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

by McGartland, Martin

  Chapter Four

  I didn’t regain consciousness completely for four weeks after my leap from the third-floor flat where I had been held prisoner. And yet for some unknown reason I thought for months afterwards that I had only been unconscious a matter of 48 hours. No matter – when I came round, the pain was real enough. I had sustained some serious injuries. My left arm had been nearly severed at the shoulder as the glass from the window cut through the sinew and muscle. I was also suffering from lacerations to the head, a fractured jaw and broken teeth. The severe bruising to the head had caused deep concussion and doctors at Musgrave Park Hospital, a military hospital, told me that I must have landed head-first on the ground. They told me I was lucky to be alive, kidding me that I must have a skull made of rubber to have survived such an impact from a height of 40 feet. However, when I felt pain in my arm or my fractured jaw, or dizziness in my head, it simply reminded me that the pain was nothing compared to what the IRA torturers would have inflicted. By October 1991 I had fully recovered and left the Province with an armed Special Branch escort, taking the sea route from Larne to Scotland. We took the train to Newcastle and I was handed over to Northumbria Police Special Branch officers. I had been provided with a new identity – Martin Ashe – a bank account, passport and driving licence in my new name as well as a new social security number. I was also promised a small flat which would be rented for me until all my papers had been sorted by the RUC and a decision taken as to my needs. I was driven to my new home in Wallsend not far from the famous Swan Hunter shipyards. What I didn’t know was that Wallsend was then considered to be one of the poorest districts in the north-east of Britain, where unemployment was high, crime was rife and life hard. The price of property was amongst the cheapest in mainland Britain. Nothing was mentioned about a job or money for a business. I was given no advice except to keep my head down. The two-bedroom flat was dingy, dirty and disgusting. I looked around the cramped dwelling on the ground floor of the 19th-century house amazed that anyone should be asked to live in such awful conditions. The wallpaper was dirty and torn, the bathroom had slugs on the walls, the bath and wash basin were dirty and stained; the carpets were stained and smelly; the curtains were little or more than rags; the furniture was too dirty to sit on, the bed looked more than 30 years old. There was no heat save for a small gas fire in the sitting-room. To me it seemed the flat hadn’t been lived in for years or decorated for a generation.

  That night, as I lay in bed waiting for sleep, I thought of Angie and the kids and fought back the tears. A feeling of desolation and loneliness gripped me and I wondered what the hell I had done to end up living alone in such awful surroundings. The following day I went out to buy a few things for the house, hoping to make it more homely and bearable to live in. I bought mugs and some cutlery, plates, a new teapot and saucepans to cook with. I didn’t feel like using any of the dishes or cutlery that were in the flat because they were cracked, chipped and old. I was missing Angie and the kids desperately and I thought that if I made the house more habitable, more pleasant to live in then I might be able to persuade Angie to bring the boys over to Tyneside so that we could live together as a family once again. I feared for Angie, wondering if the IRA bastards might haul her to one of their meetings, occasions when a number of IRA thugs question and cross-question someone, trying to confuse them so that they end up telling them everything they want to know. I had witnessed such meetings before, grown men reduced to rambling, babbling figures unable to think or speak straight for fear of what might happen to them. These wretched wrecks usually ended up telling their IRA inquisitors everything they wanted to know whether it was the truth or not. In that way the IRA would not only discover facts and information they could use on future occasions when questioning others who lived in Republican West Belfast, those tens of thousands of Catholics who allegedly lived under their protection but who, in reality, lived in abject fear of the strict discipline imposed on innocent people by the so-called Irish Republican Army. I wanted to call Angie every night to tell her how much I missed her, to apologise for leaving her alone with the kids, for involving her in the mess that my life had become since working as an agent for the Special Branch way back in 1987. Very occasionally I did call her, though I knew I was taking a risk. We would weep together during those phone calls for we loved each other and needed each other. Angie had shown remarkable bravery in those months that I had been recovering, understanding that she could not, must not, see me for fear that she might be later picked up and questioned by the IRA. She had no fear for