by Colin Forbes
Afterwards there was a huge parade along the Canebiere, the main thoroughfare of the turbulent French seaport where thousands of people broke ranks and tried to surge round the presidential Citroen. On the direct orders of Marc Grelle, who had flown to the city, CRS troops drove back the milling crowd, which later almost caused a confrontation between the president and the police prefect.
`You spoiled the whole spontaneous demonstration,' he raged. 'There was no need . .
`The spontaneous demonstration was organized by the Communist party,' Grelle said sharply. 'And my reaction is, you are still alive. Do you or do you not want me to protect your life ?'
The sheer vehemence of the prefect startled Florian, who changed direction suddenly, putting an arm round Grelle's shoulders. 'You are, of course, right. Nothing must happen to me before I fly to Russia. We have peace within our grasp, Grelle, peace. . .'
The Soviet convoy K.12 had now passed through the Dardanelles and was proceeding south across the Aegean Sea. It was proceeding slowly, at a leisurely pace which puzzled the naval analysts at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The team of analysts was under the control of a British officer, Commander Arthur Leigh-Browne, RN, and on Tuesday, 21 December— the day when Florian made his violent attack on the Americans at Marseilles—Browne circulated to all western defence ministers a routine report.
'K.12'S most likely destination would appear to be the Indian Ocean, making passage in due course through the Suez Canal —except for the fact that the aircraft carrier, Kirov, is too large to pass through the canal. . .
`Other possible destinations are the newly-acquired naval facilities granted by the Spanish government at Barcelona. . .
`The factor we find most difficult to equate with either of the above two conjectures is the presence of the fifteen large transports (contents as yet unknown). . .
As Browne put it to his German second-in-command after the report had been sent off, 'At the moment, it's all hot air. I haven't a clue what they're up to. We'll have to play the old game of wait-and-see. . .'
Guy Florian made his speech in Marseilles at noon. At the same equivalent time in Moscow an enlarged meeting of the Politburo which had been called unexpectedly was listening to a brief speech by the First Secretary. Among those present were the Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and Marshal Gregori Prachko, Minister of Defence. It was these two men—forming a quorum of three with the First Secretary—who had earlier sanctioned the despatch of the Soviet Commando to the west.
Revealing for the first time to the enlarged meeting the identity of the Frenchman he called 'our friend', the First Secretary went on to give details of the Franco-Soviet pact which would be announced while President Florian was in Moscow. 'The President of the French Republic has, of course, under the French constitution, full powers to negotiate and conclude treaties with foreign powers,' he continued.
It was clause tzt which was the key to the whole agreement. This clause stated that in the furtherance of world peace joint military manoeuvres would be carried out from time to time on the respective territories of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the Republic of France. In simple language it meant that the advance elements of two Soviet armoured divisions now aboard convoy K.12 would be landed at French Mediterranean ports within the next few days.
`Where will they go to ?' inquired Nikolai Suslov, the most intellectual member of the Politburo.
`I will tell you!' It was the immensely broad-shouldered, uniformed and bemedalled Marshal Gregori Prachko who replied. Prachko intensely disliked non-practical intellectuals and especially disliked Nikolai Suslov. 'They will be put ashore at Toulon and Marseilles immediately Florian has announced the pact in Moscow. The date of his visit—23 December—has been carefully chosen. Over their famous Christmas the government ministers of the west all go on holiday, so they will not be behind their desks to react quickly. . .
Tut where will the troops go ?' Suslov persisted.
`To the Rhine border with Germany, of course! As he gets up on Christmas morning to open his presents, Chancellor Franz Hauser will find himself facing Soviet troops to the east —and to the west ! The whole of western Europe will fall under our control—including the powerhouse of the Ruhr—which will enable us to win any confrontation with China. . .'
