Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

`Then I must leave at once for the embassy, Mr President. We have reached a stage where minutes count. Do you know where they will take the Devaud woman?'

`To the rue des Saussaies…'

In his apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, Grelle switched off the tape-recorder and looked at Alain Blanc who sat in an elegant chair with his legs crossed and a glass of cognac in his hand. The Minister's expression was grim: it was the third time the recording had been played back for his benefit and he now knew the conversation word for word. He drank the rest of his cognac in one gulp and there were beads of sweat on his high-domed forehead.

He looked up as Grelle spoke.

`Within two hours of that conversation-I phoned the security officer at the Elysee and Vorin arrived there at 9.15- Annette Devaud was brutally murdered by the assassin we later trapped in Place de la Concorde,' the prefect said. 'There is no room for doubt any more that the man who..'

`I recognize Florian's voice,' Blanc broke in impatiently. `Vorin's too. There is no room for doubt at all.' He sighed. 'It is a terrible shock but not so much of a surprise. For days now I have been wondering what was going on-although I never suspected the appalling truth. These rumours of a right-wing coup which seemed to emanate from near-Communist sources. Florian's sudden and quite inexplicable journey to Baden- Baden…'

Blanc stood up and hammered his fist into the palm of his other hand.

`Oh Jesus Christ what have we come to, Grelle? I have known him since he was a young man at the Polytechnique after the war. I organized his rise to power. How could I have been so blind?'

`Caesar is always above suspicion…'

`As I have just told you, I had a phone call from Col Doissy at Baden-Baden before I left to come here-saying that the 2nd and 5th divisions will proceed to Metz and stay there, which leaves Germany naked. With the American Congress in its present isolationist mood Washington will not even threaten to press the nuclear button-Moscow has its own button. The United States will only react if the American mainland is in danger. All this stems from the fiasco in Viet Nam and Cambodia. You know what I think is going to happen within the next few hours?'

`What?'

`I think Florian will announce in Moscow tomorrow the conclusion of a military pact with the Soviets-remember, the president can conclude such a pact himself. You've seen that report which just came in from Brussels-I think Florian will further announce joint military manoeuvres with the Russians. The ports of Toulon and Marseilles will be opened for the landing of Soviet troops aboard convoy K. 12.'

`Then something must be done…'

`Germany will wake up to find herself encircled-Soviet divisions to the east of her, Soviet divisions west of the Rhine. On French soil! I think Florian will fly back from Moscow later tomorrow and if there is any reaction here he will say there has been an attempted right-wing coup d'etat by Col Lasalle and half of us will be behind bars…'

`Calm yourself,' Grelle advised.

`Calm myself he says…' Blanc was showing great agitation, his face covered in nervous sweat as he moved restlessly about the living-room. 'Within a few days we may even have the Soviet flag flying alongside the tricolour!' Accepting the refilled glass from Grelle he made as if to swallow it in a gulp, then stiffened himself and took only a sip.

`We have to decide what to do,' Grelle said quietly.

`Exactly!' Blanc, after his outburst, suddenly recovered his natural poise. 'It is quite useless consulting other ministers,' he said firmly. 'Even if I called a secret meeting they would never take a decision, someone would leak the news, it would reach the Elysee, Florian would act, call us right-wing conspirators, declare a state of emergency…'

It was Grelle who brought up the precedent of President Nixon, pointing out that whatever the solution, the public and the world must never know the truth. `Nixon's actions were a bagatelle, hardly more than a misdemeanour compared with what we are talking about. Yet look at the shattering effect it had on America when he was exposed. Can you imagine the effect on France-on Europe-if it is ever revealed that the French president is a Communist agent? No one would ever be sure of us again. France would be demoralized…'

`You are, of course, quite right,' Blanc said gravely. 'It must never become public knowledge. Do you realize, Grelle, that leaves only one solution?'

`Florian must be killed…'

Along the German-Czechoslovak border between Selb and Grafenau there was a sudden burst of Soviet aerial activity in the early hours of 23 December, at first thought to be connected with large-scale manoeuvres and winter exercises being carried out by the Warsaw Pact countries. Later Soviet Foxbat aircraft were reported to have crossed and recrossed over the frontier and Chancellor Franz Hauser was dragged out of bed at 2 am to assess the situation. At 3 am he ordered an amber alert which mobilized forces along the disturbed frontier and certain back-up groups.

At 2 am, pacing round his living-room, Grelle was little more than a moving silhouette in the smoke accumulated from the two men's cigarettes. 'I have imagined myself as an assassin,' he said. 'When I planned the security cordon I plugged up loopholes by seeing how I would have gone about the job of making an attempt on Florian's life tomorrow. I don't think anyone can penetrate the cordon.'

`Perhaps I could,' Blanc suggested quietly. 'It has to be just between the two of us-only in that way can we ensure it will always remain a secret. If I had a gun-while I was waiting with the other ministers drawn up at the airport waiting for him to board Concorde.. .'

`Impossible!' Grelle dismissed the idea with a contemptuous gesture. 'Everyone would wonder why you of all people had done it. And I have told the security squads that if anyone- even a minister-produces a revolver he is to be shot instantly.' He stopped in front of Blanc's chair. 'To make my point I have even told them that if I produce a revolver they must shoot me.'

`Then it cannot be done…'

`It can be done by only one man.'

`Who is?'

`The man who devised the security cordon, of course. Myself.'

Before returning to his Ministry in the rue Saint-Dominique, Blanc made two more efforts to speak to Florian. When he phoned the Elysee from Grelle's apartment the operator told him that the president could not be disturbed, 'except in the event of world war…'

Blanc then drove through the night to the Elysee to find the wrought-iron gates-always open before and barred only by a white-painted chain-closed, sealing off the courtyard beyond. Blanc leaned out of the window. 'Open up at once,' he demanded. 'You know who I am, for God's sake…'

The officer in charge came out of the pedestrian entrance to apologize, but he was quite firm. 'The president issued the instruction personally. No one is to be allowed in tonight- except. .'

`In the event of world war. I know!' Blanc jumped out of the car, pushed past the officer and went through the side entrance. Running across the cobbled yard and up the seven steps he found the tall glass doors locked. Inside the lobby another official who knew him well shook his head, then made a scissors gesture across his body. Blanc, who a moment before had been livid, stood quite still and lit a cigarette. The scissors gesture had decided him. A simple act by an official of no consequence at all, but it crystallized the whole position for Alain Blanc. The president had sealed himself off inside a fortress until he flew to Russia in the morning

Arriving back at his Ministry, Blanc went straight down to the emergency communications room. 'Get Gen Lamartine,' he ordered. 'Tell him not to dress-I need him here five minutes from now…' There had been tension among the seven uniformed officers on duty on his arrival, but in the few minutes he had to wait for General-in-Chief Lamartine his ice-cold manner defused the tension. Lamartine arrived grizzle-faced and with a coat thrown over his dressing-gown.