The Demon Club

by Scott Mariani

  Turnbull asked matter-of-factly, ‘What about the other item on the agenda? We’re scheduled for 11.45 a.m. today. Our assets are in place and awaiting your green light.’

  Turnbull was talking about the delayed Abbott operation. In the wake of the Wolf fiasco it had taken them this long to get reorganised. Even the secret rulers of the world had their logistics problems to contend with. But, better late than never.

  ‘Saunders’ replied, coolly and calmly, ‘Tell them they may proceed as planned. The sooner we’re rid of that idiot, the better.’

  Chapter 29

  Ben and Wolf had spent the remainder of the night cutting up through France, as fast and straight as a weapon laser guidance system locked onto its target. Reaching the tunnel terminal at Calais they passed through customs without a hitch, rolled the Alpina onto the train and half an hour later re-emerged on British soil.

  Ben was still travelling as Paul Harris, but Wolf had taken the extra precaution of switching to his secondary fake ID, Douglas Baker, for the return trip into the UK. Back on the road, they now faced a two-hour drive westwards along the coast to the village near Brighton where Anthony Abbott lived. Ben estimated that they would reach Pyecombe shortly after midday.

  Wolf asked, ‘Are you sure this is the smart play, Ben? What if we get there and he’s already dead?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that if it happens,’ Ben said.

  ‘You’ve still got time to change your mind. Switch to Plan B. Step on the gas and we could be in Scotland in eight hours or less. No more sneaking around. Gloves off, hit these fuckers hard and fast and get your lady out of danger. I’m just saying, think about it.’

  Ben had thought about little else all night. The unbearable urge to do exactly what Wolf was talking about was burning holes in his heart like a drip-feed of acid. But he couldn’t take the risk. His throat was tight as he replied, ‘There is no Plan B, Jaden, so don’t tempt me. I have no idea how many men are watching her, how close they are and how many more could be stationed all around the village waiting for me to turn up. I have to assume she’s in their crosshairs at all times, and that they can kill her in a split second if they so much as catch a whiff of trouble.’

  ‘There’s two of us now,’ Wolf said. ‘We’ve done it before.’

  ‘And been beaten before. Remember Yemen.’

  Years earlier, an American photojournalist called Hal Simmons had been taken hostage in Yemen by Al Qaeda fundamentalists, who were keeping their prisoner deep inside a maze of cave tunnels and issuing threats to execute him if the USA refused to release ten captured terrorists from Guantanamo Bay. With time running out before the execution deadline, Ben and Wolf had been among the joint SAS and Navy Seals task force deployed from an air base in Djibouti to rescue him. Just weeks earlier, the same team had successfully recovered two Turkish hostages in a helicopter-borne assault on a fortified stronghold in the Shabwah region of the country, and official hopes were high that they could pull the same trick off again. Intelligence reports suggested that only a handful of Al Qaeda fighters were guarding the cave complex.

  But as the Special Forces operatives penetrated the tunnels, they swiftly discovered that the enemy capability was far higher than expected. During the ensuing ferocious firefight, Simmons’ guards had decided to cut their losses. Ben’s unit had come across the decapitated body of Hal Simmons several hours later. A gruesome and harrowing reminder that even the most highly trained elite soldiers in the world were not invulnerable to failure.

  Wolf grimaced. ‘Yeah, I remember Yemen. Bad break.’

  ‘I’m not letting the same thing happen to Grace, just because I decided to play the hero and go storming in like Flynn with no knowledge of what we’re up against,’ Ben said. ‘As I see it, getting to Abbott is our best option, if we’ve any chance of finding a way inside this witch cult or whatever the hell it is. We’ve bought ourselves a little time and I intend to use it.’

  ‘It’s your call,’ Wolf said. ‘I just hope it’s the right one.’

