The Day of the Jackal

«I want, as soon as they can get it, a direct link personally to the head of the Homicide Division of the criminal police of seven countries. Fortunately, I know most of them personally from past meetings of Interpol. In some cases I know the Deputy Chief. If you can't get one, get the other.

«The countries are: United States, that means the Office of Domestic Intelligence in Washington. Britain, Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Scotland Yard. Belgium. Holland. Italy. West Germany. South Africa. Get them at home or in the office.

«When you get each of them one by one, arrange a series of telephone calls from Interpol Communications Room between me and them between seven and ten in the morning at twenty-minute intervals. Get on to Interpol Communications and book the calls as each Homicide chief at the other end agrees to be in his own communications room at the appointed time. The calls should be person-to-person on the UHF frequency and there is to be no listening in. Impress on each of them that what I have to say is for their ears only and of top priority not only for France but possibly for their own country. Prepare me a list by six in the morning of the schedule of the seven calls that have been booked, in order of sequence.

«In the meantime, I am going down to Homicide to see if a foreign killer has ever been suspected of operating in France and not been picked up. I confess, nothing in that line comes to mind, and in any case I suspect Rodin would have been more careful on his selection than that. Now, do you know what to do?»

Caron, looking slightly dazed, glanced up from his several pages of scribbled notes.

«Yes, chief, I've got it. Bon, I'd better get to work.»

He reached out for the telephone.

Claude Lebel passed out of the office and headed for the stairs. As he did so the clock of Notre Dame further down the island chimed midnight, and the world passed into the morning of August 12th.

ELEVEN

COLONEL RAOUL SAINT-CLAIR DE VILLAUBAN arrived home just before midnight. He had spent the previous three hours meticulously typing his report on the evening's meeting in the Interior Ministry, which would be on the desk of the Secretary-General of the Elysee first thing in the morning.

He had taken particular pains over the report, tearing up two rough copies before he was satisfied, then carefully typing out the third into a fair copy by himself. It was irritating to have to engage in the menial task of typing, and he was not used to it, but it had the advantage of keeping the secret from any secretary, a fact that he had not hesitated to point out in the body of the report, and also of enabling him to have the document ready for production first thing in the morning, which he hoped would not go unnoticed. With luck the report would be on the President's desk an hour after being read by the Secretary-General, and this also would do him no harm.

He had used extra care in selecting just the right phraseology to give a slight hint of the writer's disapproval of putting a matter so important as the security of the head of state into the sole hands of a commissaire of police, a man more accustomed by training and experience to uncovering petty criminals of little brains or talent.

It would not have done to go too far, for Lebel might even find his man. But in the event that he did not, it was as well that there was someone sufficiently on his toes to have had doubts about the wisdom of the choice of Lebel at the time.

Moreover, he had certainly not taken to Lebel. A common little man had been his private judgement. «Possessed no doubt of a competent record' had been his phrasing in the report.

Musing over the first two copies he had written in longhand, he had come to the conclusion that the most advantageous position for him to take would be not to oppose outright the appointment of this promoted constable at the outset, since the appointment had been agreed by the meeting as a whole, and if he opposed the selection he would be asked for specific reasons; but, on the other hand, to keep a watch on the whole operation, on behalf of the presidential secretariat, and to be the first to point out, with due sobriety, the inefficiencies in the conduct of the investigation as and when they occurred.

His musings on how he could best keep track of what Lebel was up to were interrupted by a telephone call from Sanguinetti to inform him that the Minister had made a last-minute decision to preside over nightly meetings at ten each evening to hear a progress report from Lebel. The news had delighted Saint-Clair. It solved his problem for him. With a little background homework during the daytime, he would be able to put forceful and pertinent questions to the detective, and reveal to the others that at least in the presidential secretariat they were keeping wide awake to the gravity and urgency of the situation.