On the outskirts of the town five "ultras" had been waiting under the orders of an operative known as "Nani", who had been arrested several times for counter-terrorist acts against the F.L.N. and would later become a leading killer for the O.A.S. They were equipped with a small arsenal of weapons — machine-guns, dynamite and hand grenades — but on realising that they had been outwitted they turned tail dejectedly back to Algiers. At Blida a more bizarre, free-enterprise attempt was apparently in the offing. A handsome young pied noir playboy, tired of life, decided to ram de Gaulle's helicopter with his private plane. But on arriving over Blida airfield he was appalled to see a veritable cloud of helicopters take off. It was impossible to tell which one was de Gaulle's. He, too, abandoned the exercise.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1301