He had one other thing to report. A proposal had been made that the possibility be considered of making a snatch on one of the three OAS chiefs in Rome. The Quai d’Orsay had come out strongly against such an idea for diplomatic reasons (they had not been told of the Jackal plot) and they were being backed in this by the President (who was aware of the reason). This must therefore be discounted as a way out of their difficulties.
General Guibaud for the SDECE said a complete check of their records had failed to reveal knowledge of the existence of a professional political killer outside the ranks of the OAS or its sympathisers, and who could not be completely accounted for.
The head of Renseignements Généraux said a search through France’s criminal archives had revealed the same thing, not only among Frenchmen but also among foreigners who had ever tried to operate inside France.
The chief of the DST then made his report. At 7.30 that morning a call had been intercepted from a post office near the Gare du Nord to the number of the Rome hotel where the three OAS chiefs were staying. Since their appearance there eight weeks before, operators on the international switchboard had been instructed to report all calls placed to that number. The one on duty that morning had been slow on the uptake. The call had been placed before he had realised that the number was the one on his list. He had put the call through, and only then rung the DST. However, he had had the sense to listen in. The message had been: ‘Valmy to Poitiers. The Jackal is blown. Repeat. The Jackal is blown. Kowalski was taken. Sang before dying. Ends.’
There was silence in the room for several seconds.
‘How did they find out?’ asked Lebel quietly from the far end of the table. All eyes turned on him, except those of Colonel Rolland who was staring at the opposite wall deep in thought.
‘Damn,’ he said clearly, still staring at the wall. The eyes swivelled back to the head of the Action Service.
The Colonel snapped out of his reverie.
‘Marseilles,’ he said shortly. ‘To get Kowalski to come from Rome we used a bait. An old friend called J0J0 Grzybowski. The man has a wife and daughter. We kept them all in protective custody until Kowalski was in our hands. Then we allowed them to return home. All I wanted from Kowalski was information about his chiefs. There was no reason to suspect this Jackal plot at the time. There was no reason why they should not know we had got Kowalski—then. Later of course things changed. It must have been the Pole J0J0 who tipped off the agent Valmy. Sorry.’
‘Did the DST pick Valmy up in the post office?’ asked Lebel.
‘No, we missed him by a couple of minutes, thanks to the stupidity of the operator,’ replied the man from DST.
‘A positive chapter of inefficiency,’ snapped Colonel Saint-Clair suddenly. A number of unfriendly glances were levelled at him.
‘We are feeling our way, largely in the dark, against an unknown adversary,’ replied General Guibaud. ‘If the Colonel would like to volunteer to take over the operation, and all the responsibility it implies…’
The Colonel from the Elysée Palace studiously examined his folders as if they were more important and of greater consequence than the veiled threat from the head of the SDECE. But he realised it had not been a wise remark.
‘In a way,’ mused the Minister, ‘it might be as well they know their hired gun is blown. Surely they must call the operation off now?’
‘Precisely,’ said Saint-Clair, trying to recoup, ‘the Minister is right. They would be crazy to go ahead now. They’ll simply call the man off.’
‘He isn’t exactly blown,’ said Lebel quietly. They had almost forgotten he was there. ‘We still don’t know the man’s name. The forewarning might simply cause him to take extra contingency precautions. False papers, physical disguises …’
The optimism to which the Minister’s remark had given birth round the table vanished. Roger Frey eyed the little Commissaire with respect.
‘I think we had better have Commissaire Lebel’s report, gentlemen. After all, he is heading this enquiry. We are here to assist him where we can.’
Thus prompted, Lebel outlined the measures he had taken since the previous evening; the growing belief, supported by the check through the French files, that the foreigner could only be on the files of some foreign police force, if at all. The request to make enquiries abroad; request granted. The series of person-to-person phone calls via Interpol to police chiefs of seven major countries.
