But that didn’t deter him from asking endless questions about the various guns his handlers carried with them as well as details of other weapons which they were called on to use from time to time. He would ask to hold their Browning 9mm handguns with extended magazines, capable of firing twenty rounds; their Heckler & Koch S3 assault rifles which held a maximum of thirty .556 calibre rounds; their favourite Heckler & Koch 9mm MP51 sub-machine-guns which also held thirty rounds; and their tiny Walther .765 pistols which could be hidden inconspicuously inside the wearer’s socks. Quite often when attending meetings in safe-houses, Nelson would ask to hold one of the handguns and, after taking out the ammunition, would sit and play with the gun, seemingly mesmerised by the power he realised came from such a weapon.
As the months rolled by, Nelson became so confident of his relationship with Military Intelligence – and the security that it afforded him – that he would turn to his handlers whenever he needed advice, no matter how delicate the subject. Even when his questions involved breaking the law, he would still seek their advice, and, nine times out of ten, it was readily given. Military Intelligence needed Nelson and his freelance Loyalist informants who were starting to provide the type of information necessary for the security services to keep an eye on the Provos. Nelson even turned to his handlers for advice when the UDA chiefs asked him to store weapons which had been used in operations against the Provos. At least one of the weapons, a sub-machine-gun, had been used by the UDA to kill a Provo activist. But Nelson was worried, not sure whether he should risk hiding UDA weapons himself.
At one meeting he tentatively raised the question with his handlers: ‘I’ve been asked to store some weapons by the UDA. I’m not certain, of course, but I suspect they might be hot. Have you any ideas what I should do?’
‘Are you asking us to store them for you?’ one asked.
‘You wouldn’t do that, would you?’ he asked hopefully.
‘No, we couldn’t do that.’
‘Have you any ideas then?’ he asked again.
‘Are you prepared to have these weapons at your house?’ one asked. ‘It wouldn’t be too much of a risk; remember, you are officially protected from the authorities.’
‘I don’t know,’ Nelson replied, ‘it sounds dangerous, having them at home.’
‘Well, have you somewhere on your property where you could hide them or somewhere nearby? Have you a large outside drain, for example?’
‘There’s a drain with a manhole cover at the end of my garden,’ he said, ‘would that do?’
‘It could be the perfect place,’ came the reply, ‘but remember, before putting them in a damp environment like that, you must oil the weapons well and roll them in plastic bags so they don’t get wet.’
The FRU handlers, however, were taking no chances. They wanted to know what the weapons had been used for because they feared they could well have been employed in any number of killings by UDA gunmen. Nelson was happy to hand over the guns to the FRU for examination by army forensic experts before hiding them away. By comparing marks left by rounds fired during previous attacks, ballistic experts were able to discover for certain that one of the weapons, the sub-machine-gun mentioned above, had been used in at least four previous attacks. There were also two 9mm pistols, one Belgian, one Czech.
All were tested by ballistic experts in the traditional manner, by firing them into a box of sand and then examining and detailing the marks left in the sand by the rounds. By such means, forensic experts knew that if ever any of the weapons Nelson planned to hide were used in any future attack, ballistics would know for sure that they were from Nelson’s secret arsenal.
Before they were returned to him, one of his handlers said, ‘Make sure we know if you are asked for any of these prior to a UDA attack. We want to know, we must know. And there is one other piece of advice: if any of these weapons are ever used by any UDA gunmen again, never accept them back, otherwise you could be charged with serious offences, including complicity to murder, and that could land you in jail for many years. Under those circumstances, Brian, we would not be able to save you. Do you understand?’
‘I’ll remember that,’ he said. ‘Is that right, though – you couldn’t save me?’
‘That’s right,’ he was told in no uncertain terms, ‘not in those circumstances. Take our advice, and never forget it, okay?’
‘Right,’ Nelson replied in his thick Belfast accent.
‘Never carry those weapons around with you either, no matter how tempted you might be,’ he was warned. ‘If you’re caught holding weapons, we won’t be able to save you. Have you got that?’
‘Aye,’ he replied, as though only half-listening to what was being said.
It seemed, however, that he had taken to heart the advice being offered; but, by the spring of 1988, the cocky, arrogant Nelson was becoming over-confident, almost getting out of control. With his £300 a week cash in hand from Army Intelligence and his expenses from the UDA, he began drinking heavily in Loyalist clubs and pubs, spending money freely and ending up three or more nights a week almost paralytically drunk. He would buy his mates drinks, chat up the young women he fancied and brag about working for the Ulster Defence Association. He found that women responded to his boastful claims of running the UDA. Indeed, he would go out of his way to charm women he fancied, changing almost immediately from a rather uncouth, loudmouth into a far more charming, quietly spoken, even debonair, polite and reassuring man.
At the same time they also had to deal with Nelson’s escalating marriage problems. He would call asking that his handlers immediately visit his home to quieten down his wife or ask them to explain to her that his job was so important that he had to be out all hours of the day and night, drinking with important contacts. Understandably, the FRU didn’t want to become involved in such domestic problems but on occasion it became a necessity to visit his home to calm the marital situation which sometimes appeared to be careering out of control.
