The Stone leopard

CHAPTER ONE

It had been the secret nightmare of every major security service in the west since the earliest days of the Cold War- and the later phoney period of so-called `detente'-that in one major country or another a secret Communist would stay dormant until he had worked his way up the ladder of power and reached the summit.

This is the man who is most feared by intelligence chiefs in London, Washington and other capitals-the Rip Van Winkle of Communism who has no contact with Russian agents, who visits no safe houses to pass on information, who is controlled by no spymaster. And because for many years he has no contact with Moscow there is no way to detect him as, by sheer ability, he continues his climb. He is not interested in delivering the details of a guided missile system to Moscow-he hopes to deliver his country.

It was Col Rene Lasalle who first caught a whiff of conspiracy when he was still assistant chief of military counter-intelligence. Burrowing deeper into the background of the elusive Leopard, he came up against Guy Florian, who dismissed him for crossing the thin line between military and political counter-espionage. By a strange quirk of history it fell to Marc Grelle to take up the trail again where Lasalle had been compelled to lose it.

On Friday, 17 December-the day the Soviet Commando crossed the border into France-Marc Grelle was distracted from his many duties by what, at the time, seemed a diversion, an incident which would be recorded in the files and forgotten. At ten in the morning he heard of the emergency at Orly airport where Algerian terrorists had just tried to destroy an El Al aircraft on the verge of take-off. 'We'd better go and have a look,' he told Boisseau. 'I thought the security at Orly was foolproof…' Grelle had reason to be worried; in only a few days' time Guy Florian was due to fly from Orly to Marseilles, where he would make a major speech on the eve of his departure for Russia.

Arriving at the airport, where it was pouring with rain, they found that Camille Point, the officer in command of the Airport Gendarmerie, had the situation under control. In the distance, barely visible in the rain squalls, they could see the Israeli aircraft which had been the target standing unscathed at the end of a reserve runway. Boisseau left Grelle with Camille Point for a moment to check the position with a radio-equipped patrol car. The whole airport was swarming with armed police.

`One of my men spotted the terrorist just in time,' Point explained. 'He was aiming his weapon at the El Al machine which was just about to take off with two hundred people aboard. Mouton-the gendarme-fired at him and missed, but he scared the terrorist who ran off and left his weapon behind. Come up on to the roof and I'll show you…

`This terrorist-he escaped?'

There was anxiety in Grelle's voice. It had been known for some time that an Algerian terrorist cell was operating inside Paris and the prefect was anxious to round up the whole gang. He had given orders-which Roger Danchin had approved- that if the gang was cornered the police were to shoot to kill. But one man was not enough. Boisseau, who had run back from the patrol-car, heard the question.

`He got away, yes,' Boisseau began.

`Shit!' Grelle said venomously.

`But we have him under observation,' Boisseau continued. `Using the new system you have set up for the presidential motorcade drive to Roissy on 23 December, he is being passed from one patrol-car to another at this moment. And he does not appear to realize he is being tailed. I have just heard that he is moving along the Peripherique, heading for northern Paris…'

Boisseau broke off as the driver of the near-by patrol-car waved to him. When he came back after taking the new radio report he nodded to the prefect. 'He's still under surveillance, still heading north. Do we risk losing him or close in?'

`Don't close in-and don't lose him,' Grelle replied.

`That's what I have just told them…'

It was worth the risk Grelle told himself as he followed Point up on to the roof of the building. If they could trace the Algerian to his secret hideout, maybe even then continue to keep him under surveillance, they stood a chance of wiping out the whole cell at one swoop. Reaching the rooftop, Grelle paused and stared. Five uniformed gendarmes were gathered round a bulky instrument lying on a sheet of canvas. The fingerprint man, who had just finished examining the weapon, stood up and addressed Boisseau. 'I've got what I want. Pleasant little plaything, isn't it?'

`Grail?' the prefect inquired.

`Yes, sir.' It was a young, keen-looking gendarme who replied.

Grail is the NATO code-name for the Russian-made SAM- surface-to-air missile system-of the man-portable variety. It was also the rocket-launcher, quite capable of being carried by one man, which Moscow had supplied in meagre quantities- and quite unofficially-to certain Arab terrorist organizations. Weighing no more than eighteen kilos when loaded with one rocket or strela (the Russian word for arrow) it has a range of between one and two miles.

Only a few years earlier, Heathrow Airport, London, had been sealed off while crack troops of the British Army took control in a major anti-terrorist operation. At the time there had been reports that a terrorist group armed with Grail was waiting to shoot down the incoming plane carrying Dr Kissinger. Similar to a bazooka in appearance, the weapon had a heavy stock and a complex-looking telescopic apparatus mounted over its thick barrel. Two rockets lay beside it on the canvas. Point flopped down behind the unarmed launcher and aimed it over the parapet at the stationary El Al plane. 'You should look at this,' he told the prefect. 'It gives me the creeps how close that bastard came to wiping out two hundred people. Buvon here knows the damned thing backwards. He's with the anti-terrorist section…

Grelle was appalled as he took up Point's prone position and gazed through the sight. The Israeli machine, blurred as it was by the rain, came up so close he felt he could reach out and touch it. Flopping beside him, Buvon demonstrated how it worked, even to the extent of inserting a rocket.

