The Stone leopard

CHAPTER FIVE

So far, Vanek had avoided travelling by air. At airports individual passengers can easily be checked, searched, but to reach Paris ahead of the express carrying Annette Devaud he had no alternative. As he bought his ticket from Air Inter and made his way to the departure point the Czech carried nothing incriminating. He had tossed the Luger pistol into a canal on his way to the airport. The BMW was now standing in the airport car park. And he had thrown the bargee's cap into the canal after the Luger.

When he bought his ticket he paid for a return fare: he had no intention of returning to Strasbourg but for airport personnel there is something normal and reassuring about a return ticket. He had no trouble passing through the security checks, partly because by now he was no longer alone. Waiting in the departure lounge for the Air Inter flight, he observed an attractive girl of about twenty-two who was obviously on her own; he further observed as she took off her glove to light a cigarette that she wore neither an engagement nor wedding ring.

He lit her cigarette and sat beside her, looking anxious. 'I do hope this flight for Paris isn't late. It's my sister's birthday and she expects her present…' He prattled on, instinctively choosing the right approach. Most women were happy to chat with Vanek if it wasn't too obvious a pick-up; the reference to a sister was reassuring, clearly indicating a man who treated women with respect. They went through the security check together. Vanek holding her small hand-case, joking with her, and everyone thought they were a couple.

On the plane he sat beside her, found out that her name was Michelle Robert, that she was personal assistant to an executive with a tyre firm whose headquarters were at La Defense. Before they were half-way to Paris he had extracted her phone number. And somewhere over Champagne their Fokker 27 aircraft overtook the Stanislas express carrying Madame Devaud to the capital.

The TEE express was due to arrive at the Gare de l'Est at 9 pm. Vanek, who had phoned the railway station from the airport to check its arrival time, caught the 6.30 flight from Strasbourg which landed him at Orly Airport at 7.30. Fortunately, Michelle Robert was being met by a friend, so he got rid of her without any trouble. Mistrusting Paris traffic, Vanek used the Orly-rail system to reach the city and then he changed to the Metro.

He calculated that with a little luck he should reach the Gare de l'Est just before the express arrived.

The express from Strasbourg reached the Gare de l'Est at 9.6 pm. Normally the ticket barrier is open-tickets have been examined aboard the train-and people just walk off, but on the night of 22 December the barrier was closed and no one was permitted near the platform.

`It is an outrage,' one passenger aboard the express fumed. `My wife is expecting me…'

`There is a terrorist alert. You must wait,' the inspector informed him. And in that much of a rush, he thought cynically, it can only be your mistress who awaits you.

The superintendent Grelle had personally despatched to the station had sprinkled the concourse beyond the platform with armed plain-clothes detectives. One man, equipped with a sniperscope rifle, waited in a window overlooking the platform. And some of the detectives who lounged about the station even had suitcases filled with files they had grabbed from their offices to provide weight. The door to the sealed coach was opened and a circle of plain-clothes men gathered at the foot of the steps. There were no uniformed gendarmes in sight. `Nothing conspicuous,' Grelle had warned. 'Keep it as normal as possible.'

With Boisseau in front, Madame Devaud climbed down the steps and the crowd of plain-clothes men closed round her. Boisseau separated himself from the group, going out on to the concourse and standing idly while he lit a cigarette, his coat hanging open so he could reach his revolver at a second's notice. This was the moment he feared most-getting her from the train to the car. The group moved across the concourse, moving slowly at Madame Devaud's pace. It went on into the exit hall, then outside to where a car door had already been opened. Several passengers were stopping now, beginning to take notice. It was impossible to cover up completely.

Boisseau heard a car door slam shut and sighed with relief. Moving quickly out of the exit he climbed inside another police car and pulled the door shut. 'I want sirens all the way,' he told the man beside the driver who had radio communication with the other cars. 'We jump lights where we can… The radio man transmitted the message and the motorcade moved off. There were four vehicles. One in front. Then Madame Devaud's. A third vehicle-to ram any car which tried to intercept. And Boisseau bringing up the rear. It was 9.09 pm.

