All Cry Chaos

by Leonard Rosen

  "Because it related to your own?

  "Peripherally."

  "How so?"

  Bell laughed. "I appreciate the question, but this is like asking Coca-Cola for its secret formula." The quarter-smile might have been mocking Poincaré.

  "In general terms, Charles. Could you say?"

  "Alright. Algorithms. Fenster modeled nonlinear dynamic systems. Water boiling. Air flow. Processes of nature."

  "And the stock market . . . is that a process of nature?"

  Over Bell's left shoulder, a plane touched down at Logan. Over his right, tugs guided container ships to unloading docks and triangles of sail leaned into an onshore breeze. Bell commanded it all. "I don't see how it could be, Inspector. What would the behavior of a thunderstorm have to do with the stock market? Of course, James had some interesting ideas for modeling the markets. We use proprietary algorithms at the Bell Funds. It's called a quantified approach to investing. Some analysts read sheep entrails to guide their stock picks. We model the markets." He tugged at the corners of a French cuff until they aligned.

  "Do you know last week I invested 200 euros in your fund and today that 200 is worth 223? Over ten percent in a week. And in this economy! I'm considering a larger investment."

  "Good for us and good for you, Inspector. Though the Security and Exchange Commission forbids me to say so, in our case past performance is a guarantee of future success. But I'll deny it if you quote me!" He whinnied again, and the receptionist seated beyond the conference room door looked up. Bell's face settled into a smiling mask once more. "The way we work is as follows," he said, looking suddenly earnest. A woman opened the door, carrying a tray of bottled water and two glasses. "Not now!" he snapped.

  The door closed.

  "I subscribe to former President Reagan's view. You hire good people, set them loose to do good work, then take a nap. No, seriously, Ronald Reagan had a vision, he hired smart people to carry it out, and then was clever enough to get out of the way. I call that leadership. This corridor is lined with the very best minds, and I give them enormous incentives to succeed. I get out of their way, and they create a product that I can sell. That sells itself."

  "Was Dr. Fenster one of your very best?"

  "Yes and no. When I was thinking of starting this company, I searched for promising mathematicians who might lend a hand. I had this idea that a certain sort of mathematics could help analysts anticipate trends in the markets. I offered ridiculous salaries to lure them away from whatever they were doing—and most came. They couldn't run fast enough from their academic appointments. And we're talking Ivy brains, Inspector. But not James Fenster. The man was the purist expression of a mathematical mind I have ever seen. He had his job. He did not want another job at roughly seven times the salary and the promise of even larger bonuses. 'But I admire your work,' I told him. 'Well, then,' he says, 'fund it.' 'Why should I?' I asked. 'Because it's important,' he answered. It was, so I did!" Bell clapped his hands. "I'm a rich man, Inspector Poincaré, which has certain advantages. I believe it was Thornton Wilder who said that money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless you spread it around. So I spread some in James's direction."

  "And in return?"

  "Roses grew."

  "More particularly?"

  "Ah—I see. I financed James's work for the pure admiration of it. You can believe that or not. In any event, even if I were inclined to answer, which I'm not, this is a Coca-Cola question. Go fish, as we say in America."

  Poincaré did not understand the expression.

  "Never mind," said Bell. "What I will say is that on occasion James offered some scribbles, more or less, on the backs of napkins. And he gave me the satisfaction of encouraging one of the finest minds of his generation. Nothing I could say or do would pull him away from the massively parallel processors I donated to his efforts. He threw me bones, I'm afraid."

  "Nothing to build a company on?"

  Bell's quarter-smile broadened. "Not hardly! Nothing nearly so comprehensive as that. James was no more interested in the mutual fund business than I am in—" he searched the sky above downtown Boston for comparisons, his eyes finally settling on the bowl of fruit on his own rosewood table. "In becoming a vegetarian. I like my steak. James did not care about this business or about making a personal fortune. He cared about his equations, God love the man."

  "No quid pro quo, your money for his—"

  "What I received in return were too few conversations over expensive coffee in that hulk of a building they call the Science Center. Sometimes, as I said, he would share his musings on napkins or the backs of register receipts. He tolerated our chats as a necessary tradeoff for my funding his research. I built him his play- ground . . . and now he's gone. I can hardly believe it." Bell's face darkened. "Bastards. Total, complete bastards. James was such a gentle man. To kill someone like this?"

  Poincaré searched Bell's mask for surface cracks and found none. The outrage sounded real enough. But so, too, did the relief that Fenster would never share his napkin musings with another fund manager.

  "Do you in any way credit Dr. Fenster with your success?" Poincaré asked.

  "How many ways can you ask the same question, Inspector? He was more conceptual than a mathematician in this industry can afford to be. He flew at 35,000 feet all day long. A mutual fund company must operate at ground level."

  Another plane touched down at Logan. "And also at twenty-nine floors up, sometimes."

  "All this," said Bell, "is for show. I grew up in the real estate business, and my father once told me never to drive clients to a property in a junker. A Cadillac or Mercedes is the better choice because if you present yourself as successful, people will see you as successful and will want to do business." Bell pointed down the corridor. "My employees are responsible for our success, not James. Funding James was like paying a monk in the Middle Ages to pray for me and store up points in heaven. You'd have to have met him to understand. How else can I say it? He deserved those computers and graduate students. He was pure in a way I could never be."

