The president looked up. "Yes? What is it?"
"It appears the insurrection in America has been quelled."
The president of France quirked a salt-and-pepper eyebrow to the vaulted ceiling. "How severe were the casualties?" he asked, crumpling his three-sentence draft speech into a ball and tossing it into a waiting wastepaper basket.
"Light."
"Did the Army put it down?"
"Non, Monsieur President."
"Local police units, then? I understood they were neutral."
"Non, Monsieur President."
"Then who? Quickly, speak!"
"The Sam Beasley Company."
The president of France blinked in a kind of stunned stupefaction. "The Sam Beasley Company?"
"They descended from the sky in balloons, and the fighting ceased."
"Were they not the instigators?"
"That is the suspicion of the DGSE."
"How curious," said the president of France. "Then it is over?"
"It is most definitely over."
The president of France sighed. "Perhaps it is just as well. The long-term positive aspects might not outweigh the short-term political embarrassment of remaining neutral while they fought it out among themselves. And we may need their industrial might should the Germans become territorial again!'
"Do you wish to make an official statement?"
"I wish to take a nap."
"Oui, Monsieur President, " said the aide, withdrawing discreetly.
The president of France did not take a nap, however. He had barely thirty minutes to digest the lost opportunity of an American Civil War when the same aide who had so quietly entered now reentered with his face like a cooked beet and his eyes resembling cool Concord grapes.
"Monsieur President! Monsieur President!"
"Calm down! What is it?"
"Euro Beasley. It has been bombed!"
"Bombed? Bombed by whom?"
"Early reports have it air-army Mirages bombed it."
The president of France came out of his leather chair as if hoisted by unseen guy wires.
"On what authority?"
"This is not known."
"Get me the general of the air army! At once!"
But no one could reach the general.
"What is happening?" the president demanded of anybody who proved reachable by telephone. "How severe are the casualties? Are any of our people dead or injured?"
"All pilots returned safely," he was told.
"No! I mean our French citizens on the ground."
But no one had that answer. The event was barely ten minutes old.
Then came the call from Minister of Culture Maurice Tourette.
"Monsieur President, a wonderful opportunity has fallen in our hands."
"Are you mad! We have bombed an American theme park."
"We have bombed French soil. It is our sacred right to bomb French soil."
"We have bombed a symbol of American culture residing on French soil," the president shouted.
"Is this such a bad thing?"
The president swallowed hard and sat down. He lowered his voice, straining to retain his self-control. "I do not wish to get into this argument with you at this moment. This is a very awkward thing. The Americans are supposed to be our friends."
"We own the overwhelming majority of Euro Beasley. The Americans have reneged on many of our understandings. The park has lost over a billion in US. dollars over its first three years."
"That has turned around," the French President pointed out.
"Yes, at our expense. We French have been pouring into it at an alarming rate."
"Yes, I saw your confidential figures," said the president of France, who did not think it unusual that the minister of culture tracked French attendance at Euro Beasley. It was not for nothing that the place had been denounced as a cultural Chernobyl when it was first opened. "I understood this was the result of Parisians wishing to experience the cultural abomination once before it closes. Possibly to gloat over the triumph of French cultural resistance to its gaudy blandishments."
"Propaganda. We have reason to believe there is a sinister explanation for Parisian citizenry suddenly flocking to this Blot."
"Blot?"
"It is a blot and a stain upon the bosom of La Belle France."