No one contacted me for several days, and I began to wonder whether I was going mad. I couldn’t sleep at night; I was becoming sharp and bad tempered with Angie and the kids. I felt as if I was waiting for an execution but didn’t know when or where they would strike. I could not understand why, if they suspected me of being a British agent, they hadn’t picked me up for questioning.
Unable to take the strain anymore, I decided to attend a cell meeting that I knew would take place the following night. As I walked into the house people looked at me, as though surprised at my presence. No one said a word. I went through to speak to Spud who was in the kitchen and he told me he would be in touch shortly.
I went back into the room and the four people there began joking with me.
‘We’ll be at your funeral, Marty,’ one said laughing, and his mates laughed, too. Another quipped, ‘Don’t you worry, Marty, we’ll be there.’
Another slapped me on the shoulder, ‘we’ll all send you a wreath, as well, Marty. No fear of that.’
This time no one laughed. I looked at each of them in turn and could feel the colour drain from my face.
It would be five years later that the truth about the decision to thwart the IRA attempt on Charlie Heggarty’s bar would finally emerge. The diaries of the late Detective Superintendent Ian Phoenix, Head of the Northern Ireland Police Counter Surveillance Unit, were published in a book entitled Phoenix; policing the shadows. Phoenix was one of the 25 anti-terrorist intelligence officers who were killed when a Chinook helicopter crashed into the side of the Mull of Kintyre in June 1994. His wife, Susan Phoenix, wrote the book detailing the secret war against terrorism in Northern Ireland.
Susan Phoenix’s book revealed that the most senior RUC officers, above the rank of Superintendent, ordered the IRA gun carriers’ car to be stopped against the advice of Ian Phoenix and other SB officers.
As a result, the vehicle and weapons were recovered, but only gun couriers were arrested. In Ian Phoenix’s own words, “In total, we may have compromised a source and failed to get the real gunmen, thereby allowing them to continue killing. This was passed to [the Chief Superintendent] that the HQ decision was in fact sanctioning further deaths. He and his colleagues were also concerned about the fate of ‘Carol’”… Extract from Phoenix; Policing the Shadows - By Susan Phoenix and Jack Holland (Hodder & Stoughton) 1996. The diary also revealed that the decision to compromise Agent Carol and let the IRA’s gunmen go free to kill again caused officers to lose confidence in their Tasking Co-ordination Group (known as TCGs), the overall planning and operations group in Northern Ireland, comprising the SAS, MI5, Special Branch and Military Intelligence officers.
The decisions made by the RUC top-brass had indeed left me hideously exposed, and all too aware of the consequences.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I DROVE HOME THAT NIGHT not knowing if I would ever see another dawn, convinced that I would be taken by an IRA squad and handed over to the organisation’s Civil Administration Team. This was the Provisional IRA’s name for their internal security unit, the people responsible for interrogating those whom the IRA believe have been guilty of passing intelligence and information to the Security Forces.
The following few days stretched my emotions to breaking point. I was unable to sleep and waited daily for the dreaded knock at the door. I even took out my frustrations on my beloved Angie, who had shown such remarkable patience and understanding during out years together.
She had not liked the fact that I had become involved with the IRA and yet she had not nagged me to stop or tried to persuade me to look for a proper nine-to-five job. She never had the faintest knowledge that I was in reality working for the Special Branch, doing my damndest to thwart the IRA’s bombings and killings.
During the following few days, my temper got the better of me. Under normal circumstances I was a hyperactive young man who enjoyed life, smiled a lot and always liked to crack jokes with people. I would hardly pass anyone in the street where we lived without a smile and a hello.
One night a few days later, I was standing at our front door waiting for Angie to return with the kids. I had forgotten my key and had expected her to be home. The fact that she wasn’t there had annoyed me and my nerves were on edge.
Finally she appeared up the street, pushing the pram with Martin and Podraig half asleep.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I shouted at her. ‘I’ve been waiting here like an idiot for half an hour.’