`It works on a heat sensor system. There is a device in the nose of the rocket which, once airborne, homes straight on to the highest temperature source within range-in this case, with the Israeli plane just airborne, it would have homed on the heat emitted by the machine's jet engines…

Stretched out in the rain, Grelle listened a little longer. 'Can the pilot of the plane take any evading action?' he inquired as he handled the weapon. 'Is there any hope?'

`None at all,' Buvon replied briskly. 'Even if he saw it coming, which is doubtful, even if he changed course-even more doubtful-the heat sensor would simply change direction, too, and go on heading for the target until they collided. Then -boom!-it's all over…

Remembering that Florian was due to fly off from this airport to Marseilles in only a few days, Grelle took an immediate decision. 'I'm carrying this hideous thing back to Paris myself,' he announced. 'Have it put in the rear of my car…' With Boisseau behind the wheel, they drove to Surete headquarters at the rue des Saussaies where the prefect personally watched it being put away inside a strong-room on the fourth floor which itself was isolated inside another room. Demanding all the keys to both rooms, he was handed three and when he asked if these were all he received an equivocal reply. 'There were four originally, but one of them was a bad fit. I understand it was destroyed.'

`No one, absolutely no one is to be allowed in this room without my permission,' Grelle ordered. 'When the army people want to have a look at it, they must come to me for the keys…

They had only just returned to the prefecture when Boisseau received a phone call. He went to the prefect's office to report immediately. 'The Algerian has gone to earth and we know where. He is inside an abandoned apartment block off the Boulevard de la Chapelle in the eighteenth arrondissement. The address is 17 rue Reamur…

`That stinking rabbit warren,' Grelle commented. It was the Arab Quarter in the Goutte-d'Or district, an area which had been an Arab preserve for over thirty years. 'Any more of the gang visible?' he inquired.

`There is no sign of anyone else about and we think he is alone. One of the patrol-car men who overtook him thinks he identified him as Abou Benefeika, but that's not certain.'

`He can't give us the slip, I hope?' Grelle asked.

`He's safely Penned up and we have men watching both front and rear entrances. Also there are good observation points where we can watch him night and day. Do we bring him in or leave him to ferment?'

`Let him ferment,' Grelle ordered.

In Basel at the Hotel Victoria, Alan Lennox heard the news report of the alert at Orly over his bedroom radio. He thought nothing of it as he sat smoking a cigarette, checking his watch occasionally; terrorist alerts at Orly had happened before. The Englishman was killing time, something he disliked, but there was a right moment to cross the border into France; about eleven in the morning he estimated. Earlier the passport control people would only just have come on duty; they would be irritable and alert as they started a new day; and they would give their full attention to the few travellers passing through.

At 11 am precisely he left the Victoria, crossed the street and went inside the Hauptbahnhof. At Basel Hauptbahnhof there is a French frontier control post unique in Europe. While technically still on Swiss soil, all French nationals returning home from Basel pass through a special checkpoint quite separate from Swiss passport control. The checkpoint is manned by French officials who deal only with their own countrymen. It was a perfect opportunity to test the false papers Peter Lanz had supplied.

If there was trouble-if the falseness of the papers was detected-he would be handed over to the Swiss police. He could then give them Peter Lanz's name and phone number and he had little doubt that, bearing in mind the discreet co-operation which goes on between the Swiss and German authorities, that Lanz could persuade them to release him into the hands of the German police. Lennox was not a man who had survived so far by taking unnecessary risks. Carrying his Swiss case, he joined the queue which was moving quickly. `Papers.. .'

It was unfortunate: the examination was conducted by one of the younger officials, a sharp-eyed man whose enthusiasm had not yet been dulled by years of looking at dog-eared passports. The official compared the photograph carefully with the man standing in front of him, then disappeared inside a room. Inwardly tense, Lennox leaned against the counter with a Gitane hanging out of the corner of his mouth, looked at the woman next to him and shrugged. These bloody bureaucrats, he seemed to say. The official came back, still holding the document.

`Which countries have you visited?'

`Switzerland and Germany…' It is always best to tell the truth whenever you can. Lennox looked bored as the young official continued examining the passport as though it were the first he had ever seen, as though he was sure there was something wrong.

`How long have you been away from France?'

`Three weeks…'

Always just answer the question. Never go babbling on, embroidering with a lot of detail. It is the oldest trick in the book, used by officials all over the world; get the suspect talking and sooner or later he trips himself up. The official handed back the passport. Lennox picked up his bag, was waved on by Customs, and walked on to the platform where the train for France was waiting. Within two hours he would be in Strasbourg.

