Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

The Luger, sliding along the polished floor, had vanished. It turned into a dogfight. Vanek had age on his side; Wohl was enormously strong. The German, still gripping the stick, was clambering to his feet when Vanek crashed into him again to bring him down. Caught off-balance, Wohl toppled, half-recovered, then fell; clutching at a table to save himself; his hand caught a cloth, dragging it off with several porcelain vases which crashed to the floor. Falling backwards a second time, Wohl rolled again, taking the fall on his other shoulder. Vanek's legs loomed above him and he struck out with the stick he still grasped, catching the Czech a heavy blow on the shin. Vanek yelped, brought his fist down into Wohl's face, but the face moved and the blow was only glancing, sliding down the German's jaw. Behind them, Brunner still couldn't do anything in the narrow hall. The two men grappled on the floor, rolling over, smashing into furniture, each trying to kill the other.

`I don't like it,' said Lanz.

`Those two cars-which might have been three?' Gruber queried. 'I'm moving in,' he decided. He was on the verge of issuing the order to the truckload of six men waiting in reserve behind the copse of trees when another report came in: a bus and a petrol tanker had moved into the section from the south, travelling one behind the other. Cursing, Gruber delayed giving the order. 'That's something we can do without,' he rasped. 'A bloody collision in the fog…'

`They always do it in a fog,' Lanz commented. 'One vehicle comes up behind another and hugs its tail. It gives them comfort so they ignore the risk…'

`I'm getting worried,' said Gruber.

They waited until the policeman at the northern end of the section reported traffic moving past-he couldn't identify the vehicles-and then Gruber told the reserve truck to drive to Wohl's house. Twenty seconds later-too late to stop it- another report came in from the southern end of the section. A second petrol tanker had appeared and was now moving slowly into the section.

Wohl's hallway, normally so neat and tidy and cared for-the ex-Abwehr officer was a methodical soul-was a total shambles. Furniture was wrecked, pictures had come off the walls, the floor was littered with the debris of smashed porcelain, and there was a certain amount of smeared blood. Wohl's stick lay on the floor beside its dead owner; the German's skull had been cracked by his own weapon.

Vanek, still panting, left Brunner by the front door and went inside the living-room where a light was burning. The Czech had expected to spend some time searching for the war diary and manuscript but he found them waiting for him on the German's desk; Wohl had been working on his memoirs when the door-bell rang. Vanek read only a few words of the neat, hand-written diary. In 1944 the Leopard went everywhere accompanied by a vicious wolf-hound called Cesar…

Stuffing the diary and the few pages of manuscript into his pocket, he returned to the hall to look for the missing Luger; on his way out of the living-room he toppled a bookcase so it crashed to the floor, scattering its contents. There was no question of making this death look like an accident but it could still look like an attempted burglary which had gone wrong. He found the Luger hidden under a low chest and went to the front door where Brunner was waiting for him. 'Something's coming,' Brunner warned. As Vanek moved through the doorway a police truck appeared, stopping just beyond the house. A second later something large loomed out of the mist, corning very slowly. A petrol tanker. It began crawling past the stationary police vehicle as men emerged from it. Vanek raised the Luger, took deliberate aim, fired three times.

The heavy 9-mm slugs penetrated the side of the tanker with a series of thuds. Vanek began running towards the Mercedes, followed by Brunner. Behind them someone shouted, a muffled shout, succeeded by a muffled boom. The petrol tanker flared, a sheet of flame consumed the mist and behind the two running Czechs someone started screaming and went on and on. Billowing black smoke replaced the mist and a nauseating stench drifted on the night air. Vanek reached the car where Lansky, white-faced, sat behind the wheel with the motor ticking over.

`What the hell was that..'

`Get it moving,' Vanek snarled. 'Slam your foot down-if we hit something we hit it…'

The Mercedes accelerated, not to high speed but very fast for the mist-bound road. Brunner, who had wrenched open the rear door, was still only half-inside the vehicle when it moved off with the door swinging loose beside him. A few metres further along the road Lennox had heard the shots and then what sounded like an explosion. He was standing on the grass verge when the Mercedes's blurred headlights rushed towards him with the rear door still open and someone only half-inside the car. Behind it a police siren had started up. He fired twice as the car roared past him and both bullets penetrated Brunner's arched back. The Czech's body spun out of the open door and thumped down in the road as the Mercedes vanished in the mist, still picking up speed.

The star of the most corrupt and power-mad Republic the world has ever seen is fading… America, that mongrel-mix of the debris of a score of nations is now a ferment of internal decay… Withdrawing her troops from Europe when she no longer had the strength to rule the world, she is now dissolving into chaos… One thing above all we must ensure! That never again can she lay her greedy hands on the lands of other people-on Europe!'

It was President Florian's most vicious attack yet and it was made in a speech at Marseilles where the French Communist party is never far below the surface. A massive audience acclaimed the speech, showing the enormous support Florian enjoyed in the south where once, so many years earlier, a Republique Sovietique du Sud had almost been established at the end of the Second World War.

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)…