wall, smoking his cigarette. Grelle felt a sense of nausea, like a husband who had just found his wife in bed with a coarse and brutal lover.
Extracting the tape from the machine, he put it inside his pocket. Picking up the phone he asked for an outside line and then dialled a number.
Still in a state of shock he made a great effort to keep his voice cold and impersonal.
`Alain Blanc? Grelle here. I need to see you immediately. No, don't come to the prefecture. I'm going straight back to my apartment. Yes, something has happened. You will need a glass of cognac before I tell you…'
The 2nd and 5th French Armoured Divisions, stationed in the German Federal Republic and commanded by Gen Jacques Chassou were already on the move. The German authorities had been informed, the consent of the government of the Duchy of Luxembourg had been obtained-all at very short notice. Within hours the advance elements of the two divisions had crossed the Luxembourg frontier and were moving into the Ardennes on their way back to France. At to p.m., just before he flew to Sedan, Gen Chassou opened the secret instructions which had been personally handed to him by President Florian when he made his lightning visit to Baden-Baden on the previous Monday.
`For the moment you will not return to Germany at the conclusion of the exercise. Once over the Sedan bridges you will proceed on into France… You will halt in the general military area of Metz… transport parks have been prepared…'
Handing the secret communication to his assistant, Col Georges Doissy, Chassou told him to make the necessary adjustments and then flew off to Sedan. Doissy, who had once served under Col Rene Lasalle, immediately realized that this order would leave Germany isolated, with only a token British detachment alongside the German Army facing Russia. He thought about it for a few minutes, then he remembered President de Gaulle's advice to the recently elected President Kennedy: 'Listen only to yourself… Doissy picked up the phone and asked the night operator to put him through urgently to the Minister of National Defence, Alain Blanc.
At to pm. on 22 December, Commander Arthur Leigh- Browne, RN, the British officer in charge of the NATO analyst team watching the Soviet convoy K. 12, issued a routine report. `If K. 12 continues on her present course, at her present reduced speed, she can make landfall at Barcelona by changing course again some time within the next twelve to eighteen hours… Being a precise man, he added a rider. 'Theoretically she could also make landfall on the south coast of France, at Marseilles and Toulon…' Following the normal practice, a coded signal of his report was despatched to all NATO defence ministers.
Abou Benefeika, the Arab terrorist who had come within seconds of destroying the El Al airliner at Orly, tried to make himself more comfortable as he rested his head against the `pillow' of bricks in the basement of the abandoned building at 17 rue Reamur. The fact that he had folded his jacket and placed it on top of the bricks did not help him to sleep, nor did the rustle of tiny feet he kept hearing; the rats also had taken up unofficial tenancy in the condemned building.
During the day Benefeika had crept out of his hiding-place to purchase food and drink from the local shops, and because this district of Paris was a ghetto peopled by Algerians he was not too worried about breaking cover. Absorbed as he was in his task, on the lookout only for uniformed police, he failed to notice two scruffily-dressed men who followed him everywhere with their hands in their pockets. Returning to his squalid hideaway, he ate and drank while outside one of the scruffily dressed men climbed up to the first floor of the building opposite. Using his walkie-talkie, Sergeant Pierre Gallon made his routine report. 'Rabbit has returned to his burrow. Observation is continuing…'
`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…'
In his apartment on the Ile Saint-Louis, Grelle switched off the tape-recorder and looked at Alain Blanc who sat in an elegant chair with his legs crossed and a glass of cognac in his hand. The Minister's expression was grim: it was the third time the recording had been played back for his benefit and he now knew the conversation word for word. He drank the rest of his cognac in one gulp and there were beads of sweat on his high-domed forehead.
He looked up as Grelle spoke.
`Within two hours of that conversation-I phoned the security officer at the Elysee and Vorin arrived there at 9.15- Annette Devaud was brutally murdered by the assassin we later trapped in Place de la Concorde,' the prefect said. 'There is no room for doubt any more that the man who..'
`I recognize Florian's voice,' Blanc broke in impatiently. `Vorin's too. There is no room for doubt at all.' He sighed. 'It is a terrible shock but not so much of a surprise. For days now I have been wondering what was going on-although I never suspected the appalling truth. These rumours of a right-wing coup which seemed to emanate from near-Communist sources. Florian's sudden and quite inexplicable journey to Baden- Baden…'
Blanc stood up and hammered his fist into the palm of his other hand.
`Oh Jesus Christ what have we come to, Grelle? I have known him since he was a young man at the Polytechnique after the war. I organized his rise to power. How could I have been so blind?'
`Caesar is always above suspicion…'
`As I have just told you, I had a phone call from Col Doissy at Baden-Baden before I left to come here-saying that the 2nd and 5th divisions will proceed to Metz and stay there, which leaves Germany naked. With the American Congress in its present isolationist mood Washington will not even threaten to press the nuclear button-Moscow has its own button. The United States will only react if the American mainland is in danger. All this stems from the fiasco in Viet Nam and Cambodia. You know what I think is going to happen within the next few hours?'
`What?'
`I think Florian will announce in Moscow tomorrow the conclusion of a military pact with the Soviets- remember, the president can conclude such a pact himself. You've seen that report which just came in from Brussels-I think Florian will further announce joint military manoeuvres with the Russians. The ports of Toulon and Marseilles will be opened for the landing of Soviet troops aboard convoy K. 12.'
`Then something must be done…'
`Germany will wake up to find herself encircled-Soviet divisions to the east of her, Soviet divisions west of the Rhine. On French soil! I think Florian will fly back from Moscow later tomorrow and if there is any reaction here he will say there has been an attempted right-wing coup d'etat by Col Lasalle and half of us will be behind bars…'
`Calm yourself,' Grelle advised.
`Calm myself he says…' Blanc was showing great agitation, his face covered in nervous sweat as he moved restlessly about the living-room. 'Within a few days we may even have the Soviet flag flying alongside the tricolour!' Accepting the refilled glass from Grelle he made as if to swallow it in a gulp, then stiffened himself and took only a sip.
`We have to decide what to do,' Grelle said quietly.
`Exactly!' Blanc, after his outburst, suddenly recovered his natural poise. 'It is quite useless consulting other ministers,' he said firmly. 'Even if I called a secret meeting they would never take a decision, someone would leak the news, it would reach the Elysee, Florian would act, call us right-wing conspirators, declare a state of emergency…'
It was Grelle who brought up the precedent of President Nixon, pointing out that whatever the solution, the public and the world must never know the truth. `Nixon's actions were a bagatelle, hardly more than a misdemeanour compared with what we are talking about. Yet look at the shattering effect it had on America when he was exposed. Can you imagine the effect on France-on Europe-if it is ever revealed that the French president is a Communist agent? No one would ever be sure of us again. France would be demoralized…'
`You are, of course, quite right,' Blanc said gravely. 'It must never become public knowledge. Do you realize, Grelle, that leaves only one solution?'
`Florian must be killed…'
Along the German-Czechoslovak border between Selb and Grafenau there was a sudden burst of Soviet aerial activity in the early hours of 23 December, at first thought to be connected with large-scale manoeuvres and winter exercises being carried out by the Warsaw Pact countries. Later Soviet Foxbat aircraft were reported to have crossed and recrossed over the frontier and Chancellor Franz Hauser was dragged out of bed at 2 am to assess the situation. At 3 am he ordered an amber alert which mobilized forces along the disturbed frontier and certain back- up groups.
