The French Formula

By Ronaldo Siète

The best spy story; the worst spy.

If you play with G.O.D., you'll always win.

Luxembourg wants to be Number One on the list of most influential countries. The war zone is Brest. The battlefield is the European Games. The LSD checks the rumours about a secret weapon, a new untraceable drug that turns losers into winners.
When Bugs, The Runner, saves the life of Doc, he gets an unexpected chance to enter the VIP-zone and look behind the cameras. But a spy-mission is not a game; it's serious business. Does winning The Great Game compensate for losing your life? What's the price of that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? And how can we play with G.O.D. and win?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronaldo Siète
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9789492389275

Ronaldo Siète

Wie wil er nou iets lezen over de schrijver van een boek? Het is veel leuker om het boek zelf te lezen. En het allerleukste is nog wel: de boeken van Ronaldo Siète zijn gratis, "shareware", dus vraag niet hoe het kan maar profiteer er van.

Book preview

The French Formula

(Book 3 of the LSD series)

If you play with G.O.D., you'll always win.

By: Ronaldo Siète

L'important dans la vie ce n'est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu.

[The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.]

(Pierre Baron de Coubertin)

Polderdam, 3rd of January 2023

ISBN: 978-94-92389-27-5 (version 2, we fixed some typos and created fresh ones)

Publisher: Editorial Perdido - at www.editorialperdido.eu

Author-right: @ 2022 by Ronaldo Siète - as @Ronaldo7Siete at wattpad.com

Author-right cover design @ 2022 by Katie Sharp - as @katieishere at wattpad.com

Thanks to John, Maureen, Jet and the Wattpad community.

Index

0. Title Page The French Formula

1. The Healer

2. One

3. Private Investigations

4. Pinball Wizard

5. Roll Over, Lay Down

6. Heroes

7. Whole Lotta Rosie

8. Still Got The Blues

9. Lady Marmalade

10. Beat It

11. Message In A Bottle

12. Under Pressure

13. Still Loving You

14. Everybody Needs Somebody

15. What I Like About You

16. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)

17. Pride (In The Name Of Love)

18. I'm The Man

Extra: Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine

Cover text

Luxembourg wants to be Number One on the list of most influential countries. The war zone is Brest. The battlefield is the European Games. The LSD checks the rumours about a secret weapon, a new untraceable drug that turns losers into winners.

When Bugs, The Runner, saves the life of Doc, he gets an unexpected chance to enter the VIP-zone and look behind the cameras. But a spy-mission is not a game; it's serious business. Does winning The Great Game compensate for losing your life? What's the price of that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? And how can we play with G.O.D. and win?

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About the author

Ronaldo considers himself «the funniest writer in Dutch literary history». The rest of the country laughs about that, which automatically confirms the statement. After a long traumatic experience in his childhood (the six years of the 1st grade of primary school, when he had to learn the alphabet), he escaped reality and plunged into the world of fiction. He studied laughing stock in Orcsford (England), dark humour in the Black Forest (Germany) and dirty jokes at Club Oh, La, Lá (Place Picardillas 69, Paris, France). He graduated in Tonterías and won a licence in Cachondeo from the University of Málaga (Spain).

His novels and poems are full of his philosophy: smile every day, because no one gives literary prizes to writers who make their readers cry (otherwise he would have written this book on onion skins). He lives everywhere and doesn't work anywhere, because making up jokes while floating in the pool, with a drink in one hand and a snack in the other, That ain't workin', that's the way you do it.

The LSD-series:

1. The Swiss Suitcase

2. The Polish Program

3. The French Formula

4. The Spanish Spotlight

5. The Austrian Aroma

6. The Maltese Manuscript

7. The Swedish Sex Bomb

8. (you'll have to read the others first)

9. (and we're not giving away this title either)

For more info, news and free downloads: www.editorialperdido.eu

Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. At least, that's what my lawyer says, that I should tell you these lies so you don't believe all the other lies in the rest of this book. The truth is that the situations in this book, no matter how much you like them to be true, are fiction. The people in this story, no matter how likely you want them to exist, are fiction. Truth is stranger than fiction. That's why we write fiction: so you can learn to find a better truth.

The grammatical and spelling errors in this work are on purpose.

The first reason for this is commercial. Studies show that readers feel superior when they find errors in other people's writing. That's why we instructed our editor, Miss Take, to make sure our readers feel special when they enjoy our books. Only Editorial Perdido gives this glorious feeling of happiness to their clients.

