Digging Up Private Ryan

One day a few months ago I was in my Washington, D.C. office when my assistant, LaMoyne, buzzed to say that the French ambassador wanted to see me. LaMoyne is highly efficient but a bit of a snob, so even he was impressed. The client list of my firm, Renard International Strategic Communications, tends toward the less upscale. (I don't like the terms disreputable or criminal element.)

I took the call and within an hour found myself in the office of Jean-Frangçis Foussee, French ambassador to the United States. Whatever else you may think about the French, their diplomats are as polished as a chrome-plated trailer hitch.

"Renard," he said, rolling my surname around like a mouthful of Mon-trachet. "It is a French name?"

"Huguenot," I replied, lighting a cigarette. If you can't smoke in the French embassy, where can you? "My ancestors came over after the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Nasty business."

To be honest--and in my line of work I don't get to be very often--I have no idea when the first Renard set foot on American soil. But when Rick Renard is in hot pursuit of a new client, truth is only another word for obstacle.

He handed me that day's Washington Post. There was a front-page headline: Digging up private ryan. A Florida congresswoman had introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to allow American World War II soldiers buried in France to be disinterred and reburied back home. Relations between the U.S. and la belle France had deteriorated somewhat as a result of French opposition to the Iraq war.

The article noted that the congress-woman's bill was attracting co-sponsors faster than flies on merde, including one senator who was running for president.

I pursed my lips thoughtfully to convey to His Excellency that Rick Renard was the answer to his problems.

"May I be frank?" he said.

"If a Frenchman can't be frank---"

"Ah, very good. En tous cas, if the American Congress wants to make a spectacle of itself, then it is not for France to stand in the way. If it wants to turn the Normandy cemetery into a field of gopher holes, well, that is very sad--for the soldiers, for everyone, including France. It is sad for the memory of Lafayette."

I lit another cigarette in anticipation of a long lecture on how America would never have won independence from England if it hadn't been for France. I'm no historian, but my understanding is that the French came to our aid not to promote democracy in the New World but to punish the Brits, their age-old nemesis, for kicking their derriere in the French and Indian Wars.

"For my part, personally," said His Excellency, "if you want to dig up your dead soldiers, fine. We can use the space for a golf course. Or a casino. At this point we are out of patience with the proposition that we must do anything America wants simply because you intervened in World War II. Okay. We helped with your revolution; you helped us with our little problem in the 1940s. So we're even, yes?"

There's nothing more refreshing than an indignant Frenchman.

He leaned back and made a Notre Dame steeple with his fingers. "Naturally, this is not an opinion you will hear me expressing on the TV. But here is the pressing problem: France is about to sell billions of dollars of airplanes to various U.S. airline companies, most of which are going bankrupt." He picked up the newspaper. "But if this grotesquerie becomes a reality and the TV is suddenly showing pictures of American coffins being dug up and shipped back home, ooh-la-la, there is going to be a huge anti-French sentiment, and there will be enormous political pressure not to buy our airplanes and instead to give subsidies and tax breaks to the U.S. carriers to buy American planes."

He sat back as if exhausted by all this candor.

"Yes," I said, "that's probably how this would play out."

"So we must find a way. Renard means 'fox.'" He smiled. "You must be the fox for us."

"May I speak frankly, Mr. Ambassador?"

"But of course."

"Reversing anti-French sentiment, that's not going to be easy."

"Yes, Mr. Renard, I understand you will need a lot of money. That is entendu. That is not going to be a problem."

Say what you will about the French, they and I understand each other.

At the door he said, "You remember Voltaire's prayer?"

"Remind me," I said.

"'Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' "

LaMoyne hadn't been this excited since I was covertly hired to try to get an American cardinal elected pope. He began dropping Gallic phrases around the office and showing up with French books, including the recent best-seller alleging that no plane had flown into the Pentagon on 9/11, that it was all a hoax by the U.S. government.

"We're trying to improve relations with France, LaMoyne."

"Don't you want to know what the other side is thinking? And by the way, the author is writing a sequel. It's about how the Normandy invasion never took place."

"It'll be huge, I'm sure."

"I read a chapter of it in Le Hebdo de Déconstruction."

"What are you talking about?"

"I forgot you don't read French," he sniffed. "It's an intellectual quarterly. Not your thing. He's serializing the new book in it. The amazing thing is, it's convincing."

I want to fire LaMoyne three or four times a day, but he's too good to let go.

