The Exit Club: Book 5: Old Comrades

by Shaun Clarke

  Sliding back into his car, he checked his wristwatch, waiting until it showed zero minus one, then turned the ignition on, made a three-point turn and drove back to within a few metres of the big house. He went into neutral, applied the handbrake, kept the engine purring over as he opened his door. When he heard the explosion out back, he jumped from the car.

  He had only a few minutes now. The bomb out back would have blown down part of the wall and knocked out the audio-visual surveillance systems long enough for him to do what he had to do. By the time he reached the front gate, the armed guard had already raced around to the rear of the property to check on the source of the explosion.

  With the burglar alarms knocked out, he, the intruder, had enough time to race into the garage, crawl under the parked Rolls Royce, and attach a more powerful bomb, this one consisting of C3/C4 high explosive with an electrical firing

  detonated by remote control. Once

  system to be

  the bomb was attached to the bottom of the vehicle, well hidden in the exhaust system, just beneath the rear seat, he scrambled back out, climbed to his feet, and hurried unseen across the driveway and back to his own car, still parked a few metres from the property’s main gate with its engine ticking over quietly.

  Less than five minutes after the small bomb had exploded out back, acting purely as a distraction for the guard, he was driving away from the house, still unseen. He parked his car a few streets away, on a stretch of his intended victim’s normal route to his office. After placing the remote-control initiator on the seat beside him, he covered it with a newspaper, then sat back and began his long wait. He had all the time in the world.

  The following morning, two weeks after Diane’s funeral, Marty sat in a hotel room in the West End, drinking neat whisky and watching the news on TV. The main item was the assassination of Sir Charles Alfred Seagrove, arms salesman, who had died that morning when a bomb exploded under his Rolls Royce as he was being driven to his office in the City.

  According to the news report, another, much smaller, bomb had demolished part of the back wall of Seagrove’s property, knocking out his sophisticated audio-visual surveillance system and burglar alarm and drawing his personal bodyguard away from the front of the house. Deducing that the bomb was the instrument of a botched assassination attempt, the investigating police had not thought to check the rest of the house, let alone the Rolls Royce parked in the garage. Assuming that he had survived the attempt on his life, Seagrove had then used his Rolls Royce to get him to his office. The second, more powerful, bomb, obviously attached to the underside of Seagrove’s car while his security system was out of order and his bodyguard was distracted at the back of his property, had been detonated by remote control shortly after the vehicle passed through the police cordon that had been placed there to keep people away from the scene of the first incident. The Rolls Royce had exploded in an empty stretch of road, instantly killing the knighted arms dealer and his unfortunate chauffeur.

  Though initially the assassination was believed to be the work of the IRA, that organization had denied responsibility and the identity of the perpetrator was still unknown.

  The news broadcast had barely ended when the telephone beside Marty started ringing. He knew that the caller could only be Paddy, but he didn’t pick the phone up to check. It rang for a long time and continued to ring, on and off, all day, but Marty just sat there, drinking whiskey, not picking it up. He was still sitting there when night came, bringing darkness and silence. The phone did not ring again.

  Chapter Four

  It was Marty’s final war and, from the organizational point of view, the most complicated. It began when, on 2 April 1982, Argentina invaded and captured the Falkland Islands, overwhelming the single company of Royal Marines guarding the islands’ capital, Port Stanley. The British response was to assemble a Royal Navy Task Force including frigates, destroyers, troop carriers, landing ships, supply ships, submarines, and the aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes. These were packed with Harrier jump-jets and Sea King HC4 helicopters of the 846 Naval Air Squadron. Being shipped out with the fleet were over 1,000 troops, including Royal Marines, Paratroopers and Special Forces. At the same time, other ships were leaving Plymouth to link up with more forces from Gibraltar.

  All in all, it was Britain’s greatest display of naval strength since Suez and its purpose was to let the Argentinians know that Great Britain was serious about the fate of the Malvinas. For this reason, the Royal Navy Task Force sailed to a jingoistic waving of flags and the playing of brass bands, with television and the press well represented. The Union Jacks were waving in the wind and the whole world could see them.

