Cross of Fire by Colin Forbes Page B

side street and parked his Citroen well away from the main street.
    Locking the Citroen, he ran back the way he had come, peered out, saw the mob seemed even larger. A sign adver tised a bar on the first floor. He ran up the steps, entered a crowded room, ordered a Pernod to have a glass in his hand, slithered between men and women chattering excit edly until he reached a window overlooking the main street.
    Below a mob of Balaclava-masked men waving clubs and bottles were shouting slogans. Pour France ... Pour France ... Pour France? Oui!... Juif? Non!!!
    The inflammatory chant went on. For France? Yes. The Jew? No!!! Holding his glass, Newman went on watching. He had the distinct impression the chant was organized. The riot became more savage. Men stormed into a restaurant, tore down the lace curtains, upturned chairs with customers, throwing them to the floor. Men and women: it made no difference. Terror was loose on the streets.
    Having wrecked the interior the rioters flooded out, seeking a fresh target. One man with an aerosol paint canister sprayed a word across the window from the street. In huge red letters the word Juif! disfigured the glass. On the fascia above was the owner's name. Bronstein.
    Newman estimated over two hundred Balaclava-masked men were prowling the street when he saw the CRS van stop further up the street. The paramilitary had arrived to quell the berserk mob. Berserk? What followed was extraordinary.
    The apparently wild mob moved into a series of separate units. Somewhere a bell like a strident alarm was bellowing its clangour non-stop. A warning? A signal? Instead of retreating, units of the mob ran towards the van where CRS men clad in black coats and visored helmets were emerging with clubs. Seven men in the mob produced stubby wide- barrelled pistols, aimed at the van.
    The CRS troops were about to advance when the projec tiles from the pistols hit the cobbles in front of them, sending up clouds of tear gas. The CRS men stumbled, coughing, some ramming their hands to their injured eyes. A second unit, also armed with similar pistols, aimed for the no man's land of deserted street between the CRS and the mob. More projectiles hit the area accurately. Black smoke billowed. Smoke bombs.
    Below the bar inside which Newman stood a TV man with a camera was grabbed by two men, held as a third took the camera he hadn't yet used. The lens was aimed away from the mob, swivelled slowly across the wreck of shops, restaurants, bars. No pictures of the mob.
    When he had finished using the camera, one of the thugs holding the TV cameraman dubbed the back of his head. The TV reporter was perched on the edge of the kerb. He slumped into the gutter. The camera was dumped into his lap.
    The strident alarm bell had stopped ringing. The mob moved in ordered groups, like troops on an exercise, some vanishing down side streets. Others climbed inside large tradesmen's vans which had appeared from the direction of the Gare St Jean. The vehicles sped out of the area.
    Suddenly the street was deserted. The CRS men, recov ering from the tear gas onslaught, appeared through the curtain of smoke to find their targets gone. Newman opened the window cautiously, heard the boots of the CRS trampling across heaps of shattered glass. It looked like the aftermath of a battlefield.
    There was a hush inside the bar as Newman sidled his way through the crowd, ran down the steps before the CRS arrived. He continued running up the side street, reached his Citroen, unlocked it, dived inside, drove away from the main street, heading for the airport.
    *
    He had intended calling at the Pullman Hotel to collect his few belongings. Now he decided to forget it. His one aim was to leave Bordeaux alive.
    He doubted whether this was the only riot which was in full swing in the city. What he had seen had all the hall marks of a carefully organized campaign of terror. Objec tives: to scare the population witless. To demoralize them into a state