Colin Forbes - The Stone leopard

December 8-December 16

`USA is Shackville..'

`This barbaric American civilization, this land of skyscrapers and hovels… In New York incredible wealth looks down from penthouses on incredible poverty and nothing ever lasts for even five minutes-least of all marriage in that land of divorcees…

`What a wonderful civilization this is-controlled by the cement lobby, the car lobby, the oil lobby. So, skyscrapers barely twenty years old are torn down to make way for even more hideous monoliths. Freeways and expressways spawn and roll across the plains-so these unhappy and neurotic people can drive on and on-from A to A to A! In the United States you never reach B- every new place you come to is the same as the place you have come from! And this is the America which attempts to dominate Europe!'

`Let me warn you, my friends. If Europe is not to become a second Shackville, then we must fight to cleanse her of all American influence…'

Extract from speech at Dijon on 7 December by Guy Florian, President of the Republic of France.

After Giscard came de Gaulle…'

The dry comment was made by a British Foreign Office under-secretary off the record. A spokesman at the American State Department put it more grimly. 'After Giscard came a more brutal de Gaulle-de Gaulle magnified by the power of ten.' They were, of course, referring to the new President of the French Republic, only a few hours before the first attempt to kill him.

It was his anti-American outburst at Dijon which provoked these two descriptions of the most powerful political leader in western Europe. Understandably, the real sorrow in certain Washington circles at the news of the attempted assassination of President Florian was that it had failed. But on that wintry December evening when Florian left the Elysee Palace to walk the few dozen metres to the Ministry of the Interior in the Place Beauvau, he was within seconds of death.

The rise to power of Guy Auguste Florian, who succeeded Giscard d'Estaing as President of the French Republic, was spectacular and unexpected-so unexpected that it caught almost every government in the world off balance. Tall, slim and agile, at fifty-two Florian looked ten years younger; exceptionally quick-witted, he was impatient of minds which moved more slowly than his own. And there was something of de Gaulle in his commanding presence, in the way he dominated everyone around him by sheer force of personality. At eight o'clock on the evening of Wednesday, 8 December, he was at his most impatient when Marc Grelle, Police Prefect of Paris, warned him against walking in the streets.

`There is a car waiting. It can drive you to the Ministry, Mr President…

`You think I will catch a chill?' Florian inquired. 'Maybe you would like a doctor to accompany me the two minutes it will take to get there?'

`At least he would be available to stop the blood flow if a bullet finds you…

Marc Grelle was one of the few men in France who dared to answer Florian back in his own sardonic coin. Forty-two years old, a few inches shorter than the six-foot-one president, the police prefect was also slim and athletic and a man who disliked formality In fact, Grelle's normal dress for most of his working day was a pair of neatly pressed slacks and a polo- necked sweater, which he was still wearing. Perhaps it was the informality, the ease of manner which made the prefect, widowed a year earlier when his wife died in a car crash, attractive to women. His appearance may have helped; sporting a trim, dark moustache which matched his thatch of black hair, he had, like the president, good bone structure, and although normally poker-faced, his firm mouth had a hint of humour at the corners. He shrugged as Florian, putting on a coat, prepared to leave his study on the first floor of the Elysee.

`I'll come with you then,' the police prefect said. 'But you take foolish risks…'

He followed Florian out of the study and down the stairs to the large hall which leads to the front entrance and the enclosed courtyard beyond, slipping on his leather raincoat as he walked. He left his coat open deliberately; it gave easier access to the. 38 Smith amp; Wesson revolver he always carried. It is not normal for a prefect to be armed but Marc Grelle was not a normal prefect; since one of his prime duties was to protect the president inside the boundaries of Paris he took the responsibility personally. In the carpeted lobby a uniformed and bemedalled usher opened the tall glass door, and Florian, well ahead of the prefect, ran down the seven steps into the cobbled yard. Still inside, Grelle hurried to catch him up.

To reach the Ministry of the Interior, which is only three minutes' walk from the Elysee, the president had to leave the courtyard, cross the rue Faubourg St Honore, walk a few dozen metres to the Place Beauvau where he would turn into the entrance to the Ministry. He was starting to cross the street when Grelle, saluting the sentries briefly, came out of the courtyard. The prefect glanced quickly to left and right. At eight in the evening, barely a fortnight before Christmas, which is not celebrated with any great enthusiasm in Paris, it was dark and quiet. There was very little traffic about and on his face Grelle felt spots of moisture. It was going to rain again, for God's sake-it had rained steadily for weeks and nearly half France was under water.

The street was almost empty, but not quite; coming towards the Elysee entrance from the Madeleine direction, a couple paused under a lamp while the man lit a cigarette. British tourists, Grelle guessed: the man, hatless, wore a British warm; the woman was dressed in a smart grey coat. Across the road was someone else, a woman who stood alone close to a fur shop. A moment earlier she had been peering into the window. Now, half-turned towards the street, she was fiddling inside her handbag, presumably for a handkerchief or comb.

A rather attractive woman-in her early thirties so far as Grelle could see-she wore a red hat and a form-fitting brown coat. As he headed for the Place Beauvau, crossing the street diagonally, Florian was passing her at an angle. Never a man to fail to notice an attractive woman, the president glanced at her and then moved on. All this Grelle took in as he reached the sidewalk kerb, still a few metres behind his impatient president.

No detectives were assigned to accompany Florian when he went out: he had expressly forbidden what he called 'an invasion of my privacy. ..' Normally he travelled in one of the black Citroen DS 23s always waiting parked inside the courtyard, but he had developed this irksome habit of walking to the Place Beauvau whenever he wanted to see the Minister of the Interior. And the habit had become known, had even been reported in the press.

`It's dangerous,' Grelle had protested. 'You even go out at the same time-at eight in the evening. It wouldn't be difficult for someone to wait for you…

`You think the Americans will send a gunman?' Florian had inquired sardonically.

`There are always cranks…'

Grelle had stepped off the kerb, was still catching up with Florian, his eyes darting about, when something made the president glance back. He was hardly more than a metre away when the woman took the gun out of her handbag. Quite coolly, showing no sign of panic, her arm steady, she took deliberate, point-blank aim. Florian, twisted round, froze in sheer astonishment for only a matter of seconds. In another second he would have been running, ducking, doing something. The sound of two shots being fired in rapid succession echoed down the street like the drumbeat backfire of a large car.

The body lay in the gutter, quite inert, quite dead. The complete lack of movement is always the most disturbing thing. Grelle bent over her, the. 38 Smith amp; Wesson still in his hand. He felt shocked. It was the first time he had killed a woman. When the Forensic Institute people examined the corpse later, they found one of Grelle's bullets in her heart, the second, one centimetre to the right. A moment earlier the prefect had hustled the president back inside the courtyard, gripping him tightly by the arm, taking no notice of what he said, ushering him back inside the Elysee like a felon. Now guards with automatic weapons were flooding into the street. Far too late.