Fifty Dead Men Walking

by McGartland, Martin

  I respected Felix for saying that for it showed me that protecting me had become more important than arresting one of the IRA’s top bomb-makers.

  A few weeks later, I was chatting to Tony about another project. He told me, ‘Hey, Marty, did you hear about the Larne job?’

  ‘No, why?’ I asked.

  ‘It seems the bastards were only using the Larne ferry for a short while, because they don’t go there anymore. We had the gear already, the mix prepared and packed in the caravan. As usual, before an operation we took a last look one Saturday afternoon and there were no army trucks to be seen. I don’t think they’ve used the port since.’

  ‘That’s surprising,’ I said, ‘from what the lad told me.’

  ‘I was devastated when I heard there were no more trucks,’ he said. ‘I thought that job was too good to be true.’

  The more time I spent with the IRA, the less I was seeing of Angie and Martin. Angie would be out of bed early in the morning taking care of Martin, and I would awake most mornings at around eight o’clock. I never bothered with breakfast or even a cup of tea, but would leave the flat for a meeting with either the IRA or the Branch. For a young man who was permanently on the dole, I must have been one of the busiest lads in the entire Province!

  It seemed that I hardly had any time for myself, let alone Angie and Martin, and that concerned me. Our relationship was still strong and I loved being with her. When we were together we still laughed and joked and our love life was still great.

  Most of the time, including weekends, I would hardly ever return home during the hours of daylight. And I would never eat at home, not even on Saturdays and Sundays. I would usually grab a bite to eat in the cafes around Belfast or simply eat a couple of sandwiches on the hoof. I would try to return home each evening at about 6.00pm to relax with Angie, watching TV or lying around with her on the settee. But I was serving two masters and both were becoming increasingly demanding. If they wanted to see me, no matter if it was day or night, I could not say no, but would have to leave whatever I was doing and report in.

  Time and again Angie would ask whether there was any chance of me doing less running around. She complained that I hardly ever played with Martin, or fed or cuddled him. As I would feel guilty about not seeing either Angie or Martin I would salve my conscience by giving Angie loads of money. I would hand her perhaps £100 or £200 a time to go out and buy clothes for Martin and herself or toys.

  I didn’t realise it at the time, but that would be a big mistake, for Angie wondered how a young man on the dole had access to so much money. Her mother would also ask Angie where I was getting all the money, for she would often accompany Angie on her shopping sprees and would see the amount of money I had given Angie to spend. They had always been close and their relationship strengthened after Martin’s arrival.

  When I felt guilty about neglecting Angie and Martin, I would spend more time with them for a while until the pressure mounted once again and I would be flying around Belfast, attending meetings all over the place, checking out possible IRA operations, running Davy Adams around the city and making sure I had time enough to brief my handlers.

  On one occasion, I took Angie down south across the border to the Republic and stopped in a little café for a meal and we went for a walk together. On the way back, we stopped at a toy shop just north of the border and I bought a child’s swing and see-saw set which came in a large pack. We had no garden, but Angie fell in love with it and, as she had applied for a council house, she hoped the swing might bring her luck.

  On another occasion, I returned home to find Angie in tears. She told me that he elder brother, Thomas, had been horrifically beaten by an IRA punishment squad for simply joy-riding. They had left him semi-conscious in a deep hole so badly crippled that he could not climb out to get assistance. He was fortunate to survive.

  The beating of Tommy angered and frustrated me. I was angry that some pathetic IRA men could beat a young Catholic boy for simply driving around in stolen cars, and was frustrated that I could do nothing to avenge him. Angie behaved brilliantly, handling the situation with great maturity. She knew that I was involved in the IRA, and yet she never asked me if I could find his attackers or do anything to have them punished in return. All this despite the fact that she had always been close to her brother, who had been her protector and friend when they were growing up together. Their mother, who had separated, brought them up alone and determined that they should remain a close-knit family.

  I would never forget what those bastards in the punishment squad had done to Tommy. I kept my silence, however, determined to wait until an opportunity arose for me to tackle them and, if possible, take revenge on the cowards.

