Modern Arabic is known as the proper way to speak Arabic.  All Arab countries have their own dialects and sometimes differing vocabularies and grammar.  Mutual intelligibility is greater with Arabs from similar regions.  Modern Standard Arabic, or Literary Arabic (Fus’ha), is taught in schools, used in printed media and on the news. Generally, most Arabs can speak and understand Fus'ha so Arabs from different regions can use it to communicate with each other when dialects are too distant. But in everyday life, through day to day communication (e.g. while shopping, talking with friends and people on the on the street), Arabs use their own dialects. 

I have used Fush’ha as the written Arabic language in my text.  In real life, the people represented would have used a more colloquial form when communicating with each other.  I have not attempted to convey this colloquialism in my writing.

Finally, I must reiterate that this is a novel, a work of fiction and in no way is meant to represent the current or future situation in world affairs.  It has been written to entertain and for no other reason.

Charlotte was sipping her wine but was quickly losing patience with Yves who was persistently coming on to her.  “You are not going to put your car in my garage, Yves” she said trying to dampen his intentions.  
“Why is that then?”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
Yves moved closer and started to play with Louise’s hair above her ear.
“I said no.”
He carried on moving his fingers over her neck.
“Do you know why men are the inferior species?” she asked.
“I didn’t know that we were,” he said with a grin on his face and continuing to stroke her neck.
“You are all led by that piece of gristle that is always in front of you by a few centimetres.  It pulls you in a different direction every seven seconds.  You are a slave to it and have no mind of your own.  

“We, however, keep ours tucked away, hidden if you like and we only bring it out when we think it can be useful.  You are unable to think rationally and logically because your dick is constantly controlling you and everything you do.”
“That’s a bit hard, don’t you think?”
“I can’t have intercourse with you because I have a pair of balls between my legs.”
Yves moved away and stopped playing with her neck.  He had a look of astonishment on his face.
“I would never have guessed,” he blurted out.
“That’s more like it” she said. “Now, every time your dick gives you a message about me, just think of what I just said.”
“Is it true?” Yves said recovering somewhat.

“Of course it isn’t true, you dimwit.  But every time you get a hard on over me, think of it and behave properly.  I have a job to do here.  A difficult job and I could do with your help.  That’s all.  I’m not going to fall for your charms, so don’t waste your time.”

“Why would I help you when you won’t help me?” Yves asked petulantly.
“There you go again.  Being led by your dick.  If I were a man we wouldn’t be having this conversation.  If you don’t want to help me, I’ll find someone else.  In fact, thinking about it, I would prefer someone else.”  She stood up and left with Yves trailing her.
“Sorry, can we start over?” he pleaded, knowing there would be repercussions from his side.
“I don’t think so,” Charlotte replied and hailed a cab to take her home.

In a discrete corner on the second floor of the head office of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service in Canberra, Australia, is a section called Pub Chatter.  They are known internally as the plods and their purpose is to sift through seemingly unimportant intelligence.  Going about their normal investigation tasks, field agents often come across non related information which may be rumour or gossip or occasionally has some truth in it.  This information is passed to the PC in Canberra who then sift through it.  Anything they think has merit is pushed upstairs for further consideration.

As it goes across each desk in the filter process on its way upwards, a further assessment is made, whether to send it on or bin it. This particular snippet had made it to the top.

“Item seven on the agenda,” Jane Stuart, Head of Overseas Operations, announced. “There are Australians working for the French Intelligence Service.”
“There must be something in it or it wouldn’t have got this far. If it’s true it could have severe ramifications for us,” said John Bird, Executive Assistant to Chief of Staff.  Then he added. “If it’s not true it could tie up resources needlessly for a long time.  Resources we don’t currently have.”
“What about a part timer?”
“What are you looking for?” Ron Burgess, Head of Overseas Agencies, asked.
“Fluent French speaker with a legitimate reason to go to France.  We can’t use any of our people over there for the simple reason one of them may be the Australians we are looking for.”
“There is a fluent French speaker, currently working in Sydney.” Ron offered.
“Trained?”
“Fully trained.”
“What happened?”
“She turned us down.”
“That was brave.”
“Yes.  Said she wanted to be in control of her own life.  Wasn’t prepared to sacrifice for the Service.  She also had a love of the corporate world. I was really sorry to lose her.”
“Where is she working now?”
“First Colonial Bank in Sydney.”
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s an analyst.”
“Anaysing what?”
“She hypothesises various scenarios for places throughout the world and then assesses the impact on the bank.”
“What sort of things?”
“War, civil war, disease epidemic, natural disaster such as earthquake, volcano or tsunami, financial crisis.  Significant nuclear accident, that sort of thing.”
“Are we still in touch?”
“Our man in the bank is.”
“See if you can get her to come here for a briefing.”
“Are we decided then?” John asked. “We are treating this seriously?”
“Not yet.  Let’s have a word with her and decide after that.” Ron added.
“What is her name by the way?”
“Charlotte DuPont.”
“Is she French?”
“No, the name went over to England with the Norman invasion some stage in the eleventh century.  Her family immigrated to Australia a couple of generations ago.”
“What was her name with us?” Ron asked.
“Lorraine Kitch,” Jane answered as she consulted her laptop.
“Someone had a sense of humour then.” Ron laughed.

