"Oui, Monsieur Ministere?"
"The secret of the stain on the honor and dignity of your mother nation is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing hour."
"Oui?"
"I cannot now divulge this, but a brave military man, one who can envision himself as the next de Gaulle, could advance his career most wonderfully were he only to made a bold stab."
"How bold?"
"One so bold it might ripple across a certain ocean and lap at the clay feet of a certain ally of doubtful standing."
"I see...."
"The Blot must be pacified and its secrets wrested from within."
"And after that?"
"After that," said the French minister of culture carefully, "who can say? Poof! It might be bombed flat, salt sown into the very soil it once despoiled so that no trace of it passes into the next century."
"I cannot say what I may or may not do, Monsieur Ministere. "
"Nor would I expect you to."
"But if action is to be taken, it will be taken imminently."
The culture minister smiled broadly. "I knew you loved France above all things."
The minister of culture hung up the telephone and turned on the radio. He would pass the tense time to come listening to beautiful music and, if an important bulletin should break, he would be among the first to hear of it.
To his regret all the stations were playing either rock, heavy metal or that abominable cacophony known as rap. The minister of culture endured the unendurable for the sake of his higher duty, reflecting that if he had only known that rap lay around the cultural corner, he would never have moved so ruthlessly to suppress disco.
AT 5:57 PARIS TIME a squadron of six French Mirage 2000Ds rocketed out of Tavemy Air Base and dropped BGL laser-guided bombs onto the tiny village called Euro Beasley in the Averoigne suburb of the city.
The bombs, contrary to first reports, packed not high explosives, but a combination of dense black smoke and pepper gas.
As the first stinging clouds broke and wafted across the blue-and-cream towers of the Sorcerer's Chateau, Euro Beasley patrons, greeters and employees alike broke for the exits.
True, some were trampled to death in the ensuing confusion, so it was not an altogether bloodless engagement. But in less than an hour Fortress Euro Beasley lay naked before any who wished to enter it.
The trouble was finding someone with sufficient personal courage and the political will to do so.
THE PRESIDENT OF FRANCE was considering the problem in America when an aide entered his office unannounced. He did not look up. This was a difficult matter. America had hiccuped. According to the quarter-hourly reports coming across his desk, it was either a highly localized insurrection or the United States of America was poised on the brink of civil war.
If it was a hiccup, it didn't matter. Americans hiccuped several times a year. They were that way. Undoubtedly it was a consequence of their lackluster diet.
But if it was civil war, the president of France would be obliged to choose sides. Perhaps not immediately, and certainly not until a clear victor emerged, or if not a victor, he would wait until an undeniable political opportunity became visible, making either choice advantageous.
In the previous American Civil War-which seemed very recent in France's long history but was only halfway through the lifespan of the United States to date-France had sided with the Confederacy. It was not a good choice, but France had not suffered for it. America was a political nonentity in those lamented days. Unlike today.
Thus, it was politic not to choose a side until at least the second or possibly as late as the third year of the Civil War.
The immediate problem was how to remain neutral during that brief interval. After all, Washington would expect immediate support. The utter infants. But what did one expect from a nation that had occupied a distant corner of the planet for less than five hundred years? They had such growing up to do.
Frowning, the president of France picked up a solid gold Mont Blanc pen and began composing a neutral statement to be issued later in the day. It was very bland. One could read it any way one chose. This was very important, for French attitudes toward the United States were at a crossroads.
On the one hand there was the usual anti-American condescension and distaste always fashionable among the literate elite.
On the other hand the younger generation and even some of the old, their memories of France's liberation from Nazi occupation reawakened by the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of the Normandy invasion a year previous, had developed a renewed, if politically challenging, appreciation of certain things American.
The president of France was scribbling a sentence suggesting a youthful and untested country like the United States of America was bound to experience growing pains when the patient aide standing before his desk cleared his throat.
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."