The Covert OP

Based on a True Story

Kevin Lumley

Australian

In 1994 I spent some time in Northern Ireland.

A story similar to the one below was related to me by soldiers of the Security Forces, members of the RUC, and many of the local residents. 

When you’re sitting in a nice warm portakabin with a fag and a hot cup of tea most ideas seem perfectly reasonable.

“So we’ll go in at night, set up an OP in the roof, wait for the bastard to show himself, then call in support to lift him. Any questions?”

‘The bastard’ was one Seamus Macnally, known IRA bomber. He’d been on the Security Services ‘most wanted’ list for quite some time. He was classed as a target of opportunity; grab him if you can.

A man fitting his description had been eyeballed inside one of the more staunchly republican drinking holes in Armagh.

Special Branch and MI5 were particularly keen to get their hands on him. It would be a severe blow to the terrorists to lose a man of Macnally’s talents.

Across the road from the pub that Macnally had been spotted in was a local Butchers shop. The idea was to set up a covert Observation Post in the roof and keep a-round the clock lookout for the Irishman.

It all seems so easy, Todd thought to himself, until you actually have to get out there and do it.

They’d gone in the night before to check the shop out.

Picked the lock on the back door. Found a small hatchway that led up into the roof. It couldn’t rightly be called an attic; there wasn’t enough space up there for that.

They’d carefully removed some cladding and a tile. Replaced the tile with a piece of fine mesh material of the same colour. The men inside the roof were able to view the comings and goings at the pub across the road quite easily. From the opposite side of the road they themselves would be completely hidden from view. A video camera was installed and attached to a 24-hour recorder. Job completed, Todd and Alan had carefully vacated the butchers shop, leaving everything exactly as they had found it.

The next night they were back, with mattresses, binoculars, flasks of hot tea and enough food to last them a week.

They laid pine boards across the rafters to support themselves above the plaster ceiling. The roof was too low to do more than crouch, so they spent most of their time lying down. They had brought along two plastic jerrycans, one to drink from and the other to urinate into, and thick plastic garbage bags for defecation purposes.

The main problem, Todd and Alan quickly discovered, was that they were completely unable to move during the hours that the shop was open. The slightest movement on their part produced alarming groans from the wooden framework that held up the roof, and it was clearly impossible to even think about stepping onto the thin plaster that made up the ceiling. That meant that all normal bodily functions, and anything else that produced the slightest amount of noise, had to be left until after hours, when the butcher had left and the shop was closed for the night.

Todd and Alan had taken it in turns to keep watch out of their spyhole. They had direct communication back to base and apart from routine check in calls each evening they had seen nothing of note to report regarding Macnally.

On the third night Alan said to his companion. “By Christ I hope the bastard turns up soon. I can’t remember what it was like to stand up and walk around.”

Todd agreed, this was not the first time he and his fellows had been forced to endure situations such as this, they required much more fortitude than some might think.

The next morning, shortly after the butcher had opened, Todd knocked over his small, pocket sized, Maglite torch.

He and Alan cringed as it thudded onto the thin plaster ceiling and promptly rolled several feet away.

For days they had been clearly able to hear the butcher and his customers talking below them. Now they listened in horror as a woman spoke. “Bats in the belfry is it Mr O’Hara?”

“I should certainly hope not missus.”

“Aye, well I hope it’s not rats that you’ve got. Rats have no place in a shop selling fresh meat.”

“There’s no rats in my premises, thank you very much.”

The woman sniffed and mumbled something about hoping so. The men above breathed a sigh of relief when they heard her saying goodbye to the butcher. They heard the man below mutter to himself. “Rats indeed.”

                                      *************

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The butcher had closed his front door at about five o’clock and then puttered about cleaning up. Alan was dozing on his wooden board and Todd was looking out of their peephole at the pub opposite. Four days now, and still no sign of Macnally. It was Friday and more people than usual could be expected to go out for a drink. Todd was contemplating this when he heard a thud underneath the hatchway that led up into the roof space.

Another thud, and the wooden hatch lifted a little.

Fuck me; thought Todd, the bloody butcher must be checking to see what the noise was this morning.

Frantically Todd slid along his board and pressed both hands flat onto his side of the hatch. Something banged into it underneath, but Todd was in a press-up position with the weight of his torso resting on his hands, the hatch stayed sealed in place this time.

Beneath him the butcher bashed the end of his broomstick against his side of the hatchway. He’d thought for a second there that it was about to shift open, but now the bloody thing was jammed solid.

“Ah, to hell with it,” he said aloud. He turned and walked back towards the front of the shop.

Up above him the banging had awoken Alan. He looked at his companion. Todd met his gaze and shook his head.

For the next half an hour, until the butcher had locked up and left for the night, one of them stayed in place above the hatch.

They waited for five minutes until they were sure their unknowing host was not going to return.

“Fuck me that was close,” said Todd. “I thought the bastard was going to be sitting up here next to us.”

“I reckon there’s a good chance he might have another go tomorrow,” Alan replied. “Especially if he hears anymore noises from up here.”