‘The replies came in during the course of today,’ he concluded. ‘Here they are: Holland, nothing. Italy, several known contract-hire killers, but all in the employ of the Mafia. Discreet enquiries between the Carabinieri and the Capo of Rome elicited a pledge that no Mafia killer would ever do a political killing except on orders, and the Mafia would not subscribe to killing a foreign statesman.’ Lebel looked up. ‘Personally, I am inclined to believe that is probably true.
‘Britain. Nothing, but routine enquiries have been passed to another department, the Special Branch, for further checking.’
‘Slow as always,’ muttered Saint-Clair under his breath. Lebel caught the remark and looked up again.
‘But very thorough, our English friends. Do not underestimate Scotland Yard.’ He resumed reading.
‘America. Two possibles. One the right-hand man of a big international arms dealer based in Miami, Florida. This man was formerly a US Marine, later a CIA man in the Caribbean. Fired for killing a Cuban anti-Castroist in a fight just before the Bay of Pigs affair. The Cuban was to have commanded a section of that operation. The American then was taken on by the arms dealer, one of the men the CIA had unofficially used to supply arms to the Bay of Pigs invading force. Believed to have been responsible for two unexplained accidents that happened later to rivals of his employer in the arms business. Arms dealing, it seems, is a very cut-throat business. The man’s name is Charles “Chuck” Arnold. The FBI is now checking for his whereabouts.
‘The second man suggested by FBI as a possible. Marco Vitellino, formerly personal bodyguard to a New York gangland boss, Albert Anastasia. This Capo was shot to death in a barber’s chair in October ’57 and Vitellino fled America in fear of his own life. Settled in Caracas, Venezuela. Tried to go into the rackets there on his own account, but with little success. He was frozen out by the local underworld. FBI think that if he was completely broke he might be in the market for a contract killing job for a foreign organisation, if the price were right.’
There was complete silence in the room. The fourteen other men listened without a murmur.
‘Belgium. One possibility. Psychopathic homicide, formerly on the staff of Tschombe in Katanga. Expelled by United Nations when captured in 1962. Unable to return to Belgium because of pending charges on two counts of murder. A hired gun, but a clever one. Name of Jules Bérenger. Believed also emigrated to Central America. Belgian police are still checking on his possible present whereabouts.
‘Germany. One suggestion. Hans-Dieter Kassel, former SS-Major, wanted by two countries for war crimes. Lived after the war in West Germany under an assumed name, and was a contract-killer for ODESSA, the ex-SS members’ underground organisation. Suspected of being implicated in the killing of two left-wing Socialists in post-war politics who were urging a government-sponsored intensification of enquiries into war crimes. Later unmasked as Kassel, but skipped to Spain after a tip-off for which a senior police official lost his job. Believed now living in retirement in Madrid …’
Lebel looked up again. ‘Incidentally, this man’s age seems to be a bit advanced for this sort of job. He is now fifty-seven.’
‘Lastly, South Africa. One possible. Professional mercenary. Name: Piet Schuyper. Also one of Tschombe’s top gunmen. Nothing officially against him in South Africa, but he’s considered undesirable. A crackshot, and a definite penchant for individual killing. Last heard of when expelled from the Congo on the collapse of the Katangese secession early this year. Believed to be still in West Africa somewhere. The South African Special Bran
ch is checking further.’
He stopped and looked up. The fourteen men round the table were looking back at him without expression.
‘Of course,’ said Lebel deprecatingly, ‘it’s very vague, I’m afraid. For one thing I only tried the seven most likely countries. The Jackal could be a Swiss, or Austrian, or something else. Then three countries out of seven replied that they have no suggestion to make. They could be wrong. The Jackal could be an Italian, or Dutchman or English. Or he could be South African, Belgian, German or American, but not among those listed. One doesn’t know. One is feeling in the dark, hoping for a break.’
‘Mere hoping isn’t going to get us far,’ snapped Saint-Clair.
‘Perhaps the Colonel has a fresh suggestion?’ enquired Lebel politely.
