The Stone Leopard

by Colin Forbes

  `Does anyone ?' Grelle replied.

  Blanc came to see the prefect in the afternoon shortly after Grelle had returned from his brief interview with Danchin. It was typical of Blanc to drive over to the prefecture in his Lamborghini rather than to summon Grelle to his ministry, and even more typical that he flirted with Grelle's secretary on his way up. 'I shall have to abduct you, Vivianne,' he told the girl. 'You are far too appetizing for policemen!' He came into the prefect's office like a summer wind, grinning as he shook hands. 'What are the political implications behind this assassination attempt ?' he demanded as he settled into a chair, drooping his legs over the arm.

  `We nearly lost a president,' Grelle replied.

  `I'm talking about this Devaud woman,' Blanc snapped. 'If it can be proved she ever knew the president—even if only briefly—the press will rape us. Can they ?'

  `You'd better ask the president. . .

  `I have. He says he has never seen her before. But he could be wrong. Over the years God knows how many people he has met—or known slightly. What I'm saying is—if your investigation turns up a connection, could you inform me ?'

  `Of course. . .

  Blanc left soon afterwards and the prefect smiled grimly as he watched the car from the window moving off too fast towards the right bank. Strictly speaking, anything which came to light should be reported only to his chief, Roger Danchin, but everyone knew that Blanc was Florian's eyes and ears, the man who fixed a problem when anything awkward cropped up. Boisseau, who had come into the office as Blanc left, watched the car disappearing. 'It's quite impossible to suspect a man like that,' he remarked.

  `If the Leopard exists,' Grelle replied, 'it's because he has reached a position where people would say, "it's quite impossible to suspect a man like that. . . ." '

  One 9-mm Luger pistol, one monocular glass, three forged driving licences, and three different sets of forged French papers —one set for each member of the Soviet Commando. Walther Brunner, the second member of the team, sat alone inside the concrete cabin at the edge of the race-track wearing a pair of French glasses as he checked the cards. The equipment they would carry was meagre enough but the time was long since past when Soviet Commandos travelled to the west armed with exotic weapons like cyanide-bullet-firing pistols disguised as cigarette cases. The craft of secret assassination had progressed way beyond that.

  Brunner, horn at Karlsbad, now known as Karlovy Vary, was forty years old; the oldest member of the Commando he had hoped to lead until Borisov had selected Carel Vanek instead. Shorter than Vanek, he was more heavily-built and his temperament was less volatile; round-headed, he would soon be bald and he felt it was his appearance which had persuaded Borisov to give the leadership to the younger man. At least he ranked as the second member of the three-man team, as Vanek's deputy, the man who would take over operations if something happened to Vanek while they were in the west. Rank, oddly enough, is an important factor in Communist circles.

  Brunner was the Commando's planner, the man who worked out routes and schedules—and escape routes—before the mission was undertaken, the man who arranged for the provision of false papers, who later, when they arrived at their destination, suggested the type of 'accident' to be applied. 'You must make three different plans,' Brunner was fond of saying, `then when you arrive at the killing ground you choose the one best suited. . . .' Beer was his favourite drink and, unlike Vanek, he regarded women as dangerous distractions. His most distinctive feature was his large hands, 'strangler's hands', as Vanek rudely called them. There was some justification in the description; if Col Lasalle had to die in the bath Brunner was likely to attend to it.

  This was the nub of the training at the abandoned racetrack outside the medieval town of Tabor; here the three Czechs who made up the Commando perfected the skill of arranging 'accidental' deaths. Death by running someone down with a car was trainer Borisov's favourite method. The research section, housed in a separate cabin and which worked closely with the Commando, had studied the statistics: more people in western Europe died on the roads than from any other cause. Accidents in the home came next. Hence Brunner's special attention to drowning in the bath, which had been practised in a third concrete cabin with an iron bath-tub and live 'models'.

  A fact largely unknown to the outside world is that an assassination Commando never leaves Russian-controlled territory without the express sanction of three members (who make up a quorum) of the Politburo in Moscow. Even in 1952 —when the power of the Committee for State Security was at its height—the Commando sent to West Berlin to kidnap (or kill, if necessary) Dr Lime, had to be approved by Stalin himself and two other Politburo members (one of whom was Molotov).

