She had spent the day travelling by train to Brussels and back, jabbing various unsuspecting people in crowded train stations, often to shouts and rebukes. But none saw what had actually jabbed them as she expertly blamed their momentary pain on a sharp handbag she had purchased precisely for its impractical points and buckles. On her long flights to Israel and then to Paris she had also drugged several people on the plane with minor soporifics and administered them the antidote as they slept.

As the ardent minister entered her hotel room, she already had a similar draft made up for him. But first she had some business to discuss. He was shocked at her story, but believed it. As France’s defense minister, he had responsibility over all military spending, and she managed to bake into conversation how she had heard rumor in her home country of Turkey of a plot that was afoot to steal one of the expensive Rafale jet fighters from the French army. He was suspicious, but she had a document with details of the career of one Jean-Paul Merard with her, and a disturbingly large amount of information about both this pilot and the minister himself.

He was sad for a while that she had not really wanted him here because she found him charming, he was even angry for a moment at being used this way. But she was very charming, and very sincere. And very beautiful. When, after outlining her strategy for stopping the Turkish agent, and including a couple of veiled threats of what she would say to the French press if he did not do exactly as she said, she offered him a drink and apologized sweetly for being such a bully.

He smiled meekly and accepted her peace offering.

When he awoke a few hours later she was gone, and there was a folder by his side. It contained several clearly recently printed photos of him in this very hotel room, quite asleep but also quite naked, in various creative poses that would quickly end his career if released.

The folder also contained an almost mockingly sincere written apology, barely veiling a reiterated threat to his career should he not pursue the subtle, if effective, course she had described the night before. More importantly, she stressed the consequences would be no less severe should he tell anyone of their encounter. He cursed her and his own gullibility, but he had no intention of straying even one iota from her instructions. He would follow them to the letter.

Unbeknownst to him, she had not undressed him just for blackmail, or even for the considerable fun she had had posing and photographing his slumbering body. She had also saved his life: through a tiny needle mark on his ample posterior, she had introduced the drug that would actually make him the unwitting bearer of the greatest panacea in history to everyone he loved and held dear.