By the time I was back inside the gates of Paris, it was 3:30 in the afternoon—9:30 A.M. in New York—which meant that the foreign editor, Lynn Frenzel, was probably in her office. I pressed the buttons for the foreign desk, expecting the news aide to answer, but Frenzel picked it up herself.

“I may have a story here today, Lynn,” I said. “Wanted to give you a heads up. It could be interesting.” Never oversell a story. That was part of the code.

“Yeah, I know,” she answered matter-of-factly. “It’s on the wires.” Frenzel had been in a bad mood lately. Her husband had walked out on her, leaving her with a baby at home, plus all the babies on the Mirror’s foreign staff.

“What do the wires say?” I asked. “I’m not back in the office yet.”

“I’m aware of that. I’ve been trying to reach you. Pascale said you were out doing that bullshit story for the science section.” She was really in a bad mood.

“What about the wires?” I repeated. That was another rule among foreign correspondents. Steal everything you can from the wire services. Arriving in a strange city, the first stop for a correspondent was always the local AP or Reuters bureau. It was like connecting to the central nervous system.

“Reuters says there are fifteen hostages inside the restaurant. They’re being held by five people who claim to represent a group called Vert/Vertu, which Reuters translates as Green/Virtue. Can that be right? It sounds better in French. AP doesn’t have the name of the group, but they’re quoting someone who escaped from the restaurant who says that two of the five people holding the hostages are blacks, and that they’re protesting French weapons tests in West Africa. Agence France-Presse is useless. They’re only putting out the police bulletins. Do we know anything about French weapons tests in West Africa? That’s a new one on me.”

“Nope. At least I don’t. I thought they tested their weapons in the South Pacific.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find out by deadline. Unless you botch the writing, it stands a chance of making the front.”

“Maybe you should just run the wire story,” I said sarcastically. But she had already hung up.