I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes, waiting for that pleasant buzz that comes after filing. But I had a bad feeling in my gut—empty, uncomfortable. I had written a reasonable enough piece of work, certainly no worse than what would appear in the competition. But it was entirely derivative; it had no life. A few blocks away from me a great story was unfolding, and I had covered it passively, from a distance, as if it were taking place on another continent. What had happened to me, in my thirty-fifth year, that I had become so lazy?

I rose from my desk and walked to the windows. My office was on the seventh floor, overlooking the rooftops of the neighborhood. One window looked east down the Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré, perhaps the most fashionable shopping street in Paris, housing the boutiques of Versace and Hermès and Yves St. Laurent. It was deserted now. Nobody was “licking the windows,” as the French call window-shopping; no cars were on the street. My other window looked southwest across the rooftops to the Eiffel Tower. There was a ghostly glow in that direction, and I realized it must be the floodlights trained on the small hôtel particulier on the Rue Lamennais—housing the fifteen hostages and the unknown terrorists who had seized them. The image of the Taillevent awning was still flickering on my television screen. Surely it was of at least passing interest to the world to know who these people were.

It took only a moment more of self-disgust for the dry tinder to ignite. This was a real story—the kind that offered a chance, as Ed Weiss loved to say, to “cover yourself in glory.” It was worth a little effort. At the very least, I needed to see the building for myself, rather than watch it on the damned television set.

It was dark outside when I emerged a little after 8:00 P.M. The café across the street, Le Saint-Philippe, was empty and locked up tight. So was Le Griffon, the fancier place a few doors up. The street had a gentle, upward slope about a quarter mile to the Avenue de Friedland, a grand tree-lined boulevard that led to the Arc de Triomphe. I had hoped to approach the restaurant that way. But after walking a hundred yards, I saw a cluster of armored vehicles and black-uniformed police gathered at the top of the street. The police were talking, leaning against their buses, smoking cigarettes, waiting for action. It was obvious that route wouldn’t work.