Vanek ran up out of the Metro and into the main station of the Gare de l'Est. He dropped to walking pace as he saw the Stanislas in the distance and when he got close he was in time to see the last passengers coming through the open barrier. It was 9.15 pm. He had been badly delayed on the Metro but there had been nothing he could do about it; getting off and finding a taxi would only have taken longer. He waited for a few minutes by a bookstall-on the off-chance that they were going to take off the Devaud woman when all the other passengers had disembarked-and then he went to a phone booth to call the Paris number.

`Salicetti here…'

`I have nothing for you…'

`I have something for you,' Vanek snapped, 'so stay on the line. The previous order you specified will now have to be fulfilled in Paris-I am speaking from the Gare de l'Est. I need the firm's address.'

For the first time since the phone calls had begun, the cold, anonymous voice at the Paris number was unsure of itself. There was a brief pause. 'You had better call back at half-hour intervals-ten o'clock, ten-thirty, and so on,' the voice replied eventually. 'I have no information at this moment…'

`I shall need more samples,' Vanek said tersely.

The voice recovered its poise; it was ready for this contingency. Salicetti must go to the Bar Lepic in the Place Madeleine, giving the firm's name, Lobineau, to the proprietor, who would hand him a baggage storage key. The samples were in a public locker at the Gare du Nord station. And would he be sure to call back at half-hourly intervals? At 10 pm, 10.30…' Vanek slammed down the receiver. Bloody hell, what a primitive arrangement. Things were managed with greater finesse when he was in Paris. He took a cab to the Bar Lepic, collected an envelope, left a five-franc tip to make the transaction look normal to anyone who might be watching, and took another cab to the Gare du Nord.

Using the numbered key he found inside the envelope, he opened the luggage locker at the Gare du Nord and took out a hold-all bag covered in tartan cloth, which again was stupid: it was too noticeable. It was a very long bag, the type used to carry around tennis racquets. But the contents inside showed that someone had used his head: a French MAT sub-machine gun with a wire stock, the magazine folded parallel to the barrel to make it inoperative, and a spare magazine; a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 revolver with spare rounds; and a short, wide- bladed knife inside a clip-on sheath. Vanek crossed the deserted hall to the opposite battery of lockers, chose an empty one, slipped the hold-all inside, shut the door, inserted his coin and turned the key. He had no intention of carrying weapons until it was necessary-especially since he had noticed during his two cab-rides intense police activity in the streets. There were also truck-loads of CRS bully-boys parked at strategic points. But Vanek had also noticed that cabs were still moving normally about the city; no one ever notices the Parisian cab-driver who is as much a part of the scenery as the Louvre.

Vanek, who had not eaten anything since the snack-lunch in the Renault on the way from Strasbourg to Saverne, would have liked to snatch a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He looked at his watch and swore. It was almost ten o'clock; time to make the next phone call. Using one of the station phones, he dialled the number.

He had hardly announced it was Salicetti speaking when the voice broke in, as abrupt as ever.

`Rue des Saussaies. Now! You know where I mean?' `Yes…'

Vanek broke the connection first this time. So they had taken Madame Devaud to the amp;trete Nationale headquarters, the fortress of the capitalist police system. Collecting the tartan hold-all, Vanek went out into the street beyond the Gare du Nord, ignoring the official taxi pick-up point. He wanted to make a careful choice, selecting a certain type of cab-driver for the next stage of the operation.

The police prefect of Strasbourg, who was not especially well disposed towards Marc Grelle-unlike the prefect of Lyon- was disturbed about the elaborate arrangements made to transport Madame Devaud to Paris. When he had tried to elicit further details from Grelle on the phone he had been told brusquely, 'This concerns the safety of the president and I am not at liberty to go into the matter further… .' Annoyed-and determined to cover himself-he phoned the Ministry of the Interior in Paris where he spoke to the Minister's assistant, Francois Merlin. `Grelle was very cagey on the phone,' the Strasbourg prefect complained. 'I gathered this Devaud woman was an important witness in some case he is working on… He was going off the line when he spoke again. 'I insist the Minister hears about this.'

The efficient Merlin immediately dictated a memo which was put on the Minister's desk where it lay undisturbed-and unread-for over an hour. It was 8.45 pm, before Roger Danchin, who had been attending a long meeting to check on the security for the presidential motorcade drive to the airport the following morning, walked back into his office. 'An important case Grelle is working on?' he queried with Merlin when he had read the memo. `Devaud is a reasonably common name but it could be something to do with the attempted assassination case. I must tell the president…' He lifted the phone which would put him direct through to the Elysee.