"That's a promising start," I said. "Why don't we mount a media campaign saying there wasn't a Normandy invasion in 1944, so there's no Private Ryan to dig up. Brilliant. Bring me a grande latte. And if I catch you smoking Gauloises, you're fired."

You have to assert yourself with a LaMoyne every now and then. They get ideas.

If you've represented such clients as the government of North Korea, the Mink Ranchers Association, the Ozone Manufacturers of North America, the National Unlicensed Pistol Owners Coalition and various Hollywood celebrities who have murdered spouses and bystanders, making France look good shouldn't be all that hard.

And yet, after I did a tour d'horizon of U.S. sentiment toward our erstwhile ally, it was clear that Rick "the Fox" Renard had his work cut out for him. There was not a lot of hugging going on between the two countries. Wine store owners were pouring champagne into our gutters; American tourists were staying away in droves; McDonald's had officially changed the name of its fries to the English-sounding "chips"; New York--bound Air France flights were routinely being diverted to Montreal by jingoistic U.S. air traffic controllers for petty reasons; the city council of Des Moines, Iowa had voted to rename the city the Monks; and the Rotary Club and the Kiwanis were sponsoring Anti-French Bowling Nights, during which the pins were painted with the likenesses of various French officials. Mean-while, the Florida congresswoman's bill to repatriate the remains of Private Ryan now had more sponsors than an Indy 500 Formula One.

I do a bit of teaching at the Georgetown University School of Advanced Spin, and I tell my graduate students that if you can't make the bad guys look good, make the good guys look bad. Is this 'ethical? I'll leave that to the naysayers and second-guessers who have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines. As Lyndon Baines Johnson--one of my first heroes in this business--used to say, "Better to have him inside the tent pissing out than outside pissing in."

LaMoyne and I war-gamed late into the night, soaking the old gray matter in coffee and pumping up the metabolic rate with nicotine. Say what you will about cigarettes and the so-called health issue (I used to represent the tobacco industry), if there's better brain food than caffeine and nicotine, I'd love to hear about it.

By four A.M. the air inside the conference room would have killed a sparrow in midflight. We had the thousand-yard stares common to desperate PR men. But I've found that the best ideas often come around four A.M. if they're going to come at all. And sure enough, it was 3:56 A.M. by the digital clock when I had my eureka moment. Even LaMoyne was impressed, always a good sign.

•

The next day I presented myself in the office of U.S. Senator Karl Klemmer Kilbreadi. How a man with those initials managed to get himself elected governor and later senator for life of a state in the Deep South is one of the great stories in American political life. At any rate, half a century after he ran for president on a platform of restoring slavery, old Karl adapted to the times. He married his extremely attractive African American chief of staff--a woman 40 years his junior--had three children and ended up a champion of civil rights. As Yogi Berra said upon being informed that a Jewish man had (continued on page 170) Private Ryan (continued from page 88) been elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, Ireland, "Only in America.

More relevant to my present need was that Senator Kilbreath had, at the age of 38, been in the first wave of combat gliders to land behind enemy lines in Normandy on D-day. And now, at 98, he had a dream: to build himself a library in his hometown of Patchagoulahatchie, Mississippi, a pharaoh-style monument to his life achievements. And libraries, like pyramids, take money.

"Senator," I said, "the government of France would like to honor you for your historic role in liberating their country in 1944."

"Whut?"

An aide repeated what I had said to him, shouting into his ear.

The old boy's eyes brightened. "Fine," he said. "That's real fine. What's the young lady's name?"

The senator's mental abilities appeared to have deteriorated since our last visit. I had known the aide, Roscoe Bogwell, for many years, so we could speak candidly, even in front of the senator.

"What are you running here," I said to Roscoe, "Weekend at Bernie's? The man should be in a nursing home."

"He's determined to make it to 100 before stepping down," Roscoe said, not bothering to whisper. "At this point it's all about setting records. And his library."

"Can he travel?"

"What'ya have in mind?"

I explained.

Roscoe rubbed his chin. "What kind of contribution to the library we talking about?"

"Commensurate with the senator's contributions to history."

"Look here, Rick. How long we known each other? Let thy speech be plain and pleasing to the ear." Roscoe's a part-time minister.

I wrote down a figure on a piece of paper. You never know, in Washington, who might be listening in.

Roscoe smiled. "Looks like we're going to France."

