The Bancroft Strategy (14 page)

The dinner was simple but delicious—a sorrel soup, grilled poussin, savory wild rice, a salad of lamb's lettuce—and Paul Bancroft steered the conversation back to the issues they had discussed earlier, without appearing to hold forth.

“You're a woman of many talents,” he said, with a twinkle. “What do they call it? ‘Ball control.' I'd say that's what you have. A skill that applies to argumentation as well as to competitive sport.”

“It's just a matter of keeping your eye on the ball,” Andrea said. “See what's in front of your eyes.”

Paul Bancroft tilted his head. “Was it Huxley who said that common sense was just a matter of seeing what's in front of your eyes? That's not quite right, is it? Lunatics see what they take to be in front of their eyes. Common sense is the gift of seeing what's in front of the other person's eyes. That's what makes it something we have in
common.
And what makes the skill itself, in turn, so
un
common.” His expression grew serious. “You think about the history of our species, and it's striking the way that evil—institutions and practices that we all recognize to be insupportable—had been countenanced for centuries. Slavery. The subjugation of women. The extravagant punishment of consensual, victimless activities. All in all, hardly an
edifying spectacle. But Jeremy Bentham, two hundred years ago, called everything right. He was one of the few men of his generation who truly belong to our moral modernity. Indeed, he was father to it. And it all began with the simple utilitarian insight: Minimize human suffering—and never forget that each person counts for one.”

“Dad's idea of the eleemosynary,” said Brandon, stumbling over the last word. “However you say it.”

“Try el-ee-uh-mosynary,” Bancroft said, correcting his son's pronunciation. “From the Latin
eleemosyna
, alms.”

“Got it,” the boy said, a new datum stored away. “But what about the idea that you should treat others as
ends
, never as
means
?”

Paul caught Andrea's eye. “He's been reading Kant. German mysticism, when you come down to it. Rots the brain, I tell you. Worse than Grand Theft Auto. We've had to agree to disagree.”

“So you have a problem with adolescent rebellion, too, huh?” Andrea smiled.

Brandon looked up from his plate and returned her smile. “What makes you think it's a ‘problem'?”

Suddenly the hooting of a distant owl could be heard. Paul Bancroft looked out the window, where tall trees were silhouetted in the dusk. “The owl of Minerva, Hegel said, flies only at dusk.”

“Then wisdom comes too late,” Brandon said. “Thing I don't get is how the owl got a reputation for wisdom, anyway. What an owl is, actually, is just an efficient killing machine. That's the one thing it's good at. Flight's nearly silent. Their powers of hearing are almost like radar. Ever see one fly? You see these big wings flapping, and it's like someone turned the sound off. That's 'cause they've got tattered fringe feathers that break up the sound of rushing air.”

Andrea tilted her head. “So you never hear it coming until it's too late.”

“Pretty much. Then there's four hundred pounds of pressure at the tips of each talon, so by that point you're history.”

Andrea took a sip of the simple and refreshing Riesling that Nuala had poured. “Not wise, then. Just deadly.”

“Efficient when it comes to means-end rationality,” Paul Bancroft put in. “Some would say there's a kind of wisdom in that.”

“Are you one of them?”

“No, but efficiency has its place. Too often, though, talk of such things is taken to be heartless, even when it's in the service of kindness. You were talking about perverse consequences earlier, Andrea. That can be an intricate subject indeed. Because, once you accept the logic of consequentialism—the notion that acts must be judged by their consequences—then you realize that the puzzles go beyond the matter of good deeds that have bad effects. We must also grapple with the conundrum posed by bad deeds that have good effects.”

“Maybe so,” Andrea reflected. “But there are some acts that are simply heinous in themselves. I mean, it's impossible to imagine anything good coming out of, oh, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., let's say.”

Paul Bancroft lifted an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge?”

“I'm just saying.”