PART THREE
The Police Prefect of Paris
December 22-23
CHAPTER ONE
ANY EXPERIENCED POLICEMAN knows it: you can throw a cordon round an area, set up road-blocks, and three times out of four you are too late. Gruber set up a cordon and caught nothing but irate motorists and truck-drivers. The Mercedes, which had been hired in Kehl, was found a week later inside a copse at the edge of the Black Forest. Four of the six policemen who had been getting out of the truck when the petrol tanker detonated were lucky; most of the blast went the other way, travelling across open fields. The other two policemen were badly burned, one of them with first-degree injuries which required plastic surgery later. The petrol tanker driver died from the fumes which filled his cab before he could escape.
Lanz and Gruber searched Wohl's house, looking for the war diary which Lennox had seen, and found no trace of the diary or the manuscript. Brunner's dead body was taken to the police mortuary and examination of his clothing and pocket contents revealed very little. He was carrying a large sum of money— two thousand deutschmark—and a French identity card in the name of Emile Bonnard 'Which will undoubtedly prove to be false,' Gruber commented. Underneath his German hat and coat Brunner was wearing a French suit and underclothes. Apart from this there was very little to prove who he really was —until the preliminary results of the medical examination came through.
`My colleague has come up with something interesting,' the medical examiner reported to Gruber who was sitting in a hotel bedroom eating dinner with the BND chief and Lennox. `He is a dental technician and according to him the dental work and teeth fillings were definitely carried out in eastern Europe—probably in Russia. . .'
Lanz phoned Marc Grelle direct from police headquarters at Freiburg. Strictly speaking, any such call should have been made to the Surete, but whereas Lanz knew Grelle well and trusted his discretion, he neither liked nor trusted the Director-General who was Commissioner Suchet's superior. As Lanz explained to Grelle, he had two reasons for informing him of this development. The assassin Lennox had shot dead—and Lanz was careful not to mention the Englishman in any way— was travelling with French papers in the name of Emile Bonnard. Also—and here again Lanz phrased it carefully—he had reason to believe the Commando had recently come from France and might well have re-crossed the border back into that country. . . .'
`You have solid grounds for saying an assassination Commando, possibly Soviet-controlled, is on the move ?' Grelle inquired.
`Yes,' Lanz replied firmly. 'Without going into details, I'm pretty sure of it. And perhaps it would be helpful if we both keep in touch. . .'
Grelle had just put down the phone when Boisseau came into his office with a routine report.
`Lesage has just called in. That Algerian terrorist, Abou Benefeika, is still holed up in the derelict apartment building in the Goutte-d'Or. No sign of his pals coming to collect him yet. We let him go on fermenting ?'
`Continue the surveillance. . .' Grelle took a bite out of the sandwich he would have to make do with for his evening meal. Normally he dined at Chez Benoit, an exclusive little restaurant in the old Les Halles district where you had to phone for a table; he was beginning to miss the place. 'I have just had a call from Peter Lanz of the German BND,' he informed Boisseau. `He played it very cagey but somehow he has found out that a Soviet assassination Commando is at work. This evening they killed an ex-Abwehr officer in Freiburg.' He paused. 'The name of the Abwehr man was Dieter Wohl. . .
`One of the three names on Lasalle's list. . .'
`Exactly. So now it looks as though this Commando has been sent with the express purpose of wiping out everyone on that
list—and they've done it, for God's sake. All avenues through which we might have seen a little light are closed. . .'
`The surveillance on Roger Danchin and Alain Blanc is producing nothing ?'
`Nothing. . . .' The prefect frowned as his phone rang. He checked his watch. 10 pm. Only recently returned from his flight to Marseilles when he had accompanied the president while he delivered his most bitter anti-American tirade so far, Grelle was feeling very tired. Who the hell could it be at this hour ? He picked up the phone, swallowing the last of his sandwich. It was Alain Blanc.
`No, Minister,' Grelle assured him. 'I have not dug up any connection between the president and Lucie Devaud as yet. . . . We now know her father was Albert Camors, a wealthy stockbroker who died a few months ago and left her his apartment in the Place des Vosges. . . . No, we do not know any more. . . . Yes, she must have been illegitimate. . . . No, no connection at all with the Elysee. . .'
