The Stone leopard

CHAPTER SEVEN

No airport in the world was ever more heavily guarded than Charles de Gaulle Airport on the morning of 23 December. The presidential Concorde-looking in the half-light of near-dawn like a huge, evil bird-waited on the tarmac, already fully fuelled for its long flight to Moscow. In a few hours, at 10.30 am precisely, the aircraft would lift off at a critical angle of forty-five degrees, its vulture-like head arched as it headed for fifty thousand feet.

And already the presidential pilot, Captain Pierre Jubal, who had got up from his bed in his expensive flat in Passy at 5.30, had arrived at the airport the French often call Roissy because it was built near the village of Roissy-en-France. Driving himself the twenty-five kilometres from Paris to the airport, Jubal had been stopped three times at checkpoints along Autoroute A 1, the highway over which the presidential motorcade would pass later.

`This bloody security,' he snapped to his co-pilot, Lefort, as he got out of his Alfa Romeo, 'this bloody security is insane. Do they really believe someone is going to take a pot-shot at him?'

Lefort shrugged. 'In a bar last night I heard someone say Florian will never reach Roissy alive.'

The airport had been closed to all civil aircraft from midnight, an unprecedented step even for the protection of a head of state. 'It's that police prefect, Grelle,' Jubal grumbled as he walked towards the waiting aircraft. 'He's power-mad. Look at all that…'

He waved his hand towards the huge circular building which is the centre-piece of the world's most advanced airport. Silhouetted against the growing light, uniformed men of the Air Transport Gendarmerie patrolled the roof of the building with their automatic weapons. The two men passed a scout-car mounted with a machine gun. Surrounding the circular building are the seven satellites, the separate modernistic departure centres where passengers board their aircraft after travelling on underground travelator belts. Jubal gestured towards the roof of a satellite where the same sinister silhouettes patrolled. `The man's a maniac,' he growled.

`There has already been one attempt on President Florian,' Lefort reminded his superior. 'And, as I've just told you, in a bar last night there was a strong rumour..

`You shouldn't have been in a bar last night,' Jubal rapped. `You should have been in bed like I was, getting my kip… `With Jacqueline"

As the pale early morning light spread over the plain in which Charles de Gaulle Airport stands, Concorde was emerging in stronger silhouette, looking more than ever like a rapacious bird crouched for take-off. In three hours she would be on her way, climbing towards the stratosphere, taking the president of the French Republic on his historic flight to Soviet Russia.

Just before 9.30 am on 23 December the city of Paris was like a frozen tableau where shortly the curtain would rise on great events. Every intersection leading on to the route the presidential motorcade would follow had been closed on Grelle's orders. At every intersection truckloads of CRS troops waited with the engines running. Behind every intersection 'dragon's teeth' of steel chain had been thrown across the incoming roads, blocking off any vehicle which might try to rush the presidential convoy.

Crowds lined the route, kept well back from the road by a maze of crash barriers erected by gendarmes in the middle of the night with the aid of arc-lights mounted on trucks. The crowds were strangely silent, as though expecting something dramatic and tragic to happen. Some of them had tuned in transistor radios to Europe Number One; Col Lasalle was expected to make yet another broadcast shortly. Occasionally, as they waited on that crisp, clear December morning-only two days away from Christmas-they looked behind to the rooftops where police patrolled the skyline like prison camp guards.

At other times the crowd stared above into the sky, which was also guarded. Over the route a fleet of helicopters flew backwards and forwards at a height of one hundred feet, their engines thumping, disappearing out of earshot and then returning again. And all these elements in the vast cordon-on the ground, on the rooftops, in the air itself-were linked by radio to central control at the prefecture on the Ile de la Cite. Boisseau was the man in direct control of the huge operation, waiting in the office Grelle had loaned him for the first radio report to come in.

`He has just left Elysee…'

Blanc was sitting in his car inside the Elysee courtyard, one of a whole convoy drawn up to follow the president once he had left, his wife Angele by his side, when he saw a car drive half-way into the palace entrance before it was stopped. He stiffened. Gen Lamartine was getting out. Some bloody fool of a security officer had permitted the general to browbeat his way through the cordon. Blanc looked through the rear window at the steps and saw that Florian had just come out, was pausing as he saw Lamartine arguing with the security chief. `I'll only be a minute,' Blanc said to his wife and slipped out of the car. In the vehicle ahead Roger Danchin was twisted round in his seat, wondering if it was something which concerned him.

