The Day of the Jackal

In the old days, when the Gaullists had had to fight for survival against American enmity, British indifference, Giraudist ambition and Communist ferocity, he had learned his in-fighting the hard way. Somehow they had won through, and twice in eighteen years the man they followed had returned from exile and repudiation to take the position of supreme power in France. And for the past two years the battle had been on again, this time against the very men who had twice restored the General to power-the Army. Until a few minutes before, the Minister had thought the last struggle was waning, their enemies once again sliding into impotence and helpless wrath.

Now he knew it was not over yet. A lean and fanatical colonel in Rome had devised a plan that could still bring the whole edifice tumbling down by organising the death of a single man. Some countries have institutions of sufficient stability to survive the death of a president or the abdication of a king, as Britain had shown twenty-eight years earlier and America would show before the year was out. But Roger Frey was well enough aware of the state of the institutions of France in 1963 to have no illusions that the death of his President could only be the prologue to putsch and civil war.

«Well,» he said finally, still looking out into the glaring courtyard, «he must be told.»

The policeman did not answer. It was one of the advantages of being a technician that you did your job and left the top decisions to those who were paid to take them. He did not intend to volunteer to be the one who did the telling. The Minister turned back to face him.

«Bier. Merci, Commissaire. Then I shall seek an interview this afternoon and inform the President.»

The voice was crisp and decisive. A thing had to be done. «I need hardly ask you to maintain complete silence on this matter until I have had time to explain the position to the President and he has decided how he wishes this affair to be handled.»

Commissaire Ducret rose and left, to return across the square and a hundred yards down the road to the gates of the Elysee Palace. Left to himself the Minister of the Interior spun the buff file round to face him and again read it slowly through. He had no doubt Rolland's assessment was right, and Ducret's concurrence left him no room for manoeuvre. The danger was there, it was serious, it could not be avoided and the President had to know.

Reluctantly he threw down a switch on the intercom. in front of him and told the plastic grill that immediately buzzed at him, «Get me a call to the Secretary General of the Elysee.»

Within a minute the red telephone beside the intercom rang. He lifted it and listened for a second.

«M. Foccart, s'il vous plait.»

Another pause, then the deceptively soft voice of one of the most powerful men in France came on the line. Roger Frey explained briefly what he wanted and why.

«As soon as possible, Jacques… Yes, I know you have to check. I'll wait. Please call me back as soon as you can.»

The call back came within an hour. The appointment was fixed for four that afternoon, as soon as the President had finished his siesta. For a second it crossed the Minister's mind to protest that what he had on the blotter in front of him was more important than any siesta, but he stifled the protest. Like everybody in the entourage of the President, he was aware of the inadvisability of crossing the soft-voiced civil servant who had the ear of the President at all times and a private filing system of intimate information about which more was feared than was known.

At twenty to four that afternoon the Jackal emerged from Cunningham's in Curzon Street after one of the most delicious and expensive lunches that the London sea-food specialists could provide. It was after all, he mused as he swung into South Audley Street, probably his last lunch in London for some time to come, and he had reason to celebrate.

At the same moment a black DS 19 saloon swung out of the gates of the Interior Ministry of France into the Place Beauvau. The policeman in the centre of the square, forewarned by a shout from his colleagues on the iron gates, held up the traffic from all the surrounding streets, then snapped into 'a salute.

A hundred metres down the road the Citroen turned towards the grey stone portico in front of the Elysee Palace. Here too the gendarmes on duty, forewarned, had held up the traffic to give the saloon enough turning room to get through the surprisingly narrow archway. The two Gardes Republicains standing in front of their sentry-boxes on each side of the portico smacked their white-gloved hands across the magazines of their rifles in salute, and the Minister entered the forecourt of the palace.