“I didn’t tell you that. You figured it out, so what could I do? That’s what I’ll say, if anyone ever asks. And this is all off the record. My role in telling you any of this has to be completely secret. Otherwise, I’d do it myself as a covert action—leak it to the French press, destabilize the government—and save you the trouble. Assuming I could get approval in Washington, which I can’t, because the lawyers and congressional committees and the other nannies would have a fit. So there you are.”

“The ground rules sound fine. But what do you actually know? I’m hungry for information.”

“Me, I’m hungry for food. Then information, but first food.”

So we summoned the waiter. Rupert Cohen looked to see what the most expensive items on the menu were, and then ordered them: snails and a huge filet de boeuf for two, which he said we would have to share. When the waiter was gone, he launched quite suddenly into the heart of what I had wanted to know, sending me scrambling for my notebook.

“Have you ever heard of La Puissance Occulte?” he began. “The Secret Power.”

“Never. What is it?”

“It’s an organization that doesn’t exist. But it’s there, just the same, like the Cosa Nostra, which also doesn’t exist. It’s the power behind the power. When a car bomb explodes in Lebanon and kills the prime minister, nobody knows who did it. But somebody knows, and that person is often in France. When hostages are taken in the Middle East and someone has to go get them, that person is often French. When a bribe is paid to win a big trade deal for a European company, the place where you’ll find the man who paid the bribe—and perhaps also the recipient—is France. These are things that don’t happen. But they happen.”

I looked at him skeptically. “And the organization that makes all these things happen is La Puissance Occulte?”

“Don’t be so literal. You’re thinking about an organization with a flowchart. I’m talking about an affinity. There isn’t a single network, but dozens of them. The Secret Power includes businessmen, spies, politicians. It is a loose collection of the people who really run things in France, as opposed to the people who appear to run things. These people with the real, secret power have an affinity for each other. And they all have an affinity for the old fox, Maurice Costa. It’s pointless to look for an organization—as I said, it doesn’t exist—but here’s a clue. Many of these people you are looking for are Freemasons.”

I shook my head. “You’re kidding. The guys who wear fezzes and organize children’s benefits? That can’t be. Those people are clowns.”