  Behind the scenes, however, the green slime of the SAS had been boning up on all the information they could gather about the islands in the MoD map room, most of it from the British Antarctic Survey’s headquarters in Cambridge and other, more confidential, sources.

  From this wealth of data they had ascertained that the nearest feasible base from which to launch an amphibious assault against the Falklands was Ascension Island, nearly 7,000 kilometres from the UK ports and airfields. Therefore, on 5 April, the day after the Royal Navy Task Force sailed off in the limelight, a small advance party from D Squadron, 22 SAS, including Marty, Taff, TT and Alan Pearson, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne, was flown out to Ascension Island to take part in the highly secret Task Force 317.9, specially formed to recapture South Georgia.

  They flew out on Hercules C-130 transports converted to flight-refuelling tankers. With their passenger and carrier holds containing long-range fuel tanks, the aircraft were claustrophobic, horribly noisy and relentlessly bumpy, making for a long, dreadfully uncomfortable flight that put no one in good mood.

  ‘My arse feels like it’s made of stone,’ said the big, black trooper Will Simpson, when the Hercules finally touched down and they were getting off their seats for the first time. Simpson was from Fiji, but his father was an English engineer. ‘It’s been hammered so much, it’s as hard as a bloody rock. I don’t like these long flights, man.’

  After disembarking on Ascension Island, the eighty troops were driven in Bedfords from Wideawake airfield, located in featureless, windblown terrain and filled with Vulcan bombers, Victor tankers, Starlifters, Nimrod recce planes, and other Hercules transports, to be billeted in an equally desolate, disused schoolhouse surrounded by flatlands of volcanic rock.

  ‘About as welcoming as a morgue,’ TT said. ‘If we

  don’t freeze to death in this fucking place, we’ll choke to death in the dust. I think it’s warmer outside.’ ‘It’s the cold I don’t like, man,’ Will Simpson responded, choosing one of the steel-framed beds for his basha and throwing his Bergen rucksack onto it. ‘Me, I can breathe dust with no problem, but this cold, man, it kills me.’

  ‘Stop whining, the pair of you,’ Marty told them, ‘and get your arses outside with the others. We’ve no time to waste.’

  ‘We’re on our way, boss,’ Simpson responded. ‘We can’t wait to get out there in the fresh air and see what the place is like.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Marty said. In fact, it was as dismal outside as it was inside the school. The island was no more than a volcanic dust heap, about fifteen kilometres across at its widest. With a total population of a little over one thousand souls, it had a BBC relay station, a three-kilometre runway built by NASA, a satellite tracking station and a firing range. However, now being used as a staging post for the task force, it was receiving an average of six Hercules flights a day, as well as a constant stream of men: M Company of 42 Commando, RM (Royal Marines), the RAF, the Royal Navy Aircraft Servicing Unit, Royal Engineers and other members of the British Forces Support Unit. Their equipment was ferried in from the fleet anchored out at sea.

  As the RSM, Marty was placed in charge of the special training, which began that first day and covered a wide variety of situations. The Falklands are notable for cold weather and winds so seve
re that combined they can lead to windchill, which freezes exposed skin in minutes. For this reason, the men had to get used to operating in windproof and waterproof clothing that covered the whole body and was based on the so-called ‘layer system’ whereby layers of clothing are added or removed depending on the temperature and level of activity. Most of the arctic battle gear was therefore made from Gore-tex, which keeps air but allows moisture to escape before it freezes on the body. Other items of kit distributed to them that first morning included woollen mittens, face masks, ski boots, snow shoes and skis.

  ‘I take this as an ominous sign,’ Trooper Simpson, who loathed the cold, said. ‘I hate the Falklands already.’

  Nevertheless, even kitted out like this, the kind of training the men could do was fairly limited. Wearing their bulky Gore-text weatherproof jackets, woollypully sweaters, Royal Marine DPM trousers and heavy boots was a distinctly uncomfortable way of undergoing Marty’s special training.

