The Day of the Jackal

THE letter for Viktor Kowalski arriving in Rome the following morning. The giant corporal was crossing the foyer of the hotel on his return from picking up the daily mail from the post office when one of the bell-hops called after him, 'Signor, per favore…»

He turned, as surly as ever. The Wop was one he did not recognise, but there was nothing unusual in that. He never noticed them as he bulled his way across the floor of the foyer towards the lift. The dark-eyed young man held a letter in his hand as he came to Kowalski's side.

«E una lettera, signor. Per un Signor Kowalski… no cognosco questo signor… E forse un francese…

Kowalski did not understand a word of the babble of Italian, but he got the sense and he recognised his own name, badly pronounced though it was. He snatched the letter from the man's hand and stared at the scrawled name and address. He was registered under another name, and not being a reading man had failed to notice that five days earlier a Paris newspaper had had a scoop announcing that three of the top men of the OAS were now holed up on the top floor the hotel So far as he was concerned no one was supposed to know where he was. And yet the letter intrigued him. He did not often receive letters, and as with most simple people the arrival of one was an important event. He had cottoned from the Italian, now standing with spaniel eyes by his side staring up as if he, Kowalski, was the fount of human knowledge who would solve the dilemma, that none of the desk staff had heard of a guest of that name and did not know what to do with the letter.

Kowalski looked down. «Bon. Je vais demander,» he said loftily. The Italian's brow did not uncrease.

«Demander, demander,» repeated Kowalski, pointing upwards through the ceiling. The Italian saw the light.

«Ah, si. Domanaiare. Prego, Signor. Tante graaie…»

Kowalski strode away, leaving the Italian gesticulating his gratitude. Taking the lift to the eighth floor, he emerged to find himself confronted by the desk duty man in the corridor, automatic drawn and cocked. For a second the two stared at each other. Then the other slipped on the safety catch and pocketed the gun. He could see only Kowalski, no one else in the lift. It was purely routine, happening every time the lights above the lift doors indicated that the ascending lift was coming beyond the seventh floor.

Apart from the desk duty man, there was another facing the fire escape door at the end of the corridor and another at the head of the stairs. Both the stairs and the fire-escape were booby-trapped, although the management did not know this, and the booby-traps could only be rendered harmless when the current to the detonators was cut off from a switch under the desk in the corridor.

The fourth man on the day shift was on the roof above the ninth floor where the chiefs lived, but in case of attack there were three others now asleep in their rooms down the corridor who had been on night shift, but who would awake and be operational in a few seconds if anything happened. On the eighth floor the lift doors had been welded closed from the outside, but even if the light above the lift on the eighth floor indicated the lift was heading right for the top it was a sign for a general alert. It had only happened once and then by accident, when a bell-hop delivering a tray of drinks had pressed the button for «Nine'. He had been quickly discouraged from this practice.

The desk man telephoned upstairs to announce the arrival of the mail, then signalled to Kowalski to go up. The ex-corporal had already stuffed the letter addressed to himself into his inside pocket while the mail for his chiefs was in a steel etui chained to his left wrist. Both the lock for the chain and for the flat case were springloaded and only Rodin had the keys. A few minutes later the OAS colonel had unlocked both, and Kowalski returned to his room to sleep before relieving the desk man in the later afternoon.

In his room back on the eighth floor he finally read his letter, starting with the signature. He was surprised that it should be from Kovacs, whom he had not seen for a year and who hardly knew how to write, as Kowalski had some difficulty in reading. But by dint of application he deciphered the letter. It was not long.

Kovacs began by saying that he had seen a newspaper story on the day of writing, which a friend had read aloud to him, saying that Rodin, Montclair and Casson were hiding at that hotel in Rome. He had supposed his old mate Kowalski would be with them, hence writing on the off chance of reaching him.