The Munich express was due to arrive at Strasbourg in two hours. In the corner of a first-class compartment Carel Vanek sat reading a French detective novel and the aroma of an expensive cigar filled the compartment as the Czech smoked fitfully.

Opposite him the austere Brunner did not approve of the cigar; he had even made the mistake of making a reference to it. 'When we get back we shall have to account for our expenditure…'

`In a capitalist society an air of affluence opens all doors,' Vanek replied and turned the page of his book.

The truth was that Vanek enjoyed the good things of life and regarded Brunner as a bit of a peasant. Now, as they came closer to Strasbourg, he read his novel with only half his mind. He was thinking of Dieter Wohl, the German who lived in Freiburg. Of the three people on the list the Commando had to 'pay a visit'-Vanek's euphemism for terminating a life- the German was closest to them at this moment. It seemed logical that Dieter Wohl should be the first to receive a visit from them.

But the idea had not appealed to the Czech when he had first examined the list, and he found the same objections influencing him now they were approaching the Rhine. The point was Vanek did not wish to risk alerting a second security service-that of Germany-so early on in the trip; just in case the killing of Wohl by 'accident' went wrong. And later they would have to return across Germany from France on their way home. No, better leave Dieter Wohl until later. So, for quite different reasons, Vanek had taken the same decision as Alan Lennox-to go into France first.

Closing his novel, he puffed more cigar smoke in the direction of Brunner. Again Lansky was travelling on his own in a separate coach; it was good tactics and it also suited Vanek who disliked the younger Czech. Soon they would reach Kehl, the last stop inside Germany before the express crossed the Rhine bridge into France. He decided they would get off at Kehl-even though it would have been simpler to stay on the express until it reached Strasbourg. Vanek had an idea- which was not entirely incorrect-that the frontier control people cast a careful eye over international expresses. Getting off at Kehl, they could board a more local train to take them on to Strasbourg, and possibly purchase certain extra clothes while they were in the German city. He took out his papers and looked at them. When they arrived in Strasbourg they would be three French tourists returning from a brief winter sports holiday in Bavaria. There was no longer anything to link them with Czechoslovakia.

Leon Jouvel, 49 rue de l'Epine, Strasbourg, was the first name on the list Col Lasalle had handed to Alan Lennox. Fifty-three years old, Jouvel was small and plump with a bushy grey moustache, a shock of grey hair and a plump right hand which liked to squeeze the knees of pretty girls when he thought he could get away with it. Louise Vallon, who worked in the television shop he owned, found him easy to handle. 'He's not dangerous,' she confided to a friend, 'only hopeful, but recently he's seemed so depressed, almost frightened…'

What was frightening Leon Jouvel was something which had happened over thirty years ago and now seemed to have come back to haunt him. In 1944, working with the Resistance in the Lozere, he had been the Leopard's radio operator. Even holding that key position, like everyone else he had no idea what the Communist leader looked like. He had always known when the Leopard was close because the wolfhound, Cesar, would give a warning growl. Jouvel hated the beast, but obeying instructions he always forced himself to turn his back on the animal and wait with his notebook until the Leopard arrived and gave him the message to transmit. Noting down the message-which he immediately burned after transmission -he would hurry away to his concealed transmitter, aware only that the Resistance chief was a very tall man; once, on a sunny day, he had seen his shadow.

But because of his job-and the frequency of these brief communications-Jouvel was more familiar with the Leopard's voice than anyone in the Resistance group, and Jouvel had an acute ear for sounds. During the past eighteen months-since Guy Florian had become president-Jouvel had changed considerably. All his friends commented on the change. Normally jovial and talkative, Jouvel became irritable and taciturn, often not hearing what was said to him. It was the frequent appearance of the president on television which had unnerved the plump little man.

A widower, it had been Jouvel's custom to while away the evenings in bars and cafes, gossiping with friends. Now he sat at home alone in his second-floor apartment, watching the news bulletins and political broadcasts, waiting for Guy Florian to appear, to speak. During a Florian speech he would sit in front of the television set with his eyes shut, listening intently. It was quite macabre-the similarity in the voices, but it was impossible to be sure.

Sitting with his eyes closed he could have sworn he was listening to the Leopard standing behind him, giving him yet another message to transmit in those far-off days up in the mountains. He studied the speech mannerisms, noted the little hesitations which preceded a torrent of abuse as the president attacked the Americans. At first he told himself it was impossible: the Leopard had died in Lyon in 1944. Then he began to think back over the past, recalling the burial of the Leopard deep in the forest which he had attended. The four men who had handled the coffin-all of whom died a few days later in an ambush-had been in a great hurry to get the job over with. There had been a lack of respect. A few months later Jouvel had been terrified by a visit from Col Lasalle, who had arrived in mufti.

`This man, the Leopard,' the colonel had said, 'if you took down all these signals from him, surely you could recognize his voice if you heard it again?'

