Uncommon Enemy

by Alan Judd

  He had certainly planned his first solo meeting in Dublin with Martin. It was to begin in Jury’s and then move on. He had recce’d several restaurants and bars, seeking good table separation and, in terms of Martin being entertained by his notional businessman uncle, plausibility. Martin arrived wearing clean black jeans and a new-looking blue jersey. Charles asked if he’d like to move on straightaway or have a drink first.

  ‘Always drink when you can. You never know how long till the next one,’ he said. ‘So my father used to say and he wasn’t even Irish.’

  ‘Tell me about your parents. Is your father dead, then?’

  ‘Dead and doubtless very thirsty. He was a lawyer. A cursed breed which I guess I’m destined to continue.’

  After a while Charles realised that Martin was enjoying the novelty of Jury’s, and guessed he was hungry. Table separation in the restaurant was good, so they stayed.

  They chose steak and claret. While they waited Martin lit another cigarette. ‘So what do you want to know?’ he asked quietly.

  Reading it in the file recently, Charles found that those words still had the power to make his skin tingle. It was an unusual question at the start of an agent relationship; often you had to work for such directness. But when you did hear it, you went for it: no generalities, no hypotheticals, no holding anything back for later. There might not be a later. He remembered looking into Martin’s grey-green eyes and thinking it was like dealing with a fellow professional, or at least a natural.

  ‘Operational detail, names, addresses, telephone numbers, plans, who said what to whom, when, where, who else was there, who told you, who told him, everything you can think of. Nothing is too small.’

  ‘I don’t know any of that, I’m not in the IRA, Sarah should have told you that. I’m on the political side. What I know about is structures, policies, politics, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Identities? Personalities?’

  ‘Some.’

  They paused while the waitress brought their first courses. Martin stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. With one bob of his Adam’s apple, he finished the Guinness he had brought in from the bar and picked up his claret. ‘And what in return?’

  Surprised, Charles misunderstood. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing. I told you, I’m not going to be a spy. I thought I’d made that plain. I want to help bring about some sort of reconciliation, and I want to see how whatever I tell you will do that. I’m not going to feed the Brits information just so that their occupying army can lift more people, or kill them. I want to see how what I’m doing contributes to progress.’

  He spoke quietly but with energy. The normal response would have been reassurance – of course he wasn’t a spy. He was a sympathetic but objective observer who could give confidential advice to help Charles nudge his government in the right direction and increase understanding, a different thing altogether. That was the off-the-shelf explanation, stocked by intelligence services world-wide.

  But it wouldn’t do with Martin. He had put his cards on the table and deserved equal frankness, even if it meant an upturned table and cards in the air. Better that than risk both their lives on an unsatisfactory case.

  ‘And I thought I’d made it plain you would be spying,’ said Charles. ‘If you tell me what your friends wouldn’t want the British government to know, you’d be spying. That’s what they’d call it, regardless of your motives. And I’m interested only in what they wouldn’t want me to know. Secrets, telling secrets, that’s what spying is.’

  They stared at each other.

  In for a penny, in for a pound, Charles was thinking. This had to be sorted out. ‘I can’t promise you’d get anything out of it,’ he continued, ‘beyond the satisfaction of doing it. If you get that. If you want money we’d pay you, but you say you don’t. If you want to revenge yourself on your republican friends, well, you’d be doing just that. But I don’t get the impression that’s what motivates you.’

  Martin’s features were unreadable. ‘What do you think motivates me, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I know what you said about your school-friend and about the end of the ceasefire but they both sound more like triggers than the full account. Principle seems important to you. You are republican because of principle rather than family tradition or social conformity. If you were to spy I suspect you’d be doing that through principle, too. And if I had to guess I’d say your principle was that terrorist violence can’t be justified in a democracy.’

  ‘You’re calling the Six Counties a democracy?’

  ‘If a majority of the electorate voted for unification with the Republic, that’s what they’d have.’

