"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."
"I do not disagree with that. Unofficially, of course," said the president of France. "But we can't go around bombing American symbols. This is not the nineteenth century anymore. Perhaps in another generation or two we can spit into their eyes with impunity should we wish to, but not now."
"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!"
"Agents Papillon, Grillon and Sauterelle, all were sent into the Blot and all returned clutching overpriced Beasley souvenirs and unable to perform their duty to France."
"Because they were made happy?"
"Agent Grillon was made so happy that ever since he has taken great exception to insults leveled at Euro Beasley. But Agent Sauterelle came out quite frightened. He was afraid to go back in. On the other hand Agent Papillon could not stop throwing up for three days."
"What did the poor man see?"
"He could not articulate it beyond the pageantry and bright lights of the Blot. He mentioned a particularly vivid green, as I recall."
Dominique Parillaud shot to her feet. "I hereby volunteer to penetrate the Blot."
The case officer raised his hand.
"No, I must insist. This is obviously a great mystery and must be dealt with." She straightened her spine, chin lifting in defiance. "I will go today. Immediately. I am not afraid. My fierce devotion to my country and my culture make me unafraid."
"You are going to America," insisted her case officer.
Whereupon Dominique Parillaud sank back into her chair and began weeping into a fresh linen handkerchief whose frilly edges were impregnated with cyanide in the event of her capture by hostile forces.
"Your mission will be to monitor all unusual events pertaining to the Sam Beasley Corporation," her case officer explained. "If you can gain employment with them, so much the better."
Dominique Parillaud threw her shoulders forward and plunged her face into the cupped handkerchief.
"You will report daily, and-"
With a cry of anger the case officer lunged across his desk. He threw himself across his best female agent, and the two ended up on the floor, rolling and clawing for possession of the cyanide-laced handkerchief that Dominique Parillaud was desperately holding on to with her strong, stubborn Gallic teeth.