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

by McGartland, Martin

  Within an hour of the meeting ending I was sitting in a car talking to Felix, telling him everything I had heard. ‘They seem really keen on this one,’ I told him.

  ‘Why this one?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they think it’s going to be easy, a simple job they called it.’

  ‘Is there anything else you learned?’ Felix asked, looking perturbed.

  ‘Only that they want to carry out the operation in the next few days.’

  ‘Do you know how they plan to murder him?’

  ‘Aye,’ I replied, ‘they’re going to use a hand-gun.’

  ‘And the getaway?’ he asked.

  ‘Not decided yet. Either a car or maybe the back of a motor-bike. They’re going to discuss that later after someone has carried out a recce.’

  ‘So they seem confident?’ he asked.

  ‘Confident?’ I replied, with some surprise in my voice. ‘They think it’s a done deed already, they’re so confident.’

  Felix said, ‘Leave it to me’ and he dropped me somewhere discreetly so that no one would see me getting out of his unmarked car. I didn’t hear another word about the operation until Felix told me the following week that the RUC man had been tipped off and told to find another way to work. But he was never told how the intelligence had been gathered or by whom.

  Weeks later, I was giving Paul Lynch, a well-known IRA gunman, a lift across Belfast when he began talking about an operation he was planning in Bangor, the Protestant seaside town on the north-east coast of Ireland. He had received a tip-off from one of his IRA moles who worked in a bar in Bangor that there was a potential target that might interest him.

  As we drove out of Belfast and headed north Lynch said, ‘Our man has told us that these two peelers walk down the High Street every afternoon around 2 p.m., and then stroll along the quay for a few hundred yards before returning the same way back to the town. They’re dressed in flak jackets and carry revolvers in hip holsters but that should be no problem.’

  ‘Would you go it alone?’ I asked.

  ‘No, impossible,’ replied Lynch, ‘I would probably take Bennett, he’s game for anything.’

  I knew that if Lynch and Bennett were planning the shooting then there was a real probability that the attack would take place no matter how difficult the logistics were. I had always been told by my SB handlers to listen intently to anything Lynch said because he was a highly professional gunman. Both Lynch and Bennett had fearless reputations and were prepared to tackle any operation, taking the greatest risks. I knew that the SB had been on their trail for months because of their reputations for ruthlessness.

  ‘How would you do it?’ I asked.

  ‘By bike,’ he said. ‘Too difficult to use a car because the High Street is often full of traffic. I think we would take a bike. And if we found we had to take them on the quay we would be too conspicuous driving along in a car; hardly anyone takes a car along there. Bennett would drive and I would ride pillion . . . ride up behind them as they walked down the steep High Street or along the sea front and blast them in the head from behind . . . they wouldn’t stand a chance . . . a piece of cake.’

  ‘But wouldn’t you be too exposed in Bangor?’ I asked.

  ‘Our mole would provide a safe house,’ he went on. ‘We would stay there for 48 hours or until the hoo-hah had died down then we’d leg it back to Belfast. Easy. I’m quite looking forward to it.’

  That day Paul Lynch and I parked our car in Bangor and took a walk around the town, checking the traffic flow, the No Entry streets and examining the best way to make a quick escape if it became necessary. We stopped for a bite to eat at the Kentucky Fried Chicken shop so we could have a grandstand view of the two peelers walking down the High Street and on to the sea front. The two peelers seemed so nonchalant, so laid back, that I too realised how easy it would be for two determined gunmen to shoot down their men in broad daylight and make a successful getaway. I looked at the two peelers, thinking how close they could be to death if I didn’t remember every clue and tell Felix all the details I could remember.

  Within the hour after returning to Belfast I had checked in to the SB and arranged a meeting with Felix.

  ‘Do you know when they’re going to strike?’ he asked when I had completed my briefing.

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to ask too many questions for fear of sounding too suspicious but I guessed from the conversation that Lynch anticipated having a go within the next few days.’

  As usual, Felix said, ‘Leave it to me; We’ll have to nip this one in the bud and pretty quick too.’

  Much to my relief I heard nothing on the radio nor the TV, and read nothing in the papers about any attempted murder of police officers in Bangor and a few weeks later I asked Felix what had happened. ‘We suggested a constant change of operational duties for patrolling peelers,’ he said, with a knowing smile. ‘We’ve doubled the officers on the beat as well as having a mobile patrol as back-up so that the IRA won’t be able to move a muscle. It seems to have done the trick.’

  All these memories returned so vividly to my mind as I lay shivering in the cold night air. I had become so uncomfortable and sleep seemed so far away that shortly after dark I decided I had to move and stretch my legs. I had heard no RUC or Army patrols about and felt and prayed that if the TCG had been told to search for me they would have presumed I had made good my escape and was now safely back on the mainland. But of course I couldn’t be sure. As I walked along the road once again, this time away from the ferry terminal, I tried to reason once more why it had been so necessary for MI5, or whoever, to arrange for my kidnap. It still didn’t make any sense and so, as a consequence, I knew it was crazy to risk falling into the hands of the RUC, the Branch or any of the security forces.

