Both Nelson and his FRU handlers came to the conclusion that the only way to get to Alex Maskey was to find a way to lure him out of his fortress home and then shoot him. But because he was so security-conscious they knew that a random caller at his home would receive no reply and there was a serious likelihood that he would immediately phone the RUC to report a suspicious caller. The last thing that handlers and senior officers of the Force Research Unit wanted was any embarrassing interference from the RUC, or the Special Branch asking awkward questions. Nelson reported to his handlers that his hitmen had also looked into the possibility of shooting Maskey when he was being driven around Belfast but that had been shelved because they believed most of the time he was accompanied by armed bodyguards.
Nelson’s FRU handlers said they would look into the situation and at a meeting the following week put forward a plan of action which they believed might succeed in luring Maskey out of his home without arousing his suspicion. Their plan, as put to Nelson, was no less than a detailed plot which they were convinced if carried out properly would end in the cold-blooded murder of Alex Maskey, a democratically elected councillor representing the voters of west Belfast.
At that time many Provo activists and Sinn Fein members and politicians used Apollo Taxis, the same west Belfast firm which the UDA were convinced only employed former Provos and Republican activists.
Nelson’s handlers knew that Maskey was frequently collected from his home by a car from the Apollo taxi firm. They suggested that one UDA gunman should stay in the car ducking down out of sight of Maskey’s house while another gunman should go to Maskey’s front door and call for him. To guarantee success, however, they knew they had to find a way of winning Maskey’s immediate and absolute confidence. They suggested that a car from a Republican area be hijacked by the UDA and taken to a ‘friendly’ Loyalist garage where a specially constructed Apollo Taxi sign – an exact replica of the original – would be fitted to the roof of the car. The handlers then advised Nelson where he should go to have the replica Apollo sign constructed and painted.
Nelson was delighted that British Intelligence were so keen to help the UDA that they would offer such detailed advice, going to such lengths to ensure the murder of a high-profile Sinn Fein politician. Two weeks later the Apollo Taxi sign, expertly fitted to the roof of a stolen vehicle, was handed over to Nelson. The hijacked passenger car looked no different from any of the ordinary, everyday saloons Apollo used to ferry people around Belfast.
At 9.45 a.m. one morning in July 1987, the fake taxi parked directly outside Alex Maskey’s home in full view of neighbours, pedestrians or anyone looking out of a window or checking through the spy-hole of Maskey’s front door. One UDA gunman stayed in the driver’s seat while the other walked to the house and rang the bell.
‘Taxi for you, Alex,’ shouted the man when someone answered the bell and asked who was calling. But no one opened the front door.
‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ came the shouted reply. It was Alex Maskey’s voice. Though he had not ordered a taxi that morning, the FRU’s understanding of the man proved correct. They had been convinced that he would trust the fact that an Apollo taxi had turned up, which often occurred when he was needed to attend an urgent meeting, and a taxi would be sent to pick him up.
A few minutes later, Maskey opened the door and stepped out. In front of him stood the man he believed was the taxi-driver. But this masked man was holding a gun. Before Maskey could react, the gunman opened fire at point-blank range, hitting him in the stomach with three shots. Maskey fell to the ground and his attacker turned and ran to the waiting car. The UDA gunmen drove away unhindered by anyone. It was not surprising that the two men were able to escape without encountering the RUC or any passing army patrol – the Force Research Unit had put an exclusion zone in operation on the estate where Maskey lived. The gunmen’s vehicle was found abandoned by the RUC later that day. There were no fingerprints and no sign of the weapon.
Maskey was rushed by ambulance to the Royal Victoria Hospital where surgeons operated immediately in a bid to save his life. It would be weeks before the Belfast City Councillor had recovered. Doctors proclaimed later that he was very lucky to have survived the shooting.
But the attempt on Maskey’s life would have far-reaching repercussions. Maskey was no low-life Provo gunman of little or no consequence to the IRA leadership, but rather a well-respected, well-trusted, well-known Belfast City Councillor who represented the ordinary Catholics of west Belfast. This was no attempted killing that could be investigated superficially by the authorities and then quickly forgotten.
The RUC Special Branch were called in to investigate and their informants were convinced that Maskey’s attackers were members of the UDA. Loyalist informers told Special Branch that the man suspected of organising and setting up the attack was Brian Nelson, the UDA’s chief intelligence officer. As a result, senior Special Branch officers raised the matter in meetings of both the Joint Irish Section and the Tasking Co-ordination Group, for they were surprised that the UDA had become, almost overnight, more willing to take risks when planning attacks on Provisional IRA men, Sinn Fein councillors or even those Catholics believed to support the Republican cause.
Special Branch were also worried that the UDA appeared to be becoming more imaginative in their plans, going to the trouble of making a taxi sign to gain access to someone they wanted to assassinate. They admitted at the JIS meeting that none of their contacts inside the UDA, of whom there were many, had known anything whatsoever about the attempt on Maskey’s life.