  I decided that it would be impossible for me, given my position inside the IRA, to organise for the bastards to be given a bloody good beating. But I was determined to get even with the evil thugs.

  A year later, I was driving through the Ballymurphy Estate when I saw one of the bastards who had beaten Tommy walking into a house. During the 12 months since his beating, Tommy was never far from my mind. And yet I was also angry at the senior Republicans, men whom I respected, who could apparently permit such awful beatings. The time had arrived for me to get my own back.

  With revenge in my heart, I phoned the Special Branch and told them that they should search the man’s address within hours because I had seen him carrying a hold-all into the house. Because of my position as an agent, I had no need to give any reason why a search should be implemented immediately but the intimation was that he was carrying weapons.

  Within an hour I saw a large number of RUC personnel and the Army descend on the street, surround the man’s house and begin a room by room search of the premises while the man was held in the house. Six or seven hours later, after tearing up the floor boards, pulling down the ceilings and smashing the walls in their determination to find arms or explosives, the search was called off. Nothing had been discovered.

  It did not surprise me one jot for the man was carrying nothing when I saw him. I knew it was wrong for me to abuse my position, but I simply could not resist the temptation of giving this bastard a taste of his own medicine. He may not have received a beating, but his house had been trashed.

  The next time I met Felix and Mo I broached the matter.

  ‘Hard luck, Marty,’ Felix said, ‘there was nothing in that house. You’re usually a hundred per cent with your intelligence.’

  ‘I know,’ I replied, and I could not stop laughing.

  ‘What are you up to, Marty, you little cunt,’ said Felix. ‘When you laugh like that, I know you’re up to something. Come on, what is it?’

  ‘Felix, mate,’ I replied, ‘if you had found something in that house it would have been a fucking miracle,’ and I burst out laughing again.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘Do you remember I told you about the bastards who beat Angie’s brother?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘about a year ago?’

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Well that person’s house you searched the other day was one of the bastards who beat him.’

  They both roared with laughter. ‘God, Marty,’ he said, ‘I have to hand it to you; you never forget a thing.’

  ‘Listen, Marty,’ Felix said, ‘do you still want to get even with them?’

  ‘Of course I fuckin’ do. It still upsets Angie and I’m not going to rest until I get those bastards put behind bars.’

  ‘Marty,’ Felix said, ‘give me their names will you and I’ll see what can be done.’

  Happily I gave their names and addresses and wondered what would happen. Sometime later, an IRA friend of mine, named Jimmy, who also despised the punishment squads, called me over as we were having a drink in a republican club. More than a year before I had explained to Jimmy that I knew the names of four of the men who were involved in some way in Tommy’s beating.

  ‘Did you hear what happened to your mates?’ Jimmy asked.

  �
��Who are you talking about?’ I asked.

  ‘Some of the punishment squad,’ he replied.

  ‘Why, what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Three of them were stopped by the DMSUs the other night as they were driving through the estate. They got into a bit of an argument with the RUC officers. They were arrested and given a bit of a hiding at the same time.’

  As I drank my glass of Coke I couldn’t hide a smile, for I realised that the hiding they received bore the hallmark of one of Felix’s little ‘behind the scenes’ operations. He had kept his word. It appeared to me that the IRA were stepping up their campaign of violence, because I became even busier throughout 1990. They appeared to stop targeting major populated areas or destroying shops in Belfast and other major towns in Northern Ireland, preferring to concentrate on taking out RUC men and soldiers with booby-trap car bombs.

  The IRA’s intelligence unit had one of their men working full-time as a taxi driver and he would frequently pick up soldiers from Palace Barracks, Holywood, to take them out to clubs and pubs in Belfast City Centre. No one would have known that these lads were soldiers, for they always wore civvies and were permitted to wear their hair quite long so that they would not be conspicuous with an army-style short-back-and-sides.

