The Fear Index

to give Alex additional protection until the issue is resolved. Now does anyone have any more questions directly relating to the hardware?’ There was silence. ‘No? Then I suggest we get out of here before we all freeze to death. There’s coffee in the boardroom to warm us up. If you all go ahead, we’ll join you in a couple of minutes. I just need to have a quick word with Alex.’

    THEY WERE MIDWAY across the trading floor and their backs were to the big TV screens when one of the quants gave a loud gasp. In a room where nobody spoke in much above a whisper, the exclamation rang out like a gunshot in a library. Hoffmann halted in his tracks and turned to see half his workforce rising to their feet, drawn out of their seats by the images on Bloomberg and CNBC. The physicist nearest to him put his hand to his mouth.
    Both the satellite channels were showing the same footage, obviously filmed on a mobile phone, of a passenger airliner coming in to land at an airport. It was clearly in trouble, descending far too quickly, and at an odd angle, with one wing much higher than the other, smoke streaming out of its side.
    Someone grabbed a remote and pumped up the sound.
    The jet passed out of sight behind a control tower and then reappeared, skimming the tops of some low sandy-coloured buildings – hangars, perhaps; there were fir trees in the background. It seemed to graze one of the buildings with its underbelly, a caressing gesture almost, and then abruptly it exploded in a vast expanding ball of yellow fire that carried on rolling and rolling. One of the wings with an engine still attached rose out of the spreading inferno and performed graceful cartwheels up into the sky. The lens followed it shakily until it dropped out of shot, and then the sound of the explosion and the shockwave reached the camera. There were tinny screams and frantic shouts in a language Hoffmann could not quite make out – Russian maybe – the picture shook, and then cut to a later, more stable shot of thick black oily smoke, roiled with orange and yellow flames, unfurling itself above the airport.
    Over the images the presenter’s voice – American, female – said breathlessly: ‘Okay, so those were the scenes just a few minutes ago when a Vista Airways passenger jet with ninety-eight people on board crashed on its approach to Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport …’
    ‘Vista Airways?’ said Quarry, wheeling round to confront Hoffmann. ‘Did she just say Vista Airways?’
    A dozen muttered conversations broke out simultaneously across the trading floor: ‘My God, we’ve been shorting that stock all morning.’ ‘How weird is that?’ ‘Someone just walked over my grave.’
    ‘Will you turn that damn thing off?’ called Hoffmann. When nothing happened, he strode between the desks and snatched the remote from the hands of the hapless quant. Already the footage was starting to repeat, as it doubtless would throughout the day until familiarity at last eroded its power to titillate. Finally he found the mute button and the room was quiet again. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s enough. Let’s get on with our work.’
    He threw the remote on to the desk and made his way back to the clients. Easterbrook and Klein, hardened veterans of the dealing room, had already lunged for the nearest terminal and were checking the prices. The others were motionless, stunned, like credulous peasants who had just witnessed a supernatural event. Hoffmann could feel their eyes upon him. Clarisse Mussard even made the sign of the cross.
    ‘My God,’ said Easterbrook, looking round from the trading screen, ‘it only happened five minutes ago and Vista’s stock is down fifteen per cent already. It’s crashing.’
    ‘Nose-diving,’ added Klein, with a nervous giggle.
    ‘Save it, guys,’ said Quarry, ‘there are civilians present.’ He addressed the clients: ‘I remember a couple of traders at Goldman who happened to be shorting airline insurance on the morning of 9/11. They did a high-five in the middle of the office when the first plane hit. They weren’t to know. None of us knows. Shit happens.’
    Klein’s eyes were still riveted to the market data. ‘Whoa,’ he murmured appreciatively, ‘your little black box is really cleaning up, Alex.’
    Hoffmann stared over Klein’s shoulder. The figures in the Execution column were changing rapidly as VIXAL took profits on its options to sell Vista Airways’ stock at the pre-crash price.