The Accidental Spy Page 15

  The joke was, said Campbell, that the Real IRA had taken so many weapons from bunkers that the Brits would have to give Gerry Adams some weapons to hand in.

  They all laughed in unison.

  Campbell outlined that they were hit hard by the Omagh bomb and had been on tactical ceasefire, but were ready to restart a major campaign. Rupert, referencing his truck business, said it was good to lie down for a while when you are beat.

  Campbell and McLaughlin looked at him in horror. They both protested that they didn’t just lie down after Omagh, they worked like hell, travelling around the country to reassure volunteers that the fight would go on and that it was only a setback. They had taken the army back to where it was now.

  They seemed almost angry with Rupert. He backtracked, defining his statement three or four times, saying that it was only a pretend lying down until you could come back up again, like he did in the trucking business.

  Campbell told Rupert, defensively, that 30 per cent of the army council had voted against the ceasefire after the Omagh bombing, including him.

  Let’s pause there for a moment. The man who made the botched warning calls, who caused police to lead families toward the bomb, not away from it, who committed the worst crime in Northern Ireland’s history, had voted against even a sham ceasefire in the aftermath of its outrage. Rupert was puzzled by him. Where did this callousness come from, when even the most hardened like Mickey and Bernie McKevitt wanted a temporary halt?

  He had to move on with the meeting. They were very interested in getting the latest spying equipment from the US – especially bugging detectors and computers that had electronic timers suitable for detonation. Rupert asked if US computer parts would be compatible with detonation from Irish phones. Campbell told him they weren’t, but some phones on mainland Europe were and could be adapted. A European phone, calling an American laptop, leading to detonation of an attached bomb.

  The meeting broke up after an hour. Kieran and Maurice, the two northerners, had to drive back to Derry and Belfast.

  The woman peered around from a backroom where she and the child had stayed for the meeting. “Are ye alright?”

  “Fine, thanks,” said Campbell with a smile.

  The farmer came from the back of the house to take Rupert home. As Rupert was walking on the driveway, he noticed a red car with a Dublin number plate. He only had seconds to commit it to memory. All his years in high school of memorising school books to compensate for his astigmatism had its use. He kept the number in his head and played it over and over as the farmer talked.

  He told Rupert that the view over the mountains was beautiful but he had gotten used to it and needed to see it with fresh eyes again. They drove through the darkness back to the hotel.

  David Rupert had gone from Continuity IRA hanger-on to trusted confidant to bomb-part supplier and financier, had crossed over, through Michael Donnelly, to the Real IRA, and was now in its army council – the most successful spy in Britain’s long and bloody history in the Irish Troubles. Many had died trying to get to even the first layer of Irish republicanism. He had penetrated them all and was now at the centre. MI5 was ecstatic.

  The next day, Mickey Donnelly, who knew he was being ostracised by the Real IRA army council, was composing a letter to the Irish Freedom Committee in America, concerned about a possible spy.

  “Re: David Rupert,” he wrote.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jimmy Taff had David Rupert pressed up against a wall. “You’re a spy. You’re fucking FBI.

  “I fucking knew there was something up with you. You’re a fucking tout.”

  “Calm…”

  “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down. It’s right here.”

  Taff held up a newspaper. Rupert held out his hand slowly. Who had exposed him?

  He took the newspaper.

  “You were Hillary Clinton’s boyfriend and you’re living in Washington.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Hillary Clinton got you into all of this. You’re working for the US government. The Clintons wanted peace so they got you into this.”

  “Hillary Clinton’s boyfriend? What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’ve told Maguire about you. Read that,” said Taff.

  Rupert began to read from the newspaper. It was an extract from Gail Sheehy’s new Hillary Clinton biography, Hillary’s Choice. It said that Hillary’s first serious boyfriend, the “ruthlessly handsome’’ David Rupert, met her in Washington the summer of her junior year, and confirms that they had protected sex and suggests she tried marijuana.

