The Exit Club: Book 3: The Professionals Read online

  The monumental story of the SAS in war and peace

  Marty Butler is a conscript soldier who has his baptism of fire with the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa in 1941, where his fearlessness and love of

  action set him apart from even the best soldiers. It is therefore not long before he is singled out to become part of the newly formed SAS.

  During the next five decades Marty fights bloody wars and engages in highly dangerous counter-terrorist activities in Malaysia, the Middle East, Northern

  Ireland and the Falkland Islands, rising high in the ranks because of his skill and commitment. But against a growing tide of political corruption and international terrorism, Marty begins to use his deadly skills for his own personal mission, with shocking implications – for himself, for those who love him, and especially for those who have crossed him.

  Epic in its scope, meticulous in its detail, and highly controversial, The Exit Club is the ultimate novel about the SAS– riveting fiction rooted in dramatic fact.

  The Exit Club

  The Ultimate Novel of the SAS

  Shaun Clarke

  All five parts of The Exit Club were first published in a single volume in Great Britain in 1996 as a Coronet paperback by Simon & Schuster Ltd

  Copyright © Shaun Clarke, 1996

  ISBN 0-671-85478-X

  This ebook edition published in 2014 by Shaun Clarke The right of Shaun Clarke to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

  form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the Author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this ebook publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Designed in the Isle of Wight, Great Britain, by www.inkdigital.org

  The Exit Club

  We are the pilgrims, master, we shall go Always a little farther; it may be Beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow Across that angry or that glimmering sea…

  From Hassan by James Elroy Flecker

  Book Three

  The Professionals

  31 JANUARY 1991

  He checked his wristwatch, annoyed that his friend was late, then he smiled at his awareness of his own impatience, putting it down to old age. You could never prepare for ageing, the acceleration of passing time, the sudden, dramatic shrinking of your horizons as the body destroyed itself. Why was he doing this? They were both too old for it. Why did he not simply sit back and let time do the job for him? His friend’s time was running short as well, so why the urgency? Why kill him today?

  ( It’s a matter of principles between two men who once had them. That’s what this is about, my friend.)

  His friend, still in that big house, preparing for the new day, was a man whose principles could not accommodate compromise and had finally led him over the edge, into the abyss. He was a man of honour, of strongly held beliefs, who had not been able to deal with a world that was not of his making. An imperfect world. A vale of vice and tears. He had seen the rising tide of all that he loathed and feared and then taken it upon himself to hold the tide back. In doing so, he had gone beyond the pale and marched into the dark lands, his principles still extant but perverted, his vision distorted.

  You went too far, the old man thought as he gazed across the road, trying to see through the walls of the big house and look into his friend’s eyes.

  (You used your finely honed, deadly skills without just cause or sanction. You believed you had a cause, a moral right, but you were terribly wrong. What you did, what you are doing, is criminal and it has to be stopped. That’s why I am here.)

  Why had his friend done it? The old man thought he knew. The first victim was a signals expert, a former SAS sergeant, who had gone to work for Plessey on the System X digital communications system. The second victim had been employed at the Plessey Naval Systems at Addlestone, Surrey, on another digital communications project. Seven more victims had also worked for Plessey and the remaining two had been working at the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham in Oxfordshire. There had to be a connection. The connection was the fact that all of those scientists were working on top-secret defence-related projects that he believed would ultimately be sold to repressive regimes. In the end, he couldn’t tolerate that and decided to put a stop to it. Because of that, eleven decent men died… and they did not commit suicide.

  (It had to be you. You and your quietly spoken other friend. You would have done it together.)

  Closing his eyes, he visualised them arriving in Oxfordshire, driving on to Shrivenham, then using their old identity cards to get themselves into the grounds of the Royal Military College of Science. Once in, they drove to the parking lot and parked the car in a position that gave them good surveillance of the building’s entrance. They had a photo of the senior metallurgist who was working on the electronic warfare system and they identified him from it when he emerged from the establishment at the end of a routine working day. When he drove home, they followed him. Then, to ensure that they had the right man, they checked his address against his name in the local telephone directory. Satisfied from this and the photo that they had the right man, they spent the next few days in a surveillance of his family home, ascertaining the routine of its occupants and working out the best way of neutralizing him and making his death look like suicide.

  It would be relatively simple, though exactly how it was done would never be known. The metallurgist was found dead under his car in his closed garage, his mouth and nose aligned with the car’s exhaust pipe. He was known as a man who liked to maintain his own car, so either they had waited until he entered the garage and then followed him in or they had actually forced him in against his will. They had then rendered him unconscious, probably with chloroform, and manoeuvred him under his car, stretched out on his back, facing up, as if working on the underside of the vehicle, his mouth and nose aligned with the exhaust pipe; then they had turned the ignition on and remained there, well away from the vehicle, until he was dead. They would have had little trouble in neutralizing their victim and making it look like suicide, which is how it was described in the media.

  (How could you have gone that far? And even that wasn’t far enough. You took it farther. Too far.)

