First Into Action by Duncan Falconer Read Free Book Online Page A

best way they see fit, drawing from their experience. But I did not have any. There must have been a reason that the powers that be had decided I would make the right choice. I did prefer to think for myself. I had been doing it since I could remember. I just had to make sure no one else suffered because of my inexperience. I would be the only one to pay the price tonight if I screwed up. But if I could bag O’Sally and his partner, that would be an experience. Then again, killing people did not make you any better at it. Training did that. Every operative in special forces wants that first kill. It’s like a baby touching heat – you don’t really know what it’s like until you do. Afterwards, you either get less sensitive to it or are disgusted by it. I decided I would leave the second man if he ran. He was not the priority; he wasn’t even significant. It was the tout-maker who wanted him killed anyway, and I didn’t know why. He had given what was called a ‘Becket Approval’. *
    Tout-makers (handlers they are also called) were a curious breed. This was the only one I met in all my years in the job. His user-name was Mr Tallyho. Like just about everybody in his department, he was a grey, insignificant man, unhealthy-looking, sharp and skittish. He chain-smoked, looked as if he drank too much too often (though I never saw him even slightly drunk), wore a drab suit under a grey coat and sometimes reacted to sudden noises with a flinch. His nerves were somewhat frayed, and understandably so. Tout-makers have the riskiest job in the whole crazy business. They are usually recruited from Military Intelligence, some from the old SIS. They come out of the same school as the Cold War spy-makers. But theirs was a far more dangerous game in Northern Ireland. When handlers recruited foreign spies it was like a chess game and few died as a result. Recruiting an IRA terrorist is like trying to make an ally out of a vicious dog. You never know if it’s your hand he’s suddenly going to bite. Most IRA touts working for Military Intelligence are pressured into it in much the same way as criminals are offered deals by the civilian police in exchange for information. Others are offered hard cash.
    The IRA touts who operate purely for money are generally the most reliable. They are harder for their own people to detect and their information is more trustworthy. Information from these sources is often bought by the pound, the price dependent on its quality. The difficulty for the tout-maker is identifying the men and women who will sell his or her principles for a foreign bank account and eventually a new life somewhere. Recruiting is a risky business for both sides. Finding such people is the tout-maker’s job. Who he decides to recruit often depends on a compilation of detailed profiles, educated guesses and luck. The more senior the IRA recruit, the better the quality of information, but the greater the risk for the tout-maker – the IRA would not miss an opportunity to misinform, capture or kill one of them.
    First contact with the proposed tout-to-be is the most nerve-racking and dangerous phase. The tout-maker usually has an armed driver who covers his route in and out, but he nearly always makes the actual rendezvous alone and often unarmed so as not to unnerve the potential recruit. The meeting places are, naturally, secluded spots – sometimes even in other countries. The tout-maker is entirely vulnerable to entrapment. He must wonder if he has chosen the target well. Is the recruit truly greedy enough to risk his life to sell out his brothers in the IRA? What if the recruit has a change of heart at the last minute? If the tout is ever found out he can expect to be tortured, then executed. The tout-maker’s greatest worry as he approaches this first meet has to be, is it a set-up? He arrives at every rendezvous like a bullfighter, but without a cape to hide behind or a sword to fight back with. He walks up to the bull,