Special Branch also told the JIS and the TCG that they were hearing reports from their Loyalist contacts that British Military Intelligence were becoming more closely involved with the UDA. They found this most disturbing because Special Branch had always believed that keeping an eye on the UDA was their prerogative and nothing to do with any other intelligence agency whether military or MI5. At the end of one top-level JIS meeting, Force Research Unit chiefs, as well as senior MI5 officers, were asked to check whether any of their officers were involved with the UDA, and to report back their findings to the JIS.
But no senior officer of British Intelligence was ordered to appear or was asked questions about the shooting of Alex Maskey. And no ‘inquest’ was ordered into the shooting. Indeed, the FRU handlers were not even spoken to by senior officers and asked to explain what had happened. Their chiefs called in at their officers and, with a wink and a nod and no questions asked, told them, ‘You have all heard of the unprovoked attack on the Sinn Fein councillor Alex Maskey and you must have heard that the RUC Special Branch are making allegations that Military Intelligence could well have been involved in some way with the shooting. Now, of course, we all know that is not true and has nothing whatsoever to do with the Force Research Unit. As far as we know this shooting was probably the responsibility of the UDA and this information has been passed to the RUC for further investigation. We have contacts with the UDA but unfortunately we do not always know when they are planning an operation, nor do we know the name of the targeted person or the location where this might be carried out. However, we must all make sure in future that our contacts with the UDA provide us with more details of operations planned by the UDA so that the forces of law and order can move speedily enough to prevent any killings or injuries of any intended targets, including, of course, any Provo, Sinn Fein or Republican activists, members or sympathisers. We must do all in our power to stop these random killings.’
There was no discussion following this charade of a pep-talk from the FRU’s senior officers but a recording was made so that any future investigation could see how the unit’s officers had reacted to the shooting of Maskey.
Throughout most of 1987 the keen-minded Nelson was more involved in organising his computer database of Republican and Sinn Fein targets rather than spending time planning sectarian murders and random killings of Provo activists and political opponents. Nelson would become quite a tidy, cons
cientious agent in the first few months of starting work for both the UDA and the FRU. Shortly after returning to Belfast he walked into a safe-house meeting one day carrying a bulging briefcase and proceeded to take out a large A4 black book with plastic folders. There were also beige cardboard portfolio files and loose papers, written on in various handwriting styles as though compiled by a number of people. These were sometimes accompanied by black-and-white photographs – mugshots – which looked as though they had originated from official RUC or Ulster Defence Regiment files. These made up the UDA’s intelligence material and some had obviously come from either the RUC or Army Intelligence. Files on some people even included the secret P-cards. In all, there must have been details on about two hundred separate people in the portfolio, from all areas of the Province, though mostly from Belfast. Most of the files were of Provo, INLA and Sinn Fein activists, supporters and sympathisers; some were old and useless but others were right up to date.
The FRU handlers were impressed, even taken aback, by the quantity as well as the high quality of some of the material, and offered to sort out the paperwork, put it in some sort of order, and then return it to Nelson at a later date. They also, of course, wanted to copy and check every item.
Two or three times a week throughout the summer and autumn of that year Nelson would meet his FRU handlers, gaining as much information as possible from them about potential targets so that his new toy – his computer system – would be up to date with all the latest highly sensitive intelligence material. He would usually phone to check whether a meeting could be set up. On those occasions he would call the FRU headquarters where the officers and handlers were based. The FRU adopted the same practice as every other intelligence organisation in handling agents and regular informants. The four codes represented different levels of urgency. For example: ‘Do you fancy a visit to the chippy?’ might be a request to arrange a meeting; ‘Do you want to go to the football?’ might mean he needed an urgent meeting; Do you want to see me for a pint of Guinness?’ might mean the agent was in some danger and needed immediate assistance; and ‘My mother’s been taken sick’ might mean some operation, like a shooting or bombing, was due to take place in the immediate future.
The telephonist on duty at the base would have a book with these coded messages and by the side of each the agent’s number, which in Nelson’s case was Ten-Thirty-Three, though he himself, as was the case with every other agent or informant, would never know that number. Notes in the book by the side of each coded message would alert the telephonist as to how to respond to the message, exactly what he should do and whom he should contact. Included, of course, were the various telephone numbers of the handlers and officers to be contacted. The system had worked most efficiently for decades at least.
Nelson had access to two computers, one which the UDA obtained for him and which he kept in their headquarters, and the other, a more sophisticated model, which was purchased for him by Military Intelligence in May 1987 and installed at his home. It cost nine hundred pounds second-hand. He was also given instruction by computer experts employed by Military Intelligence on how to use the machine. If he ever came across a problem in organising his files or database he only had to phone for help and an expert would be on hand to sort out the problem. He had every confidence that his home computer would never be targeted by the RUC, Special Branch or the army because his home had been put ‘out of bounds’ by Military Intelligence. He felt totally protected.
‘I need all the information you can give me,’ Nelson would say regularly, ‘so that I can illustrate to my UDA bosses that I have top-secret intelligence about the people they want to target. The greater my credibility with the UDA the more use I can be to Military Intelligence because the UDA will put more faith and trust in me.’
Within a matter of months Brian Nelson had a considerable database of more than one hundred people. By the time his extraordinary career ended, this had grown to between four and five hundred names of potential victims, and he had all the necessary information to target the great majority of them accurately.