  The reasoning behind this policy is sound. If a Commando's actions are ever detected the international image of Soviet Russia becomes smeared—because one thing the western public does know is that nothing happens inside Russia without government approval. The Politburo is aware of this, so a Commando is only despatched when there is no other alternative. Vanek's Commando had been fully approved by the First Secretary and two other Politburo members; now it only awaited the signal to proceed, travelling on French papers which would easily pass inspection inside Germany. Brunner had just completed his inspection of the identity cards when Borisov came into the cabin with the news.

  `The execution of Lasalle has been postponed. . .

  `Damn it!' Brunner was furious. 'And just when we were all geared up. . .

  `Have patience, my impetuous Czech,' Borisov told him. `You have to stand by for a fresh signal. You may be departing at any time now.'

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ON THE MORNING of Monday, 13 December, when Marc Grelle received his telex from Guiana about Gaston Martin, Alan Lennox was flying to Brussels. Travelling aboard Sabena flight 602 he landed in the Belgian city at 10.30 am. Earlier, from Heathrow Airport, he had phoned his personal assistant at home to say an urgent inquiry had come in from Europe and he was flying there to get the contract specification. During the brief conversation he made a vague reference to Denmark. `You'll be back when, if ever ?' Miss Thompson asked him gaily.

  `When you see me, I'm back. . .

  It was time to sell out Lennox thought as he boarded the Sabena flight. He had organized the company so well that now he could go away for long periods and the machine ran itself. So I've worked myself out of a job again he told himself as the Boeing 707 climbed up through the murk and broke through into a world of brilliant sunshine which was always there, even over England, if only the inhabitants could see it. The reference to Denmark was a precaution; if anyone inquired for him at the office Judith Thompson would be close-mouthed, but if someone clever did make her slip up, then they were welcome to search for him in Copenhagen

  At Brussels airport he hired a Mercedes SL 230. Offered a cream model, he chose a black car instead; black is less conspicuous, less easy to follow. Driving first to Liege, Lennox kept a careful eye on his rear-view mirror, watching for any sign of a car or truck keeping persistently behind him. It was unlikely but not impossible; since David Nash had walked from the Ritz to his flat in St James's Place and back again he could have been followed, and the follower might then have turned his attention to the man Nash had crossed the Atlantic to meet.

  At Liege, where only three days earlier Nash had twice met Peter Lanz of the BND in one day, Lennox took a further precaution. Visiting the local Hertz car-hire branch, he invented a complaint about the performance of the Mercedes and exchanged it for a blue Citroén DS 2I, his favourite car. Then lie turned south-east, heading for the Ardennes, which is not the direct route into Germany. Sometimes it is possible to follow a man by remote control—observing the route he is taking and then phoning ahead. It takes a team of men to carry out the operation, but at the last count Lennox had heard the French Secret Service were employing over one hundred full- and part-time operatives in Belgium. If the main routes out of Liege were now being checked for a black Mercedes the watchers we
re hardly likely to take much notice of a blue Citroén.

  Eating a sandwich lunch on the way while he drove, Lennox arrived in Saarbrucken as a cloudburst broke over the German city. The windscreen wipers almost gave up the job as hopeless while he was threading his way through the traffic. Rain cascaded down the glass, beat a tattoo on the car roof while he went on searching for the main post office. On the continent, post offices provide the most useful means of making a call you don't wish to be overheard.

  From the post office he called Col Lasalle's number which had been given to him by Nash. When Lennox asked for the colonel the man who answered the phone in French said he would take a message.

  `You won't,' Lennox snapped. 'Put me through to the colonel. Edmond calling ....'

  `Edmond who ?'

  `Just Edmond. And hurry it up. He's expecting the call.'

