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.
How'd you come by this sudden fortune? I asked. Where, she snapped
back, have you been? The Dow Jones average was about to double, if it
hadn't already. Funny, but the rest of the market was going nowhere.
Oddest thing she'd ever seen. However, it only went to show what she'd
always told me, and if I'd listened to her instead of those smarty-
pants uptown brokers, I'd be rich now too. Stick with the blue chips.
IBM was up thirty percent since yesterday, AT&T was flying, GM was
selling for a price that would make you think they were back in the car
business.
What the hell was she talking about! That's when I noticed a copy of
Tuesday's New York Times lying there on my desk, right next to the
phone. Only at first it didn't seem like the Times. Or maybe Punch
Sulzberger had just been swallowed whole by Rupert Murdoch, because I
hadn't seen a headline that arresting since the Posts immortal "Coed
Jogger Slain in Bed." It was banner, right across the top; the Times'
headline writer was practically orgasmic. But whereas the Post gets off
on mere sex, the good gray Times reserves its libidinous juices for
that ageless aphrodisiac, money.
_New York Stock Exchange Prices Explode
NEW YORK--Volume skyrocketed on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
yesterday, as buyers for Big Board issues responded worldwide to a
renewed confidence in American industry. Analysts are calling this the
first leg of the Great Bull Market of the 1990s, saying this surge has
been overdue for a decade. Leading the phenomenal rally were a number
of America's foremost corporations. . . .
_I came off my chair like a shot and headed for Tam's office. "Is
anybody following what's going on outside?"
Her face was down on the desk, dark hair tousled across her cheeks. She
looked up and rubbed her eyes, obviously knocked out too. Strange.
"What . . . ?" Her voice was slurred.
"Something's gone crazy," I yelled. "Where's Henderson?"
Then I remembered he wasn't there. However, I did locate Jim Bob easily
enough. He was in Noda's corner office, wideawake and still carrying
our Uzi. Only now there were two of those long black automatics
present, the other lying atop the wide teakwood desk.
One more thing. Seated behind that desk, his silver hair framed by the
sunlight streaming through the wide back windows, was . . . Matsuo
Noda.
The Shogun had arrived.
And with him came the dawn of a new, powerful reality. My drugged mind
was flooded with the ramifications. Matsuo Noda, I now realized, had
been on to us from the start. Once again he had used us. He had been
the one who had emptied the office, the better to lure us in.
But the guards . . .
Noda-san, I bow to a true samurai. A swordsman's swordsman. Of course,
it was as simple as it was elegant. You were testing us, allowing us a
plausible opening, just difficult enough to force us to reveal our true
strategy. The dictum of the masters: "If you want to strike your enemy,
let him try to strike you first. The moment he strikes you, you have
already succeeded in striking him." Pure _bushido_.
Everything up till now had only been feints. What I assumed was the
battle turned out to have merely been staking out terrain, jockeying
for position. At last, though, we were ready for the real engagement.
Trouble was, Matsuo Noda had just secured the high ground.
"Come on in and have yourself a seat, Walton." Jim Bob beckoned toward
the vacant chair as he sipped from a glass of California champagne, its
plastic-looking bottle stationed on the floor beside him. Coors time
was over.
"Jim Bob, what's happening with the market?" I was ignoring Noda for
the moment, trying to get a firmer grasp on the new "prevailing
conditions."
"'Bout what we figured," he replied, his white suit now greasy and
wrinkled. "Yep, looks like we're roughly on schedule."
"It's a relief to know there's a timetable." I finally turned to Noda.
"Wouldn't want this takeover to be half-cocked."
"Mr. Walton, if you would be so kind." He smiled and indicated the
chair. "It would be well for you to join us."
Jim Bob waved me over with his Uzi. "Fact is, we're all about due for a
little show and tell." He glanced up as Tarn entered the doorway. "Be a
good idea if you got up to speed on what we're doing here, too."
"I just scrolled some prices," she said, glaring groggily at Noda, the
morbid realization descending rapidly now. "You don't have to tell me
anything. I know exactly what you're doing."
"What we're doing is, we're pulling this country out of the shit.
That's what we're doing. We're saving this country's ass. Which is more
than anybody else here's doing," Jim Bob continued, satisfaction in his
voice. "How in hell did you ever think you could pull something like
you were trying? Mr. Noda here could squash you all just like a june
bug anytime he gets a mind, take my word for it."
Noda still hadn't amplified the new Dai Nippon scenario, but he didn't
really need to bother.
"Jim Bob, don't spoil the fun and tell me. Let me try to guess." I
glanced over at Noda, then back at him. "He suckered you in with his
'Rescue America' spiel. World peace at a price."
"Well, tell you the truth, the man did buy me lunch."
"I'll bet that's not all he did, you opportunistic son of a bitch."
I examined Noda. "How does it feel to have Japan about to be sole owner
of IBM and AT&T and GM and . . . guess I could just check the
supercomputer out there for the full list."
"Certain strategic corporations." Noda smiled benignly. "It had become
the only meaningful direction to proceed, Mr. Walton. I'm afraid our
other measures were clearly too little, too late."
"Why bother with the small fish, right? If you're going to buy up
American technology, do it right."
"Mr. Walton, we both know it is inevitable. Neither you nor I can alter
the tides of history." He sighed. "Perhaps Japan can provide the
management guidance required to save America's industrial base, but it
cannot be achieved merely by dabbling. Stronger measures, much
stronger, were required. I finally came to see that. The problem was
how to do it without a major psychological disruption of the market and
more Japan bashing. Then by the greatest of good fortune, you solved my
problem for me." He nodded toward Tam. "Your new trading program, Dr.
Richardson, which allowed us to operate anonymously, was ideal. Why not
make use of it? Particularly since Mr. Henderson had the personnel to
render it operational."
While digesting that, I returned my attention to Jim Bob. "Let me guess
some more. Ten to one you bought 'call' options on the Big Board issues
he was planning to take over."
"Well, they were bound to go up." He flashed a reptilian grin as he
adjusted the Uzi, now a bolt of black against his rumpled white suit.
"If you're standing by the road and a gravy bus comes along, what are
you going to do?"
"Terrific. Be a pity for this insider windfall to go to waste. Just
wanted to make double sure you got a piece for yourself."
"Does a bear crap in the woods?" he inquired rhetorically, then tipped
back his head and drained the champagne glass.
"Right. So naturally you bought call options on the Blue Chips, locking
in a cheap price just before Noda's money boosted them into the
clouds."
"Safe and simple. Of course, some traders go for index options, S&P
500*s and indicators like that, but that's always been too airy-fairy
for me. When the market's set to head up, I just buy calls. Heavy
leverage. No risk."