CHAPTER THIRTY
Had our two-week task hiding in the bush been worth it? I thought so. At the end of the day, it was an achievement for everybody because it was the first time for a very long period that there had been a covert observation post in that particular area. Everything we had worked and trained for had made it successful. Our targets had been an individual and a location – I am not allowed to say who or where. We knew we had provided good information and gave ourselves a pat on the back for that. Even nowadays the guys remember it and when we meet up it dominates our conversation. Some now admit they found it mentally hard but didn’t want to say so at the time for fear of losing face.
In a tiny observation post like that, the only privacy you have is in your own mind. My mind has always been my buffer against the outside world. I’ve always been interested in psychology, and so I have nurtured the ability to have an internal me, in the mind. It meant I was able to deal with whatever situations I came up against in that unusual environment by myself without anyone else being involved and I was able to cope with all the mental problems that resulted from our situation. I know some of the others were struggling with issues in their own lives, but we all came out of it in one piece.
I knew we had left a post that could have been sustainable for a year or even two. I am sometimes asked, ‘Why live like that for so long in those conditions?’ and one of my replies is that by doing so we were gathering information that was saving the lives of others. I know we managed to get intelligence on vehicles, makes and models that were intended to be used later by a terrorist group in a bombing in that area.
The team that followed us into our gorse bush stayed there only five days before they were withdrawn. Meanwhile, after returning to Bessbrook Mill, our base and the centre for counter terrorism operations in South Armagh, we were debriefed and cleaned up. It was two in the morning, but a lot of pals had waited up to speak with us. One of my mates had bought a case of lager so we could enjoy a decent drink and next day I was told to take my team away to Belfast to relax. We took him at his word, went to Banbridge, an old coaching stop on the route from Dublin to Belfast, and drank until we were legless. On the return journey, two of the guys began fighting, one of them biting another in the face, with the inevitable result that he was quietly kicked out of the platoon and replaced.
Back on active duty, we had numerous dealings with men we knew to be players. They got to know our faces and in some cases even our first names.
One of the people I often spoke with at this time was a local farmer, Seán Gearóid Ó hAodha, well known as a member of the IRA Army Council. He and I would try winding one another up. For instance, I’d tell him the word on the street was that the Loyalist fanatic Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright had been talking about him. Wright was the leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force and was killed in a prison van as he moved about the Maze jail in 1997. ‘Billy’s been making threats and you’d better watch what you’re doing,’ I’d joke. His reply would often be, ‘You sure you’ll make it back to base for your tea?’ I’d pretend I didn’t know what he was talking about, and he would say, ‘Look at the signs on the poles.’
As the reputation of the South Armagh Sniper Team grew, notices planted by Republicans would go up on road signs and telephone poles warning they were in the area. These were meant to scare soldiers but had little, if any, effect.
Sometimes I would stop Seán as he was accompanying a member of his family to the ferry for the crossing to Scotland in order to watch Glasgow Celtic playing and that would take my mind back home. But I would always let them go on their way. After a time, I felt I had watched the main players in the area for so long that I knew them better than their own partners. All the same, I knew not to take chances. There were things you learned from others who had sometimes paid a heavy price in order that we could benefit from their experiences.
For instance, you never used normal entrances to fields, as these were favourite hiding places for remotely detonated bombs, nor beaten tracks for the same reasons. We avoided halting at road junctions, became accustomed to climbing fences rather than opening gates. Safety first was drummed into everyone.
My work included providing protection for other members of the security services, who occasionally visited us while carrying out very sensitive intelligence work. There were many rumours flying around at this time about how the homes of well-known terrorists had been bugged as part of the fight against those who indiscriminately killed innocent non-combatants by bomb and gun.
My experience with the gorse bush observation post was put to other uses when I was asked to set up another post to watch the home of a suspected terrorist bomb-making specialist. He lived in a village in South Armagh and intelligence branches wanted a post established about 150 metres from his front door. It was a difficult and dangerous task. There were some major natural obstacles between his home and where the post was intended to be set up, including a river and wooded area. I examined about five potential sites before selecting one. When I checked it out, I was confident that while it might have seemed too close for comfort, there was no way he could see us, while we in turn would be able to watch him. I was asked to attend a meeting with some highly placed individuals from the security services at Aldergrove airport and showed them plans, maps and aerial photographs of the proposed site. There was a considerable amount of discussion before I was asked to leave. When I was recalled after a quarter of an hour, it was to be told the operation was being shelved until further notice. I never heard anything further about it, but much later I did read about the individual I had been going to watch. It was following the terrible Omagh bombing in August 1998, when 29 people were blown apart by a car bomb. It was said to have been planted by members of the Real IRA, yet another splinter group of the Republican Army.