Lamartine had left the security man, was hurrying across the yard to the steps while everyone stared. Florian descended into the yard, was met by Lamartine as he started to walk to his car. The general was talking animatedly while Florian walked slowly, listening. Lamartine's face froze as he saw Blanc coming towards him.

He's told him, the minister thought, told him everything- to cover himself, the shit.

`What's all this about, Alain?'

Florian was half inside his car and spoke over his shoulder, then he settled in the seat and left the door open, looking up at Blanc who bent down to speak. One minute-two at the most -would decide it. 'We had a little problem last night,' the minister said crisply. 'They wouldn't let me inside the palace, so I dealt with it myself.'

`You are planning a coup d'etat?'

There was a look of cynical amusement on the long, lean, intelligent face, an expression of supreme self-confidence. At that moment Blanc was more aware than he ever had been of the magnetic personality of this man who had wrongly been called the second de Gaulle. He leaned forward as Blanc remained silent, made as though to get out of the car, and the minister's pulse skipped a beat.

`You are planning a coup d' etat?' Florian repeated. `Mr President.'

That was all Blanc said. Florian relaxed, closed the door himself and told the driver to proceed. Blanc went back to his own car, not even glancing at Lamartine who stood like a statue, sure now that he had destroyed his career. 'All for nothing,' Blanc told his wife as he settled back in the car. `Lamartine is an old warhorse-I think we may soon have to put him out to grass…'

He was talking with only one part of his mind as the first car, full of CRS men, left the courtyard and turned into the Faubourg St Honore, followed by the presidential vehicle. So much confidence bottled up inside one man! Florian had decided it was too late for anyone to stop the wheels of history he had set in motion. Blanc, his closest friend, had issued instructions during the night which could be interpreted as high treason. No matter, he could deal with that when he returned from Moscow. Had a certain American president some years ago had the same feeling of invulnerability-even though his actions had been minor misdemeanours compared with those of Guy Florian?

The route the motorcade was taking to Charles de Gaulle Airport had been carefully worked out by Marc Grelle personally. It must pass through as few narrow streets as possible, to eliminate the danger of a hidden sniper firing from a building. Turning out of the Elysee to the left, it would follow the Faubourg St Honore for a short distance, turn left again down the Avenue Marigny and then enter Champs-Elysees. Once it reached this point it was broad boulevards all the way until it moved on to Autoroute A t and a clear run to the airport.

`He has just left Elysee…'

At central control Andre the Squirrel was able to see the motorcade's progress at various selected points where hidden television cameras watched the crowd for hostile movement. With the microphone Boisseau was now holding in his hand he could be 'patched' through to any radio-equipped sub- control centre along the route even warning them of something which caught his eye. On the television screen he watched the motorcade moving down Avenue Marigny; the CRS vehicle in front, the president's car next, followed by twenty- three black saloons containing cabinet ministers and their wives. The sun was shining brilliantly now-there had been a complete weather change late the previous day-but Boisseau, watching the long line of black cars passing, had the macabre feeling he was observing a funeral procession.

Boisseau was sweating it out. A professional to his fingertips, his only concern now was his immediate duty-to get the president safely to Roissy. The Leopard investigation had temporarily faded out of his mind; during the past few hours the prefect had not even mentioned the subject. His expression tense, Boisseau continued watching the television screen. He was waiting for the moment when the motorcade would turn on to the autoroute, which soon moved into open country, and here it would be quite impossible for an assassin to conceal himself.

`Just get to Porte Maillot,' Boisseau whispered. 'Then you are away…'

Suddenly he became aware that he was gripping the mike so tightly that his knuckles had whitened. Inside his car, Alain Blanc also realized he was clenching his fist tightly. Like Boisseau he understood that once the president reached the autoroute he would be safe. Blanc found himself peering out of the window, glancing up at the windows of tall apartment blocks, looking for something suspicious, something which shouldn't be there. How the hell was Grelle going to manage it? The motorcade seemed to crawl up the Champs-Elysees.

