David Duffy - In for a Ruble

“Fine. I’ve got a question about something on your trading floor.”

“What…?”

“Out here.”

Leitz and Foos followed me out the door. There was a healthy buzz of activity. After 9:30, the market was open, and the underdressed legions were going about their daily battle.

“Wait here,” I said and went back into the office.

Nosferatu, if it was Nosferatu, had used the cleaners on the computers. That said he was opportunistic, he’d employed available talent. Unlikely, then, that he’d have an expert crew work the office. That didn’t mean his bug was the only one. I went over the furniture with my hands, feeling for anything out of place. Foos and Leitz watched from the door, Foos wearing a quizzical grin, Leitz an angry frown. I was on my hands and knees under his desk, which was pissing off my bruised muscles, when I found it. An electronic doodad, the size of a raisin, tucked in the crease where the frame met the tabletop. I peeled it off the stone, stood, and placed it on top of the desk. Leitz looked ready to blow. I put a finger to my lips and pointed outside. The two big men backed away.

“Let’s go to a conference room,” I said.

I thought Leitz was going to take a swing at me, but he turned and led the way to a small room on the side of the trading floor. I held up a hand as we entered and went through the search routine again. I didn’t expect to find anything and didn’t.

“I think we’re okay here,” I said.

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!” Leitz exploded. “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?”

“I could ask you that,” I said. “You’ve got somebody’s attention.”

He deflated again as he fell into a chair.

“Serves me right. Arrogance… Well, let’s just say arrogance is dangerous.”

Foos and I stayed by the door.

“Let me ask you this,” Leitz said. “Foos told me about the men who beat you up, including the tall man, what do you call him?”

“Nosferatu. Silent movie character, first vampire on film.”

“I’ll have to rent it. You think he planted both bugs?”

“The tap on the computers, certainly. The one on your desk, I’m not so sure. The cleaners didn’t say anything about that. Could have been someone else, like the guy who gave them the layout of your trading floor.”

“You asked them?”

“Yes.”

“SHIT. How many goddamned problems do I have?”

“You should have your entire office swept, to state the obvious.”

“GODDAMMIT!” Leitz swung back and forth between the two of us, face red, fists balled. He was halfway out of his chair. “I knew something… I should have… SHIT!” I waited for another explosion, but it didn’t come. Instead, he froze in midrise, eyes closed tight, for thirty seconds or more.

“Options,” he said, as he lowered himself slowly back into his chair. “What are my options?”

Foos said, “I can tag a piece of data and we can follow it. But if these are sophisticated crooks, they’ll run us up and down a bunch of blind alleys.”

“Nosferatu had a Belarusian accent,” I said. “A lot of tech thieves are based in the former Soviet countries. They’re smart, tough, and well protected. Even if we tracked them down, probably not much you could do. Legally, I mean.”

“Illegally?” Leitz asked.

“I didn’t mean it that way. Not much you could do, period.”

“So I’m a powerless victim of some shady guys in Belarus? I refuse to accept that.”

Americans like to believe they are masters of their fate and the rest of the world is irrelevant. No percentage in pointing out that brand of arrogance. I was thinking about whether to broach the other anomaly in his computer network when a middle-aged woman leaned in the door. “Your sister’s on line two. Third time she’s called. Says it’s—”

“I know, urgent,” Leitz said. He punched a button on the phone. “Hello, Julia. I’m warning you, this is already a bad day. And watch your language. I have company.”

A nasal twang blew out of the speaker. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to get through for an hour. Haven’t you heard? New bidder. Sixty-seven-point-five billion. Stock of both companies are up. Street’s looking for a bidding war. We need to get out a statement—right away. I sent you a draft. Check your e-mail.”

Leitz pushed another button on the phone and looked at me. “I suppose my e-mail is compromised along with everything else.”

“Afraid so.”

I thought he was going to punch the phone, but he held back. The voice from the speaker became increasingly agitated.

“Sebastian!? Are you there? What’s going on? We need to do something, dammit! The stocks are trading… Sebastian? SEBASTIAN?!”

Leitz pushed a button gently. “I’m here, Julia. I’ve got some other issues at the moment.”

“What other issues? What are you talking about? We’ve got to respond. We can’t give them the whole day. The press will—”

“I’ve called a meeting for eleven thirty, here. Bankers, lawyers, you too. We’ll review where we stand.”

“Eleven thirty? Where we stand? That’s two hours from now. We can’t wait. We can’t—”

“Eleven thirty.” Leitz’s tone cut off further argument. “I assume you can make it?”

“I… Shit. I’ve got… Dammit. There’s… Hold on.”

The phone went quiet. Leitz said to us, “My sister, who is also my PR adviser on this deal, lives life in a permanent state of high anxiety and overcommitment.” He pulled a paper from the shirt pocket under his sweater and held it out to me. “This happened just before you arrived.”

I took the paper and retreated back to a safe distance. It was a Dow Jones story, timed at 7:48 A.M.

A new consortium has offered $67.5 billion for two TV networks, topping a $62 billion offer from a group led by hedge fund manager Sebastian Leitz.

A spokeswoman for the Leitz group declined to comment and Leitz himself did not return calls to his office.

Wall Street sources, who have been following the situation, say they expect a full-scale bidding war to develop.

“They’re not making any more TV networks,” one institutional shareholder said. “We haven’t seen the end of this. I expect the price to go sky high.”

The market appears to agree. Shares of both networks’ parent companies were sharply higher in premarket trading.

Julia Leitz came back on the line, shattering the brief silence.

“I can do eleven thirty. I may be a few minutes late. But I still think—”

“Good. See you then,” Leitz said and disconnected. He looked at the two of us.

“I can’t operate this way.”

“They already know about your eleven-thirty meeting,” I said. “They’ll be looking to see what you do after that.”

“I’ll tag something coming out of the meeting,” Foos said. “Give them the afternoon to pick it up, we’ll see where it goes.”

“You could try spreading some misinformation,” I said. “Although my altercation last night says they’ll be on the lookout for that.”

Leitz shook his head. “Too many people involved in this thing. Let’s just get back to normal so I can function.”

I handed back the Dow Jones story. “I take it this wasn’t a knockout punch.”

He shook his head. “The margins got thinner, but no, not a knockout. Which begs the question of what they’re up to.” He looked at me. “This is the deal of a lifetime for me. I never dreamed I’d be in this position. I’m not going to go down easily, in fact, I don’t plan to go down at all.”

“I hesitate to say this, but you’ve made an assumption there’s no evidence to support.”

“What? What are you talking about?”