  The driver got to know some of the soldiers quite well and would sometimes take them to Belfast City Airport when they were going home on leave. At other times, he drove soldiers to Larne to catch the ferry.

  The taxi driver reported back that most Friday evenings he would drop four or five paratroopers at one particular spot near Belfast City Centre and they would then walk 50 yards down a narrow lane to one of their favourite pubs. Down one side of the lane was a building site. I was detailed to reconnoitre the site to see if an attack could be made against the paras. It was decided that the only possible method would be for an IRA man to climb the scaffolding overlooking the narrow lane and drop a large, spring-loaded sweet jar packed with Semtex, which would explode on impact. The bomb officer predicted that the resulting blast would kill or maim most of the soldiers.

  Having checked out the operation it seemed to me that it would be quite easy for an IRA unit to carry out the attack. I passed all the information to the Branch and, as a result, British Army commanders declared a number of Belfast city pubs and clubs out of bounds for a while.

  I had no idea at that time that a taxi driver had been responsible for targeting the soldiers. It would be nearly a year later when I discovered the identity of the IRA man responsible, and immediately informed my controllers. The taxi driver was arrested.

  In August, 1990, Harry Fitzsimmons asked me to travel with him to Gilford, a pretty village in County Down, to check out an RUC constable who parked his red Fiat Regata outside his home each night. The car was parked behind a row of terraced houses off Stanmore Road on the outskirts of the village.

  After Fitzy and I checked out the location, it seemed a straightforward operation. Fitzy would have no problem attaching a booby trap bomb under the car one night. Another man, John McFadden, would also be involved in the operation.

  I notified Felix of the plan and he asked me to pick him up and take him to the Gilford house. After checking the house, he told me to go ahead but to keep him updated at every stage.

  On Wednesday, 29 August, I drove the booby-trapped bomb – 1.5lb of Semtex – having been informed by Felix that the road I would use between Belfast and Gilford would be free of check points at that hour. I was still desperately worried that I might be stopped by an RUC or army patrol or, even worse, that the bomb might explode prematurely. Having left the bomb in a pre-arranged spot, I knew that Harry and his mate John would take over, fix the booby trap, and drive away.

  I knew that the Branch had moved the man and his family out of the house earlier that day, and had stationed their own armed men inside, in case of trouble.

  Early the following morning, I turned on the radio to hear the news on Downtown Radio which reported that a bomb had been discovered under and RUC’s man’s car in the village of Gilford.

  Later that morning, I went round to see Harry, to commiserate with him for the failed operation. He was drinking a cup of tea.

  ‘I’m fucking depressed,’ he said. ‘All that work and the fucker goes and finds the charge. I could have sworn that we were told that he never checked his car.’

  After a few minutes, I left Harry and went for a pre-arranged meeting with Felix. He was happy at how well the operation had gone. I was happy that the Special Branch had kept their word and had not arrested Harry. It also meant, of course, that no suspicion would fall on me.

  About two months later, Harry, John and I were given another job to carry out by IRA intelligence, placing a booby-trap bomb under a Black Mark 3 Ford Fiesta 1.6S, which was parked in the loading bay at Carryduff Shopping Centre, in the south of Belfast. The car was owned by a member of the Security forces.

  I told Felix about the planned operation, and, after checking with senior officers, he told me to let the operation go ahead.

  The plan was for John and Harry to place the bomb under the car while I would stand at the entrance to the loading bay with a 9mm Browning, keeping watch for any RUC or army patrols. As John was lying under the side of the car the alarm suddenly went off. Shocked, John automatically jerked his head, cracking his skull on the underside of the vehicle. The three of us walked away from the bay, climbed into the car and drove off.

  The following day, Felix told me they had deliberately set off the alarm as they watched the operation from a vantage point not far from the vehicle. They had also videoed the entire operation. The next day I read about the incident in the Belfast Telegraph, which reported that the device, containing 1.5lb of Semtex had been defused by army bomb experts. Sadly, however, the article went on to report that in another IRA operation, a 42-year-old, part-time member of the UDR, Albert Cooper, had been killed by a booby-trap bomb in Cookstown. When I read of such cowardly killings it made me realise that I was indeed carrying out vital work. When I thought of the people whose lives we were saving, I felt happy that I was working with the Special Branch.

