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”A professional does not act out of fervour and is therefore more calm and less likely to make elementary errors. Not being idealistic, he is not likely to have second thoughts at the last minute about who else might get hurt in the explosion or whatever method, and being a professional he has calculated the risks to the last contingency. So his chances of success on schedule are surer than anyone else’s, but he will not even enter into operation until he has devised a plan that will enable him not only to complete the mission, but to escape unharmed.��



Charles de Gaulle, the president of France, has alienated many of his top military staff with his decisions regarding French colonies. These same men had supported his return to power believing that he would strengthen the colonies, but de Gaulle had a different objective. He gave Algiers their independence and subsequently most of the rest of France’s colonies as well. The men who were bathed in blood securing those colonies felt betrayed. They formed a coalition called the OAS and recruited members willing to die trying to kill de Gaulle.

They failed.

The book begins with an execution for the attempted assassination of the president of France.

”It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by a firing squad.��

They are soldiers. They know how to kill and have killed, but to assassinate a public figure like de Gaulle requires something more than just someone motivated to kill him. They need a professional.

Enter:

The Jackal.

He is an Englishman, maybe, but who he truly is has been hidden under layers of identities that stretch back to the very first time he killed for money. He is a chameleon. He can change his personality, his appearance, and his passport with one quick stop in a deep doorway. He develops several contingencies for every step of the plan because rigidity is what gets men like him killed.

The men protecting de Gaulle have a difficult job. They have discovered the plot by the OAS after some rather unsavory moments with a member of their inner circle. ”Apart from the breathing, the silence of the cellar was almost tangible. All the men were in shirt sleeves, rolled up high and damp with sweat. The odour was crushing, a stench of sweat, metal, stale smoke, and human vomit. Even the latter, pungent enough, was overpowered by one even stronger, the unmistakable reek of fear and pain.�� The problem is that they don’t know enough because even the people who hired The Jackal know very little. De Gaulle is not interested in changing any of his public appearances because of unsubstantiated, well to his mind, rumors. After all he is well aware that there are people who want to kill him all the time.

No one will ever be able to accuse de Gaulle of being a coward, but haughty arrogance he has in spades.


Even with all the men assigned to protect de Gaulle he was still vulnerable to The Jackal.

There is a leak in the inner circle of those that are assigned to find The Jackal. This woman uses her assets to elicit information from her lover that she can pass to the OAS.

”Tell me all about it,�� she cooed.��

The leaks go back and forth between both organizations, never giving enough information, but always just enough for those protecting and those intent on killing to alter their plans.

The Jackal goes underground. He seduces a vulnerable Baroness. He is charming and she is in need of reassurances. ”Her thigh was pressed against him below the belly and through the satin of her dress she felt the rigid arrogance of his prick. For a second she withdrew her leg, then pushed it back again. There was no conscious moment of decision-taking; the realisation came without effort that she wanted him, badly, between her thighs, insider her belly, all night.��

The line “rigid arrogance of his prick�� made me laugh out loud.

The Baroness is not the only one he seduces, lonely homosexuals, as well, serve as a safe haven for him as he makes his way closer and closer to his objective. The Jackal will use anyone and anything to win this game he has started.

The Jackal also knows his hardware.

”As soon as the bullet struck flesh, gristle, or bone, it would experience a sudden deceleration.

The effect on the mercury would be to hurl the droplet forwards towards the plugged front of the bullet. Here its onward rush would rip away the tip of the slug, splaying the lead outwards like the fingers of an open hand or the petals of a blossoming flower. In this shape the leaded projectile would tear through nerve and tissue, ripping, cutting, slicing, leaving fragments of itself over an area the size of a tea-saucer. Hitting the head, such a bulle would not emerge, but would demolish everything inside the cranium, forcing the bone-shell to fragment.��

Can you feel the love for destruction?

Back in 1997 I went to see a movie called The Jackal. I had no clue that it was based on a book. It was just a Friday night entertainment. One highlight of the film is when the actor Jack Black, who I harbor some kind of odd animosity towards, is killed rather spectacularly. Well the character he plays, not the actual actor, but I could suspend belief for a few moments. Bruce Willis plays The Jackal. Richard Gere and Sidney Poitier are playing the characters trying to find him. The setting of the plot has been changed and the timing moved up from the 1950s to the 1990s, but they do actually use plot devices from the Frederick Forsyth book.

There is a 1973 movie that follows the book very closely. I have not seen it, but the reviews of that movie are very good. My intention is to watch it very soon.


Frederick Forsyth

Forsyth infused this novel with historical details that added more validity to the plot and added richness to the flow of the narrative. He also included the intricacies of political plotting and the difficulty, even with a small group, in keeping anything a secret. The ruthlessness and the zeal with which the assassin approaches what seems to be an impossible task was unnerving, chilling. The way in which the hands of the investigators are tied at many points by the unwillingness of de Gaulle to cooperate stretches the tension like an overstressed piano string. I was impressed that a 44 year old novel could still have me running through the streets of Paris, with an elevated pulse, hoping to thwart the aims of a diabolical killer.

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