Warren Murphy - The Color of Fear

"It's for the good of the company."

"I understand that," said Marc hesitantly. "But-"

Then Bob Beasley fixed him with his crinkled father-figure eyes and whispered, "Uncle Sam asked for you by name. He said, 'I want Moose to spearhead this operation.'"

Chapter 27

Dominique Parillaud felt proud. Remy Renard, director of the DGSE, had convened a high-level meeting of the directorate's Planning, Forecasting and Evaluation Group and had invited her.

"We would appreciate your input," he had said, then catching himself, corrected, "Your thoughts, Agent Arlequin."

"But of course."

Now in the somber room whose high windows were heavily curtained to keep out the incessant clangor of Parisian traffic and to foil observers, they sat about the long oak table on which the detached eye of Uncle Sam Beasley lay. It was still attached to the penlike activator DGSE technicians had hastily devised to enable it into a weapon.

"The heart of the device is a prism," a DGSE technician was saying. "As you know, white light passing through a prism has the property of scattering into rainbow hues. This orb emits light according to cybernetique command impulses, delivering the desired supercolor."

"Excellent summary," said the DGSE chief. "Now, of what use can this tool be to French national security."

"Our agents, equipped with such devices, would be impossible to foil in the field," said Lamont Mont grande, head of the political police known as the Renseignements Generaux, who had been invited as a courtesy.

"Good, good, but there is the risk of losing the technology to an adversary nation."

"If this is American technology, as we suspect, it is as good as lost," said Fabian Rocard, the chief of Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. "Our industrial-espionage bureau has been highly successful in acquiring American technologies, often, as you know, by procedures as simple as rooting in the unsecured garbage of aerospace companies."

"Still, if lost to others, it will be turned against our advantage," Renard said. "More thoughts, please."

There were several moments of quiet rumination as a scrumptious pork wine, cheese and crackers made the rounds of the long table.

At length the minister of the interior and nominal overseer of the French Intelligence community spoke up. "Imagine this orb magnified greatly."

The table of Intelligence chiefs focused on the orb. In their minds it grew to great size. It was not difficult to envision. They understood that this object loomed very large in their nation's future.

"Now, further imagine this orb in orbit."

"In orbit?"

"Oui. In orbit circling the globe, the eye of France."

"A spy satellite?"

"No, the fearsome protective eye of France. Imagine the Germans nibbling away at our borders again."

This was not very hard to imagine, either.

"Then imagine as they marshal their foes to storm or invade, an irresistible pink radiance spilling down from the heavens to bathe them in its quelling radiations."

This vision was much more difficult to envision, but they put their concentration into it. Scowls came, as did facial contortions.

Eventually they saw the beauty of it.

"Or should the British become even more of a nuisance than they are already, bathe them in the awful green that causes the stomach to rebel."

"Their stomachs should already be in rebellion, with the unpalatable foods that they devour."

A combined roar of laughter floated toward the high ceiling.

It was the lowly Dominique Parillaud who had the best idea of all, however.

"Imagine," she said in a soft, conspiratorial voice, "bathing the US. with the yellow radiation that brings fear and consternation. They will never vex us again."

"We could keep them in thrall indefinitely," Remy crowed.

"Unless, of course, we require liberating again," said the minister of the interior. "Then we would naturally release them. Briefly. Until they have succored us once again with their industrial might and brave but foolhardy soldiers."

"Provisions, of course, will have to be made to scrupulously avoid infecting the habitation of Jairy, of course."

"Of course. This goes without saying."

"When is the next Ariane launch?" asked Remy Renard.

"Next week. A communications satellite, I believe it is."

"It is possible to substitute this?"

"Non. A larger package must be created using this technology."

"If we have the technology, how long can it take to recreate this larger package?"

No one knew, but everyone promised to get to work on the problem. For all understood they held a power, a force greater than the atomic bomb itself. One could not nuke another nation without incurring certain lamentable unpleasantries in return. Criticisms. Condemnations. Even unsympathetic retaliations.

But if the afflicted nation had no inkling that their distress was caused by colors emanating from outer space, who could criticize France?

As the meeting broke up, Dominique Parillaud decided to look in on the Beasley spy whom she had interrogated not an hour before.

The man had been asking for a television, which had been provided to him. Dominique was curious. What would a man in the difficult position of captured industrial spy want with a television set? Was there something he expected to see on it?

THE TAXI DRIVER a mile outside the Euro Beasley RER train stop didn't hear the rear doors open as he waited, drinking coffee, for a fare.

He barely heard them close. He should have felt the shifting of his rear springs because when he glanced up into his rear mirror, two men were sitting in back.

"Mon Dieu!"

"Take us to Paris," said the taller of the two, an obvious and unspeakable Anglo-American type. If not because of his gauche dress, certainly because of his painful pronunciation of the elegant name of Paris.

Pierre Perruche had been hauling unspeakable Americans and their unspeakable accents around Paris all his life. Many times he yearned to throw them bodily from his car when they announced their destinations with impossible words, but there were considerations other than his deep-seated desires. Namely income and the risk to tourism, which also impacted upon his income.

But with all American tourists ejected from France and their hideous accents also outlawed, Pierre Perruche saw no need to hold back any longer.

"Out!" he shouted.

"Look, we don't have time to argue. Just take us to Paris."

"It is pronounced 'Par-ee!' Out, impossible ones!"

Then the other man, the old Asian, spoke up. In perfect French that broke the heart and made Pierre Perruche, a lifelong Parisian, realize that his own speech was shamefully deficient, the Asian instructed him to go climb a tree.

"Va te faire pendre ailleurs!" he said haughtily.

And such was his pronunciation that Pierre relented. "You may stay," he said, tears starting. "The other, he must go. Now!"

What happened next was not entirely clear to Pierre Perruche, although he lived through the entire ordeal.

A steely hand took him by the back of his neck and impelled him to drive to Paris.

Pierre Perruche had no volition other than that which he received from the hateful American. He drove. When his head was turned like a horse, like a horse he drove obediently in that direction. He felt very much like a dumb beast.

From the back the old Asian spoke commands. Not to Pierre, but to the other. The other then compelled Pierre to drive that way or this way.

It was not the most efficient system but it worked quite smoothly, especially after they pulled onto the Ring Road and into Parisian traffic at its most frightful.

Pierre Perruche was astonished to find himself driving more skillfully than ever before in his life.

It was a strange feeling made ever stranger when he was forced to drive past DGSE headquarters on Boulevard Mortier.