Grelle shrugged as he replaced the receiver. (He worries about a scandal, that one. As I was saying, all avenues seem closed to us, so all we can hope for once more is the unexpected break. And yet, Boisseau, I feel that somewhere I am overlooking something—something under my nose. . .'
`Something to do with the Commando ? Incidentally, we may as well cancel the alert on the man the German police shot in Freiburg. Did Lanz give you a name ?'
Grelle consulted a notepad. 'Emile Bonnard,' he replied. `And I do not expect we shall ever see the other two men— Duval and Lambert. They have done their job. They will never return to France.'
Carel Vanek and Antonin Lansky approached the checkpoint to cross back into France the following morning,Wednesday, 22 December, which was the deadline day Borisov had given them in Tabor to complete their mission. They were on their way to visit Annette Devaud. They came up to the passport control counter separately with half a dozen people between them and Vanek presented himself for inspection first.
`Papers. . .'
The passport officer took the document Vanek handed him, opened it after studying the Czech's face and then compared it with the photograph. The name he had already noted. Vanek waited with a bored look on his face, chewing a piece of chocolate while he studied the extremely attractive girl waiting next in line. He grinned at her engagingly and after a moment's hesitation she smiled back at him.
`You have been to Germany on business ?' the passport official inquired.
`Yes.'
The official returned the passport and Vanek moved on, to be joined a few minutes later by Lansky. Vanek had presented the third set of papers he had brought from Tabor, papers made out in the name of Lucien Segard, papers which carried a photograph of him without a moustache. Only the previous night in Kehl he had shaved off the moustache in the station wash-room before accompanying Lansky to a small hotel where they had spent the night. Lansky had also used his third set of papers which carried the name Yves Gandouin. When frontier control officials have been asked to look out for men travelling under the names of Duval and Lambert it is only human for them to concentrate on people of those names, and to be anything but suspicious of different names.
Without having the least idea that their previous identities had been blown, Vanek had taken his decision the previous night after they had abandoned the Mercedes. 'Twice we have crossed the French border using our present papers,' he had told Lansky, 'and twice is enough.' He had then proceeded to burn the papers carrying the names Duval and Lambert before they walked to the nearest village and independently boarded a bus crowded with Christmas shoppers for Kehl. Inside Germany they were really in no danger: the only people who knew their names were inside France, and on the phone Marc Grelle had been reluctant to give Peter Lanz such information because of the delicacy of the investigation he was conducting.
Arriving back in Strasbourg, Vanek kept well away from the Hertz car-hire branch in the Boulevard de Nancy. 'Never go back,' was one of his favourite maxims. Instead, the two men took a cab to the airport where Vanek hired a Renault 17 from the Avis car-hire branch in the name of Lucien Segard. By 2 pm they were on their way to Saverne, which is only twenty- five miles from Strasbourg.
* * *
Alan Lennox had stayed up half the night at the Hotel Colombi
in Freiburg talking to Peter Lanz. The German, who had been handed a copy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung containing Dieter Wohl's letter just before he left Bonn—`I should have been shown it days earlier, but no one thought to read the correspondence columns'—was dubious as to whether Annette Devaud would still be alive.
`From what Wohl said to you,' he remarked, 'she would be a
very old lady now—and if she is blind how could she recognize anyone ? Even assuming she ever knew what the Leopard looked like. . .'
`There's nothing else left,' Lennox said obstinately. 'No one else left, perhaps I should say. What Leon Jouvel told me is very inconclusive—although he was convincing at the time. In any case, the poor devil is dead. I'm going back across the Rhine tomorrow to try and find Annette Devaud.'
`Going back again over the frontier for the third time on false papers? I'm not asking you to do that. . .
`Call it British bloody-mindedness—we're known for it. I just want to get to the bottom of this thing and find out who the Leopard really is. Wish me luck.'
`I have a feeling you're going to need more than luck,' Lanz replied gravely.
