Affairs of State

Thursday 28 November

A plane leaves a trail in an intense blue sky very high above a range of bare, snow-covered mountains and an opaque green lake. A standard ad for a budget airline company. And then the plane bursts into flames, explodes, and breaks up into a dozen huge fireballs shooting out stars before spinning down towards the earth amid a shower of burning debris. The noise of the explosion reverberates in the mountains, echoing endlessly.

A comfortable sitting room in shades of beige and chestnut: two leather sofas, a few deep armchairs, a glass and steel coffee table, thick white wool carpeting, two large windows blocked out by heavy velvet curtains. On the wall, a mildly saucy earth-red chalk drawing by Boucher, lit by a spotlight, depicts a plump young nude being gracefully humped by a young man whose clothing is barely loosened. Men aged between forty and sixty, in deeply conventional dark suits and ties, chat and drink champagne, whisky and cocktails served by women aged between twenty and thirty moving from one to the other, smiling and attentive. They all look superb in their revealing, beautifully cut, figure-hugging dresses in dark colours with discreetly plunging necklines and tasteful jewellery, smiling all the time.

The men have just closed a deal to sell arms to Iran, a thousand missiles. The sale is illegal, since the country is under an embargo, so naturally tensions are running high. Especially since the delivery date had had to be postponed for a few days at the last minute. Luga Airport in Malta, through which the cargo was to transit, had just been the scene of a pitched battle between Egypt’s special forces and a group of Palestinians who had taken the passengers and crew of an Egyptian aircraft hostage. Several dozen dead later, the airport was finally cleared, flights resumed yesterday, and this morning, the Boeing 747 cargo laden with missiles took off from Brussels-Zavantem heading for Tehran, via Valetta, Malta. It should already have landed in Tehran. And now, the deal done, it’s time to celebrate.

Bornand plays the host. Tall, very slim, an attractive sixty-year-old with thick, wavy hair, more pepper than salt, and a long face whose features are emphasised by a network of vertical furrows and a thick, neatly trimmed, completely white moustache. His light grey tailored suit, cut to a neat fit, emphasises his slimness as he moves from group to group saying a few words, touching a shoulder, filling a glass.

Flandin, the boss of the SEA,3 the applied electronics company which sold the missiles to the Iranians, his left hand on a girl’s buttocks, holding a glass of champagne in his right, is in conversation with a tall, fat Lebanese banker who’s giving an animated description of a camel race in the desert, organised by a Saudi prince. Flandin laughs, and when Bornand comes over, he raises his glass:

‘To our host, gentlemen, who pulled out all the stops to ensure the success of this deal.’

Bornand responds to the toast. Flandin. I picked the right man. An excellent electronics engineer, but a somewhat limited company boss, always short of capital, and chasing business. The perfect supplier, still under our control. And now, he’s here, thrilled to be hobnobbing with the rich and powerful, with the added excitement of being part of an illegal operation at no risk to himself.

‘And to all the deals to come,’ adds the Lebanese banker.

‘We’d better believe it,’ answers Bornand, smiling.

Karim, a friend for over a decade, with whom he went into partnership to found the IBL, International Bank of Lebanon,4 a key broker in all Middle Eastern arms deals, of which there are many.

The banker leans over to the girl being groped by Flandin, pops a breast out of her dress and slowly trickles champagne over her curvaceous quivering flesh until it runs down to her nipple, when he then drinks it avidly.

Bornand pours himself a glass of champagne. Restore the balance of French policy in the Middle East, resume relations with Iran. This is where realpolitik is decided, in the drawing room of a brothel, and I am the chief architect.

An Iranian officer, sprawled in an armchair, his eyes half closed, a blissful look on his face, is smoking a cigarette which Katryn has just rolled for him, to which she has added a pinch of heroin. Katryn, a real slave. She is sitting on the arm of the chair. A helmet of black hair, pallid complexion, red lips. She leans towards him; he follows her with his gaze, fascinated, an iridescent pearl, hanging from an invisible thread around her neck, quivering in the hollow of her throat at her every movement, bobbing when she speaks, a pearly counterpoint to the whiteness of her face. She listens attentively and knowingly. The officer, wallowing in nostalgia, tells her of the past splendours of the Shah’s court, snipe-hunting in the terraced paddy fields on the slopes of Mount Elbrus, and the descent through the orange groves to the shores of the Caspian Sea. Bornand mentally flashes back, picturing the snipes’ lively, erratic flight against a sky of the deepest blue. She prompts him when he tails off, as if she had been a part of these excursions since childhood: hard work this, keeping him talking rather than fucking.

Bornand leans towards her, takes her hand, brushes it with his lips, his moustache tickles, and walks off.

A discreet buzzing, the intercom. Bornand goes behind the bar in the corner of the room, and picks up the receiver.

‘François, a phone call for you. I took the risk of disturbing you, it sounds very urgent.’

‘Coming.’

In the lobby, Mado, the mistress of the house, is waiting for him and points to a booth. He picks up the phone.

‘François? Pontault here. I hope you’re enjoying your little party …’

‘You’re not calling me just to say that?’

‘… because it’s not going to last long. Turkey has just announced that a Boeing 747 cargo plane has vanished from its airspace …’

Bornand convulsively clenches the glass he’s holding in his left hand. It smashes, cutting through to the bone at the base of his thumb. Shards of glass, blood on his hand, his shirt, his trousers, the carpet, the walls of the phone booth.

‘… Above Lake Van to be exact, coming in from Malta …’

Bornand frantically tries to staunch the bleeding with his shirt tails.

‘We don’t know what happened yet, but there’s no doubt it’s our plane. François, are you there? Now what do we do?’

The bleeding is more or less under control.

‘Like all true gamblers, we double the stakes. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.’