`It was so long ago…'

Fencing inexpertly with one of the most accomplished interrogators in France, Jouvel had managed not to reveal his crazy suspicion. Like many Frenchmen, Jouvel mistrusted both the police and the army, preferring to go his own way and not get mixed up with authority. But had he convinced the sharp- eyed little colonel he knew nothing? Jouvel sweated over the visit for weeks after Lasalle had gone. And now, only eight. days before Christmas, there had been the incident this evening.

Locking up his shop at six, he walked back over the bridge from the Quai des Bateliers into the deserted old quarter. After dark the rue de 1'Epine is a sinister street where ancient five- storey buildings hem in the shadows and your footsteps echo eerily on the cobbles. There is no one about and not too much light. This evening Jouvel was sure he had heard footsteps behind him.

Turning round suddenly, he caught the movement of a shadow which merged into the wall.

He forced himself to turn round and walk back, and it reminded him of all those occasions when he had once forced himself to turn his back on the Leopard's vicious wolfhound. Jouvel was trembling as he made himself go on walking back down the shadowed street, and he was sweating so much his glasses steamed up. Reaching the doorway where he had seen the shadow move, he couldn't be sure whether anyone was there. Pretending to adjust his glasses, he wiped them quickly with his fingers. The blur cleared and a heavily-built man with a fat face stared back at him out of the doorway. Jouvel almost fainted.

The fat-faced man who wore a dark coat and a soft hat, lifted a flask and drank from it noisily, then belched. Jouvel's pounding heart began to slow down. A drunk! Without saying a word he walked back up the street to his home. Behind him police detective Armand Bonheur was also sweating as he remained in the doorway. Good God, he had almost blown it! And the inspector's instructions had been explicit.

`Whatever happens, Jouvel must not suspect he is being tailed. The order comes right down the line from Paris…'

Turning in under the stone archway of No. 49, Jouvel went across the cobbled courtyard and into the building beyond. Climbing the staircase to the second floor, he was unlocking his apartment door when a red-haired girl peered out of the next apartment. He smiled pleasantly. 'Good evening, M'selle…' Disappointed, the girl made a rude gesture at his back. 'Silly old ponce.' For Denise Viron anything over forty was fodder for the graveyard; anything under forty, fair game.

Inside his apartment Jouvel hurried over to the television set and switched on. Brewing himself a cup of tea in the kitchen, he came back, settled in an old armchair and waited. Florian's head and shoulders appeared on the screen a few minutes later. Jouvel closed his eyes. 'The Americans want to turn Europe into one vast supermarket, selling American goods, of course…' And still Jouvel couldn't be certain. I must be going mad he thought.

`Mr Jouvel? He is away today but he is back in Strasbourg tomorrow. The shop opens at nine…'

Louise Vallon, Jouvel's assistant, put down the phone and thought no more about the call as she turned to attend to a customer. In a bar close to the shop Carel Vanek replaced the receiver and walked out on to the Quai des Bateliers where Walther Brunner sat waiting in the Citroen DS 23 they had just hired from the Hertz branch in the Boulevard de Nancy. `He's out of town today,' Vanek said as he settled himself behind the wheel, 'but he's back tomorrow. Which just gives us nice time to soak up some atmosphere…'

When the Soviet Commando had arrived aboard a local train from Kehl they split up again as they had done in Munich. Lansky had simply walked across the large cobbled square outside the station and booked a room at the Hotel Terminus in the name of Lambert. After depositing three sets of skis- which would never be collected-in the luggage store at Strasbourg Gare, Vanek and Brunner took two separate cabs at intervals to the Hotel Sofitel where they registered, quite independently, as Duval and Bonnard. Meeting outside the hotel, they went to the Boulevard de Nancy and hired the Citroen.

Before leaving his room at the Sofitel, Vanek had consulted Bottin, the French telephone directory, to check on Leon Jouvel's address. Yes, it was the address given on the list, 49 rue de l' 8pine, but there had also been the address of a television shop in the Quai des Bateliers. Using a street map of Strasbourg purchased from a newspaper kiosk, Vanek and Brunner had driven round the old city to locate both addresses before Vanek made his first call from the bar. He then drove a short distance from the quai before handing over the car to his companion. For the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening the three men would move round Strasbourg on their own, familiarizing themselves with the city's layout and getting the feel of being in France.

`Buy a paper, go into bars and cafes, chat with everyone you can,' Vanek had instructed. 'Start merging with your background by mixing with it. Take a short bus-ride, find out what people are talking about. By tonight I want you to be more French than the French themselves…'

Following his own advice, Vanek sampled the flavour of Strasbourg by walking. Unlike Brunner, from now on he walked everywhere, knowing that the easiest way to get your bearings in a strange city is to walk. As the street map indicated, the old quarter of the city was for all practical purposes an island surrounded by water, the huge 'moat' being formed by the river Il which encircles the heart of Strasbourg. A series of bridges all round the perimeter crossed the river into this ancient heart, built, for the most part, in the fourteenth century. It was still daylight at four o'clock, but only just in the narrow, silent rue de l'Epine, when Vanek walked in under the archway of No. 49.