  The thought of being delivered once more into the hands of the Provisional IRA scared the shit out of me and I immediately turned round and retraced my steps to the hide beneath the hawthorn hedge. But the walk had done me the power of good, allowing my muscles to get some feeling back in them and making me feel more relaxed and in control of myself. I had seen no patrols around and hardly any vehicles for I presumed the last ferry had arrived and there would be no others until early the next day. Somehow I must have fallen asleep, tired out by the anxiety and the nervous tension which I was no longer used to. But I had to face the following day not knowing what it might bring.

  I shall never forget those last few hours in Northern Ireland for my nerves were on edge and, as I made my way from my hideout to the ferry, I feared that at any moment someone would approach me, catch me off guard and take me away. I looked at everyone with suspicion that morning, anxious, sweating, even praying that I would make my escape back to England without being recognised either by the plain-clothes SB men who patrolled the terminal or some Prove given the job of checking passengers. Throughout the journey across the Irish Sea not for one moment did I relax my guard but as I saw Stranraer emerging through the mist I felt my pulse race, knowing I was within an ace of reaching safety. I walked with a group of other people not wanting to attract attention to myself and walked slowly as I left the terminal and made my way through the streets to where I had parked my car. It was still there and, remembering everything I had been taught, I bent down and checked beneath the vehicle, just in case some bastard had planted a UCBT. It was clean. I opened the door and sat down but, before I could start the engine, I felt a wave of relief and emotion wash over me. My body began to shake and the tears to flow as I realised my mission was over. I sat there for a few minutes giving way to my pent-up emotions, realising for the first time the strain I had been under during those 48 hours back home. I vowed then that I would never return home again. As I drove back to Newcastle, memories of Angie and the boys only added to my feeling of isolation and despair but I knew my fight with the authorities was far from over. It was the anger I felt towards those bastards ranged against me that revived the spirit of determination.

  Back
in Newcastle I wondered what trouble I had caused during my flying trip to Belfast and, more importantly, wondered whether the Provisional IRA or the Crown authorities were the more concerned by my visit. I knew the IRA gauleiters would have been angry that they had missed another chance to abduct, interrogate and shoot me. As far as they were concerned there was no question that I was as guilty as sin for I had confessed all in my book. But I smiled to myself as I realised that MI5, or whatever other government agency wanted me dead, would be holding meetings, demanding reports and, hopefully, worrying about what I had discovered about my abduction during my 48 hours in Belfast.

  I realised that the security services may have heard of my arrival in Belfast within 24 hours of my setting foot on Irish soil. Though they probably knew of my return I hoped I hoped few would know the purpose of my trip and, hopefully, none of them would have information identifying the people I had seen and spoken to. I hoped my visit had made the guilty ones feel nervous for they must have learned during the past two years that I was probing ever more deeply into the manner of my kidnap. They would also have been made aware of the questions I was asking through my solicitors as to the reasons why I had been treated in such a bizarre way by the Crown agencies, that group of faceless men whose identity neither I nor my solicitor were permitted to know.

  But why, I kept asking myself, were we not permitted to know who was instructing the law firm Burton & Burton? It seemed extraordinary that the agency pulling the strings was too embarrassed to own up and inform either me or my solicitor. The more I thought about the preposterous and stupid way the mystery agency was hiding behind a law firm, the more I realised that it was likely to be MI5. And why? It seemed the only solution was that MI5 had been the agency responsible for organising my kidnap by the IRA.

  On my return to Newcastle I was confronted with two further turns of events. The authorities were beginning to make me feel sick. After months of haggling between the mysterious Crown agents and my solicitor, Burton and Burton, the solicitors representing the government, decided to try and persuade me to accept their totally inadequate offer. They wrote to my solicitor in April 1998, stating, ‘Following your client’s rejection of all offers made to him, there is no agreement between us [concerning paying my legal fees] and under these circumstances no payment can be made towards his fees.’ I knew my solicitor’s fees would amount to thousands of pounds which I had not got. It simply showed how low the government would sink in their attempt to force me into signing their unjust agreement.

  While probing the various legal problems that were surfacing every other month, my solicitor, Nigel Dodds, discovered that there was a major discrepancy in the amount of money that the RUC had paid me for my resettlement on the mainland back in 1991. When he checked the figures he discovered that, according to the Command Secretariat of the RUC, a total of only £82,000 had been paid to me. Later, however, I would hear from a senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland office that, after checking, he had been informed that I had been paid a total of £120,000! I was amazed, staggered by the statement. That meant that somewhere, somehow, a total of £36,000 had mysteriously gone missing. When someone such as a government agent or an RUC informant needs to be resettled and given a new identity account has to be taken that he, or she, will have major problems. They will be in a strange place, without a home, a career, a job, friends, relations or a way of earning money to live on or save for a pension. All this – the basics of a good, decent life – the agent has sacrificed working on behalf of the government. As a result the government takes care of those men and women. Other agents, of course, have sacrificed much more including, quite often, their very lives. Former agents are given grants to resettle but never enough to compensate – because a former agent has to be given a new identity, a new social security number, new passport, new bank account, new driving licence and yet he, or she, has no record of ever having worked in a responsible job. The agent has no past, no history, no references.