‘Who are you shouting at?’, she yelled at me. ‘Have I no right to go and see a friend without telling you?’
‘Not when I’m fucking waiting for you here, you’re not,’ I yelled at her.
‘Well you can shut up,’ she said, as she went to push past me to open the door.
I saw red and slapped her across the face, pushing her against the doorpost. She tripped and fell, her head hitting the door, cutting her beneath the eye and drawing blood.
‘You bastard!’ she screamed, trying to scramble to her feet. Our violent argument had woken the boys and they both began to cry.
It must have been the sight of Angie’s blood that brought me to my senses. Suddenly I realised what I had done – I’d hit the person I loved most in the world and, worse still, for no good reason. Instantly, I felt ashamed and bent down to help her to her feet, but she didn’t want to know.
‘Get away from me, you bastard,’ she screamed. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, hitting me? Get out of here and stay out.’
I pushed the pram into the sitting room while Angie went to the kitchen to try and stem the flow of blood. Trying to placate her and help in some small way to make up for my fit of temper, I asked her if she needed any help.
‘No,’ she said, sounding quieter. ‘Leave me and don’t come back … you’ve been in such foul moods lately … you’re no good for me or the kids because you’re never around … you may as well not be living here.’
I thought it was best to leave. I decided to go and stay with my mother, but only because of what Angie had said. She had given me an idea.
I knew that it would only be a matter of time before IRA thugs came to take me away. I thought of fleeing Northern Ireland but I had nowhere to go. I hadn’t done a real day’s work in my life, nothing that I could tell prospective employers. And no experience. All these thoughts were racing through my head and they became jumbled – I knew I should get away but had nowhere to go. I went to the one person whom I knew I could trust – my mother.
I told her that Angie and I had had a row and I wanted to stay with her for a few days ‘until the air had cleared’. That night, I slept better and recalled that Felix had advised me to find somewhere else to stay for a few nights, away from Angie and the kids. He had also told me to phone him every day.
My mother didn’t mind me staying with her. She understood that couples need to stay away from each other occasionally, to let the dust settle. But I never told her that I had hit Angie because if I had, she would have boxed my ears.
For some years my mother had been living with a man she had known for ages. Alfie Donnelly, a kind, good-natured man in his 40s who people would say deserved a gold medal for living for so many years with my rampaging, strong-willed mother. Alfie liked the occasional pint of lager, a man who would have no more than a couple of pints in his local, before going home. But my mother always preferred him to be at home with her, rather than in the pub.
She became well known in Sloane’s, the nearest bar to her house, where she would occasionally go for a drink with Alfie. However, whenever she suspected that the wretched Alfie was having a quiet pint on his own without her, my mother would walk down to the bar to join him. When sober, my mother had earned the well-deserved reputation of being an explosive character; when she had enjoyed one drink too many, she would become highly aggressive. Whenever Alfie saw my mother enter the bar, he would not even finish his pint but would quietly make his way out through the back door. Nevertheless, my mother
and Alfie always seemed to have a good relationship.
During the time I stayed at my mother’s house, Alfie was worried because he knew from the people he saw me associating with in the republican clubs and bars that I was a member of the IRA, and he feared that I might want to use their home as an arms dump. He was fully aware that when the RUC found arms in someone’s home, the man was always taken away for questioning and held responsible. He feared that he might face the same fate. My mother would say later that during those few nights I stayed at the house, Alfie became a bundle of nerves, never sleeping a wink. The moment I left every morning, Alfie would go into my bedroom, strip the bed, examine the drawers and check under the carpets to see whether the floorboards had been disturbed.
I would sleep fitfully, too, waking at the slightest sound.
I wanted to see Angie and the boys, but knew that I should keep away from them, fearing what could happen and not wanting to put her through such agony. I knew that if she saw me being taken away by two IRA men, she would realise that I was in deep trouble. So, a few times a day, I would drive past our house in the hope that I might catch a brief glimpse of her or Martin and Podraig.