It seemed to crawl to Boisseau also as it reached the top of the great boulevard, rounded the Arc de Triomphe where Napoleon's victories seem to go on for ever, and then started down the Avenue de la Grande Armee which is also lined with tall apartment blocks on both sides. 'Get to Porte Maillot,' Boisseau whispered to himself again, glad that he was alone in the office. Everything which had happened in the past few weeks had emptied out of his mind: Boisseau was in charge of the president's security. The responsibility weighed on him heavily.

Alain Blanc was now beginning to give up hope that anything would happen. Grelle had obviously failed, which was hardly surprising. Perhaps his nerve had failed which would be even less surprising. Still looking up at the apartment block windows, Blanc took out a handkerchief and mopped his damp forehead. For a different reason he was under as great a strain as Boisseau. He frowned as he heard the thump of an approaching helicopter's engine, flying very low, then he pressed his cheek against the window trying to locate the low-flying machine. The crowd, still strangely silent, as though they too felt they were watching a funeral procession, craned their heads to stare at the helicopter which was flying straight up Champs-Elysees from behind the motorcade. Passing over the Arc de Triomphe, it headed down the Avenue de la Grande Armee, scattering pigeons from the rooftops with the raucous clatter of its engine. Then it passed over them and flew off into the distance. Blanc sagged back in his seat. 'Really, there was nothing we could have done…' Inadvertently he had spoken aloud and his wife glanced at him in surprise. Then the lead vehicle, followed by the president's, began turning. They had reached Porte Maillot.

At 10.25 am Captain Pierre Jubal sat with his co-pilot, Lefort, behind the controls of Concorde five minutes before take-off time. On the tarmac outside in the blazing sunshine the entire French cabinet stood in line, waiting for Florian to board the plane. Near by stood squads of Airport Gendarmerie, their automatic weapons cradled in their arms. From where Alain Blanc stood the view beyond Concorde went straight out across the plain, interrupted only by a tiny cluster of distant buildings which was the village of le Mesnil Amelot perched at the edge of the vast airport. The sun caught a minute spike which was a church spire, a tiny rectangle which was an abandoned factory. Then the president was walking past his cabinet ministers, smiling his famous smile.

`He has the presence of a king,' Danchin murmured to the minister standing next to him. 'France is indeed blessed at this time of her great power…'

About to board the aircraft, Florian seemed to remember something. Swinging round, still smiling broadly, he went back and shook hands with Alain Blanc. 'Alain,' he said warmly, 'I will never forget all you did for me in the past…' Only Blanc noticed the emphasis he placed on the last few words, like a chairman saying good-bye to the director he has just dismissed from the board. The execution is delayed, Blanc thought as he watched Florian going up the mobile staircase, but it will be carried out the moment he returns.

At the top of the staircase Florian turned, waved his hand, then disappeared. The jets began to hum and hiss. Technicians near the nose of the plane ran back. The incredible machine began to throb with power.

Watching the scene on television in Paris, Boisseau mopped his own forehead.

Earlier, before the motorcade turned out of the Elysee, it was helicopter pilot Jean Vigier who spotted the small black car moving at speed away from the centre of Paris. He saw it first below him, driving along the Boulevard des Capucines. Intrigued-it was the only vehicle moving along the deserted boulevard, he changed course and picked it up again beyond Opera. Impressed by its speed, by the sense of urgency it conveyed, he continued tracking it.

What started as a routine check turned into something more alarming as Vigier followed its non-stop progress; the car was moving past road-block after road-block without stopping, without any check being made on it. Worried now, Vigier continued his aerial surveillance on the rogue vehicle while he radioed central control.

`Small black car passing through all checkpoints without stopping

… now located at..'

Receiving the message, Boisseau took immediate action, telling an assistant to phone the police station at 1 rue Hittorf, which was the nearest checkpoint the car had passed through. The assistant returned a few minutes later. 'It is the police prefect inside that car-that is why they are letting him through the checkpoints. He radios each one as he approaches it… Boisseau wasted little time on speculation; his chief was clearly checking something out. Sending a message back to helicopter pilot Jean Vigier, 'Driver of black car identified-no cause for alarm,' he forgot about the incident.

