None Shall Divide Us

by Michael Stone

  Three weeks later John Bingham, Sammy Cinnamond and I made another journey. It was a to a secret location on the outskirts of Belfast nicknamed ‘The Farm’. By the time we arrived two Israeli visitors were already present. It was the second part of a two-tier deal first negotiated with the Germans. The two men were members of the elite Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, and, like the three German businessmen, wanted to help us. They told us that if we could supply the cash, they would supply the munitions. Already the funding had been confirmed and received from the Germans and we could now choose and pay for what we needed.

  Bingham wanted me to go to Israel and link up with the two Mossad men to complete the deal. I told him I couldn’t make the journey because I didn’t have a passport. He opened the small case he was carrying. ‘Which nationality do you want to be?’ he said, and showed me seven passports with the official seals and stamps from the country of origin. There were two British, one Irish, two German and two from the Middle East. Bingham said he wanted to go but couldn’t because MI5 were watching him. I declined the trip to Israel. If MI5 were watching Bingham, then I would be putting myself in the spotlight if I went in his place. He also tried to tempt me with a shorter trip, saying he needed someone to go to Brussels. I told him I was a military man and my job was working as an operative, on the road on active service. I said intelligence and research were not what I wanted to do.

  To be honest, I was now getting involved in a different league and I felt out of my depth. I had seconded myself to the Red Hand in order to stay anonymous, not parade myself in front of the security and intelligence agencies. When I told Bingham that both of the trips were out of the question, he accepted my decision with no further questions. He made the journey to Israel himself. It was both a fact-finding mission and the final part of the arms deal. Bingham was so well organised that he was even furnished with ‘end-user’ certificates to help him get the munitions through customs.

  Years later, after I was released from prison, an Israeli journalist interviewed me about the Peace Process. The reporter, a man in his sixties, said he knew me and that we had met previously. I shook my head and told him he must be mistaken because I didn’t know any Israeli journalists. He whispered in my ear, ‘I was one of the two men you met in the 1970s to discuss weapons.’

  John Bingham was a humble man. He wasn’t into the trappings of power and wealth, unlike many of the Loyalists holding rank at the time. Bingham was intelligent and astute. He lived in a working-class area and drove a clapped-out old banger. He liked to walk in the Black Mountain with his mother’s Labrador and I would occasionally join him for walks, taking my pitbull terrier, Buster, with me. It was during one of these walks that the security forces photographed us. I didn’t know about the picture until my arrest and the snap of us walking our dogs was shown to me by detectives.

  I was coming up to twenty-three when the IRA bombed the La Mon House Hotel in February 1978. I was horrified at the slaughter of innocent people caused by the blast, which came without warning. The La Mon bombing was an important step in a journey that would eventually lead me to the Republican Plot at Milltown cemetery, almost ten years later, with grenades around my waist and a Browning in my hand. Twelve people were killed. Seven of the dead were women and there were three married couples among the toll. All the victims were attending the annual dinner dance of the Irish Collie Club. The hotel was packed with four hundred people enjoying a Friday night out when the place was turned into a fireball after the IRA attached cans of petrol to the window grilles. The device, set to go off in fifty-eight minutes, was designed to sweep through the room like a flame-thrower. As it went off, it blew out the window and sprayed the room with blazing petrol, which had been mixed with sugar to make sure it stuck to whatever it touched. The people inside didn’t have a chance. Some stumbled out of the hotel or jumped out of the windows with their hair, skin and clothes on fire. Those who didn’t survive shrivelled in the intense heat, so that their bodies looked like tiny children. It took two hours for six units of the fire brigade to bring the blaze under control. They were removing the bodies when I arrived on the scene.