The savant took a small sip of wine. “You know, I met Dr. King on one or two occasions. The foundation helped him with financing at a couple of critical junctures. He was truly a remarkable man. A great man, I'd even say. But not without certain personal flaws. Small ones, lowly ones, but ones that could have been amplified by his foes. The FBI was always ready to leak sullying reports about personal indiscretions. In his final years, he was preaching to dwindling crowds, on a downward spiral. In death, he became a potent symbol. Had he lived, he would have been a far diminished one. His assassination was a galvanizing event. It actually catalyzed the legal fulfillment of the civil-rights revolution. Crucial legislation barring discrimination in housing was passed only in the wake of that tragic event. Americans were shaken to the core of their being, and the country became a kinder place as a consequence. If you want to say that the man's death was a
tragedy, I won't argue. But that one death accomplished vastly more than many lives.” The aging philosopher spoke with mesmerizing intensity. “Was it not more than redeemed by its positive consequences?”

Andrea put her fork down. “Maybe as a matter of cold calculation…”

“Why cold? I never understand why people think that the calculus of consequences is cold. The betterment of humanity sounds abstract, yet it entails the betterment of individual men and women and children—each with a story that could tug at your heart and ravage your soul.” The tremor in his voice bespoke conviction and resolve, not diffidence or doubt. “Remember, there are seven billion people living on this small planet. And two-point-eight billion of them are under twenty-four years of age. It's
their
world we need to maintain and improve.” The savant's eyes drifted toward his son, who, with the appetite of a growing boy, had already cleaned his plate. “And that's a moral responsibility as grave as any.”

Andrea could not tear her eyes away from the man. He spoke with penetrating logic and a gaze as clear as his argument. There was something magical about the force of his conviction, the sinuous power of his mind. Merlin, of Arthurian legend, must have been inspired by someone like him.

“Dad's a big one for running the numbers,” Brandon said, perhaps embarrassed by his father's intensity.

“The harsh light of reason tells us that a prophet's death can be a boon to humanity. On the other hand, eradicate sand fleas in Mauritius, say, and you may discover that the knock-on consequences are dire indeed. In either scenario, the line we draw between killing and letting die is something of a superstition, don't you think?” Paul Bancroft pressed on. “It makes no difference to the one who dies because of our action or failure to act. Imagine that a runaway trolley is hurtling down the tracks. If it continues on its course, it will kill five people. If you throw a switch, it will kill only one person. What do you do?”

“Throw the switch,” Andrea said.

“And save five lives. Yet you have thus sent a trolley toward an individual with foresight and deliberation, knowing that it will kill him. You have, in a sense, committed homicide. Had you done nothing, you would have no direct complicity or involvement in the deaths. Your hands would be clean.” He looked up. “Nuala, once again you have outdone yourself,” he said as the red-cheeked Irishwoman brought more wild rice to the table.

“You're saying it's a kind of narcissism,” Andrea said slowly. “Clean hands, four lives needlessly lost—a bad deal. I get it.”

“How we feel must be disciplined with what we think. Passion must be within reason, so to speak. Sometimes the noblest act of all is also the one that most appalls.”

“I feel like I'm back in a college seminar again.”

“Do these issues strike you as academic? Merely theoretical? Then let's make them real to you.” Paul Bancroft looked gnomic, a man with a surprise in his pocket. “What if you had twenty million dollars to spend on the uplift of your species?”

“Another what-if?” Andrea allowed herself a small smile.

“Not exactly. I'm not speaking hypothetically any longer. Before our next board meeting, Andrea, I'd like you to identify a particular project or cause that you'd like to spend twenty million dollars on. Work out exactly which, and exactly how, and we'll do it. Straight from my discretionary funds. No deliberation or conferral. It will be done on your say-so.”

“You're joking.”

Brandon gave her a sideways look. “Dad's not a big prankster,” the boy told her. “He's not Mister Leg-pull, believe me.”

“Twenty million dollars,” Paul Bancroft repeated.

“On my say-so?” Andrea was incredulous.