One of the numerous plates at the entrance to the building registered the fact that Leon Jouvel lived on the second floor, and he was knocking on the door of the second-floor apartment when the door of the neighbouring apartment opened and a red-haired girl peered at him speculatively.

`He's gone away for the day to see his sister-back in the morning,' she informed the Czech. 'Do you think I could help you in some way?'

Vanek, careful to eye her hips and other parts of her anatomy with due appreciation, had no trouble at all in extracting from Denise Viron the information he needed. He was, he explained, a market research specialist. 'Mr Leon Jouvel is one of the people chosen to answer our questionnaire . a survey on pension needs.' Within a few minutes he learned that Jouvel was a widower, that he occupied the apartment on his own, that he possessed no animals-here Vanek had in mind a guard-dog-that he was out all day at the shop arid only returned at 6.30 in the evenings, that he was no longer a sociable man, so there were few visitors.

`If you would like to come in,' the girl said, smoothing her skirt down over her long, lithe legs, 'I might be able to help you in other ways…'

Vanek, whose appetite for women was healthy, made it a point never to mix business with pleasure. And in any case, the girl had so far not had too close a look at him in the gloomy hall. Explaining that he had five more people to interview that day, he left her with a vague impression he would certainly be calling on her again within a few days. As arranged earlier, at eight in the evening he met Brunner and Lansky at a corner of the Place Kleber as snow drifted down over the huddled rooftops of Strasbourg. Taking them into a crowded bar, he found a table at the back.

`… and so,' he continued a few minutes later, 'it is made to order for a quick solution. You visit him tomorrow night, soon after 6.30 when he has returned home…' It was Lansky he had chosen to pay a call on Leon Jouvel. 'He is a widower and lives on his own. He has a second-floor apartment and the building is quiet. No one about at all except for a red-headed girl who lives next door. She could be a nuisance-she's looking for somebody to keep her bed warm.'

`I don't like it,' Brunner said. 'You're moving too fast. We need more time to check on this man…

`Which is exactly what we have not got,' Vanek snapped. 'In five days from now-December 22-we have to complete the whole job, which includes visiting three people, one of them in Germany. So, the strategy is simple-we deal with the first two on the list quickly.. .'

`If the place is empty, I'd better take a preliminary look inside it tonight,' Lansky said. He stood up. 'We'll meet at the bus station in the Place de la Gare tomorrow at the time agreed?'

`It's dangerous to hurry it,' Brunner muttered.

Vanek leaned forward until his face almost touched Brunner's, still speaking very quietly. 'Think, man! It will be Saturday night-the body won't even be discovered until Monday morning at the earliest…'

The Rope used the set of French skeleton keys-which had been flown from Kiev to Tabor with the false Surete cards at the last moment-to open Jouvel's apartment door. It was a four-roomed apartment: a living-dining room with a colour television set, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. When he entered the apartment the first thing he did was to draw the curtains, then he examined the place with the aid of a pocket torch.

Everything was neat and tidy; Lansky reminded himself he must remember this when it came to setting the stage.

Lansky had brought no rope with him; purchasing a length of rope can be dangerous if the police institute a proper check afterwards. Instead he looked round for something on the premises-a sash cord, a belt, anything strong enough to hang a man by the neck until he is dead. Inside an old-fashioned, free-standing wardrobe he found what he was looking for-an old woollen dressing-gown with a cord-belt round the waist.

He tested the strength of the cord carefully by tying one end to the leg of the old-fashioned gas cooker in the kitchen and pulling hard on it. If necessary, to give it more strength he could immerse it in water later. Privately, he had already rejected Brunner's suggestion that Jouvel might drown in his own bath; that involved undressing a man, which took more time. And suicide was always something the police were willing to accept with a widower living on his own. He next tested the handle on the outside of the bathroom door to make sure it was firm. Brunner had told him it was not unusual for people to hang themselves on the inside of a bathroom door; perhaps they felt they could do the job here in decent privacy.

Twenty minutes is the maximum time a burglar allows for being inside a house; after that the statistics show the law of averages moves against him. Lansky carefully timed his visit for twelve minutes. He had re-opened the curtains and was ready to leave when he heard voices in the corridor near by. With his ear pressed against the door panel he listened carefully. Two voices, a man's and a girl's, probably the girl in the next apartment Vanek had mentioned. They were talking in French but Lansky couldn't catch what was being said. He waited until the voices stopped, a door closed, and footsteps retreated along the corridor. When he came out and relocked Jouvel's door the building was full of silence. In less than twenty-four hours, at seven on the following evening, he would return to pay his last call on Leon Jouvel.