"Frances?" said the senator. "Theah was a Frances wukked in the majority leader's office. Fine-looking girl."

"Thank you for your time, Senator," I said. "You're looking very well, sir."

"Figger like an hour glass."

I had to hand it to the senator--98 and still the most active groper of females in the United States Senate. An inspiration, really.

•

A few days later it was announced that Senator Kilbreath would be leading a Codel--Washingtonese for congressional delegation--to Normandy on a "fact-finding mission to investigate the feasibility of relocating American military remains." Roscoe's press release noted that Senator Kilbreath was looking forward to making "one last trip" to the spot where he had landed in his glider in the early hours of June 6, 1944.

The story got good play in the U.S. Senate and the French media. The French ambassador called to say he was pleased. We discussed plans for the senator's reception in France. Rick Renard does not pat himself on the back before the job is done, but I hung up feeling I had earned my retainer.

LaMoyne greeted me back at the office with the unwelcome news that the city council of Lafayette, Indiana was about to vote on whether to change the city's name to Franks, after the American general who so brilliantly waged Operation Iraqi Freedom. So I had to deal with that.

The midnight oil burned bright at Renard Strategic Communications. We called every member of the city council and pointed out that General Tommy Franks was of French lineage, so they'd only be honoring a different French military man. I didn't know for a fact that General Franks was French, but his name sounded French enough to give the burghers of Lafayette pause. That, along with a costly newspaper public service announcement campaign celebrating the indispensable contributions of the Marquis de Lafayette to the American revolutionary cause, led to the narrow defeat of the initiative. But it was clear that there could be no more playing defense. The vote on whether to approve the purchase of $65 billion of French aircraft by U.S. commercial carriers was approaching. It was time once again to storm the beaches of Normandy.

The French embassy in D.C. had given me a liaison person, an extremely attractive young Parisian woman named Cynthia, who worked for something called the Bureau des Informations Ètrangères, which I understood to be the Foreign Press Office.

I had a hard time concentrating on business during our first meeting. Cynthia had what Senator Kilbreath would call an hourglass figger, Audrey Hepburn--gamine hair, pearl earrings and eyes like blue stained glass, and she smelled like lavender in fresh rain. I was certainly looking forward to liaising with her, though I try as a rule not to get emotionally involved with the client.

"How are we coming with the old ladies?" I asked Cynthia. The plan was for the senator's motorcade route to the cemetery to be lined with local Frenchwomen who had been young women when the brave U.S. soldiers waded ashore on D-day.

"How will we explain why they have all these little American flags for the waving?" Cynthia asked. "The press is going to point this out, you know."

"Okay, scrap the little flags. Let's have them show up with an old U.S. military flag and wave that at him. Better yet, present it to him as a gift. A bloodstained one would be even better. Doesn't have to be real blood."

"Anyway," she said, "we are having a difficulty finding women."

"You mean to say you can't find women who were liberated by Americans to turn out and show some gratitude?"

"It's been a long time," she shrugged. The French have perfected the art of the shrug. It's their national gesture.

"You mean, they have better things to do than wave at one of the men who saved them from the Nazis?"

"Why do Americans insist that the French must grovel in gratitude for performing an act of geopolitical self-interest over a 'af century ago?"

"Next you'll be telling me Jerry Lewis is a genius and that no plane flew into the Pentagon on 9/11. Let's get with le programme. You hired me, remember?"

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "I'll do what I can."

"Tell them some movie star is coming. Tom Hanks."

"To be honest, I don't think that would make them excited."

"Then tell them Jerry Lewis is coming."

•

The Codel departed Andrews Air Force Base a few nights later. I was a little concerned when I saw Senator Kilbreath walk up to the microphone carrying what looked like a speech text. I shot Roscoe a concerned look. He signaled "Relax." Sure enough, the senator's statement from the podium was a model of clarity and brevity. He said he was humbled to be returning to France on such an important mission and would do his utmost, as indeed he had on that dark night so long ago when freedom was threatened. I was very moved. The man was a walking poster boy for U.S.French friendship.

"What did you do to him?" I said to Roscoe. "Last time I saw him he was drooling."

Roscoe winked at me. "Better livin' through chemistry. Vitamin B complex."

"Vitamin B?"

"Plus some other stuff. You know, Ritalin."

"Speed, you mean. Jesus, Roscoe."

"He'll be fine, don't you worry."

