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

by McGartland, Martin

  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.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘But I didn’t come over here to tell you that,’ he went on. ‘I came to tell you what wasn’t in the book.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The ending,’ he went on. ‘It wasn’t like that, wasn’t like that at all.’

  ‘Like what?’

  He breather in deeply and looked at the ground as he explained what he was trying to say. ‘It wasn’t like you wrote in the book. You thought that the IRA kidnapped you, that two of their w
ell-known henchmen somehow took you from underneath the very noses of the Special Branch, spirited you out of Sinn Fein headquarters, somehow managed to drive you undetected and unnoticed the mile or so to Twinbrook, walk you into a block of flats and hold you prisoner for most of the day.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, pausing and peering into my eyes, a look of anxiety across his face. ‘It wasn’t like that, Marty, it was nothing like that at all. What I’m about to tell you might shock you but I think you should know what happened. I’ve talked it over with the others and they think we owe it to you to tell you the truth, so that you won’t be taken unawares if anyone tries to have a go at you. It’s only fair that you should know what the fuck is going on.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ I said. ‘But go on.’

  ‘Before I continue, however, I want to tell you that no senior officers know I’m over here talking to you. And I wouldn’t have come over if I hadn’t read your book. One or two people who care for you, who know you risked your life time and again for the Branch, know I’m here but no one of authority knows that. And certainly no one in MI5 or the RUC.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t you tell them?’ I asked in my innocence, not knowing what the hell he was talking about.

  ‘Because if they knew I had planned to visit you, to tell you the truth of what happened, they would have found a way of stopping me. I don’t know what they would have done but I do know they would have found a way of preventing me seeing you.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked, now eager to know what the hell Mike was talking about.

  ‘Because, Marty, it was a set-up,’ Mike explained, speaking slowly. ‘You were set up, deliberately set up by the intelligence services because they wanted you out of the way. You weren’t meant to survive the kidnapping.’

  ‘What!’ I said in disbelief. ‘What the fuck are you telling me?’

  I felt myself go pale and began to shake, not knowing how to answer, not knowing what the hell to say to such a suggestion. I could not believe for one moment that my pals Felix and Mo, my handlers who had taken such care of me over four years, could possibly have arranged to have me kidnapped and killed. My mind raced back to that day in August 1991 and I thought through the whole journey from the moment I drove away from my home in West Belfast to make the fateful trip to the Sinn Fein headquarters in Andersonstown. Now I wanted to know more.

  ‘How do you know this?’ I asked, my voice a mixture of anguish and bitterness, as I thought of the trust in which I held Felix and Mo. ‘It can’t be true, it can’t,’ I said, feeling a sense of emptiness, of anxiety.

  ‘Listen,’ said Mike, ‘calm down and let me explain. You knew from the moment you left your home in that green Nissan that the SB were following you, keeping an eye on you. You spoke to Felix when you stopped for a couple of minutes and phoned Castlereagh asking if there had been a change of plan; making sure that SB wanted you to go ahead with the meeting with Podraig Wilson at Sinn Fein headquarters. And remember, Felix joked with you, describing your driving that day, dodging here and there in case you were being followed by the IRA. You carried out the plan as instructed, leaving your car some distance from Connolly House, a place kept under regular surveillance by various branches of the RUC. Then you walked out of Sinn Fein headquarters in broad daylight in the custody of two well-known IRA men. You walked to their car nearby and were driven away to Twinbrook, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘But just think for one minute,’ Mike went on. ‘Doesn’t it strike you as extraordinary that no SB man, no surveillance unit, not even E4A, the RUC surveillance unit, followed you? No one intervened, no one moved a muscle to stop the kidnapping. Marty, you weren’t some two-bit tout [informer] but one of the most successful agents the Branch had in Northern Ireland at that time. Your book was right. You saved countless lives, probably far more than the 50 you claimed. You were a vital cog in the intelligence set-up for more than four years, taking the most extraordinary risks but, nevertheless, coming up with great material which helped trap IRA men and save people’s lives. You were someone the Branch would have done all in their power to protect. But they didn’t. The SB allowed two well-known IRA men to loft you, drive you away and hold you prisoner for a day. You must have known how east it would have been for the SB, using either a vehicle or a chopper, to track that car. They do it every day. But on this occasion they did nothing.’

  ‘But why? Why did they not raise a finger to follow me?’ I was interjected, now desperate to hear more, though my heart was pounding at everything Mike was telling me.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘that’s why I’m here. I thought you should know the truth. The British Intelligence Services, the guys who really control the Government’s anti-terrorist machine in Northern Ireland, were supposedly protecting someone else, a very senior intelligence agent who had managed to infiltrate the highest echelons of the IRA. They were fearful his identity might have been accidentally revealed if you were ever caught at some future date. They maintained they couldn’t take that risk. The Joint Irish Section – you know, the intelligence chiefs – believed that the IRA were on your trail, that you had become too much of a security risk and so the decision was taken to sacrifice you.’

  I sat there on the rough, wooden bench facing the church with the cold wind whipping at my jacket, and suddenly I felt very lonely and helpless. I put my head in my hands and stared at the patch of bare earth beneath me. I wondered what the hell I was hearing. I wanted to cry, to scream, to stamp around and swear and yell at what had happened, realising for the first time in my life that those people whom I counted as my friends had simply used me for their own ends and were then prepared to cast me aside as someone of no consequence. It was worse than that; it wasn’t that they thought I was no further use to them but that during those four years of working together I had meant nothing to them. I couldn’t believe that the camaraderie they showed had all been a sham; I couldn’t believe that the relationship we had enjoyed, the jokes we had share, were nothing more than a ruse, an affectation, a deception to encourage me to keep risking my neck. And for what? For their glorification, their next pay rise, their next rung up the fucking RUC ladder. Maybe they hadn’t known of the plot to have me kidnapped; maybe they too had been kept in the dark about the evil machinations going on at a higher level in the Government’s intelligence set-up. I took out a handkerchief and blew my nose hard, trying to rid myself of the painful thoughts racing through my mind.

  ‘But you don’t know whether Felix and Mo were responsible for the kidnapping?’ I asked tentatively, not knowing if I wanted to hear Mike’s answer or not.

  ‘I’m sure they weren’t responsible,’ replied Mike. ‘In fact I’m sure they had no knowledge that you had been set up. We at the SB believe that your kidnapping was arranged by the Joint Irish Section, probably in collusion with the most senior SB officers in Northern Ireland. They would sacrifice their own grandmothers in their fight against terrorism.

  ‘So Felix and Mo may well not have known about it?’ I asked with some enthusiasm, desperately hoping that they knew nothing of the betrayal, giving me something to hold on to, something to believe in.

  ‘That’s true,’ Mike replied. ‘From the way they behaved afterwards I am convinced they knew nothing of the plot to have you kidnapped and murdered.’

  ‘So why did you tell me?’ I asked.

  ‘For two reasons. Firstly, because I thought you should know. And secondly, to put you on your guard, to make you aware that the IRA might not be the only people looking for you. To make sure you keep eyes in the back of your head and trust no one. Take it from me, Marty, in this rotten game you can’t trust a soul, not even those that are meant to be protecting you.’

  ‘Do you really mean that MI5 would have sold me down the river?’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ he replied, not waiting a second to confirm my worst fears. ‘They’ve done it before and
they’ve done it since. And I’m sure they will do it again. This is a rotten, dirty game, Marty, and you were right at the centre of it. We suspect that MI5 may even have arranged your kidnapping directly with the IRA.’

  ‘What!’ I said, disbelief in my voice. ‘I don’t believe you. That’s impossible. That’s fucking treachery.’