  Ignoring that first warning by the Association, the Royal Military College of Science had continued with its electronic warfare defence project. Another victim was called for. This time the Association went higher up, targeting the head of the work-study group that was part of the programme. This man, a mature man, was given a pistol for self-defence, but he may have been uncomfortable with it, because he kept it in the boot of his car, not the glove compartment.

  They would have watched him and waited. The pistol wouldn’t have bothered them. They would have seen, from their patient surveillance, that the man had a yacht and that he often took it out at weekends, driving to the harbour in Folkstone in his MG sports car. Knowing that made it easy for them.

  Though the old man could only speculate, he thought he knew what had happened.

  The victim left his house and got into his MG sports car, intending to drive to work as usual. As he was heading along an otherwise empty back road, another car, expertly driven, harassed him so much that he must have known it was deliberate. He tr
ied to elude the other car, but it deliberately hit him broadside, damaging his sports car, and in the end he was forced to pull into the side of the road, just in front of the other car. A man got out of the other car, approached the scientist, and ordered him, at gunpoint, to do what he was told. He then slipped into the passenger seat, resting the pistol on his lap, and told the scientist to follow the other car all the way to Folkstone.

  The scientist did as he was told. The two cars arrived in Folkstone. They parked at the harbour and the scientist, still at gunpoint, was ordered out of his car and onto his yacht. The yacht was sailed out to sea, to where another boat was waiting, almost certainly a large inflatable, and the scientist was despatched with a double-tap and left where he was lying. His executioners then placed a remote-controlled HE bomb on the yacht and then quickly transferred to the inflatable, which immediately took them out to where they could safely use the button job. The yacht was blown up, its debris widely scattered, and then the executioners were spirited away in the inflatable, leaving no trace behind them.

  (The same inflatables were used in the Falkland Islands. Your SBS friends could have arranged that.)

  He gazed across the road, at that wealthy man’s big house, and wondered at the distance the man in that house had travelled to get to where he was now. He had travelled a straight road for a long, involving time and then turned onto a crooked highway only at the last moment. The problem being that once he had made that detour there was no turning back.

  (Since you can’t turn back, you have to be stopped… and I have to do it myself.)

  He sat patiently in his Mercedes, staring across the road with his failing eyesight, waiting for his best friend to emerge and end it for both of them.

  He had lots to think about…

  Chapter One

  ‘Welcome to the crumbling estate,’ Paddy Kearney said, grinning, stepping aside to let Marty and Ann Lim enter the darkly varnished hallway of his house near Peterchurch, Herefordshire. It was a rather grand house with oak panelling, tinted-glass windows, a variety of carpets on the polished floorboards, old paintings on all the walls, and rooms of a size that Marty, being a working-class lad, had never seen before.

  ‘It’s not as posh as it looks,’ Paddy added, obviously sensing Marty’s slight awkwardness. ‘It really is falling to pieces and we can’t afford to maintain it. Some family inheritances a man can do without, but we must shoulder the burden of tradition.’

  ‘It’s beautiful,’Ann Lim said, meaning it.

  ‘So are you,’ Paddy responded gallantly. ‘Fortunately, you’re a lot younger than this house, and, if I may say so, much better maintained. Your husband’s a lucky man.’ Marty glanced at his wife and saw her smile of pleasure. ‘So,’ Paddy continued, turning towards the broad staircase, ‘let me show you to your room, then you can have a bath and come down for a couple of drinks before we have dinner. Angela’s doing some lastminute shopping, but she’ll be back fairly soon. Did you have any problems getting here?’

  ‘No,’ Marty replied. ‘Malvern’s practically next door, after all, so we got here in no time.’

  ‘Well, you won’t be at Malvern much longer.’

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Marty said.

  The Sabre Squadrons of 22 SAS had returned to Britain from Malaya earlier in the year, but to Merebrook Camp at Malvern in Worcestershire, instead of the Parachute Regiment’s Depot in Aldershot, Hampshire. However, early next year they would be moving into their own base at Bradbury Lines in Hereford.

  ‘Living here,’ Marty said as they reached the top of the stairs and he and Ann Lim followed Paddy along the landing, ‘I suppose it’s handy for getting to the new base.’

  ‘Lucky me.’ Paddy opened a door and ushered Marty and Ann Lim into what was, to Marty, an exceptionally spacious bedroom with a double bed, Victorian furnishings, heavy curtains and tall windows overlooking the expansive gardens at the rear of the house. ‘Will this suit you?’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Ann Lim said with an admiring smile as her gaze took in the large room. ‘So is this how all the English live?’

  ‘The English aristocracy,’ Marty corrected her.

  ‘Irish aristocracy in this case,’ Paddy reminded him. ‘We just happen to live in England, that’s all. Our roots go back to the bogs. Anyway, why don’t you both freshen up and then come down for a drink?’

  ‘Do we have to dress formally for dinner?’ Marty asked, feeling slightly self-conscious.

