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

211 Pages·2011·0.92 MB·English

by  McGartland Martin

DEAD MAN RUNNING – © MARTIN MCGARTLAND

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sam Cushnahan of FAIT – Families Against Intimidation
and Terror – who has not only given me help and guidance in preparing this
book but who has worked tirelessly to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Thanks
also to Jack McKee, a highly valued community worker, and MP Robert
McCartney whose advice I freely sought. I wish to thank certain members of the
press who have supported and assisted me, including Chris Thornton of the
Belfast Telegraph, John Cassidy of the News of the World, Liam Clarke of the
Sunday Times, and writer Kathy Johnston. I want also to thank my hard-working
barrister, Glenn Gatland, and my solicitor Nigel Dodds, two men who gave me
the courage to fight the authorities. There are others, in the Security Services and
on both sides of the sectarian divide, whom I also thank but whose identities I
can never reveal. And, of course, there is Mike whose honesty began my search
for the truth. Most importantly, a big thank you to my best friend and my
partner, Jo, who has supported me during these difficult times when striving for
the truth and justice has sapped my strength and my patience. To her I owe a
deep sense of gratitude.

Martin McGartland, 1998
Summer 1998
Chapter One

I awoke with a start in the cold, soft dawn that was Ireland in an autumn mist.
The events of the previous night came rushing so my mind and I lay still, not
daring to move, listening to the rustling of the grass and straining to hear
whether army foot patrols were on the move. But all seemed silent. I lay under
the hawthorn hedge giving my mind time to think through what I must do that
day, to plan my movements carefully and to avoid any of the traps which I felt
sure were waiting for me. I could hear my heart thumping, feel my hands
sweating and yet my whole body shivered like a jelly, for the night had been
cold and damp and I was wearing nothing save for my everyday clothes, a light
zipped jacket, sweatshirt, a pair of jeans and a baseball cap. I shut my mouth to
make sure my teeth wouldn’t chatter and wrapped my arms around my body in a
vain attempt to keep warm. It was too early to move, just minutes after five
o’clock. I knew I had to wait for an hour or two until there were more people
about, more activity, more travellers giving me protection in numbers as they
headed towards the ferry which would be my sanctuary. Only when I was safely
aboard and the ferry had slipped its lines and was heading for stranraer would I
begin to relax. I guessed I was only a mile or so from the docks at Larne, a place
I knew well, but also a place which I knew was under 24-hour surveillance by
the RUC. As I lay in the damp grass I kept making plans for the final lap of my
escape, trying to forget the pangs of hunger in my stomach, and wondering what
the future would hold. The meadow where I had sought cover that night seemed
strangely silent and before me I could see the myriad of colourful flowers so
beautiful, innocent and peaceful. And then I saw the poppies, somewhat taller
than the other flowers, their pale red petals grabbing my attention. They seemed
to mesmerise me. I watched them waving gently in the early morning mist and
thoughts of death filled my mind. I looked at them, almost hypnotised, thinking
of the funerals I had attended, the poppies I had seen, always so beautiful and
fragile and always recalling the most horrible and tragic deaths. I tried to think
of poppies as appealing, as beautiful flowers, but every time my eyes were
drawn back to them my mind filled again with images of death and horror, of
tears and sadness. I thought of the shootings, the bombings and the mayhem that
I had witnessed and mind recalled the times that I had seen the shocked and
scarred children, all but lost amid the funereal black dresses, coats and suits,
placing posies of poppies on their daddies’ graves.

