by Kevin Fulton
‘Where’s my proper hearing? You can’t just do this. You can’t kangaroo me. I demand a proper hearing. You fucking cunts …’
Then fresh air hit me, cold, dirty concrete beneath my bare feet. A van engine rattled near by, wafting diesel fumes across the cool night air. Christ, I thought, where are they taking me? Maybe they weren’t joking about that soldier in Crossmaglen. What the fuck will I do if they ask me to shoot a British soldier?
Next to me, I heard whimpering. It was Adam. I felt another surge of indignation. I felt the courage that only those who have nothing left to lose can feel. ‘Stay fucking strong, Adam,’ I shouted. ‘Don’t give the fuckers the satisfaction.’
‘Get down on your knees,’ a voice shouted, blows raining in on the backs of my knees, ‘say an act of contrition.’
‘Which road do you want to close?’ said another voice.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Where do you want us to dump your body?’
‘Ah, fuck off,’ I said, anger sustaining me, not letting in the fear.
Fuck, this is it, I thought. I can’t fucking believe it. I whispered an act of contrition and I really meant it. I was halfway through a Hail Mary when this huge bang sounded. I must have jumped a foot in the air again.
‘You’re next,’ a voice spat in my ear, but I knew what I had heard wasn’t a gunshot. It was more like someone hitting a barrel with a lump of steel. I stopped bracing myself and let my anger boil over.
‘Who the fuck do you think you’re dealing with?’ I shouted. ‘Think I’m scared of this? Go fuck yourselves. I’ll be having words with some people. You won’t get away with doing this to me!’
Next thing I was being manhandled again. Back up the stairs we shuffled, that hand still feeling my legs. ‘Fuck off, you fucking bent bastard,’ I yelled in that general direction.
I was dumped on the floor like a refuse sack. The adhesive tape was ripped from my eyes. I saw Adam on the floor next to me. All around us, five hooded men started laughing. In the middle of them, unhooded and looking like he had just been told a good one, smiled the man from the bar. I smelled piss and saw poor old Adam’s wet leg. So that’s why they kept feeling my leg – to see if I had pissed myself too. I wasn’t feeling in the least bit amused.
‘Very fucking funny,’ I said. ‘I’ll be talking to people about this.’
That seemed to make them laugh harder.
Suddenly, two mugs of tea appeared.
‘Look, we have to do this. If you’re still interested, come up and see me in a couple of weeks.’
Off they went, laughing and chatting as if they’d just left a good restaurant. Myself and Adam dressed in total silence, our backs to each other, shared shame surrounding us in a deafening silence.
I left Erin Nua first, got into my car and roared off, vowing never again to set foot in Dundalk.
I stopped at a phone box near Newry and rang my handlers.
‘That’s fucking brilliant,’ said Andy on hearing of my humiliation. ‘You’re in. Just wait a few weeks and go back.’
‘No way, José,’ I said. ‘There’s no way I’m going back there. No way on this earth.’
‘What are you talking about, Kevin?’ asked Andy. ‘You’ve cracked it. You’re in.’
‘Listen, I thought my number was up, Andy,’ I said angrily. ‘I’m not going back. I’m giving this whole thing up.’
‘You’ve got this far, Kevin. You can’t just give up now.’
‘I thought I was going to be killed!’
‘They were just testing you. You passed. This is what we’ve been working to for three years.’
‘Go fuck yourselves,’ I shouted, and hung up.
Right, I thought. Time to get a proper job.
CHAPTER THREE
In 1984, at the age of twenty-two, I was back in the meat factory for my second stint of misery. It was a job and I needed the money, especially now that I had new commitments.
I married my wife in March of that year. She’s a Newry girl – her older brother used to hang about with my older brother – and we’re still together now. Looking back, we had both lived sheltered lives. The little semi-detached home we bought on the Armagh Road represented the summit of our ambitions. If only our lives had remained that humdrum.