  It was, however, vitally necessary, because the main key to survival in the arctic environments of their ultimate destination was to get out of the wind and defeat the cold. Thus, apart from wearing their thick, weather-resistant clothing, they were given training in the construction of shelters such as snow holes, snow caves and igloos, as well as instruction in ski techniques and navigation in arctic conditions. They were also shown how to keep their weapons in working order in the wet, freezing weather of the Falklands, which could make lubricants thicken, leading to sluggish actions and even the complete jamming of moving parts. To this end, all unnecessary lubricants had to be removed and even ammunition had to be cleaned of all oil and condensation.

  Finally, they tested their weapons on the firing range, rehearsed in canoes and Gemini inflatables in the shallow waters just off the beach, and practised abseiling from noisily hovering Wessex helicopters.

  Meanwhile, out in the bay, Navy helicopters, known as ‘helos’, were cross-decking troops to enable them to be shipped off to the Falklands – a sight that sorely frustrated the SAS troopers.

  ‘They’re shipping hundreds of those bastards out every day,’ TT said, ‘while we sit here twiddling our fucking thumbs.’

  ‘Our time will come,’ Taff said quietly, reasonably, always willing to wait for what he wanted. ‘Just be patient, TT.’

  ‘I can’t stand all this bloody retraining. It’s all shit we’ve done before.’

  ‘And you’ll do it again and again,’ Marty said, having walked up to join them. ‘Just as long as I tell you to.’

  ‘Aye, aye, boss,’ Alan Pearson said.

  Mercifully, just as they were becoming too restless for their own good, they were given orders to sail in the 22,890-ton Royal Fleet Auxiliary, Fort Austin, for a proper assignment.

  About twelve hours later, in the pearly light of dawn, they were driven away from Wideawake airfield, past planes, helicopters, fork-lifts, supply trucks, advancecommunications equipment and stockpiles of fuel, rations and medical supplies, to the nearby beach, where Gemini inflatable boats were waiting to take them out to the fleet of battleships that would carry them on to the South Atlantic.

  Fort Austin sailed under the Blue Ensign in company with the large destroyer HMS Antrim (6,200 tons), the frigate Plymouth (2,800 tons) and the large fleet tanker Tidespring (27,400 tons). Maintaining radio silence, the fleet soon left Ascension Island far behind to become surrounded by the deep swells and ominous waves of the heaving, forbidding sea.

  Although normally unarmed, the RFA Fort Austin was carrying improvised weaponry including GPMGs. It had also embarked four Lynx helicopters specially fitted for firing the Sea Skua missile and it was loaded with 3,500 tons of ammunition, stores and spares. With a length of 183.8 metres, a beam of 24.1 metres and a draught of 14.9 metres, she was an impressive sight to behold and, to the uninitiated, overwhelming inside.

  Spending most of their time in the dimly lit, sweltering hold in tightly packed tiers of bunk beds and hammocks, surrounded by dangling equipment and clothes hanging from stanchions, in a tangle of bags, packs, Bergens and weapons, with little to do except be patient, the SAS troopers passed the time by studying as much intelligence about the islands as they had been given by the green slime, playing cards, writing letters in which they could not state their whereabouts, visiting the latrines out of boredom as well as need, and exchanging the customary banter and bullshit.

  When feeling trapped or claustrophobic in the crowded, noisy hold, a man could make his escape by touring the immense ship and observing the constant activity that went on in its holds and on the flight deck. Most of this revolved around the transfer of stores and equipment, either to smaller ships alongside or by Jackstay rigs or helicopters to HM ships. The noise both above and below decks was therefore considerable and usually didn’t stop even during the night.

  While most of the men found this part of the voyage a torment, mainly because of the deadly boredom and lack of exercise, Marty found it to be so only because it gave him too much time to think – and what he mostly thought about was what had happened in the past two years, since Diane’s suicide, his own subsequent ‘neutralizing’ of Sir Charles Alfred Seagrove, and Paddy’s response to that particular ‘cleansing’ operation.

