The Paris Diversion

by Chris Pavone

  He keeps moving as quietly as possible, but that’s not silently, because his leather soles are clicking on the wooden stairs, which is not a loud noise but it’s definitely enough to hear, bouncing off all these hard surfaces. He looks up and sees that Colette is carrying her heels, she’s padding down the stairs in her stockinged feed, stealthy silent.

  Hunter looks down again to the bottom, still no sign of anyone. He’s approaching another doorway to another hall. He slows, moving more quietly, the gun aimed at the opening, tiptoeing past…one more step to the next stair…

  Still nothing. He takes a step down onto a loose floorboard that squeals like a pig, an extremely loud noise, an alarming noise, and he spins to see if that has attracted any attention, just in time to—

  52

  PARIS. 2:01 P.M.

  If there’s one principle everyone agrees upon, it’s this: markets hate uncertainty. When confronted with uncertainty, people are quick to panic about their money. When they panic, they sell whatever it is they can sell. Everyone knows this. It’s right up there with buy low, sell high, kill or be killed: panic begets more panic. Panicked selling leads to falling prices, and falling prices leads to more panicked selling, accelerated sell-offs. Panic consumes wealth, wolfing it down, poof, gone.

  The uncertainty engendered by the attacks in Paris has been making prices fall broadly all day. Dexter hits UPDATE. The algorithm loads the latest share prices of his various positions, and compares all the current sell prices against his initial buys, and deducts transaction costs and taxes, and calculates his bottom-line aggregate delta, which appears at the very top of the screen instead of at the bottom, so Dexter doesn’t have to scan down the page to see, at a quick glance, the so-called bottom line—

  Still red.

  But because of the falling value of 4Syte’s single stock futures, Dexter’s overall position is heading steadily toward zero. Today’s goal, though, is not merely a mitigation of red numbers, it’s a transition well into black.

  His attention is suddenly drawn to one of his screens where 4Syte’s logo is split with a pair of talking heads. Dexter turns on this broadcast’s volume—

  “…in Mumbai, where the office building has been completely evacuated on the credible threat of a bomb.”

  The anchorman considers his response for longer than normal. The inclination, on these shows, is to bluster ahead.

  “To be sure,” he finally says, “it’s far too early to say for certain that there’s a definitive connection between these ongoing attacks and 4Syte.” He’s trying to sound reassuring; he could get in well-deserved trouble for igniting an unwarranted panic, a sell-off, hundreds of millions at stake, billions.

  “That’s true: so far there is no proven correlation among the three cities, other than what very well may be the completely coincidental locations of the attacks.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And in Paris, as you know, the bomb threats are not against the 4Syte offices, which are I believe in two locations, one in the center and one in the outlying business district of La Défense. But it is in Paris, later today, where 4Syte founder and CEO Hunter Forsyth is meant to give a press conference, in what is expected to be the announcement of a major deal.”

  “And have we received any comment from 4Syte?”

  “No, not as of this moment.”

  No comment? This is a company that’s nothing if not PR-friendly, with an international army of polished spokespeople, well-armed with facts, figures, carefully worded press releases. Dexter searches the web for their counternarrative, but finds nothing.

  He checks 4Syte PR’s social postings, in the US, in France, in Asia. Nothing.

  He finds Hunter Forsyth’s social feed: the last post was 7:55 this morning, a photo of sunrise over the city, Good morning Paris! Looking fwd to a great day ahead. Six hours ago. This is a man who normally posts every few hours, no matter how anodyne. And this silence is on a day when he wants everyone in the world to pay attention to him, closely, constantly.

  Dexter checks for 4Syte in other trends. There’s no hard information, anywhere, about Hunter Forsyth. Dexter’s initial reaction is joy—what could be better, really?

  But on second thought?

  * * *

  They met two decades ago, two young tech guys who’d arrived in the Bay Area at what would later prove to be the exact right moment, for some of them.