Throughout my South Armagh tour, a ceasefire had been in operation, but the thought of peace was not to the liking of some terrorist groups. In February 1996, the ceasefire was broken when the Provisional IRA planted a huge bomb weighing half a ton in the Docklands area of London. It caused damage estimated at £85 million and, more importantly, and tragically, the deaths of two men who had been working in a newsagent’s shop opposite where the bomb had been left in a lorry. At the time of the explosion, I was working on an intelligence operation in East Tyrone and was immediately recalled to Bessbrook Mill. Everyone was placed on standby for immediate deployment.
Our accommodation was in a secure location within the Mill itself and no one was allowed in without permission from the highest authority. There was considerable activity involving strangers who arrived from London wearing suits; all of us assumed they were part of the security services intelligence-gathering set-up. We were not to know it at the time, but it is widely known now that the vehicle used to carry the bomb had been monitored and filmed heading off towards what would be an appalling incident. In 1998, farm worker James McArdle from Crossmaglen was convicted of conspiracy to cause explosions and sentenced to 25 years in prison. But just a couple of years later he was released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. At the time of the bombing, it was said that there would only be peace in the province if South Armagh members of the Provisional IRA agreed to it and here was evidence to support that view.
As the tour neared its end, it felt as though I hadn’t seen Angie and the kids for an eternity. In fact, it had been virtually ten months, taking into account the tour itself and the two courses preceding it. As those months had passed, I had been hearing less and less from her and was beginning to accept that our marriage was doomed. I didn’t want to convince myself we had reached the end of the road, but the damage was done as far as she was concerned and there might be no regaining the bond that had held us through so many difficult times. If I was to have a chance of saving the marriage, I needed to get back to her – and soon.
When it was announced that an officer wished to see us, I thought, ‘He is coming down to thank us and say well done for all our
hard work.’ But what he had to say shocked and angered me. In future, he said, tours would no longer be of six months’ duration. To allow a proper handover and training to the incoming Close Observation Platoon, which was to be based at Ballykinler in neighbouring County Down, we would need to stay on in South Armagh for up to another month. Well, that hardly went down a treat. I stood up, said, ‘Fuck you,’ kicked over my chair and walked out.
Of course, I stayed on, and have ever since regretted this show of temper, but it was simply a case of a soldier trying to get home to do his bit and, if possible, patch up a breaking marriage. So, it was a further month before I could head back to the beautiful sights of Inverness and my gorgeous wife and children. Sadly, what awaited me was not what I wanted.
As for the guy who had punched me many months earlier, by the time we returned from the tour to South Armagh he thought we were the best of mates. I had accepted his apology, but there was no way I had forgotten what he’d done. One night, one of my relatives had called to see me and we had plotted revenge. The idea was that the relation would wait until the guy took his dog for a walk, then attack him, but when dog-walking time came, the target emerged with his daughter. I knew we couldn’t do anything while the youngster was there – that would have been wholly out of order – so hostilities were suspended, but had there been another chance to get him during the next few days then the opportunity would certainly have been taken. Everyone would have known I was behind the attack, of course, but then there were always rumours linking me to this and that and other un-pleasantries. Then, as time passed, I asked myself what the purpose was to all of it. ‘Leave it and move on,’ I told myself. And I did, but to this day what happened all those years ago is still a sore point. It was the first and only time that I would ever use my family to settle a score with someone who upset me in the army.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
In South Armagh, I had experienced the death of a brother soldier, the fears of friends and threats from terrorists. My own brother had come back from the dead. But nothing compared with the pain of losing Angie.
Within a day of returning to Inverness, I realised it was all over between us. Nothing I could say or do – no apologies, tears, pleadings for reconciliation – could change her mind. Maybe our love had grown stale with time.
Angie had met someone else and wanted a fresh start. The worst part of all of this was knowing I was to blame. She had stood by me through gangland wars, army fights, attempted murder charges; I had drugged her and terrified her, and now I’d lost her. I knew I had to get on with my life. It was no use moping and feeling sorry for myself, even though a voice somewhere was telling me that now there was no future and I may as well kill myself. I had met someone else, too, but we were just friends; I still longed for and craved Angie and that was the truth of it.
Angie and I staggered along for two miserable months and then I transferred to the great army garrison at Colchester in Essex where I met up with some old mates, including Tam Gow. There I had time to think, space in which to move about and discover that absence really did make the heart grow fonder. I sensed that in Inverness Angie too was coming to the same conclusion.
Every couple of months, when the chance came, I’d head back north to see her and the children. She made sure her new partner was nowhere near when I was around and from her reactions during my visits a tiny shoot of hope that there might be a reconciliation began to emerge. Maybe, I thought, our marriage was a casualty of the battles I had fought both in and out of uniform and, given time, it would recover. Deep down, I was sure we would end up back together because we were the ultimate soulmates who had just lost our way.
