The Miracle Read Free Page A

indeed once been a model briefly. She was tall, slender, graceful, with glossy dark hair, the small perfect features of a pretty geisha, full pouting ruby hps, enviable small firm French breasts, long legs. And a banal brain. But who cared? It was just goddam unfair.
    Then the thought came to Liz, as she turned her car into the Avenue Montaigne, that Bill Trask had awarded Marguerite the plum assignment not because he wanted her to seduce Interior Minister Viron but because he wanted to seduce her himself. Maybe already had.
    Liz Finch groaned inwardly. If her assessment was correct, and it probably was, her chances of winning the single API post in the next month were nil. Marguerite would have a big scandal, a beat, to showcase herself to the top brass. Liz would have dregs, such as she was going to now.
    She pulled up before the Plaza Athenee, and braked to a stop. The uniformed doorman opened her door, greeting her with a courteous but not, unhappily, a flirtatious smile. Liz snatched up her work purse, the bulging scuffed brown one, and hurried into the hotel. There were several fat and swarthy Mideastem types lolling about in the spacious lobby, and not one gave her so much as a glance.
    Heading for the elevator in the second smaller lobby, the gallery in which guests had afternoon tea, Liz tried to remember where in the hell she was going. She had intended to go to the Montaigne Room downstairs, but before reaching the elevator, she remembered her destination and halted. When Trask had given her the assignment, he had also handed her the telegram announcing that Maurice Cardinal Brunet, archbishop of Paris, would have an important announcement to make at a press conference in the Salon Regence of the Plaza Athenee hotel at ten o'clock this morning. So it was the Salon Regence, the most important of the hotel's public rooms. Liz spun about and started up the gallery toward the doorway of the salon. She tried to think what the Catholic Church could have to announce that was so important. It would likely be some minor canonical reform. Boring. Dead weight on the API wire.
    Passing through the open glass doors, Liz was mildly surprised at the large turnout this ecclesiastical press conference had attracted. The long, narrow, stately room, with its three grand chandeliers and carved

    brown paneled walls, was packed with reporters. Edging her way to the rear, to the table beneath the huge oil of Louis XV where coffee was being dispensed, Liz realized that there was a general stir in the room, that the conference was about to begin, and that those reporters still standing were taking seats.
    Going for the nearest empty padded chair, Liz recognized Brian Evans, the cherubic Paris correspondent for the London Observer, whom she knew from countless cocktail parties. "Brian," she called out, "whatever is going on here? Look at the crowd."
    Evans came to her side, and said in an undertone, "I have it that the church is going to spring a super big story from Lourdes. No idea what, but since Lourdes doesn't do this often, it could amount to something. That's all I know."
    "We'll see," said Liz doubtfully, and she sat herself down on the empty chair, snapped her purse open, and removed her pad and pencil.
    She was just about organized, when she heard the tall glass entrance doors being shut and became aware that at the far end of the room someone on the small temporary platform positioned before the marble fireplace, someone in a clerical collar and surplice, was concluding a brief introduction. She heard, "Maurice Cardinal Brunet," and saw a bespectacled stout older man, also attired in clerical dress, come to the podium. He was carrying two sheets of paper and he placed them carefully on the lectern. He adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses.
    "I have a brief statement to read," he said in French, in a loud, hoarse voice. "After the statement, I will entertain ten minutes of questions from the floor."
    At once, he began to read his