  It also mentioned that David Rupert was from upstate New York and was now living in Washington.

  Rupert smiled widely.

  “This is fucking ridiculous. I don’t know who this other David Rupert is, but he’s not me.”

  Rupert read more of the article.

  “So you’re saying you’re not David Rupert from upstate New York?” said Taff. “This fella has your address, ye are the same age.”

  Rupert: “The David Rupert in the book was from Syracuse, which is 160 miles from where I grew up, and we were pretty close in age. I said to him, ‘Listen to me, I’ve done a lot of things in my life but Hillary Clinton wasn’t one of them.’”

  “I was laughing about it because I wanted him to see how ridiculous it was, that there must be photos of this other David Rupert out there somewhere and that I’d never lived in Washington in my life.”

  Taff began to calm down. “So you’re not Hillary’s David Rupert.”

  “Absolutely not, we don’t mix in the same circles.”

  Jimmy Taff (not his real name) sang folk songs in the pubs of Bundoran. He needed Rupert for his latest venture – making leprechaun hats.

  Novelty stovepipe leprechaun hats were becoming popular for Irish soccer fans at matches and Taff saw an opening.

  He had applied for an Irish government grant to begin manufacturing. Rupert had agreed to write a letter, using the real name of his trucking company, claiming that he was an American interested in distributing the hats across America and that there was a guaranteed market.

  Taff knew that if Rupert reported him to the Irish authorities, any chance of a grant was gone.

  There was an awkwardness between them that Rupert tried to cover over with laughter. “That’s a fucking good one.”

  Taff asked if the letter still stood. “Yeah, of course. I’m still buying fish from you, right?”

  Taff said he would check Rupert’s story and said goodbye.

  Rupert had only gone back to the apartment in Bundoran to get some more possessions.

  He belonged in the east coast now. He drove back to Dundalk and booked himself into the Carrickdale Hotel.

  McKevitt met him in the lobby. It was just a few days after the army council meeting.

  McKevitt told Rupert he needed two tiny .25 ladies’ pistols, the type that could fit into a book or a small purse. It looked as if he was going to send someone to spring McGrane and dozens of other Real IRA members from prison. Rupert said he would try to get them in the US. It illustrated McKevitt’s taste in guns. He hated AK-47s, Armalite and large rifles – too cumbersome and ineffective. He wanted ones that were smaller and easier to manoeuvre, suitable for urban warfare.

  The next day, he waited in the lobby of the hotel. It was time to meet the bomb team again.

  Stephen McKevitt pulled up and took off to the south, in the direction of Dundalk town. Along the way, Stephen told of his romance problems. He was dating a woman whose father was a Special Branch officer and her father was furious about it. He forbade his daughter to ever contact Stephen again. Stephen asked around town and discovered that the married police officer was seeing another woman. He took photographs of the man leaving a pub with the woman one night and sent them to him. The father’s objections ended and Stephen was seeing his girlfriend again.

  They drove through a maze of small council estates and back to t
he house where the first engineering department meeting had taken place in November. By now, Rupert knew it was called Oakland Park because he had retraced his steps. The owner, unknown to him, was a Real IRA member named Eoin Quigley, who put his home at the disposal of the bomb team.

  It was as grim-looking as ever. Rupert got a better look. A street of terraced houses in a cul-de-sac with a lane at its end leading to the back of some of the homes.

  Unknown to anyone arriving at the meeting, the gardaí had launched a major security operation and were across the road at the start of the lane, watching those going in and out of the meeting. MI5 had not shared details of Rupert’s movements with them but they had been following McKevitt around Dundalk for decades. Surveillance had increased sharply in recent months because of the resumed Real IRA campaign. They parked an unmarked van on the street and several officers in unmarked cars. Photographing people going to meetings was still beyond their capabilities so they took notes of those entering.

  Det Garda Fergal O’Brien had been hiding in the back of the van since 6pm and was looking out of the back window at the house, which was just 30 yards away.