  ‘So I’d be a principled spy? Spying for principle?’

  ‘Maybe you’d get a kick out of it, too. Maybe you’d enjoy it.’

  Martin stared at Charles, his elbows on the table and the fingertips of both hands lightly cradling his claret. ‘Is that why you do it?’

  ‘Partly. I do enjoy it. It’s exciting, sometimes. And the people are interesting. As are the circumstances in which you meet them.’

  ‘Is that it, then? No principle?’

  ‘Patriotism, I guess.’

  Martin grinned. ‘Is that enough?’

  ‘Enough for me.’

  Back in the bar afterwards Martin drew with his forefinger on the table the new power structures within Provisional Sinn Fein and the IRA. These were well known to Charles, but he was appreciative and encouraging. They moved on to policies and personalities, which were more interesting. Charles asked if he could take notes.

  Martin lit another cigarette. ‘Write a bloody book if you want.’

  There was enough for two reports: CX reports as they were known, for historical reasons only dimly apprehended by most of those who wrote them. Enough to help silence the doubters in Head Office, Charles hoped.

  Over the next few months Martin involved himself more deeply in the republican cause and reported with disciplined enthusiasm. He never joined the IRA itself but he was politically useful to it, particularly in helping to spread propaganda and support among overseas student organisations. One or two of the IRA leadership confided in him following his suggestions for fundraising, usefully enhancing his knowledge of Provisional strategy. Some of his reports went to Downing Street.

  Once he reported on a London bombing team. He did not know their names, but was told by one of their trainers that there was a group of eight from whom four would be chosen; then, separately by someone else, that the favoured four would be informed of their selection in a bar in Drogheda, north of Dublin.

  He reported this to Charles late one night in a noisy pub. He had learned it earlier in the evening and the team was to meet the following lunchtime. ‘I could go up there myself,’ he said. ‘Sit in the bar, see who comes and goes. I won’t get names, unless I recognise them, but I’ll have descriptions. Only I don’t have a car and don’t know how far it is from the station. Look odd if I took a taxi or hired a car. I never do that. Could you lend me one? Any old Aston Martin will do.’

  ‘The Astons are all out but even if they weren’t you mustn’t go. If anyone recognises you or if either of your sources gets to hear about it they’ll put two and two together.’

  ‘Disappointingly risk-averse, Mr Bond.’

  ‘We’ll work something else out.’

  ‘Tell that to the marines. I bet you do nothing.’ He held up his empty glass.

  Charles had to wait at the bar for their drinks. The recent Manchester bombing meant that the identities of the next cell would be top of the requirements list. He wanted very much to be the dog that brought home the bone but doubted that anything could be done in time, despite his optimism with Martin. The clearance hoops the A desk would have to go through in London would be formidable. No-one liked a hastily-scrambled operation with toxic political fall-out if it went wrong, not to mention the obvious physical risks. But the prospect of more blood and broken glass on English streets wou
ld argue strongly for it. If the office wouldn’t go for it, he would do it himself.

  It was late when he returned to his hotel. His only secure communication was via telegram from the embassy but it would attract attention if he called out the comcen staff late at night. Anyway, no-one in Head Office was going to take that kind of decision in the early hours; it would need ministerial clearance. But he had reason to visit the embassy during working hours, as part of his cover, and so he broke the rules by drafting his telegram in his room and hiding it while he slept. He called on the embassy as soon as it opened, typed his telegram straight onto the cipher machine and sent it at second highest precedence.

  Head Office came back promptly. The answer was polite, considered, clear and firm, a competent piece of work by the senior A desk officer. They thanked Charles for his proposal, which they were naturally keen to follow up, but there were insurmountable problems. In the time available it would be impossible to deploy a surveillance team with a reasonable chance of success and assurance of their safety; there would be no time for a recce and no time for political clearance, which would be essential. If the Drogheda bar was a regular meeting point then a recce could be conducted in slower time – perhaps by Charles himself during one of his visits – but on this occasion, regretfully, the risks were too great. A failed operation or one that went off at half-cock would be worse than no operation at all. And it should not be forgotten that the news of this meeting was from a single source only, and a new one on trial at that.

