T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

Barry said to Colin, “Alex told us about your set-to in the parking lot last night.”

“The kid here saved my bacon,” Alex confirmed. “Got to see if I can’t work up a special bonus.”

“That’s really not necessary.”

Barry asked, “Did the lizard lady call you as well?”

“No.”

“So what gives, you always show up this early?”

But the elevator doors opened then, and Hayek’s secretary announced, “This way, if you would please.”

Colin waited until the senior traders had filed obediently inside, then proceeded back through the trading room. A number of traders, no doubt alerted by their bosses, were already at their desks. They worked the screens and checked contacts in the Far East, where the markets had long been open. They shouted worldwide positions to allies at various stations about the floor. Already the entire building held the charged atmosphere of a day brought to the heated brink of storm and kept there far too long. The air was so filled with frenetic particles Colin felt ready to gnaw off his own limb, if only he could determine which one held him chained to this place.

Alex stopped by Colin’s cubicle about fifteen minutes later. “Hayek heard about the attack in the parking lot. He wanted to make sure everything was still attached and in working order.”

“That’s why he called you in?”

“Partly. Also wanted to have us meet with Thorson as one of the clan. You understand?”

“All one big family.”

“A family swimming in cash. We’re getting another two billion today. Maybe more. Hayek makes the announcement like a king bestowing favors. Like the cash is all his.”

“He wants you to buy more dollars?”

“My guess is, he’s stoking up the market. But for what reason, I can’t figure out. If we get hit by bad news, the dollar’s so high investors will flee like lemmings and the markets will crash right through the floor.” Alex was sheet-white with the coming strain. “When I mentioned the possibility, the guy actually laughed. It creaked from disuse.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“How about a little backdoor op? Could you sneak into the glass cage upstairs and see what they’re doing? Hayek kept Thorson in there after we were shown out. I tried to hang around upstairs, but Miss Prunella sent me packing.”

“You want me to slip into their network,” Colin interpreted. “And see if they’re buying dollars like you are.”

“Can you?”

“Not directly. But maybe I could tap into the outgoing call system, see who they’re talking to. Give you some numbers for you to call yourself.”

Alex nodded grim approval. “They got a name for that?”

“Sure. It’s called phreaking.”

“A couple of contacts will do. Just enough to make sure we’re all working for the same team. Don’t hang around long enough for them to get a line on you.”

Colin was already moving, keying in, prepping the attack order. “Give me half an hour.”

Forty-five minutes later, Colin passed through the rear trading floor door and entered a maelstrom. A shouting, screaming delirium. There were no individual voices, no clear words. None. Just one great solid howl.

Each trader held two phones and raged into mikes. Senior traders, unable to make themselves heard over the younger, louder voices made do with hand signals. Squawk boxes were turned on full, and the brokers were raging back at them. On the wall to Colin’s right, the Bloomberg wire streamed fiery gold letters across a red-tide background.

He spotted Alex in the middle of the spots arena, pointing and chopping in six directions at once. Colin waited and hoped for a calm moment, but he was seeking sunshine in a tornado of cash.

Colin moved over to where Eric sat watching his screens and chewing his pen. Up close, the cut splitting Eric’s eyebrow ran a red crease down his cheek and ended with the healing tear above his lip. The young trader emitted a tension that all the nonchalance in the world could not mask. His gaze skittered across the trading floor, the screens, the glassed-in balcony overhead. Colin asked him, “You’ve been sidelined?”

“Alex has me on euros to yen. Bottom of the day’s feeding barrel. Look at them out there. I’m missing all the fun.”

Colin had to shout to be heard. “So what’s happening?”

“Dollar’s flying, ready for a fall. Up two cents since the opening bell.” He drew out his pen and inspected it for defects. “Poor old dollar.”

Colin started to move on but had to fend his way around a trio screaming in midaisle. Alex moved up from the aisle’s other end, shoved them apart, and shouted loud enough to semidull the frenzy in three sets of red-rimmed eyes. “You duke it out on your own time! Right now I want a price. Dollars to anything! Any price! Now move!”

When they swung back into position, he drew Colin over with a jerk of his head. “What have you got?”

“Nothing. I’ve got nothing.” Colin hated having to admit defeat. “I tried every avenue I could. They’ve got the entire system blocked up tight as FEMA.”

“They didn’t catch you.”

“No. I was careful.”

Alex was talking loud, but the surrounding din swallowed his words almost before they reached Colin’s ear. “I did some calling of my own. The guys upstairs are buying as well. But take a careful look.”

Colin did so. Things were busy, but not chaotic. There was time for an occasional glance down below. He stiffened as he caught sight of the blond deadhead, the one who had planted a surveillance bug in his cubicle.

Alex scowled up at them. “Like vultures waiting for the kill.”

The call from the trading floor was so frantic Colin could not understand the problem, merely the urgent need. That it came at all was both good and bad. Good because it gave him the chance to rescue Eric. Bad because it started the clock ticking down to his own personal destruction.

He and another backroom techie made a frenzied effort to discover why the floor had suddenly lost contact with Bloomberg. The wire service was a key source, running approximately a half hour ahead of television news. The electronic read-board ran across the upper left wall, visible from every trading station. Anytime there was a significant development, the wire ran what was called a blast message, alerting the traders to breaking data. At least, that was the principle. In reality, multiple pages of information poured in constantly from the Bloomberg wire, from the television monitors tuned to the twenty-four-hour news services, from the phones, from the data passing across traders’ screens, or shouted from one desk to another. The trading floor consistently ran one step ahead of data meltdown.

The junior techie held Colin’s ladder and handed up tools as he refitted the jacks, which had somehow been yanked completely free. The floor gave him a raucous cheer as the news began racing again at normal speed. Alex then turned on the hoot’n’holler, the PA system that broadcast to the entire floor, and said what he did about that time every day, “All right, listen up, gang. Let’s take a moment for the midmorning catch-up.”

Colin tuned out the summary of currency positions and interest-rate spreads, followed by Alex’s slant on what effect the current news would have on later-day positions. But every trader on the floor took careful notes, their attention focused on incoming ammo.

From his position on the ladder, Colin was the only person on the floor to spot the four faces moving to the balcony’s glass wall.

One face belonged to the deadhead, Brant Anker, minus shades. Another trader stood to one side. Jim Burke, the Unabomber, stood beside the mystery trader. To the deadhead’s other side was the senior security man, Dale Crawford. The unknown trader was pointing down at the floor and talking volubly. The security chief said something in response. Another security guard moved up alongside Crawford. All attention was focused upon one desk on the trading floor. Colin did not need to turn around to know what they saw.