  At 7pm he saw Stephen McKevitt drop off David Rupert at the house. He knew Rupert to see and identified him in his notes as “tall and broad”.

  Half an hour later, Mickey McKevitt arrived in a car driven by Alan Browne, a Real IRA member from Dundalk. Campbell had led the last bomb-makers’ meeting, and now it was up to McKevitt.

  Inside the house, McKevitt greeted Rupert. The main topic of the meeting today would be an update on remote detonating techniques.

  The men in the engineering team loved getting the latest technology. They read up on manuals and websites, always looking for the latest, the most sophisticated. They had come from the best of the Provisional IRA and they were competitive, almost to the point where they had forgotten about human victims – it was about creating the best, most modern bomb that would make all other engineers notice.

  The chief electronics engineer, Dent, wasn’t there; he was sick, Mickey said. Rupert wondered if they were telling him the truth or if he was off planting a bomb somewhere. He was replaced by a second man, Simon, who was well dressed, softly spoken and politely mannered. “He was the Liam Campbell-type. I liked the guy,” Rupert said.

  The other bomb-maker, Justin, he hadn’t seen before. The man was extremely sharp and very good at computers and electronics. Each of the pair had a team who worked for them but only the top people were invited to engineering department meetings.

  Rupert handed over the PGP encryption software that the bomb team had asked for in November. It had been with M15 for a month before it was handed back to Rupert. Justin lifted it up, looked at it and walked over to Rupert.

  “How do we know that this isn’t hacked?” he said.

  Adrenaline coursed through Rupert’s body. “How do we know it isn’t doctored?” Justin said again.

  He was confrontational, angry and suspicious.

  He was right up to Rupert. One question after another. “Someone could have hacked into this, I don’t even know this company.” He looked down at the software package.

  It was the most terrifying moment of Rupert’s time in Ireland. What did they know? These men were electronics experts. If they examined it, they might find something from MI5 buried in the software’s programming.

  “Still to this day, it was the scariest moment of my life. Every time I think about it, I freeze,” said Rupert.

  Rupert’s only way out was to do what he had done so many times before when he was in trouble. He got angry.

  “Look, Dent asked for it. I brought this thing through Irish customs, I sure as fuck am not bringing it back through US customs. If you don’t like it, if you think it’s compromised, then throw it away. It’s not my fucking responsibility.”

  McKevitt came between them. He explained to Justin that the engineer Dent had asked Rupert for this specific encryption program. If Justin wasn’t happy with it, they would put it aside until Rupert came back to Ireland, which would give them time to check out its security.

  He was calm and measured, trying to defuse the situation.

  Rupert said that, when he went back to America, he didn’t expect to get an email from the army council informing him that a bomb would go off in London at a certain time and date, but he needed secure emails so he could let them know when he was coming to Ireland, and expect that they could make arrangements for him, without the Brits knowing about it.

  Justin backed down. He could see McKevitt was on Rupert’s side. It wasn’t Rupert he was questioning, he said, it was the security of the software and potential for hacking.

  They all sat down to discuss updates.

  It was then, as everyone calmed down, that Rupert learned that he had inadvertently supplied very useful bomb parts to the team by giving the four digital personal timers to McKevitt.

  Until now, he had been stalling on their numerous requests for bombing equipment from America, telling them that he was working on getting supplies without detection. On this visit, he had already come with $10,000, set up the political wing’s website and supplied four personal organisers. It was enough stalling.

  “I’d supplied them with the timers only because I thought that they needed them for organisation purposes. Turns out they had taken them apart and were using their internal timers for long-term bombs, the ones that could be planted months in advance.”

  He knew that the FBI’s lawyer would be furious. He was under strict instructions: do not supply bomb parts from America. He would have to explain it.

  He tried to tell the engineering department that the personal organisers were really good because they could store more lines of data than others, but nobody was listening. “They couldn’t give a fuck what they could do, as long as they could be reset for bombs,” he said.