I fed my wife the same stories that I did my own parents and siblings and friends. As far as she was concerned, I had been booted out of the British army and now I ran around Newry with people known to be associated with the IRA. I was living a lie with my new wife, but I felt no shame. In fact, I prided myself on not telling her the truth. By doing so, I was protecting her. As long as she didn’t know the truth about my work as a double agent, she couldn’t be interrogated about it if my cover was blown. She didn’t know anything, so she couldn’t tell anybody anything and they would have to leave her alone. Letting her in on my secret life would simply put her in grave danger. She suspected nothing. Why should she?
Despite my humiliation in Dundalk, I still felt part of the IRA circle in Newry. I continued frequenting the usual bar and the Irish nights, and hanging about with known IRA sympathisers. Local RUC officers considered me ‘IRA scum’. They reminded me of this fact every time I was subjected to one of their stop and searches, which happened two to three times a week, every week.
Of course, I continued meeting Andy and Gerry on Wednesdays, where I would relay the latest gossip. They continued paying me my weekly army wage, but something had changed irrevocably. On one key matter, we were deadlocked.
I refused to go back to Dundalk. Andy and Gerry couldn’t hide their frustration. As far as they were concerned, I had done the hard work. Clearly, the merry hooded men had no proof that I was a double agent working for British intelligence. If they had, I would be dead. They were testing me, and I had passed that test. All I had to do was go back to see him and I would be in.
Their assessment was probably correct, but it didn’t account for the fact that I was too scared to go back to Dundalk. Nor did it account for the fact that, privately, I was starting to doubt whether I was cut out for this work. The Dundalk incident seemed to me an apocryphal vision of what would happen if my cover as a secret agent was ever blown. All it would take would be one small mistake, one quirk of outrageous bad luck, and I would be on my knees in some grimy yard, saying an act of contrition and choosing which road to close. It was all very well Andy and Gerry telling me they could protect me, but what Dundalk had taught me was that, if I did infiltrate the IRA, I would be very much on my own. I would have to survive largely on my own wits, a far cry from the military life I was used to where I simply followed orders, where I enjoyed the security of being one of a vast number, where even war was a simple premise – us against them. This new life would be far more solitary, far more complicated. It would be so much harder to see the angles, to see what was going on.
The Dundalk incident made me feel vulnerable. In this nether world of intrigue and shadow, was I hopelessly out of my depth? If so, surely it was only a matter of time before I was found out by the IRA, probably tortured for information for a few days, then executed. The words of my military intelligence mentor in Berlin haunted my new recurring nightmare: ‘If you’re found dead in a ditch, we won’t claim you. There are no medals for this work. You’ll die an IRA man.’
I was twenty-two years old and recently married. I didn’t fancy dying just yet. Gerry and Andy must have sensed my fragile state at this time, for they accepted my decision not to go back with good grace. ‘We’d never make you do anything you didn’t want to,’ they always said.
So I stuck with Newry. I felt safe there. It was my home town. I knew the people and they knew me. I could see the angles. Perhaps another chance to get inside the Provisional IRA would present itself in Newry. No matter, I wasn’t going back to Dundalk.
And so I carried on feeding tittle-tattle to Andy and Gerry, and picking up my weekly wage. Soon I started once more to feel guilty about taking the money.
Clearly, my handlers weren’t getting value for money. As the end of 1984 approached, guilt and worry gnawed away at me about our arrangement. I felt worried because I was convinced I would be dropped any day by military intelligence. If so, what would I do? Going back into the British army would mean leaving Northern Ireland, and my wife did not want to do that. The slaughterhouse represented my solitary employment prospects in Newry. Besides, I felt guilty because I was a British soldier and I was letting my side down. I had a glorious chance of getting into the IRA in Dundalk, but cowardice had got the better of me. Four years on, I was no closer to achieving the very thing I’d been recruited to do – to join the Provisional IRA.
My attempt to join had resulted in ridicule and humiliation. So I decided I needed to do something to gain credibility amongst senior IRA figures, to show how useful I could be to them. Something to show my bottle, my nerve, my enterprise. I needed to show the IRA that I had balls. I needed to approach them with some sort of a moneymaking plan.
