I walked across the street and ordered a sandwich at a little bistro called the Restaurant Nélaton, which was filled with square-jawed guys who looked like cops. They were bantering and joking as they drank their wine and smoked cigarettes. That was the first moment I realized what must have happened. I asked the waiter what was going on at Taillevent restaurant and he looked at me curiously, as if I had just landed from the moon. “Mais, c’est fini!” he said. It’s over.

It had all happened in the dark. After I got back to the office, I pieced together what had occurred from the wires and a call to my French journalist friend Olivier at Libération. Around 9:00 P.M., even before I made my dash into the restaurant, the French had ordered the television cameras away from the building to the other side of the Avenue de Friedland, preventing any direct shots of the restaurant. Two hours later, as the deadline approached, the cameras had been unplugged entirely. With the area sealed off from public view, a French antiterrorist squad had taken the building. The hostages had all been released. The terrorists had all vanished—the government said they were being held at an undisclosed location—except for Dr. Obado. He had been killed in the rescue—the only fatality—and a picture of his dead body had been flashed around the world. The wires said he was the leader of the group and had masterminded the operation.

The French government was claiming a great triumph. They announced that they had routed the terrorists from the building without paying them any money or acceding to any of their other demands. The president and the prime minister were on television, taking credit for their brilliant handling of the crisis. The French news media were joining in the applause. They reported, uncritically, the government’s denial that it had been testing any weapons in Africa. I was tired and dirty, but I had a story that would be worth reading, even if it was a day late.

4

4

I called Ed Weiss at home at 8:00 A.M. New York time. He was my boss, and he was also the person who had given me my first real chance, ten years before, when as foreign editor he had sent me overseas to Beirut. I was so tired and strung out after my night on the Rue Nélaton, I don’t know what I expected him to say. But it wasn’t this.