Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

By late Sunday night the DNI offices were a clutter of empty Chinese take-out containers, Kentucky Fried Chicken boxes, and computer printouts. However, Jim Bob claimed the system looked like a go. He'd completed a long sequence of test runs, and he was predicting he could probably swing at least four billion the first day, something in the nature of a warm-up for grander things to come.

Jim Bob, I should say, was fully as efficient as advertised by Henderson. Even if he was now flying higher than a moon shot, thanks to all the pills. He worked methodically, carefully analyzing the program at every step, double-checking the codes, poring over his verification printouts for obscure glitches. Mainly, though, he kept one unfocused eye on the clock, saying he always delivered on time. Point of honor.

Thus it was that, when Monday morning rolled around, we were primed to move on Wall Street. Tam's program was poised inside the mainframe like some lurking id, ready to be unleashed. We decided to start modestly, sticking to the exchanges in New York, and only later in the day expanding outward as we gained firmer footing.

At the stroke of nine-thirty A.M. Jim Bob inaugurated our maiden run with yet another beer. Henderson and I poured ourselves a bourbon. Tam even joined us, accepting a respectable shot.

"Fasten your seat belts, boys and girls." Jim Bob shakily peeled back the tab on his Coors. The screen in front of him focused our attention down to one small flashing green dot.

"Ignition."

He hit a key on the terminal, and Merrill Lynch got a computerized "sell" order for ten thousand shares of Texas Instruments. The time was exactly 9:31.

It was a textbook lift-off. Rows of green numbers began to scroll up the screen, only to blink and disappear. By God, the thing seemed to be working. We had just pulled the plug on DNI. All that was left now was to sit back and watch it sink.

As the morning wore on, Tam fielded phone calls from staffers, always claiming that Tanaka was not available just then. Of course, we weren't sure how long we could get away with that excuse, but for now none of us wanted to set the man free to start jabbering in Japanese on the phone. On the other hand, we were loosening up a bit on security. Partly, I guess, because we were all increasingly wrecked, but also because it seemed to fit the situation. By Monday, Tanaka and his two retired sumo bone-crushers appeared to have grown resigned, one might even say philosophical, and I don't mind admitting it bothered me a lot. Tanaka was watching us destroy Noda's grand design right before his very eyes, yet he just sat there as though none of it mattered. How could this be? All he did was busy around brewing tea for everybody. (Except, of course, for Jim Bob, who stuck to Coors.) However, I was too tired by then to think much about it.

Around two-thirty Henderson began complaining of a splitting headache and declared he had to go home and get some rest. I started to protest, but the man looked half dead. Tam and I weren't much better off, so we flipped a coin to see who would take the first watch. She won, which was great by me, since the long hours without sleep were really starting to unravel my concentration.

To understand what happened next, you have to try and envision the scene. It was three P.M. and things were going letter perfectly. The dollars were sailing through the accounts we'd set up and along about noon we'd even kicked in our buy program.

Yes, buy. That's not a typo. You see, we had to lose billions, not necessarily a trivial task. Think about it. If you merely want to drop a few million, all you have to do is just invest in some high-flying start-up and then sit there till the venture craters. But billions?

That's the part where Tam really showed her mettle (no pun intended). Look, she said, the Brothers Hunt managed to blow millions by trying to corner silver, bidding up the price and then seeing it collapse. But we've got to get rid of some serious money, so why don't we do the same thing, only with a commodity worth something?

Platinum.

All life's great ideas have an inevitable simplicity. That's right, we were programmed to sell DNI's stock and buy platinum. From anybody, anywhere, at any price. We were planning to just swallow the worldwide commodity markets in the stuff, starting at the NY Merc and ending at Capetown. Of course, what we were also doing was boosting its price into the stratosphere-we were even bidding against ourselves through different brokerage houses. Anything to drive it up. I mean we had a lot of money to get rid of. We figured that by the time we were finished, DNI would be the proud owner of a couple of hundred billion in platinum metal, platinum futures, platinum mining stocks, platinum storage companies, platinum dealerships, platinum reserves, platinum investment coins. All of it at a price as high as we could push. I was betting on two thousand dollars an ounce by Friday.

The nice part was, what central bank was going to step in? Platinum was strategic, sure, but it wasn't a monetary metal. And if we had to bid against governments, so much the better. We were playing a drunken speculator's dream, going all out for the most volatile of all the world's commodities. After we'd squeezed that scam for every ounce it was worth, we would deliberately puncture the bubble and let the price nosedive. We were going to destroy the cancer of Dai Nippon by gorging Noda's takeover machine with financial poison. The eventual collapse should wipe out Matsuo Noda totally.

Platinum. I asked Jim Bob to check the waning moments of Monday's spot market, the latest prices down at the NY Merc, and he reported it had scooted up about twenty dollars an ounce. A little slow maybe, but then we were just starting out. I figured it would probably double in a couple of days.

Such was my fond hope as I drifted off for a nap on my desk. Tam was in Tanaka's office, half-nodding in her chair, while Jim Bob was sitting before his monitor, still nourishing himself with beer and colored pills. I gave him the Uzi and told him to help Tam out by keeping an eye on Tanaka and the two guards, all now sleeping like a baby. My last vision was of Jim Bob sitting there, the Uzi draped over his wrinkled white lap, clicking away at the keyboard.

I slept right through Emma's four-o'clock phone call from my office downtown. When I awoke around nine P.M. Jim Bob mentioned she'd rung. No message, he said. Then don't worry about it, I mumbled to myself; get back to her in the morning.

Tam didn't seem to remember the call, which momentarily troubled me. Had we both been dozing at the helm? Well, who could blame her? In spite of my own nap I still felt like hell, so I dragged myself up, stretched, wandered around the office, drank some more green tea, and inquired of Jim Bob how things seemed to be proceeding.

"Looking good." He grinned. He was now working Hong Kong and the Asian exchanges, limbering up the satellites as he flashed our (DNI's) money around the globe. Anybody heard from Henderson? Not a word, he said in a tone that seemed disconcertingly pat.

I briefly toyed with heading down to the street and trying to locate an early "bulldog" Times to see what kind of a splash we were making in the press, but since Tam was now sound asleep, I figured I'd better stick to duty.

I vaguely recall stumbling into my office to rummage for an old box of NoDoz stashed somewhere there in the desk, and thinking how nice it would be just to lean back in the chair…

A phone was jangling in my ear. As I pulled erect, the clock on my desk was reading ten-thirty-My God, A.M.-and I felt as if I'd been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. What the hell was in that green tea Tanaka had been brewing?

Inside the receiver at my ear was Emma, and what she had to say brought me awake like an ice-cold shower. In a voice brimming with triumph, she announced she'd just resigned and I could consider this official notice thereof. In fact, she was price-shopping Florida condos this very minute-what did I think of Coral Gables?-and I was lucky she'd bothered to take out time to inform me of her intended plans. By Wednesday she expected to be able to loan money to the Rockefellers, in case they should need a little liquidity on short notice.