Double Agent: My Secret Life Undercover in the IRA by Kevin Fulton

Author:Kevin Fulton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9871789462005
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2019-09-14T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

On the morning of 7 February 1991, the British war cabinet met at the very epicentre of British political power: Number 10 Downing Street. Led by John Major, the cabinet had convened for urgent discussions about the ongoing Gulf War.

Just after ten o’clock that morning, the windows shattered. Politicians and civil servants dived for cover. A mortar bomb had landed in the garden of Number 10. It had been launched from a firing position at the corner of Horseguards Avenue and Whitehall, hitting a tree and landing fifteen yards short of its target. Two more mortars quickly followed. Both overshot their target, causing damage to numbers 11 and 12.

The attacks made headlines around the world. Britain was at war and in the throes of a well-publicised security clampdown, yet the IRA had managed to get within fifteen yards of the war cabinet.

I was able to tell my handlers who was behind the attack on Downing Street.

After all, it was well known amongst Provos that one man controlled all IRA terrorism activity in England and on the continent. For legal reasons, I cannot name him in this book; I shall refer to him as Stephen.

Stephen and Conor went back a long way. Long before the Downing Street attack, I had told my handlers everything I had found out about Stephen from my IRA mentor. Quite what they did with this information I never knew.

I explained how he sat on the all-powerful, five-strong IRA Army Council. The Army Council ran the Provisional IRA. Every decision – from overall strategy right down to whether or not a volunteer-turned-informant should live or die – came down to the vote of the Army Council.

This man held a seat on the Army Council because he ran the South Armagh brigade of the IRA – the most terrifyingly efficient and close-knit unit in the organisation. If the South Armagh brigade recruited volunteers from another unit for an operation – such as it did for the human-bomb campaign – those volunteers wouldn’t be privy to the details of that operation until the final seconds. It was Stephen and his men who helped South Armagh gain its reputation as bandit country.

Most crucially, I was able to reveal to my handlers that this man was the sole supplier of mortar bombs to the IRA. Building and launching mortars required a certain expertise. He and his team were the acknowledged experts. I knew this because I had heard Conor order three from him for a job in Newry.

At the time, the Newry courthouse was being renovated. Anyone working on the building – that is, working for the security forces – was considered a legitimate target. The IRA dealt in terror, and slaughtering lowly workers going about their daily routine spread terror more efficiently than any other tactic. Ordinary workers held another attraction for these cold-blooded opportunists. Unlike soldiers, policemen and politicians, workers were not armed or protected. As such, they were easy meat. So the builders renovating Newry courthouse became Conor’s next target.

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