The Stone Leopard

by Colin Forbes

  Grelle was appalled as he took up Point's prone position and gazed through the sight. The Israeli machine, blurred as it was by the rain, came up so close he felt he could reach out and touch it. Flopping beside him, Buvon demonstrated how it worked, even to the extent of inserting a rocket.

  `It works on a heat sensor system. There is a device in the nose of the rocket which, once airborne, homes straight on to the highest temperature source within range—in this case, with the Israeli plane just airborne, it would have homed on the heat emitted by the machine's jet engines. . .

  Stretched out in the rain, Grelle listened a little longer. 'Can the pilot of the plane take any evading action ?' he inquired as he handled the weapon. 'Is there any hope?'

  `None at all,' Buvon replied briskly. 'Even if he saw it coming, which is doubtful, even if he changed course—even more doubtful—the heat sensor would simply change direction, too, and go on heading for the target until they collided. Then —boom !—it's all over. . .

  Remembering that Florian was due to fly off from this airport to Marseilles in only a few days, Grelle took an immediate decision. 'I'm carrying this hideous thing back to Paris myself,' he announced. 'Have it put in the rear of my car. . . .' With Boisseau behind the wheel, they drove to Surete headquarters at the rue des Saussaies where the prefect personally watched it being put away inside a strong-room on the fourth floor which itself was isolated inside another room. Demanding all the keys to both rooms, he was handed three and when he asked if these were all he received an equivocal reply. 'There were four originally, but one of them was a bad fit. I understand it was destroyed.'

  `No one, absolutely no one is to be allowed in this room without my permission,' Grelle ordered. 'When the army people want to have a look at it, they must come to me for the keys. . .

  They had only just returned to the prefecture when Boisseau received a phone call. He went to the prefect's office to report immediately. 'The Algerian has gone to earth and we know where. He is inside an abandoned apartment block off the Boulevard de la Chapelle in the eighteenth arrondissement. The address is 17 rue Reamur. . .

  `That stinking rabbit warren,' Grelle commented. It was the Arab Quarter in the Goutte-d'Or district, an area which had been an Arab preserve for over thirty years. 'Any more of the

  gang visible ?' he inquired.

  `There is no sign of anyone else about and we think he is alone. One of the patrol-car men who overtook him thinks he identified him as Abou Benefeika, but that's not certain.'

  `He can't give us the slip, I hope ?' Grelle asked.

  `He's safely Penned up and we have men watching both front and rear entrances. Also there are good observation points where we can watch him night and day. Do we bring him in or leave him to ferment ?'

  `Let him ferment,' Grelle ordered.

  In Basel at the Hotel Victoria, Alan Lennox heard the news report of the alert at Orly over his bedroom radio. He thought nothing of it as he sat smoking a cigarette, checking his watch occasionally; terrorist alerts at Orly had happened before. The Englishman was killing time, something he disliked, but there was a right moment to cross the border into France; about eleven in the morning he estimated. Earlier the passport control people would only just have come on duty; they would be irritable and alert as they started a new day; and they would give their full attention to the few travellers passing through.

  At 11 am precisely he left the Victoria, crossed the street and went inside the Hauptbahnhof. At Basel Hauptbahnhof there is a French frontier control post unique in Europe. While technically still on Swiss soil, all French nationals returning home from Basel pass through a special checkpoint quite separate from Swiss passport control. The checkpoint is manned by French officials who deal only with their own countrymen. It was a perfect opportunity to test the false papers Peter Lanz had supplied.

  If there was trouble—if the falseness of the papers was detected—he would be handed over to the Swiss police. He could then give them Peter Lanz's name and phone number and he had little doubt that, bearing in mind the discreet co-operation which goes on between the Swiss and German authorities, that Lanz could persuade them to release him into the hands of the German police. Lennox was not a man who had survived so far by taking unnecessary risks. Carrying his Swiss case, he joined the queue which was moving quickly. `Papers. . .'

