This book is for Jim Campbell, who always said I would get there in the end.
I would also like to thank the real friends who were there when things were bad. Howard, Derek, Jim, Danny, and especially my old pal Bob … miss you like hell, mate.
And for Jan, Claire and Abi. Thank you for keeping your love and faith in me.
CONTENTS
1 TITLE PAGE
2 DEDICATION
3 AUTHOR’S NOTE
4 PROLOGUE
5 CHAPTER 1 TRAIN UP A CHILD
6 CHAPTER 2 NORTHERN IRELAND: THE FIRST TIME
7 CHAPTER 3 FOURTEEN SELECTION
8 CHAPTER 4 THE DETACHMENT
9 CHAPTER 5 SECOND CHANCE
10 CHAPTER 6 FERMANAGH
11 CHAPTER 7 ‘BRITISH SPIES STALK BORDER’
12 CHAPTER 8 THE RECRUITMENT
13 CHAPTER 9 THE CORTEGE RECRUITMENT
14 CHAPTER 10 THE QUARTERMASTER
15 CHAPTER 12 BREAKING THE RULES
16 CHAPTER 13 FRIEND OR FOE
17 CHAPTER 14 TIME TO LEAVE
18 GLOSSARY
19 PLATES
20 COPYRIGHT
Owing to the sensitive nature of the contents of this book, a copy of the original manuscript was submitted to the Ministry of Defence prior to publication. After various meetings and correspondence, permission was granted to publish.
Names and locations have been changed to protect the identities of those who play a key role in the fight against terrorism.
Real names and locations have only been used in cases of known historical fact, supported by independent, publicly available material.
At seven o’clock precisely my team were all deployed in their positions. All had reported their locations to the operations room and were awaiting the radio message from the operator who would hopefully have the first physical contact with Declan. We expected to hear a quick, straightforward transmission to the effect that the subject was through his area and heading to where we were positioned.
Every member of the team carried their own personal weapon, a Browning 9mm semi-automatic pistol. In addition to this basic requirement all of us carried a Heckler & Koch 5.56mm machine gun with folding stock, spare magazines, smoke grenades and first-aid packs. The possible dangers of a new-source recruitment are unknown, and this operation was being carried out only a short distance from an area where we knew that the Provisionals had carried out attacks on previous occasions. All the firearms and equipment that the team carried were hidden well out of sight but could easily be brought into action in a split second, if required.
Fifteen minutes had passed and there was no sign of Declan. No calls had been made to the phone number I had given him, and so I pushed the radio pressel switch. ‘All call signs, this is Romeo. Go mobile, return to your start locations at twenty hundred hours. All call signs confirm. Over.’ All the team came up individually and confirmed that they had received the message and were driving out of the area.
Half an hour had passed and so, with as much speed as we could muster, we headed back to the locations we had been in previously. The team chattered away on the radio, informing each other of their chosen routes back into the area.
The boss’s voice came up on the radio from our operations room. He informed us that a report had come in from a COT to the west of our position, stating that they believed they had observed unidentified armed men moving around approximately one kilometre to their east. That would make their position very close to us. I toyed with the idea of aborting the operation, but decided against it. They were unable to give any more information but would try to keep us fully informed of any new developments. My adrenalin level shot through the roof, and just for my own peace of mind I checked that each of my weapons, the Browning pistol and the Heckler & Koch, was ready. I gently released the safety catch and pulled back the cocking slide on the pistol and saw the glint of brass in the chamber. I knew it was loaded, but I had to check anyway. Everyone else on the job probably did exactly the same. Declan was really an unknown quantity. I sat in my vehicle and thought of the consequences of a set-up. I made sure that the interior light was switched off and gently eased the door open. If I had to get away quickly that would be one obstacle less to deal with.
I slowly brought the Heckler & Koch up from my side and laid it across my lap. I had trained with it hundreds of times, but as I sat there I thumbed the safety catch on and off in anticipation of the worst. My eyes were all over the place – looking in front, checking the rear-view mirror, glancing to both sides in an awkward way, straining to catch sight of any movement around me in the dusk. I quietly whistled to myself, something I had always done when I knew things were not quite right. It was my way of letting myself know I was nervous.
‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and
when he is old, he will not depart from it’
– Proverbs 22:6
My home town was a rather grey mining village located in the middle valleys area of South Wales, situated midway between the heavy industrial area of Merthyr Tydfil in the north and the historic town of Caerphilly in the south. It had a resemblance to the town in How Green Was My Valley, but with a few stark differences to that romantic portrayal of life in the valleys. The coal-blackened faces of the miners winding their way home from their shifts underground were certainly there. However, there was no sign of them singing their hearts out as they were greeted by their loving wives at the front doors of their houses, nor were there smiling children ready with a tin bath full of hot soapy water in front of a roaring fire to wash their fathers’ backs. In this town the miners were more likely to have gone straight into the local pub and to have been physically dragged out by their spouses later in the day, the women determined to get their housekeeping money safely in their purses as opposed to filling the coffers of the local public-house landlords. These were hard men in many ways, with wives to equal them.
When I was a youngster growing up in the South Wales valleys it seemed like the best place on earth. We had our well-trusted gang of friends, we had a vast expanse of mountain area to explore and we had the run of the busy town. We also had a number of other places, like the colliery, in which to amuse ourselves. This was our patch and we jealously guarded it against all outsiders. Fights between gangs of youths from rival villages and towns were commonplace and were often quite violent. During these pitched battles it was not unusual for serious injuries to be inflicted. One teenage lad from a village north of our town had a near