Colin Forbes: The Stone leopard

'For France…'

Grelle squeezed the trigger.

The rocket sped up from the rooftop. Grelle was running one flight down to the room where the Algerian terrorist was still waiting for the chopper to come and take him to safety. In the empty sky above Charles de Gaulle Airport there were only two occupants-the ascending rocket and ascending Concorde. There was instant panic among the radar operators tracking Concorde's course. Another object had appeared on their scanners. An incredibly small object, streaking across the screens at supersonic speed, moving so fast that only one operator was able to shout.

Guy Florian was speaking from the flight deck over the radio, relaying a message which was being transmitted as people gathered around television sets in Paris bars to watch the climbing Concorde. 'This historic mission I am making to Moscow will further the cause of world peace so that our grand-children..

The Russian-made strela missile impacted with Concorde at the control cabin. The head and neck of the plane-which enclosed the control cabin from where Florian was speaking- broke off from the body. As the fuel detonated there was a tremendous b-o-o-m. In the streets of Paris twenty-five kilometres away people stopped as though they had been shot. From the ground the assembled cabinet ministers saw a terrible fireball flare as the fuel ignited seconds after the control cabin had gone spinning off into space. The fireball consumed half the body while the rear half fell away and plumed into a second fiery dart which plunged into fields thirty kilometres away. As the dart settled a great column of black smoke rose vertically into the clear morning sky. A fragment of tail landed a score of metres away from the cabinet ministers and they scattered. Up to that moment they had stood there in silence, motionless with horror.

It was Main Blanc who recovered first, slipping away to his car. 'Drive like hell back to Paris,' he ordered.

The entire village where the missile had been fired from was sealed off. Grelle personally directed the operation. Patrol-cars converging on the village overtook the police prefect as he was driving towards le Mesnil Amelot, and he led the way into the village where the inhabitants were now in the street, staring skywards in a state of shock. The cars pulled up and Grelle was the first to jump out.

`Back into your houses… everyone off the street… there may be shooting at any second…'

The village was sealed off within three minutes as more cars arrived, as Grelle ordered a house-to-house search and warned his men against getting trigger-happy. saw something streak into the sky from this village,' he told the inspector in charge of the detachment. 'Me too,' the inspector replied excitedly. Over a car's radio Grelle got in touch with Boisseau. `Keep the streets of Paris clear. No crowd must be allowed to assemble. Use the CRS troops if necessary. Someone may try to organize an insurrection.'

Having attended to Paris, Grelle resumed control of the house-to-house search. It was 10.55 am, exactly-he had checked the time by his watch-when he heard the inspector running down the street, shouting his head off. They had found the Algerian.

Abou Benefeika was on the rooftop of the abandoned factory, sprawled on his back, his eyes open as he stared sightless at the sky, his own Magnum pistol in his hand, with one bullet fired, bearing his own fingerprints. He had apparently shot himself through the right temple. The SAM missile launcher lay close by next to a spare rocket; later, when they checked the weapon, it also carried his fingerprints.

On 7 January the great bells of Notre Dame rang out for the state funeral of Guy Florian-part of his body had miraculously survived intact-and heads of state from all over the world attended the occasion, including the titular president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Alain Blanc, newly elected prime minister, led the mourners.

On the previous Christmas Eve, Marc Grelle handed in his resignation as police prefect of Paris to Alain Blanc, who had also temporarily taken over the post of Minister of the Interior. The two men remained closeted in private for over an hour. Grelle then immediately issued a statement to the press. 'Failing in my duty to protect the life of the president of the French Republic, I have resigned and will go into immediate retirement.' Georges Hardy, Grelle's old friend and police prefect of Lyon, took over as police prefect of Paris.

On 8 January, the day after the state funeral of the president, which Grelle had watched alone on television in his apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, the ex-prefect drove Alan Lennox to the airport for his flight back to London. Still convalescent and heavily bandaged, Lennox had insisted on going home at once after making a lengthy deposition of his activities in France to Andre Boisseau. The deposition made no mention of the Leopard, and Boisseau, who carried out the interrogation personally, never referred to the Resistance leader once.

After seeing the Englishman aboard his flight at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Grelle started the drive back to Paris alone. In his breast pocket he carried the photograph of his wife, Pauline, which he had extracted from the frame in his apartment. His last words to Alan Lennox before leaving him had been nostalgic. 'For years I have looked forward to retiring to a certain village in the Dordogne-the fishing there is good…' But Grelle had devoted most of his life to preserving and upholding the law; nor had he any illusions that the steps he had taken to cover his tracks would stand up to intensive investigation. He had only sought to buy himself a little time. If he was not available for questioning then, in due course, Boisseau could issue his report confirming that Abou Benefeika was responsible for the president's death. He hit the crash barrier travelling at 140 kph.

Over five hundred people attended his funeral. And as at the funeral of Guy Florian, Alain Blanc, later to become the next president of France, was the chief mourner. On top of the coffin was draped Marc Grelle's black uniform embroidered in silver, which is reserved for official occasions. 'It struck me,' Andre the Squirrel remarked afterwards, 'that he would have preferred them to drape slacks and a polo-necked sweater…' The Prime Minister was one of the pall-bearers, and as he walked slowly with a corner of the coffin perched on his shoulders there were people who said later that never before or since had they seen Alain Blanc so distressed.