During the war in Ireland known as the Troubles, agents recruited from within the Provisional IRA were vital in thwarting plots and providing the British with intelligence. Now one of their handlers, writing under the alias Will Britten, has published an account of his work – The Deadly Game. Here he discusses one of the most controversial agents, whom he claims saved many lives but was also allegedly a senior terrorist within the upper echelons of the Provisional IRA.
’ve wondered more than once about the process, before the days of computer-generated codewords and codenames, that dubbed the agent regarded as the crown jewel – the golden goose of the British Government’s fight against Republican terror during what we dismissively call the Troubles – Stakeknife. A random process, the result of an office ballot, or the personal whim of a staff officer closeted in a tiny cell-like office in the bowels of the Army’s HQ in Lisburn. Whatever, less prosaically he was also later awarded a source number in