  Hunter had skipped the whole shared-house-in-Mountain-View pupae stage, moved directly from Stanford B-school into full-fledged adulthood in Nob Hill, where he hung his diplomas from Groton, from Yale, lined his built-in bookshelves with tennis trophies, a preppy Wall of Fame, this guy owned it. There are people who are born to rule the world, and Hunter Forsyth was one of them.

  Dexter is reminded of Jake’s misunderstanding, back in Luxembourg, about the palace guards: “Epaulets,” the little boy asserted, with the supreme confidence of misinformed little boys, “are so people know you’re in charge.” Which was not at all true. But epaulets did let everyone know something, that was for sure. Hunter wore his proudly.

  Dexter was an early hire in Hunter’s first startup. But Dexter didn’t have the competitive instinct, didn’t have office-politics savvy, didn’t understand how to flatter and pander, to dissemble and cajole. He was a hard worker, a great engineer, but that wasn’t enough. That wasn’t even required.

  He eventually left in a huff, burning a bridge with a rising star, not doing himself any favors in the community, which was soon filled with old friends and colleagues who’d been hit by one filthy-rich lightning bolt or another, VC infusion or IPO or corporate buyout, a constant churn of liquidity events generating Gulfstreams, weekend houses in Cabo, Ferraris. Dexter was still driving a Honda.

  You get to make only so many bets in a lifetime, and the things you choose not to do may be just as consequential as the things you choose to do. What Dexter chose not to do was stay in Silicon Valley. A college buddy had a spare bedroom in DC, where Dexter met his future wife. Also where he ran into that old friend from college, the one who cooked up the scheme that led to Luxembourg, to Paris, to this career, this moment—

  * * *

  “Holy crap.”

  The banner running across Dexter’s screen announces: Breaking News! 4Syte announcement postponed.

  “—now have confirmation, Robert, that the 4Syte press conference, which was meant to start less than two hours from now, has been postponed.”

  “Has it been rescheduled?” Re-shed-yuled.

  Dexter feels himself hunched forward, mouth hanging open, he must look simian. But who cares, he’s alone, as usual. Sometimes when not alone, Dexter has to force himself to maintain awareness of that, to chew quietly, keep his pants buttoned. He spends more time with his children than with anyone else, and they’re rubbing off. He’s modeling the kids’ behavior. It’s supposed to be the other way around.

  “No, Robert, not at this time.”

  “Has any reason been given?”

  “None. But spokesperson Schuyler Franks advises that a statement will be released by the end of business today, if not earlier.”

  Dexter refreshes his screen again, hitting the button compulsively, a new addiction.

  “Thank you for that report, Tessa.” Robert the anchor turns back to face the camera. “So. Still no official word from 4Syte or its CEO, Hunter Forsyth, on the possible threats against 4Syte’s international offices, and the ongoing situation in Paris, where the announcement was to be held. Nor any connection these events might have to this very surprising postponement of a major announcement.”

  In the past minute alone, 4Syte has lost 2 percent of its value, a rapid acceleration of the slow slide that started this morning.

  The top, the bottom, these are not fixed points, they are fluid positions, and there’s never any definitive moment when either is complete
ly clear to anyone. It’s only in hindsight that you can see if you held too long, or sold too early. Timing is everything.

  The situation looks promising. But things often look promising and turn out not to be. That’s how he found himself in this predicament in the first place, and how he got himself into his original European fiasco: by choosing to see the things he wanted to see, and ignoring those he didn’t.

  * * *

  He knows he shouldn’t have left Ben’s present to the last minute, of course he knows that, he’s not a moron. No excuse, it just slipped his mind, again and again.

  Like the inhaler. Which was Kate’s last straw.

  It was a Sunday. The boys spent the entire day at a birthday party in Passy, driven out by the overbearing woman whom Kate calls Hashtag Mom. Dexter stayed behind in St-Germain, read even the soft sections of the newspapers, took a long walk, indulged in a decadent lunch, self-rewards for his grueling weeks of solo-parenting. Kate had been away longer than anticipated, a work trip that kept getting extended, “I’ll be home in a couple of days,” over and over.