There was also concern that Nelson was using drugs. His handlers were convinced that he was regularly smoking marijuana but they also believed he was taking amphetamines – speed – to keep up his reckless lifestyle.
The drinking and suspected drug-taking worried Military Intelligence. Security is the most important and vital necessity in any intelligence set-up, particularly for agents, informants or those people the security services rather dismissively call touts. And yet Nelson didn’t seem to care a damn about his own personal security, or anyone else’s either. He began to show off to his mates, not only buying round after round of drinks in the pubs and Loyalist clubs but openly boasting of his privileged position in the UDA.
Despite his outrageous behaviour, Brian Nelson had by now become a valuable intelligence contact. The FRU knew that the man whom they debriefed two or three times a week was in constant touch with the leaders of the UDA, the foremost Loyalist organisation in the Province. More importantly, Nelson knew where and when the next attack against mainstream Republican politicians and IRA gunmen and bombers would be staged.
And yet many times Nelson refused to carry out any of the intelligence tasks requested by his handlers. He would be asked to find out information about the UDA, about the leadership, policies, names and addresses of Loyalist gunmen and bombers, information concerning the UDA’s arms, ammunition, explosives dumps and safe-houses. Most of the time he simply ignored such requests and carried out the tasks he wanted to, giving the impression that he believed he had become more important than the officers handling and directing him. He began to use the language of his handlers to describe everything that was going on – a mistake that could have cost him his life had he been overheard talking ‘intelligence-speak’ by any Provos with the faintest knowledge of the intelligence world.
By the spring of 1988, the FRU became convinced that Nelson knew more, far more, than he was in fact telling them. They believed that he knew precisely when attacks would take place, the intended targets and the method of
attack. They conceded that he might not have known the identity of the Loyalist gunmen or the exact timing of the attack, but they were certain he was withholding information.
The primary reason for recruiting Nelson in the first place had been to discover as much as possible about the workings and the plans of the Ulster Defence Association. Until Nelson came on the scene, MI5 and Military Intelligence had little or no idea of the policies, the thinking or the intentions of the UDA leadership. Both intelligence organisations admitted that the RUC Special Branch had excellent contacts with some UDA members and other Loyalist paramilitaries, but they didn’t trust the relationship. Both MI5 and Military Intelligence believed in their hearts that on occasions the RUC, the Special Branch and the UDA worked together, all for the benefit of the Protestant cause and all determined to ensure that Ulster remained a part of the United Kingdom. Virtually every RUC officer, Special Branch man and, of course, UDA member was a Protestant, many of them belonging to Orange Lodges and various Orange Orders and, understandably, all implacably against the idea of a united Ireland.
Both MI5 and Military Intelligence, who both knew about Nelson’s unique position inside the UDA, were not sure whether the UDA chiefs were aware that he was working for British Intelligence. They had no idea what cock-and-bull story Nelson had told the UDA leadership, and that worried them greatly. They feared that he could well be a double-agent and were under no illusions that at heart Nelson was a proud Protestant, a Loyalist, with no love for a British government which many Loyalists feared were prepared to cut a deal with the Irish government in a bid to bring peace to the troubled Province.
And yet they had no option but to continue supporting Nelson in spite of the fact that he was supplying little intelligence of any note about the goings-on inside the UDA. It seemed to FRU officers and handlers that Nelson appeared to be interested only in targeting ‘the enemy’ and showed no willingness to provide intelligence about the UDA or any of the Loyalist paramilitary organisations. This turn of events worried senior officers and handlers of the Force Research Unit and reports were submitted to both the JIS and the TCG seeking guidance as to the policy of supporting an agent who appeared to be more concerned with staging sectarian attacks than supplying the intelligence required from his own people.
But they had to remind themselves that Nelson was the only agent working inside the UDA who was in a position to provide vital source material to the intelligence services. Though he was primarily supplying and seeking information about the IRA inside Belfast, he also had files on Provo gunmen and bombers and Republican sympathisers in the Six Counties as well as the few who lived south of the border. And the classified top-secret information he was getting from British Intelligence enabled him to target the IRA, keeping them on their toes, worrying and unnerving them to such a degree that they were unable to concentrate much of their energies on venomous attacks against British forces, RUC personnel or Loyalists.
But, unknown to the IRA leadership, Brian Nelson’s reign of terror had only just begun. Equipped with classified top-secret intelligence and protected by the security services, he was about to unleash an extraordinary campaign of sectarian killings.
Chapter Eight
The Killing Machine
After some wrangling, a deal was finally struck between the FRU and the incorrigible Brian Nelson who agreed to tell his handlers what plans had been drawn up by UDA operations staff to strike a potential victim, provide the name and address and say where and when the attack was to take place. When he needed advice from his handlers as to tactics, security or information, Nelson would simply ask and the intelligence would be forthcoming at his next meeting. That agreement in itself was extraordinary, for it meant that British Military Intelligence had secretly agreed to an understanding whereby they would have full knowledge of every operation planned by the UDA in which someone would be attacked and, more than likely, murdered.
