Russell Blake - Silver Justice

“But how did they crash it?”

“Easy. They own the company that rated the mortgage securities. When it decided to drop the ratings one day to where the AAA paper was suddenly no longer investment grade, that triggered a massive landslide of demands for alternative collateral, and the whole dirty system collapsed in a matter of weeks, because everyone was using the same crap paper for assets and had leveraged themselves through the roof.”

“I don’t understand,” Silver said. “How do you control the rating of an entire class of holdings like mortgages?”

“Can’t you guess? Your broker buddies create an index that trades based on the value of a basket of mortgage securities. One morning your rating agency downgrades the rating of the securities, and kaboom. Instant crisis. Your rating agency decides the twenty-eight securities comprising the index are junk instead of AAA, and simultaneous to that anonymous parties start short selling the hell out of the same twenty-eight securities on the index, and within two weeks the value of all real estate securities are down thirty to forty percent. Or maybe someone at the rating agency just lets slip to you what the securities in the index are, and you short them into the ground, tanking the ratings. In the end the sequence is meaningless. It's the result that counts. The banks that used the suddenly worthless paper to collateralize all their borrowing are insolvent. Nobody wants the toxic securities, even if most are actually good. Because the ratings now say they aren’t. You know the outcome…”

Richard’s face changed. He got it.

“Oh my…That would work. If you controlled the rating agency and knew when it was going to downgrade, you could short sell like mad and take huge positions in advance with credit default swaps…”

“Or you could short the specific securities and cause the ratings to drop, creating plausible deniability. That’s exactly what happened. Did you know the index used to rate mortgage-backed securities was created in 2007 by the same broker that allowed the hedge funds to create toxic pools guaranteed to fail — just in time for the index to get established as the weighing machine for the whole market? And did you also know that the company that rated those securities is based in England, and is privately owned by nobody knows who?”

“I can’t believe you discovered all this, but nobody in law enforcement has,” Silver said.

“Now you’re sounding like me,” Howard said, leaning back in his chair.

The discussion went on another ten minutes, by which time Howard looked drawn. Richard exchanged a troubled glance with Silver, and she decided to move to their final agenda item.

“Howard. There’s one thing I don’t get here. You mentioned that you’ve killed seven people. I count six. Here’s my question. Who’s the seventh victim?”

Howard’s eyes danced with merriment. “Ah. I was wondering when you’d ask. Take down this address and get a hazmat team there as soon as possible.” He recited an address in mid-town Manhattan. “The penthouse.”

Silver stared at the note she’d scribbled. “What will we find? A body?”

Howard laughed. “Nothing that dramatic. You’ll also need to instruct the team to bring a Geiger counter and radioactive material handling equipment.”

“Radioactive material?” Silver’s mouth dropped open, and she shook her head. “Howard. What have you done?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not a suitcase nuke or anything like that. What I did was go to work at my part-time job yesterday after I shot victim number six to death — the miserable prick blubbered like a baby and pissed his pants when he saw the gun, by the way. All of these masters of the universe are the same — ruthless and brave until it’s their own asses in the balance, then they mewl like kittens about to go into the river. Anyway, I went to work, and ran a morning errand I’d been planning for a long time. Left a present for one of my favorite people.”

“What present, Howard?” Silver asked again.

“You’ll see. I waited until after the maid had finished with the bedroom, and then slipped in and left something under the master of the house’s bed. He sleeps there every weeknight. I know. I’ve been working there for almost a year. All cash under the table. Not a bad gig — maintenance and custodial work, mostly. Anyhow, by now it’s done its job, so might as well get it out of there before anyone else gets hurt.”

“What is it, Howard?” Richard asked.

“Cobalt, Richard. Radioactive material. Prolonged exposure is lethal for humans. It’s in an open lead box I made myself. Put the lid back on, and there should be no leakage.”

“Cobalt. Where did you get cobalt in New York?” Silver demanded.

Howard chuckled. “Don’t be silly. You can’t get cobalt in New York.” He coughed twice. “I had to go to Jersey for that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a hospital in New Jersey that I read about closing down a year ago. Then I saw a few months back that they were auctioning off the equipment and furniture, so I went during the preview days and look around. I got to talking to one of the security guards from the auction company and asked him about the machines in the basement — big machines. Linear accelerators. CT scanners. An MRI. And some other goodies. He said that they would be sold off separately, but that some of the systems required special handling because they had radioactive material in them. Which was music to my ears.”

“Music? Why?”

“I’d been trying to figure out how to kill the final victim — the head of one of the big banks that created the crisis and profited. I couldn’t imagine any sort of death that was bad enough. Then, coincidentally, at my last exam, the doctor told me what my final weeks and days would be like, and a light went on. I knew whose death to use as the model for his.” Howard shifted his gaze to Silver. “Mine.”

“What did you do, Howard?”

“Theodore Dendt, the chairman and CEO of Grisham Caldren, spent last night sleeping the untroubled sleep of the all-powerful on his sumptuous, custom-made, king-size bed, which exposed him to enough radiation so that he’ll be dead within three days, tops. There’s nothing he can do to stop it. No cure. Money won’t help. Nothing anyone can do will slow it. He’s already as dead as if I’d blown his head off. Only now, like me, he has to get up each remaining day and spend every second thinking about how little time he has left. How his life has been terminated by someone he’s never met, for no other reason than because he was accessible. A target of convenience, you might say. Kind of a ‘shit happens’ thing, just like shit happened to me. It seemed fitting.”

Both Richard and Silver stared at him in horror.

Richard leapt up and pounded on the door. A second later it opened, and he disappeared, clutching Silver’s note as a guard entered the cell in his place.

Howard yawned. “How’s the head?”

“How do you think?” She slipped her pen into her jacket pocket. “You’re…you’re acting like you’re a monster. But you’re completely logical and aware of what you’re doing. I don’t understand it. How can a decent man do such things?” she asked, as much to herself as to him.

“Silver, Silver. I’m not a monster. That’s the worst part about this. I’m not insane — at least, not in the textbook way. I don’t hear voices. I don’t believe I’m pursuing God’s hidden plan. I’m not delusional. I’m simply a man without much time to live, who identified a way he could spend the remainder of his life doing some good.”

“Doing good ?”

“Yes. I’ve rid the world of seven parasites who brought with them misery and sadness and suffering. Their actions, and the actions of their like-minded colleagues, have ensured that the quality of life for countless people who never did anything wrong will be diminished. I simply did what the government and the law refuse to do. I brought accountability into the equation.”