The idea literally knocked on my door.
To supplement my unofficial army wage packet, our home offered bed and breakfast accommodation. One of the regular visitors was a girl who I’ll call Claire who was a real livewire. It didn’t take her long to twig that I was ducking and diving with some of Newry’s shadier characters rather than earning an honest living. Claire had an idea.
Her boyfriend, who I’ll call Michael, was a lorry driver. He regularly drove lucrative loads of electrical goods to Northern Ireland from the continent. In February 1985, he was due to disembark from a ferry in Belfast with a lorry load of Mitsubishi Blue Diamond TVs and video cassette players worth about £100,000. Claire wanted to know if I would be interested in arranging for his lorry to be hijacked, in return for a cut of the profit.
I told her I’d think about it.
‘This could really put you on the map,’ said Gerry.
‘It’s perfect,’ said Andy.
It did seem perfect. So perfect that I dragged two of my brothers in on the plan. However, I needed heavyweight assistance to carry off such a heist. I needed someone who could drive a large lorry and trailer. I needed somewhere to store such a voluminous bounty. Michael and Claire wanted five grand. I needed someone who could cough up five grand in cash.
Where else would I go but to the Provisional IRA?
I told my Republican contact at the IRA hangout bar about the plan. He duly reported it to his contacts within the IRA. A few days later, they generously proposed an 80/20 split – in their favour. They would supply a qualified lorry driver and somewhere to store the booty. All we had to do was a) get the lorry to stop, b) take the driver away so that their man could get into the cab and drive the load to the secret location, and c) keep our mouths shut. What could possibly go wrong?
That crisp February morning, the lorry pulled up as planned on Corporation Road, on the way out of Belfast docks. Michael hopped out, to be replaced in the cab by Dermot, a professional lorry driver and criminal from Dundalk. Dermot drove off, while Michael joined me and my brother in a hire car. We gave Michael a three-hour tour of Belfast, then dropped him off near a police station. His story was a simple one – a masked man jumped out in front of the lorry, pointed a gun at the windscreen and forced him to stop. Another masked man opened the door to his cab and ordered him out at gunpoint. A third masked man sat in the driving seat of a car behind the lorry. Michael was shoved into the boot, driven round for what seemed like about three hours, ordered out of the boot at gunpoint, given a few slaps and ordered to lie on the side of the road. He waited until the car had driven off, got up and found the police station. What could be simpler?
Dermot took to the narrow country roads around Lough Neagh with his forty-foot lorry and trailer, and duly got stuck in a drain. The lorry, trailer and a hundred grand’s worth of TVs and VHS players had to be abandoned.
Back in Belfast, the RUC immediately assumed it was an inside job. Michael was hauled to the notorious interrogation centre in Castlereagh. He cracked like an egg, spilling every last detail about the pre-arranged hijack, fingering me as the ringleader.
That afternoon, my brothers were picked up by the RUC. Simultaneously, a unit called at my home. Refusing to believe that I had gone away for the day, the officers elected to wait for me. When I rang later, my wife had the presence of mind to tell me in code that the police were there at the house. I realised straight away that Michael must have blabbed. The question was, what had he told the RUC? What if he had told them about the IRA’s involvement? As ringleader, that would link me directly to the Provies. Armed with this knowledge, wouldn’t the RUC just love to get hold of me? God knows what confessions they’d batter out of me. Then there were the Provos, undoubtedly furious that I had roped them into this sorry caper. God knows what they would do to me when they found out. As each horror scenario outflanked the last, I settled on one snap decision: to make a run for it.
For someone in this predicament, there was only one place to go. That evening, I went on the trot to Dundalk. I didn’t bother seeking out any of El Paso’s fugitives. Instead, I lay low at a farm belonging to an aunt.
I knew I was in the shit. What I didn’t know was how deeply I had been dropped in it. Once again, I couldn’t see the angles. I decided to ring Andy and Gerry. Perhaps they could get me out of this mess. After all, they had sure helped get me into it.