Todd agreed. “I think we should tell base we were almost compromised. We’ve been here for a week already, we’re no nearer to spotting Macnally than the day we started.”

                                       ***********

By Sunday night Todd and Alan had been debriefed and were sitting in the makeshift sergeant’s mess, inside the grounds of a security sealed industrial estate.

A dozen other operators were sitting around Todd and Alan’s table, listening with rapt attention as the two men explained the finer details of Macnally’s capture.

“Go on then,” said Gary. “The butcher fucked off for the night, what happened next?”

Todd had paused in his story to get another cup of tea and light a fresh cigarette.

“Ok, the butcher’s gone home for the night and Alan is back on watch. About eight o’clock I take over from him and across the road at the pub this dark blue Cortina pulls up, and who should get out but Macnally. Straight away I’m on the comms to base. They decide we’ll lift him when he comes back out. You can imagine the bloodshed that would have ensured if we’d have tried to snatch him inside the bar.

Trouble is, by closing time, the bastard hasn’t come out has he. Seems like they must be having a Provo get together after hours, all the boyo’s together like. We’ve got a team round the back of the pub so we know he hasn’t left without anyone seeing him. Base tells us to sit still and just keep watching, which we do. All bloody night as it turns out.

Next thing you know it’s seven the next morning and the butcher opens up early for the Saturday regulars.

At about a quarter to eight Alan spots Macnally walking out the front door of the pub and strolling off down the high street, bold as brass. I’m on the radio, trying to relay the info to our two snatch teams. But all I get is static, the fucking radio’s gone tits up. Any second Macnally could be picked up by a car, so Alan and I decide we’ll have to break cover and try to alert the other’s outside.”

Todd paused and took a drag of his smoke.

“And that’s when everything turned into a fucking disaster,” Alan told those assembled.

“Yes, I heard the boss wasn’t best pleased,” admitted Gary.

Todd shook his head. “It must have looked like something out of a bloody Laurel and Hardy film.”

He took a sip of his tea and continued. “Alan and I grab our pistols and I slide over to the end of my support board and reach out to open the hatch. We figured we might manage to drop down, and be out the back door, before the butcher even realised we were there. Trouble is I’m rushing a bit and my board tilts over and I fall onto the plaster ceiling. I manage to grab one of the support beams and Alan grabs my wrist.”

Alan cut into the story. “Not the smartest thing I’ve ever done. Todd smashes right through the plaster ceiling, his legs are dangling in the air over Mr O’Hara’s head. Then the fucking support beam gives way and he drags me and half the roof down into the shop with him.”

Todd nodded and continued. “Yeah, I landed smack on me arse in the middle of the shop, luckily the butcher had about a half dozen customers, three of the poor sods broke my fall.

Unfortunately the whole ceiling had given way so all our gear came down with us. The lid on the piss can wasn’t shut properly and it flew open and covered us all with warm urine. And the garbage bag, with a weeks worth of decomposing shit in it, split open and sprayed itself liberally about as well!”

“So there we are,” Alan explains. “Two blokes dressed in black kit, pistols in our hands, trying to get to our feet and failing, because we’re slipping and sliding around in a mess of reeking piss and shit. The butcher and his customers (four of who are women) screaming their fucking lungs out.”

He shuddered. “It was fucking awful, I can tell you.”

The men gathered around the pair are in hysterics, Gary is laughing so hard he falls out of his chair.

“The butcher reaches out and picks up a bloody great meat cleaver. He starts to howl and shout and come around the counter towards us. Todd and me take one look at the size of the enraged bugger and decide to be off. We can hardly shoot him after all.”

Alan stopped and shook his head. “You finish,” he said to Todd.

“Yeah that butcher was pissed all right, had a nasty look in his eye too. We burst out of the front door and just took off. Any direction will do. I haven’t gone more that fifty feet when I collide with some geezer on the footpath. We both go arse over tit. I stagger to my feet and bend over to help the poor sod up when Alan shoves me out of the way and starts to hammer the bloke over the head. “What the fuck are you doing?” I scream. He stops hitting the geezer long enough to shout back at me. “It’s Macnally you stupid bastard!” So I give the bugger on the floor a couple of kicks for good measure myself. The next thing you know the rest of the crew’s turned up. They drag Macnally away from us and shove him into a car, and we get bundled into a van and screech off.” Todd looked over at Alan. “And that was that really.”

“Was it?” said Alan. “Don’t forget to tell everyone what we found in the side of the van when we got back here.”

“Oh yeah, that butcher must have been quicker on his feet than we thought, we found a meat cleaver imbedded in a side panel when we got back!”

“The customers in the shop are screaming blue murder to the MOD, they want compensation from everything from their clothes to their state of mind. One old dear reckons she won’t ever be able to go inside a meat shop again.”

Todd and Alan looked around the mess hall.

“Got Macnally though, so it was a good result after all, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not so sure,” Gary replies. “Last I heard the boss was making some sort of deal with the butcher, we get a years supply of free meat, he gets your name and addresses!”

                                    THE END