‘Personally, I feel the man has certainly been warned off,’ said Saint-Clair icily. ‘He could never get near the President now that his plan has been exposed. However much Rodin and his henchmen have promised to pay this Jackal, they will ask for their money back and cancel the operation.’
‘You feel the man has been warned off,’ interposed Lebel softly, ‘but feeling is not far from hoping. I would prefer to continue enquiries for the present.’
‘What is the position of these enquiries now, Commissaire?’ asked the Minister.
‘Already, Minister, the police forces who have made these suggestions are beginning to send by telex the complete dossiers. I expect to have the last by noon tomorrow. Pictures will also come by wire. Some of the police forces are continuing enquiries to try and pin the whereabouts of the suspect down, so that we can take over.’
‘Do you think they will keep their mouths shut?’ asked Sanguinetti.
‘There’s no reason for them not to,’ replied Lebel. ‘Hundreds of highly confidential enquiries are made each year by senior policemen of the Interpol countries, some of them on an unofficial person-to-person basis. Fortunately all countries, whatever their political outlook, are opposed to crime. So we are not involved in the same rivalries as the more political branches of international relations. Co-operation among police forces is very good.’
‘Even for political crime?’ asked Frey.
‘For policemen, Minister, it’s all crime. That is why I preferred to contact my foreign colleagues rather than enquire through foreign ministries. Doubtless the superiors of these colleagues must learn that the enquiry was made, but there would be no good reason for them to make mischief. The political assassin is the world’s outlaw.’
‘But so long as they know the enquiry was made, they can work out the implications and still privately sneer at our President,’ snapped Saint-Clair.
‘I do not see why they should do that. It might be one of them, one day,’ said Lebel.
‘You do not know much about politics if you are not aware how some people would be delighted to know a killer is after the President of France,’ replied Saint-Clair. ‘This public knowledge is precisely what the President was so anxious to avoid.’
‘It is not public knowledge,’ corrected Lebel. ‘It is extremely private knowledge, confined to a tiny handful of men who carry in their heads secrets that, if revealed, might well ruin half the politicians of their own countries. Some of these men know most of the inner details of installations that protect Western security. They have to, in order to protect them. If they were not discreet, they would not hold the jobs they do.’
‘Better a few men should know we are looking for a killer than they should receive invitations to attend the President’s funeral,’ growled Bouvier. ‘We’ve been fighting the OAS for two years. The President’s instructions were that it must not become a press sensation and public talking point.’
‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ interposed the Minister. ‘Enough of this. It was I who authorised Commissaire Lebel to make discreet enquiries among the heads of foreign police services, after …’ he glanced at Saint-Clair … ‘consulting with the President.
The general amusement at the Colonel’s discomfiture was ill-concealed.
‘Is there anything else?’ asked M. Frey.
Rolland raised a hand briefly.
‘We have a permanent bureau in Madrid,’ he said. ‘There are a number of refugee OAS in Spain, that’s why we keep it there. We could check on the Nazi, Kassel, without bothering the West Germans about it. I understand our relations with the Bonn Foreign Office are still not of the best.’
His reference to the Argoud snatch of February and the consequent anger of Bonn brought a few smiles. Frey raised his eyebrows at Lebel.
‘Thank you,’ said the detective, ‘that would be most helpful, if you could pin the man down. For the rest there is nothing, except to ask that all departments continue to assist me as they have been doing over the past twenty-four hours.’
‘Then until tomorrow, gentlemen,’ said the Minister briskly and rose, gathering his papers. The meeting broke up.
Outside on the steps, Lebel gratefully drew in a lungful of the mild night air of Paris. The clocks truck twelve and ushered in Tuesday, August 13th.
It was just after twelve when Barrie Lloyd rang Superintendent Thomas at his home in Chiswick. Thomas was just about to put the bedside light out, thinking the SIS man would ring in the morning.
‘I found the flimsy of the report we were talking about,’ said Lloyd. ‘I was right in a way. It was just a routine report of a rumour running round the island at that time. Marked “No action to be taken” almost as soon as it was filed. Like I said, we were pretty tied up with other things at that time.’