  McKevitt also mentioned that the bombs they were designing could be triggered by calling a mobile phone. They had tried one out already in a joint landmine operation with the Continuity IRA. The Continuity IRA called the number to test it and the bomb went off. McKevitt said he was angry about it because he felt they did it deliberately to undermine him.

  McKevitt had an updated list of supplies for Rupert. As in November, Rupert asked if he could take notes. McKevitt said yes, but that Rupert would have to be careful where he put the notes. Rupert said that he would transfer a written list to his computer and encrypt it.

  McKevitt, with help from Simon and Justin, began:

  Remote control model helicopters, parking timers, marine magnets, infrared detection devices, bug sweeping gear, two clean laptops, detonators and cords, broad spectrum radios, mercury switches, laser/fiber-optic cable, black powder and handguns.

  Rupert said he would try his best.

  The meeting was adjourned.

  Outside, the men left in other people’s cars. McKevitt stood outside the house talking to Rupert.

  McKevitt was delighted that Rupert had stood up to Justin. “If he talked to me like that I’d tell him to go fuck himself,” he said.

  It was the first time that the gardaí had seen the pair of them together in public.

  Gardaí later tried to suggest that Rupert deliberately brought McKevitt out to be seen by them, and even said that later in court, but he is adamant that is not true.

  “I didn’t even know the gardaí were there,” said Rupert. “I would have been upset if I’d known they were there because I didn’t trust them. It had to be a very tightly held operation with the Brits because the gardaí were a sieve for information.”

  Gareth Mulley, a bomb team member, arrived in a blue Ford Fiesta at 9pm and David Rupert left in it.

  On the way home, Rupert was shaken. His confrontation with Justin left him unbalanced and paranoid. Mulley would later be jailed for 10 years for building a keg bomb similar to the ones for which Joe O’Neill sought Guinness kegs. At the time he met Rupert, he was learning new techniques from Simon and Just
in and was happy to chauffeur the American, who he had heard a lot about.

  Rupert made it back to the Carrickdale Hotel. He went to his room to write, but couldn’t. He felt exposed, wondering what M15 had put on the encryption disk and if Justin would find it. Why had Justin been so aggressive? Did he suspect something? Was he talking about Rupert to McKevitt and would someone on the engineering team send the disk for special analysis? He imagined the interrogation in South Armagh, and the torture and that final bullet and being dumped out on a border road late at night.

  He left the hotel and did what he did his whole life when he was stressed: he put an audiobook into the cassette player and he drove for hours.

  He passed the house where the army council meeting took place, just to confirm where it was. Eventually, he drove back to the hotel to deliver his report, later than usual.

  “Sorry for the delay,” he wrote. “I think my nerves are about gone for this trip. A good drive and a book on tape always calms me down, I have had both and I am ready to report.”

  The next day, he had to shake out his fears.

  He noticed that the Real IRA leaders were starting to relax a bit: they were not as intensely security conscious as they had been. Liam Campbell picked him up in his own car. He had his 10-year-old daughter in the back, bringing her to a Real IRA meeting.

  They drove back to Dundalk, to a row of houses. Rupert noted the door number on the way in.

  Campbell came in behind him with his daughter. Inside, they met a 65-year-old man named Bernard, who had white hair. The presence of Campbell’s daughter led the conversation. Bernard mentioned that he went to New Zealand every winter to be with his own daughter. Rupert saw that as a potential way of identifying him.

  The two men led Rupert to a back room, while Campbell’s daughter stayed in the front room to wait alone, while Daddy was having a meeting.

  Campbell explained to Rupert that he invited his daughter and his other kids on meetings because it threw gardaí off the scent and he would buy the kids ice cream or sweets in exchange for them coming along in the car. As with Joe O’Neill’s smuggling operation to a school, that Campbell would take his daughter from their nice farm along the border and bring her to a Real IRA meeting had a lasting impression on Rupert.