  Ben tried to tighten his focus so that all that existed was the road speeding towards him. But every mile they streaked closer to their destination was an agony of waiting and creeping doubts. Even worse was the growing certainty in his mind that, whether Saunders rumbled the deception or not, he wouldn’t just pull his men off Grace, and that this was not going to end well whichever way things went.

  The more the tension and fear ramped up inside his head, the faster he drove. He blew through four speed traps, but he didn’t care. Nothing short of a full-on police roadblock would slow him down, and even then they’d have a hard time doing it.

  After an hour Wolf said, ‘You’re awful quiet.’

  ‘It’s because I’m scared, Jaden.’

  Wolf said, ‘Hold onto it, Ben. Use it. In my experience, it’s when guys like us are scared that we’re at our most dangerous. You put a tiger in a corner, you’re gonna get your arse mauled.’

  ‘Or a wolf,’ Ben said.

  Wolf smiled his nasty smile. ‘Most dangerous of all. They should never have fucked with us, my friend.’

  It was 11.48 a.m. when they reached Pyecombe. Ben’s crazy-fast driving had shaved a few precious minutes off his ETA, and he could only pray that they weren’t too late. Wolf guided him along the rambling country lanes that led from the edge of the village to where Abbott lived. The large country house was over a mile away, with a couple of acres of garden surrounded by a high wall. It was an impressive traditional property with leaded windows, tall chimneys and lots of mature ivy growing over the walls. There were no neighbouring properties in sight, no prying eyes behind twitching curtains whose owners might be inclined to dial 999 in the event of suspicious goings on. The perfect spot for an assassination.

  Ben did a pass of the house, slowing down a little to peer inside the gates. ‘Everything looks normal enough,’ Wolf said. ‘You never know. We might get lucky.’

  ‘How well do you know the place?’

  ‘Down to the last inch,’ Wolf said. ‘I was given plans of the whole layout.’

  ‘It’s a country area. Does he have a dog?’ A middle-class Labrador or Retriever was no German shepherd, but could still make life interesting for intruders.

  ‘Not so much as a Chihuahua,’ Wolf said. ‘I was glad about that. Wouldn’t have wanted to hurt a dog.’

  Ben drove on another eight hundred yards, until the road curved out of sight of Abbott’s property, and parked the Alpina in a grassy layby. He popped the bonnet and quickly retrieved his Browning from its hiding place. If Anthony Abbott was still alive, Ben had every intention of keeping him that way for now. But Abbott wouldn’t know that, and the sight of the pistol would terrify him into cooperating any way Ben wanted. Wolf made do with the stiletto knife they’d taken from Alejandro Morales. One look at the slim, sharp little blade would likely frighten Abbott even more.

  They left the car and made their way towards the house on foot. The spring sunshine was warm and the sky was blue. Wolf showed Ben the spot where he’d slipped over the property wall, shaded by a large oak whose droopy branches would hide them from view of the house as they dropped down the other side. They stalked inside the property, moving as fluidly and silently as ghosts. Ben held the pistol loosely at his side, scanning right and left as he went. There was no movement from the house. Not a sound except for the humming of bees among the nicely tended flower beds and the twittering of the birds in the trees. Skirting around an ivied corner of the house he could see a double-bay oak-framed carport with the doors open and a silver Lexus saloon parked in one of the bays, the other filled with garden clutter. The house itself showed no obvious signs of forced entry. An upstairs window was partially open, the sound of soft classical music faintly audible from inside. Someone was definitely home. Wolf nudged his arm, pointed up at the window and whispered, ‘That’s his study.’

  Ben was wondering about the best way in when Wolf beckoned him around to a recessed side door framed with a cli
mbing rose. Ben was good with locks. The security Yale on the door took him less than a minute to defeat, and then they were inside.

  The time was exactly midday.

  Chapter 30

  Twenty minutes earlier

  11.40 a.m.