Buttercups and daisies, hawkbit, harebell, ball flower, knapweed, St John’s Wort
and a host of other meadow flowers, whose names I didn’t know, I saw that
morning as I tried to take my mind off the cold and the fear of what possibly lay
ahead. It had been my supervisor in the Youth Training Programme, a gentle,
kind Orangeman, who had taught me the names of the wild flowers during the
time I was training to become a gardener. With others, we would take walks
together across Black Mountain, the wild and beautiful hills at the edge of the
Ballymurphy estate, the heart of Republican West Belfast. And I had never
forgotten them. That morning the time moved so slowly I thought 6.30 would
never arrive. I tried not to look at my watch and deliberately hid it under the
sleeve of my sweatshirt. But every time I treated myself to a peek the hands on
the watch seemed barely to have moved. At one point I even put the watch to my
ear, checking whether it was working. Then I smiled, realising my battery watch
made no noise. To pass the time I dreamed of bacon and eggs, hot sausages and
buttered toast all washed down with cups of hot tea and promised myself if I
ever made the ferry I would treat myself to the biggest fry-up of my life. But
every time I came to my senses I would squeeze back against the prickly
hawthorn hedge, making sure the soft rain couldn’t reach me and trying to make
myself as inconspicuous as a sparrow. More importantly, I scanned that field
every few minutes in case, just in case, an RUC or an army foot patrol was out
and about. I wondered whether to try and hitch a lift in a passing car but realised
that would be a stupid idea. I probably looked more like a scarecrow than a
respectable young man on his way to catch a ferry. And then, of course, I hadn’t
even taken into consideration the fact that early in the morning many of the
people driving to the Larne ferry would have been peelers driving to work or,
worse still, plainclothes Special Branch men. ‘Fuck,’ I thought to myself sternly,
‘get a grip of yourself and start thinking straight.’ Every plan I thought of
seemed hopeless. Somehow I had to make my way from this God-forsaken
sodden meadow along the open road to the ferry without being noticed by any
peelers or Special Branch men. It seemed strange, however, for now I was
desperately trying to escape the law having spent most of my adult life
desperately trying to keep one step ahead of the IRA who had sworn to kill me
on sight. I had, according to the IRA, betrayed the cause and there was only one
penalty for traitors – a bullet in the back of the head. Shortly before 6.30, when
the day was light and the rain had stopped, I hit on a plan. I knew it was useless
to try and walk the mile to the ferry, not only because of the way I must have
looked after a night sleeping rough but also because I had to presume that the
RUC, and maybe even the British Army, were looking for me. I could take no
chances. Already I was deeply suspicious that MI5 had tried to get me killed and
now they had been made aware that I suspected them, despite my innocence and
my trust, of trying to get the IRA to kill me. In my youth on the Ballymurphy
estate I had learnt the art of hijacking cars. By the age of 14 I had learned how to
get into a locked car without damaging the lock and ‘black box’ the vehicle –
starting the car by by-passing the ignition – within a minute. In those carefree
early days when our great sport was baiting the British troops we would have
competitions among ourselves, seeing how quickly we could open and start a car
as a dare. As a teenager I loved cars and my ambition was to own a really fast
car but not some high-speed expensive vehicle, just an ordinary car with a
powerful engine. When I became 17 and had passed my test I loved doing
spectacular spins, screeching the tyres on the asphalt road while the kids from
the estate roared and cheered their appreciation. And now, I decided, those tricks
that I had learned in my teenage years would be put to good use. Carefully I
stood up, my whole body aching from my night beneath the hedge, and peeked
through the hawthorn, checking the lie of the land and seeing if many vehicles
were about. Over the past hour or more I had heard increasing numbers of cars
and lorries heading towards the ferry and knew that the world was awake and
about its business. I watched as seven or eight vehicles, mostly cars, roared past
my hiding place at about 40 to 50 miles an hour. I knew they would be slowing
shortly as they approached the docks but those few hundred yards would be too
dangerous to risk. I thought of walking alongside the hedge but that was
impossible for the hedge soon became a wall, a low, three-foot-high dry-stone
wall which would offer little or no protection. Worse still, if someone did indeed
see me creeping along a wall towards the docks, the peelers would be alerted
and, within minutes, I would be in a police station answering questions I did not