Inside the car Grelle was now approaching the Goutte-d'Or district. Again he radioed ahead to the next checkpoint to let him through and then he did something very curious. Pulling in by the kerb in the deserted street, he changed the waveband on his mobile communicator, took out a miniaturized tape- recorder, started it playing and then began speaking over the communicator, prefacing his message with the code-sign. `Franklin Roosevelt. Boisseau here. Yes, Boisseau. Is that you, Lesage? Interference? Nothing wrong at this end. Now, listen!' The tape-recorder went on spewing out the static he had recorded off his own radio set in his apartment, garbling his voice as he went on speaking.

`Rabbit has been seen… Yes, Rabbit! Walking down rue Clichy five minutes ago. Take your men and scour the Clichy area now. Don't argue, Lesage, he's got away from you-just get after him! When you find him, tail him-no interception. I repeat, no interception. He may lead you to the rest of the gang…

Having given the code-word for the operation at the beginning of his message, Grelle was satisfied that Lesage would carry out his order immediately. Driving on again, he passed through the next checkpoint and then turned into the rue Reamur where Rabbit, the Algerian terrorist Abou Benefeika, was still waiting for his friends to come and collect him. Getting out of his car, he approached the derelict entrance to No. 17 with care, but the rubber-soled shoes he was wearing made no sound as he entered the door-less opening with his revolver in his hand. A stale smell of musty damp made him wrinkle his nose as he stood in the dark hallway listening. He was even more careful as he made his way down the staircase leading to the basement.

He waited at the bottom to accustom his eyes to the gloom, and gradually the silhouette of a sleeping man formed beyond the doorway into the cellar, a man sleeping on his side and facing the wall. Switching on his pocket torch the prefect found a wire stretched across the lower part of the doorway; following it with the beam of his torch he saw it was attached to a large tin perched on a pile of bricks. Any incautious person who walked through the doorway would bring down the tin, alerting the sleeping terrorist. Grelle stepped over the wire, still using the torch to thread his way among a scatter of old bricks as he approached the sleeping terrorist. Bending down, he picked up the Magnum pistol close to the man's inert hand. Then he wakened him.

Grelle drove out of Paris through the Porte de Pantin, and continued along route N3; then, just before reaching Claye Souilly, he turned due north through open countryside. The Algerian terrorist, Abou Benefeika, was crouched on the floor in front of the passenger seat Grelle had pushed back to its fullest extent. Covered with a travelling rug, which had apparently slipped on to the floor, he was crouched on his haunches facing the door with his back to Grelle who occasionally lifted the revolver out of his lap and pressed it against the nape of his neck to remind him of its presence.

Abou Benefeika was partly relieved, partly terrified. The civilian who had woken him up with a gun in his face, warning him to keep quiet, had told him he had come to take him away, to get him out of the country. 'Your friends ran for it,' Grelle told him savagely, 'so I have been left to see you don't get caught. The police are closing in on this district, I suppose you know?' Grelle had warned him to get his head down and keep it down. 'This is a stolen police car so you'd better hope and pray we can get past the road-blocks they've set up. I have the identity card of the detective I shot to take this car, so we should be able to manage it. But if I have to shoot you to save myself I shall do so…'

Benefeika, cooped up in the basement with the rats for days, was in a demoralized state. He didn't trust the man who had woken him, but he was encouraged when Grelle passed through police road-blocks without giving him up. What other explanation could there be except the one this man had given him? Beyond the Porte de Pantin there were no more checkpoints for a while, but the occasional prods with the muzzle of his rescuer's revolver encouraged Benefeika to keep his head down. In the back of the car another travelling rug was draped over the floor, but it was not a man who lay concealed beneath this covering.

The visit to the rue des Saussaies at 5 am had been hazardous. The guard who let him inside the building had assumed Grelle was going up to the room on the fourth floor where some mysterious project was carried out-the room, in fact, where a man waited for the next call from Hugon, Col Lasalle's treacherous deputy, Capt Moreau. Grelle did proceed to the fourth floor, going first to the office which had been set aside for his use, the room where he had interviewed Annette Devaud. He was only inside for a moment while he left a pack of cigarettes oh his desk. He then went to the strongroom on the other side of the building, unlocked the door, slipped inside and locked it again. He was now inside the outer office, facing the strong-room door.

