Seventy-Two Virgins

her depression, for an instant she persuaded herself she might also love the fact that he was a spy.

‘I thought — look you’re not going to believe me.’

‘Did you know they weren’t a TV crew?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Then you’re mad. You’re an active collaborator.’

‘No,’ said Adam with soft desperation.

‘Say, who is this fellow, anyway?’ The President watched as the man with the flowing grey hair was at last given the floor. ‘What’s that he said?’

The President reached for the zapper to turn it up.

Jones the Bomb snatched the gizmo away. ‘That is His Excellency Yves Charpentier, Ambassador of the Republic of France.’

‘Know him, do you?’

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE 1108 HRS

Haroun’s hasty footsteps echoed on the stone stairs. He was alone, save for the busts of dead white men and their scary dead white eyes.

He tried one door, then another. The fool English: did they expect a man to piss against the wall of their godless palaces? Well, he would have to, if this went on much longer. He turned a corner, and came face to face with a woman.

She was dressed in black from head to toe. She wore a helmet and her upper body was swaddled in Kevlar with a label saying Metropolitan Police.

She swung her gun on him. He turned his on her. By mutual consent they each slipped back around the corner and trotted in the opposite direction.

Oh, perhaps I should have asked her, thought Haroun, because things were starting to go critical in his lower abdomen. One by one the graphite rods of restraint were popping out of the radioactive pile, and meltdown was approaching.

Ah! But it was haram, a disgrace, to discuss such things with a woman.

He came to a door, of old rich oak and bossed with bronze. Praise be to the prophet, thought Haroun: it said GENTS.

Locked. Through his tears, he read a notice Sellotaped to the wood, in the name of the Clerk of Works, informing him that the convenience would be out of order, pending conversion to allow for disabled access.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, messieurs, mesdames,’ said the French Ambassador. ‘Since I believe that there is a strong possibility that this will be our last day on earth, I will speak briefly, and I will speak from the heart.’

Boy, thought the President, Yves here was one hell of a snappy dresser. The Frenchman was wearing an indigo suit of the most formal possible cut, but his shirt was patterned with blue horizontal stripes of varying tones and thicknesses. The whole thing was set off by a taramasalata-coloured tie, strobing under the TV lights and — yes — giving the impression of a pulsing from-the-heart sincerity.

‘I stand before you as the representative of a friendly nation, that bears nothing but amity and goodwill towards this country, which has been my home for the last three years, and also towards the United States.

‘For the avoidance of doubt, I wish to join the noble lady who has just spoken, in recording my contempt for the terrorists who are holding us hostage, and who threaten murder. When these events are investigated, and the criminals punished — as they surely will be — it will be discovered that some of our captors gained access to this hall through the invitation of myself and of my former associate.’

He stuck his chin at Benedicte. ‘I mean the lady with the gun. All I will say now is that I have been the slave to Aphrodite and that the goddess has ensorcelled my wits.’

Crikey, thought Barlow.

‘Typical Frog,’ said the President.

Jones the Bomb frowned.

‘Since the hour advances, and since I repose no faith in the mental equilibrium of our captors, let me speak only to the nation which I have the honour of representing. Francais, francaises, concitoyens de la Republique, there may be many millions of you who are watching and indeed preparing to vote. There may be some of you who have already made up your minds, and are doing as these people would have you do — ringing up to express your wish to release the prisoners held by the Americans. If you have already voted, that is your privilege. If you have yet to decide, I beg you to listen.

‘We have a tradition, over the last fifty years or so, of providing the intellectual opposition to what is called le defi americain, which I might call the challenge of American cultural and political dominance. We have our own modest culture in France, our own literary, artistic and scientific achievement, which over the centuries some foreigners have been kind enough to praise. But it would be fair to say that sometimes we become so paranoid about America, which we call the hyperpuissance, that we become exuberant in our language.

‘One senior French politician recently attained notoriety by declaring that the ambition of the United States was nothing but, I quote, the organized cretinization of the French people. Our good friend the cook, who has just regaled us with his views at such generous length, alluded to the problem of the malbouffe, the hamburgerization of European cuisine. That is a discussion familiar to us in France.

‘It is also true that many intelligent people, and not just in France, but also in America, are sceptical of the manner in which the US government handles the problems of the Middle East. It is my belief that an injustice has been done to the Palestinian people, that Israel could remedy that injustice, and that America could do more to assist this process. There are also many of us who believe that there were better ways of handling Monsieur Saddam — no doubt a very bad man — than the invasion and all the problems it has brought in its train.

‘But, my friends, it is one thing to find fault with America. It is another thing to wish her destruction, and that, tragically, is the ambition of the deluded men, and woman, who hold us hostage today.’

Darn right, thought the President. Until that last bit, he had been meditating the modalities of a strike on Paris.

‘I do not know where he has gone, the strange personage who handcuffed himself to the President. But before he went, he compared the American head of state to Caesar, and I wish to dwell for an instant on that richly suggestive analogy. Yes, it is probably true that in her pandominance, modern America surpasses the Rome of the Antonines. She has bases in countries which only fifteen years ago were part of the Soviet Union. It is a fact that Rome never conquered Scotland. It has been one of my pleasures, as Ambassador to this country, to walk along the wall the empire built to keep out the painted tribes; and yet American planes flew from Lossiemouth to Iraq.

‘We all know the figures: the increment in US defence spending, the amount by which the Pentagon decided to increase defence spending last year, is greater than the combined defence budgets of Britain, France and Germany. It is surely right to call America in some sense an empire. But is she an evil empire?’

‘Of course she is evil, you conceited French stupidity!’ Jones the Bomb leapt up, trailing the President, and almost rubbed noses with the TV screen. ‘Benedicte, you must make him shut up and sit down.’

But the French Ambassador was coming to the point.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR 1112 HRS

‘So you expect me to believe that?’ said Cameron to Adam. ‘You thought they were going to wheel in some torture victim, just to embarrass the President?’

She paused, and scanned the face of her loved one, and was amazed by how much she wanted to believe him.