want to hear. So I decided to nick a car instead. On the way to my strange refuge
beneath the stars that night I had seen a number of houses only a couple of
hundred yards from my hiding place and I convinced myself that I would find a
car there which I could ‘borrow’ for the run to the ferry. I realised, technically,
that I would be stealing and taking away the vehicle but I had no intention of
actually stealing the car, just borrowing it for a matter of minutes. I felt in my
pocket, found a ten pound note, and vowed to leave that on the driver’s seat as
payment for the petrol and use of the car. I hoped that the owner wouldn’t be too
angry and I felt convinced that he wouldn’t mind at all if he realised the pickle I
had landed in. Before venturing out I inspected myself, straightening my jacket,
checking that my jeans were passable, pulling out bits and pieces of grass and
shrub and wishing that I had a mirror to check my hair and face. For all I knew
my hair, naturally unruly, was sticking up and my face could have been smudged
with mud from the ground where I had slept. I rubbed my face as though I was
washing it and looked at my hands. Clean. That was something. The rest I would
trust to luck. I walked gingerly down the side of the hedge to the five-barred gate
and, when there was no traffic passing, nipped over. As I landed on the other
side I checked again. Still no traffic. So I quickly ran across the road and began
to walk away from the ferry, back towards Belfast. I tried to appear nonchalant,
as though I walked along this stretch of road each and every morning on my way
to work. A car went by and suddenly I didn’t know whether I should wave or
not. My training had always emphasised that I should aim to melt into the
background on all occasions, never draw attention to myself or whatever I was
doing, act naturally and, above all else, stay calm. That morning I consciously
thanked my handlers and remembered all they had taught me. I put my head
down and pretended not to notice anyone driving along the road. I felt sure that’s
what my handlers would have advised. And that gave me another idea. I decided
to think of their advice before I did anything risky that morning. I pretended I
was on an exercise, a training exercise given on occasions by my Special Branch
handlers in which they would ask me how I would react or behave in certain
circumstances and I would give the answers. I learned a lot that way because, in
the beginning, most of the answers I gave were wrong. But this would be one of
my biggest tests. And I had to succeed. It was no exaggeration that at that
moment I was convinced my life depended on it. As I walked along the rain-
soaked footpath I kept looking surreptitiously hither thither, hoping to see a car
parked in a drive or the roadway. I wanted something ordinary, like a Ford or a
Vauxhall, something that I knew would be easy to open and start, and a car
which no one would notice or remember. I saw a Rover 800 and decided against
that. I saw a couple of small trucks but thought they might be more difficult to
start because I had only concentrated on cars. Then, on the right, in a driveway I
saw a dirty blue Vauxhall which looked about five or six years old. I looked up
and down the road and saw no one about. I looked up at the windows and saw
the curtains drawn which, I hoped, meant the people living there were still in bed
and, hopefully, sleeping peacefully. There was another great plus. The drive was
on a slight gradient, which meant that I could open the car, get inside, let slip the
brake and roll out of the drive and perhaps a few yards down the road before
needing to start the engine. I crossed over the road and checked for people and
vehicles as I approached the drive. Nothing coming. I took a deep breath, wished
myself luck and took a few steps up the short drive which was not much longer
than the car. I quickly glanced up at the window and, to my astonishment,
realised the curtains were now open. At the same time I realised the front door
was opening and I stood stock still, half in panic, half in fright, as I wondered
what the hell I should do. ‘Good Morning,’ I said to the man who looked
somewhat astonished to find a total stranger standing in his drive shortly after
6.30 in the morning. ‘How are you today?’ I continued, not realising what I was
saying, having not thought through my plans for such an eventuality. I cursed
myself, realising that I had not planned well enough. ‘Idiot,’ I thought.
Somehow, my brain had come to my rescue, gone into automatic and the right
words were coming out of my mouth. But what to do next? ‘Good Morning,’
said the large, middle-aged man as he tried to come to terms with my presence in
his drive. I guessed he was a Protestant, a true Ulsterman, and I decided to
slightly alter my accent so that he would think I was a God-fearing young
Protestant and not a young nationalist tearaway from West Belfast.

