The Fear Index
Authors: Robert Harris
Contents
About the Book
His name is carefully guarded from the general public but within the secretive inner circles of the ultra-rich Dr Alex Hoffmann is a legend – a visionary scientist whose computer software turns everything it touches into gold.
Together with his partner, an investment banker, Hoffmann has developed a revolutionary form of artificial intelligence that tracks human emotions, enabling it to predict movements in the financial markets with uncanny accuracy. His hedge fund, based in Geneva, makes billions.
But then in the early hours of the morning, while he lies asleep with his wife, a sinister intruder breaches the elaborate security of their lakeside house. So begins a waking nightmare of paranoia and violence as Hoffmann attempts, with increasing desperation, to discover who is trying to destroy him.
His quest forces him to confront the deepest questions of what it is to be human. By the time night falls over Geneva, the financial markets will be in turmoil and Hoffmann’s world – and ours – transformed forever.
About the Author
Robert Harris has written seven previous novels –
Fatherland, Enigma, Archangel, Pompeii, Imperium, The Ghost
and
Lustrum
. His work has been translated into thirty-seven languages. For his collaboration with Roman Polanski on the film version of
The Ghost
, he won both the French César and the European Film Award for best adapted screenplay.
A graduate of Cambridge University, where he studied English, he joined the BBC and later wrote for the
Observer
, the
Sunday Times
and the
Daily Telegraph
. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
He is married to Gill Hornby. They have four children and live in a village near Hungerford in West Berkshire.
Also by Robert Harris
FICTION
Fatherland
Enigma
Archangel
Pompeii
Imperium
The Ghost
Lustrum
NON-FICTION
A Higher Form of Killing
(with Jeremy Paxman)
Gotcha!
The Making of Neil Kinnock
Selling Hitler
Good and Faithful Servant
To my family
Gill,
Holly, Charlie, Matilda, Sam
Acknowledgements
I WISH TO thank all those whose expertise, generously given, has made this book possible: first and foremost Neville Quie of Citi, who made many helpful suggestions and introductions and who, along with Cameron Small, patiently helped me through the labyrinth of shorts and out-of-the-money puts; Charles Scott, formerly of Morgan Stanley, who discussed the concept, read the manuscript and introduced me to Andre Stern of Oxford Asset Management, Eli Lederman, former CEO of Turquoise, and David Keetly and John Mansell of Polar Capital Alva Fund, all of whom provided useful insights; Leda Braga, Mike Platt, Pawel Lewicki and the algorithmic team at BlueCrest for their hospitality and for letting me spend a day watching them in action; Christian Holzer for his advice on the VIX; Lucie Chaumeton for fact-checking; Philippe Jabre of Jabre Capital Partners SA for sharing his knowledge of the financial markets; Dr Ian Bird, head of the Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid Project, for two conducted tours and insights into CERN in the 1990s; Ariane Koek, James Gillies, Christine Sutton and Barbara Warmbein of the CERN Press Office; Dr Bryan Lynn, an academic physicist who worked at both Merrill Lynch and CERN and who kindly described his experiences of moving between these different worlds; Jean-Philippe Brandt of the Geneva Police Department for giving me a tour of the city and answering my queries about police procedure; Dr Stephen Golding, Consultant Radiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, for advising me on brain scans and putting me in touch with Professor Christoph Becker and Dr Minerva Becker who in turn helpfully arranged a tour of the Radiological Department of the University Hospital in Geneva. None of these, of course, is responsible for the errors of fact, misguided opinions and Gothic flights of fantasy that follow.
Finally a special word of thanks to Angela Palmer, who selflessly allowed me to borrow the concept of her stunning art works and bestow them on Gabrielle Hoffmann (the originals can be seen at
angelaspalmer.com
), and also to Paul Greengrass, for wise advice, good friendship and the sharing of numerous Liquidity Replenishment Points along the way.
Robert Harris
11.7.11
1
Learn from me, if not by my precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow
.
