ROGUE ELEMENT Author Terence Strong is used to research in danger zones, from the cocaine badlands of Colombia to war-ravaged Mozambique. Here he tells how his new thriller involved -
A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE OF ULSTER
The phone call came out of the blue. Immediately I
recognise the rather harsh Ulster accent of the man I knew only as ‘Michael’.
'I've someone who would like to meet you. He read The Tick Tock Man and thought you gave the Loyalists a fair showing. He's some things he'd like to tell you.’
I am a little surprised as the 'fair showing' had been very much warts-and-all. I'd interviewed people from both Sinn Fein and Loyalist camps and had tried to give the views of both sides fairly in my own fictional 'secret peace talks' which, unknown to me, pre-empted the real thing.
It turns out that the Loyalists were delighted that anyone should even bother to ask them. Film and TV tends to glamorise the Provisional IRA; many books do the same, although most thrillers concentrate on the British establishment's fight against the Provos. Nobody asks the opinion of those who live in the province and consider themselves to be fighting for their homeland, their culture and their very existence.
Anyway, the call comes at
a good moment. I am just wrapping up White Viper
and dusting off a few 'back-burner' ideas, none of which I feel ready to run with. It's
best not to start writing until a story's got you so fired-up you can scarcely wait to put
pen to paper. Intrigued, I arrange to meet 'Michael' at a hotel in the Midlands. It is one of those shabby but friendly places that cater for commercial travellers and is virtually deserted at weekends. I am let in by the Chinese proprietor who utters the immortal words, 'Ah, key is li'll bi' sticky' as he turned the lock. (For some reason the phrase sticks in my mind.)
Michael arrives a little later with his friend, whom he introduces as 'Jim'. I've learned by now that those connected with outlawed Loyalist organisations always use false names when contact is made with outsiders. That name is changed for each outsider. So if in a year's time a call came through asking for 'Jim', the man would know it was me or something to do with me.
'Jim' is a big, quiet Ulsterman with a soft accent and pleasant manner. We open a bottle of malt and sit around my rather tatty bedroom with the afternoon summer sun streaming in through the window.
And in this rather bizarre setting, an even more
bizarre story begins to unfold. 'Jim' had been a teenager in Ulster when the latest troubles began in 1969. Like many youngsters who felt they should do something to combat the IRA, he flirted with various paramilitary groups who set themselves up to protect their own neighbourhoods from terrorist attack.
He soon became disillusioned, realising that many of their number were little better than the Provos. Instead he became enthralled with an organisation called TARA. It preached restraint while British forces held the line against terrorism, but darkly forecast that the time would inevitably come when the situation degenerated into a total civil war that no one would be able to contain. A war that would spill over into the Irish Republic.
Therefore TARA should prepare itself as the province's 'resistance movement' in readiness for the ultimate doomsday scenario.
It came as quite a shock to 'Jim' when he and other youngsters were encouraged to enlist in the Rhodesian Army to learn the art of weapons-handling and guerrilla warfare for real. But this was no fantasy. His air tickets were provided free...
Only later did he learn that TARA had been taken over and manipulated by the British Security Service, otherwise known as M15.
And, later, when the white Smith regime collapsed and many Rhodesians moved to South Africa, so the links with MI5 went with them. This co-operation was strengthened when it was discovered that the Provisional IRA had training camps in Mozambique, then a Marxist state, and that PIRA was actively assisting the ANC with bomb-making technology used for atrocities in South Africa.
During all those years 'Jim' had been working as an 'agent of sympathy' for MI5 using his contacts with Ulster to help them keep control of the Loyalist terror gangs which MI5 manipulated for its own purposes.
These are stunning revelations. Some confirming
previous media speculation, others completely new. This is a story that has to be told.
I arrange with 'Jim' to go down the 'ratline' in Northern Ireland. Contacts are made by 'runners' who will have face-to-face contact to make arrangements for me. No one uses the telephone or posted letters. Only later innocent, open-coded calls be made to confirm times and places. I am expected.
It is December and little do I know that the Provisionals have already decided that the ceasefire is to end. But when I land at Aldergrove the cruel illusion is still continuing. No apparent Special Branch presence and the airport security checkpoint stands abandoned. Car drivers are being mercilessly hounded by the RUC. Now with nothing better to do, the officers are anxious to keep their tallies up because mass redundancies are threatened. On a happier note, Belfast bustles with pre-Christmas cheer. People from all over the province and from the south are visiting the city for the first time in years. Fear has disappeared after nearly a quarter of a century. The streets are thronged with Saturday night revellers and the restaurants are filled to bursting.
But my appointments are with people who know it will not last and who are preparing for when it inevitably comes to an end. People who keep to the shadows.
Yet my escort is hardly menacing. A stocky,
middle-aged man in a cardigan and polyester tie from rural mid-Ulster. 'George' is affable
and kindly, but deeply concerned at where the peace process is leading, when we meet at my
hotel. I soon learn that virtually everyone of Unionist persuasion, not only hardline Loyalists, is convinced that the British are determined to 'sell out' to Dublin at the earliest opportunity. Most likely it will be done with the stealth and guile befitting 'Perfidious Albion' and its usual machiavellian ways.
'George' runs over a list of people he thinks might be able to help me research the book. No names, no pack drill, of course, but he will visit them personally and set things up.
We meet on several more occasions. I visit his remote home in rural mid-Ulster. We sit with his dog in the front parlour before the electric fire and drink tea while we talk.
He confirms how TARA was once a front for M15 and how the organisation was set up as a resistance movement. Although some members had links with the hardline UVF, most were respectable middle class folk from the rural areas, farmers, lawyers, accountants and even policemen amongst their number. The sort of people MI5 felt they could trust to stay their hand, unlike the mavericks in the Belfast gangs.
During the Ulster Workers' Council Strike of 1974, MI5 had smuggled in a vast supply of arms, explosives and communications equipment from Belgium through Lame Docks. Those supplies had been distributed to secret caches around Northern Ireland.
MI5's trust in the members was to prove well-founded. It appears those weapons have never been used in any terrorist atrocity to this day. In fact, the organisation's lack of action has led to most ordinary Ulster folk regarding Tara as a moribund joke as it still puts out pamphlets full of fighting talk.
But all that is about to change, says 'George' earnestly.
In the mid-80s, after the Anglo-Irish Agreement followed hard on the heels of the Brighton bombing, another separate group was formed. It was actually called Ulster Resistance and it, too, managed to arm itself with large shipments smuggled from South Africa.
But this time MI5 moved to intercept them. The Security Service had no control over UR and, besides, its own agenda had changed. By hook or by crook, there was now going to be a non-violent political settlement in Ireland.
Half the arms got through, because by now MI5 had alienated itself from most of its former allies in the Loyalist groups. New caches were set up and, again, those arms are yet to be used.
It is time for me to leave for an evening
appointment. We step out under a clear, frosty December night, the house and garden
surrounded by fields. 'Before this ceasefire,' 'George' tells me, 'I would always keep an old car blocking the drive in case the Provos came for me. They'd have to come in on foot and the dog would always give a warning. This is a mixed area. A lot of Catholics are friends of mine. But you never know when they wave to you, they are not also making a note of your movements. Setting you up to be assassinated.'
It is a sobering and sinister thought. And just then there is a noise behind me in the field. Ceasefire or not, this man is a potential Provo target and I am standing right next to him. Mv heart stops. I spin round. The horse in the field neighs as it leans over the fence to see what is going on.
'George' gives a sympathetic smile. 'That's what it's been like living here for the past twenty odd years. You never know when it's going to happen to you.
He indicates the hill, an inky outline against the starry sky. 'Just over there is the nearest Catholic enclave. That's the way they'll come when the civil war starts,' There is no sound of doubt in his voice, just a deep sadness. 'I'm afraid there will never be peace until they're all driven out. Lock, stock and barrel. Because, you see, until that happens, we'll never know which of them is the enemy.'
Our next rendezvous is at a public roadside
carpark. We are to meet a Loyalist with a reputation for over thirty notches on his gun,
who is to become my model for the fictional 'RattIer' in Rogue Element. I am told that most of those killings have been at the behest of MI5 who provided the targeting information. 'Rattler' has never been caught because he always does his own reconnaissance and strikes at a different time and place to that agreed with the Security Service. They have never had the opportunity to stitch him up or sacrifice him as a scapegoat in any of their labyrinthine schemes.
But something has come up, and the crafty urban fox is now 'on the gallop'. I'm told, 'He sent his apologies.'
Instead, George has set up someone else for me to meet. 'He's an important player... And a fan of yours.'
I really do worry about my fans sometimes.
The rendezvous is at another carpark, this time beside a lake. Dusk is settling and the bare winter trees are outlined against a blood red sunset. There are only half a dozen vehicles here, some empty, some with passengers inside.
lam driving the hire car. 'George' says, 'Drive round slowly before you stop. I'll see if I recognise anyone, or notice anything suspicious.'
My mouth goes dry and I obey. 'Okay, pull in. Face the lake, but don't park to close to the fence in case we need to get out in a hurry.'
I stop with the steering wheel on a full left-band lock so we could drive straight off without reversing. It is an unnerving wait, getting darker, watching cars flash by on the road, one occasionally coming into the carpark, blinding us with its lights. Our friend? Or a Provo hit-squad? Or even a Det or SAS stake-out? It happens all the time over here and I don't really know who I'm with or what they've done.. or are planning to do.