‘Are you going towards the ferry?’ I asked, trying to sound as if I was asking for
the time of day.

‘Aye,’ he said, looking at me in a strange way. ‘Why?’

‘Could you give me a lift?’ I asked.

‘Sure I could,’ he said. ‘What’s the matter? Has your car broken down?’

‘Aye.’ I lied. ‘I couldn’t get the damn thing to start this morning. Must have been
the damp. I have to be at the docks for 6.30 and it’s late now.’ ‘Get in,’ said the
man as he opened the door to let me clamber into the front seat beside him. For a
minute I wondered whether he was playing with me. If he suspected that I was
an IRA man he only had to drive to the nearest RUC station and I would be done
for. I must have looked a sight, scruffy, unshaven, my hair a mess and my
clothes dirty. I just prayed that he didn’t suspect that I was on the run but I must
have shown all the signs of a young man up to no good. I looked at him more
closely as he walked across the front of the car towards the driver’s door. He
didn’t look like a peeler or even a Special Branch man but I knew from
experience that SB men can adopt the most extraordinary appearances. I looked
at his jacket to see whether I could detect a bulge at his shoulder but I could see
no sign. I examined his clothes – a pair of dark brown trousers, white shirt, plain
tie and brown leather jacket – and thought that he might even have worked at the
docks. But I would take no chances.

‘Where are you heading?’ he asked, casually enough.

‘I’m catching the ferry,’ I said. ‘Seeing some relatives in Scotland.’

‘Well, by the looks of things you shouldn’t have too rough a crossing. There’s
not too much wind about this morning.’

‘Fingers crossed,’ I replied.

‘Are you a good sailor?’ he enquired.

‘Not bad,’ I replied, hoping that the inquisition wouldn’t go on much longer.

‘Where’s your suitcase?’ he asked. ‘Did you forget it?’ and he laughed.

I didn’t know what to reply. I searched my mind not knowing how to answer. So
I decided to say nothing, to change the subject, pretend I didn’t hear the
question. ‘We’re nearly there,’ I said as the docks loomed ahead of us out of the
early morning mist.

‘Where do you want dropping?’ he asked.

‘At the passenger terminal if that’s not out of your way,’ I replied. ‘That would
be grand.’

‘Not at all,’ he replied. ‘It’s a pleasure.’

As he drew up at the passenger terminal I clambered out, wondering if I was in a
daydream. I could not believe that this man had been the genuine article, straight
and honest and ready enough to believe my preposterous story. ‘That’s very kind
of you,’ I said as I stood on the road by the side of the car. ‘Thanks a million.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘See you around.’

‘Aye. Look after yourself and good luck,’ I replied and slammed shut the door. I
walked quickly into the terminal and turned as if to wave but he had gone. I went
back to the door to check that he was in fact driving away and not searching out
some peeler to tell of the scruffy young man he had found in his driveway acting
suspiciously. I watched as he drove his car away to the other side of the docks
and I lost him.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said to myself, ‘remember you’re a lucky bastard. You’ve been
in worse scrapes than this and you’ve always come up smelling of roses.’ I was
dying for a hot cup of tea and, before checking in, went to the cafeteria. I could
smell the hot food, the sizzling bacon, the hot toast but I had this nagging
suspicion that if I ate now, rather than on the boat, I would tempt fate and never
make my escape. So I sat in a corner, with my back to the wall watching the
entrance to the cafe, checking in case the peelers had been alerted and were
searching for me. I sat there for 15 minutes, drinking the sweet, hot tea slowly,
relishing every sip. After ten minutes I guessed that the coast was clear for if I
had been reported to the peelers as a suspicious character they would have been
there with their guns in minutes. I was clean, carrying no weapon, and if they
had come for me there was nothing I could have done but gone quietly. A smile
crossed my lips as I finished my cuppa, gaining in confidence every second,
knowing that my luck had held. If luck had gone against me I knew that I would
now be in police custody replying to questions I had no wish to answer. I
checked through my pockets, searching every one, pulling out the linings to
make sure that I had no incriminating evidence on me; nothing bearing my old
name, address, driving licence or credit card other than my English driving
licence bearing my alias, Martin Ashe. But I was taking no chances. Throughout
the 48 hours I was in Northern Ireland I kept the Ashe driving licence hidden in
my waistband. If I had been stopped and taken in for questioning by the peelers I
had no wish for them to discover my alias. I was clean. I just had £50 in notes on
me and nothing else. It was time to go. Forty-five minutes later I stood in the
shadow of the ship’s funnel and looked back at Larne docks as the ferry moved
out into clear water, the seabirds squawking overhead, and a wonderful relief, a
sense of freedom, surged through my heart. I went down to the cafe and ordered
the meal I had dreamed of in the early hours of that morning as I lay beneath the
hedge. Every mouthful tasted like heaven. As I drank my second cup of hot,