herself but only for Martin and Podraig, frightened that her young sons might be left without a father or a mother. Angie, in fact, had known nothing, absolutely nothing, of my life as an agent for British Intelligence working inside the IRA’s intelligence wing, providing information to the Special Branch. There were two main reasons why I told Angie nothing of my undercover work; one was the fact that if she knew nothing she couldn’t tell anyone anything; the other the fact that she would have thoroughly disapproved and persuaded me to stop working for the British. In our infrequent telephone calls I would beg Angie to bring the kids to England, to escape the politics, as well as the bombs and bullets of Belfast. I urged her to come to England for the safety of living in peace on the mainland where I would be able to care for and protect her and the boys in a way I could not while they continued to live in Northern Ireland. For her part Angie was torn between leaving her family with whom she was very close, her friends, whom she relied on for support, understanding and sympathy, and living in England, a strange country she had never even visited, in a town she didn’t know, surrounded by total strangers. ‘Can you understand the Geordie slang?’ she asked one night during a phone call. ‘Not to begin with,’ I told her, ‘but the people who live here are really kind, the salt of the earth.’ ‘But I’m told strangers can’t understand what they’re saying,’ she said, sounding worried. ‘It’s not that bad; you’ll get used to the accent,’ I told her, trying to bolster her confidence, encouraging her to take the great leap, leave Belfast and come live with me in Newcastle. After three weeks Angie phoned and suddenly asked, ‘Would I come across on the ferry?’ My heart leapt and I could hardly contain myself, suddenly chatting 16 to the dozen as I felt the excitement buzz through my body. ‘You’ll come then?’ I asked, expectation in my voice. ‘If you really want me to.’ She replied. ‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘I’ve wanted you to come over here from the moment I arrived.’ ‘Promise?’ she asked, sounding demure. ‘I’d cross my heart and hope to die,’ I replied. ‘Sort everything out,’ I told her, ‘but remember, tell no one except your Ma. No one must know that you’re coming over here because the IRA might somehow come to hear of it and you know what that means. They might tail you all the way to this house, just to get at me.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured me. ‘No one will know I’m planning on joining you until after I’ve left.’ ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Keep it that way. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ I put the phone down and punched the air, overcome with happiness at the thought of having Angie and the boys with me once again. Seconds later I redialled her number in Belfast. ‘I suddenly had a panic attack,’ I told her, ‘thinking you might not come. You promise, don’t you?’ ‘Marty,’ she said, sounding so sensible for a 20-year old, ‘I’ve told you I’m coming and I will.’ ‘Promise?’ I asked’ ‘On my mother’s life,’ she replied. ‘Oh Angie, that sounds great,’ I said. ‘You’re a wonderful girl and I love you to pieces.’ One week after arriving in Wallsend I decided it was time to get fit again. I had had no exercise since my leap from the flat in August and I was feeling dreadfully unfit. So I bought a pair of trainers and a track suit and each evening I would run two to three miles along the road by the perimeter wall of the famous Swan Hunter shipyards. One night in late October I went out as usual and had run my normal three miles around the streets when I suddenly became aware that someone was behind me, running, keeping in step with me. I turned and saw the shadow of a man about one hundred yards
behind me but closing fast. I was shattered from my running but somehow found the extra strength to increase my pace. It was no use. This man was gaining fast and he was only yards from me when I reached my front door. I knew, I simply knew the man was an IRA killer. I fumbled with the front door key, trying to remain calm as my nerves took over. I convinced myself that if I didn’t get into my house within seconds I would hear the blast of a hand-gun and I would be done for. Eventually, I managed to open the door and this man put his foot in the door to stop me shutting him out. We tussled back and forth but I did notice that I had not given him time to get out his gun. Suddenly I had an idea and pulled the door towards me knocking him off balance. In the second he needed to regain his balance I slammed shut the door, locked it and then ran like hell through the flat, out of the back door into the yard. I shinned as fast as possible over the back wall and, without thinking, ran round to the front of the house. The stranger was still standing at my front door, banging on it with his fist. I crept up behind him, grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him round and hit him in the stomach, making him fall forward. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ I shouted in anger ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, gasping for breath. I pushed him against the wall of the house, held him by the throat and demanded a proper answer to my question. ‘What the fuck were you chasing me for?’ I asked him again angrily.‘I was after you,’ he said. ‘What were you after me for?’ I asked, unable to fathom what on earth the man was trying to explain. ‘You kicked in my car the other night,’ he said. ‘I did what?’ I asked indignantly, wondering if this was a ploy to get me to relax. I still believed he was probably an IRA thug waiting for the chance to grab his hand-gun. I continued to hold him, making sure he couldn’t make a grab for his gun. ‘You kicked my car in the other night,’ he said again. ‘I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but I kicked no car,’ I told him. He appeared to be looking at me more closely. Suddenly the man said, ‘I think I may be wrong. I don’t think it was you kicking my car; the kids were much younger.’ I let go of the man and he stood by the wall, continuing to apologise. ‘I think I’ve made a mistake,’ he said. ‘I think you have,’ I told him.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the other night I came out of my house down the road and saw some kids kicking shit out of my car and I chased them away, told them to stop kicking other people’s cars, causing damage which the owner had to pay for. They ran off, jeering and laughing, and I warned them that if I saw them again I would catch them and give them a good clip. When I saw you running down the road past my car I thought you were one of those kids, so I gave chase. I’m sorry.’ His explanation seemed perfectly plausible and I believed him. He made no effort to escape my clutches and I was sure he was no IRA killer intent on getting me. For a start, he had a strong Geordie accent. I suddenly realised I had over reacted. But I couldn’t say anything to him; I couldn’t explain why I had reacted so violently, nor tell him that I had been within an ace of kicking the shit out of him. I knew it was just a nervous reaction to being chased by someone late at night who seemed intent on breaking into my house. A few minutes later we were shaking hands, exchanging names and he promised to buy me a pint. We said ‘goodnight’ with a laugh but when I walked back inside the house I leaned against the door, closed my eyes and sighed with relief thinking of what might have been. ‘Shit,’ I thought. ‘I’ve got to get this IRA nonsense out of my head otherwise I might end up one day killing some poor innocent bastard.’ As I looked around I also knew I had to do something to improve my dreary, squalid flat so I phoned my old handler Felix and told him of the conditions in which I had been placed. ‘You wouldn’t put a dog in a place like this,’ I told him. ‘It really smells and is quite filthy. I’ve tried to improve things but it really is awful.’ ‘Listen,’ Felix said, ‘go and buy a cheap camera and take photos of the place, inside every room, including the kitchen and bathroom, so that people can see how terrible it is. Then send the photos through to the Chief Constable’s office, along with a letter, so that he can make the judgement. If it’s that bad, Marty, we’ll have you out of there, find you some other accommodation.’ ‘I’ll happily send the photos to the Chief Constable. I’m not kidding you, Felix,’ I told him, ‘you would be disgusted if you came and saw the condition of the place, I promise you.’ ‘I believe you, Marty. Don’t worry. Just get those photos and send them over. But don’t forget the letter. Okay?’ he said. ‘I’ll do just that,’ I told him. I sent the letter and photographs to the Chief Constable’s office and Felix phoned me later to say that he had seen the photographs and wholeheartedly agreed with my description of the place. He seemed more shocked that the Northumbria Police Special Branch should put one of the RUC’s agents in such dreadful accommodation. He said that he would urge the RUC Special Branch in Belfast to speed up the application for the funds which were due to me so that a modest house could be bought for me. Felix knew that I hoped Angie, Martin, then two, and Podraig, who was just six months, would be joining me shortly. He warned me, however, that I would have to wait for a few months for all the red tape and paperwork to be drawn up, finalised and authorised. He did assure me though; ‘Don’t worry, I will make sure decent accommodation is found; we can’t have you living in some pigsty.’ Ever since I had arrived in Wallsend I would speak to Felix each and every day at exactly 2 p.m. We arranged that I should be standing by a telephone box in Wallsend at that time and he would phone through to check that I was okay and not feeling too lonely. Sometimes we would chat for an hour, talking about everything under the sun. And I noted he was always cheerful, telling me amusing stories, making me laugh as though wanting to keep up my spirits. He wouldn’t, of course, call me at home for fear his calls were intercepted by the IRA. He knew that the IRA had extensive contacts working inside British Telecom which they would use time and again for tracing people in Northern Ireland and sometimes in Mainland Britain. Indeed, using the telephone network to track people they wanted to target was one of the IRA’s most favoured methods of ferreting out people who had gone into hiding. The IRA hierarchy hated losing anyone who had joined the cause and then worked for the Government or the RUC. Agents and informants such as me were always high on the IRA’s target list because to catch and kill a former IRA member worked wonders as a warning to any other person planning to defect, or even contemplate working for the RUC. For the first four weeks of my life on the mainland I also had the company, for at least an hour a day, of two RUC Special Branch officers who were detailed to watch over me and care for me. During their stay in England they lived in Northumbria police accommodation and would drive over to see me each day. I believe that the reason they came visiting was to ensure that I didn’t high-tail it back to Belfast, for they rightly concluded that I was feeling alone and miserable and obviously missing Angie and my boys. The Special Branch had known other informants who had been taken out of Belfast and housed in safe accommodation on the mainland, provided with new identities, passport etc and who then, feeling homesick, had made their way back to Belfast without informing anyone. These people worried the shit out of the RUC because, on occasions, they had highly sensitive material locked in their memories which the IRA would have loved dearly to learn about. Sometimes the RUC managed to intercept them, explain the risks they were taking and arrange for them to return to England. On other occasions the IRA reached them first and they had been taken away, questioned by the IRA’s feared Civil Administration Team and then shot. Throughout those first few weeks I wanted to speak to Angie on a daily basis but I realised that could have been dangerous both for me and, more importantly, for Angie and the boys. My SB friends told me to be very wary of calling her at her home number but to try to call a phone box at a prearranged time. But I was so happy that she was coming over to England and bringing the boys with her that it was with great difficulty that I refrained from calling her. I was also worried that she might have a change of heart; that her mother might persuade her to stay in Belfast. But she didn’t – she was as good a
s her word. I was a bundle of nerves when I travelled by train to Stranraer, praying that nothing would go wrong, so keen and eager to see Angie and the boys. But I didn’t let the occasion go to my head. I knew there was every possibility that the IRA might, somehow, have heard of Angie’s plans to join me and I was taking no chances. I didn’t walk all the way to disembarking point but stayed in the background, finding a vantage point from where I could see Angie coming off the boat but no one could see me. I checked everyone as they walked from the ferry just in case I recognised someone from my days with the IRA. But I saw no one and when I felt the coast was clear I ventured out to welcome my family to Britain. Angie looked tired and worried and the children hardly recognised me at first because they had not seen me for four months. I gave Angie a hug and a kiss and told her how wonderful it was to see her again. She seemed nervous and somewhat strange, as though holding back. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Sure I am,’ she replied. ‘Why do you ask?’ ‘Are you sure no one tailed you?’ I asked, worried in case Angie had been told by the IRA to act normal when she met me, warning her that giving any hint she was being tailed would result in instant death for her and the boys. That was a typical IRA ploy which they had used time and again, especially when planting bombs. I looked around, checking to see if anyone suspicious was hanging around nearby, but saw no one. ‘You’re like a cat on a hot tin roof,’ Angie said, smiling. ‘Will you calm down, relax? I told you no one knew we were leaving and no one’s tailed us.’ ‘Are you sure?’ I asked, still not certain that Angie was telling me everything. ‘Yes, I’m certain,’ she said. ‘Now stop worrying, pick up these cases and give me a hand with the kids.’ Suddenly I realised I was being paranoid and foolish, that I had been living on my own for too long, letting the IRA dominate my thinking rather than pushing those fears to the back of my mind and getting on with my life. As we walked to the railway station to catch the train to Newcastle I realised how lucky I was to have Angie and the boys with me again. I felt a warm glow of happiness as the train sped through the wild and beautiful Scottish countryside but I realised that Angie, sitting across from me, seemed concerned and apprehensive. She seemed so young and vulnerable and I made a mental note to stop feeling so pathetic and show some strength of character. Then she caught my eye and smiled, looking more confident, as though a great weight had been lifted from her mind. I leaned forward, gripped her hand and squeezed it