Of course, Starsky and Hutch had the inside track. They had ‘contacts’ in the RUC who had put them in the picture.
‘Can’t you do something?’ I demanded. ‘I was working for the British government, after all. Can’t you talk to someone in the RUC, get the charges dropped?’
‘We do that and people start asking why,’ said Andy. ‘It would blow your cover and you don’t want that.’
‘No,’ I agreed.
‘I honestly think you should come back and hand yourself in,’ said Andy. ‘Just come back and ride it out. You’ve no previous convictions. You’ll probably get a suspended sentence and a fine. We’d pay it for you. When you think about it, this is a great opportunity, really …’
I was thinking hard, but still not seeing any great opportunities.
Andy carried on. ‘The driver, Michael, the one who’s talking, he’s told the RUC that he thinks the IRA was involved, but he can’t say for certain. He says he only dealt with you.’
‘Well, that much is true. He did only deal with me.’
‘Exactly,’ said Andy. ‘You come back, hand yourself in, and the IRA will be watching closely to see if you crack under pressure and start naming names. The RUC isn’t interested in you, after all. But they’d give you a hell of a good deal if you started naming IRA people. If you don’t name any names, the IRA will be impressed. Seriously impressed.’
Of course, he was right. Once again, my handlers had all the answers. Not for the first time, I marvelled at their ability to turn unforeseen circumstances to their advantage. A more cynical person than me might have been suspicious. After all, Andy and Gerry had ‘contacts’ in the RUC. The RUC was very quick to suspect an inside job. Now I was about to hand myself in – which suited them far more than it suited me.
However, I knew that, if I got the wrong judge on the wrong day, I could end up in the notorious Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast. ‘You’re not the first agent this has happened to,’ said Andy. ‘Look, we’ve people in prison doing time right now and they’re agents. They will not break their cover, and serving time gives them credibility.’
Well, I couldn’t stay on the trot forever. Next morning, I walked into the RUC station in Newry.
Local officers couldn’t contain their glee. ‘Another murdering dog on the way to the Crumlin Road,’ said the duty sergeant as he led me across the heavily fortified yard to a heavily fortified van.
I was driven to Musgrave Street Police Station in Belfast. I made a statement naming only those who had already been arrested. I insisted the robbery had nothing to do with the IRA. The terrorism charges were dro
pped and I was released on bail, charged with theft. I had to answer bail at Newry RUC station every Friday. This would normally have presented no significant challenge to me, but that all changed a fortnight later.
It was about a quarter to seven on a Thursday evening, 28 February 1985, when a series of massive booms ripped through the valley. Cups in our kitchen were still rattling when news of a mortar attack on Newry RUC station came through on the radio.
Piecemeal, the vast scale of the atrocity was revealed. There were believed to be fatalities; the IRA was claiming responsibility; the number of deaths was high because many officers were housed in temporary accommodation; nine RUC officers were dead; two of the dead were women; thirty more were injured, some seriously; it was the single greatest loss of life for the RUC in a single incident.
I knew I had to answer bail at the RUC station the very next day. I felt sick at the prospect of facing them. They would look at me as if I’d set the mortars off myself. How could they know that I was really on their side? Such was the level of mistrust between the agencies that military intelligence would never let the RUC know that I was a double agent, that I was on their side, risking my life to try and save their lives. I went early, wanting to get it over with.
The desk duty officer looked up and shivered with revulsion at the sight of me. ‘What the fuck are you doing in here?’ he spat.
The shouts started behind him. ‘Get that murdering fuck out … murdering bastard … IRA scum … you proud of yourself this morning, eh?’
The abuse soon melded into one vicious torrent of hatred. I was mortified.
From that day on, I got stopped and searched two or three times every day. I returned to the RUC station each Friday to a torrent of filth. Each week, it got more personal, stuff about my family, my wife. I started bringing someone with me to the station, in case it boiled over.