to happen before when a subordinate reports to his superior, Grelle censored the report, omitting any reference to the Leopard. Danchin was reading the memo before noon.
Earlier, as soon as he arrived at his office, the prefect started the machinery moving which, in a few hours, would have circulated to all French frontier checkpoints the name and description of Alan Lennox. 'It's odd,' he said to Boisseau, 'I once met a man with this name when I was in Marseilles. Get someone to phone the right man at our embassy in London and try to check him out—with particular reference to his present whereabouts. Alan Lennox—he was an international security expert. . .'
The headquarters of the BND, the German Federal Intelligence Service is located at Pullach in Bavaria, a small town on the banks of the river Isar six miles south of Munich. On the morning when Grelle received the list of witnesses from Hugon, Peter Lanz called in at his office in the two-storey building which houses senior staff at the unearthly hour of 5 am. Rising so early did not bother Lanz who could easily get by on four hours' sleep a night. As he collected papers from his desk and put them inside a briefcase, his secretary, Frau Schenker, a pretty girl of twenty-seven and the wife of an army officer, came into the room.
`The car has arrived, Herr Lanz. They say the airfield is fogged in. . .
`They have a flare path, for God's sake!' Lanz grinned to take the edge off his outburst. 'I haven't had coffee yet, so you must excuse me. You can phone me in Bonn up to nine o'clock —if you must!'
`I shall forget you have gone to Bonn,' Frau Schenker replied. She was half in love with her boss, but sensible enough to know that this was really because she spent all day with him and he was so considerate. At least it helped to dispel the feeling of isolation working at Pullach engendered; none of the people who worked at the BND were able to let their friends know their real job.
As Lanz went down to the car, she checked her watch. He would be airborne within thirty minutes.
As Lanz had foreseen, they had to light the flare path before his executive aircraft could take off, then it was climbing steeply through grey murk which was always disturbing: you couldn't rid yourself of the feeling that a large airliner might be heading direct for you. To suppress the fear, Lanz pulled out the table-flap and read the transcript of Col Lasalle's latest broadcast over Europe Number One. The Frenchman had excelled himself.
`The Hawk in Paris is getting ready to take flight. . . . Soon he will alight in the city of the new Tsar whose shadow falls over the ancient and famous cities of Athens, Rome and Lisbon. .. . Is Paris to be the next city to fall under the darkness of this barbaric shadow ?'
Which was as good as saying that Paris might soon fall to a Communist coup d'etat . Ridiculous . Lanz scribbled the word in the margin. Chancellor Franz Hauser, whom he was flying to see at the Palais Schaumburg, would be furious at this latest outburst. Every Tuesday morning Lanz flew to Bonn to brief Hauser on the latest international developments as seen by the BND. It was really the job of the BND president to attend this meeting, but the president was now no more than a figurehead. 'That empty old beer barrel,' as Hauser rudely called him, only to correct the description even more rudely. 'I'm wrong, of course. He's always full of beer—that's the trouble. . .
Finishing the Lasalle transcript, Lanz checked his diary. After seeing the chancellor he would then fly straight back to Frankfurt, take a car from the airport and drive straight over the Rhine bridge to Mainz on the west bank of the river. The previous evening Alan Lennox had phoned him at the number provided by David Nash from Saarbrucken. At ten o'clock in the morning Lanz was due to meet Lennox at the Hotel Central in Mainz.
* * *
The meeting did not take place at the hotel. When Lanz arrived at
Earlier, as soon as he arrived at his office, the prefect started the machinery moving which, in a few hours, would have circulated to all French frontier checkpoints the name and description of Alan Lennox. 'It's odd,' he said to Boisseau, 'I once met a man with this name when I was in Marseilles. Get someone to phone the right man at our embassy in London and try to check him out—with particular reference to his present whereabouts. Alan Lennox—he was an international security expert. . .'
The headquarters of the BND, the German Federal Intelligence Service is located at Pullach in Bavaria, a small town on the banks of the river Isar six miles south of Munich. On the morning when Grelle received the list of witnesses from Hugon, Peter Lanz called in at his office in the two-storey building which houses senior staff at the unearthly hour of 5 am. Rising so early did not bother Lanz who could easily get by on four hours' sleep a night. As he collected papers from his desk and put them inside a briefcase, his secretary, Frau Schenker, a pretty girl of twenty-seven and the wife of an army officer, came into the room.
`The car has arrived, Herr Lanz. They say the airfield is fogged in. . .
`They have a flare path, for God's sake!' Lanz grinned to take the edge off his outburst. 'I haven't had coffee yet, so you must excuse me. You can phone me in Bonn up to nine o'clock —if you must!'
`I shall forget you have gone to Bonn,' Frau Schenker replied. She was half in love with her boss, but sensible enough to know that this was really because she spent all day with him and he was so considerate. At least it helped to dispel the feeling of isolation working at Pullach engendered; none of the people who worked at the BND were able to let their friends know their real job.
As Lanz went down to the car, she checked her watch. He would be airborne within thirty minutes.
As Lanz had foreseen, they had to light the flare path before his executive aircraft could take off, then it was climbing steeply through grey murk which was always disturbing: you couldn't rid yourself of the feeling that a large airliner might be heading direct for you. To suppress the fear, Lanz pulled out the table-flap and read the transcript of Col Lasalle's latest broadcast over Europe Number One. The Frenchman had excelled himself.
`The Hawk in Paris is getting ready to take flight. . . . Soon he will alight in the city of the new Tsar whose shadow falls over the ancient and famous cities of Athens, Rome and Lisbon. .. . Is Paris to be the next city to fall under the darkness of this barbaric shadow ?'
Which was as good as saying that Paris might soon fall to a Communist coup d'etat . Ridiculous . Lanz scribbled the word in the margin. Chancellor Franz Hauser, whom he was flying to see at the Palais Schaumburg, would be furious at this latest outburst. Every Tuesday morning Lanz flew to Bonn to brief Hauser on the latest international developments as seen by the BND. It was really the job of the BND president to attend this meeting, but the president was now no more than a figurehead. 'That empty old beer barrel,' as Hauser rudely called him, only to correct the description even more rudely. 'I'm wrong, of course. He's always full of beer—that's the trouble. . .
Finishing the Lasalle transcript, Lanz checked his diary. After seeing the chancellor he would then fly straight back to Frankfurt, take a car from the airport and drive straight over the Rhine bridge to Mainz on the west bank of the river. The previous evening Alan Lennox had phoned him at the number provided by David Nash from Saarbrucken. At ten o'clock in the morning Lanz was due to meet Lennox at the Hotel Central in Mainz.
* * *
The meeting did not take place at the hotel. When Lanz arrived at
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