  It was the response Charles expected, one he could have written himself – probably would have, he conceded, if he had been the desk officer. But it was not how things got done, and he wanted to do things.

  He ran upstairs to chancery. Angie, the secretary, was on the phone and everyone else was conveniently in the ambassador’s weekly meeting. Charles went to the open cupboard and found the Pentax he knew they kept there, with several rolls of film. He mimed asking permission to take it, then left the room before Angie could finish her call. In town he found the nearest car-hire firm, chose a small Ford van and set off north to Drogheda.

  His report was factual and precise. The bar faced the road with a single main entrance and a car park to the front and side. Opposite, on a raised bank above the road, was the car park for the local hospital. Charles drove in there and backed the van into a space from which its rear windows looked directly down to the bar entrance. It was far from ideal – the distance was too great and the windows would blur the film – but anything on the next bombing team was better than nothing. There was a reasonable chance he’d be sacked for this, he remembered thinking. Would he mind, he had asked himself? Yes, very much. Better an honourable dismissal than a career of unblemished bureaucratic caution. But he would mind.

  For two hours he photographed everyone who entered or left until he ran out of film. Twice he heard voices near the van and stretched out, feigning sleep. Once he froze when two men came out of the bar and stood talking, seemingly looking directly at him across the road. If he’d been spotted and others were coming round the back to seize him, that would be it. He lay on his back, eyes half-closed, his heart thumping. Nothing happened. It was the only time he worried more about being caught than being sacked.

  Recently he had found the black and white prints and negatives in an envelope in the file. Some were too blurred, all were distant and grainy, but most were just good enough to confirm an identity already suspected. The file showed that they had been passed to Special Branch in London, who had dismissed them. He remembered his disappointment. Later in the file there were blow-ups of some, allied with possible names from other sources, then, eventually, brief references to the identification and capture of the ASU, the active service unit. Finally, briefest of all, there was a cursory acknowledgement from Special Branch that Gladiator’s information and Charles’s photos had led directly to the identification of two of the bombers, with the other two identified subsequently through association.

  But that was later, after Gladiator had left Ireland. At the time no-one doubted that Charles’s initiative had failed. There was minuting accusing him of irresponsible opportunism, with someone from security suggesting he was out of control and should be reprimanded and withdrawn from operations. He had assumed that that was his fate when he was summoned one day by the controller for operations in Europe. It was the first time he had met Matthew Abrahams.

  Matthew stared severely over his reading glasses, without inviting Charles to sit. ‘You disobeyed your orders, you deceived the office, you put the government, the service, your agent and yourself at grave risk. All that can be said in your favour is that you have not attempted to excuse yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant.’ Matthew’s grey-blue eyes held his unwaveringly. ‘Personnel are expecting me to recommend a formal reprimand. In most circumstances I would. But I am reminded of Churchill’s dictum to the effect that mistakes made in carrying the battle to the enemy are forgivable.’

  Charles began to relax.

  ‘Though not forgettable.’ There was a hint of something else in Matthew’s eyes. ‘If you sin again, sin in company. Responsibility is shared. Bureaucracies find that easier to deal with. Discuss it with someone, make sure someone knows where you are. Even a phone call.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Matthew gave him the briefest of wintry smiles. ‘Pity it didn’t work.’

  Nothing more was said or written about it. Because it had failed, Charles allowed Martin to assume that nothing had been done. ‘You’re all cloak and no dagger, you lot,’ said Martin at their next meeting. When Charles told him later that it had worked after all, he formally thanked him on Matthew Abrahams’s orders. Charles himself was never thanked.