  The man at the other end—probably Captain Paul Moreau whom Nash had mentioned as Lasalle's assistant—obviously did not know about all the colonel's activities, which was reassuring. It suggested the ex-chief of military counter-intelligence had not lost his touch. The code-name Edmond, provided by Nash, put him through to Lasalle and the Frenchman said he could come at once.

  `I will be waiting for you,' he replied crisply and put down the receiver. No waste of words, no questions, and the voice had been sharp and decisive.

  It took him an hour, driving through rain squalls, to find the remote farmhouse, and it was dark as his headlights picked out an old lodge beside a closed gate. There had been lights inside the lodge when he first saw it, but now the place was in darkness. He kept the engine running and waited, then got out cautiously when no one appeared. He was walking past his own headlights when a shutter in the lodge banged open.

  The muzzle of a Le Mat sub-machine gun poked out of the aperture.

  `Stay where you are—in the lights,' a voice shouted in German

  `You're expecting me,' Lennox shouted back in French. 'I rang you from Saarbrucken. For God's sake open the bloody gate before I get soaked. . .

  `Come in on foot . . .' The voice had switched to French. `Come through the gate. . .

  Opening the gate, Lennox went up to the lodge, tried the door, opened it, stepped inside and stopped. A man in civilian clothes faced him, still holding the sub-machine gun which he aimed point-blank at the Englishman's stomach. A smooth- faced individual with a smear of moustache, a man in his late forties, Lennox assumed this must be Capt. Paul Moreau. 'I'm Edmond,' Lennox said after a moment. 'Do you have to keep pointing that thing at me ?'

  `Some identification—on the table. . .'

  `The colonel is going to be happy about this ?'

  `On the table. . .'

  Lennox extracted his passport carefully from inside his dripping raincoat and then threw it casually on the table. To reach for the document with his right hand the man with the gun had to cradle the wire stock under his left arm; as he did so Lennox suddenly knocked the muzzle aside, grasped the barrel and wrenched the weapon out of the man's grip. 'I don't know who you are,' he remarked as the Frenchman recovered his balance and glared, 'but you could be someone who just knocked out the real lodge-keeper. . .'

  `Lodge-keeper ? I am Capt. Moreau, the colonel's assistant.' Bristling with anger, the man examined the passport at much greater length than was really necessary. 'You could end up dead--taking a crazy risk like that,' he grumbled.

  `Less of a risk than facing an unknown man with a gun in this God-forsaken place.'

  Lennox insisted on seeing Moreau's own identity card before he returned the weapon, first folding the projecting magazine parallel to the barrel so the weapon became inoperative. When identity documents had been exchanged the Frenchman told him curtly to leave his car and walk up to the house. 'Why don't you get stuffed ?' Lennox suggested. Going outside, he climbed into his car, drove through the gateway and on towards the house. Moreau was using a wall phone when he left the lodge, presumably to call up the colonel.

  As he drove slowly up a long curving drive Lennox saw how neglected the place was. Wet shrubbery which gleamed in the headlights had grown out over the drive, in places almost closing it so the car brushed past shrubs as he approached Lasalle's refuge. The farmhouse, a long, two-storey building which came into view round a bend, was in the same state. Unpainted, with tiles missing from the roof, it hardly looked habitable.

  Shortage of money, Lennox assumed: fugitive colonels are hardly likely to be sitting on fat bank accounts.

  Col Rene Lasalle met him at the entrance, then closed, locked and bolted the heavy door before leading the way into a large, rambling living-room crammed with old-fashioned furniture. In the hall Lennox noted there were new and modern locks on the door; in the living-room locks had been attached to all the windows. Theoretically safe inside Germany, the colonel had sealed himself off inside a minor fortress.

  `They will come for me one day,' Lasalle remarked crisply. `Shabby little Corsican thugs with knives in their pockets. They may try to kidnap me—they may come to kill me. But they will come.'

  The one-armed colonel, his left sleeve flapping loose like the broken wing of a bird, was small and spare, and as he fetched drinks from a sideboard he moved with a springy step. Lennox immediately had an impression of enormous energy, of a strong- willed personality likely to dominate any group of people he might be a part of. Fifty-five years old, Lasalle's features were sharp and gaunt, his eyes large and restless, his thin moustache little more than a dark slash. He still had a full head of dark hair and his most prominent feature was a hooked nose. In some ways he reminded Lennox of a miniature version of Charles de Gaulle himself. The colonel handed him a large brandy, raised his own glass. 'To the destruction of the enemies of France!'