•

I flew over the next day. Cynthia met me at Charles de Gaulle.

"There is trouble," she said. "Perhaps."

"The old ladies?"

"No, a protest. Police say they have informations that there may be an action planned."

"Protest? Protest of what?"

Cynthia shrugged and exhaled smoke. "Who can say?"

"Could you not be existential just for a minute? This isn't Waiting for Godot."

"An anti-American protest. You're not so popular here."

"Well, excuse us for saving you from the Germans. Next time we'll leave you to fight them off with baguettes."

"I'm not taking the side of the protesters. Don't be so sensitive. You Americans, every five minutes you need reassurance." She leaned over and gave me a long kiss, right on the lips. I must say, I was stunned.

"There," she said. "Thank you for saving us in 1944. Okay? Happy now?"

"Well," I cleared my throat, "it's a start."

"Anyway," she said, automatically checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror--and there was something beautiful in the way she did it--"the police opinionate there is a group that may make a difficulty. But don't worry. Our police are very clever." She smiled. "Not like yours."

I phoned Roscoe from the lobby of the Ritz. The senator was staying there instead of at the embassy so as to be accessible to the French, as it were.

"How's our boy?" I asked.

"The time changes are hard on him, but he's fine. He's pumped."

"You mean you gave him an injection. He's going to drop dead on me, Roscoe."

"That man is going to bury us both. He's going over his speech right now and chasing the room-service maids. He just loves those French girls. Say, you hear anything about a protest? One of the embassy people mentioned something."

"I wouldn't worry. French police are tough. Not like ours."

"What the hell are they protesting, anyway? Fact we saved their sorry asses?"

LaMoyne reached me on my cell to say he'd just learned that AAAM, the Association of American Airplane Manufacturers, was rolling out a series of anti-French TV ads. It was targeting the districts of the congressmen and senators on the Transportation committees that would be voting whether to approve the purchase of the French aircraft.

"How bad is it?" I asked.

"You remember when it came out in the news a couple years ago that Air Gaul bugs the seats in first and business class? So French businessmen would have an edge in negotiations over their foreign counterparts? Plus whatever other juicy morceaux they might pick up, and God only knows the things that get talked about in those seats on the way to gay Paree. That's the first spot. It goes downhill from there."

Before flying over to France, I had prepared for such a contingency.

"All right," I said, "move to Condition Orange." Renard Strategic Communications, like the Department of Homeland Security, has a system of color-coded alerts. We had a campaign of 30-second TV spots ready to roll. One showed the empty cockpit of a modern U.S.-built jetliner. Headlines scrolled down the TV screen:

Drug use found Rampant at Airplane Plant.

Faulty Stabilizer Termed cause of fatal Crash.

Air in Economy-Class Cabin is called 'toxic' by faa.

Then you heard the mechanical voice of the cockpit warning system saying, "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!" The clear implication was that to fly on an American-built plane was to risk death a thousand times over. I like to think I'm as patriotic as the next person, but c'est la guerre.

That night there was a dinner for the Codel at Taillevent. It's one of the great restaurants of the world, and Cynthia and I had arranged a little surprise for Senator Kilbreath. Halfway through dessert--which consisted of a cake in the shape of his old Army unit's insignia--one of the other diners, an elderly French sort, approached the senator's table, burst into tears and started telling him how one night when he was a kid growing up in--what do you know?--Normandy, he heard this crash and looked out his window, and there was an American glider plane full of GIs. It might have been the senator's.

The senator was so visibly moved, and the two old men hugged, and if it had been a movie, the whole place would have started singing "The Star-Spangled Banner." It was a tremendously heartwarming moment, really. Even the French people present were touched, and the French don't touch easily.

Afterward Cynthia and I had a drink at the Ritz.

"Good work on Glider Man," I said.

Cynthia stared into her Perrier.

"Tell me something, Rick. Are you self-loathing yourself as much as I am self-loathing myself?"

"We made an old man happy," I said. "Is that a crime?"

"I need a bath. I feel dirty."

It's not every day you get a lecture on cynicism from a French person. Cynthia went off in a huff of malaise, leaving me to contemplate over my Pernod my place in the moral pecking order. If it were a movie, someone with a beret would have started playing an accordion.

Instead, an attractive young woman sat down on the stool next to me. I gave her the old Renard MRI scan. It crossed my mind that she might be a professional. The bars of expensive hotels are not exactly off-limits to the ladies of the night. But there was something in her manner that said, "I'm not a hooker," and before long we were talking pleasantly. Her name was Helene, and she'd spent time in the States.