  It was unfortunate: the examination was conducted by one of the younger officials, a sharp-eyed man whose enthusiasm had not yet been dulled by years of looking at dog-eared passports. The official compared the photograph carefully with the man standing in front of him, then disappeared inside a room. Inwardly tense, Lennox leaned against the counter with a Gitane hanging out of the corner of his mouth, looked at the woman next to him and shrugged. These bloody bureaucrats, he seemed to say. The official came back, still holding the document.

  `Which countries have you visited ?'

  `Switzerland and Germany. . . .' It is always best to tell the truth whenever you can. Lennox looked bored as the young official continued examining the passport as though it were the first he had ever seen, as though he was sure there was something wrong.

  `How long have you been away from France ?'

  `Three weeks. . .'

  Always just answer the question. Never go babbling on, embroidering with a lot of detail. It is the oldest trick in the book, used by officials all over the world; get the suspect talking and sooner or later he trips himself up. The official handed back the passport. Lennox picked up his bag, was waved on by Customs, and walked on to the platform where the train for France was waiting. Within two hours he would be in Strasbourg.

  The Munich express was due to arrive at Strasbourg in two hours. In the corner of a first-class compartment Carel Vanek sat reading a French detective novel and the aroma of an expensive cigar filled the compartment as the Czech smoked fitfully.

  Opposite him the austere Brunner did not approve of the cigar; he had even made the mistake of making a reference to it. 'When we get back we shall have to account for our expenditure. . .'

  `In a capitalist society an air of affluence opens all doors,' Vanek replied and turned the page of his book.

  The truth was that Vanek enjoyed the good things of life and regarded Brunner as a bit of a peasant. Now, as they came closer to Strasbourg, he read his novel with only half his mind. He was thinking of Dieter Wohl, the German who lived in Freiburg. Of the three people on the list the Commando had to 'pay a visit'—Vanek's euphemism for terminating a life— the German was closest to them at this moment. It seemed logical that Dieter Wohl should be the first to receive a visit from them.

  But the idea had not appealed to the Czech when he had first examined the list, and he found the same objections influencing him now they were approaching the Rhine. The point was Vanek did not wish to risk alerting a second security service—that of Germany—so early on in the trip; just in case the killing of Wohl by 'accident' went wrong. And later they would have to return across Germany from France on their way home. No, better leave Dieter Wohl until later. So, for quite different reasons, Vanek had taken the same decision as Alan Lennox—to go into France first.

  Closing his novel, he puffed more cigar smoke in the direction of Brunner. Again Lansky was travelling on his own in a separate coach; it was good tactics and it also suited Vanek who disliked the younger Czech. Soon they would reach Kehl, the last stop inside Germany before the express crossed the Rhine bridge into France. He decided they would get off at Kehl—even though it would have been simpler to stay on the express until it reached Strasbourg. Vanek had an idea— which was not entirely incorrect—that the frontier control people cast a careful eye over international expresses. Getting off at Kehl, they could board a more local train to take them on to Strasbourg, and possibly purchase certain extra clothes while they were in the German city. He took out his papers and looked at them. When they arrived in Strasbourg they would be three French tourists returning from a brief winter sports holiday i
n Bavaria. There was no longer anything to link them with Czechoslovakia.

  * * *

  Leon Jouvel, 49 rue de l'Epine, Strasbourg, was the first name on the list Col Lasalle had handed to Alan Lennox. Fifty-three years old, Jouvel was small and plump with a bushy grey moustache, a shock of grey hair and a plump right hand which liked to squeeze the knees of pretty girls when he thought he could get away with it. Louise Vallon, who worked in the television shop he owned, found him easy to handle. 'He's not dangerous,' she confided to a friend, 'only hopeful, but recently he's seemed so depressed, almost frightened. . .'