As I drove along Glenalena Park near my house one day, I noticed a couple of men, whom I recognised to be local IRA members, acting suspiciously on some waste ground behind the houses. I drove out of the area and called Felix.
Before I could say anything, Felix, in a relaxed, friendly voice, said, ‘How are you doing? It’s nice to hear your voice. Is everything alright?’
‘Fine,’ I said, ‘I’m still here, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Good,’ he replied, trying to sound cheerful.
‘I’ve got a job for your lads to look at Felix, near my own home,’ and I gave him the details.
I returned to the area and within an hour saw the streets cordoned off with white tape, the sign that a search was about to take place.
On the BBC news that night I heard, ‘An AKM rifle and 30 rounds of ammunition, as well as 4lb of Semtex, a detonator and cable were found on waste ground at the rear of Ballymurphy Crescent. A police spokesman said that the area where the find was made is used by residents as a short-cut, and children often play there.’
I realised then that the IRA had planned to set off the Semtex bomb on the footpath used by RUC foot patrols, and then use the AKM to machine-gun them. As the newsreader read the last few words, I felt tears come to my eyes, knowing that some poor kids could have been caught up in it, hurt, maimed or even worse. I felt so angry that the IRA could put the lives of kids, kids like mine, in such danger that, at the moment, I didn’t care what the IRA did to me.
The knock at the door came around 11.00am, on the morning of 7 August, as I sat alone in my mother’s sitting room. I had become somewhat complacent, believing that the IRA could not be certain that I was a British agent with no proof and only the flimsiest circumstantial evidence linking me with the operations that had gone wrong. On the other hand, I also knew that the organisation’s Civil Administration Team would not arrest and question unless they were 90 per cent certain that I was a traitor to the cause.
Standing at the door was a woman I knew named Carol, a good-looking, young IRA messenger in her 20s whom I had met on previous occasions. Polite, cheerful and efficient, Carol was used to call IRA members to urgent meetings, for she knew not only where everyone lived but most of their favourite haunts. If they weren’t at home, Carol knew the pubs and bars they frequented.
As soon as I saw her, I feared the worst.
‘How are you, Marty?’ she said with a smile.
‘I’m OK. What’s up?’
‘You have to go and see Podraig Wilson at Connolly House, the Sinn Fein headquarters,’ she said, ‘at ten tomorrow morning.’
‘OK, I’ll be there,’ I replied and she turned and walked away.
Podraig Wilson, I thought. He’s the head of discipline throughout Belfast, the man who decides who gets kneecapped and who receives beatings by the punishment squads. Months before, I had visited Podraig Wilson’s flat to give him a message from Davy Adams.
I needed to speak to Felix urgently to seek his advice, but the SB radio with the secret button was still at my house. When we had moved to our new home I had hidden the radio in a safe place where I knew Angie and the boys would never find it. I drove to the house hoping that Angie was out. As I turned the key in the lock I couldn’t hear any noise from inside and breathed a sigh of relief. I found the radio where I had hidden it and pressed the button. It would be the last time I would ever use the secret device.
From that moment, I made doubly certain that I checked everything I did, for I was certain that the IRA would have ordered a 24-hour watch on my movements. As I drove to the appointed spot, I continually looked in my rear-view mirror and drove in and out of housing estates to make sure no one tailed me.
I was so worried that I began to speak as I climbed into Felix’s car. ‘Felix, I’m in loads of trouble …’ the words tumbling out of my mouth so fast that he could hardly understand what I was saying.
‘Calm down,’ he reassured me, ‘and speak slowly. What’s up?’
I explained that I had been called to a meeting with Podraig Wilson at 10.00am the next day and I needed his advice.
‘I understand,’ he said, obviously thinking hard. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have to take advice on this one as to how we’re going to play it. But, rest assured, I won’t let you down. We’ll take care of you.’