  `I'll drink to that. . . .' Lennox was watching the colonel carefully. 'Whoever they might be.'

  `The Soviet faction inside Paris—led by the Leopard. But first I need to know something about you, about your background. . .

  For fifteen minutes he grilled the Englishman. It was the most shrewd and penetrating interrogation Lennox had ever experienced, with a lot of cross-questioning, a lot of jumping backwards and forwards as the Frenchman swiftly absorbed the details of Lennox's life and probed deeper and deeper. 'You have met Marc Grelle ?' he said at one point. 'You are a personal friend of the police prefect then ?' Lennox assured him that this was not so, that they had met only once for an hour in Marseilles during the planning of a counter-terrorist operation. At the end of fifteen minutes Lasalle pronounced himself satisfied.

  `You can go into France for me,' he said as though conferring a high honour.

  `I'm glad I pass inspection,' Lennox replied ironically, 'but what you may not realize is I haven't made up my mind about you. . .'

  `That is necessary ?'

  `That is essential. You see—it's going to be my head laid on the block. ..'

  Leon Jouvel. Robert Philip. Dieter Wohl.

  These were the names of the three witnesses, as Lasalle persisted in calling them, which he wished Lennox to visit and quietly interrogate. 'I'm convinced that one of these three people—all of whom were involved with the Leopard during the war—can tell you something which will lead us to the Communist agent inside Paris today,' the Frenchman said emphatically. 'In any case, as far as I know, they are the only survivors, apart from Annette Devaud—and she is blind. . .'

  `Devaud ?' Lennox queried. 'That was the name of the woman who tried to shoot Florian. .

  `A common enough name.' Lasalle shrugged and made an impatient gesture with his right hand. 'I see no reason for a connection. And in any case, Annette Devaud, who must be over seventy now, has been blind since the end of the war. A blind person can identify no one positively. Now. . .'

  It had started eighteen months earlier—a year before the climactic row with President Florian which ended in the colonel's flight from France. Lasalle had been interrogating a known Communist agent who had infiltrated inside a French army barracks near Marse
illes. 'That area is infested with the vermin,' the colonel remarked. Lennox gathered the interrogation had been preceded by a physical session which had reduced the agent, a man called Favel, to a moaning wreck. `While trying to escape from the barracks,' Lasalle explained, `he accidentally shot a sergeant. The men who questioned him before me were the sergeant's friends. So . .'

  An hour after Lasalle had begun his own interrogation just before midnight Favel had started rambling on about the wartime Resistance. At first Lasalle had thought this was a trick to veer the interrogation into other channels; later he had become interested as the prisoner made repeated references to the Leopard. At intervals—the interrogation had continued for over twelve hours—the broken man had told a strange story about a man who would one day rise from the dead to liberate France from the capitalist yoke. This man, had, in fact, already risen from the dead and was walking the streets of Paris.

  `It seemed absolute nonsense for a long time,' Lasalle explained. 'I thought I was dealing with a religious maniac— which seemed odd for a dedicated Communist—and then he told me he had been hiding in the barracks....'

  `Hiding ?' Lennox queried.

  `Hiding from his own people,' Lasalle said impatiently. 'I had got it the wrong way round—instead of trying to spy for the Communist cell in Marseilles he was fleeing from them. What better place to hole up than in a military barracks—or so he thought. They were trying to kill him—I think because he knew too much.'

  Tut he did know something?'

  `He said it was no common spy he was talking about—a civil servant who photographs documents at dead of night and passes over microfilm inside a cigar or some such absurdity. No, Favel was referring to a highly placed mandarin close to the centre of power. To a man who for years had waited and worked his way up steadily—without having a single contact with any Communist organization. That is the genius of the idea—with no Communist contacts it is impossible to detect him.'