The second reason is political. Every error is a protest against the Grammar Nazis, who complicated the language so the average educated person cannot put hor thoughts on paper without errors. Even the magic spell checker doesn't understand it anymore. Language is communication. It belongs to everyone, not only to the diehards who dedicated half their lives to studying it.

Brest - Thursday, 5th of October 2017

The Healer

This is the end of the world. This is the most dangerous place on earth. No weapons, no training, no magic can protect me against the death rate in this building, the high number of people who entered here and didn't come out alive. Only a fool would accept this mission, but I have no choice: I'm a spy, I'm #5, number five, The Runner, I work for the LSD (the Luxembourg Spy Department), ruled by #1, The Boss, who decides where I go to and what I do there. I have no choice. I have the blues. The blues will heal me when I get hurt.

The map of France is Charles de Gaulle, looking at the Atlantic Ocean: the north is his military cap, with Normandy as its visor, the Alps are his long rebellious hair, the Languedoc is his pain in the neck, the estuary of the Gironde is his disapproving mouth, and Bretagne is his long sharp nose, ending at Finisterre, the end of the world, and the only part of Gaulle that Julius Caesar could never conquer, thanks to Asterix and his brave friends, and thanks to Panoramix's magic potion that made them invincible. My mission is to find that magic potion, well, not exactly Panoramix's mix, but a similar, secret French formula, which will give Luxembourg invincible powers and make it the dominant country in modern warfare.

#1, The Boss, thinks this formula hides here, at the end of the world, in Brest, on the wart on the nose of General Charles, in the kitchen of the great-grandchildren of Panoramix: the laboratory of pharmaceuticals in the Academic Hospital, the most dangerous place on Earth. It gives me the creeps. Everybody knows how many patients only leave hospitals as the major attraction at their own funeral. I smell Death behind every corner.

Behind the next corner, I look Death in the eye: His cold claws choke the final breath out of a shaking, shocking, shivering body in a white cotton coat, crawling, puking and roaring like someone who gets electroshock therapy after a lethal injection.

No time to waste.

I kneel next to the man, check his pulse (it's running like crazy), his eyes (pupils wide, staring into that long dark tunnel with no light at the end), his respiration (not working), his mouth and throat…

Before my eyes, I see the letters POMAN ABBBS. When I learnt them, I thought «this is useless because you will never think of POMAN ABBBS in an emergency», but now, in this emergency, I know exactly what to do. POMAN's P stands for Personal safety. No action is required. I'm perfectly safe here. Other people's safety is no issue either. We're not under attack or in a fire. Mark the spot: room 472, pharmaceutical wing, Academic Hospital Brest. Alarm is next. I say to my spiPhone: Lovely Sweet Dear. Call 112. Urgent medical assistance. This location. Action., and the app will do the rest. The last letter is the N of Necessary medical help, the ABBBS, which stands for Air, Blood, Broken bones, Burnings, Shock. Air is first. Without air, every living creature dies within minutes. One quick move cleans his mouth. With the Heimlich grip, I remove the rest of the puke from the entrance to the lungs. He starts to breathe disgusting air. Lucky for him. Having the choice between artificial breathing and letting him die, I would find a toothbrush first.

His body functions are at an alarming speed. He must have something toxic in his stomach. Water. First, I throw it in his face, then I make him drink it, more, more, saltwater, throw it out, save your own life, come on, fight for it, you're young, not even 40 years old, you have a lot to live for, clean your stomach, get that poison out of your system, don't give up now, stay with me, nobody's dying on my watch!

There's no better place to die than a hospital. Specialists surround you, every drug is available, and life-saving machines stand everywhere. All you need is a little knowledge from these specialists about the usage of those machines and drugs. The knowledge is there, but it's the doctor himself who's the patient, and my only medical instruction for a situation like this is the chapter «The Bonny Situation» of Quentin Tarantino's film «Pulp Fiction» in which Vincent Vega (John Travolta) saves the life of Bonny (Uma Thurman) after an overdose by sticking a needle in her heart. The needle is there, lying on the table next to me, on top of a written instruction «In The Heart». Fiction can save your life. But Pulp Fiction?