Grelle proceeded with great care. Using gloves, he took the key to the strong-room door and pressed it into a key blank he had brought with him. He deliberately made a poor job of it, shifting the key so the impression was out of true. Afterwards it would be assumed someone had made a fresh and perfect blank, providing the means to furnish themselves with a duplicate key. Still wearing the gloves, he dropped the imperfect key blank on the floor and pushed it out of sight under a filing cabinet. Within a few hours teams of investigators would tear the room to pieces, would locate every speck of dust inside the place. Then he opened the strong-room door.

The SAM missile launcher was wrapped in protective canvas, laid on the floor against the wall. Beside it, inside a smaller roll of canvas, lay the two strela rockets. He made one bulky package of both, using the larger roll of canvas and fastening a strap he had brought round it. Leaving the strong-room, he locked it, went out into the corridor and re-locked the outer door.

The difficulty now would be getting the large roll out of the building. He was bound to encounter a guard at the exit, if not inside the building.

To avoid the patrolling guards, whose routine he knew, he went a long way round, walking through endless corridors and down back staircases. The damned building was a rabbit warren he had often cursed in the past but this time it could be his salvation. He went down the last staircase, then he crept back up it as he heard the footsteps of a guard in the passage below. He waited. The footsteps faded and silence returned to the decrepit interior. He walked down the staircase quickly, reached the bottom and slid the canvas roll inside a cupboard which had remained empty for years. Walking across the hall, he opened the outer door quietly.

The guard was leaning against a wall and Grelle thought he had dozed off standing up, but it was too much of a risk to try and sneak past him. 'Thomas!' he called out in a loud voice. The man straightened up with a jerk and there was a tremor in his voice. Grelle was not a man who regarded any kind of slackness lightly. 'Yes, Mr Prefect?'

`I've forgotten my cigarettes. Run up to Room 407 for me, would you?' Grelle handed Thomas a key. 'There's a fresh pack on my desk.. .'

Grelle listened to the retreating footsteps from the bottom of the staircase, took the roll out of the cupboard, carried it across the courtyard and laid it on the floor of the rear of his car. Then he spread out a travelling rug over it. He was waiting in the hall when Thomas returned with the cigarettes and the key. 'Thank you, Thomas.' He gave the man a cigarette. `Be sure that wall doesn't fall on you.. . He left Thomas staring nervously after him, fairly confident that he would omit to mention to his superior that Grelle had called. Driving back to his apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, he locked the car away in the garage and went upstairs to shave.

Beyond Grelle's windscreen the tiny village of le Mesnil Amelot was in sight, a silhouette of a duster of houses, a church spire and an abandoned factory building. Beside him on the floor Abou Benefeika was sweating; they had just passed another checkpoint. Leaving them behind at the Porte de Pantin, the prefect had run into them again as he approached the perimeter of Charles de Gaulle Airport, checkpoints which he had ordered to be set up. At the last one, still some way from the village, he called across quickly to a guard. 'Keep your eyes open for strangers. I have received a report there could be trouble round here…'

`You are going on into the village, sir?'

`I'll probably stop well this side of it-to watch the take-off.. .'

He drove on while Benefeika, huddled under the rug, marvelled at the audacity of this fake policeman. Several times he had asked where they were going and Grelle had been curt. `To a place where there is transport to get you out-and that's all you need to know…' Coming close to the village, Grelle glanced at his watch. 10.20. Jesus Christ, it had taken him longer than he had estimated. In ten minutes Concorde would be airborne.

Over to his left the plain stretched out in the sunlight beyond the wire which enclosed Charles de Gaulle Airport and he thought he could see the waiting Concorde. As he had hoped, the village street was deserted; everyone had crowded into their neighbours' houses overlooking the airport where they waited for the presidential plane to take off. Grelle turned the car sharply, driving round the back of an abandoned factory building into a large yard.

`A helicopter will land here and take you off inside one hour,' Grelle informed the Algerian as he hustled him at gunpoint out of the car. 'In the meantime you will stay quiet… Taking him inside the building, Grelle prodded him up a crumbling staircase and into a small room on the second floor where the window was barred. He bolted the door with Benefeika on the inside. Only recently, checking every aspect of security surrounding the president's departure, the prefect had driven all round the airport perimeter and had stopped at le Mesnil Amelot; intrigued by the old factory, he had walked all over it. Having locked away Benefeika, Grelle took the heavy canvas roll out of his car and lugged it up on to the roof. There was still no one about and only the church and the graveyard faced the derelict factory. Next he checked his watch. 10.27.

