The Fifth Horseman by Larry Collins, Dominique Lapierre

release of energy so enormous it staggers the mind.
    “Let me give you an example. One kilogram of the petroleum we now purchase at such an exorbitant cost in the Persian Gulf releases thirteen kilowatt hours of energy when it burns. One kilogram of heavy hydrogen, properly fused, will release …” again Poucault paused, measuring each word for dramatic effect, “ninety-one million kilowatt hours of energy.”
    The ministers let out what was nearly a collective gasp.
    “The search for this energy form,” he told his now spellbound audience, “goes back to the 1930s when the English astrophysicists at the Cavendish Laboratories realized that this was the process which explained the unac-countable energy releases of the sun and the stars. If it could be done in the stars, they asked, why couldn’t it be done on earth?”
    Foucault leaned forward, savoring for an instant the role of a pedagogue.
    “It meant, messieurs, dealing with time in billionths of seconds. A billionth of a second is to one second as one second is to three hundred and thirtytwo years. It meant creating conditions of temperature and pressure that are equivalent to hell on earth.
    “The Soviets made the first great leap forward in 1958 with the ingenious use of magnetic force to produce the effect we sought. In the late sixties when the scientific community introduced the power of the laser beam into our work, real progress began. As you all know, we here in France have been at the forefront of laser technology. Our stunning and quite unexpected breakthrough of a fortnight ago comes as a result of the scientific advances we made in the late seventies developing our new carbondioxide laser.
    “I must caution you all,” the Minister warned, “on the need for the utmost secrecy about our advance. What we have done is to demonstrate for the first time the scientific feasibility of the fusion process. Applying it commercially will require years and years of work. The potential commercial benefits to this country of our head start, however, are incalculable. We must not allow the premature disclosure of our discovery to deprive France of the just-and immeasurable-rewards of our scientists’ work.”
    So mesmerized were the men around the table, no one noticed a hussier slip into the council chamber and discreetly hand an envelope to the Minister of the Interior. The Minister glanced at its contents, then, his face a register of the gravity of the message he had just read, turned to Valery Giscard d’Estaing.
    “Monsieur le President,” he said, interrupting Foucault’s speech, “the Brigade Criminelle of the Prefecture of Police has just informed me they have discovered a car with a corpse in it abandoned in the Allee de Longchamps in the Bois de Boulogne. The corpse has been tentatively identified through a laissez-passer issued to attend this meeting. It appears to belong to this scientist we are waiting for―” he glanced at his paper — “Alain Prevost.”
* * *
    Three blue police vans, yellow roof lights blinking, marked the scene.
    A cordon of policemen screened off passersby, prostitutes and poodle walkers gawking in morbid curiosity at the Renault and the shrouded figure laid out on the ground beside it. Ignoring his policemen’s salutes, the Minister of the Interior, trailed by Pierre Foucault, swept through the cordon up to Maurice Lemuel, head of the Police Judiciaire, France’s top police investigatory force.
    “Alors?” barked the Minister.
    Lemuel turned to a plastic sheet laid out on the Bois de Boulogne grass. On it were two items, a wallet and a slide rule, its white lacquer surface yellowed by age and use.
    “That’s all?” the Minister asked. “No sign of the documents he was carrying?”
    “That’s all, sir,” Lemuel replied. “That and the pass we identified him with.”
    The Minister turned to the Atomic Energy Chairman. “It’s perfectly incredible,” he said, his voice full of barely controlled anger.