He emerged from the archway into the rue de l'Epine with equal caution. But tonight police detective Armand Bonheur was fifty kilometres away in Sarrebourg, sitting cold and depressed inside his car while he watched the house where Leon Jovel was paying his duty call on his elderly sister. Lansky waited a little longer until the only person in sight, a man walking away towards the Place Kleber, disappeared. The man was Alan Lennox.

At eight o'clock in the evening of Friday, 17 December, at about the time the Soviet Commando went into a bar near the Place Kleber, Andre the Squirrel made his suggestion to Marc Grelle in the prefect's office in Paris. Would it be worth while for him to fly to Strasbourg to interview Leon Jouvel and then go on to see the other witness in Colmar? 'If Lasalle is right and these people knew the Leopard they might be able to tell me something.'

Grelle considered the suggestion and then decided against it. For the moment at least. The trouble was he needed his deputy in Paris to help complete the security fence he was building round the president. 'Let it wait,' Grelle advised.

Travelling up from Switzerland by train, Alan Lennox had arrived at Strasbourg station while the Soviet Commando was still in Kehl across the river Rhine. Since there are only two or three first-class hotels in the city, it was not surprising that he chose the Hotel Sofitel, which is built like an upended shoe-box and more like the type of hotel found in America. Registering in the name of Jean Bouvier, he went up to his fourth-floor room which overlooked a concrete patio.

His first action was to consult Bottin, the telephone directory, and like Vanek in the same hotel only two hours later, he noted that Leon Jouvel had two addresses, one of which corresponded with the Lasalle list, the other a television shop. Unlike Vanek, he phoned the shop from the hotel room. The number went on ringing, but no one answered it. In the shop, Louise Vallon was having her busiest time of the day and she was damned if she was going to attend to the phone as well. In the Sofitel, Lennox replaced the receiver. The obvious next move was to try Jouvel at home.

Checking the street-guide he had bought at the station, he found that the rue de l'Epine was only a short walk from the hotel. Putting on his coat and hat again, he went out into a world of slow-falling snowflakes which made it seem even more like Christmas in Strasbourg. Unlike Paris, the city was full of reminders of the approaching festive season; the Place Kleber was decorated with enormous Christmas trees which lit up at night. In less than ten minutes Lennox was standing at the archway to 49 rue de l'Epine.

Leon Jouvel. The door on the second floor carried the name on a plate beside it. Lennox knocked for the third time but there was no reply. And for once the door of the neighbouring apartment was not opened by the red-headed and enthusiastic Denise Viron; at lunchtime she was still in bed and fast asleep. Leaving the building, he went out to find somewhere to eat.

In the afternoon he visited the shop on the Quai des Bateliers and it was full of customers. The fair-haired girl behind the counter was having trouble coping with the rush and there was no sign of a man in the place. While she was occupied he peered into the back office and found it empty. He decided to go back to Jouvel's apartment in the middle of the evening. If you want to interview a man the place to corner him is at home, after he has finished his day's work and eaten-when he is relaxed. Lennox went back to No. 49 rue de l'Epine at 8.30 pm.

Denise Viron was just going out for the evening, wearing a brilliant green coat which she felt sure suited her exciting personality, when Lennox stopped in front of Leon Jouvel's door. Eyeing him, wondering whether she really was going out after all, she stood outside her doorway with the light still on so it threw into stark relief her full-breasted figure.

`He's away for the night,' she said. 'Was there something I might be able to help you with?'

Lennox, who had his hand raised to knock on the door Lansky had opened with his skeleton keys only a few minutes earlier, took off his hat instead. He moved a few paces towards the girl who took a tentative step back inside her own apartment. Pulling at her long, red hair, she watched him with her lips slightly parted. God, a tart, Lennox thought. 'You mean Mr Leon Jouvel?' he inquired in French. 'It's rather urgent- you're sure he won't be back tonight?'

The girl puckered her over-painted mouth. 'Popular today, aren't we? Jouvel, I mean. I've just had one of those market research blokes asking after him this afternoon. No accounting for tastes.'

`Market research?'

`That's right. You know the type-nosey. Personally I think it's an impertinence the way they ask you all those intimate questions…'

`Mr Jouvel,' Lennox interjected with a smile. 'When will he be back then?'

`Tomorrow-Saturday. That market research chap..

`Is there someone I could leave a message with? His wife, perhaps ?'

`He's a widower. Not interested in women any more.' She gazed past Lennox's shoulder. 'Personally I think when you get to that stage life isn't worth..'

`No one else in the apartment?'

`No. He lives alone.' The girl was frowning, as though making a tremendous intellectual effort to solve a problem. `Funny, I'm having almost the same conversation with you as I had with that other chap. What makes Jouvel so popular all of a sudden? Weeks go by and he sits alone in there glued to the box and now..'

`He's home all day Saturday?' Lennox inquired.