At 9.55 pm, summoned by an urgent phone call, Ambassador Vorin arrived at the Elysee, and his visit was duly recorded by the duty officer in the visitors' register. Florian already had his coat on and, as was his custom, led the Soviet ambassador out into the walled garden where they could talk undisturbed. The Alsatian, Kassim, ready for a breath of fresh air like his master, came with them, sniffing around in a shrubbery as they conferred in low tones. Vorin's latest visit was very brief, lasting only a few minutes, and he was then driven back at speed to the Soviet Embassy in the rue de Grenelle.

The method of communication between Vorin and Carel Vanek was carefully arranged so that no link between the two men could ever be established. Arriving back at the embassy, Vorin immediately summoned the Second Secretary and gave him a message. The Secretary, who would normally have made the call from a phone booth inside the nearest Metro station, returned to his own office, locked the door and dialled the number of an apartment on the Left Bank near the Cluny Museum. 'The deeds of the Devaud property will be found at the rue des Saussaies. Have you got that?' The man at the other end of the line only had time to say yes before the connection was broken.

The apartment near the Cluny was occupied by a man who had never attracted the attention of the police. Equipped with Danish papers under the name of Jurgensen, he was in fact a Pole called Jaworski who did not even know that the calls he received came back from the Soviet Embassy. It was 9.50 pm when he took this call. At to pm he passed on the information when Vanek phoned him again from the Gare du Nord.

They took Annette Devaud to a room on the fourth floor of Surete headquarters in the rue des Saussaies where Grelle was waiting for her. He could have interviewed her at the prefecture on the Ile de la Cite but he still thought it wise to keep up the fiction that this concerned the Lasalle affaire, and this operation was officially conducted from the Surete. To avoid upsetting Danchin, he had even phoned his assistant, Merlin, at eight o'clock to tell him a witness was on the way from Alsace whom he would interview at the rue des Saussaies. Merlin had mentioned this to Danchin before the Minister phoned the Elysee. Alone with the first live witness he had been able to lay his hands on, Grelle talked for a few minutes to put Annette Devaud at her ease Then he explained why she had been brought to Paris.

`And you really think that after all these years you can identify the Leopard?' he asked gently.

`If he's alive-as you say-yes! I lost my sight for thirty years before that doctor carried out his miracle operation. What do you think I saw in my mind's eye all those years when the world was only sounds and smells? I saw everyone I had ever met. And, as I told you, I nursed the Leopard through an illness.' Her voice dropped. 'And later he was responsible for the death of my only daughter, Lucie.. .'

As Grelle had foreseen, he felt horribly uncomfortable. Although Madame Devaud did not realize it-and it was Boisseau who had mentioned the point when phoning from Saverne-the prefect was the man who had been compelled to shoot Lucie Devaud. 'It was many years ago,' he reminded her, 'since you knew the Leopard. Even if he is still alive he may have changed out of all recognition…'

`Not the Leopard.' Her pointed chin jutted upwards. 'He had good bone structure-like me. Bones don't change. You can't hide bones…'

Grelle was so determined to test her that he had devised an odd method of identification. Remembering that Boisseau had mentioned over the phone that she was an amateur portrait artist, he had brought into the room Identikit equipment. He explained to her how the system worked, asked her what she would like to drink, and was so amused when she requested cognac that he joined her. He started by helping her with the Identikit, and then let her get on with it by herself She was obviously enjoying the new game.

Starting with the outline of the head, she began to build up the face of a man. The hairpiece came first. Grelle opened several box-files of printed hairpieces and helped her select several. Soon they were arguing.

`You've got it wrong,' she snapped. 'I told you he brushed his hair high on the forehead…' The face began to take shape.

The eyebrows she found quickly, but the eyes gave her trouble. 'They were very unusual-compelling,' she explained. She found the eyes at the back of the file and then worried over the nose. 'Noses are difficult…' She chose a nose and added it to the portrait. 'That's the nose. I think it's his most characteristic feature…' It took her five minutes to locate the mouth, ferreting in a fresh file, trying one and then another before she was satisfied. Pursing her own mouth, she screwed up her eyes as she completed the Identikit while Grelle watched with an expressionless face. 'That's the Leopard,' she said a few minutes later. 'That's the way he was.'

