Rubino opened the book. The top page was a classification sheet, bearing a string of code words. He ripped it from the binder. “From here on out, what I’m going to say is ‘deep background.’ It’s usable in the newspaper—in fact, I’ll be upset if you don’t use it—but it’s not attributable to the agency, or ‘intelligence sources,’ or any of that. Okay?”

I nodded. I was excited. I wanted to see the goodies he had brought along.

“Let’s do it, then,” said Rubino. His tone of voice was different now. It was crisper, colder, more like a military officer summarizing the order of battle. He moved the briefing book so that it was facing me, and turned to the next page, which displayed a picture of a man in a business suit. He was an elegant-looking man, with sharply drawn features and thick black eyebrows.

“This is Alain Peyron, the chairman and chief executive of Unetat. He’s one of the golden boys. He went to Harvard as an undergraduate, then took a master’s degree in economics at MIT. Like everyone who matters in France, he went on to the École Nationale d’Administration, and after that became an inspecteur des finances. He served for ten years or so in the Ministry of Defense, and then became CEO of one of the big state-owned banks. When Unetat was privatized five years ago, he was its first chairman. He is a very smart man; he even speaks a little Mandarin, which helps when he goes to Beijing. The Chinese consider him slightly less of a barbarian than the normal Western businessman. In the new France I was describing a little while ago, Peyron and Unetat sit at the very top of the pyramid.”

He turned the page. The next photograph showed another man in a business suit. This one was darker than the first, with piercing black eyes, sunken cheeks and thick lips. But for the hardness, it was almost a beautiful face. He was also expensively dressed, but the overall effect was of toughness, not gentility.