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The legionnaire proffered a sheet from a note pad on which were scribbled the disjointed phrases of Valmy. Rodin read through the message once, then leapt out of the thinly sheeted bed. He wrapped the cotton sarong he habitually wore, a habit from the East, round his waist, and read the message again.
‘All right. Dismiss.’ The legionnaire left the room and went back downstairs.
Rodin swore silently and intensely for several seconds, crumpling the piece of paper in his hands. Damn, damn, damn, damn Kowalski.
For the first two days after Kowalski’s disappearance he had thought the man had simply deserted. There had been several defections of late from the cause, as the conviction set in among the rank and file that the OAS had failed and would fail in its aim of killing Charles de Gaulle and bringing down the present Government of France. But Kowalski he had always thought would remain loyal to the last.
And here was evidence that he had for some inexplicable reason returned to France, or perhaps been picked up inside Italy and abducted. Now it seemed he had talked, under pressure of course.
Rodin genuinely grieved his dead servitor. Part of the considerable reputation he had built up as a fighting soldier and commanding officer had been based on the enormous concern he showed for his men. These things are appreciated by fighting soldiers more than any military theorist can ever imagine. Now Kowalski was dead, and Rodin had few illusions of the manner of his passing.
Still, the important thing was to try to recollect just what Kowalski had had to tell. The meeting in Vienna, the name of the hotel. Of course, all of that. The three men who had been at the meeting. This would be no news to the SDECE. But what did he know about the Jackal? He had not been listening at the door, that was certain. He could tell them of a tall blond foreigner who had visited the three of them. That in itself meant nothing. Such a foreigner could have been an arms dealer, or a financial backer. There had been no names mentioned.
But Valmy’s message mentioned the Jackal by his code-name. How? How could Kowalski have told them that?
With a start of horror Rodin recalled the scene as they had parted. He had stood in the doorway with the Englishman; Viktor had been a few feet down the corridor, annoyed at the way the Englishman had spotted him in the alcove, a professional outmanoeuvred by another professional, waiting for trouble, almost hoping for it. What had he, Rodin said? ‘Bonsoir, Mr Jackal.’ Of course, damn and blast it.
Thinking things over again, Rodin realised that Kowalski could never have got the killer’s real name. Only he, Montclair and Casson knew that. All the same, Valmy was right. With Kowalski’s confession in the hands of the SDECE, it was too far blown to be retrievable. They had the meeting, the hotel, probably they had already talked to the desk clerk; they had the face and figure of a man, a code-name. There could be no doubt they would guess what Kowalski had guessed—that the blond was a killer. From then on the net around De Gaulle would tighten; he would abandon all public engagements, all exits from his palace, all chances for an assassin to get him. It was over; the operation was blown. He would have to call off the Jackal, insist on the money back, minus all expenses and a retainer for the time and trouble involved.
There was one thing to be settled, and quickly. The Jackal himself must be warned urgently to halt operations. Rodin was still enough of a commanding officer not to send a man out on his orders on a mission for which success had become impossible.
He summoned the bodyguard to whom, since the departure of Kowalski, he had given the duties of going every day to the main post office to collect the mail and, if necessary, make telephone calls, and briefed him at length.
By nine o’clock the bodyguard was in the post office and asked for a telephone number in London. It took twenty minutes before the telephone at the other end began to ring. The switchboard operator gestured the Frenchman to a cabin to take the call. He picked up the receiver as the operator put hers down, and listened to the bzzz-bzzz … pause … bzzz-bzzz of an English telephone ringing.
The Jackal rose early that morning, for he had much to do. The three main suitcases he had checked and re-packed the previous evening. Only the hand-grip remained to be topped up with his sponge bag and shaving tackle. He drank his habitual two cups of coffee, washed, showered and shaved. After packing the remainder of the overnight toiletries he closed up the hand luggage and stored all four pieces by the door.
He made himself a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, orange juice and more black coffee in the flat’s small but compact kitchen, and ate it off the kitchen table. Being a tidy and methodical man he emptied the last of the milk down the sink, broke the two remaining eggs and poured them also down the sink. The remainder of the orange juice he drank off, junked the can in the trash basket and the remainder of the bread, egg shells and coffee grounds went down the disposal unit. Nothing left would be likely to go rotten during his absence.
Finally he dressed, choosing a thin silk polo-necked sweater, the dove-grey suit containing the private papers in the name of Duggan, and the hundred pounds in cash, dark grey socks and slim black moccasin shoes. The ensemble was completed by the inevitable dark glas
ses.
At nine-fifteen he took his luggage, two pieces in each hand, closed the self-locking flat door behind him, and went downstairs. It was a short walk to South Audley Street and he caught a taxi on the corner.
‘London Airport, Number Two Building,’ he told the driver.
As the taxi moved away, the phone in his flat began to ring.
It was ten o’clock when the legionnaire returned to the hotel off the Via Condotti and told Rodin he had tried for thirty minutes to get a reply from the London number he had been given, but had not succeeded.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Casson, who had heard the explanation given to Rodin and seen the legionnaire dismissed to return to his guard duties. The three OAS chiefs were sitting in the drawing room of their suite. Rodin withdrew a piece of paper from his inside pocket and passed it over to Casson.
Casson read it and passed it to Montclair. Both men finally looked at their leader for an answer. There was none. Rodin sat staring out of the windows across the baking roofs of Rome, brow furrowed in thought.
‘When did it come?’ asked Casson eventually.
‘This morning,’ replied Rodin briefly.
‘You’ve got to stop him,’ protested Montclair. ‘They’ll have half France on the lookout for him.’
‘They’ll have half of France on the look-out for a tall blond foreigner,’ said Rodin quietly. ‘In August there are over one million foreigners in France. So far as we know they have no name to go on, no face, no passport. Being a professional he is probably using a false passport. They still have a long way to go to get him yet. There’s a good chance he will be forewarned if he rings Valmy, and then he’ll be able to get out again.’
‘If he rings Valmy he will, of course, be ordered to drop the operation,’ said Montclair. ‘Valmy will order him.’
Rodin shook his head.
‘Valmy does not have the authority to do that. His orders are to receive information from the girl and pass it on to the Jackal when he is telephoned. He will do that, but nothing else.’