  I had been ordered to La Mon by my Red Hand superiors to see what I could do to help the emergency services. As I walked through the car park and saw the sad procession as firemen carried body after body from the charred and smoking building, I realised there was nothing I could do to help the living or the dead. Tarpaulin covered the dead. I wanted to see the carnage for myself. I don’t know how I managed to get past the RUC patrol and through the cordoned-off area, but suddenly I was standing by a row of covered bodies. I gently pulled back one cover and quickly replaced it. It was a horrific sight. What I saw in those five seconds has stayed with me for the rest of my life. I can only describe it as looking like a lump of charred wood. I couldn’t tell what gender the person was, there were no limbs and what was left of the face was a mouth wide open in a silent scream. I wondered what sort of person would do this to a human being. I could feel anger rising in the pit of my stomach. I wanted revenge. I wanted retribution of a similar kind. I was burning with rage and hatred for the people who had done this. I wanted the Republican community to pay dearly for this atrocity. I knew then that picking off a Catholic here or a nationalist there wasn’t revenge. It had to be retaliation in kind, something with a massive body count and deaths in double figures. Republicans had brought war to our doorstep. I wanted to bring war to their doorsteps and I could find people to help me.

  I spoke to Sammy Cinnamond and he advised me to sit tight, but I didn’t agree with him. I told him about the charred remains of the young men and women. I told him La Mon was a sectarian strike and as Loyalists we were duty-bound to retaliate. He cautioned me to be patient and to not sink to the same depths as the IRA because that wasn’t ‘our style’.

  Weeks went by. There was the sickening cycle of tit-for-tat shootings but nothing to match the horror of La Mon. In truth, the Red Hand was frightened of the public consequences of a big strike on the Republican community. In the late 1970s IRA bombs were going off at an alarming rate. I was frightened for my family and friends. When you left your home you ran the serious risk of getting injured or killed. I didn’t want loved ones to live like this. The IRA had to be stopped. I saw the Provos as rabid dogs, and in civilised countries rabid dogs are destroyed on the spot. I didn’t see my government or the authorities doing anything to stop these evil dogs of war. I thought back to when I was sixteen and had promised to defend my community in its hour of need.

  My community was crying out for help. It was time for me to honour my promise.

  7

  NONE SHALL DIVIDE US

  I SPENT TEN YEARS SECONDED TO THE RED HAND COMMANDO, BUT IN 1984 I DECIDED IT WAS TIME TO REACTIVATE MYSELF WITH THE UDA, THE ORGANISATION I HAD SWORN ALLEGIANCE TO BACK IN MY TEENS. I had an interesting and informative time with the Red Hand, but I needed to get back to the UDA. My all-out war with Republicans was shifting up a gear. There were rumblings of a new joint agreement, a political process being cooked up by Whitehall bigwigs. There were even rumours that Dublin wanted a say in how Ulster was governed. I knew it was time for me to come in from the cold and my first port of call was Andy Tyrie, the Supreme Commander of the UDA.

  Tyrie’s office was in UDA headquarters in Gawn Street, on the corner of the Newtownards Road in East Belfast. Before I went in I had a good look at the buildings facing and overlooking the premises. One caught my eye. It was a flat above a bakery and it looked vacant because it had whited-out windows, but in one corner was a clean spot about the size of a fifty-pence piece. It intrigued me and I mentally noted it.

  Surprisingly, the main door of UDA headquarters hadn’t any security features. It wasn’t even locked. Anybody, rival Loyalists or a Provo hit squad, could have walked in off the street, pushed open the door, climbed the stairs and shot their way into Tyrie’s office. Inside the only other person present was Billy Elliot, brigadier of East Belfast. I stoo
d at the desk and asked to see Tyrie. I was told that an impromptu meeting was impossible and I needed an appointment. I raised my voice, insisting I wanted to see Tyrie. Again I was refused. So I jumped the desk, but before I could even put my hand on the door, Tyrie was standing in front of me with a bewildered look on his face.

  I spoke first. ‘My name is Michael Stone. You don’t know me. I am a former member of the UDA and although I have not been active for a few years I have always regarded myself as a UDA man.’

  Tyrie asked me what I had in mind. I told him I wanted to return to military action in a unit based outside the city. I said Belfast, especially the east of the city, was out of the question. I gave him a telephone number where he could contact me and told him I expected to hear from him within days. Tyrie said he couldn’t help me personally but that he would let the ‘right people’ know about my enquiries. Within forty-eight hours I had a phone number; it was the Mid-Ulster brigadier’s. I met the brigadier and told him I wanted to assassinate known IRA terrorists and Sinn Fein activists. He told me that was ‘very ambitious’ and he would prefer me to concentrate on fund-raising. I told him to forget it. I said if I rob banks, then I keep the cash for myself.

