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

the world on my shoulders. ‘I feel deflated, empty,’ I said. ‘Now everything’s gone out of my life. I thought I had done a good job, I felt that my work in Belfast had been worthwhile, that I had contributed something to Northern Ireland. Now it seems the powers that be thought I was nothing but a piece of shit. They had their pound of flesh from me and nothing else mattered to them. They treated me like a bit of scum. God, it makes me angry.’
     
    We found our way to a McDonald’s and Mike treated me to a burger, chips and a coke. He ordered the same. We sat across the table from each other and as I munched my way through the Big Mac I looked him in the eye, the anger rising within me as I thought how close I had come to death. I thought back to those moments in the bathroom before making the decision to jump through the window 40 feet above the ground; moments when I was undecided whether to jump or not; and now realising that if I hadn’t taken that risk I would be a dead man, my mother’s reputation would be blackened and tarnished and the rest of my family treated like lepers amongst the Catholics of West Belfast. I shuddered as I thought of the stress that my mother would have suffered, having brought me up as a Republican.
     
    ‘ I really believed in Felix, Mo and Ray,’ I said at the end of a long silence, my voice full of misery.
     
    ‘ You still should,’ said Mike, obviously trying to cheer me up. ‘They believed in you. If they had known that you were entering the lion’s den with no chance of escape they would never have let you walk into Connolly House.’
     
    ‘ Is that so?’ I asked.
     
    ‘ Hand on heart,’ said Mike, ‘I know that Felix thought of you almost as a son. He would never have let anything happen to you if he had known such a trap had been set.’
     
    ‘ So you think it was a trap then?’ I asked.
     
    ‘ I don’t think so,’ he replied, ‘I know it was.’
     
    ‘ And now?’ I asked. ‘What’s the situation now?’
     
    ‘ What do you mean?’ asked Mike.
     
    ‘ Are the bastards still after me? Do MI5 still want me dead or have they given up?’
     
    ‘ I don’t think they’re still after you. But I can’t be sure. They have no reason to be. You left Belfast six years ago and you can’t give away any secrets. Everything’s changed. Of course they would know your address in England and your new identity. And they haven’t tried anything, have they?’
     
    ‘ Not as far as I know,’ I said.
     
    ‘ Exactly,’ Mike replied. ‘I believe you’re safe from British Intelligence but I wouldn’t swear on it.’
     
    ‘ But why would MI5 want to bump me off?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Why not just put me on a flight to the mainland and have done with it if they thought I might have betrayed someone accidentally?’
     
    ‘ I don’t know,’ said Mike, ‘but they have their reasons, no matter how convoluted those reasons might be.’
     
    ‘ And what about the IRA?’ I asked. ‘I presume they’re still after me.’
     
    ‘ Of course,’ Mike replied, ‘no doubt about it. Look what they did to your brother.’
     
    In July 1996 my brother Joseph was at home in Moyard, West Belfast, when an IRA punishment team of five men, all wearing balaclavas, pushed their way into his house, tied and gagged him and carried him out to a waiting van. They drove a short distance away, dragged him from the van, tied a rope around his ankles and hung him upside down from a fence. Then they began beating his legs, body and arms with a baseball bat and hitting his chest with a plank of wood with nails embedded in it. The appalling beating went on for 15 minutes. It left Joseph with two shattered legs, four broken ribs and two broken arms. He was unable to walk for three months. No reason was ever given by the IRA thugs for the beating. But Joseph and I knew why; he happened to be my younger brother and, according to the twisted cowardly code of IRA punishment