  The kids came home just before bedtime. Ben was coughing, pale, short of breath.

  “Okay, kiddo, let’s get your inhaler.” Dexter walked into the bathroom, and collected the little canister. It felt light, and a stab of worry shot through him. He didn’t want to test the device in case that test squeeze turned out to be the final dose.

  So Ben was the one who squeezed the little pump into his mouth; it was Ben who discovered that the final dose had been inhaled yesterday. The canister was empty.

  Sunday nights, nearly all pharmacies are closed. Something would be open somewhere; Dexter was pretty sure there was a twenty-four-hour drugstore over in the fifteenth, perhaps another down in the thirteenth, neither particularly nearby, and both no doubt mobbed with sick people, whimpering children, waiting for hours—

  That’s exactly when Kate walked in the door, wheeling her luggage full of dirty laundry, looking like she’d just been dragged through something awful.

  Dexter was standing there, holding the inhaler. “We just realized it’s empty.”

  Kate barely glanced at her husband before turning to her obviously ill boy, you could see it in one glance. “Let’s go, Sweetie,” she said, holding out her hand.

  “Where, Mommy?”

  “To the hospital.”

  * * *

  Kate didn’t talk to Dexter for the better part of the next week, nothing but monosyllables and hostile glares and cold shoulders; she literally turned her back on her husband, repeatedly. He apologized a hundred times, uncountable times. To his wife, to his son.

  “It’s okay, Daddy,” the boy said. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. I should have been keeping track of the counter.”

  Dexter hugged this beautiful boy, so grateful for this kid, so disappointed in himself.

  “I’m sorry,” Dexter told Kate. He bought her an extravagant watch, a belated anniversary gift. A bribe. And an action figure for Ben. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

  And he meant it: he would never again neglect the inhaler, the nose spray, any of the boy’s meds. Dexter checked these supplies daily, it had become an OCD tic, took up a disproportionate share of his consciousness, so much that there wasn’t sufficient space for all the other chores he was supposed to remember. Like this birthday present.

  That’s what he told himself.

  * * *

  Dexter steps out into the world, in search of Lego and lunch and sanity. He needs to calm the fuck down or he’s going to have a stroke.

  He can see that people are unsure how to behave today, is it the end of the world or just a single-news-cycle blip, or something in the broad spectrum between. Waiters huddle in conspiratorial clumps, shopkeepers are conferring on sidewalks. Some businesses are shuttered, while the quincaillerie is packed with people buying flashlights and batteries, and others are lugging home bottled water, canned beans, jars of cassoulet, full-scale Armageddon panic.

  Dexter doesn’t know where he falls on this continuum. It’s a choice, it’s controllable, and he’s trying to choose to occupy the less hysterical end. It will all be okay. Perhaps bombs will take some lives today, but that’s true every day, somewhere. Today it will not be his life, nor his kids’, nor his wife’s. They will still host their dinner party, and the TV will remain on during cocktail hour with the volume muted, tracking the latest developments, the investigation, the police will be raiding mosques while expats sit around discussing the events between bites of chicken stew, putting their bread directly on the tablecloth, the French way, though none of them is French.

  In the hours before then, Dexter will, hopefully, make a fortune.

  And he’ll find this Lego. There are two stores within striking distance that are likely to have the thing in stock. He tried calling ahead. At the nearest store, the clerk confirmed their inventory, but she did it quickly, dismissively, like someone who hadn’t checked anything. The other store’s clerk put Dexter on hold, supposedly to go look for the item, and never returned. Dexter has grown accustomed to this type of customer service, more take-it-or-leave-it than in America, where nothing is worse than losing a sale.

  It’s cool on the shady side of the street. In Paris, in Luxembourg, in this general part of the world where Dexter has been living, the seasons skew early. By late August it already feels like autumn; early November is full-on winter.