At last 'Freddy' pulls in. We join him in his family saloon with fluffy dice dangling above the windscreen. A pleasant-featured, middle-aged man in a green waterproof jacket that is too bulky around the belly for his slim build.
l am inquisitive. 'Are you tooled up?'
'Don't ask.' A wry smile. 'You can never be too careful.'
We chat about my books, especially those set in Africa. He loves Africa, has spent much time there. Like 'Jim', he was sent for training as a member of TARA by MI5.
He confirms what 'George' has told me. But adds some more. 'MI5 has no friends left amongst the Loyalists, except one who the Brits allows to peddle narcotics. It's their plan to subdue the Protestant youth, dull their cutting edge.'
It sounds far-fetched, but 'Freddy' clearly
believes it and I know enough about Northern Ireland to know that anything is possible.
He adds, 'MI5 is no longer in control of TARA. It's now joining forces with the Ulster Resistance to take the war to Dublin. There'll be a campaign of violence until the IRA declares a permanent ceasefire and the Republic drops its constitutional claims on the North.'
'Freddy' clearly means every word. Although it becomes equally clear that the Loyalist camp is very unclear about the timing of such a campaign. While the British Government is standing four square against terrorism and not yielding concessions, some factions would prefer to exercise restraint. Others feel that the campaign is both inevitable and essential anyway, so best to get on with it.
'And when that happens, it will degenerate into all-out Civil war.' 'Freddy' says emphatically. 'If everything goes to s**t and the British Army can't contain it, the Republic will send in its troops to protect the Catholic enclaves.
This sounds like crazy talk to me, but 'Freddy' is without doubt. 'That's what Dublin planned to do during the riots in 1969 - until the British established order.'
'Irish troops fighting British?' I ask, incredulous.
'Dublin didn't reckon it would come to that. They'd go into the North in a blitzkrieg and seize the enclaves, on the assumption Britain wouldn't have the stomach for a fight. And I'm sure they're right. There'd be a stand-off, the Americans would get involved, and we'd end up with UN troops on the streets of Belfast and Londonderry. And by that time the Loyalist community would have lost. That's why the resistance movement must stand ready.'
'But the Republic didn't intervene in '69,' I point out.
A smile from 'Freddy'. 'No, they settled for setting up and training the Provisional IRA as a safer long-term bet. But those contingency military plans still stand, and the Irish Army has rehearsed them regularly every ten years or so. The last time was just before the Downing Street Declaration. Dublin dressed it up as border weapons searches. But you don't really need artillery and armoured cars for that, do you?'
We discuss things I'd like to help complete my thriller. Like the exact battle plan of this Irish Army incursion and what about the peacetime disposition of their units? The sort of stuff 'Freddy's resistance movement would have to know to carry out its plans. As good a test as any, I thought.
It's dark now and eerie sitting in a car by the lake discussing such things. 'Freddy' needs to discuss something private, and I suspect deadly, with 'George' before he goes. 'Leave it with me,' he says, 'I'll see you get what you need.'
The next day I have another meeting with 'a
player'. I get my taxi to drop me off some distance from No 79 in the staunch Loyalist
area and walk the remaining distance to be sure I'm not followed. As I approach, a car
drives away from the house and no one answers the bell. Probably a mix up on the time, I think. Or else he's popped down the road for some cigs or a jar of coffee.
As I wait, I notice how nearly every house has Venetian blinds closed at the windows so as not to offer a silhouette for any passing Provo gunman. Small, chilling detail we never think about over on the mainland.
Time passes and I hunch against the cold, sheltering behind the high hedge that separates the adjoining garden in the terraced row. I'm feeling and looking mean in my leather bomberjacket, jeans and sneakers and glasses with dark Reactolite lenses.
Exactly how mean I don't realise at the time. Any more than I realise I am being watched, either by a static covert observation post in someone's loft or from a video car. I've been clocked, probably by the Det, the army's under cover unit which is more generally referred to as 14 Int.
Behind the scenes, a major panic is probably going down, just because I can't read my own handwriting. The man I've come to see lives at No 77, not 79. And for an hour I've been lurking next door to his house behind a hedge...
Who the hell is this new gunman on the block, Loyalist rival or Provo? Dark glasses in winter and no doubt a pistol concealed in his leather jacket. 'No matching mug-shots known, boss..'
It is some nine months later, after a mysterious phone call from London, that I learn all this. But that's another story that cannot be told.
In the meantime, however, a package arrives by safe hand. It is from 'Freddy'. Inside is a complete assessment of the Irish Army's order-of-battle, including locations of all units and a blow-by-blow breakdown of its plans to seize the North.
The IRA ceasefire finally ends and still there is
no news of Loyalists taking the war to Dublin. Then, three months after Rogue Element is delivered to my publishers, the following item appears in the SUNDAY TELEGRAPH (9 February '97):
