The Stone Leopard

by Colin Forbes

  `Did it stop him ?'

  `No! He stayed at the farmhouse, continuing his studies, and allowed the local Resistance group—which incidentally was wiped out to a man in August 1944 in an ambush—to use the place as an ammunition and weapons store.'

  `So you exonerate him ?'

  `By no means,' Boisseau replied. 'The only person who could have vouched for his presence at the farmhouse during the critical period was the housekeeper who looked after him, a Madame Jalade. She died in July 1946 only a year or so after the war ended. There was an accident—she was driving her old gazogene-powered car into town and ended up at the foot of a sixty-foot gorge.'

  `There were no witnesses ?' Grelle asked quietly.

  `None at all. She was alone. A faulty braking system was given as the cause of the accident. So she died soon after Gaston Martin was imprisoned in Guiana. It could be a coincidence, of course. . .

  `It could be,' Grelle agreed.

  The prefect then relayed what he had discovered reading the files which pieced together the wartime career of Roger Danchin. Joining one of the Resistance groups in the Massif Central, Danchin had worked under the cover-name of Grand-Pierre. He had soon become an agile liaison officer between several groups, one of them commanded by the Leopard. 'He was a will-o'-the-wisp,' Grelle explained. 'Keeping in the background, he used a chain of couriers to keep one group in touch with another. Even in those days he had a great grasp of detail, apparently, He was reputed to be the best- informed man in the Midi.'

  `We strike him out ?' Boisseau asked.

  `I'm afraid not. His documentation in 1944 is so vague. And he was in the right area—very close to Lozere.'

  'So it could still be either of them ?' Boisseau shrugged. 'Like so much police work—a great deal of sweat and then nothing. At least we are finished with these mouldy files.'

  `Not quite.' Grelle balanced two files on his hand. 'I decided to check someone else—purely as a theoretical exercise. Gaston Martin said he saw a tall man walk into the Elysee between 7.3o and 8.3o, a man saluted by the guards. Remember we are policemen—we go solely by facts. At eight o'clock Guy Florian returned to the Elysee. I have also checked his wartime background.'

  When Boisseau had recovered from the shock, when he grasped the fact that Grelle was conducting a theoretical exercise, he listened while the prefect briefly outlined the president's war-time career. He had served in a section of what came to be known as the Comet Line, an escape route for Allied airmen running from France across the Spanish border. Stationed in an old house up in the Pyrenees behind St Jean-de-Luz, Florian had escorted escaping airmen into Spain where they were met by an official from the British consulate at Bilbao.

  `Two hundred and fifty miles away from Lozere,' Boisseau commented, joining in the game, `so he could not possibly be the Leopard.'

  `Impossible,' Grelle agreed. 'Except that his brother Charles, who was older but looked like him, also served in the Comet Line. Now, if Charles had agreed to impersonate Guy Florian —remember, escape routes are shrouded in mystery and the operatives rarely appeared. . .

  `I didn't know he had a brother. . .

  `He hasn't any more. In July 1945 Charles set off on one of his solitary swims into the Atlantic and never came back. His body was washed ashore two weeks later.'

  `I see. . .' Boisseau sucked at his pipe. 'A lot of people died young in those days; a lot of them connected with the Leopard. I had the report in from Lyon late this afternoon about the men who buried him and the undertaker. . .

  `Which reminds me,' Grelle interjected. 'We are flying to Lyon tomorrow. There is only one way to clear up the contradiction between the man Gaston Martin said he saw and the recorded death of the Leopard—and that is to open up his grave. I spoke to Hardy on the phone myself and he is rushing through an emergency exhumation order. Now, what about the men who buried the Leopard ?'

  `All dead. Shot in an enemy ambush four days after the burial, the bodies riddled with Mauser bullets.'

  `Plenty of Mausers about in all sorts of hands in 1944,' Grelle observed. 'And the priest ?'

  `There was no priest—the Leopard was an atheist. . . `Of course. And the undertaker ?'