MARY SHELLEY,
Frankenstein
(1818)
DR ALEXANDER HOFFMANN SAT BY the fire in his study in Geneva, a half-smoked cigar lying cold in the ashtray beside him, an anglepoise lamp pulled low over his shoulder, turning the pages of a first edition of
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
by Charles Darwin. The Victorian grandfather clock in the hall was striking midnight but Hoffmann did not hear it. Nor did he notice that the fire was almost out. All his formidable powers of attention were directed on to his book.
He knew it had been published in London in 1872 by John Murray & Co. in an edition of seven thousand copies, printed in two runs. He knew also that the second run had introduced a misprint – ‘htat’ – on page 208. As the volume in his hands contained no such error, he presumed it must have come from the first run, thus greatly increasing its value. He turned it round and inspected the spine. The binding was in the original green cloth with gilt lettering, the spine-ends only slightly frayed. It was what was known in the book trade as ‘a fine copy’, worth perhaps $15,000. He had found it waiting for him when he returned home from his office that evening, as soon as the New York markets had closed, a little after ten o’clock. Yet the strange thing was, even though he collected scientific first editions and had browsed the book online and had in fact been meaning to buy it, he had not actually ordered it.
His immediate thought had been that it must have come from his wife, but she had denied it. He had refused to believe her at first, following her around the kitchen as she set the table, holding out the book for her inspection.
‘You’re really telling me you didn’t buy it for me?’
‘Yes, Alex. Sorry. It wasn’t me. What can I say? Perhaps you have a secret admirer.’
‘You are totally sure about this? It’s not our anniversary or anything? I haven’t forgotten to give you something?’
‘For God’s sake, I didn’t buy it, okay?’
It had come with no message apart from a Dutch bookseller’s slip: ‘Rosengaarden & Nijenhuise, Antiquarian Scientific & Medical Books. Established 1911. Prinsengracht 227, 1016 HN Amsterdam, The Netherlands.’ Hoffmann had pressed the pedal on the waste bin and retrieved the bubble wrap and thick brown paper. The parcel was correctly addressed, with a printed label: ‘Dr Alexander Hoffmann, Villa Clairmont, 79 Chemin de Ruth, 1223 Cologny, Geneva, Switzerland.’ It had been dispatched by courier from Amsterdam the previous day.
After they had eaten their supper – a fish pie and green salad prepared by the housekeeper before she went home – Gabrielle had stayed in the kitchen to make a few anxious last-minute phone calls about her exhibition the next day, while Hoffmann had retreated to his study clutching the mysterious book. An hour later, when she put her head round the door to tell him she was going up to bed, he was still reading.
She said, ‘Try not to be too late, darling. I’ll wait up for you.’
He did not reply. She paused in the doorway and considered him for a moment. He still looked young for forty-two, and had always been more handsome than he realised – a quality she found attractive in a man as well as rare. It was not that he was modest, she had come to realise. On the contrary: he was supremely indifferent to anything that did not engage him intellectually, a trait that had earned him a reputation among her friends for being downright bloody rude – and she quite liked that as well. His preternaturally boyish American face was bent over the book, his spectacles pushed up and resting on the top of his thick head of light brown hair; catching the firelight, the lenses seemed to flash a warning look back at her. She knew better than to try to interrupt him. She sighed and went upstairs.
Hoffmann had known for years that
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals
was one of the first books to be published with photographs, but he had never actually seen them before. Monochrome plates depicted Victorian artists’ models and inmates of the Surrey Lunatic Asylum in various states of emotion – grief, despair, joy, defiance, terror – for this was meant to be a study of
Homo sapiens
as animal, with an animal’s instinctive responses, stripped of the mask of social graces. Born far enough into the age of science to be photographed, their misaligned eyes and skewed teeth nonetheless gave them the look of crafty, superstitious peasants from the Middle Ages. They reminded Hoffmann of a childish nightmare – of grown-ups from an old-fashioned book of fairy tales who might come and steal you from your bed in the night and carry you off into the woods.
And there was another thing that unsettled him. The bookseller’s slip had been inserted into the pages devoted to the emotion of fear, as if the sender specifically intended to draw them to his attention: