‘Yes, it’ll be easy,’ I said, ‘It just connects to the battery.’
The following morning, I met Felix as arranged and took the little piece of black wire back home. As I was kneeling on the hall floor connecting the piece of wire, I heard footsteps on the stairs. I froze, hoping the person was going to be one of the other three flats on the floor above. The footsteps stopped outside the door and I knew instinctively Angie had unexpectedly returned. In desperation, I stuffed the bomb back into the plastic bag before she opened the door.
I am sure that Angie could see by the look on my face that I had been caught red-handed, though I tried to act as nonchalantly as possible.
‘What are you doing on the floor?’ she said, somewhat bemused.
‘I’m just putting some stuff in this bag,’ I said, collecting it up.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘It’s just some stuff for the car,’ I lied, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
She asked no further questions and went through into the sitting room with Martin and the shopping. From that day on, however, Angie knew that I was hiding something from her.
A few days later, I decided to tell Angie the truth because I realised that this secret life I was leading was beginning to break down the trust between us.
One evening, after tea, I said, ‘Angie, listen. I have something to tell you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The other day when you came into the house,’ I said, ‘and you found me in the hall with this stuff I was putting in a bag.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ she said. ‘Well, what about it?’
It seemed as though she knew what I was about to tell her and she looked me straight in the eye.
‘It was stuff that I was making for the IRA,’ I said.
The news didn’t seem to shock her at all. ‘What were you doing with it?’ she asked.
‘Because, Angie,’ I said, taking a deep breath, ‘I am now a member of the IRA.’
Her face changed. She look worried, anxious, and I wondered what she was about to say. After a few seconds she told me, ‘Well, I hope you know what you’re doing, Marty …I hope you know what you’re getting yourself involved in.’
I had thought that Angie would be furious at my confession and was somewhat surprised that she showed so much maturity about the whole affair. I realised in that instant, however, that Angie had hit the nail on the head when she said she hoped that I knew what I was becoming involved in.
Angie’s remark made me think seriously about everything I was doing for the first time since I had officially joined the IRA. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised that I seemed to be on a slippery slope, from the day I agreed to work for the Branch to the day I swore an oath of allegiance to the cause. I realised how deep I had become involved with both organisations, and matters seemed to be accelerating. The IRA was keen for me to become a member of an active service unit involved in killings and bombings. I was now storing bombs and guns in my own house, risking trips at night to show them to the Branch and knowing that, at any moment, that I could be seen and identified by one of the many IRA men who knew me. From the daily conversations I had overheard, I knew that the IRA were always suspicious of their own men, and I knew what the consequences would be. The thought sent a shudder through me.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THOUGH SPUD, MY NEW IRA BOSS, HAD WARNED ME to keep away from the IRA’s intelligence wing, Davy Adams still stayed in contact, asking me to carry out intelligence work on his behalf. My branch handlers were keen for me to continue my burgeoning relationship with Davy, because they were confident that the relationship would lead them to more IRA members, widening their network of known suspects.
I kept quiet about the work I did for Davy, never even mentioning his name to other IRA members, because I had no wish to be the centre of controversy between two such powerful men within the organisation. I realised that I would be the loser, and the Special Branch could possibly lose valuable contacts.
There was so much happening in both Davy’s intelligence area and Spud’s active service unit that Felix wanted me to meet them four or five times a week. I knew that at some future date the Branch would probably arrest both Davy Adams and my pal Fitzy, if they could be sure a serious charge would stick. In the meantime, however, I didn’t want them to arrest either man because of the close relationships I had developed with them.
I would tell Felix, ‘It’s bad enough giving information about these two whenever I have something to tell. But it would be virtually impossible for me to provide the Branch with this intelligence if I believed that as a direct result of my tip-off either of these men would be arrested, charged and probably end up doing 20 years.’
I would appeal to Felix and his mate Mo to understand my viewpoint, and I believe he did take note because no move was made against either men from any piece of intelligence supplied by me. I also realised, of course, that the Branch was receiving high-quality intelligence from my close involvement with both men, which would immediately dry up if they were arrested.
From the beginning of our relationship I had faith in the Branch and I trusted those men I dealt with on a day-to-day basis, particularly Felix. I realised that my handlers had superior officers who would order the arrest of both Davy and Harry if they believed it would be beneficial to the wider intelligence scene. Throughout the years I worked with the Branch, my handlers would constantly give me advice, and their advice would always turn out to be honest and beneficial to me. I knew that I was putting my very life in their hands on a daily basis, and I believe that they never betrayed that trust. Felix became someone special to me because of the understanding and trust we built up during the years I was working as a British agent. If I was ever in doubt I would seek his advice and always take it. He would never let me down. But I was also vaguely aware that, if the senior officers believed it necessary, they would sacrifice me, probably without a second thought!