I have no choice. Doc is not going to make it. He's down on the floor, feeling so bad, so low. Even the blues can't heal him now. I tear his coat open, tear the buttons off his shirt, grab the needle, stick it into his buttocks and press the content into his system. I count to ten. Then I count to twenty. It's having an effect. His heartbeat slows down. His pupils return to normal. The raspy respiration relaxes. He looks like Sleeping Beauty now. I still don't think of kissing him, but I do slap his face a few times. He comes to. He looks at me like I'm crazy.

What's up, Doc?

That was a highly interesting experience. Who are you?

No names. Call me Bugs Bunny, if you like. You almost died of an overdose. You were lucky I passed by.

Don't worry about me. I'm a doctor; I know what I'm doing. What are you doing here?

I gave you an injection. It was just in time. I saved your life.

You saved my life? Did you invent that stuff you injected me with? Did you prepare that needle and put it there?

No, it was already there, ready to use. But if I wouldn't have been around, you wouldn't have made it.

Nonsense. I'm in a hospital. There's no better place to have a heart attack or to give yourself an overdose than in a hospital. The one who put that needle there saved my life and the one who invented that stuff saved my life, and I did those two things myself. I owe you nothing.

You could say «thank you». It won't cost you a lot, and it would mean enough for me to do it again next time.

Doc thinks about it for a while. I wonder why his left leg lies at such a strange angle on the ground. It's broken, but Doc doesn't seem to notice. I scan the room for further information, a professional deformity I picked up during the last two years, since I started doing this work. It looks like a lab with chemical stuff in bottles and pots, it looks like a study with lots of books and a comfortable armchair to read them, it looks like a consultation room with a desk and two simple seats on the other side, and it looks like the shithole of a junkie with marijuana plants in front of the window, slices of half-eaten pizza on the floor, and the smell of weed and dirty socks is stronger than all the hospital perfumes together.

Doc looks at his leg and tries to move it, in vain: both the fibula and the tibia, the shin bone and the calf bone, are broken.

I mutter an excuse: I know the drill: first Air, then Blood, then Broken bones, but I didn't reach that stage yet. I had to get you breathing first. But I called the emergency service. They should be here any minute.

Doc makes up his mind: You're right. You've saved my life. I'm sorry. This must be a side effect from the injection, of the Prepoleptyl you injected me with. It numbs the emotional centre of the brain. I feel nothing: no pain, no mercy, no regret, no joy. I guess that makes the experiment a success.

Which experiment?

Oh, just a simple experiment I thought of this morning. When I took my morning dose of caffeine (you call it «coffee»), and I mixed it with my first dose of bravery (you call it «brandy»), and I added my hourly dose of nicotine (you call it «smoke a cigarette»), I felt like I could use a dose of good ideas (you call it «smoke a joint of marijuana») and my first good idea was that the joint slowed me down, so I added a dose of energy (you call it «amphetamine» or «speed»), which told me I needed a dose of creativity (you call it «cocaine»), which made me feel lonely so I added a dose of love (you call it «XTC»), which gave me the lovely idea that I could use a dose of painkiller to undo all the damage that I did to my body (you call that «take a shot of heroine») and my final thought was: «everybody uses those recreational drugs to feel better, so if I combine them all, I should feel at my best, most happy ever, and ready to save the world.» And then I passed out.

You took all those drugs, one after another?

Yes. I'm a doctor, you know. I'm the head of the doping control of the European Games. It's my work. I don't do this for entertainment.

And one injection of… how did you call that stuff?

Prepoleptyl. I invented it myself.

One injection of Prepoleptyl took away the effect of all those drugs in… thirty seconds?

That's because you injected it in my buttocks. If you'd injected it directly into my heart, as written in the instructions, it would have worked faster. Those instruction leaflets that go with the medicines are there to read and follow up, you know. The ones who write them do that for a reason. Never again doubt the advice of a medical doctor. I know what I'm doing.

You were out of control, shaking and kicking and breaking your leg. That's what you were doing. But what your Prepoleptyl was doing, curing you in seconds, that's amazing. Your medicine could solve the world's problems with drug addicts.

That's a long story. Perhaps I'll tell it to you some other time. Or did you come here to find a cure for your drug abuse?

I doubt… I came here for a job interview in an office further down the corridor, to get my undercover job as a desk employee at the entrance hall of the hospital, with the idea that I could have access to people and places in this hospital during the ten days of the upcoming European Games. How can I save the world when I'm sitting behind a desk? This doctor can give me a much better undercover job. A man who invents a cure against a certain death by overdose of about every drug humanity could find… would make a powerful ally on a mission to find Panoramix's potion of invincibility.