  He buttons his jacket, turns up his collar against the wind. Maybe it’s time to switch out this navy cotton jacket for the gray wool, suede gloves in the pocket, a cashmere scarf.

  Dexter is a creature of habit, he wears a uniform, he eats the same things in the same restaurants and cafés, a salad here and a sandwich there, the Tuesday special fish. He keeps to a regular schedule of tennis matches and gym routines, of morning newspapers and online research, Asian and European trading, late lunch followed by New York’s markets.

  He has always wanted this life, a life of predictable regimen, the same satisfying thing day in, day out. He takes comfort in the certainty, in the daily consistencies and the predictable variations, school pickup three days per week, cooking dinner on Wednesday nights, sex on Saturdays.

  But it’s not as consistent as it looks, nor as permanent. Kate travels often. Her trips arise quickly, last an uncertain duration, and end with no warning, with unexpected interruptions while she pops home for a day or two—or ten—before heading out again, to Palermo or Lisbon, Copenhagen or Marseille, or wherever the hell she actually goes when she claims to be in these places.

  School holidays intervene. American bank holidays. The weather makes outdoor tennis unpredictable, the kids get sick, dinner parties, birthdays, birthday-present shopping.

  Even if Dexter doesn’t succeed in finding this Lego, Ben is not going to fall apart, the boy is not that sort of child. It’s not the fear of meltdown that’s motivating Dexter. It’s that the kid would be quietly, sullenly disappointed, and this would break Dexter’s heart.

  And Kate would be apoplectic. Dexter has used up every one of his free passes. His wife has been awfully mad at him lately, morose, hostile. Her response to his next offense might be cataclysmic.

  As he passes the entrance to his garage, it occurs to him that perhaps he should drive. Maybe on a normal day, yes. But today, who knows what traffic will be like, which streets will be open and which closed, which bridges passable.

  No, the car would be a mistake. He’d end up caught in a closure, penned in, trapped for hours. He’d have to abandon the Audi somewhere, parking on the street, which he avoids like the plague. Parisians don’t think they’ve parked successfully until they’ve used both front and rear fenders to expand the dimensions of their space, a push forward here, another push back, forward and back, like bumper cars, which may have made sense in the days when cars had actual bumpers, but they don’t anymore.<
br />
  He resumes walking, faster now, rushing. Glances at his watch—

  “Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur.”

  Dexter turns. It’s two cops approaching him. Where did they come from?

  “Oui?”

  “Un moment, s’il vous plaît.”

  53

  PARIS. 2:09 P.M.

  Kate races up to the street, then spins around the corner and guides the moped through the bollards into the pedestrian-only sector. Here she putters slowly, not wanting to draw attention, nor the ire of shopkeepers, waiters, customers.

  At the next corner she exits the Montorgueil car-free zone, back out to another traffic-clogged street, but Kate doesn’t need a lane, she’s zooming past buses, weaving between taxis, a dangerous but critical component of her most aggressive surveillance-detection route: make it physically impossible to follow her.

  Kate is no longer concerned merely with being tailed by counterespionage, by intelligence, by a curious husband. Now she also has to worry about counterterrorism, about French police, Interpol, anyone, everyone. The stakes have become much higher than the security of her legend, than the secrecy of the Paris Substation. It was just a couple of hours ago when those were her primary concerns.

  She pulls to a stop, looks around at all the open space that surrounds la Bourse, a broad hulk of building that opened two centuries ago as the stock exchange, now obsolete, a victim of automation and internationalism, merging with Brussels and Amsterdam and Lisbon, capitals of colonial empires that for centuries had been global trading centers. The bourse became fallow, lolling here in the middle of the city, hosting temporary exhibitions, expositions, waiting for a new purpose to present itself. Stocks these days are all traded elsewhere, anywhere, everywhere, men sitting at home wearing sweatpants and T-shirts, in between tennis matches and birthday-present shopping, eating sliced apples and Nutella sandwiches—