  `Shot through the head the morning after the burial. Someone, identity unknown, broke into his house. And there was another curious thing,' Boisseau continued. 'A young Communist sculptor who had worked with the Resistance group wanted to do something to commemorate his beloved leader. So he sculpted a statue which was placed over the grave six months later. It is still there, I understand, deep inside the forest. It is a statue of a leopard, a stone leopard.'

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ON 1 6 DECEMBER the Soviet Commando crossed the Czech frontier into Austria. They came over at the obscure border post at Gmund in the Nieder-Osterreich province where Czech control towers loom over the landscape like gallows. Arriving just before nine in the morning, they presented their French passports for inspection.

  The sleepy Austrian official—he had been up all night and was soon going off duty—was already prejudiced in their favour. A few minutes earlier he had seen his Czech opposite numbers giving the three tourists a thorough going-over. The battered old Peugeot had been searched while the three men stood in the road. Their documents had been carefully examined. Anyone who was no friend of the Czechs had to be all right for entry into Austria. He had no way of knowing that Vanek himself had phoned the Czech border post earlier to arrange this charade; nor could he know that their arrival had been timed to coincide with the moment just before he went off duty. A tired official is unlikely to check new arrivals with any great interest.

  `Our papers are foolproof,' Vanek had explained to his two companions, 'but the way to succeed in this life is to load all dice in your favour. . .

  The Austrian official stamped the French documents, the frontier pole was raised, the Peugeot with Vanek behind the wheel drove across the border into the narrow streets of the small Austrian town. If the sleepy official thought about them at all as he kicked snow off his boots he must have assumed they were French tourists returning from a winter sports holiday. The conclusion was easy to draw: Vanek and Brunner, sitting in the front of the car, with Lansky occupying the back, were all clad in French ski-clothes.

  `First hurdle jumped,' Vanek said cheerfully.

  Brunner grunted. 'Plenty more ahead of us. . .'

  Vanek drove at speed for two hours along the lonely open road which leads to Vienna and where fields spread out across the plain for ever; where the only traffic you meet is the occasional ox-drawn farm wagon. Overhead it was cloudy and grey; on either side the fields were snowbound; ahead the highway was a pure white lane with Vanek's the first car to leave wheeled tracks in the snow. Beyond the small town of Horn he pulled up in the deserted countryside. Getting out of the car, Vanek burned the French papers the passport official had stamped and then, using a spade which Brunner handed him, he buried the remnants, carefully re-arranging the snow over the shallow hole. Getting back into the Peugeot, he handed round sets of French papers which were duplicates of those he had just burned; duplicates except for the fact that they carried no stamp linking them with Czechoslovakia.

  Reaching Vienna at noon, he parked the Peugeot in the Opera Square; later it would be picked up by a minor official from the Czech Embassy. When they had crossed the frontier at Gmund their car registration number had been automatically noted, so now they severed this second link with their country of origin. With Vanek leading the way, shouldering his skis, the three men walked into the main entrance of the Hotel Sacher and turned through the doorway on the right which opens into a tea-room. They spent the next half-hour in leisurely fashion, drinking coffee and eating cakes while Vanek, chattering away in French, watched every person who followed them into the tea-room.

  At 12.30 pm exactly, the three men left the tea-room by a door leading into a side street, still carrying their skis. The Mercedes waiting for them was parked outside the Hotel Astoria and the regis
tration number confirmed to Vanek that this was their vehicle. The key was in the ignition and nearby a Czech official who had watched the car folded up his newspaper and walked away; when he had picked up the Peugeot waiting in Opera Square his job was done.

  With Vanek again behind the wheel, they drove to the Westbahnhof, the terminus from which trains depart from Vienna for western Europe. Brunner—with Vanek's help—had worked

  out the schedule precisely. Arriving at the Westbahnhof before 1 pm gave them nice time to eat lunch in the station restaurant before they boarded the express due to depart at 2 pm. The train was moving out of the station when a Slovak climbed inside the Mercedes parked outside the Westbahnhof and drove off.

  The Commando, all links with Czechoslovakia effectively severed, was on its way to Germany.