`There you go again-same kind of question.' Denise Viron was beginning to tire of the conversation. 'All day Saturday he's at the shop,' she snapped. 'And it's not a good time to see him-Saturday is his big day. And you won't find him back here before 6.30 in the evening. Are you another market research chap?' she inquired sarcastically.

`I knew him a long time ago,' Lennox replied vaguely and excused himself. He heard a door slam as he went down the stairs and behind him Denise Viron re-buttoned the coat she had unfastened as they talked. She was going to have to go out, and in this weather, for God's sake.

At 5.30 pm. on Saturday evening detective Armand Bonheur yawned in the police office and checked his watch. Soon he would be on the bloody night-watch again, taking over from his colleague who at this moment was discreetly observing Leon Jouvel's shop-front on the Quai des Bateliers. Bonheur would then wait on the quai for Jouvel to lock up so he could follow him and keep an eye on who went in and out of No. 49 rue de 1'Epine. Already Bonheur was getting to hate this duty. What the hell had Paris got on a man like Jouvel anyway?

It would not have been possible for even Borisov, his trainer, to recognize Lansky easily as he left the Hotel Terminus with a group of people who had just come out of the lift. Wearing a German suit and a Tyrolean hat he had purchased during the Commando's brief stay in Kehl, Lansky was also equipped with a pair of thick-lensed, horn-rim spectacles of the type normally only worn by old men. Even his walk had changed as he shuffled across the wind-swept Place de la Gare with his hands deep inside his overcoat pockets, a coat also purchased in Kehl. To complete the transformation he carried an umbrella which he had previously ruffled and dirtied. Muffled up inside a scarf; shuffling across the cobbles, Antonin Lansky now looked more like a man in his late sixties.

Reaching the station, he mooched inside the glassed-in restaurant which fronted on the square, sat down at a table and ordered coffee in German. Occasionally as he sat there amid people waiting for trains he checked his watch. He would be visiting Leon Jouvel somewhere between 6.30 and 7 pm, catching him off guard soon after he had arrived home.

At 6 pm Alan Lennox sat at a window table in the cafe next door to Jouvel's television shop drinking coffee. It was well after dark and under the street lamps the cobbles on the quai gleamed from the recent snow flurries. He had decided to take Denise Viron's advice, to let Leon Jouvel, whom he had seen at the other side of his shop window, get his big day over with before tackling the Frenchman. And since it was Saturday he thought it highly likely Jouvel would stop off at a bar on the way home-and what better place to get a man talking than in a bar?

A trained observer-trained by long experience-Lennox had automatically noticed the man in the raincoat on the far side of the quai who stood under a lamp reading a newspaper. Probably waiting for his girl, Lennox surmised: at intervals the waiting man checked his watch and looked up and down the quai as though expecting someone. Lennox finished his third cup of coffee. To spin out the time he had ordered a pot, and the francs for the bill were already on the table so he could leave at a moment's notice.

At 6.5 pm a short, plump figure with a bushy moustache came out and locked up the shop.

As Jouvel said goodnight to his assistant, Louise Vallon, and crossed the quai Lennox emerged from the cafe and paused at the kerb to light a cigarette. No need to follow too close in this part of Strasbourg and the shop owner was wearing a distinctive yellow raincoat. Putting away his French Feudor lighter, Lennox was on the verge of stepping into the road and then stopped before he had moved. The man under the lamp had tucked his paper under his arm and was strolling after Jouvel. A coincidence: he had got fed up waiting for his girl.

As the traffic stopped against the lights, Lennox hurried across and then slowed down again. On the bridge crossing the river Il to the old quarter he saw the man with the paper and ahead of him Jouvel. The shop owner, who had crossed the bridge, had stopped to peer in through the lighted windows of a restaurant as though wondering whether to go inside. The man with the paper had also stopped, bending down as he pretended to tie his shoelace. It was now quite obvious to Lennox that Leon Jouvel was being followed by someone else.

As Jouvel left the restaurant and crossed the road to turn up the rue de l'Epine-which meant he was going straight home- Lennox changed direction to approach No. 49 by a separate route. The man with the paper had left the bridge and followed Jouvel. In that lonely and deserted street a second shadow would be a little too conspicuous. Familiar now with the immediate area, Lennox walked rapidly up the rue des Grandes Arcades and then into a side street leading into the rue de l'Epine, arriving just in time to see Jouvel turn in under the archway. Lower down the street the man with the paper disappeared inside an alcove as Denise Viron, wearing her bright green coat, came out of the archway. She stopped when she saw Lennox.

`You've come back to see me?' she inquired hopefully.

`Another night maybe? There are plenty of nights yet,' Lennox told her.

Their voices carried down the narrow canyon of the empty street to where detective Armand Bonheur waited, huddled inside the alcove. His instructions had been complex, too complex for his liking. He must keep Jouvel under surveillance. He must not let the shop owner know he was being watched. He must keep an eye open for an Englishman called Lennox, and the description had been vague. Hearing the reply to the girl's invitation given in perfect French, Bonheur did not give a moment's thought to the Englishman he had been told about. He settled down to a long wait.