  Like anyone, former agents want, above all else, to settle down and live a normal, ordinary life; forget the past, live in a decent home, secure a good, well-paid job, build a pension and, hopefully, find a new circle of friends. Such grants were intended to take into consideration some reward for the dangerous tasks undertaken on behalf of the government and of society in general. RUC informants, in particular, risked their lives every day they mingled with PIRA activists, often taking extraordinary chances to gather information which they passed to their handlers and which often saved the lives of innocent people.

  When I was resettled on the mainland a house was purchased for me for £52,000, a Ford Fiesta for £4,500 and I was given a further £6,000 to buy furniture and to cover other expenses to start a new life from scratch. I also received £21,000 – a resettlement allowance – which I understood was an RUC grant for the dangers I had faced during my four years working as an RUC informant. In all, these monies amounted to £84,000. I was more than happy with this sum because I then had a three-bedroomed, semi-detached house with a garden of my own, a small car as well as money to survive on for a year or two while I searched for a job. I also had some money to put towards a pension.

  As a result of correspondence between the Command Secretariat of the RUC and my solicitor, however, the discrepancy of £36,000 came to light. The mystery of the missing money was enthusiastically taken up by Robert McCartney, the MP for North Down, who is also a Queen’s Counsel. He asked the Northern Ireland Secretary of State to list the sums of money paid to me since August 1991 and to state which agencies paid the money and under what powers. The Secretary of State was also asked how much was paid to me by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Agency.

  Probing the money paid to me arose after my solicitor had applied for a hearing to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Agency for the serious injuries I had received as a result of throwing myself out of the third-floor window. To this day, seven years after the event, I still suffer from splitting headaches, for my head had been severely lacerated in the plunge. Neurological consultants have told me that I still have scar tissue on my brain and am suffering minor brain damage.

  Kevin Ham, a senior case worker for the Compensation Agency, informed that another anonymous Crown servant had told the Agency that a house costing £80,000 had been purchased for me and that I had been given a further £40,000, in cash, which took fully into account compensation for injuries caused when jumping out of the window. As a result, of course, the Agency wanted to know why I was making an application for further compensation.

  What horrified and enraged me, however, was that a note had been sent to the Compensation Agency from the RUC Special Branch which stated, ‘Martin McGartland was known to be an IRA sympathiser and had never worked for the Special Branch.’

  The statement – a direct, unquestionable lie – puzzled me and I wondered why such misinformation could have been sent to the Agency by the Special Branch who knew I had worked for them for four years. I didn’t immediately condemn the SB for sending that note because I just found it totally inexplicable. But it made me realise I not only needed to write a book telling of my career as an undercover agent, but I also needed help from the most influential people in the land.

  As a consequence, I wrote to the then Prime Minister John Major, Opposition Leader Tony Blair, Lord Tebbit, former Northern Ireland Secretaries Tom King and Michael Mates as well as the Unionist Leader David Trimble. All wrote letters of support to me as well as writing to Sir Patrick Mayhew, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, demanding that my case be looked into as a matter of urgency.

  Sir John Wheeler, Minister of State, wrote to MP Robert McCartney telling him that I could not claim compensation because there were no medical records covering my injuries and I had not served notice of my claim for compensation within 28 days as required by legislation. The Minister’s argument was not soundly based. The reason there were no medical records submitted was because after I had been moved from the Musgrave P
ark military hospital to safety in an army barracks the Special Branch took away all my hospital records and burned them. The reason why I had not put forward my claim within 28 days was because I was only semi-conscious and under police guard in protective custody throughout that time. It seemed extraordinary that a minister of state would go to such lengths to deny me natural justice. But the minister’s fallacious arguments would go further in an effort to blacken my name.

  In one letter Sir John Wheeler wrote to Robert McCartney, it is said that; ‘Mr McGartland applied for compensation to the Compensation Agency in 1992 in respect of an incident in August 1991 in which he alleges he had been injured when he jumped from a third-floor flat having been kidnapped’. It continued, ‘Mr McGartland then appealed to the County Court against the Agency’s decision but before his case came to hearing, information came to light which suggested that he had been a member of the Provisional IRA and involved in terrorism including the murder of an off-duty soldier. His case was heard at Lisburn County Court where the judge dismissed his appeal primarily on the grounds of his membership.’

  When I read that I saw red. The Northern Ireland Minister Sir John Wheeler should have known that I had been recruited by the Special Branch; that I had been urged by my Branch handlers to join the Provisional IRA and work as an undercover agent supplying information to the Special Branch. Sir John should have been made aware by his advisers that I had been responsible for reporting activities of PIRA members and their plans to bomb strategic targets as well as their evil plots to kill individuals, usually members of the security forces, the RUC and prison officers. For four years I had risked my life trying to save people’s lives and this was the way I was being treated by the British government. I felt Sir John Wheeler’s letter was disingenuous at best.