While we remained apart, my career began to take a nosedive. It staggered through a haze of drink, late nights and parties until my lifestyle became a talking point. There were those around me who doubted my ability to emerge with my sanity. Some officers were becoming concerned that I was on the verge of becoming a welfare case, a basket case, as we call it, and would openly voice their opinions and concerns about my and Angie’s marital situation.
I was saved by my friends: Frankie, Stevie, Tam Gow and Colin all stuck by me, even when I contemplated suicide. They were friends then and remain so to this day. The odds on my new relationship becoming serious were long to begin with, and lengthened with each slip of the tongue when I found myself calling her Angie. During one of my trips to Inverness, I told Angie I was thinking of leaving the army once again and starting a new life in Glasgow. She knew that meant a return to gangland, and probably prison, and talked me out of what was a reckless idea.
‘Alex, there’s nothing for you in Glasgow but trouble,’ she warned. ‘Why sacrifice a career into which you’ve invested so much of your life. You have lots to offer the army. Stick with it.’
I reached the nadir of despair around Christmas 1997 when I rejoined my family in Inverness. One of my friends had gone with me because he was worried about my state of mind and was the type of guy who was always there for me if I needed someone to rely on. After a few days, Angie asked me to leave, saying she was finding my presence too difficult to handle because the children continually asked me to stay while the pressure of the break-up was depressing her. I spent New Year with my mum in Glasgow. She could see I was in a mess. When you reach those depths of hopelessness, nothing anyone says or does succeeds in giving you the lift you need. Only you, yourself, can provide that.
Just as all seemed lost, I realised those seeds of hope had continued to grow. Danielle’s birthday falls on Valentine’s Day, 14 February, and two days later is my birthday and our wedding anniversary. I planned to surprise Danielle by turning up for her birthday. Only Angie was in on this. Catching the sleeper train from London to Inverness, I arrived early on Saturday morning. I couldn’t know it, but this day was to be a turning point for the family.
By now, I had accepted that it was all over between us, and I believe Angie could see that too in the way I acted around her. Later in the day, we set off for a meal and a few drinks. It was then that Angie began crying.
‘Alex, I’ve made a mistake,’ she sobbed. ‘Shouldn’t we think about starting again?’
Her words brought me to tears. I began blurting out that I had made so many mistakes.
The kids began crying, too. Within five minutes, Angie and I had our problems resolved. We agreed to tell our current partners that we were getting back together and she would move to Colchester to be with me. We talked over how we would deal with all the idle chit-chat and gossip when we got there. It was a wonderful moment for us, but I cannot forget that two very good people were also hurt because of Angie and me.
I wasn’t going to kid myself. Angie wanted a reconciliation for the sake of the children – but I was sure that as time passed she would fall in love with me again. I knew I would never again let her go.
Within two weeks, we were together in married quarters in Essex and I can honestly say that this was the point in my life where once and for all I completely changed for the better and refocused as a husband, soldier and father. Of course, there would be hurdles ahead, but we would deal with those together as they came along. What mattered was that I trusted Angie and she trusted me.
Maybe splitting up for a time did both of us good. We had been with each other since we were young, too young perhaps, and had begun taking one another for granted. Being apart taught us a lot about ourselves. It was like testing the temperature of the water before going into the sea. Once we had been there and tried it, we realised it would never happen again. We have never looked back.
Within a month of the reunion, I was off once again to Northern Ireland, this time to Fermanagh. The county, in the west of the province, had suffered its share of heartache and tragedy during the troubles. Men from all sides of the disputes – soldiers, policemen, Provos, Loyalists and civilians – had died, the worst atrocity being the Remembrance Day bombing at Enniskillen. By now, things had calmed and, remembering the dramas of South Armagh
, I almost wondered what the point was of us being in Fermanagh. My frustration wasn’t helped by knowing I needed more time with Angie to cement our relationship.
I was confident we had resolved our problems, but then the man she had dated travelled twice to Colchester in an effort to persuade her to change her mind and return to Inverness to be with him. Angie told me about these visits as they happened. The news left me feeling unhappy, sad and lost, but I was thankful for her honesty and her promises to stick with me. There are, and always will be, problems in every marriage, but we showed that with hard work these can be overcome. We have never hidden what happened and still speak openly about it to family and friends. We learned to be open and honest with one another, never to take each other for granted. I knew then, and I know now, that I truly want to be with Angie for the rest of my life. But still I feel guilty for all the crap I put her and the kids through.
About three months into the Fermanagh tour, a major who had always had a soft spot for me decided I should transfer to his company and at the earliest opportunity return to Brecon to complete the Platoon Sergeants Battle Course, one phase of which I had earlier failed. The officer ordered me to spend the next three months preparing so I was ready to join it in January 1998. Knowing its importance, I threw myself into this and managed to reach a stage where I was physically and mentally the fittest that I had ever been in my time in the forces. This lifted my confidence sky high. I just knew I was on the up and nothing would stop me advancing my career.
The Underworld Captain: From Gangland Goodfella To Army Officer Page 25