Waiting, worrying and working out the consequences

摘要

If you want to visit New York's big finan-cial firms, you are best off carrying no change, no keys and no briefcase. After last weekend's increase in the terrorist threat level in three large cities, garage attendants began checking the boots of cars; direct routes to lower Manhattan were barred to anything carrying more than passengers; ferry people checked hand-held baggage; streets around the Capitol in Washington were closed; and some New York landlords were told to secure ventilation systems against chemical attacks. The immediate cause of the new security measures was said to be the discovery two weeks ago of documents from an al-Qaeda cell in Pakistan showing terrorists had been surveying large financial institutions in New York, Washington, DC, and Newark, New Jersey. But the timing of the news, coming three days after the Democrats' convention, raised the great imponderable question of the 2004 election: what would happen if al-Qaeda were to attack America before election day? It is easy to say such an event would transform the race; much harder to predict how it would do so.