Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

`But the Leopard is dead,' Lennox pointed out. 'He died in Lyon in 1944… '

`Which is the clever part of the whole thing. Don't you see?'

`Frankly, I don't,' Lennox replied.

`The man has to have a code-name for the few occasions when he is referred to in Soviet circles. So they chose the name of a man known to be dead. What is the immediate reaction if the name ever slips out? It must be nonsense. He is dead! My God, what was your own reaction?'

`I see what you mean,' Lennox said slowly. 'You're saying there is …'

`A second Leopard-who was in some way connected with the Leopard's original Resistance group. This unknown man would easily think of using this name-if he once worked with the man whose name he has stolen. One of those three witnesses on that list should be able to clear up the mystery…

`Who is this Dieter Wohl?' Lennox inquired. 'I see he lives in Freiburg now. He's a German, of course?'

`Dieter Wohl was the Abwehr officer who tried to track down the Leopard during the war. He knew a great deal about the Resistance in the Lozere…

Lasalle had thought more than once of approaching Dieter Wohl himself; unable to get back into France to interview the two Alsace witnesses he could easily have travelled to Freiburg. He had decided against the idea in case the BND heard of the visit.

`They might have said that I was interfering in German affairs,' he remarked. 'I cannot afford to be thrown out of the Federal Republic at this stage. Now, answer me one question quite simply. With those names and addresses, will you go into France?'

`Yes.'

While Lennox was talking to Col Lasalle near Saarbrucken, two hundred miles away to the west in Paris Marc Grelle was arriving at the American Embassy on the Avenue Gabriel. As he walked through the gateway at 6 pm he was well aware he was being photographed by agents of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire-political counter-intelligence. He even knew where the camera with the telescopic lens was situated, hidden inside the large blue Berliet truck parked by the sidewalk opposite the Embassy. Uniformed gendarmes lounged round the truck, giving the impression they were a reserve force, standing by in case of trouble. By the following morning the photo would lie on the desk of the Minister of the Interior. Attached to the print would be a form filled in to show the details. 1800 hours. Visitor: Marc Grelle, police prefect of Paris. Later, the time of his departure would be duly recorded.

Going inside the embassy, Grelle signed the visitors' book and went upstairs where he was relieved of his raincoat by a girl with a Texan accent. 'I was once in Dallas,' he told her, `on the day President Kennedy was assassinated.' He went into the large room overlooking the Place de la Concorde where the reception was being held. The room was a blaze of lights, a babble of voices, and the curtains were drawn, presumably to mask the room against the probing telephoto lens inside the Berliet truck. Grelle hovered at the edge of the crowd, getting his bearings and noting who was present.

`That computer-like mind of yours must have listed all the guests by now,' a voice behind him suggested, 'so why don't we slip away into the library where the real stuff is kept?' David Nash grinned and shook hands when the prefect turned round. `I had to come to Paris, so …'

`You thought we could chat? Or, you came to Paris so we could chat ?' Grelle inquired in English.

`That policeman's mind of yours!' Nash led the way out of the reception room and across the corridor into another room lined with books. Shutting the door, he turned the key which was already on the inside. 'Now we won't be disturbed… Pouring a large Scotch, Nash handed it to the prefect, ushered him into an armchair and perched himself on the arm of another chair as he raised his glass. 'Here's to France. May she survive for ever, including the next two months…

`Why shouldn't she?' Grelle peered at the American over the top of his glass. 'Or is it a state secret? You still hold the same post as when we last met, I presume?'

`The same post.' Nash leaned forward, keeping his voice low. `I come here as a friend, not as an agent of my government. As a friend of France, too. Marc, have you ever heard of the Leopard?'

Aware that Nash was studying him, Grelle sipped his Scotch and kept his face expressionless. He mopped his lips with a silk handkerchief before he replied. 'The leopard? An animal with a spotted coat which can be dangerous…'

`This one is dangerous,' the American agreed. 'He's sitting behind a government desk not a mile from where we are at the moment. Let me tell you a story…' Nash told the story well -about a Russian defector who had arrived in New York only a week earlier, who had been rushed from Kennedy airport to a secret camp in the Adirondack mountains where Nash himself had questioned the man. The following morning-before the interrogation had been resumed-the Russian had been shot by a long-distance sniper with a telescopic rifle. 'It happened while I was walking beside him,' the American went on. 'One moment he was walking beside me, the next he was sprawled on the track with a bullet through his skull…'

Grelle went on sipping his Scotch, listening with the same expressionless face as the American related how the high-grade Russian had told him about a French Communist agent- adopting the name of the wartime Resistance leader Leopard -who for over thirty years had worked himself up to become one of the top three men in France. 'The Leopard could be any one of your top cabinet ministers,' Nash concluded. 'Roger Danchin, Alain Blanc…

Grelle drank the rest of his Scotch in two gulps, placed the empty glass on the table and stood up. His voice was crisp and cold.

`The lengths to which the American government has gone recently to smear our president have been absurd, but what you have just suggested is outrageous…'

Nash stood up from the chair. 'Marc, we don't have to blow our tops…

`Your so-called story is a tissue of fabrication from beginning to end,' Grelle went on icily. 'Clearly you are trying to spread a lying rumour in the hope that it will damage the president because you don't like his speeches…

`Marc,' Nash interjected quietly, 'I'll tell you now that you are the only man inside this embassy who will hear what I have just told you…'

`Why?' Grelle snapped.

`Because you are the only Frenchman I really trust with this secret-the only contact I have come to warn. I want you to be on your guard-and you have ways of checking things out, ways that we couldn't even attempt…'

`You'd get chopped if you did!' Grelle, his face flushed, moved towards the door, then seemed to calm down and for a few minutes he chatted with the American about other topics. It was, Nash told himself after the prefect had gone, a very polished performance: outrage at the suggestion and then a brief relaxation of tension to indicate to the American that they would remain friends in the future. Lighting a cigarette, Nash wandered back across the hall to the reception, satisfied with the result of his trip to Paris. Because despite what he had said, Grelle would check. Grelle was the policeman's policeman. Grelle always checked.

To give himself time to think, Grelle drove round in a circle to get back to the prefecture. On his way he passed the Elysee and had to pull up while a black Zil limousine with one passenger in the back emerged from the palace courtyard. Leonid Vorin, Soviet ambassador to France, was just leaving after making one of his almost daily visits to see Guy Florian. Since the trip to Moscow on 23 December had been announced, the Soviet ambassador had consulted frequently with the president, driving from his embassy in the rue de Grenelle to the Elysee and back again. Inside the limousine Leonid Vorin, short and stocky with a pouched mouth and rimless glasses, sat staring ahead, looking neither to right nor left as the car swung out and drove off towards Madeleine.