It was raining and cold when the plane touched down at Canberra Airport.  Charlotte took a taxi to Barton and was shown in to a meeting room on the ground floor.  Ron Burgess was the only person there.
“Hi, Charlotte.  Good of you to come.  You know how to get your expenses back don’t you?”  
“Good to see you again Ron.  What’s up?”
“Your employer is sending you to France to assess the impact of the thousands of refugees making their way up from the toe of Italy into Europe.”
“First I’ve heard of that.” Charlotte said.
“They’ll probably tell you on Monday.”
“Anyway, the plods have come up with some information we would like checked out. It’s rumoured that Australians are working for the French Intelligence Service.”
“Which service, there are at least eight of them?” Charlotte asked.
“Don’t know the answer to that, I’m afraid, but I don’t think it really matters does it?”
“It does, because it would point me in a direction as to which part of the haystack I should start looking in.”
“I would guess it would be an agency responsible for overseas intelligence.  I can’t see them recruiting any of our nationals to deal with internal affairs.”
“Okay.  When do you want me to go?”
“I’ll call you in a week.  I’ll give you embassy contacts but don’t let on our reason why you are there. You may be talking to one of them.  If it’s a go, we’ll set you up with equipment which means another trip down here.  We also need to give you some funds of course.”

Charlotte was back on a plane to Sydney three hours after she had arrived.

On Monday she was called into her manager’s office and told the news about research they wanted her to carry out in France.  
“It’s up to you to decide if you want to go over there to assess the situation and also how much time you think you should spend on it.”
Her manager told her arrangements would be finalised in about a week.  Charlotte marvelled again how it was just like theatre. Her employer knew and she knew, but no one was letting on that they knew. She had been trained well enough and she continued with the charade managing to keep a serious face in the process.

On Friday she had a visit from Human Resources.  Jessy handed over an open return Business Class ticket to Paris together with a hotel booking confirmation. There was a flight booked for Monday but she was told she could change that if she wished. Seems like they’ve made up their mind, Charlotte thought.
“The hotel is booked for three weeks.  If you need to stay longer you might wish to take an apartment.  Just let us know.”
Half an hour later she had a call from Canberra asking her to come down on Saturday.  She was greeted in the Barton reception by Ron who took her into an empty office.  He handed over a package.  
“There’s some cash in there plus a mobile phone.  Use that to contact me. I will be your minder on this one.  It’s very sensitive, as I’m sure you realise, so be careful who you talk to and what you say.  There’s probably no need to say that but I feel better having done so.”  He smiled.
He also told her there were some names of personnel in the Paris embassy that she could contact. Their network should be able to throw up somebody who could help on the French side.
“I’ve no idea how long this will take.  Depends on what you find but it may be difficult to get past first base so we are not looking for anything inside a month.  If, after that, you think it’s worth pursuing then you call the shots.  We have nothing else to go on.  Plods have come up with nothing new.”
“Can I ask where this intelligence was obtained?”
“In Sydney?”
“Do you know where?”
“Bourbon and Beefsteak in the Cross, as far as I am aware.”
“I’d like to start there if that’s not a problem?”
“I can’t give you the names of our agents, you know that.  You’ll have to go in blind.” Ron told her.
“That’s okay.  I won’t spend ages there.  Just a bit of background before I head off.”

On Sunday evening Charlotte visited the Bourbon and Beefsteak.  She looked around and spotted three women standing at the bar.  They were well dressed, highly fashionable and looked French.  Charlotte went and stood beside them and ordered a martini. Her assumption that they were French proved correct and at an opportune moment Charlotte said hello.  They appeared genuinely pleased to have someone join them and were even more delighted when Charlotte told them she was Australian.
“Vous parlez très bien le français. You speak excellent French.  Have you loved in France?”
“On and off over a period of time.  I studied at the Sorbonne so that helped.”
“You know Paris then?”
“Oh, yes”.

The group comprised two middle aged women and one much younger, about the same age as Charlotte, she guessed.  It was the oldest of the group that was doing all the talking.
“Nous aimons l’Australie.  We love Australia. But we have to go home in a few days.”
“Etes-vous en vacances? Are you on holiday?” Charlotte asked.
“Mais non.  But no.  We are here with our husbands.  They work for the French government and are here for a conference and we decided to join them.”
“All your husbands are with the government?” Charlotte asked.
“Mais oui.  But yes.” Still only the eldest one was speaking.
“I’m going to Paris next week.” Charlotte said.
“We must meet for coffee and perhaps some shopping too.” The spokesperson replied.
“Je m’appelle Angelique.” The youngest of the group ventured. “Je vous présent Marie et Louise. May I present Marie and Louise? ” 
“Charlotte, enchanté.”

They all exchanged phone numbers and addresses and promised to get in touch in Paris.  Charlotte left after an hour in view of the early start on Monday. Back at her unit, Charlotte thought that the trip to the Cross had been beneficial and she was determined to take them up on their invitation.  She had no idea what functions the French husbands performed but being in the government had to be a plus.

She was up early the next day and took a taxi to Kingsford Smith airport, checked in and went into the Qantas lounge to wait for the flight departure.  She was called fifteen minutes before take-off and accepted the glass of champagne that was offered, even though it was well before midday. She convinced herself that somewhere in the world it was the right time for it.  The plane landed at Charles de Gaulle without incident and she was through customs in less than half an hour.  She took a taxi to her hotel in the ninth arrondissement near the Opera. 
Le Grand Hotel de Normandie was in a typical Haussman block and Charlotte had stayed there before.  She went to her room, showered, changed and decided to go out for some lunch. She had learned by experience that no matter how tired you felt, you had to stick out the day and go to bed at the normal time.  She managed nine thirty but then was done, so she had another shower and retired to bed with her book.  She found it on the floor, next to the bed, the next morning. She had lost her place.