Free Lorraine Connection by Dominique Manotti

killing time. They exchange the odd word from time to time and a glass tinkles against the whisky bottle. All eyes are glued to the telephone on a corner of the big table in the centre of the room.
    ‘It’s your call, Pierre.’
    He picks it up, listens, nods and hangs up without a word. Sits down, suddenly drained.
    ‘Our chairman. He’s just had a call from the Prime Minister’s office. It’s Matra.’
    A long silence. The men look at each other. This failure is all theirs. They accepted the mission, they gambled, they lost. Their first failure on such a scale. Rossellini, in charge of the financial side of the bid is an elegant and athletic forty-something, a graduate of France’s top management school, the École Nationale d’Administration. He’s doing a stint as an auditor in the Finance Ministry where he still has a discreet, efficient network of personal contacts. He acted as Alcatel’s financial director in the bid, a position that will be vacant in a few months: a financial director of one of the biggest global industrial groups at barely forty, a destiny he believed he was meant for. Only now he’s suddenly relegated to being just another departmental head, and has to stomach it. Then Alain Bentadj, a young engineer trained at the prestigious École Polytechnique, expert in new technologies: a spell at Thomson, highly valued by the military for his technical capabilities, his inventiveness and the clarity of his vision, dreaming of an international career, abruptly finding himself demoted. What can he do at Alcatel if Matra’s the leading arms manufacture r? He came to Alcatel precisely because the Thomson takeover was on the cards. What’s he supposed to do? Change jobs? Noteasy after a failure on this scale. And anyway where can he go if Matra dominates the industry? They’re hardly going to welcome him with open arms. Frédéric Marion is head of communications . He thought he’d made a good fist of it, with the ministerial offices in his pocket. He’d dreamed of setting up his own PR and communications agency on the back of all this, its future assured with the giant Alcatel account. Those dreams have all just gone up in smoke. Roger Valentin sits alone on the sofa, the last man. He’s heavily built and older, watching the others and suppressing a smile. Former deputy director of the secret services, he’s now Alcatel’s head of security, making more money in the space of a few years than he ever made in the public sector, but lacking either further ambition or anxieties.
    Rossellini breaks the silence.
    ‘Are we entitled to know why?’
    ‘No. No other information. The Prime Minister chose Matra. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.’
    ‘Right. The next question is where’s a good place for a holiday at this time of year? There’s no snow in the mountains and the coast’s horrible.’
    ‘There’s the islands.’ Benoît-Rey picks up the phone with a half-smile. ‘I’d planned a little victory celebration at Joseph’s too. I’d better cancel.’
    ‘OK, one last drink and we go home to our families. It’ll be strange for them, after hardly seeing us for four months while we’ve been practically married to each other.’
    ‘I’ll miss you, darling.’
    ‘Alain, are you sure the beautiful Madame Bentadj will have waited for you?’
    ‘Don’t rub salt into the wound. I have no desire to return home unexpectedly.’
    ‘An evening at Mado’s, blow jobs all round, getting fucked brainless.’
    ‘Now that’s a much better idea …’
    Valentin is still sitting silently on the sofa. The phone rings again. They look at each other. Benoît-Rey says, ‘Nothing worse can happen now,’ and picks up the receiver.
    ‘Yes, we’re still here, chief. Yes, Valentin too.’ He utters groans and monosyllables, staring around wide-eyed. ‘Yes, we’ll be there.’ And he hangs up.
    ‘So, has the Prime Minister changed his mind?’
    Shrug. ‘Our CEO’s received several phone