  The file also showed that Head Office remained uneasy about Martin’s motivation. He seemed almost too perfect an agent, someone wrote: punctual, reliable, security conscious, distinguishing in his reports between what he knew and what he assessed or assumed, and usually naming his sub-sources. Yet there was a sense of something unexplained in his motivation, of boxes not ticked, unsettling to the bureaucratic mind. Had Martin been venal, disaffected or ideologically opposed to his cause, Head Office would have been happier. But he accepted no money other than reimbursed expenses, disliked relatively few of his republican colleagues and continued to believe in a united Ireland. Security thought it suspiciously like running another intelligence officer and speculated as to whether he could be a double agent.

  Charles had to defend the case while trying to appear objective, since case officers were notorious for siding with their agents. With the exception of the Drogheda ASU, Martin’s intelligence had proved reliable and his account of the death of his British Army school-friend was confirmed, as was the time and place of the checkpoint at which they recognised each other. Martin’s presence in the car had been logged. At the same time, Charles had to play down how much he liked Martin, liked him for his conscientiousness, his irony, his intellectual poise, his disciplined adherence to unparaded principles. He liked him too for his occasional refusals, for being honest where most would have been evasive.

  Once, when asked to name a fellow-student who had just joined the movement, Martin said: ‘I’m not telling you that. I don’t think he’s serious, I think he’s just being led on by a bit of heroic talk and glamour. He’s not a natural hater and I think he’ll drop out pretty soon. I don’t want his name on your list for evermore, especially if he’s no longer involved.’

  ‘Just tell me if he does get seriously involved.’

  Security argued this as evidence of Gladiator’s lack of commitment; Charles that it showed reassuring honesty.

  He liked Martin too for his reserve. As with Matthew Abrahams, personal matters were conveyed via elliptical shorthand.

  ‘Women?’ asked Charles, one evening after they had finished business.

  ‘As and when. Depending. Yourself?’

&n
bsp; ‘The same.’

  ‘Sarah?’

  It was not the first time Martin had teased him about her. ‘She’s her husband’s, not mine.’

  ‘But you’d like her to be.’

  Charles smiled despite himself. ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Intuition, genius.’

  They usually met in hotel rooms; occasionally in bars or restaurants where Charles played the part of visiting uncle. He always stayed in a hotel other than that in which they met, walking the streets facing traffic so that it would be harder for a car to pull up and bundle him in. They communicated as little as possible outside meetings and when they did, it was by phone under cover of family arrangements. Few documents came Martin’s way and those that did were not urgent, so there was usually no need for dead letter boxes. For a heady few weeks, however, Martin was asked to drive various senior republicans in the evenings, which gave him the chance of prolonged chats and the possibility of intelligence that would not wait for the next meeting.

  ‘Can’t you give me a concealed mike?’ he asked. ‘Then I could leave cassettes for you to pick up in secret places, like real spies.’

  Charles promised him one, only to find that the technical department was unaccountably lacking in portable concealed devices, whether cameras or recorders. Affronted by Charles’s obvious dismay, they offered to wire up the car, which would be much more effective. But Martin drove vehicles borrowed for the night without knowing in advance which he would get. Eventually all Charles had to offer him was a bulky cassette recorder disguised as a fat diary which could just be squeezed into the wallet pocket of a jacket.

  ‘I’d be better off with a house-brick,’ said Martin. ‘Weighs the same, and I’m more likely to have one of those in my hand than wear a Harris tweed jacket to carry it in, for Christ’s sake. They must think I’m like you.’

  He took it, however, and recorded half a dozen conversations over the next few weeks. For transferring cassettes Charles chose lavatory cisterns in bars or hotels used by students, with the cassette taped to the underside of the lid. Each time he cleared one he paused before lifting it, his fingertips hooked over the sides, lightly feeling the weight. Each time he rehearsed once again the unlikelihood of Martin betraying him, or of having the location beaten out of him. In that case, they might wire it up so that lifting the lid would be the last thing he did. And each time he failed to think any profound last thoughts, because each time there was no intense white flash, no oblivion, only the neat little package, securely taped.