The prefect stood up, showing no reaction. 'Madame Devaud, I know you don't like television, but I would like you to watch certain programme extracts I had made earlier this evening. They are recorded on what we call cassettes. You will see three men briefly-all of them older than the face you built up on the Identikit. I want you to tell me which-if any-of these three men is the Leopard.'

`He has changed a lot then?'

Grelle didn't reply as he went to the television set and switched on. The first extract showed Roger Danchin broadcasting at the time of the riots a year earlier when he had appealed for calm, warning that mass arrests would follow any further demonstrations. The set went blank and then Alain Blanc appeared, confident and emphatic, telling the nation why more had to be spent on the defence budget.

Madame Devaud said nothing, reaching for her glass of cognac as the image faded, to be replaced by Guy Florian making one of his anti-American speeches. As always, he spoke with panache and sardonic wit, gesturing vigorously occasionally, his expression serious, but smiling the famous smile as he closed.

The screen went blank. Grelle stood up and went over to switch off the set.

`The last man,' Annette Devaud said, 'the man attacking the Americans. He hasn't changed all that much, has he?'

Carel Vanek chose his cab with care, standing on the sidewalk with the tartan hold-all at his feet. He avoided any vehicle with a youngster behind the wheel, but he didn't want an elderly driver either; older people can panic, acting on impulse. He was looking for a middle-aged driver with a family to think of, with the experience to make him cautious. He yelled at an approaching cab, waving his hand.

`It's a place off the Boulevard des Capucines,' he told the driver. 'I'm not sure of the address but I'll recognize the street when I see it. A side-turning off to the left…'

He settled back in the cab with the hold-all on his lap. What he had said to the driver was true: he didn't know the name of the street but he had walked down it several times three years earlier, a street which was narrow, dark and unlit at night. There was very little traffic about at that hour and Capucines, a street of expensive shops, was almost empty on the chilly December evening, despite the closeness of Christmas. The driver went slowly to give his passenger a chance to locate the street.

`Turn here!'

Vanek had opened the window behind the driver wider to speak to him and he stayed leaning forward as the cab turned and entered a narrow, curving street. The walls of the high buildings on either side closed in on them and the street was as deserted as Vanek remembered it. Capucines was only a memory now as the cab cruised deeper inside the dark canyon while the driver waited for further instructions. Vanek was straining his eyes to see beyond the windscreen, one hand inside the hold-all. Soon they would be near to the far end, moving out into a more-frequented area.

`Here we are. Stop!'

The driver pulled up, set his brake and left the engine running.

Vanek pressed the muzzle of the Smith amp; Wesson into the back of the driver's neck.

`Don't move. This is a gun.'

The driver stiffened, sat very still. Vanek shot him once.

It was 10.45 pm. when a patrol-car drew up outside the entrance of the Surete headquarters on the rue des Saussaies. Boisseau himself came out of the building first and looked up and down the quiet street. There was nothing in sight except a lone taxi-cab coming from the direction of the Place Beauvau. Boisseau held up his hand to stop them bringing Madame Devaud out and waited. Two gendarmes stood on the sidewalk with him. The driver was behind the wheel of the waiting patrol-car, his engine ticking over.

Grelle had decided at the last moment to use only one car to take Madame Devaud to a hotel the Surete used for guarding important witnesses; a single car is less conspicuous than a motorcade. Also it would be able to move very fast at this hour when the Paris streets were deserted. Grelle himself; standing back inside the arch with Madame Devaud and three detectives, was waiting to see her departure. The cab came towards the entrance slowly and Boisseau noted it was not for hire. So far as he could see the back was empty; the driver was obviously going off duty.

The cab cruised past and the driver took one hand off the wheel to stifle a yawn.

Watching its tail-light, Boisseau made a beckoning gesture and the small procession emerged from under the archway. The three detectives crowded round Madame Devaud, moving at her deliberate pace. They reached the sidewalk. Inside the archway Grelle lit a cigarette, a walkie-talkie tucked under his arm. He would be in constant touch with the radio-controlled vehicle until it reached its destination in the seventh arrondissement.

Madame Devaud had moved across the sidewalk and was about to enter the car.

