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.
CHAPTER SIX
`A woman who can positively identify me as the Leopard has arrived in Paris. Her name is Annette Devaud. Apparently they brought her in under heavy guard aboard the Stanislas express…'
A dog barked, a deafening sound on the tape. The familiar, so recognizable voice, spoke sharply.
`Quiet, Kassim! I don't see how there is time to intercept her. I can personally take no action which will not arouse the gravest suspicion…'
`Why did you not add her to the Lasalle list earlier?' The second voice, husky, accented, was also quite recognizable.
`She went blind at the end of the war-so I assumed she was harmless. My assistant phoned the police chief at Saverne just before you arrived-apparently she had an operation recently which restored her sight. This is the most appalling mess, Vorin, coming at the last moment…'
`Mr President, we may be able to do something..'
`I added her to the list later-when Danchin sent me his routine report with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung letter which mentioned her name. Your people were supposed to have dealt with the problem.. .'
`Something went wrong…'
`Then you cannot blame me!' An argument was developing; the well-known voice was sharp, cutting. 'It is imperative that you rectify your error…'
`Then I must leave at once for the embassy, Mr President. We have reached a stage where minutes count. Do you know where they will take the Devaud woman?'
`To the rue des Saussaies…'
Alone in the fourth-floor room at Surete headquarters, Marc Grelle switched off the tape-recorder which had been linked to the tiny transmitter inserted inside Kassim's studded collar. He had played it twice, standing while he listened to it with a frozen expression, concentrating on the pitch of the voices. It was a futile exercise-replaying the tape-because the timbre of Guy Florian's voice had come over with such clarity the first time. In any case the words spoken were diabolically conclusive.
Staring at the opposite wall, the prefect lit a cigarette, hardly aware of the action. For days now the terrible truth had thrust itself into his mind and he had refused to accept the evidence. Gaston Martin had seen three men enter the Elysee, one of them the president. The surveillance on Danchin and Blanc had revealed no evidence of a Soviet link contacting either man, but Florian met Soviet Ambassador Vorin almost daily. And so on… Staring at the