  Naturally, Marty had always denied any personal involvement in the matter, but Paddy, though unable to prove anything, had refused to believe him and their friendship had suffered accordingly. Marty was proud of what he had done, but even now, after so many subsequent cleansing operations by the Association – which had also incensed Paddy, though again he could prove nothing– he was deeply hurt by the damage done to their friendship and found himself trying to put that, as well as the other agonies of the past years, out of his mind. Alas, this was not easy.

  He was, for instance, still tormented by Diane’s suicide (why hadn’t she talked to him, picked up a phone, left a note?) and undeniably guilty at what he thought was the necessary evil of the Association’s covert activities. Though the end, in his view, justified the means, he could not deny what he felt– and what he felt was great guilt, added to the guilt he felt over Diane’s suicide. How relieved he was, therefore, to be engaged once more in a war that was far removed from home. He didn’t care how bad this war might be: he just needed escape.

  On the fifth day of the voyage, Antrim’s fleet linked up with the ice patrol ship, Endurance, 1,600 kilometres north of South Georgia, and, escorted by it, began closing in on the island. However, to the immense frustration of the already bored SAS men, it had to drop anchor and remain where it was until permission was received to commence the assault, codenamed Operation Paraquat.

  For the purposes of Operation Corporate (the overall operation to recapture the Falklands) the work of the special forces, including the SAS and the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), was being coordinated through a command cell on HMS Hermes, the flagship of the Royal Navy Task Force. SAS officers were already aboard the flagship and Marty would end up there eventually, but right now, because of his advancing years and the heart attack he had suffered long ago in Oman, which officially prevented him from taking part in the fighting, he was with Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne in the command cell of the Antrim, helping to orchestrate the planned assault on South Georgia.

  Given the hostile nature of the Falklands, the SAS men on Fort Austin were divided into the two troops most suitable for this kind of operation: the Mountain Troop, which would be used for land-based reconnaissance and engagements, and the Boat Troop, to be used for any required amphibious landings. While the ship sat at anchor, the men of the Mountain Troop were kept as busy as possible with interminable lessons on the geography and topography of the Falklands, while the Boat Troop had similar lessons on the tides and waterways of the islands and with the constant checking of their Gemini inflatable assault boats and Klepper canoes.

  Nevertheless, as one day drifted into the next with no word from HQ, life aboard ship became increasingly boring, leading to general restlessness and even an occasional angr
y confrontation between SAS troopers and the ship’s crew. Marty was therefore relieved when, ten days later, word was received that Operation Paraquat could commence.

  Chapter Five

  Lying 1,300 kilometres east-south-east of the Falklands and, as the main base of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) teams, South Georgia was particularly important to Great Britain. The capture of the island, it was assumed, would be a clear indication to the world in general and Argentina in particular that if necessary the British would always fight to recapture any territory stolen from them.

  However, the assault was not, strictly speaking, an SAS operation. In fact, the commander of the landing forces would be Major Guy Sheridan, the second-incommand of M Company, 42 Commando RM, who would work with the SAS Commanding Officer aboard Antrim in planning the assault on the island. Marty was part of their strategy team.

  In addition to D Squadron, 22 SAS, Sheridan had 120 men of M Company, 42 Commando, and about twenty-five swimmer-canoeists of 2 SBS, Royal Marines. He also had a small detachment of marines aboard Antrim with M Company recce troops, a mortar section, and the company OC. In all, about 235 men against an enemy of unknown quantity.

  Marty was in the command cell aboard Antrim when a signal was dropped from a marine reconnaissance aircraft, authorizing the SAS to carry out covert recces on South Georgia. Immediately, working under Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne, he drew up plans for the Mountain Troop to land north of Leith, where reportedly the Argentinians had been collecting scrap from an old whaling station. At about the same time, 2 SBS would land in Hounds Bay, south-east of the island’s main settlement in Grytviken, and move up the coast in inflatable boats to establish observation posts, OPs, which could observe the settlement from across five kilometres of open water.