As far as Bonheur was concerned the form of surveillance was very unsatisfactory-it was impossible to station himself inside the building, to keep close observation on Jouvel. The only positive factor in his favour was that the building had no rear exit. Everyone who entered No. 49 had to go in under the archway. It was just after seven-it had begun to rain again- when Bonheur saw a shuffling old man with an umbrella approaching No. 49.

Lennox rapped on Jouvel's door only a minute or so after the Frenchman had arrived home. Lennox's manner was businesslike as he explained he was a reporter from Le Monde, the Paris newspaper, which was going to run a series on the wartime Resistance. He understood that Jouvel had been an active member of the Lozere group and would like to talk to him about his experiences. Nothing, he assured Jouvel, would be published without his permission. And there would be, Lennox added casually, a fee…'

`What sort of fee?'. Jouvel inquired.

He was standing in the doorway, still wearing his yellow raincoat, his mind in a turmoil. He had asked the question to give himself a little more time to think. For over a year he had fretted over whether to approach the authorities with his suspicion, and here was a golden opportunity presented to him on a plate. Should he talk to this man, he was wondering.

`Two thousand francs,' Lennox said crisply. 'That is, if the information is worth it and makes good copy. In any case, I will pay ten per cent of that sum for fifteen minutes of your time.'

`You had better come in,' said Jouvel.

Sitting on an old-fashioned settee in the living-room, Lennox did most of the talking for the first few minutes, trying to put Jouvel at his ease. The Frenchman's reaction puzzled him. Jouvel sat facing him in an arm-chair, staring at him with a dazed look as though trying to make up his mind about something.

When he mentioned the Leopard, Jouvel closed his eyes and then opened them again.

`What about the Leopard?' the Frenchman asked hoarsely. I worked closely with him as radio operator, but he is dead, surely?'

`Is he?'

The brief question, phrased instinctively by Lennox as he detected the query at the end of Jouvel's own question, had a strange effect on the Frenchman. He swallowed, stared at Lennox, then looked away and taking a handkerchief out of his pocket he dried the moist palms of his chubby little hands.

`Of course,' Lennox went on, 'if you prefer it we could print your story as being by "an anonymous but reliable witness". Then no one would connect you with it but you would still get the money…'

Something snapped inside Jouvel's mind. The pressure he had lived under for months became unbearable now he had someone he could talk to. He told Lennox the whole story. The Englishman, who for the sake of appearances had taken out his reporter's notebook, was careful not to look at Jouvel as he went on talking in agitated bursts.

`It must seem ridiculous to you… every time I hear him on television… the Leopard, I know, was shot during 1944 -and yet. .'

As the words came tumbling out it was like a penitent confessing to a priest, relieving himself. At first Lennox was sceptical, thinking he was interviewing a lunatic, but as Jouvel went on talking, pouring out words, he began to wonder. 'The way they handled the coffin at the burial point… no respect… brutally… as though nothing was inside…

At the end of fifteen minutes Lennox stood up to go. The Frenchman was repeating himself. Instead of the two hundred francs, Lennox handed over five hundred from the funds Lanz had provided. 'You will come back tomorrow,' Jouvel urged, 'I may have more to tell you… .' It was untrue, but the agitated little shopowner, unsure now of what he had done, wanted to give himself the chance to withdraw the statement if when the morning came, he felt he had made a terrible mistake.

`I'll come tomorrow,' Lennox promised.

He left the apartment quickly before the Frenchman could ask for a telephone number or address where he could be reached. Going down the dimly-lit staircase deep in thought, he pulled himself up sharply before he crossed the courtyard: he was travelling with false papers so he had better be on the alert every moment he was in France. Lennox walked with a natural quietness and he was coming out of the archway when he cannoned heavily against an old man stooped under an umbrella. Slipping on the wet cobbles, the man lost his pebble glasses and his Tyrolean hat was knocked sideways half off his head.

By the light of the street lamp Lennox caught a glimpse of a face. The man swore in German.

`A thousand apologies…

Lennox had replied in French as he bent down and picked up the pebble glasses, relieved to find they were intact. A gloved hand came out from under the adjusted umbrella and accepted the glasses without a word. Lennox shrugged as the man shuffled off inside the building, then he walked out and went up the rue de l'Epine in the direction of the Place Kleber, still thinking about what Leon Jouvel had told him

Half-frozen inside his alcove, detective Armand Bonheur continued to do his duty, recording everything that occurred in his notebook with the aid of his Feudor lighter, adding to earlier entries. 6.30. Jouvel returns home. 6.31. Denise Viron departs. 6.31. Viron's friend arrives. 7.02. Viron's friend departs. (He had assumed from the conversation he had overheard that Denise Viron knew Lennox well.) 7.02. Umbrella man arrives. 7.32. Umbrella man departs.