  Anthony Abbott was in his study at the top of the house, working at the desk with the door locked behind him and a nice Corelli violin sonata playing on his Pioneer. How wonderful to be alone and free again after his enforced baby-sitting tour of duty, courtesy of that bitch Debbie. Abbott had never really wanted kids, and often suspected that his darling wife had pumped them out purely to vex him – not to mention, as a sly means of screwing more cash out of him further down the line.

  Dear Debbie had only come to collect the whingeing little punks and their worthless nanny three days ago on her return from her pressing and apparently indispensable trip abroad, no doubt having enjoyed a wonderful time spending more of his money on cavorting with the latest ne’er-do-well lover boy she’d hooked up with. Not a word of thanks to her long-suffering ex-husband for taking the sticky urchins off her hands. What a lousy, miserable cow. Why, why, had he ever married her?

  Abbott pushed those irritating thoughts out of his mind and turned his attention back to his work. On the bright side of things, he’d been able to spend the last three blissful days pressing on with his secret project. As his political career slowly wound down he’d increasingly spent his time researching and writing, and managed to put out a book every year or two. Those were mostly high-priced hardbacks aimed at the academic library market, which few people in the real world would actually want to read. Officially, he was meant to be working on his next magnum opus, a historical exploration of the close friendship between Benjamin Disraeli and Queen Victoria. A sure-fire bestseller, not.

  But Disraeli and old potato-face would have to wait. In actual fact, the password-protected manuscript on Abbott’s laptop screen was his work-in-progress, entitled THE PANDEMONIUM CLUB. He anticipated getting it finished soon – and what a barn burner it was going to be! The book was his passion, his baby, his main preoccupation in life. Not only that, he was aflame with the certainty that its earth-shattering impact would transform his ailing financial fortunes and set him back on the path of greatness that a man like him naturally deserved. He was hellbent on making his voice heard. Ready to name names. This book would fly off the shelves faster than anything ever published before.

  Such a hot property could only be written under a pseudonym, his chosen nom de plume being ‘Thomas Revere’. He would rather have used his own name, but it was a necessary precaution. A lot of very rich, very powerful and well-known people were going to get hurt. He couldn’t wait to watch them suffer. More than anything, the book was his means of getting revenge on the once allies, now enemies who had betrayed him.

  Abbott still vividly remembered how it had all started. Sixteen years ago, when his political career was in full swing and it seemed nothing could prevent his rise to the top, he had been approached at a high-society party in London by two well-dressed and very polite middle-aged men he’d never met before, who had taken him aside for a discreet little chat. Over champagne cocktails they’d made him the strangest proposition of his life. They described themselves as agents of a private and highly exclusive gentlemen’s club, and told him that he was being considered for membership, pending ‘certain conditions’. What conditions, he’d wanted to know – and he’d soon found out.

  Two days later, on a warm summer’s evening, he’d met with the agents again, this time at his Chelsea flat. They had put him in the back of a black limousine with windows so dark that he could barely see out of them, let alone into. They would not tell him where they were going, and before setting off he was requested to put on a hood. He had baulked at this requirement, but been informed that if he refused, then this one-time-only deal was coming straight off the table.

  After an hour’s blindfold journey the car had arrived at its undisclosed destination, where Abbott was shown into a magnificently appointed room and interviewed by two men who explained to him that the private gentlemen’s club into which he was being invited was in fact a little more than that. They spoke of it as an ancient and venerable brotherhood, a sacred order, membership of which would bestow great privileges and enormous benefits on both his life and career, as it had done for so many of his predecessors dating back a century or more. Never mind the sky being the limit. There was no limit.

  As he sat there sipping eighteen-year-old scotch from fine crystal and barely able to believe his ears, they revealed to him what induction into the order would entail. Told him what sights and experiences he could expect to witness. They were candid about the fact that membership was not for everyone. Some men were simply incapable of handling it. He had been carefully vetted before being approached. Whether or not to accept was entirely his choice, of course.

  ‘Surely just by meeting with me and telling me this …’ Abbott began to say.

