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

for a job. I understood he was trying to be jolly and likeable, putting me at my ease, cracking the odd joke, and I kept wondering why. His approach was making me nervous. After a couple of minutes I had heard enough. I looked at Mike straight in the eye. ‘What is it, Mike? What do you want? What do you want to see me about?’ ‘Let me finish my pint and we’ll go for a walk,’ he said. ‘I want to talk.’ The idea of going for a walk, with someone whom I had never had to trust in my life, sent a warning shock wave through my mind. I recalled the times that such an invitation had been made to me in Belfast; that the same invitation had been made to dozens of people; and nearly always such a request meant only trouble, if not a punishment beating, a kneecapping or worse. But I realised that I wasn’t in Belfast but in an English city, crowded with lunchtime passers-by, a place where it was most unlikely that someone would try to knock me off. However, I was taking nothing for granted. ‘Why can’t we talk here?’ I asked. ‘There’s not many people around.’ ‘Those days are long gone,’ said Mike. ‘Stop worrying. We’re not in Northern Ireland now. No one’s going to take you out. In any case you should know from all your training that neither of us would talk in a public place like this.’ ‘Honest?’ I said and half-smiled, making sure that he realised that I was very much on my guard whatever surprise he had in store for me. As we walked through the city centre we turned into the churchyard surrounding St Philip’s Cathedral and found a bench where we could sit and chat in privacy, where no one could overhear our conversation. I deliberately sat on his right side because I had taken with me my Olympus microcassette recorder which I kept in my left-hand pocket nearest to him. I was taking nothing on face value, not even someone allegedly bringing me news I would want to hear. In the background, however, was the constant noise of city centre traffic. It was a perfect place to sit and chat because no one could overhear our conversation but I hoped the noise wouldn’t drown out his words on the recorder. ‘Spill the beans then,’ I said. ‘What’s this all about?’ ‘This is difficult,’ Mike began, ‘but I believe the Branch owe it to you.’ ‘Owe me what?’ I asked in my naivety. ‘I’ve had a pay off.’ ‘I’m not talking about that,’ he said. ‘This is far more serious.’ I looked at him, waiting for him to continue, saying nothing.
     
    ‘ I read and I re-read your book Fifty Dead Men Walking, ’ he said. ‘I should think most of the RUC and the SB read it. It was good, very good. You caught the mood of Northern Ireland and the chances you ran as an agent working for the Branch. I liked it.’
     
    ‘ Thanks,’ I said.
     
    ‘ But I didn’t come over here to tell you that,’ he went on. ‘I came to tell you what wasn’t in the book.’
     
    ‘ What do you mean?’
     
    ‘ The ending,’ he went on. ‘It wasn’t like that, wasn’t like that at all.’
     
    ‘ Like what?’
     
    He breather in deeply and looked at the ground as he explained what he was trying to say. ‘It wasn’t like you wrote in the book. You thought that the IRA kidnapped you, that two of their well-known henchmen somehow took you from underneath the very noses of the Special Branch, spirited you out of Sinn Fein headquarters, somehow managed to drive you undetected and unnoticed the mile or so to Twinbrook, walk you into a block of flats and hold you prisoner for most of the day.’
     
    ‘ That’s right,’ I said. ‘That’s exactly what happened.’
     
    ‘ Well,’ he said, pausing and peering into my eyes, a look of anxiety across his face. ‘It wasn’t like that, Marty, it was nothing like that at all. What I’m about to tell you might shock you but I think you should know what happened. I’ve talked it over with the others and they think we owe it to you to tell you the truth,