In Paris at the prefecture Boisseau was extremely irritated when an assistant told him there was an urgent message from Lesage, the detective in charge of the team watching the Algerian terrorist, Abou Benefeika. 'For God's sake, at a time like this,' Boisseau fumed, then he remembered his chief's knack of keeping his eye on half a dozen things at once. Put him through,' he snapped. He listened for less than a minute and then exploded.

`You fool! I gave no orders to pull out. You say the voice was badly distorted but it gave the correct code-sign? It wasn't me! You've been fooled by someone in the terrorist cell. Get back to the building at once and search it. I can tell you now you'll find him gone!' Boisseau turned his attention again to the television image which showed the president going up the steps of the mobile staircase, turning to wave, then disappearing inside Concorde. 'In no time at all he'll be airborne,' he remarked to his assistant.

Characteristically, in the manner of a Pierre Trudeau or a Jack Kennedy, Guy Florian went through the passenger section of Coneorde to the control cabin. He proposed to sit there while the plane took off, to watch how the pilots handled the controls.

`Sit down,' he told the flight deck staff. 'I'm just another passenger now…' He grinned boyishly. 'But important enough to sit with you while you take her up. If you have no objection…'

At 10.30 precisely the huge machine began moving down the runway to reach the main take-off area, travelling some distance before Jubal turned the aircraft and pointed her along the main runway. There was a moment's pause while he waited for the control tower to give him formal permission, then he set the plane in motion. From where Main Blanc stood it still looked like a venomous bird of prey, a beautiful machine but something evil and predatory. The whine and hiss from the enormous power of the engines came across to the cabinet ministers as they stood in a dutiful line, waiting. The sky was now absolutely clear, the sun shining brilliantly. No other aircraft could be seen-the sky had been emptied for the departure of President Florian. Far down the runway the plane changed direction, climbing suddenly at an acute angle, its vulture-like head and neck arched with its body, trailing in its wake a stream of dirt.

At 10.31 on the rooftop of the abandoned building Grelle was sprawled on a sheet of oilskin he had brought to protect his clothes.

Hugging the missile launcher hard into his shoulder, the way Buvon had explained when he told the prefect at Orly how the weapon worked, Grelle was staring through the telescopic sight. Only a blur to the naked eye, Concorde came up close and clear through the sight, so close he could read the words Air France painted along its side. He was sweating profusely. In the president's entourage aboard the moving plane were men he knew well, men he liked and respected. Grelle's mouth was tightly compressed, his teeth clenched.

She climbed like a triumphant bird, nose and neck arched, her huge bat-winged body arched, climbing at that severe angle which is so awe-inspiring-and terrifying-seen from the ground, or the rooftop of an abandoned factory. One thousand feet… two thousand… climbing. This is always the critical moment-when a huge aircraft laden with fuel has to keep on going up and up without pause because there is now no point of return and you keep going up towards the stratosphere-or there is oblivion.

'For France…'

Grelle squeezed the trigger.

The rocket sped up from the rooftop. Grelle was running one flight down to the room where the Algerian terrorist was still waiting for the chopper to come and take him to safety. In the empty sky above Charles de Gaulle Airport there were only two occupants-the ascending rocket and ascending Concorde. There was instant panic among the radar operators tracking Concorde's course. Another object had appeared on their scanners. An incredibly small object, streaking across the screens at supersonic speed, moving so fast that only one operator was able to shout.

Guy Florian was speaking from the flight deck over the radio, relaying a message which was being transmitted as people gathered around television sets in Paris bars to watch the climbing Concorde. 'This historic mission I am making to Moscow will further the cause of world peace so that our grand-children..