"You know Woods 'Ole?"

"Woods Hole, the oceanographic institution? By reputation, yes, of course," I said as suavely as I could, furiously trying to remember something about the place. Whales, surely.

It turned out that she'd spent a year there studying not whales but kelp. A year struck me as a long time to study kelp, but I'll be the first to admit that science is not exactly Rick Renard's forte. As far back as high school I was concentrating on getting someone elected to the student council or doping the visiting team's Gatorade. I'd always been a facilitator, but back then you would not have found me dwelling, much less marveling, over the molecular complexities of, say, kelp. But there was something about this woman that made me want to dwell and, should the opportunity present itself, marvel over her complexities.

She seemed interested in whatever had brought me to France. Leaving out my specific role, I said I was here to help with the visit of the U.S. senators to Normandy. She brightened and said how embarrassed she was over France's recent behavior vis-à-vis the Iraq situation and how ashamed she was of her country for letting America once again go it alone. Maybe kelp makes you go pro-American. It was certainly refreshing to hear a French person expressing such unqualified joie over America.

We kept on ordering drinks, neither of us, apparently, wanting to say good night. One thing led to another, and though Rick Renard does not kiss and tell, I will say that Hélène and I ended up in my suite upstairs, talking late into the night--later than I had planned, since I had an awful lot to do. She was fascinated by the details of the senator's trip to Normandy and wanted to know all about it. I don't remember how much, exactly, I told her.

She was gone by the time I'd woken up. In the next room my laptop was open. I saw that she'd left me a message on the desktop: "À bient't, chéri. X Hélène."

I lingered fondly over the screen, Hélène's delicate perfume wafting in the air. This romantic reverie was replaced by a fierce need for a fistful of Advil. Starting a long day with an eau-de-vie hangover is not ideal.

The motorcade formed outside the Ritz for the three-hour drive to Normandy. The plan was to stop in Bayeux for lunch at the Lion d'Or, which had been Eisenhower's favorite restaurant, then on to the military cemetery at Colleville-sur Mer, where the senator and the Codel would be surprised by the grateful old ladies lining the road. Another heartwarming day in France, solidifying the historic bond between our two peoples. This would be followed by a helicopter tour. The senator would retrace the path his glider took on D-day. Through Army records, we'd been able to find the exact spot where he'd landed, in the middle of a beet field. All very historic and moving.

I was in the second car behind the senator's, with Cynthia and one of the French security officers, an erect, alert-looking fellow named Jean-Jacques.

"How's the self-loathing today?" I asked, settling in beside Cynthia.

She gave me a sullen look and handed me the menu for the luncheon at the Lion d'Or. The thought of food, even exquisite French food, made me reel. Cynthia, being French, lit a cigarette.

"You don't look so good," she said,

without any noticeable pity. "Late night?"

"I'm going to doze for a bit. Wake me up if we hit any protesters."

The lunch was a great success. The mayor of Bayeux, which depended heavily on tourism from us ugly Americans, gave a heartwarming toast about how the best of friends can occasionally disagree with each other, et cetera, et cetera, and presented all the members of the Codel with keys to the city. Even the Florida congresswoman who'd sponsored the legislation in the first place seemed to be having a nice time. Cynthia was making sure that at every meal she was seated next to some debonair Frenchman who could charm the paint off the Eiffel Tower and who would whisper to her that most French people hated the present French government and had secretly rooted for the Americans. Everything was going very well.

After the lunch we motorcaded to the cemetery. Cynthia's brigade of grateful old ladies was there, on cue, waving an American flag that looked like it might have been flown on an amphibious landing craft on the Great Day. The senator ordered the car to pull over, and the ladies swarmed him. Really, as PR goes, it was a slam dunk.

We did the tour with the director of the military museum, and by the time we'd left it was a done deal that Private Ryan was staying put with his band of brothers at the cemetery overlooking the bluff of Utah Beach.

It was on the short ride to the helicopter pad that I noticed the clipboard on Jean-Jacques's lap. There was a piece of paper on top that looked distinctly like a wanted poster. It had a photo of a woman who looked very much like the one I had spent the night with. The hair was different, and she looked sort of angry. But it was definitely Hélène, my belle Hélène. Oh hell.