There were occasions, however, when I would not report certain IRA activities to the Branch, particularly if they involved Davy or Harry. If, for example, either of them were organising arms, ammunition or bombs to be moved from one hiding place to another, I would not bother to tell the Branch. But I always made sure the Branch knew if either Davy or Fitzy were involved in activity that might result in the death or injury of anyone. One evening, in early September 1990, I was driving home with Angela in the car when I was amazed to see Harry Fitzsimmons walking along near my home dressed in a smart suit, collar and tie with his hair smartly combed. I usually saw Harry wearing jeans, a sweatshirt, trainers and a baseball cap. With him, also dressed smartly in a blazer, blouse and skirt was Caroline Moorland, a woman whom I knew to be a stalwart IRA sympathiser.
I stopped and, laughing, asked Harry, ‘Where are you going dressed like that? Are you going to some wedding or something?’
‘Alright, kid?’ he asked, not answering the question. Caroline said nothing.
‘Where are you going?’ I asked again.
‘Just going down the town,’ he replied.
I asked them if they wanted me to drive them into town and Harry said, ‘Great,’ and got in the back with Caroline. During the ten-minute drive neither spoke a word, which surprised me. However, I thought they were probably being ultra cautious because they did not want to speak openly in front of Angie.
I dropped them opposite the Royal Courts of Justice in the centre of Belfast. As I drove away, I checked in my rear-view mirror and saw them run across the road and disappear into the Buttery Bar, a well-known pub frequented by lawyers, court officials and police officers.
I sensed that Harry and Caroline were bent on causing trouble that night, dressed as they were, and I wondered if they could possibly be planting a bomb. I immediately returned home, dropped off Angie at her mother’s house and said I would return shortly to pick her and the baby up. Then I raced home, pressed the radio button and drove for a meeting with one of my handle
rs. I told them about Harry and Caroline and they told me they would immediately arrange for the pub to be checked for any suspicious packages. Before I went home, they also asked me to keep a close eye on the couple.
By accident, I ran into Harry the next morning and he told me he had stayed the night at Caroline’s place. He winked and asked me to cover for him if his wife asked where he had spent the night.
Exactly seven days after I had dropped Harry and Caroline at the Buttery Bar, a home-made hand grenade was thrown at the back of the Law Courts shortly after midnight and a search of the area began. As a result of the information I had given the Branch, however, army disposal experts immediately searched the Buttery Bar and quickly discovered a large 15lb Semtex bomb in a woman’ handbag hidden under a seat. Because of the intelligence they had received, the experts were able to defuse the bomb with time to spare.
Later, I heard from other IRA sources that the plan had been for the bomb to explode one hour after the grenade had been thrown, expecting that the area would have been flooded by Army and RUC personnel. No one would know, however, why the bomb had failed to go off.
Four years later, Caroline Moorland, 34, the mother of three young children, who was separated from her husband, would be murdered by the IRA as a police informer. She had been kidnapped, held, interrogated and tortured for three days before being shot, her body dumped near the border at Rosslea, County Fermanagh. According to the IRA, Caroline Moorland had been interviewed by the RUC and had been persuaded to become an informer. She would be only the second woman to be murdered by the IRA as an informer over a ten-year period.
Father Brian McClusky, from Rosslea, who was called from his church to give Caroline the last rites of the Catholic Church, described her face as ‘mutilated beyond recognition and her head completely disfigured’.
But many of her friends and neighbours in the Catholic republican area of Belfast did not believe that she had ever worked for the RUC. Caroline Moorland was a quiet woman, who had not only raised three children and worked with the IRA but had also found time to organise the West Belfast Muscular Dystrophy Association for a number of years, raising thousands of pounds for the charity after he brother died from the illness.
The Catholic community was outraged by the torture and murder of Caroline Moorland. Father Luke McWilliams told the mourners at St Pauls Church that the community had been ‘revolted by the barbarous savagery and shocked by the vile manner of her dying.’
He added, ‘Like all of you, I’m sure, I was haunted by the cruelty and inhumanity meted out by her murderers.’
Reading of the appalling torture and murder of Caroline some three years after leaving Belfast, I realised how ruthless the IRA could be with either guilty or innocent suspects. I never flattered myself with the idea that Davy Adams found my companionship to be anything other than a means to an end. I am sure that the principle reason Davy and I spent so much time together was the simple fact that I owned a car and was happy to drive him around. Davy had never learned to drive and, to my knowledge, never owned a car. I, on the other hand, was only too happy to drive him wherever he wanted to go, checking possible targets, meeting other IRA members and attending meetings. The Branch were also very happy for me to drive Davy around the city because they could track our vehicle and I would be able to inform them whom he had met and what the conversations had been about.
It was during one of our car rides across the city that I heard about a possible IRA operation being planned on the Larne-Stranraer ferry across the Irish Sea which the IRA heard was being used every other week to transport 12 British Army three-ton trucks bringing supplies from Scotland to the troops stationed in the Province.
An IRA intelligence unit had managed to plant one of their young volunteers, whose first name was also Martin, on the ferry. He worked as a ship’s hand and he reported back that the dozen army vehicles were loaded at Stranraer every other Saturday, arriving at Larne the same afternoon. He also reported that the last two army trucks leaving the ferry on arrival in Northern Ireland were usually full of soldiers.