The Russian-made strela missile impacted with Concorde at the control cabin. The head and neck of the plane-which enclosed the control cabin from where Florian was speaking- broke off from the body. As the fuel detonated there was a tremendous b-o-o-m. In the streets of Paris twenty-five kilometres away people stopped as though they had been shot. From the ground the assembled cabinet ministers saw a terrible fireball flare as the fuel ignited seconds after the control cabin had gone spinning off into space. The fireball consumed half the body while the rear half fell away and plumed into a second fiery dart which plunged into fields thirty kilometres away. As the dart settled a great column of black smoke rose vertically into the clear morning sky. A fragment of tail landed a score of metres away from the cabinet ministers and they scattered. Up to that moment they had stood there in silence, motionless with horror.

It was Main Blanc who recovered first, slipping away to his car. 'Drive like hell back to Paris,' he ordered.

The entire village where the missile had been fired from was sealed off. Grelle personally directed the operation. Patrol-cars converging on the village overtook the police prefect as he was driving towards le Mesnil Amelot, and he led the way into the village where the inhabitants were now in the street, staring skywards in a state of shock. The cars pulled up and Grelle was the first to jump out.

`Back into your houses… everyone off the street… there may be shooting at any second…'

The village was sealed off within three minutes as more cars arrived, as Grelle ordered a house-to-house search and warned his men against getting trigger-happy. saw something streak into the sky from this village,' he told the inspector in charge of the detachment. 'Me too,' the inspector replied excitedly. Over a car's radio Grelle got in touch with Boisseau. `Keep the streets of Paris clear. No crowd must be allowed to assemble. Use the CRS troops if necessary. Someone may try to organize an insurrection.'

Having attended to Paris, Grelle resumed control of the house-to-house search. It was 10.55 am, exactly-he had checked the time by his watch-when he heard the inspector running down the street, shouting his head off. They had found the Algerian.

Abou Benefeika was on the rooftop of the abandoned factory, sprawled on his back, his eyes open as he stared sightless at the sky, his own Magnum pistol in his hand, with one bullet fired, bearing his own fingerprints. He had apparently shot himself through the right temple. The SAM missile launcher lay close by next to a spare rocket; later, when they checked the weapon, it also carried his fingerprints.

On 7 January the great bells of Notre Dame rang out for the state funeral of Guy Florian-part of his body had miraculously survived intact-and heads of state from all over the world attended the occasion, including the titular president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Alain Blanc, newly elected prime minister, led the mourners.

On the previous Christmas Eve, Marc Grelle handed in his resignation as police prefect of Paris to Alain Blanc, who had also temporarily taken over the post of Minister of the Interior. The two men remained closeted in private for over an hour. Grelle then immediately issued a statement to the press. 'Failing in my duty to protect the life of the president of the French Republic, I have resigned and will go into immediate retirement.' Georges Hardy, Grelle's old friend and police prefect of Lyon, took over as police prefect of Paris.

On 8 January, the day after the state funeral of the president, which Grelle had watched alone on television in his apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, the ex-prefect drove Alan Lennox to the airport for his flight back to London. Still convalescent and heavily bandaged, Lennox had insisted on going home at once after making a lengthy deposition of his activities in France to Andre Boisseau. The deposition made no mention of the Leopard, and Boisseau, who carried out the interrogation personally, never referred to the Resistance leader once.

After seeing the Englishman aboard his flight at Charles de Gaulle Airport, Grelle started the drive back to Paris alone. In his breast pocket he carried the photograph of his wife, Pauline, which he had extracted from the frame in his apartment. His last words to Alan Lennox before leaving him had been nostalgic. 'For years I have looked forward to retiring to a certain village in the Dordogne-the fishing there is good…' But Grelle had devoted most of his life to preserving and upholding the law; nor had he any illusions that the steps he had taken to cover his tracks would stand up to intensive investigation. He had only sought to buy himself a little time. If he was not available for questioning then, in due course, Boisseau could issue his report confirming that Abou Benefeika was responsible for the president's death. He hit the crash barrier travelling at 140 kph.

Over five hundred people attended his funeral. And as at the funeral of Guy Florian, Alain Blanc, later to become the next president of France, was the chief mourner. On top of the coffin was draped Marc Grelle's black uniform embroidered in silver, which is reserved for official occasions. 'It struck me,' Andre the Squirrel remarked afterwards, 'that he would have preferred them to drape slacks and a polo-necked sweater…' The Prime Minister was one of the pall-bearers, and as he walked slowly with a corner of the coffin perched on his shoulders there were people who said later that never before or since had they seen Alain Blanc so distressed.