  I kept a low profile for four weeks before going back to see Tyrie. Nothing had changed at Gawn Street: UDA headquarters was still an open building and could have been attacked at any time. Tyrie said he was sorry that the contact didn’t work out. He said he would put me in contact with others. As I left I told him he needed to sort out his in-house security. I explained that the building was open to attack, his life was compromised and he needed to check the building opposite with the whited-out windows. I told him it looked suspicious. Tyrie did have the flat above the bakery looked at. It was empty, but he later discovered the security forces did have a camera on UDA HQ, monitoring all movement of people coming and going.

  Within weeks I had a new associate. He was the brigadier for South Belfast, John McMichael, and our paths first crossed at a venue in that part of the city. He was at a fund-raising event for prisoners and their families and I was at a different function. I refused to work with time-wasters or the tea-and-biscuits paramilitaries. I wanted to work with professionals. McMichael was a professional and we got on instantly. I knew I would enjoy working with him.

  I am proud to call John McMichael my friend. He was a giant among Loyalist men but sadly he didn’t get to fulfil his potential. He was an astute military and political man and for many years he played a magnificent double-hander as the UFF’s Commander and also as leader of the UDA’s foray into political activity. As brigadier for South Belfast he often discussed tactics and operations with me. We also discussed politics. McMichael knew that in the long term it was going to be politics and dialogue that would solve the Ulster problem. He was a man ahead of his time.

  I am also proud of the fact that this solid and dependable soldier was one of my military associates. He was the only UDA man who had my home telephone number. We didn’t meet regularly, both preferring impromptu arrangements. We spoke in code and devised a language based on doggy talk such as ‘the dog’s off his food’ or ‘the dog’s gone walkies’ to disguise our work. If I needed anything, McMichael would provide it because he knew I would use it. He knew I wasn’t all talk and no action. His base was a snooker hall in Lisburn, County Antrim. It was from this location that I was given munitions used in some of my operations. McMichael never offered me ‘sanctions’, or targets. He never offered me intelligence. He never said, ‘I want this man killed’ or ‘This man is your target.’ Instead he would ask if I was operating in his area and, if so, would offer assistance. Sometimes he even pulled back his own men so as not to jeopardise my operations. We did discuss targets and we did discuss names seen on montages and intelligence files, but he never, ever handed me a file and told me that person had to be sanctioned.

  I was given information on potential targets from the UFF’s intelligence officers. The same intelligence was shared throughout the UFF, so the files I saw were also seen elsewhere. They always arrived in the same way, in an A4 brown manila envelope. I wore gloves when I was handling them. Inside were video grabs, pictures, Ordnance Survey maps, aerial shots and documents. There were also RUC mugshots and photographs of targets taken in prison. The files were very professional. I never questioned where they came from but it was obvious UFF intelligence officers had connections with the security forces. It wasn’t my position to grill my colleagues and I never wanted to question where the intelligence came from. I accepted what was on offer and made the best use of it.

  From day one I made it very clear to McMichael that I wouldn’t undertake just any sanction. The target had to have Republican history and be a heavy hitter. He had to have a profile or hold rank. I insisted on having watertight evidence that all potential targets were active in the PIRA or Sinn Fein. I told him I wouldn’t be sectarian and I wouldn’t kill Catholics just for being Catholic. I said if I wanted to be sectarian I could have picked from hundreds of innocent Catholics walking the streets of Belfast. I told McMichael I wanted the IRA men and their political representatives in Sinn Fein. He laughed and said he liked my passion and commitment. There was no question of the UFF targeting innocent Catholics, McMichael pledged. He said the Catholic community had nothing to fear. I promised I would never be indiscriminate or sectarian, unlike the PIRA. I would never place a no-warning bomb among innocent civilians or randomly spray a place filled with nationalists.

