Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

Lennox's career soared at the time when Arab terrorists were turning their attention to blowing up non-Arab oilfields-to increase the economic power of the Middle East fields. In an emergency, boards of directors turn to the man who can save them; they turned to Lennox. Travelling widely, he organized new systems to protect oilfields, tankers and refineries in four continents. He soon decided that defensive measures were not enough; if you are to win you must carry the war into enemy territory.

Disappearing into the twilight world of counter-espionage, often for months at a time, Lennox penetrated the terrorist groups, locating their camps in the Lebanon and farther back in Syria. At this time he was employing all sorts of dubious people, paying them large sums in tax-free cash-which drove prim accountants at headquarters crazy. One of his most successful anti-terrorist teams was recruited from the Union Corse-the French Mafia- who were annoyed because Arab money had bought up certain Parisian protection rackets they had previously controlled. 'The Red Night of July 14' was splashed across the world's headlines.

Lennox waited until he was ready, waited patiently for months while he built up an intimate knowledge of the terrorist gangs. On 4. July he struck. The Union Corse team-speaking French, the second language in Lebanon-landed by helicopters and came ashore from boats on isolated beaches. In eight hours they wiped out three major terrorist gangs, killing over two hundred men. Only Corsicans could have killed so swiftly and mercilessly. From that night the sabotage of oil installations dropped to five per cent of its previous volume.

It was during these years that Lennox came into contact with leading security and police chiefs from Tokyo to Washington, including men like David Nash and Peter Lanz, and organizations like the FBI and the Surete Nationale, all of whom provided discreet and unofficial help to a man who could take the ultimate measures they were not empowered to employ. At a later period he spent four years with an American company, including hazardous months along the Mexican border where terrorists were infiltrating with Mexican peasants coming into the United States to find work. Then, without warning, he resigned to set up his own outfit.

His private life was less successful. Married twice, he lost both wives to other men who came home each night. 'To my home,' he said sardonically. In both cases he divorced his wife despite the urgent plea of one that he assume the role of guilty party. 'You knew what my life was like before we married,' he said bluntly. 'I warned you time and again-and the one thing I can't stand is people who break contracts… At the moment Lennox was consoling himself with his third girl friend without too much enthusiasm. He knew what the trouble was: three years after the foundation of his own company he felt that once again he had done what he had set out to do, so he was losing interest. 'I'm bloody bored,' he told himself as he drank his Scotch. 'I need something new… He raised his glass to the telephone. 'Ring,' he told it, 'ring from some faraway place…

He had finished his Scotch and was taking the steak out of the fridge when the phone rang. Knowing it had to be a wrong number, he picked up the receiver. The international telephone operator had a seductive voice. 'Mr Alan Lennox?' she inquired. 'Overseas call for you. Person-to-person. From Washington…'

Two men stood talking in the walled Paris garden, their overcoat collars turned up against the chill December wind. One of them was tall and slim, the other short and powerfully-built, and the language they conversed in was French. The Leopard, tall and slim, shook his head doubtfully as his companion repeated the same argument forcefully.

`We believe it is essential to eliminate Col Lasalle. We have people who can make it look like an accident, people waiting at this moment for the order to proceed…

`It could be a mistake…

`It could be a mistake to do nothing, not to take action. These people who would deal with the matter ate competent, I assure you…

They went on discussing the problem as darkness fell and beyond the walls the Paris rush-hour traffic built up to a peak. Not a score of metres from where the two men stood, the life of the capital proceeded in its normal mundane way and some people were even buying presents for Christmas.

Carel Vanek drove the Citroen DS 21 forward at high speed, heading for the bulky figure standing in the middle of the concrete track. The light was bad; it was late in the afternoon of 11December, just before dark. Through the windscreen Vanek saw the figure rush towards him, blur as the car hit it at 90 kph, elevate under the impact, then the whole vehicle wobbled as he drove on, passing over the body. A dozen metres beyond he pulled up with a scream of tyres, looked over his shoulder, used the reverse gear, then backed at speed.

The body lay still in the dusk, a vague hump as he backed towards it, accelerating. Vanek never enjoyed himself more than behind the wheel of a car; he felt he was an extension of the mechanism, that the gear lever was another arm, the brake a third foot. It was exhilarating. He went on backing at speed and his aim was perfect. For the second time he felt the wobble as the Citroen's wheels passed over the hump lying in the roadway. Then he went on, backing into a sharp curve, stopping, driving forward again, turning the wheel until he was moving away at speed in the opposite direction.

`Thirty-five seconds,' the quiet man in the back of the car said as he clicked his stop-watch.

Vanek braked with a jerk that nearly threw the passenger in the seat beside him through the windscreen, laughing as Walther Brunner cursed. 'Do you have to be quite so dramatic?' Brunner demanded as he sagged back in his seat.

`Reaction-reaction… Vanek snapped his fingers. 'It's what this is all about. On the day when we visit Lasalle I might have to do just that-you must be ready for it…

They got out of the car and walked back up the abandoned race-track which lies just outside the Czech town of Tabor, forty-five miles south of Prague. Little more than a bulky shadow in the distant gloom, Michael Borisov, the Russian in charge of the training centre, was bending over the form in the road, a form constructed of sacking and straw for the limbs, the body and the head. A powerful spring had held the make- believe man upright until Vanek had hit him.

`Good?' Vanek inquired as he reached Borisov. 'No delay at all on the second run-I went straight back and straight over him…

Borisov, thick-bodied and muffled in a fur coat and hat against the intense cold-a snow warning had been broadcast over the Prague radio-regarded the Czech sourly. Vanek was too sure of himself, too arrogant for him ever to like the man, and the trouble was Vanek was right: it had been a perfect run. The bloody Czech trained to perfection in everything he did. `We run back to the centre,' he said abruptly. 'I'll send someone to collect the car…' Borisov had spoken in French; ever since training had begun all conversation had been carried on in the Gallic language.

They ran down the track through the chilly dusk which was almost darkness now and Vanek deliberately kept a few paces in front of the other three men to demonstrate his fitness. As they went inside a concrete cabin huddled under a copse of fir trees a wave of warmth from a boiling stove met them. Borisov, the oldest and the last of the four men to enter the building, slammed the door shut to keep in the warmth. Taking off their coats, they lit cigarettes-Gauloises-and sagged into chairs round a table. A large-scale map of France and Germany covered one wall; on another hung a map of Paris. Various guidebooks, including timetables, Michelin and the Guide Bleu occupied a wooden shelf. Most prominently displayed was a large photograph of Col Rene Lasalle.