Immediately after this verbal agreement was made, a Military Intelligence source report was sent to the Force Research Unit’s senior officers and passed on to the Joint Irish Section, MI5’s political wing working out of Northern Ireland. It would be extraordinary if the JIS had not informed either their MI5 bosses in London or, more importantly, the Joint Intelligence Committee which was effectively chaired by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Political pressure was being exercised from London, and those senior officers in the British Army, MI5 and Military Intelligence stationed in Northern Ireland felt they had to do everything in their power to keep the situation under control and, if possible, to quell the Provo gunmen and bombers. By the late 1980s the Provos seemed able to strike anywhere in the Province with little fear of their plans being thwarted by the intelligence services.
The security services did occasionally have some success, though these would be few and far between. The slaughter on 8 May 1987 of eight Provo gunmen (and one innocent passer-by) intent on blowing up the police station in the village of Loughgall, a founding centre of Orangemen, devastated the Provo leadership, as did the killing of three unarmed Provisionals by SAS troops on the Rock of Gibraltar in March 1988. Both were the result of exceptional intelligence work, planning and execution (the killing of Danny McCann, Sean Savage and young Mairead Farrell on the Rock of Gibraltar in particular the culmination of constant round-the-clock surveillance over a period of three weeks). Not only was Gibraltar a great success for the security forces, as will be discussed later, but it also, at a stroke, temporarily ended the Provo campaign of targeting British troops posted overseas.
Despite these coups, JIS and MI5 officers in the Province felt under pressure to produce better results but were having great difficulty in doing so. The Thatcher government was pushing hard for the intelligence and security forces to do all in their power to frustrate the Provisionals, to keep them under pressure and thus keep down the number of bombings and shootings. The JIS decided that Brian Nelson’s unique position inside the Ulster Defence Association should be put to even greater use and FRU officers were ordered to encourage Nelson to continue targeting known Provo activists, Sinn Fein politicians and Republican supporters.
The decision was taken to encourage Nelson to cast his net further in an effort to bring in more reliable source material. It was known that the UDA had any number of activists who would be only too keen to support the cause and act as freelance intelligence agents, reporting back to UDA headquarters any Provo or Sinn Fein members who they believed could be potential targets for Loyalist paramilitary hit-squads. These Loyalist informants were able to move freely and without suspicion around the Province whether going about their everyday work, attending sporting events or simply visiting friends and relatives within the Six Counties.
Nelson was urged to recruit forty or fifty of these people, mainly men, who would be happy to provide information about any IRA activists, supplying names, addresses, cars and registration numbers so that the intelligence services could feed the information and sightings into their Crucible and Vengeful computer systems, create accurate and detailed P-cards and thus target IRA and INLA activists. Nelson, realising that he was being given an even more important job than before, happily went along with the new plan. Indeed, he was most enthusiastic to recruit and train others to join his burgeoning intelligence team.
Some weeks later Nelson reported back that he had in place a trusty team of forty agents. ‘These fellas are only too happy to help,’ he explained enthusiastically. ‘They believe the Provos have had it their way for too long and it’s about time the Loyalists were allowed to take off the gloves and hit back. I have told them that they are privileged men, that their work must remain secret, and that they can’t tell anyone about their new undercover work. In return I’ve said that I’ll provide any necessary intelligence – photos, names, addresses, car numbers – to help them pinpoint Provo gunmen and bombers.’
‘What have you told them about the source material?’ he was asked.
‘Nothing,�
� replied Nelson.
‘Nothing?’
‘Well, I did tell them that it was all based on the UDA intelligence network.’
‘And where did you say the intelligence came from?’
‘Well, I didn’t say it came from you lot,’ he replied.
‘So, these recruits have no idea that any information comes from military sources?’
‘No, no idea at all,’ replied Nelson.
‘Good,’ one handler told him, ‘make sure it stays that way, okay?’
‘Okay,’ replied Nelson, ‘I understand.’
Surprisingly, one of the first UDA-planned operations under the new arrangement was to send a well-armed hit-squad to gatecrash the Monagh Road club, which was often frequented by known Republicans, open fire with automatic weapons, and kill as many people as possible. The UDA had heard that four top Provos, one of the IRA’s most successful and efficient active service units (ASUs), used that club as their headquarters and spent most evenings there drinking and talking.
As Nelson explained the extraordinary UDA plan, the FRU personnel were alarmed that the main Protestant organisation would ever contemplate attacking a Republican club in such a manner, spraying scores of rounds of automatic fire, not caring how many innocent people were killed or wounded, simply in the hope that such wholesale slaughter might also kill Provo gunmen who may have been in the club on that particular evening. But, after consultation, the officers decided that in no way did they want to frighten off Nelson and his crazy plan for fear that he might go ahead with the operation but simply not inform FRU what was going on. They therefore decided to try to put a stop to the plot by pointing out its shortcomings and inherent dangers.
Ten-Thirty-Three Page 12
