Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

Grelle stood as immovable as the stone statue a few metres away.

`My God!' It was Boisseau speaking.

Inside the coffin was stretched the perfect skeleton of an enormous hound, lying on its haunches, its huge skull rested between its skeletal paw-bones, its eye-sockets in shadow so that it seemed to stare at them hideously with enormous black pupils.

`Cesar…' The prefect grunted. 'Macabre-and brilliant. He couldn't take his dog with him because that would identify him. And he needed something to weight the coffin. So he killed the dog and provided his own corpse.'

Boisseau bent over the skeleton, examined it briefly. 'I think there is a bullet-hole in the skull.'

`I wonder if the bastard shot his own dog?' Once Grelle had owned a British wire-haired terrier which had eventually been knocked down in the Paris traffic. He had never replaced the animal. He spoke in a monotone, then stiffened himself. 'Tell them to replace the lid and get the whole thing to Lyon. Come on!'

They left the men in the wood lifting the coffin and its contents into the breakdown truck and drove back along the muddy track. The statue would remain in the wood, close to the grave it had guarded so long, which was already filling up with water. Boisseau, noting the frown of concentration on his chief's face, said nothing until they turned on to the main road.

`Surprised?' he asked as they picked up speed.

`Not really-although I didn't anticipate the dog. The whole thing has worried me since I read the file-it was out of pattern. He took all those precautions to make sure he couldn't be identified and then, when it's nearly all over, he walks into Lyon and gets himself shot. If he'd survived up to then, he should have gone on surviving-which he did.'

`So he's about somewhere?'

`I know exactly where he is. He's in Paris. The trouble is I don't know who he is.'

`Danchin or Blanc-according to Gaston Martin. It's a nightmare.'

`It will get worse,' Grelle assured him.

Grelle remained in Lyon just long enough to make a few more inquiries and to hear the result of the fluoroscope test on the skeleton. 'I estimate the age of the bones as being somewhere between thirty and forty years,' the expert told the prefect. `That is, they have lain in the forest for that period of time.' Which meant the animal could easily have been shot and buried in August 1944.

Flying back to Paris aboard the helicopter, Grelle told Boisseau about his other inquiries. 'They gave me the details about the sculptor who made the statue. He was found shot in his house soon after he had finished the statue. The place had been ransacked and it was assumed he had disturbed a burglar. It gives you some idea of the ruthlessness of the man we're looking for. He covered his tracks completely-or so he thought. Until Lasalle resurrected him.'

`What the hell are we going to do?' Boisseau asked. `Track him down.'

The two men walked alone in the Paris garden, one of them tall and stooping slightly to catch what his much shorter companion was saying. The shorter man was thick-bodied and had short, strong legs. He spoke with respect but firmly, as though expecting opposition he must overcome. He spoke in little more than a whisper even though there was no one within twenty metres of where they walked.

'We must add Lasalle to the list. He is a very dangerous man and at this stage we dare not risk leaving him alive. Otherwise he will go on ferreting until he digs up something.'

`I think it's unwise,' the tall man repeated. have given you three names and that is enough. Every one you add to the list increases the risk. Something will go wrong…

`Nothing will go wrong. They are using the best people available for this sort of work. I understand the Commando has almost arrived in France-and they should complete their task within six days…' The short man took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. He had a cold coming on; Paris really was an unbearably damp place. 'You haven't heard even a whisper that anyone knows about this?' he inquired.

`Nothing. Let them just get it over with quickly,' the tall man said sharply. 'And let me know when I can stop worrying about it. I have enough on my mind at the moment.'

The short man glanced quickly at his companion, sensing the undercurrent of tension. This he understood; he felt tense himself.

`And Lasalle?' Since the kidnap operation has been cancelled we really must deal with that problem, too.'

`You can get in touch with the Commando then? Just in case any other problem crops up?'

The short man hesitated, then took a decision. 'They will make contact with us at regular intervals. So the answer is yes. I hope you haven't left someone off the list?'

`No one! Now I think we have talked enough…

`And Lasalle?' the short man persisted. 'It will look like an accident, I promise you. The men who are dealing with this are experts…'

`Experts?' The tall man straightened up and his expression showed distaste. 'In wartime one took these actions for granted, but in peacetime… Still, it has to be done. In a way it is a continuation of the war. As for Lasalle, he must not be added to the list yet. I am sure he has no idea what is going to happen when the president of France leaves for Moscow…'

It had been the secret nightmare of every major security service in the west since the earliest days of the Cold War- and the later phoney period of so-called `detente'-that in one major country or another a secret Communist would stay dormant until he had worked his way up the ladder of power and reached the summit.

This is the man who is most feared by intelligence chiefs in London, Washington and other capitals-the Rip Van Winkle of Communism who has no contact with Russian agents, who visits no safe houses to pass on information, who is controlled by no spymaster. And because for many years he has no contact with Moscow there is no way to detect him as, by sheer ability, he continues his climb. He is not interested in delivering the details of a guided missile system to Moscow-he hopes to deliver his country.

It was Col Rene Lasalle who first caught a whiff of conspiracy when he was still assistant chief of military counter-intelligence. Burrowing deeper into the background of the elusive Leopard, he came up against Guy Florian, who dismissed him for crossing the thin line between military and political counter-espionage. By a strange quirk of history it fell to Marc Grelle to take up the trail again where Lasalle had been compelled to lose it.

On Friday, 17 December-the day the Soviet Commando crossed the border into France-Marc Grelle was distracted from his many duties by what, at the time, seemed a diversion, an incident which would be recorded in the files and forgotten. At ten in the morning he heard of the emergency at Orly airport where Algerian terrorists had just tried to destroy an El Al aircraft on the verge of take-off. 'We'd better go and have a look,' he told Boisseau. 'I thought the security at Orly was foolproof…' Grelle had reason to be worried; in only a few days' time Guy Florian was due to fly from Orly to Marseilles, where he would make a major speech on the eve of his departure for Russia.

Arriving at the airport, where it was pouring with rain, they found that Camille Point, the officer in command of the Airport Gendarmerie, had the situation under control. In the distance, barely visible in the rain squalls, they could see the Israeli aircraft which had been the target standing unscathed at the end of a reserve runway. Boisseau left Grelle with Camille Point for a moment to check the position with a radio-equipped patrol car. The whole airport was swarming with armed police.