“On your say-so.” The maven's age-etched countenance was grave now. “Choose wisely,” he counseled. “Every hour of the day there's a trolley car hurtling out of control. But the choice isn't between one of
two tracks. It's between one of a thousand tracks, or ten thousand tracks, and what lies ahead on each course is far from clear. We must make our very best guesses, with all the intelligence and discernment at our disposal. And hope for the best.”

“You're dealing with so many unknowns.”

“Unknowns? Or partially knowns? Incomplete knowledge is not the same as ignorance. Informed judgments can still be made. Indeed, they must be made.” His gaze did not waver. “So choose wisely. You'll find that doing the right thing isn't always easy.”

Andrea Bancroft felt dizzy, intoxicated, and it was not because of the wine. How many people had a chance to make a difference like that, she wondered. She had been given the ability to snap a finger—and transform the lives of thousands. It felt…almost godlike.

Brandon interrupted her reveries. “Yo, Andrea, you gonna be up for another quick game of hoops after dinner?”

Rome

Trastevere—the neighborhoods to the west of the Tiber River—was, for many residents, the real Rome, its medieval warren of streets having largely escaped the nineteenth-century rebuilding that transformed the city center. Squalor plus age equals cachet: Was that how the formula worked? Yet there remained corners that time had forgotten, or, more accurately, remembered—corners where the rising tide of new money had left only driftwood and detritus. Such was the ground-floor apartment of a dark side street where the Italian girl had lived with her parents. The Zingarettis were an old family, in that they knew the names of their forebears from hundreds of years ago. But those forebears had invariably been servitors and subalterns. It was tradition without grandeur, lineage without history.

The Todd Belknap who arrived at via Clarice Marescotti 14 was scarcely recognizable as the person who had infiltrated Ansari's
dungeon hours before. He was immaculately attired, shaved, bathed, lightly scented: an Italian's idea of officialdom. It would help. Even Belknap's American accent might help rather than hinder; Italians were reflexively suspicious of their own countrymen, and usually with good reason.

The conversation did not go smoothly.

Ma non capisco!
—But I don't understand, the girl's mother, a black-garbed crone, kept repeating. She looked older than most women her age, but also stronger. A vocational trait: She was, in the British idiom, “a woman who does.”

Non c'è problema,
insisted the father, a potbellied man with rough, callused hands and thickened nails.
There's no problem.

But there
was
a problem, and she did understand—understand more than she pretended, anyway. They sat together in their gloomy sitting room, which smelled of burned soup and mildew. The cold floor, doubtless once tiled, was a rough, unvarying gray, as if slathered with a layer of grout in preparation for tiles that never arrived. The lamps were of low wattage, their shades frayed by heat and age. None of the chairs matched. They were a proud family, but not a house-proud one. Lucia's parents were clearly aware of her beauty, which they seem to have regarded as a potential vulnerability—indeed, a likely source of heartbreak, to her and to them. It meant early pregnancy, the flattery and then the predations of unscrupulous men. Lucia had assured them that the Arab—they referred to her employer only as
l'Arabo
—was religiously devout, disciplined by zealous obedience to the Prophet's word.

And where was she now?

When it came to the crucial question, the girl's parents feigned obtuseness, incomprehension, ignorance. They were protecting her—because they knew what she had done? Or for another reason? Belknap would get through to them only if he persuaded them that the girl was in danger, and that candor, not evasion, would best protect her.

It was hard work. To gain information, he had to pretend to have information that he lacked. Again and again, he told them: Your daughter is in danger.
La vostra figlia è in pericolo.
He was not believed—which meant that they were in touch with her, that she had given them reassurances. If she had truly disappeared unexpectedly, they would be unable to conceal their anxiety. Instead, they feigned confusion as to her whereabouts, retreating into vagueness: She said she had gone on a trip, she had not elaborated further, but perhaps it was for her employer. No, they did not know when she would return.

Lies. Tales proven false by the ease with which they were related. Amateurs believed that liars gave themselves away by their anxiety, their nervousness; just as often, Belknap knew, they betrayed themselves by their lack of nervousness. That was the case with Signor and Signora Zingaretti.