Exocet

Exocet
Jack Higgins

A sensational tale of passion and fire in the South Atlantic set during the Falklands War, from the Sunday Times bestselling author, Jack Higgins.On one side, the largest and most effective seagoing Task Force ever assembled. On the other, an air force ready to die as they attack again and again despite the odds.A single deadly missile means the difference between winning and losing the war.One man can get General Galtieri the Exocets he needs to turn the tide. But he is a man haunted by love. And for that British Intelligence have a secret weapon of their own…

JACK HIGGINS

Exocet

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by William Collins & Sons Co. Ltd 1983

Copyright © Jack Higgins 1983

Cover artwork © Nik Keevil

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2014

Jack Higgins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007304677

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007385584

Version: 2014-07-21

To Denise For love, understanding and grace

Contents

Title Page (#u0e54cb02-f767-5ad0-a592-da3f48b5df23)

Copyright (#uaba25330-f02a-54dc-8e4b-065d6a5644a7)

Dedication (#u621f69a9-dbde-578e-9fec-ee40661c97c1)

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

About the Publisher

FOREWORD (#u82387d45-973a-55a6-bf5a-a7dfa0edc890)

One of my personal favourite novels. Critics have been kind enough to say that the first chapter, which involves the penetration of Buckingham Palace, is one of the best things of its kind in the modern thriller. The idea for the book came to me during the Falklands conflict when I met arms salesmen at a Jersey cocktail party who had just come in from Paris where, they told me, there was an underground war going on between Argentinean agents trying to buy black market Exocet missiles and members of British Intelligence trying to foil them. I took their word for it and wrote the novel. Some critics thought the idea far-fetched at the time. However, the book was a huge success, mainly because for once I included a strong love affair. In later years, non-fiction books on the conflict have shown that the struggle, as I showed, between Argentinean and British agents did actually take place.

Jack Higgins

October 1996

1 (#u82387d45-973a-55a6-bf5a-a7dfa0edc890)

As the yellow Telecom truck turned the corner, Grosvenor Place was quiet in the rain. There was not another vehicle in sight, hardly surprising in view of the weather and the fact that it was three o’clock in the morning.

Harvey Jackson reduced speed, his hands slippery with sweat as he gripped the wheel. He wore yellow oilskins: a large man in his late thirties, the dark hair long, framing a face that seldom smiled, eyes bleak above high cheekbones.

The rain was so heavy that the windscreen wipers had difficulty in handling it. He pulled in at the kerb and took a cigarette from a packet in the dashboard. He lit it and wound down the window, looking across the road at the high brick perimeter wall topped with barbed wire that enclosed the gardens at the rear of Buckingham Palace.

He rapped with his knuckles against the partition behind him. A panel opened instantly and Villiers peered out. ‘Yes?’