  What was frightening Leon Jouvel was something which had happened over thirty years ago and now seemed to have come back to haunt him. In 1944, working with the Resistance in the Lozere, he had been the Leopard's radio operator. Even holding that key position, like everyone else he had no idea what the Communist leader looked like. He had always known when the Leopard was close because the wolfhound, Cesar, would give a warning growl. Jouvel hated the beast, but obeying instructions he always forced himself to turn his back on the animal and wait with his notebook until the Leopard arrived and gave him the message to transmit. Noting down the message—which he immediately burned after transmission —he would hurry away to his concealed transmitter, aware only that the Resistance chief was a very tall man; once, on a sunny day, he had seen his shadow.

  But because of his job—and the frequency of these brief communications—Jouvel was more familiar with the Leopard's voice than anyone in the Resistance group, and Jouvel had an acute ear for sounds. During the past eighteen months—since Guy Florian had become president—Jouvel had changed considerably. All his friends commented on the change. Normally jovial and talkative, Jouvel became irritable and taciturn, often not hearing what was said to him. It was the frequent appearance of the president on television which had unnerved the plump little man.

  A widower, it had been Jouvel's custom to while away the evenings in bars and cafés, gossiping with friends. Now he sat at home alone in his second-floor apartment, watching the news bulletins and political broadcasts, waiting for Guy Florian to appear, to speak. During a Florian speech he would sit in front of the television set with his eyes shut, listening intently. It was quite macabre—the similarity in the voices, but it was impossible to be sure.

  Sitting with his eyes closed he could have sworn he was listening to the Leopard standing behind him, giving him yet another message to transmit in those far-off days up in the mountains. He studied the speech mannerisms, noted the little hesitations which preceded a torrent of abuse as the president attacked the Americans. At first he told himself it was impossible: the Leopard had died in Lyon in 1944. Then he began to think back over the past, recalling the burial of the Leopard deep in the forest which he had attended. The four men who had handled the coffin—all of whom died a few days later in an ambush—had been in a great hurry to get the job over with. There had been a lack of respect. A few months later Jouvel had been terrified by a visit from Col Lasalle, who had arrived in mufti.

  `This man, the Leopard,' the colonel had said, 'if you took down all these signals from him, surely you could recognize his voice if you heard it again ?'

  `It was so long ago. . .'

  Fencing inexpertly with one of the most accomplished interrogators in France, Jouvel had managed not to reveal his crazy suspicion. Like many Frenchmen, Jouvel mistrusted both the police and the army, preferring to go his own way and not get mixed up with authority. But had he convinced the sharp- eyed little colonel he knew nothing? Jouvel sweated over the visit for weeks after Lasalle had gone. And now, only eight. days before Christmas, there had been the incident this evening.

  Locking up his shop at six, he walked back over the bridge from the Quai des Bateliers into the deserted old quarter. After dark the rue de 1'Epine is a sinister street where ancient five- storey buildings hem in the shadows and your footsteps echo eerily on the cobbles. There is no one about and not too much light. This evening Jouvel was sure he had heard footsteps behind him.

  Turning round suddenly, he caught the movement of a shadow which merged into the wall.

  He forced himself to turn round and walk back, and it reminded him of all those occasions when he had once forced himself to turn his back on the Leopard's vicious wolfhound. Jouvel was trembling as he made himself go on walking back down the shadowed street, and he was sweating so much his glasses steamed up. Reaching the doorway where he had seen the shadow move, he couldn't be sure whether anyone was there. Pretending to adjust his glasses, he wiped them quickly with his fingers. The blur cleared and a heavily-built man with a fat face stared back at him out of the doorway. Jouvel almost fainted.

  The fat-faced man who wore a dark coat and a soft hat, lifted a flask and drank from it noisily, then belched. Jouvel's pounding heart began to slow down. A drunk! Without saying a word he walked back up the street to his home. Behind him police detective Armand Bonheur was also sweating as he remained in the doorway. Good God, he had almost blown it! And the inspector's instructions had been explicit.

  `Whatever happens, Jouvel must not suspect he is being tailed. The order comes right down the line from Paris. . .'

  Turning in under the stone archway of No. 49, Jouvel went across the cobbled courtyard and into the building beyond. Climbing the staircase to the second floor, he was unlocking his apartment door when a red-haired girl peered out of the next apartment. He smiled pleasantly. 'Good evening, M'selle. . . .' Disappointed, the girl made a rude gesture at his back. 'Silly old ponce.' For Denise Viron anything over forty was fodder for the graveyard; anything under forty, fair game.