  Paddy grinned. ‘No.’ He spread his hands in the air and glanced down the length of his own body, indicating his informal clothing. ‘We dress like this,’ he said. ‘We only dress up for proper dinners, posh dos, but tonight there’s no one coming except you. Now tomorrow evening– that’ll be different. Slightly more formal.’

  ‘What’s slightlymore formal?’ Marty asked, feeling even more self-conscious.

  ‘Stop worrying, Marty. No need for a bow-tie or dinner jacket. Just a normal suit with shirt and tie. Even when being formal, we’re not that stiff, so stop looking terrified.’ He turned to Ann Lim. ‘Your husband’s faced dangers you can’t possibly imagine and done so without batting an eyelid. But when it comes to the trivialities of everyday life, he starts falling to pieces. I trust you’re not the same.’

  ‘No,’Ann Lim said, ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Good. Glad to hear it. I’m sure you’ll take care of him.’ He grinned again at Marty. ‘So get cleaned up and then come on down, wearing your glad rags. I’ll be there with a glass in my hand. See you soon. Au revoir.’

  He bowed slightly and left the room, closing the door behind him. Ann Lim sat on the edge of the double bed, bounced up and down, then smiled like a satisfied cat. ‘Mmm,’ she murmured. ‘Wonderful!’

  ‘The bed?’

  ‘Yes, the bed. Did you think I meant your friend, Paddy?’

  ‘He’s a good friend.’

  ‘Your superior officer, Marty.’

  ‘My superior officer and a good friend. It works that way in the regiment.’

  ‘Yet you don’t seem comfortable with him.’

  ‘It’s this place,’ Marty confessed. ‘This big house. I knew that Paddy came from an upper-class Irish family, but I tended to forget it when with the regiment. I mean, we seemed the same somehow. He was an officer and I was a lowly trooper, but both of us wore the same uniform and had the same aims. Now, seeing him in civilian clothes, in this big house, makes it different somehow. I’m reminded that we come from different backgrounds and that makes me uncomfortable.’

  ‘Why? You come from a good background as well. Just poorer, that’s all.’

  Marty grinned at that, pleased by what she had said. She had met his parents and liked them a lot and they had liked her. Now he understood why. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that’s true. But I still feel out of place here. I’m not ashamed of being workingclass and I’m really fond of Paddy, but I can’t help being reminded by this place that we come from different worlds.’

  ‘That’s an English vice, Marty.’

  ‘Yes, I guess so. Also, I’m used to addressing him as “boss”. Calling him “Paddy”, which he insisted I do, makes me feel that I’m being too familiar. That’s probably an English vice, as well.’

  ‘It is,’Ann Lim said.

  She was still sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing a short, lime-green woollen coat over a knee-length dress of the same colour and buttoned down the front – like the dress she had worn when he had first walked with her, then made love to her, on that beach in Penang. Her superb legs, in nylon stockings, were crossed and, as usual, aroused him. He stepped up to the bed and sat beside her, then bent down to kiss one of her knees. He worshipped her knees. ‘God, I adore you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes, darling, I know. I adore you, too.’ She stroked the back of his head while he kept his lips on her knee, sucking it, licking it, kissing it, his manner at once sensual and playful, rooted deeply in yearning. ‘Paddy Kearney really likes you. There’s no doubt about
it. Your different backgrounds don’t matter to him. That man is your friend.’ She tightened her fingers in his hair, then gently tugged it, making him raise his head until hewas looking up at her smiling face. ‘Now I want to freshen up with a bath, so please get away from me. Remove your lips from my knee and let me stand up. Either that or come and have a bath with me.’

  ‘I just might do that,’ Marty said, grinning, straightening up and starting to take off his clothes. ‘Yes, sweetheart, why not?’

  They washed together, enjoying themselves, facing each other from opposite ends of the big, old-fashioned bath, their legs intertwined. Naked, Ann Lim was perfection, at least to Marty’s eyes, her skin golden instead of white, her breasts small but firm, her waist tapering down to round hips and long, shapely legs. Even her hands and feet had a delicacy that greatly appealed to him.

  ‘What’s it like to be pregnant?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s exciting,’ she said.

  Marty grinned again. Though Ann Lim knew that he had two children by his previous marriage, she had insisted that they have their own child as soon as possible. ‘To bond our love,’ as she had put it. Recalling those words, Marty realized that the baby due five months from now, after a long wait– so long that they had thought they might not have one– was not only a child of love but of singular passion. The love-making between him and Ann Lim had been uninhibited in ways that would have seemed inconceivable to Lesley. Indeed, in marrying Ann Lim, he felt that he had opened the door to another way of life, one in which English constraint had little place. Though Ann Lim’s father had tried to turn his daughters into respectable ‘English’ women, he had failed, certainly with Ann Lim. She was proud to be a Chinese Malay, still favoured colourful cheongsams, was not at all thrilled by the British weather, and often admitted that she missed Malaya, now Malaysia, a lot. Marty wasn’t upset by this confession, understanding perfectly. He missed Malaysia as well.