gently. We said nothing but looked into each other’s eyes as the train rattled along, each of us holding one of the boys as they slept beside us. I had warned Angie of the terrible conditions in which we would have to live but explained that the RUC were trying to sort out somewhere else, though the red tape and paperwork necessary would mean we would have to put up with the present accommodation for a few months. In fact, I had no idea how long it would all take but I hoped, for Angie’s sake, that it wouldn’t be too long. I had persuaded her to come and live on the mainland and she didn’t deserve to live in a slum, especially as the health and safety of Martin and Podraig were uppermost in her mind. ‘My God,’ she said, as she walked into the flat and looked around at the dingy surroundings. ‘From what you said, Marty, I thought things would be bad, but I never realised the flat would be this bad.’ ‘I know,’ I told her. ‘I warned you. But remember I had no choice. This has been rented for me by the Northumbria Police and nothing will change until the RUC find me some accommodation. I’m sorry, Angie, I really am but there’s nothing I could do. I wanted everything to be nice for you and the boys but I couldn’t do any better for now.’ ‘We’ll make the best of a bad job,’ she said. ‘Now give me a hand with the cases and let’s get the place sorted out.’ Within a week of Angie’s arrival Felix phoned with some good news. The RUC had forwarded £4,000 for me to buy a second-hand car, a Ford Fiesta, to enable me to drive Angie and the boys around, to make us feel free and mobile, rather than being holed up in a dreadful flat day and night. For Christmas that year I was determined to get away from Wallsend because we would have probably felt very lonely while everyone else around us would have been enjoying their festivities with members of their families. So I rented a cottage in Scotland for a week and we had a wonderfully romantic holiday. Although the boys were still very young, Martin, in particular, loved opening his presents. Angie relaxed and laughed and smiled and seemed to enjoy herself but on Christmas Day there were tears for she missed her family terribly. She thought of her parents, her brothers, her sisters, cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone enjoying themselves together at their Belfast home and realised that she would not be seeing any of them this year or any year in the future. I believe on that Christmas Day Angie realised for the first time that coming to England had been a permanent move; that she would never again be able to return to Belfast, even for a fleeting visit and that she would, in effect, be cut off from her family forever. She fully realised that once the IRA knew she was living with me they would always be waiting for her to return, to question her and find out all they could about my whereabouts. By moving to England, Angie had exiled herself permanently from Belfast as I had and she found the break with her family very, very hard to take. Throughout the cold, hard winter that was Newcastle in January and February 1992 I could see that Angie was becoming more restless and homesick though she tried to hide her feelings. However, in later February we had some good news. I was informed by my Northumbria Special Branch contact, a man called Alan, that I had been given permission to look for a house in their force area which the police would purchase for me. I would also be given £6,000 to equip the house from top to bottom with everything from curtains to carpets, beds to sofas, a washing machine and dryer. But £6,000 would be the maximum. My expectations soared, realising that a lovely new home might help to make Angie feel better and perhaps persuade her that life in England was not so bad. I knew that a new home wouldn’t stop her missing her parents back home but I just hoped it would make her realise that life with me and the boys was a big enough compensation. I couldn’t be sure. Seconds later my expectations were dashed when Alan told me that the RUC had informed him that I could only buy a house for a maximum of £25,000. ‘What?’ I said, in amazement. ‘£25,000? What the fuck are they on about? You can hardly buy a rabbit hutch for that amount in Newcastle. I’ve got a girlfriend and two children living with me; I can’t buy a one-bedroomed flat somewhere.’ ‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ said Alan. ‘I’m just passing on messages. You’ll have to take it up with the authorities.’‘Fucking right I will,’ I told him angrily. I felt dejected and miserable, realising that once again I was being screwed. The following day I phoned Felix in Belfast and told him what I had been offered by RUC headquarters in Belfast, who had passed the message to me via the Northumbria Police. He could hardly believe his ears. ‘Jesus, Marty,’ he said, ‘they’re fucking you about something rotten. I don’t know what they’re doing giving you a maximum of £25,000. Let me look into it. They can’t do that to you. It’s not as though you’re living on your own, not now Angie and the kids have joined you. I’ll be in touch.’