`Don't worry-it is only a few minutes' drive,' Boisseau assured her.

`Tell him not to drive too fast. I didn't enjoy the journey from the Gare de l'Est at all.'

`I'll tell him. It will only be a few minutes,' Boisseau repeated.

Vanek, wearing the cab-driver's cap-he had great faith in headgear as a medium of disguise-reached the Place des Saussaies which is around the corner from the entrance to Surete headquarters. He had been cruising past the archway at intervals-many cabs take this short-cut at night-completing the circuit round the large building and coming back again. Now he turned in a tight circle and drove back against the one-way system. Boisseau was about to help Madame Devaud into the car when he saw the cab returning at speed. He shouted a warning but the cab arrived at the worst possible moment-while the huddled group, bunched together, was trapped in the open.

Vanek held the wheel with one hand while he cradled the sub-machine gun under his right arm, his index finger curled inside the trigger-guard. He fired a steady burst, the weapon on automatic, the muzzle held in a fixed position, so he used the movement of the vehicle to create an arc of fire, emptying the whole magazine before he went past them, still driving the wrong way and disappearing into the Place Beauvau.

Grelle, by himself and free from the group, was the only one who even fired at the cab, and one revolver shot smashed the rear window. Then he was using the walkie-talkie, which put him straight through to central control, already organized for the president's motorcade drive to Charles de Gaulle Airport the following day. Via Grelle, the cab's description, including the smashed window and the direction it had taken, was circulated within one minute to every patrol-car within a five- mile radius. Only then did Grelle turn to look at the tragic scene on the sidewalk.

The two gendarmes had run off after the cab. Boisseau, shielded by the open car door, had escaped unscathed, but the three detectives lay on the ground, two of them moaning and gasping, the third very still. They had to lift the two men gently to get at Madame Devaud who lay face down, and when they eased her over they saw where the assassin's bullets had stitched a pattern across her chest.

`Armed and dangerous…

All over Paris patrol-cars leapt forward, moving inwards on a cordon pattern laid down by the commissioner in charge at central control. In a way he welcomed the emergency on the eve of the president's depature: it gave him a chance to check the system. The cordon closed in like a contracting web, its approximate centre-point the Place Beauvau, and with sirens screaming patrol-cars rushed along the big boulevards. The commissioner at control was moving into action his entire force, repeating time and again the warning.

`Armed and dangerous…

They found Vanek quite close to the Surete. His cab was spotted crossing the Place de la Concorde on the Tuileries side. Patrol-cars converged on the vast square, coming in over the Seine bridge, from Champs-Elysees, Rivoli and the Avenue Gabriel. A blaze of lamps, empty only seconds earlier, the Place was suddenly filled with noise and movement, with the high-pitched screams of sirens, the swivel of patrol-car headlights. Vanek braked by the kerb, jumped out with the sub-machine gun and ran for the only possible refuge. The Tuileries gardens.

At this point in the Place de la Concorde the pavement by the kerb has a low stone wall beyond it. Beyond that lies another pavement and beyond that a high stone wall rises up to a lofty balustrade with the Tuileries park beyond like a huge viewing platform overlooking the entire Place. Vanek started running for the entrance to Tuileries at ground level, saw a patrol-car pull up, blocking him off. Jerking up his weapon, he emptied the second magazine and everywhere policemen dropped flat. Throwing down the gun, Vanek jumped over the low stone wall, ran across the second sidewalk and began hauling himself up the wall, using projecting stones like a ladder.

To his left and below him a flight of steps went down and underground. He had almost reached the balustrade; once over it he would have the whole park to hide in. Behind him he heard shouts, the screams of half a dozen more patrol-cars rushing into the square. He whipped one leg over the balustrade.

The park beyond was a dark, tree-filled vastness, a place to manoeuvre in.

They caught him in a crossfire. Two gendarmes to the right on the sidewalk below, another group of three to the left as he hung above the world below him. There was a fusillade of shots as the gendarmes emptied their magazines very loud in the Place because all the patrol-cars had now halted. Vanek hung in the night, one leg draped over the balustrade, then his limp hand lost its grip and he slipped over, falling as they went on firing, crashing down into the deep staircase well where a large notice proclaimed `Descente Interdite.' Descent Forbidden.