Jack Higgins - Wrath of the Lion

“On three occasions now he has presided at tribunals which have condemned old comrades of mine to death,” de Beaumont said. “Now he must pay the consequences. By striking at Granville we prove once and for all that we are a force to be reckoned with. That no man, however powerful, no matter what his public standing, is safe from our vengeance.”

“Henri Granville never condemned anyone in his life without good reason. Harm him in any way and you’ll bring the mountain in on you.” Mallory shook his head. “You’ll never get away with it.”

De Beaumont smiled faintly, crossed to the fire and poured more cognac into his glass. “You think not?” He swallowed a little of the cognac and sighed. “I will postpone your execution till this evening. By that time Jacaud will have returned. It will give me some satisfaction in sending you to your death with the knowledge that Henri Granville has preceded you.”

“Which remains to be seen,” Mallory said.

De Beaumont turned and indicated a tattered battle standard hanging above the fireplace. “An ancestor of mine carried that himself at Waterloo when his standard-bearer was shot. It was with me at Dien-Bien-Phu. I managed to hang on to it during all those bitter months of captivity. You will notice it bears the motto of the de Beaumonts.”

"Who dares, wins",” Mallory said.

“I would remember that if I were you.”

“Something you seem to have forgotten,” Mallory said. “When that ancestor of yours picked up that standard at Waterloo he didn’t carry it forward on his own. There was a regiment of guards backing him up all the way and I seem to remember that at Dien-Bien-Phu you commanded a regiment of colonial paratroops. But, then, that’s France I’m speaking about. The real France. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

For a moment something glowed in de Beaumont’s eyes, but he pushed back his anger and forced a smile. Take him below, Jacaud. He and Guyon can spend their last hours together trying to solve an impossible problem. The thought will amuse me.”

Jacaud gave Mallory a push towards the door. As he opened it, de Beaumont said calmly: “And, Jacaud, when I next see Colonel Mallory I expect him to be in his present condition. You understand?”

Jacaud turned sharply, a growl rising in his throat. For a moment he seemed about to defy de Beaumont and then he turned suddenly and pushed Mallory forward.

They went down the spiral staircase, Mallory leading, all the time aware of the machine-gun at his back. The gallery was in half-darkness, the fire a heap of glowing ashes, as they crossed the hall and went through the door which led to the living-quarters and the cave.

At the end of a long whitewashed corridor they found Marcel sitting on a chair outside a door, reading a newspaper, the revolver stuck in his belt.

He looked up at Jacaud, eyes raised enquiringly. “When?”

“This evening when I get back from the mainland.” Jacaud turned to Mallory and patted the sub-machine-gun. A red glow seemed to light up behind the cold eyes. “Personally, Colonel Mallory.”

Mallory moved into the cell. As the door clanged behind him, Guyon swung his legs to the floor and sat looking at him.

He grinned suddenly. “You wouldn’t by any chance have such a thing as a cigarette on you, would you?

“I had lost all belief or interest in right or wrong. In the end you believe only in your friends, the comrade who had his throat cut the previous night. That was what six years in Algeria had done for me.”

Raoul Guyon stood by the small barred window gazing into the night. When he turned he looked tired.

“And this is why you joined the O.A.S.?” Mallory said.

Guyon shook his head. “I was in Algiers in 1958. So much blood that I was sickened by it. There was a young Moorish girl. For a little while we tried to shelter from the storm together. They found her on the beach one morning, stripped, mutilated. I had to identify the body. The following day I was badly wounded and sent back to France to convalesce. When I returned my comrades seemed to have the only solution. To bring back de Gaulle.”

“You took part in the original plot?”

Guyon shrugged. “I was on the fringe. Just one more junior officer. But to me de Gaulle stood for order out of chaos. Afterwards most of us were posted to other units. I spent five months on patrol with the Camel Corps in the Hoggar.”

“And did you find what you were looking for?”

“Almost,” Guyon said. “There was a day of heat and thirst when I almost had it, when the rocks shimmered and the mountains danced in a blue haze and I was a part of it. Almost, but not quite.”

“What happened after that?”

“I was posted back to Algeria to one of the worst districts. A place of barbed wire and fear, where violence erupted like a disease and life was no longer even an act of faith. I was wounded again last year just before General Chile’s abortive coup. Not seriously, but enough to give me a legitimate excuse to put in a request to be placed on unpaid leave. The night before I left, Legrande visited me in my hotel room. Offered me work with the Deuxieme Bureau.”

“And you accepted?”

“In a strange way it offered me some sort of escape. Later, in Paris, I was approached by O.A.S. agents. As an ex-paratroop officer and supporter of the original coup which had placed de Gaulle in power, I must have seemed an obvious choice.”

“And you informed Legrande?”

“As soon as I could get in touch with him. That was the funny thing. I didn’t even have to make a choice. It was almost as if it had been made for me. He told me to accept the offer. From his point of view an agent with contacts in that direction would obviously be valuable.”

“And yet we were informed that the Deuxieme had no real suspicions about de Beaumont. Surely you must have had some sort of lead on him through your Paris connections with the other side?”

“Not really. I was only on the edge of their organisation. De Beaumont’s name was mentioned as one sympathetic to their aims. On the other hand, his political opinions are well known in France. There was certainly never any hint that he might be an active worker.”

“And all this time you were completely accepted?”

“I certainly thought so. As a new recruit to the Deuxieme, it was obvious that my sources would be limited, but I passed on selected information of Legrande’s orders. I certainly never managed to get close to any of the really big men, but I was working towards it. On two occasions he even allowed me to warn some of the lesser fry when their arrest was imminent.”

“What about L’Alouette?”

“That was the thing which puzzled us from the beginning. The complete absence of information as to her whereabouts, even in O.A.S. circles. Because of that Legrande told me to inform my Paris contacts that I had been assigned to the Channel Islands merely to run a routine check on de Beaumont, just to make sure that he was behaving himself. Legrande felt that at least it would prove once and for all whether a definite link existed.”

“Something he didn’t see fit to inform us at our end.”

“I’m sorry about that, but Legrande never lives in the present – only the future. He envisaged a possible situation in which my other activities could prove useful. Under the circumstances it seemed wiser to present myself merely as Raoul Guyon, an accredited agent of the Bureau and nothing more.”

“I see the old fox is still a believer in playing his cards as they fall,” Mallory said. “It shows in his poker game.”

“A remark strangely similar to one he made about you just before I left.”