  But Harry Fitzsimmons’ days as an IRA bomber would soon come to an end.

  On the morning of Monday, 3 December 1990, Harry and his IRA mate, John McFadden, were arrested by the RUC in a rear attic bedroom of a house in Brookvale Street, north Belfast. The two men were discovered kneeling on the floor. Next to them was a white plastic bag containing gloves and a torch. In a bedroom opposite, police found a quantity of Semtex explosive, a timer power unit and magnets, all of which were neatly laid out.

  In the roof-space, police also found another plastic bag containing a nearly-completed under-car explosive device, a 9mm Browning, ammunition, detonators and adhesive tape.

  The day before, I had arranged to meet Harry and given him the 9mm Browning, an under-car booby trap he asked me to supply for a planned operation. He must have been followed by an RUC surveillance team from the moment I handed over the gear. I had no idea that the RUC were targeting Harry, for I believed that no decision had yet been made to arrest him.

  I only discovered that Harry had been arrested when I called at his house later that day. I was sitting chatting to his wife Charlene when an RUC Land Rover pulled up and an Inspector knocked at the door.

  He walked into the house and told Charlene, ‘Your husband has been arrested.’

  She asked why, but the Inspector would not say. He asked who else lived in the house and demanded my name and address.

  I was furious. The Special Branch, my mates, had told me that Harry Fitzsimmons would not be arrested and yet he had been. At a meeting with Felix the following day, I said, ‘I’m not happy with Harry being picked up.’

  Felix replied, ‘Listen, Marty. That had nothing to do with us or with you.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ I said. ‘I just told you only two days ago that I was giving him that stuff and, surprise, surprise, he gets arrested.’

  Feli
x said, ‘Marty, there are other people targeting IRA suspects as well as you. The information that got Harry Fitzsimmons came from someone else at the other side of Belfast.’

  ‘I don’t believe a word you’re telling me,’ I said. ‘Of course you knew what the fuck was going on. If you’re going to start telling me lies, I’m going to stop working for you, because I won’t have any trust in you.’

  ‘Listen, Marty …’ he began, but I wouldn’t let him finish the sentence.

  ‘If I’m prepared to put my life on the line for you people, the least you can do is tell me the truth. I live among these people, I’m a member of the IRA only because you want me to be, not because I want to be. I haven’t got a gun under my pillow every night like you fellas.’

  Felix and Mo could see that I was deeply angry at what had happened. But I also wanted them to see things in perspective, to see things from my point of view.

  ‘It doesn’t matter to me what the fuck Harry Fitzy does with his life,’ I shouted, ‘but I don’t want to be held responsible for him getting arrested.’

  After I had vented my fury, Felix tried to calm me down. ‘Marty, there’s an old saying which I agree with one hundred per cent; never bite the hand that feeds you. I would not do anything to expose you or harm you in anyway. I’ve known you for three years, you little cunt, and I’ve got to like you. I can promise you that we had nothing whatsoever to do with his arrest.’

  That day I left the meeting feeling unhappy and depressed and not sure whether Felix and Mo were, on this occasion, telling me the truth. I wondered if the decision to arrest Fitzy had been taken by a superior officer and out of Felix’s control. I had no idea whether Felix was telling me the truth but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I understood that there would be other agents working for the SB who would also come across vital information. I decided to forget the matter but to make sure that I would take even greater care what intelligence I passed on in future.

  In December 1990, Davy Adams introduced me to a close friend of his whom he had known for many years, a man named Paul, slightly built and clean shaven with dark brown hair, who would usually wear an open-necked shirt with a T-shirt beneath, and jeans and trainers. Whenever Davy and I met this man, I would be surprised how openly Davy talked in front of him, discussing IRA business that I would only have discussed with Davy in private, when no one else was around.