"Excusez," this being my one word of French. "Who is?"

Cynthia translated. "That's the leader of the group we have been concerned about."

"May I see?" Jean-Jacques was reluctant to show me.

"Look," I said, "we're all working for the same team here. Who. Is. This. Woman?"

They murmured some more. Cynthia took a deep breath and said, "You remember the Rainbow Warrior?"

"The Greenpeace vessel you blew up in New Zealand."

They stared.

"Let me rephrase. The Greenpeace vessel it was alleged that French security services blew up in order to prevent them from protesting French nuclear testing in the South Pacific? Some people died?"

"She is the sister of one of the crew," said Cynthia. "Ever since, she is making a vendetta against the government. If they can make it difficult for France to sell airplanes, they would like to do that."

My eau-de-vie hangover reasserted itself.

Cynthia was giving me what novelists would call the penetrating stare.

"Now you really don't look so good," she said. Jean-Jacques too seemed to be intrigued by my rapid loss of color.

I thought of the message Hélène had left for me on my laptop--the same laptop that contained all the files pertaining to the Normandy visit, including a map showing the location of where the senator's glider had landed.

"Change of plan," I said. "We have to get to the glider field. Right now. Tout de suite."

"What's the matter?" she said.

"Explain later."

Cynthia and Jean-Jacques spoke French at each other, and Jean-Jacques shook his head in that French way that translates as "No way."

"He says we must stay with the motorcade. He's assigned to the senator. He must remain in his sight."

I raised Roscoe on my cell. "Roscoe, abort the chopper ride. Repeat, abort the chopper ride. Something ugly might be about to happen."

"What you talking about?"

"I've got a bad feeling. Leave it at that."

"Rick, he's been talking about this ever since we got here. I can't just tell him you wanna call it off just 'cause you got some bad feeling."

"Stop the car," I said to Cynthia.

"Why?"

"I have to throw up." Practically true.

"Arrêtez la voiture!" she commanded. The driver pulled over. I jumped out and hunched over by the side of the road. The driver opened the door and got out

by way of being solicitous. I felt bad about what followed, but desperate times call for desperate measures. I shoved the poor man to the side, jumped into the driver's seat and hit the pedal.

Cynthia and Jean-Jacques started remonstrating, understandably. I put up the smoked-glass partition and locked the doors, sealing them in. Jean-Jacques began rapping on the glass with what I suspect was the butt of his pistol. I was hoping Cynthia would discourage him from shooting me. The Bureau des Informations Etrangeres surely didn't want the headline Police shoot u.s. pr Man at Normandy.

I'd spent so much time on the planning that I had a pretty good idea how to find the glider field, about five kilometers from where we were. I passed the senator's motorcade at a death-defying clip. The walkie-talkie on the seat next to me began squawking furiously in French. Then I saw in the side rearview mirror the flashing blue-and-white lights.

By the time I reached the beet field, I had three French police cars on my tail. I pulled over and jumped out of the car and made for the hedge--no easy climb, let me tell you, for a Washington PR man well into his 40s. Jean-Jacques and Cynthia burst out of the back, shouting and yelling, and the police cars were pulling up with a screech of tires and gendarmes shouting, "Monsieur! Arretez!"

I got all scratched and bloodied getting to the top of that damned hedge. (It can't have been much fun invading this area.) From the top of it I had a clear view of the field, and what I saw made me sweat. There, painted in whitewash on the field in thick letters, it said yankee go home.

I could hear the whop-whop-whop of the senator's chopper approaching in the distance.

I shouted down to Cynthia. Jean-Jacques stopped pointing his pistol at me and barked into his walkie-talkie.

The chopper kept coming. My heart was going like a piston. Finally the chopper veered sharply away and headed off.

I couldn't bring myself to admit all the details to Cynthia, though I'm certain she figured it out for herself. I did eventually tell Roscoe, who let out a low moan and said that if you wanted to make an enemy out of Karl Kilbreath, the surest way would be to call him a Yankee. She really thought it all through, Helene. At any rate, the bill was defeated in committee, and Private Ryan remained in France, where he belongs. As for Hélène, she sends me e-mails from time to time, addressed to "Chéri." She wants to get together next time I'm in Paris, and though I'm still furious with her, I have to say, I wouldn't mind. I've always been a bit of an environmentalist, deep down.

New York--bound AirFrance flights were diverted to Montreal by air trafficcontrollers, and the city