I said I would think about it and let them know what I had decided. Thirty minutes later, a telex arrived from the communications center in New York. That was strange in itself, since we usually sent messages by computer. The telex was from Weiss, who apparently wanted a formal record of his cautionary advice: “Pro Truell Ex Weiss. Assume you will be uncrazy and leave Paris ASAP. That is an order. I mean it. All bests.”

Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if the messenger hadn’t arrived that afternoon. I was sitting in my office, staring blankly out the window down the Rue du Faubourg-St.-Honoré, wondering what I should do. I had already sent Pascale home to her kid. There was a sharp knock at the door, which scared the shit out of me, frankly. But it was just this odd messenger. He didn’t identify himself or ask me to sign anything; he looked at me, as if comparing me with a picture he’d studied, and handed me an envelope. And then he was gone, out the door and back down the elevator.

I opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper with a yellow Post-it sticker attached. The page was part of a transcript of a telephone conversation. The two speakers were identified as “Daghestani” and “Costa.” The original French text came first, followed by a translation:

Daghestani: On est bien d’accord: Il faut payer un milliard de francs pour en finir avec cette histoire. We agree that we must pay a billion francs [$200 million] to finish with this problem.

Costa: Et si nous payons, c’est fini. Les otages sont libres, les voyous disparaissent dans la nature. C’est ça? And if we pay, it’s over. The hostages are free, these lying hooligans disappear. That’s it?

Daghestani: Oui, bien sûr. Nous avons une garantie. Yes, of course, it’s guaranteed.

Costa: Alors, payez. Then pay.

A message had been handwritten in ink on the yellow sticker attached to the transcript. It read: “Knowledge is power. Use this very carefully.” It was unsigned, but I knew who it was from. This was Special Intelligence, the kind that allowed people to know things, with moral certainty, so that they could act upon them. And now I knew. I had my second source, confirming what Ali had told me. I reread Ed Weiss’s telex message, ordering me to leave Paris. Then I sat down at the keyboard and banged out a brief telex of my own, addressed to Weiss. It read: “Message unreceived. Truell.”