shave, clean your teeth, comb your hair, even splash on some after-shave. And remember to dress properly in a clean shirt, a jacket and a smart pair of trousers. They won’t like it; they will try to hurry you but take no notice; fuck them.’ He continued, ‘The RUC will take you to Castlereagh and put you in a cell. They will leave you there for a few hours before the interrogation officers arrive. The officers will have known the night before that they are going to interview you and will have showered and shaved, eaten a good breakfast and will feel on good form trying to make you second-rate compared to them. But, because you will have followed this advice, you will feel and look as smart and attentive as they do. They won’t like that either. They hope that when they enter the interview room you will look pathetic, unshaven, scruffy and disorientated, putting you at an immediate disadvantage. ‘Remember to tell them nothing. Never answer one of their questions, no matter how many times they ask you. Don’t look down at the floor and never appear nervous or frightened. Always remember to keep your head up and look them straight in the eye as though remembering their exact identity. They will hate that. They will fear that you are trying to remember their faces, seal their identities in your memory so that, one day, you will be able to target them and kill them. They fear you will never forget their faces and that scares the fuck out of them and puts you at an advantage.’ He also told me how to cope with the stress of the interview which, he warned, might continue for days and nights. ‘Exercise, keep fit, walk up and down the cell or the room and keep alert the entire time,’ he advised. ‘Sleep and eat at every opportunity. Whatever food you’re offered. Sit down and eat it and try to enjoy it. It will help you sustain your energy, help you to resist the bastards’ questions. And before any interview starts remember to go to the toilet because, once they begin to question you, they will refuse to let you go to the loo because they know that when anyone wants to go desperately they will say almost anything just so they can go.’ The Interrogator also advised me what to do if the
peelers or the Special Branch started to beat me up. ‘Hit back,’ he said. ‘Give them everything; smash the fuck out of them. Don’t be frightened to hit back, and the harder they hit you, the harder you hit the bastards back again. They know they shouldn’t hot you but they will, especially the nasty, vicious bastards, the hard men who are determined to break you. And if they begin to smack you around while another officer holds you then curl up into a ball on the floor and try to protect your head and face. They’ll probably kick the fuck out of you but then you’ve got them. As soon as they stop demand to see your own doctor. Make sure you give his name and address and keep demanding to see him. That will scare the fucking shit out of them because your doctor will note any marks or injuries you have suffered.’ I was also advised to expect the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine that I had heard about before. He told me the ‘good cop’ would be my friend, advise me to co-operate; the ‘bad cop’ would shout and swear, threaten and hit me. The Interrogator added, ‘You must never show that you are the least bit intimidated or frightened of him because if you do he will break you, and that’s what he wants.’