Remembering the atmosphere of intense police activity at Strasbourg station only thirty-six hours earlier, it took a certain amount of will-power for Lennox to hand his papers across the counter to French passport control and then wait while they were inspected. They were examined only cursorily and handed straight back; no one was interested in a man called Jean Bouvier. Probably the easiest way to pass through a checkpoint is to choose a time when someone else is being watched for.
Obtaining the address from Bottin, the telephone directory, Lennox left Strasbourg station and went straight to Hertz car-hire in the Boulevard de Nancy where he chose a Mercedes 350 SE. It was expensive but he wanted some power under the bonnet. By noon he was leaving Strasbourg, driving west for Saverne in the Vosges mountains. He had, of course, no idea that for the first time since he had embarked on this trip at the behest of David Nash of New York he was two hours ahead of the Soviet Commando.
It was Boisseau who heard about the newspaper cutting of Dieter Wohl's letter to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung sent to Paris by the French Secret Service agent in Bonn. Oddly enough he was shown the photostat of the cutting by Commissioner Suchet of counter-intelligence whom he had made it his business to cultivate. Suchet was under the impression that this gave him a private pipeline into the prefecture, whereas the reverse was true; the only information given to him by Boisseau had first been vetted by Marc Grelle. It was late in the morning of Wednesday, 22 December, when Boisseau showed the photostat to his chief.
`So there could just be a witness who never appeared on Lasalle's list,' Grelle mused. 'That is, assuming she is still alive, after all these years. . .'
`She is. I phoned the police station at Saverne. She's living at a remote farmhouse quite a distance from Saverne itself— high up in the Vosges mountains. This letter made me go through the files again and there is one we overlooked. Annette Devaud was in charge of the Leopard's courier network. The really interesting thing could be the name. . .'
`Annette Devaud—Lucie Devaud. . . .' The prefect clasped his hands behind his neck and looked shrewdly at his deputy. `All avenues closed, I said. I wonder. All right, Boisseau, fly to Saverne. Yes, this afternoon, I agree. In view of what has happened to the other witnesses should you not call Saverne and ask them to send out a police guard ?'
`She must be old—they might frighten her. And in any case, since she was not on Lasalle's list why should she be on the Commando's ? Both Lasalle and the Commando must have been working from the same list—in view of what happened. So where is the danger ?'
`I leave it to you,' the prefect
said.
Driving across the flat plain of Alsace which lies between Strasbourg and the Vosges mountains, Lennox soon ran into atrocious weather. Curtains of rain swept across the empty road, adding even more water to the already flooded fields, and in the distance heavy mist blotted out the Vosges completely. He drove on as water poured down his windscreen and then the engine began knocking badly, which made him swear because he knew the mountain roads ahead could be difficult. It was his own fault: the Hertz people had been reluctant to let him have this car, the only Mercedes 350 on the premises for hire. `It has not been serviced, sir,' the girl had protested. 'I am not permitted . . .' Lennox had impatiently overridden her objections because he liked the car, and now he was paying for it.
Driving on across the lonely plain, the knocking became worse and he knew he had been foolish. Squinting through the windscreen, he saw a sign. Auberge des Vosges and petrol five hundred metres ahead. He wanted in any case to check Annette Devaud's address—and to find out whether anyone knew if she was still alive. Through the pouring rain a small hotel with a garage attached came into view. Pulling up in front of the pumps, he lowered the window and asked the mechanic to check the vehicle. A few minutes later the mechanic came into the hotel bar with the bad news. He had found the defect: it would take a couple of hours to put it right.
`Can't you hurry it up?' Lennox asked.
`I am starting work on it now,' the mechanic informed him. `I can hurry it up yes. It will take two hours.'
Lennox ordered a second cognac and two jambon sandwiches, which arrived as large hunks of appetizing French bread sliced apart and with ham inside them. Had the mechanic said three hours he would have been tempted to try and hire another car. He sank his teeth hungrily into the sandwich; two hours shouldn't make all that difference to the state of the world.
