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

that’s easy for you.’
     
    ‘ What do you want to see me about?’ I asked, deliberately sounding suspicious about receiving this call out of the blue. ‘I’ll tell you this,’ he said. ‘I’ve read you book Fifty Dead Men Walking and I have some information that you will find very interesting. I don’t want to say too much on this line. Let me put it this way. They’ve taken some liberties with you, and it’s not right the way you were treated. I just want to help.’ The friendly bonhomie, the call from a virtual stranger and the fact that he wanted to see me made me deeply suspicious of his motives. I thought, ‘What liberties, and who has taken those liberties with me?’ It seemed odd, strange even, that someone like Mike, whom I hardly knew, would want to see me. But my interest quickly got the better of me and, I told myself, what possible problem could there be talking to an old SB mate? ‘You’re on,’ I replied. ‘When do you want to meet?’ Mike told me he would be travelling to the mainland in the near future and would be staying in Birmingham during a 48-hour flying visit to England, arriving by train at New Street Station. We agreed a date and a place to meet. I felt I could trust Mike because I had met him a few times in Belfast when I was in the Holywood army base recovering from injuries I sustained in my dive through the window. I also recalled that he was a good mate of Felix and Mo, which meant I could trust him. If he had just been some Irishman, a stranger whose identity I didn’t know, then I would never have dreamed of meeting him. I would automatically have presumed that he was IRA and I knew why they would want to see me. Ever since I had fled Northern Ireland in 1991 I had been suspicious of anyone phoning me, either on my mobile or, more importantly, on my ex-directory BT line at home. I went to the Grand Hotel in the centre of Birmingham one hour ahead of our scheduled meeting to check out the place and see if there were any suspicious characters hanging around. When I walked in, dressed in my black Kicker boots, jeans, shirt and bomber jacket, I felt a bit out of place for the hotel certainly lived up to its name. I was taking no chances and checked out the various entrances and exits. I was not being hypersensitive or suspicious, just sensible. Felix and Mo had drilled into me during my years with the SB that I always had to take care, check everything possible, ensuring that I didn’t walk into some IRA trap. This time I saw nothing to alert me and I went to the lounge, sat in a corner with a newspaper and ordered a cup of tea. I recognised Mike the moment he walked into the room and he came straight over to me, a smile on his face and a firm handshake to greet me. I was relieved to see him for now I was certain this was no IRA trap. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked, in his baritone Northern Ireland accent. ‘You look in fine fettle.’ ‘Aye, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘How are you?’ In the back of my mind, however, I was still somewhat suspicious. I had known Mike for only a few months but never as a great friend or confidant. He had always seemed a man full of bonhomie and light talk and we had never had a serious conversation despite the fact that he was an SB handler. I still wondered what on earth he was doing wanting to talk to me some six years after I had left Belfast. ‘Do you fancy a beer?’ he asked, jovially enough. ‘No, not for me,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Never drink in the middle of the day and very little at night. It’s not good for you.’ ‘Nothing ever wrong in supping a pint of the black stuff,’ he said, and walked over to the bar to buy a pint of Guinness.
     
    I watched him walk away, looked to check whether he was carrying a gun in a shoulder holster or in the back of his trousers but could see no suspicious bulges. As he sat down Mike trotted out all the polite chit-chat, asking how I was, asking about my mother and what I was doing