  8

  REPUBLICAN TARGETS

  OWEN CARRON WAS MY FIRST TARGET AS A REACTIVATED UDA MEMBER, AND I STALKED HIM FOR FOUR WEEKS. Carron was a Sinn Fein politician and a former MP for Fermanagh-South Tyrone. He first came to prominence as the election agent of the Republican hunger striker and martyr Bobby Sands. Ironically, Sands’s cousin was a boyhood friend of mine. When Sands died in the Maze in May 1981, the first of ten IRA men to starve to death over the next four months, Carron stood in the Westminster by-election and won the seat. Although he had lost his seat in 1983 he remained a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and had a constituency office in the centre of Enniskillen, which is where I planned to execute him.

  McMichael agreed that Carron was a good political target. A UFF intelligence officer supplied me with his file and told me he was a leading Republican in the area. I knew Carron’s life as well as Carron knew it himself. I knew every second of his day. I knew where he lived and had his full address. I knew he had two dogs, a cocker spaniel and a Labrador, and that there was a double garage to the left of the house as you looked at it. I knew that all over the house and garden he had the best security and surveillance equipment money could buy. He had cameras and sensors. He even had tin cans tied to a tripwire strung across the field at the back of his house to alert him to the security forces that watched his every move.

  The UFF provided me with local contacts and a safe house. I ruled out attacking him at his home because he had too much security and I could not get close enough to kill him without being spotted or killed myself. My best option was his constituency advice clinic in the centre of Enniskillen. My own research showed the advice centre was the weakest link in his daily routine and the only place where I could get close enough to kill him. Carron’s routine was simple. Every day he visited his advice centre with his associate James Joseph Murphy, nicknamed ‘Mexican Joe’ because of his long hair and droopy moustache.

  I planned to kill Carron first and then Mexican Joe, and I wanted to assassinate them outside the office. I knew a girl worked on the reception desk and I knew I would also have to shoot her. If constituents were in the room, unfortunately they too would have to be shot. If I was forced to go inside it would be a clean sweep, clearing each room as I worked through the building. My weapons were a .45 semi-automatic Colt pistol loaded with dum-dum bullets and a sawn-off shotgun loaded with solid shot cartridges.

  I knew something else about Owen Carron: he carried a personal issue weapon. It was a .22-calibre Star pi
stol and the RUC gave him a licence to carry it for his personal protection. As a former member of parliament it meant he was entitled to carry one. I know for a fact that he wanted a 9mm pistol but the RUC refused. He then asked for a .38 revolver and that too was refused by the RUC. He was eventually given a licence for the .22, one of the lowest-calibre weapons, and I knew he carried that. The Colt and the shotgun were more than able to take on a small .22 Star.

  I chose Christmas Eve as the date and told my UFF associates to prepare a car to my exact specifications. Two cars were to be used in the operation: one a Ford Cortina legitimately owned by one of my accomplices who would later report it as stolen, and the second a stolen vehicle. Concrete blocks were placed in the boot of the Cortina and cushions filled with sand across the back window. It was the simplest and most effective way of bullet-proofing the car if the security forces opened fire.

  I drove the car myself and parked opposite the Sinn Fein advice centre. My back-up man was parked a mile away, scanning the police airways with a special radio obtained from a member of the RUC. I’d chosen to do the hit alone by approaching Carron on foot, putting one round into his chest and a second into his head. I would use the pistol on Mexican Joe. I had a window of seconds to do the job. I did not want to have to go into the advice centre, but if I had to I would, and had mentally prepared myself for the possibility of shooting the young secretary.

  I sat in the car and waited. There was no sign of Carron. Just then a group of workmen pulled up behind me in a van, took out a compressor and began their noisy work on the car park next door to the advice centre. I remember thinking that the noise of the drill would tone it down for me. Thirty minutes turned into sixty, and Carron still hadn’t arrived. Neither had Mexican Joe. Just as I turned the ignition, my back-up man pulled up alongside me, told me to abort the operation and to get out of the area as fast as I could. When we met at a safe location he told me that Carron had been caught red-handed with an AK47. The news had been broadcast on the police frequency and picked up by my associate’s scanner. I had got out in the nick of time because the RUC searched the advice centre just minutes after I left.