  The elder of the two men finished for him, with a dry smile. ‘We’re taking a certain leap of faith and exposing ourselves, yes. But make no mistake, Mr Abbott. We have every confidence that you won’t betray our faith in you, whatever you decide.’

  ‘If I decline?’ he’d asked in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Then you will never fully achieve the success of which you have dreamed. You will find yourself forever locked out of a whole world of advantage enjoyed only by a privileged few. You will have walked away from the single most promising opportunity of your lifetime.’

  But before he accepted this great honour, they warned him, he must be fully aware of one thing. Once inducted as a Brother of the Order, there was no leaving. He, like all his fellow members, would be bound by an oath of loyalty that must be obeyed until his dying day. There were no exemptions, not for anyone, not for any reason. Failure to abide by the brotherhood’s strict code was an offence that would be met with the harshest of punishments.

  ‘What kind of punishment?’ he asked hesitantly.

  ‘The penalty is death,’ the older man told him.

  Abbott was stunned by the reply. He swallowed hard and stared into his drink. ‘I need time to think before making a decision.’

  The man shook his head. ‘No, Mr Abbott. You need to decide now.’

  And so it was done. That same night, Abbott underwent an induction ceremony the likes of which he could never have imagined in his wildest dreams – or his most feverish fantasies. It could have driven him insane. But it didn’t. He had never felt more exhilarated in his life. His vetters had been right: the new recruit was a perfect fit for the brotherhood. The things he saw and did over the next months and years, the sheer headiness of the experiences that were reserved only for the chosen few, turned his blood to champagne and filled him with a sense of invulnerability.

  Anthony Abbott had been well and truly on his way, back in those golden days.

  But the passing of the years had not been kind to this once rising star of British politics. The dizzy heights of career achievement that he’d been assured of never quite did materialise. He’d given these people everything he had, been true and loyal to their damned brotherhood, and yet their promises seemed to fall flat. Over time, Abbott had started to feel that his mentors were growing less and less interested in his progress as newer, younger, apparently more worthy protégés caught up and overstepped him. All he could do was watch in frustration as men he considered his inferiors became richer and more powerful than him.

  So much for limitless success. So much for belonging to the hallowed elite.

  Abbott felt cheated. He felt he’d been lied to. What was the point of selling your soul to the Devil if you couldn’t reap the benefits?

  Resentment gave way to bitterness and depression. Not even the pleasures of the order’s periodic ritual ceremonies could satisfy him any longer. He’d started drinking too much, acting erratically, marring a lot of friendships that could have stood him in good stead. The
downward trajectory of his falling star gathered speed. Following a string of bad investments and worse marriages his finances had grown progressively shakier. First the London flat had had to go; then he’d been forced to fire the private security detail that he felt a man of his importance should have looking after his personal safety. As though that weren’t damaging enough to his ego, now his accountant was dropping hints that the Pyecombe house might have to be put on the market, as well.

  It had been in a moment of despair over the downturn in his fortunes that the idea had come to him to blow the whistle on all their dirty secrets. He knew enough, and had gathered enough evidence over the years, to sink the lot of them, kick off the biggest scandal in British political history and cause more suicides than the Wall Street Crash.

  He’d considered going straight to the press and sparking off a bidding war to snap up his sensational story for a large one-off payout. But he soon rejected the idea, firstly because doing so would automatically reveal his true identity, and secondly because there was a much better way of doing it. One that would become a source of ongoing revenue for a long time to come. A gift that kept on giving. He’d be making six- or seven-figure royalties off of it for the rest of his life, while he drank champagne in his millionaire mansion and cruised around in his sparkly white private jet.

  He was going to write a book.

  Once he’d dashed off the first hundred pages of his manuscript, crammed with a juicy sampler of the even more incendiary revelations to come, Abbott had entered into secret dialogue with a literary agent, Andrew Laverack of the London firm Seaward & Laverack. His pitch was simple: he was privy to information that could topple the whole establishment. But he had no intention of selling it cheaply.