  It was just before noon in the German city of Mainz—four hundred miles to the east the Soviet Commando had now arrived in Vienna—when Alan Lennox again met Peter Lanz of the BND in the station first-class restaurant. The Englishman, who had been sitting at the table for a few minutes, nodded as Lanz took a chair and dropped a copy of the magazine Der Spiegel on the chair between them. Lanz picked up the menu. 'The papers are inside,' he murmured. 'Sorry we've taken such a bloody long time over them. But they're good. . . .' He ordered coffee from the waiter.

  It was impossible for Lanz to tell the Englishman the real cause of the delay, that he had just returned from the Palais Schaumburg in Bonn where Chancellor Hauser had given the go-ahead. 'That speech of Florian's at Lille last night disturbed me,' the chancellor had explained to Lanz. 'If he goes on building up this atmosphere of ferment he may leave behind him in Paris a situation ripe for a coup d'etat while he is in Moscow. We must find out whether there is a high-level Communist at work in Paris—and quickly. . .'

  `Under that napkin near your hand,' Lennox said quietly, `you'll find my British passport. Hang on to it for me until I get back. It wouldn't be very clever if they found that on me when I'm inside France. . .'

  Lanz put the folded napkin in his lap, paused while the waiter served coffee, and then pocketed the document. 'I suppose you will be driving into France?' he inquired. 'It will give you total mobility.'

  `Probably. I want to be off in about twenty minutes. Is there anything else I need to know ?'

  `I'm afraid there is.' Lanz leaned across the table, smiling as though he were saying something of little consequence. 'We've just heard that some kind of alert has gone out from Paris. We've no idea why. But there is increased surveillance at all French frontier crossing points.'

  `Thanks, I'll watch out.' Lennox made no mention of the fact that he already knew this. It wasn't that he distrusted the BND chief, but when he was working alone he made it a point to let no one know what he was doing next.

  He rested his hand lightly on the copy of Der Spiegel. 'The papers seem a bit bulky,' he commented, drinking the rest of his coffee.

  `We've included five thousand deutschmarks in high-denomination bills—for expenses. We don't expect you to be out of pocket on this thing. . .

  `Thanks again. If I want to contact you, I use the Frankfurt number ?'

  `No, a different one. In Bonn, actually. . . .' Lanz didn't explain that from now on he was staying in the German capital where he could have immediate access to Franz Hauser in case of a crisis. 'You'll find the new number written on the inside of the envelope,' he went on. 'You can reach me at that number at any hour of the day—or night. I shall stay in my office at that number, eat there, sleep there. If you phone I promise you it will be my hand which will lift the receiver.'

  Lennox stared at the German. This kind of consideration he had not expected. 'Thanks once more,' he said. 'But this trip could take anything up to a fortnight if I run into trouble— and you could get pretty stiff staying locked up in one room for as long as that.'

  `It's the least I can do, for Christ's sake.' Lanz spread his hands. 'I wouldn't want to take on the job myself, I can tell you. There's something stirring in the French security system, and it may not be healthy. If you get in a jam, call me. I can't promise one damned thing—not inside France—but I can at least try. If it gets hot, get out. . .'

  * * *

  Grelle was airborne in an Alouette helicopter, heading south for Lyon to attend the exhumation of the Leopard's grave, when he took another decision. He had been sitting silently for some time, not speaking to Boisseau who was beside him, staring down at the flooded landscape below. For large stretches it was more like travelling over Asian rice paddy- fields than the plains of France.

  `Boisseau,' Grelle said eventually, 'there are two persons on that list Hugon supplied who live in France—excluding the man in Germany. . .'

  `Two,' Boisseau agreed.

  `I want you to set up close surveillance on both those people. It must be very discreet—the two men being watched must have no idea they are under surveillance.'

  `They are to intercept the Englishman, Lennox, if he Shows up ?'

  `No! If Lennox appears I want the fact reported, then I want Lennox discreetly tailed. But he must not be intercepted.'

  `I will have to quote your personal authority. It is out of our jurisdiction, of course.'

  It was, indeed, out of Grelle's jurisdiction. Normally the power of the police prefect of Paris ends at the city's boundaries; he possesses not one shred of authority outside the capital. But Florian had expressly handed over to Grelle the responsibility for his own security to cover the whole of France since the assassination attempt.