  Bell spun his chair to the glass wall, showing Poincaré his back. He said: "I want to help you find whoever committed this atrocity. It hurts, Inspector. James's murder hurts me. Is there anything I can do? Do you lack for funding in this investigation?" Bell spun back to face the room.

  With that, Poincaré finally found his bearings with Charles Bell. Bribes were usually handled more coarsely, but then one had to account for the fine view and the gold cufflinks. "I appreciate your offer," he said. "But Interpol is well funded."

  "Perhaps you need money personally for your investigation?"

  "That's very generous, Charles. Here's what you can do."

  Bell was listening.

  "Write your congressman to pressure your government into paying its dues on time to Interpol. One hundred eighty-eight countries, and America—the richest—won't meet its obligations."

  Bell checked his watch some thirteen minutes into the conversation, which was fine with Poincaré. He had got what he came for. They shook hands and exchanged wary smiles. By the time Poincaré arrived at street level after a more or less controlled free fall in the elevator, he wondered what, exactly, Fenster had scribbled on the backs of those napkins.

  When he landed in the lobby, Poincaré felt the familiar buzzing of his cell phone and discovered an update from Gisele De Vries:

  NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab says bomber most likely worked at some point for them or equivalent lab in France, Russia, possibly China. Amsterdam APCP too specialized and mix too unstable to produce anywhere else. All academic labs capable of mix affiliated with space programs. GDV

  The news was not unexpected.

  All mirrors and marble, the lobby confused Poincaré enough that he lost his bearings and exited onto an unfamiliar street. Opposite the office tower and behind a police barricade, he saw a dozen protesters walking an orderly circle, holding signs, their chants led by a bull-horned man dressed—what wa
s it, Poincaré wondered—like a Trobriand Islander: woven grass skirt, shoeless on the sidewalk, shirtless, copper skinned and heavily tattooed with concentric circles and geometric patterns, his hair jet black and thickly braided, falling to mid-back. The scene was so incongruous in a district otherwise populated by men and women in business suits that Poincaré half thought he had stepped onto a movie set. The tattooed man yelled into the bull horn: "IMF, INTERNATIONAL MOTHER FUCKERS. THE FIRST WORLD SMILES WHILE THE THIRD WORLD WEEPS!" Then a call: "GLOBALIZATION!" And response: "KILLS!" "GLOBALIZATION . . . KILLS."

  Again and again.

  Stationed nearby, a police detail looked thoroughly bored. The protesters attracted little attention despite their noise; still, Poincaré found himself interested enough to approach an officer: "How often do they march?" he asked.

  "This particular group?"

  Poincaré noticed a chocolate stain on her collar.

  "Every month or so they try to make the walls of Jericho come tumbling down. Major financial centers are getting picketed. New York, daily. London, Hong Kong. They call themselves natives restless for something or other. Who knows."

  He looked again at the man with the bullhorn.

  "The Indigenous Liberation Front?"

  "That's the one," said the officer, yawning. "They're everywhere. But I say if they're so damned clever, why didn't they just beat us back with their sticks five hundred years ago? We defeated them fair and square, so why all the whining now? Buck up and get on with it. Compete like the rest of us. No one's giving me anything, for damned sure."

  Poincaré walked on and felt a buzzing in his breast pocket, then heard a familiar chime. The LCD glowed—a call from France. Not Claire. The Interpol exchange. He pressed the cell phone to his ear and used his free hand to block out the street noise.

  "Henri."

  "Bonjour, Albert."

  A pause.

  "Henri. They've struck. Come home."

  PART II

  •

  Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?

  — JOB 38:17

  CHAPTER 17

  Eva Laval cleared her throat before entering the room, carrying a tray with coffee, a poached egg, and a crust of last night's baguette with a smear of jam. She set the tray on a rough wooden table, and Poincaré looked up from his book.

  "Thank your grandfather for taking those chickens off my hands. I know you end up feeding them and cleaning up. I'm sorry for that."

  "It's no bother, Monsieur."

  "You'll be back at noon?"

  Laval's granddaughter wiped her hands on an apron. Besides himself, Eva and her mother were the only ones Claire let touch her. With other attendants she would curl into a ball and groan— just as she had with Eva until Laval's granddaughter, barely fourteen, took Claire's hand with the tenderness that comes so easily to children and put it to her face, holding it there until the groaning stopped. It's Eva, Madame. Remember—you're teaching me to paint. She had prepared breakfast and lunch daily for the Poincarés. With school in recess, she would stay nights when Poincaré went up to visit Etienne and his family in the hospitals in Paris.

  He set aside his reading and placed a napkin across Claire's lap. "Coffee," he said, putting the cup to his lips to test the temperature. "Laval says the harvest will be decent this year. Do you remember our first harvest, Claire—the Everest of grapes and our not knowing if the wine would be drinkable? But then it's never a brilliant vintage from Chateau Poincaré—is it? We drink it, though. We drink it. . . . Claire?"

  She did not answer. For six weeks she had not answered. The doctors assured him the problem was psychological and that there was no actual physical reason she did not speak or open her eyes. But since the attack, or more precisely three hours after the attack when she learned the fates of the children, the Claire he knew had departed. As a forensics team combed the Lyon apartment and the medical examiner's staff removed two bodies—her attacker's and the Interpol agent he had killed, Claire frantically called Paris to check on Etienne and the children. When news finally came, she screamed, tore her hair, and collapsed. A physician sedated her, and it was in this diminished state Poincaré found his wife when he finally reached the hospital.

  She progressed to a certain point, then no further. She would allow herself to be bathed and fed, and she would lift an arm through a sleeve as he prepared her for bed. She would startle at a loud noise but never made a sound, even in her sleep. "In cases of severe catatonia," one specialist advised, "the outcome isn't assured. If the trauma is great enough, the refusal to engage can last years. I recall one patient—" But Poincaré did not want to hear about other patients. Early on, he put as great a distance between the doctors and Claire as he could in order to pursue his own cure, which began each morning with an embrace and whispered assurances they were all alive.

  Barely. In a synchronized attack, Banović's contractors had moved on Claire, Etienne, Lucille, and the children. Only the Lyon assassin's eagerness to begin a brutal business averted the worst in Paris; for when Luc, the agent on duty in Lyon, failed to call a coordinator's desk at an appointed time that changed daily as a security precaution, the desk agent at Interpol-Lyon immediately alerted two colleagues in perimeter positions to move on the apartment. They found Luc dead at his station and Claire bound hands and feet to a bed frame, naked, her mouth duck-taped, her attacker standing over a roll of surgical instruments laid flat on a bureau. They shot him from behind as he was stepping out of his pants. Blood from the exit wound sprayed across Claire's face and torso.

  The alert went simultaneously to Paris, and it was only the premature move in Lyon that gave the perimeter agents protecting Etienne and his family time to spot and take down the attackers—but not before they detonated well-concealed bombs stuffed with nails and ball bearings. Instead of killing the Poincarés, as planned, the blasts merely maimed them. Georges lost his right leg below the knee and would not have survived had one of the agents not cinched a belt above the wound. Émile, eardrums shattered, was blown so violently against a tree that two vertebrae splintered. In separate blasts, Etienne suffered a crushed hip and collapsed lung and Lucille, third-degree burns on her back and arm. Chloe, burned over seventy percent of her body, lay in a coma breathing with the aid of a ventilator.

  Banović's men had breached Interpol's protective net. "They planned to strike within the same minute," Albert Monforte explained, "so that one attack would not alert us to the others." Poincaré had flown all night from Boston and, after rushing from one horror to the next in Paris, boarded the TGV to Lyon where Monforte met him at the station. The director was pale as he delivered news. "She's alive," he said. "Not a mark on her. But she's in trouble, Henri. The worst was about to happen."

  "She was conscious through it all?"

  "Conscious? Claire must have heard Luc fall and gone to investigate. The contractor dragged her to the bedroom, and there were gouges on his face and neck, and several bites that drew blood on his arm. We've already run IDs, and Paolo was correct: every one of them former state security, East Germany. They traveled on Italian passports and had been in the country for two weeks, watching the family." Monforte's famously steady right hand was shaking.

  With Claire in the hospital in Lyon and Etienne and the others spread across three hospitals in Paris, Poincaré shuttled between cities, sleeping two or three hours a day, determined to sit by their beds even if they could not register his presence. One of Claire's doctors advised him to moderate his pace or risk a breakdown. Poincaré ignored that. He pushed past exhaustion as he raced to their sides only to watch in silence, as if manic energy alone could undo the damage. He moved Etienne, Lucille, and the boys from three hospitals to a private ward in Etienne's hospital, where—he hoped—they might somehow comfort one another and heal that much sooner.

  At two weeks, Georges was conscious though he had not been told he lost a leg. Lucille, burned severely, swam in a deliriu
m of morphine. Émile floated in a strange, quasi-coma and would respond to pinpricks one day but not the next. And Chloe—Chloe, who at the worst possible moment ran from her bodyguard to catch a grasshopper for an insect zoo she was assembling for her brothers, grazed her legs against the very backpack that all but took her life. She lost an arm outright and suffered shrapnel wounds and third-degree burns along her entire right side. The doctors conferred in hushed tones along the corridors of the burn unit and spoke in less than optimistic tones about her prospects. Her breaths were so shallow and irregular that without a ventilator they doubted she could live.

  To visit with Chloe in an isolation room meant scrubbing and gowning as if preparing for surgery. Poincaré would weep at her bedside, his tears steaming the goggles he wore as a precaution against infection. To clear the goggles meant stepping outside and scrubbing once more, which wasted precious visiting time. So he forced himself to sit quietly and look not at Chloe but at the wall calendar or at the grain patterns on the faux wood cabinet—anything to hammer down his grief. Where she had taken the force of the blast, the child's hair was burnt to a blonde thatch on a blistered skull. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were singed clean; the skin of her right cheek was crusty and festering; a tent protected the raw skin of her abdomen and legs.