Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

When the prefect entered the Minister's office on the first floor Danchin was standing by the window which overlooks a beautiful walled garden at the rear of the building, a garden the public never sees. 'Sit down, Grelle,' Danchin said, still staring down at the garden. 'I hear from Roissy that David Nash, the American, has just arrived in Paris. What do you think that implies?'

`Should it imply something?' Grelle inquired. By now he had grasped how this devious man's mind worked; rarely asking a direct question, Danchin tried to catch people out by encouraging them to talk while he listened.

`Something is happening, Grelle, I sense it. Strange also that he should arrive here so soon after the attempt on the president's life. ..'

`I don't see the connection,' Grelle stonewalled. 'But I have an invitation to the American Embassy this evening…'

`You are going?' Danchin interjected sharply.

`Why not, Minister? I may pick up something interesting. At least I should be able to answer your question as to why he has come to Paris…'

`And this woman, Lucie Devaud-has Boisseau found out something more about her? She couldn't be connected in any way with the arrival of Nash, I presume?'

`Surely you can't suspect the Americans were behind the attempt?' Grelle protested. `They do some strange things but..'

`Probing, Grelle, just probing.. Danchin suddenly returned behind his desk, moving so quietly Grelle was not aware he had left the window. It was another disturbing habit of Danchin's which his assistant, Merlin, had once complained about to Grelle. 'He turns up without warning like a ghost, standing behind you. Did you know that when people go out to lunch Danchin creeps into their offices to check the papers on their desks-to make sure they are not doing something he has no knowledge of? The atmosphere inside this place is terrible, I can tell you. Terrible!'

Grelle got out of Danchin's office as soon as he could, mopping his brow as he went downstairs and out into the fresh air. I wouldn't work in this place for a million francs a year he told himself as he got behind the wheel of his car. He drove out with a burst of exhaust as though to express his relief. Not for ten million francs!

Alain Blanc was born to a world of chateaux and money, of vintage wines and good food, possessed of a brain which in later years could absorb the details of a nuclear test ban treaty in a third of the time it would have taken Roger Danchin. With the family land and vineyards behind him Blanc, who came from the Auvergne, need never have worked for a day in his life. He chose to ignore the chance of a life of idleness, plunging instead into a life of furious activity.

A man of enormous vitality and appetite for work, he became one of the key political figures in Florian's regime, the man whom ambassadors quietly consulted when they could not get Florian's ear. An 'X', which stands for the crossed cannons symbol of the Ecole Polytechnique, a school where money is no substitute for brains, he was one of the five top students the year he graduated. His close friend, Guy Florian, passed out first among a galaxy of brilliant men. Years later, well entrenched in the political bedrock of France, it was Alain Blanc, the manipulator, who master-minded Florian's rise to the presidency.

Over six feet tall, fifty-four-year-old ex-paratrooper Blanc was heavily built; plump-faced, his hair thinning, his head was like a monk's dome. A man of powerful personality, he was reputed to be able to talk anyone into agreeing to anything with his warmth and jovial aggressiveness. Women, especially, found him attractive-he was so lively. 'He doesn't take himself seriously,' his mistress, Gisele Manton once explained, 'but he takes women seriously-or pretends to.. .'

His relations with Marc Grelle were excellent: the prefect understood the Minister of National Defence and never let Blanc overwhelm him. When they argued, which was frequently, it was with a fierce jocularity, and Blanc knew when he was beaten. 'The trouble with you, Grelle,' he once told the prefect, 'is you don't believe in politicians…'

`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.