Davy Adams decided that I should become involved with this operation because I would be happy to drive to Larne and report back to him. I met Martin outside a café in the centre of Larne and he told me the details of the fortnightly crossing of the army supply vehicles. He also told me that the RUC, responsible for checking security and keeping an eye out for known IRA and loyalist terrorists, would drive a van to the port and leave it unattended while they checked the ferries arriving at Larne. He suggested that the RUC van would be a perfect target for a booby-trap bomb.
‘How often do you see the van?’ I asked him.
‘Every time a ferry arrives, the RUC arrives in the van while they check the passengers and cars coming off the ferry.’
‘Are you sure no one is left in the van as a guard?’ I asked him.
‘No, definitely not,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t believe it myself, but every time I come into port I see the van, left on its own and unattended.’
I had been told to check that the intelligence he had supplied was accurate, so the following Saturday I drove back to Larne and made my way to the ferry port. I checked the army trucks being loaded that day and counted 15 vehicles.
Having reported back to Davy Adams, I was sent to discuss the operation with a highly experienced IRA explosives officer named Tony. This man had a formidable reputation and he would be responsible for many of the huge IRA bombs that devastated the centre of Belfast during the late 1980s.
Tony, a quiet, dark-haired man in his mid-30s, asked me questions as we discussed the operation.
‘What is the objective?’ he asked. ‘What does Davy want to do?’
I told him that the idea was to plant a bomb at the side of the road and take out the last two trucks, which were understood to be full of soldiers returning from Scotland.
He asked me for details of the road that the army trucks drove along as they left port.
‘It’s single lane traffic.’
‘Are cars parked on the road at that point?’
‘No,’ I replied, ‘definitely not. But there are a few lay-bys for vehicles along the route.’
‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘This should be a real easy one. What I propose is to stage the bombing at holiday time. We can out a caravan packed with explosives on the back of a car, as though a family is visiting Northern Ireland for a holiday.’
Tony became so keen to carry out the operation that he asked me to drive him to the area so that he could select the exact spot to park the caravan and where he could lay a command wire to trigger the bomb. I drove into Larne pointing out two of the lay-bys.
‘This is very, very good, ideal,’ he enthused. ‘Drive on, turn round and drive slowly past the first lay-by. I’m certain that’s the spot to park the caravan.’
When we turned round and drove away from Larne, Tony became even more enthusiastic. ‘This is brilliant, fucking fabulous,’ he said. ‘If we can’t stiff at least a dozen Brits in this operation we’re real wankers.’
After passing the spot, he asked me to take the first left turn off the main road and drive as near to the lay-by as possible, so that he could estimate the length of the command wire and the best vantage point from which to trigger the bomb. He also wanted to ensure that the bomber would be capable of making a quick getaway.
AS we drove back to Belfast, the more Tony enthused about the operation. ‘I’m going to go and see Davy Adams about this one. This is a cracking op. I think I should get involved in this.’
Later, as though speaking to himself, Tony said, ‘To carry out that job, a 1,000il of mix (home-made explosives made from fertiliser) would blow one of those lorries off the fucking road. But this is a chance of a lifetime, so I think we’ll up the mix to 1,500lb. That should really blast the fuck out of both vehicles. If both those trucks are full of soldiers, hardly any will get out alive. Something like this only comes once and you have to get it right.’<
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The following day, I contacted the Branch and met Felix and Mo at a pre-arranged spot. I told them everything I had learned during my trips to Larne and the conversation with Tony.
As soon as I mentioned Tony’s name, both Felix and Mo became extremely interested. ‘If Tony’s involved it means they are deadly serious,’ Felix said. ‘He is one of their top bomb makers. He is also an evil bastard; we will have to sort this one out, and quickly.’
As Felix sat thinking of what I had told him, he commented, ‘My God, I could tell you some stories about that man. Over the years, he has been the bomb-maker in some of their most spectacular bombings.’
Before I left my handlers, I told them that I would not be able to supply them with any further intelligence about Larne because I had only been helping out Davy Adams and I doubted if I would be given any further information about the bombing.
I added, ‘I don’t often you ask you this Felix, but on this occasion will you make sure the information is treated very carefully, as there are only very few people who know about this operation and they could easily put two and two together and realise I tipped you off.’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said, ‘I agree.’
I had realised that this would be a perfect operation for the Special Branch to monitor and arrest the IRA bombers as they were parking the caravan in the lay-by or laying the command wire. And as I had told them that Tony himself might be actively involved, there would be a golden opportunity to arrest one of the IRA’s most experienced bomb-makers. As I would have nothing further to do with this operation, however, the finger of suspicion could well be pointed at me.
I told all this to Felix and Mo.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ Felix said, ‘we won’t wait until the bombers strike; we will find out which units of the British Army are using Larne and warn them to stop using that route for a while as the IRA are planning a spectacular. In that way, no one in the IRA will suspect the information has come from you.’
Fifty Dead Men Walking Page 15
