ABOARD THE TGV, TRAIN À GRANDE VITESSE
NORTH OF LYONS, FRANCE
TWENTY-FOUR KILOMETERS
The newly appointed French Ministre de l’Économie, Marcel Dubroc, drummed his long, thin fingers on the armrest of his solo seat. He wanted to enjoy some rare privacy, and so his aide Luc, with his interminable notes and suggestions, sat behind him. Still too close. He could still hear Luc on his cell phone, wallowing in his mistress’s voice, no doubt gloating about being the new power behind the throne.
Marcel looked out the window at the straight shot of highway running parallel to the high-speed rail track. At three hundred kilometers an hour, the highway, the trees, and the fields beyond passed in a near blur. He saw a beautiful red Ferrari, guessed it was traveling at two hundred kilometers an hour. It looked like it was going backward.
He saw an attendant place a plate of croissants on a passenger’s table and realized he was hungry. Why not celebrate a bit? He could hardly jump out of his seat, shout, and wave his fist in the air. He drew a deep breath, settled back in his seat to enjoy the moment, and ordered an espresso and a croissant.
He’d won. He’d planned to head this office for the past five years, had worked hard to achieve his goal, and at last the power, the influence, the public exposure were his. It hadn’t quite settled into his bones yet, the actual knowledge he’d finally arrived, but it would, beginning with the meeting this afternoon when he would drop the hammer.
He was now Ministre de l’Économie—would it be his legacy? For the moment at least, he was content, but who knew what would come his way in the future?
He thought of his ex-wife, Nichole, that unfaithful bitch, and smiled so widely his jaw cracked. At the time, rage had swamped him when a friend had told of seeing her and her lover in an out-of-the-way restaurant in the 5th Arrondissement, trading saliva over couscous. But no longer. Even though his teenage son, Jean, had blamed him for breaking up the marriage to his mother, the little pisshead, Marcel knew he’d been too young to understand, but someday he would.
His new office would be his private revenge. His ex-wife wouldn’t be the woman on his arm at the elegant events that would make up many of his evenings—rather, he pictured a succession of beautiful women, perhaps more interested in his office than in him, but who cared?
His present lover, Elaine, was quite beautiful, and she basked in his new position as Ministre de l’Économie. Should he consider marrying her? There was no rush.
FIFTEEN KILOMETERS
He put portable headphones over his ears, tuned in to a streaming music service as he waited for his coffee. A mad song came on that only a French teenager could appreciate, but now he wrapped himself in the jagged dissonance of the notes as the two male vocalists wailed and screeched unintelligible words in his ears. The vicious sounds made him think of his upcoming meeting that afternoon with Antoine Bardon at Marcel’s office in Bercy. It would be their final meeting, and he was quite looking forward to it. He would ever-so-pleasantly tell Bardon about his new budget, about to be approved by the president. Marcel had cut off all the farm-equipment subsidies Antoine Bardon had received yearly and promptly stuffed much of the money into his own fat pockets, millions of euros he used to facilitate foreign bribes through his bankers and trucking businesses. Marcel had tracked down the paper trail of the stolen federal money, laundered through a small bank in Marseilles, and now he had the power to bring him down. At last. Marcel couldn’t wait to see the look on Bardon’s face when he showed him the proof. For all practical purposes, Antoine Bardon would be gone, perhaps to prison, certainly dead to the French government. So what if Bardon let it out that he’d been one of Marcel’s ex-wife’s lovers? Everyone knowing that would only make it sweeter. Maybe he could call his ex-wife, tell her what he’d done to her ex-lover, offer to tell her which prison he’d be spending his retirement years.
Marcel found himself tapping his fingers to the music and smiled. He held all the cards now.
It was all over but for the shouting, and he planned to shout really loud after the meeting with Bardon. He’d walk out of his new, beautifully paneled conference room in Bercy and into the glorious Parisian sun. And call the media.
He’d won.
FOUR KILOMETERS
An attendant recognized who he was, was properly deferential, bowing so low he could have fallen on his face, but the TGV ran too smoothly for that. Marcel nodded his approval and the attendant disappeared. He sipped the bitter, hot espresso. It was delicious. He bit into his warm croissant, frowned a bit. It wasn’t quite as moist and fresh as the others he’d enjoyed on the TGV. No matter, he was too pleased with himself. Perhaps he would tease his friend, the Ministre de Transportation, Jean LeMarc, about it when next they met.
ZERO KILOMETERS
Marcel Dubroc had no warning he was about to die. His world disintegrated.