I decide to throw out a little fish, hoping to catch a bigger one with it: You're a doctor. You swore an oath to keep things secret. Right? Can I trust you with highly confidential information?

Despite the effect of numb feelings, I see a little sparkle in Doc's eyes: this is not a medical doctor who's interested in saving the lives of patients; this is a scientist who's interested in tests, investigations, discovering new medicines and new methods. This is a specialist who can help me with my work.

I'm a doctor. I swore the Hippocratic Oath to keep medical information secret. You can trust me as a professional.

Can I also trust you as a friend? You can trust me as a friend; I just saved your life.

Doc offers me his hand: You can trust me as a friend, Bugs.

We shake hands and close the deal: Thanks, Doc. What I will tell you is classified information. Top Secret. I'm looking for THE SPONGE…

Doc's raised eyebrows have never heard about this notorious criminal: Who's that?

The sponge is not a person. It's a formula. We suspect it's French. Look at this YouTube video…

On my spiPhone, I show him a scene of a football match, last year's Champions League final. The big star of the white team suffers a mean attack at his ankles from the central defender, a cousin of a famous Sicilian capo di tutti capi.

Ouch! That hurt.

Watch it. Here it comes…

The star is dying. He probably broke his ankle at three places with internal bleedings, crying like his mother-in-law just told him she'll nurse him for the next three months. It's horrible. The crack suffers unbearable pain. Every spectator hopes the hurrying medic will end his dire straits with a lethal injection, dig a hole in the green Cardiff soil, and bury him right away. It doesn't even come close: he takes a sponge out of a water bag, gives the ankle a brief treatment and… twenty seconds later, the star runs like nothing ever happened.

I confess: The organization I work for is very interested in this magical medicine. We call it The Sponge, but we're not sure if it's the sponge itself or the water, or perhaps even the combination of the two. I hope you can help me out. In return, I can be your aide for the time you're handicapped with that broken leg. Or do the medics in this hospital also have access to this wonderful medicine of the video? Five seconds with this sponge would save you an operation on your leg.

At that moment, the medics of the hospital come in, prepared to see the worst: Where's the fire? We got an emergency call about a critical situation.

Doc explains: This gentleman has solved the critical situation and saved my life, but I do have a broken leg that needs urgent attention, so if you can be so kind as to transport me to the Operation Room, I would be very grateful.

The two medics take immediate action. Carefully, they put Doc on a stretcher. One of them calls the surgery: Prepare for an emergency operation. There's no better place to break your leg than in a hospital.

When the medics lift the stretcher to take him away, Doc says to me: Come back here tomorrow morning, same time, 09:00. You helped me, I'll help you. I promise.

And then the medics disappear behind the corner.

* * *

My problem number one is called #1 (pronounce: number one), The Boss.

Our organization, the LSD (which stands for Lëtzebuergesch Sécherheet Departement, in English: Luxembourg Spy Department), consists of five people. We work together like the parts of a human body; I'm #5, The Runner, the legs of the body, running errands; #4 is The Agent, the hands, who has a licence to kill and all the weapons to do it with; #3 is The Diplomat, the mouth and ears, with his abilities to talk and listen; #2 is The Nerd, the nerve system who connects everyone with his network of applications and wireless technologies; #1 is The Boss, the brain, who makes the plans and reports directly to the Prime Minister, who gives the orders. If I want to change the plans, I can't do it without the permission of #1, The Boss. I can, but he pays my monthly salary for doing what he tells me to do. If I want to get paid for saving the world, it's a good idea to ask permission from The Boss first.

Officially, I work for Aldiko Trabajo Temporal, a company based in Andorra (both to avoid taxes and unnecessary paperwork). Via ATT's payroll, I get undercover jobs wherever the LSD has a mission, so I can visit places without being noticed. It's also a welcome financial extra: I get paid for both the spy job and the undercover job. Also, the LSD returns my expenses for travel, housing and meals when I'm on a mission. With so much money at risk, it pays off to ask permission first.

Money isn't the reason I'm with the LSD. Since my granddad read me «The Spy Who Came In From The Cold», I want to save the world or die in the attempt. I must have been three or four years old. With dedication, stubbornness, hard work and a decent amount of luck, I sneaked into the spy business. If