Frederick Forsyth - The Day of the Jackal

Book Description

One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written

Product Description

One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of the struggle to catch a killer before its too late.

It is 1963 and an anonymous Englishman has been hired by the Operations Chief of the O.A.S. to murder General de Galle. A failed attempt in the previous year means the target will be nearly impossible to get to. But this latest plot involves a lethal weapon: an assassin of legendary talent.

Known only as The Jackal this remorseless and deadly killer must be stopped, but how do you track a man who exists in name alone?

Table of Contents

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Epub ISBN: 9781407095998

Version 1.0

www.randomhouse.co.uk

This edition published by Arrow Books Limited in 1995

17 19 20 18

Copyright (c) Frederick Forsyth 1971

The Right of Frederick Forsyth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding of cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain in 1971 by

Hutchinson

Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,

London SW1V 2SA

www.rbooks.co.uk

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:

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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

A CIP catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099552710

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Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD

About the Author

Frederick Forsyth is the author of ten bestselling novels: The Day of the Jackal, The Dogs of War, The Odessa File, The Devil's Alternative, The Fourth Protocol, The Negotiator, The Deceiver, The Fist of God, Icon and Avenger . His other works include The Biafra Story, The Shepherd , the short story collections, No Comebacks and The Veteran , and a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, The Phantom of Manhattan . He has also collected together an anthology of flying tales by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl, Len Deighton and H.G. Wells, Great Flying Stories . He lives in Hertfordshire, England.

Also by Frederick Forsyth

Fiction

The Afghan

Avenger

The Veteran: and Other Stories

The Phantom of Manhattan

Icon

The Fist of God

Great Flying Stories

The Deceiver

The Negotiator

The Fourth Protocol *

Emeka

The Devil's Alternative *

The Shepherd *

The Dogs of War *

No Comebacks *

The Odessa File *

Non-Fiction

VE Day: A Day to Remember

The Biafra Story

[?] available in Arrow

To my Mother and Father

PART ONE

Anatomy of a plot

CHAPTER ONE

It is cold at six-forty in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad. At that hour on 11th March 1963, in the main courtyard of the Fort d'Ivry, a French Air Force colonel stood before a stake driven into the chilly gravel as his hands were bound behind the post, and stared with slowly diminishing disbelief at the squad of soldiers facing him twenty metres away.

A foot scuffed the grit, a tiny release from tension, as the blindfold was wrapped around the eyes of Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, blotting out the light for the last time. The mumbling of the priest was a helpless counterpoint to the crackling of twenty rifle bolts as the soldiers charged and cocked their carbines.

Beyond the walls a Berliet truck blared for a passage as some smaller vehicle crossed its path towards the centre of the city; the sound died away, masking the 'Take your aim' order from the officer in charge of the squad. The crash of rifle fire, when it came, caused no ripple on the surface of the waking city, other than to send a flutter of pigeons skywards for a few moments. The single 'whack' seconds later of the coup-de-grace was lost in the rising din of traffic from beyond the walls.

The death of the officer, leader of a gang of Secret Army Organization killers who had sought to shoot the President of France, was to have been an end - an end to further attempts on the President's life. By a quirk of fate it marked a beginning, and to explain why it must first be necessary to explain why a riddled body came to hang from its ropes in the courtyard of the military prison outside Paris on that March morning...

The sun had dropped at last behind the palace wall and long shadows rippled across the courtyard bringing a welcome relief. Even at seven in the evening of the hottest day of the year the temperature was still 23 degrees Centigrade. Across the sweltering city the Parisians piled querulous wives and yelling children into cars and trains to leave for the weekend in the country. It was 22nd August, 1962, the day a few men waiting beyond the city boundaries had decided that the President, General Charles de Gaulle, should die.

While the city's population prepared to flee the heat for the relative cool of the rivers and beaches the Cabinet meeting behind the ornate facade of the Elysee Palace, continued. Across the tan gravel of the front courtyard, now cooling in welcome shadow, sixteen black Citroen DS saloons were drawn up nose to tail, forming a circle round threequarters of the area.

The drivers, lurking in the deepest shade close to the west wall where the shadows had arrived first, exchanged the inconsequential banter of those who spend most of their working days waiting on their masters' whims.

There was more desultory grumbling at the unusual length of the Cabinet's deliberations until a moment before 7.30 a chained and bemedalled usher appeared behind the plate-glass doors at the top of the six steps of the palace and gestured towards the guards. Among the drivers half-smoked Gaulloises were dropped and ground into the gravel. The security men and guards stiffened in their boxes beside the front gate and the massive iron grilles were swung open.

The chauffeurs were at the wheels of their limousines when the first group of Ministers appeared behind the plate glass. The usher opened the doors and the members of the Cabinet straggled down the steps exchanging a few last-minute pleasantries for a restful weekend. In order of precedence the saloons eased up to the base of the steps, the usher opened the rear door with a bow, the Ministers climbed into their respective cars and were driven away past the salutes of the Garde Republicaine and out into the Faubourg St Honore.