"I have developed intelligence suggesting that Euro Beasley has been exerting a diabolic hypnotic influence upon our citizenry, luring them in and shucking them of their francs and their inborn appreciation of French culture."
"This is a most grave charge."
"Highly serious."
"With international implications. Are you suggesting that Euro Beasley is some sort of espionage platform?"
"Worse."
"Military?"
"Worse still. It is a cultural neutron bomb, dispensing hard, corrupting radiation throughout France."
"Go on."
"I have only limited information, but as we speak, Euro Beasley lies naked, unguarded and undefended. We can take it with minimal difficulties and light-to-negligible casualties."
"Take it? What on earth would we want with it?"
"You must act quickly, Monsieur President. For as you know, this is a difficult predicament, politically speaking. We have bombed an American theme park. Explaining this would be difficult under ordinary conditions."
"Impossible, you mean," the president said bitterly.
"Justifying it is your only option. You must send troops in to secure it and discover its secret."
"What is its secret'"
"Bright colored lights."
"What do you mean by 'bright colored lights'?"
"I am sorry. That is all I have."
"That is not enough to act upon."
"Can you afford to wait for the reaction from Washington? You must act immediately if you are to spare yourself the embarrassment of the hour."
The president of France chewed his moist lower lip until bright specks of blood discolored his incisors. "I must think on this problem."
"Time flees," the culture minister reminded, terminating the connection.
And in his office in the Palais de L'Elysee, the president of France watched the clock tick and click its hands along the dial while he considered which of the few and unimpressive cards he would play this day.
Chapter 14
When DGSE Intelligence operative Dominique Parillaud had been told that her latest assignment was to go to the United States of America, her first impulse was to faint dead.
Upon being revived, she briefly considered suicide.
"Do not send me to that cultural hellhole," she pleaded with her case officer.
"It is for the good of France," he told her in a stern voice.
"I would do anything for France," Dominique said anxiously. "I would give my very life for France. I would spill my blood for her. I would drink the very blood that I spill just to be privileged to spill even more blood for France. You must know this."
"You are one of our most capable operatives," her case officer assured her in the HQ building called the swimming pool because it had been built over an old municipal pool. "Your bravery is well documented."
"Then do not destroy my career by sending me to America."
"How would that destroy your career? This is a career-advancing assignment."
Dominique took her tawny hair in her long, tapered fingers as if to wrench it out by the roots. Her green eyes rolled around in their sockets as if she were having an epileptic seizure.
"I would lose my mind in America. I would go insane. I beg of you. Send another."
"We have no others."
Dominique Parillaud, code-named Agent Arlequin in the confidential casebooks of the DGSE, got off her trim knees and reclaimed her seat. Her manner became professional in the extreme.
"What do you mean?" she inquired.
"You are aware of the denied area called the Blot?"
"I am aware of the Blot. Who cannot be aware of the Blot? It is a...blot. But I have never heard it called a denied area. For does Euro Beasley not charge admission?"
"We have officially designated it as a denied area. Agents have gone in.." The case officer's voice trailed off, and he made a hopeless gesture with his hands.
"They do not come out?"
"They come out," he admitted. "They come out... changed."
"How changed?"
"Happy."
"Happy. Is this bad?"
The case officer waved his cigarette around his head describing distorted helices of tobacco smoke.
"Happy and unmotivated. They were tasked with penetrating the subterranean chambers called Utilicanard in an attempt to explain the sudden and perverse increase in interest in the Blot."
"I have not heard of this Utilicanard."
"The cover story is that it is where they process their trash and refuse."
Dominique Parillaud barked her next words. "Then they should sink the entire park and process that!"