‘Was any name mentioned?’ asked Thomas quietly, so as not to disturb his wife who was asleep.
‘Yes, a British business man on the island, who disappeared around that time. He might have had nothing to do with it, but his name was linked in the gossip. Name of Charles Calthrop.’
‘Thanks, Barrie. I’ll follow it in the morning.’ He put the phone down and went to sleep.
Lloyd, being a meticulous young man, made a brief report of the request and his reply to it, and dispatched it to Requirements. In the small hours the night duty man on requirements examined it quizzically for a moment, and as it concerned Paris, put it in the pouch for the Foreign Office’s France Desk, the entire pouch to be delivered personally according to routine to Head of France when he came in later the same morning.
14
THE JACKAL ROSE AT his habitual hour of 7.30, drank the tea placed by his bedside, washed, showered and shaved. Once dressed, he took the wad of one thousand pounds from inside the lining of his suitcase, slipped it into his breast pocket and went down for breakfast. At nine o’clock he was on the pavement of the Via Manzoni outside the hotel, and striding down the road looking for banks. For two hours he went from one to another, changing the English pounds. Two hundred were changed into Italian lire and the remaining eight hundred into French francs.
By mid-morning he was finished with this task, and broke for a cup of Espresso on a café terrace. After that he set out on his second search. After numerous enquiries he found himself in one of the back streets off the Porta Garibaldi, a working-class area near the Garibaldi Station. Here he found what he was looking for, a row of lock-up garages. One of these he hired from the proprietor who ran the garage on the corner of the street. The hire charge for two days was ten thousand lire, well above the odds but then it was a very short let.
In a local hardware store he bought a set of overalls, a pair of metal clippers, several yards of thin steel wire, a soldering iron and a foot of solder rod. These he packed into a canvas grip bought at the same store, and deposited the grip in the garage. Pocketing the key, he went off for lunch at a trattoria in the more fashionable centre of the city.
In the early afternoon, after making an appointment by phone from the trattoria, he arrived by taxi at a small and not-too-prosperous car-hire firm. Here he hired a second-hand 1962 vintage Alfa Romeo sports two-seater. He explained that he wished to tour Italy for the forthcoming fortnight, the length
of his holiday in Italy, and return the car at the end of that time.
His passport and British and international driving licences were in order, and insurance was arranged within the hour from a nearby firm which habitually handled the business of the hire-car firm. The deposit was heavy, the equivalent to over a hundred pounds, but by the mid-afternoon the car was his, the keys in the ignition, and the proprietor of the firm wishing him a happy holiday.
Previous enquiries with the Automobile Association in London had assured him that as both France and Italy were members of the Common Market, there were no complicated formalities for driving an Italian-registered car into France, provided the driving licences, car registration hire documents and insurance cover were in order.
From a personal enquiry at the reception desk of the Auto-mobil Club Italiano on the Corso Venezia he was given the name of a highly respectable insurance firm close by, which specialised in offering motor insurance cover for travel in foreign countries. Here he paid cash for extra insurance cover for an expedition into France. This firm, he was assured, enjoyed a mutual relationship with a large French insurance company, and their cover would be accepted without question.
From here he drove the Alfa back to the Continentale, parked it in the hotel car-park, went up to his room and retrieved the suitcase containing the component parts of the sniper’s rifle. Shortly after teatime he was back in the mews street where he had hired the lock-up garage.
With the door safely shut behind him, the cable from the soldering iron plugged into the overhead light socket, and a high-powered torch lying on the floor beside him to illuminate the underside of the car, he went to work. For two hours he carefully welded the thin steel tubes that contained the rifle parts into the inner flange of the Alfa’s chassis. One of the reasons for choosing an Alfa had been because a search through motor magazines in London had taught him that among Italian cars the Alfa possessed a stout steel chassis with a deep flange on the inner side.