  Inside his apartment Jouvel hurried over to the television set and switched on. Brewing himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, he came back, settled in an old armchair and waited. Florian's head and shoulders appeared on the screen a few minutes later. Jouvel closed his eyes. 'The Americans want to turn Europe into one vast supermarket, selling American goods, of course. . . .' And still Jouvel couldn't be certain. I must be going mad he thought.

  `Mr Jouvel ? He is away today but he is back in Strasbourg tomorrow. The shop opens at nine. . .'

  Louise Vallon, Jouvel's assistant, put down the phone and thought no more about the call as she turned to attend to a customer. In a bar close to the shop Carel Vanek replaced the receiver and walked out on to the Quai des Bateliers where Walther Brunner sat waiting in the Citroén DS 23 they had just hired from the Hertz branch in the Boulevard de Nancy. `He's out of town today,' Vanek said as he settled himself behind the wheel, 'but he's back tomorrow. Which just gives us nice time to soak up some atmosphere. . .'

  When the Soviet Commando had arrived aboard a local train from Kehl they split up again as they had done in Munich. Lansky had simply walked across the large cobbled square outside the station and booked a room at the Hotel Terminus in the name of Lambert. After depositing three sets of skis— which would never be collected—in the luggage store at Strasbourg Gare, Vanek and Brunner took two separate cabs at intervals to the Hotel Sofitel where they registered, quite independently, as Duval and Bonnard. Meeting outside the hotel, they went to the Boulevard de Nancy and hired the Citroén.

  Before leaving his room at the Sofitel, Vanek had consulted Bottin, the French telephone directory, to check on Leon Jouvel's address. Yes, it was the address given on the list, 49 rue de l' 8pine, but there had also been the address of a television shop in the Quai des Bateliers. Using a street map of Strasbourg purchased from a newspaper kiosk, Vanek and Brunner had driven round the old city to locate both addresses before Vanek made his first call from the bar. He then drove a short distance from the quai before handing over the car to his companion. For the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening the three men would move round Strasbourg on their own, familiarizing themselves with the city's layout and getting the feel of being in France.

  `Buy a paper, go into bars and cafés, chat with everyone you can,' Vanek had instructed. 'Start merging with you
r background by mixing with it. Take a short bus-ride, find out what people are talking about. By tonight I want you to be more French than the French themselves. . .'

  Following his own advice, Vanek sampled the flavour of Strasbourg by walking. Unlike Brunner, from now on he walked everywhere, knowing that the easiest way to get your bearings in a strange city is to walk. As the street map indicated, the old quarter of the city was for all practical purposes an island surrounded by water, the huge 'moat' being formed by the river Il which encircles the heart of Strasbourg. A series of bridges all round the perimeter crossed the river into this ancient heart, built, for the most part, in the fourteenth century. It was still daylight at four o'clock, but only just in the narrow, silent rue de l'Epine, when Vanek walked in under the archway of No. 49.

  One of the numerous plates at the entrance to the building registered the fact that Leon Jouvel lived on the second floor, and he was knocking on the door of the second-floor apartment when the door of the neighbouring apartment opened and a red-haired girl peered at him speculatively.

  `He's gone away for the day to see his sister—back in the morning,' she informed the Czech. 'Do you think I could help you in some way?'

  Vanek, careful to eye her hips and other parts of her anatomy with due appreciation, had no trouble at all in extracting from Denise Viron the information he needed. He was, he explained, a market research specialist. 'Mr Leon Jouvel is one of the people chosen to answer our questionnaire

  . a survey on pension needs.' Within a few minutes he learned that Jouvel was a widower, that he occupied the apartment on his own, that he possessed no animals—here Vanek had in mind a guard-dog—that he was out all day at the shop arid only returned at 6.30 in the evenings, that he was no longer a sociable man, so there were few visitors.