Before I left, he told me to phone him at around 3.00pm that afternoon. I decided not to return home but to drive around, keeping well clear of any republican areas.
When I phoned Felix later, I was surprised and disappointed to hear the plans the Special Branch had decided for me. I had hoped they would whisk me away to safety, put me in a safe house where the IRA couldn’t touch me. Now the uncertainty would continue.
During this phone conversation, Felix told me that I should drive to the meeting with Wilson the following day, parking the car at Andersonstown Leisure Centre, near Connolly House. He told me to borrow someone else’s car and phone him with the details.
He went on, ‘Tell no one that you have driven there by car but say you took a black taxi. We will be watching Connolly House and your car at all times. If your car moves we will know you are OK, but if it doesn’t then we will know you are in real danger.’
When I put down the phone I felt a little easier, for I trusted Felix to come to the rescue if the IRA did try to spirit me away from Connolly House to one of their safe houses.
Throughout that night I argued with myself not knowing what I should do. Part of me wanted to steal away in the night, take my car to Larne, catch the ferry to Scotland and disappear. I had about £7,000 in the building society, enough to rent a flat for a few months while I searched for a job. At least, I argued, I would be out of danger, away from the IRA and their punishment squads.
But I convinced myself, during those hours of darkness when I never slept a wink, that perhaps I had become paranoid once more. It seemed extraordinary that the IRA would invite me to a meeting the next day when they could have picked me up at any time with no risk to themselves. And, I persuaded myself, if they suspected me of working with the SB, why would they call me to a meeting at Sinn Fein headquarters where Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein President, had his own office, and which they knew would be under constant Special Branch surveillance.
I arranged to borrow a green Nissan hatchback and phoned Felix with the details. I told him I would leave my mother’s house just after 9.00am and would park the car as arranged. That morning, my mother ironed me a pair of jeans and as I stood in the kitchen watching he ironing away I felt a great surge of emotion, that I desperately wanted to tell her everything, about the IRA and the Special Branch and my job, and that, if things went wrong, it would be the last time I would ever see her.
But I thought better of it. I didn’t want to subject my mother to hours, days or maybe weeks o
f fear and worry over my safety. I had got myself into this shit and I had to find some way out of it, alone.
I didn’t kiss my mother goodbye that morning though I wanted desperately to put my arms around her and say how much I loved her. But I had never been like that with my mother and I knew such behaviour would alarm her. So I let it go.
I took off in the little Nissan and when I saw a phone box at a roundabout, I decided to make one final call to Felix to check that everything was going to plan. I drove around the roundabout three times before stopping at the box, naively thinking that such a bizarre manoeuvre would confuse any IRA man tailing me.
‘Is that you, Felix?’ I asked when I was put through.
‘I can tell you, boy that you are going to cause loads of shit if you keep on turning circle after circle like that. You’re sending our heads in a spin with all your antics,’ and he laughed.
I felt a wave of relief come over me. The boost to my confidence was wonderful, knowing that the SB were keeping such a close eye on me they even knew how many times I went round a roundabout. I drove on to my destination my spirits higher than they had been for weeks.
When the woman answered the bell at Connolly House, I told her I had a meeting with Podraig Wilson.
‘Oh, he’s away,’ she said. ‘He hasn’t been here all morning.’
‘I’ll just wait,’ I said, ‘because it’s been arranged.’
‘Please yourself,’ she said, and showed me to a small waiting room where republican newspapers were scattered about for visitors to read. On the walls were photographs of IRA hunger-strikers.
Twenty minutes later, two IRA men, both of whom I recognised, walked into the office. One, Paul ‘Chico’ Hamilton, in his 40s was bearded, overweight and liked to think he was one of the IRA’s hard men. Instinctively, I hated this man from the moment I met him, because I knew he was an active member of an IRA punishment squad. Some senior IRA men who had known
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