  `Of course,' Grelle agreed. 'So you tell them this concerns the safety of the president of the French Republic.'

  To check passengers travelling from Vienna to Germany, passport officials sometimes board the train at Salzburg, but not often; this is one of the more open frontiers of Europe. The Soviet Commando crossed the Austro-German border without any check at all. With their ski equipment in the luggage van, travelling with French papers, carrying French francs and German marks in their wallets, the trio were to all outward appearances French tourists returning home from Austria via Germany.

  Even so, Vanek was still taking precautions. Deciding that two travellers were less conspicuous than three, he sat with Brunner in one first-class compartment while Lansky travelled alone in a different coach. As they moved through the snowbound countryside of Bavaria beyond Salzburg after dark they caught glimpses in the moonlight of the white Alps to the south.

  Later, when approaching Munich, they passed close to Pullach, the home of the BND headquarters. Reaching Munich at eight in the evening, Vanek and Brunner took a cab to the Four Seasons Hotel, the most expensive hostelry in the city.

  `No one,' as Vanek explained earlier, 'looks for assassins in the best hotels. . .

  Privately, Brunner had a more simple explanation. Vanek, he felt sure, believed that only the best was good enough for a man of his talents. While they proceeded to their own hotel. Lansky left the station by himself and booked a room at the Continental. To adjust themselves to the western atmosphere they went out in the evening after Vanek had phoned Lansky from an outside call-box to make sure he had arrived. 'Don't sit in the hotel room,' Vanek ordered his subordinate. 'Get out and sniff the place. Circulate. . . .' But he did not invite Lansky to join himself and Brunner.

  At a beer hall Vanek picked up a couple of girls, using his fluent German to pull off the introduction, and later the four of them ate a very expensive dinner. When Brunner, hurrying after his leader to the lavatory, questioned these tactics, Vanek was brusque. 'Don't you realize that two men with a couple of girls are far less conspicuous than two foreigners on their own? In any case,' he said as he adjusted his flies, 'they are nice girls. . .'

  At the end of the evening, drinking absurdly-priced champagne in a night-club, Vanek persuaded his girl friend to take him back to her flat. Outraged, Brunner cornered Vanek in the foyer, saying he was going back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep.

  `A good night's sleep?' Vanek queried
. 'My dear comrade, I can spend a little time with a girl, sleep for four hours and face the morning with the physique of an athlete. . .'

  `We are catching the early morning train to France,' Brunner reminded him.

  `So don't oversleep,' Vanek replied.

  Lennox, who was always a lone wolf, waited until Lanz had left the Mainz Hauptbahnhof restaurant, then he picked up the copy of Der Spiegel, went into the lavatory and locked the door of the cubicle. Sitting on the seat, he extracted the French papers, put the five thousand deutschmarks into his wallet, memorized the Bonn telephone number and tore up the envelope which he flushed down the pan. Emerging from the lavatory, he made no move to leave the station to collect his car. He had, in fact, already handed it in to the car-hire branch in Mainz.

  At 12.38 p.m. he boarded the Trans-European express Rheingold which had just arrived from Amsterdam. Finding an empty compartment—there are few people on the Trans- European express in mid-December—he settled down in a corner seat and lit a Benson and Hedges cigarette. He had waited until the last second to board the train and no one had followed him. The people he was worried about were the French Secret Service agents attached to their embassy in Bonn. They would hardly know about him yet, but the second in command of the BND was an obvious target for them to follow.

  As the express picked up speed he took hold of his suitcase and went along to the spacious lavatory.

  The man who went inside was Alan Lennox, British. The man who emerged ten minutes later was Jean Bouvier, French. Settling down again in his empty compartment, Lennox was dressed in French clothes and smoking a Gitane. He was also wearing the hat he had purchased in Metz and a pair of horn- rim glasses. Normally hatless, Lennox knew how much the wearing of headgear changes the appearance of a man. When the ticket collector arrived a few minutes later and he had to purchase the TEE supplement, Lennox conversed with him in French and a little ungrammatic German.