Understandably, Nelson was very proud of his computer and of the mass of information he had installed in its database. He kept the computer in his study, a small boxroom upstairs at his home where he kept all his contact files. By the time his infamous career was over Nelson had virtually as many names on file as the IBM computers – with a programme codenamed ‘Crucible’ – used by the RUC, Special Branch, the army and British Intelligence. Anyone investigating the various databases, including Nelson’s, would have come to only one conclusion: that the information contained on all the computers had come from the same, single source. Crucible terminals were in every army base but access by the RUC and the army was only to level 2, whereas Nelson was permitted information to level 5. (The maximum level was 8, reserved for senior intelligence officers and the Political Section, namely MI5.)
Nelson had names and descriptions of Provo, Republican and Sinn Fein targets. He also had their various aliases, their addresses and telephone numbers, the names of their wives and the names and ages of their children. He stored the make, colour, engine capacity and registration numbers of their cars; their employers’ names, addresses and telephone numbers as well as any record of arrests, charges faced and sentences and time served. Nelson also collected and logged the various sightings of his targets in meticulous detail, providing himself with a remarkable cross-referenced file. It also contained details of extramarital affairs, names of mistresses and lovers, houses where top Provo gunmen and bombers spent one or two nights a week in their bid to keep one jump ahead of the law and, more importantly, the UDA gunmen. Nelson also had details of the men’s known haunts, particularly the Republican clubs and pubs they frequented.
He was provided with information from another computer, also manufactured by IBM, with a top-secret programme codenamed ‘Vengeful’, which had been set up for the RUC, the army and British Intelligence. It was fast and accurate, providing a print-out within seven seconds of the information being fed into the computer. Vengeful not only had details of every vehicle registered in Northern Ireland, but also a record of every vehicle that ever visited the Province, including, of course, those from the Irish Republic. This vehicle list – including the names and addresses of the owners – covered not only cars but also all vans, trucks and lorries brought into Ulster by the security forces. The computer stored information tracking the latest sighting of all these vehicles with places, dates and times.
Military Intelligence also supplied Nelson with the all-important ‘family trees’ of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA, giving every known detail of the respective commander, second-in-command, intelligence officer, quartermaster and any cell commanders plus details of their addresses and telephone numbers, vehicles and registration plates, their wives, girlfriends, relatives, friends and acquaintances, and the various safe-houses where the Belfast Brigade held their top-level meetings. He was also given details of Provo links with the IRA’s Northern Command as well as a breakdown of the seven-man IRA Army Council, including particulars of both Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. By the end of 1987 Nelson had details in his computer of about sixty senior Provos, all the known current activists. In addition, he had a full background report on nine activists involved with the smaller, breakaway INLA who were still active in the late 1980s.
As soon as they were available, photographs and montages of everyone on his files, many of them police photographs taken at the time of arrest, were given to Nelson. Some of the other pictures taken covertly by 14th Int or E4A surveillance units. There were sometimes six or seven photographs of well-known Provo activists and Sinn Fein leaders, making recognition easy and almost foolproof.
And that was not all. Military Intelligence gave Nelson the names and addresses of the firms, companies and scams that the Provisional IRA were then running in Belfast, including the names of taxi firms, construction companies and Republican pubs and clubs. He was also s
upplied with information showing how the Provos laundered their scams, monies earned from fruit-machines, protection rackets and gambling.
The FRU provided Nelson with a portable radio-frequency scanner which he would carry around Belfast, listening in to open RUC and army networks as well as taxi firms and those frequencies used by Provo leaders. The hand-held scanner, measuring no more than nine by three inches, had a small screen which showed whichever radio frequency the scanner had picked up. In a very short time Nelson knew precisely whose radio links he was tuned to. Of course, the scanner could not pick up any secure frequencies, such as those used by the intelligence services and some sections of Special Branch, but it nevertheless proved a very useful tool for Nelson.
The streetwise agent possessed a meticulous mind for detail which surprised his handlers. They knew that his education had been sparse, to say the least, and yet he had a remarkable memory, and this, coupled with his fastidious attention to detail, meant that he kept immaculate intelligence files, with no detail missing. When the FRU handlers visited his home they were somewhat taken aback by the professional way he had mastered the art of databasing and cross-referencing so much information.
By the end of 1987 Brian Nelson, the UDA’s intelligence chief, was in an extraordinary position with access to most of the information about the Provos, Sinn Fein/IRA and Republican sympathisers, their friends and relatives, their haunts and their vehicles. His intelligence databases were rivalled only by those held by British Intelligence and the RUC Special Branch. And all had been provided courtesy of Military Intelligence. But the JIS knew precisely what was going on and the extent to which Nelson had been provided with secret data, as well as the level of access he had been granted.
There was another side to Brian Nelson. The highly professional intelligence officer appeared almost childlike in his fascination for handguns. From the very start of his relationship with British Intelligence, he would continually demand that he should be armed, granted a handgun licence and be permitted to carry a weapon at all times for his own personal safety. This was always frowned upon and Nelson was in fact never provided with any type of gun by the intelligence services.
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