The Day of the Jackal

His chief de cabinet spoke first. Over the previous day and night, he said, every Customs officer on every border post in France had received instructions to check through the luggage of tall blond male foreigners entering France. Passports particularly were to be checked, and were to be scrutinised by the DST official at the Customs post for possible forgeries. (The head of the DST inclined his head in acknowledgement.) Tourists and business men entering France might well remark a sudden increase in vigilance at Customs, but it was felt unlikely that any victim of such a baggage search would realise it was being applied across the country to tall blond man. If any enquiries were made by a sharp-eyed Press man, the explanation would be that they were nothing but routine snap searches. But it was felt no enquiry would ever be made.

He had one other thing to report. A proposal had been made that the possibility be considered of making a snatch on one of the three OAS chiefs in Rome. The Quai d'Orsay had come out strongly against such an idea for diplomatic reasons (they had not been told of the Jackal plot) and they were being backed in this by the President (who was aware of the reason). This must therefore be discounted as a way out of their difficulties.

General Guibaud for the SDECE said a complete check of their records had failed to reveal knowledge of the existence of a professional political killer outside the ranks of the OAS or its sympathisers, and who could not be completely accounted for.

The head of Renseignements Generaux said a search through France's criminal archives had revealed the same thing, not only among Frenchmen but also among foreigners who had ever tried to operate inside France.

The chief of the DST then made his report. At 7.30 that morning a call had been intercepted from a post office near the Gare du Nord to the number of the Rome hotel where the three OAS chiefs were staying. Since their appearance there eight weeks before, operators on the international switchboard had been instructed to report all calls placed to that number. The one on duty that morning had been slow on the uptake. The call had been placed before he had realised that the number was the one on his list. He had put the call through, and only then rung the DST. However, he had had the sense to listen in. The message had been: «Valmy to Poitiers. The jackal is blown. Repeat. The Jackal is blown. Kowalski was taken. Sang before dying. Ends.»

There was silence in the room for several seconds.

«How did they find out?» asked Lebel quietly from the far end of the table. All eyes turned on him, except those of Colonel Rolland who was staring at the opposite wall deep in thought.

«Damn,» he said clearly, still staring at the wall. The eyes swivelled back to the head of the Action Service.

The Colonel snapped out of his reverie, «Marseilles,» he said shortly. «To get Kowalski to come from Rome we used a bait. An old friend called JoJo Grzybowski. The man has a wife and daughter. We kept them all in protective custody until Kowalski was in our hands. Then we allowed them to return home. All I wanted from Kowalski was information about his chiefs. There was no reason to suspect this jackal plot at the time. There was no reason why they should not know we had got Kowalski then. Later of course things changed. It must have been the Pole JoJo who tipped off the agent Valmy. Sorry.»

«Did the DST pick Valmy up in the post office?» asked Lebel.

«No, we missed him by a couple of minutes, thanks to the stupidity of the operator,» replied the man from DST.

«A positive chapter of inefficiency,» snapped Colonel Saint-Clair suddenly. A number of unfriendly glances were levelled at him.

«We are feeling our way, largely in the dark, against an known adversary,» replied General Guibaud. «If the Colonel would like to volunteer to take over the operation, and all the responsibility it implies…, The Colonel from the Elysee Palace studiously examined his folders as if they were more important and of greater consequence than the veiled threat from the head of the SDECE. But he realised it had not been a wise remark.

«In a way,» mused the Minister, «it might be as well they know their hired gun is blown. Surely they must call the operation off now?»

«Precisely,» said Saint-Clair, trying to recoup, «the Minister is right They would be crazy to go ahead now. They'll simply call the man off.»

“He isn't exactly blown,» said Lebel quietly. They had almost forgotten he was there. «We still don't know the man's name. The forewarning might simply cause him to take extra contingency precautions. False papers, physical disguises…»

The optimism to which the Minister's remark had given birth fund the table vanished. Roger Frey eyed the little Commissaire with respect.

«I think we had better have Commissaire Lebel's report, gentlemen. After all, he is heading this enquiry. We are here to assist him where we can.»