Dave Hart Omnibus II

by David Charters

  When they reached the Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange floor they again met resistance, though it was patchier and less well organised. Most of the trading desks were arranged according to the markets and currencies they served, and typically staffed by nationals of those countries. Thus, while some desks were virtually unmanned – the Italian team, for example – others had full turnouts. Sir Oliver watched as the ‘Garlic Belt’ teams shouted insults at the demonstrators, threw a few missiles and then broke and ran. Soon a crowd of screaming, semi-hysterical Spaniards, Greeks and Italians were running round the floor, chased by the mob. In the centre of the floor the German team, fully manned, stood firm and silent. Joerg Eisenhart, the managing director in charge of the German business, stood two metres tall, blonde, blue eyed and broad shouldered. Military service in the elite Kampfschwimmer, the German army’s combat frogmen, had been followed by three years as a professional ice-hockey player. As the first screaming, long-haired rioter ran towards him swinging a baseball bat, Eisenhart caught the bat in mid-swing and with one arm slowly pushed it backwards. The rioter stared at him, terrified, and Eisenhart snatched the bat from his grasp, handed it to one of his team, and then picked him up bodily from the floor. He lifted him high into the air, spun around with him and threw him into an oncoming group of demonstrators. At the next desk the sterling bond traders gave a great cheer and waded in beside the Germans, fists flying. For several minutes the scene resembled a classic saloon brawl from an old Western, but then Jean-Claude Dulache and the French team, who had earlier vanished from the floor, charged into the rear of the demonstrators in a vicious ambush, wielding fearsome-looking improvised weapons. The demonstrators broke in the face of the two-sided assault and scattered. The moment of victory was brief, but it was joyful, and for an instant there was a triumphant cheering and mutual backslapping among the teams – something Sir Oliver had never seen before. But then another great shout went up from the staircase – ‘WHAT DO WE WANT? BARTON’S!!’ – and with a great bestial roar the mob surged forward again. Sir Oliver turned away from the grim scenes.

  ‘Excuse me, Sir Oliver?’

  It was June, peering timidly round the door.

  ‘Come in, June. What is it?’

  ‘Mr Hood just called, sir – he says he’s got a helicopter to land on the roof to take you and the other board members to safety. It’ll be here in five minutes. You need to go up to the roof now, Sir Oliver.’

  The look in his eyes was pensive, far away.

  ‘June, I’ve been nearly forty years at this firm. My father and grandfather were both here before me. I don’t think I’m going to let a bunch of wretched eco-terrorists and thugs drive me out now. I’ll go down with the ship, if that’s what it comes to.’ He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘June – you’ve been with me for twenty-three of those years, and you’ve got a husband and children to think of. You take my place on the helicopter. Here.’ He picked up his fountain pen and scribbled a note on his personal headed paper. ‘Show this to Mr Hood with my compliments.’

  She had tears in her eyes. ‘Sir Oliver, I’m so… so worried, so frightened.’

  ‘I know. We’re living in strange times.’ He put his arms around her and held her, something that for the past twenty-three years would have been unthinkable. ‘Go now – quickly, before it’s too late.’

  She left, weeping, as he turned back to the monitors. All of the lower eight floors had been taken. Many of the windows had been broken and flames were coming from several floors. Outside there was pandemonium, clouds of tear gas were blowing down the street, an ambulance had been overturned and set on fire, fire engines were being stoned as they tried to get through the battling mob. This really is the end, he thought, as the monitor showed him that they had reached the last bastion, the Equities Division.

  Down on the ninth floor Dan Hooker had made his final preparations. With the lifts sealed, the only way onto the trading floor was via the stairs at either end. He had taken his best teams – the South African sales and trading team and the market-makers who traded the brewing and leisure sector – and put them into the front line to hold the stairs. Behind them other teams were prepared to deal with any individual demonstrators who fought their way through. Smoke was coming up from the lower floors, and outside the building he could see smoke and flames rising past the windows.

  ‘Here they come! Get ready, lads!’

  The words were spoken in a thick South African accent. Hooker turned to the stairs at the north end of the building. A shower of bricks and stones came up from the level below, and one of the South Africans fell to the floor, blood streaming down his face. Then a bottle flew through the air, a burning rag sticking out of its neck.

  ‘Fire bomb!’

  The warning was too late, as the bottle shattered and flames sprayed around the group of men at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Bastards!’ It was Mick van Smit, the head of the South African desk. ‘Let’s kill ’em!’

  ‘No – stay where you are!’ shouted Hooker, but it was too late. The South Africans charged into the mob below – and were swallowed by it. The biggest of them literally dived forward off the top of the stairs to land on top of the crowd below, bringing a dozen of them down. But then the mob surged forward again, trampling friend and foe alike in their bloodlust, and they reached the top of the stairs. The fighting now was at its worst. Those with their wits about them realised that the building was burning beneath them. They were too high for the fire brigade to rescue them, even if fire engines with ladders could get through the crowds. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. And no quarter was asked or given.

  From his office on the tenth floor Sir Oliver saw Dan Hooker holding down a screaming, thrashing figure in denim jeans, combat jacket and ski mask. Hooker pulled off the ski mask and brought an industrial-sized stapler down on the youth’s contorted face. Hooker was shouting as he leant hard on the stapler once, twice, three times. Each time that Hooker leant forward the youth screamed and writhed more, until after the third time he stopped and lay still, his face covered in blood. Hooker stood to face the mob and another bottle flew through the air, smashing at his feet. He was enveloped in flames and ran across the floor, straight towards the massive plate glass picture windows with their splendid view across the City. He hit the glass with such force that it cracked from top to bottom and shattered, allowing his blazing body to fall nine floors into the crowds below. Poor Dan, thought Sir Oliver, a decent fellow. Now Shenkman from New York will finally get his hands on Equities.

  Another screen caught Sir Oliver’s eye. It was the rooftop. A large helicopter had landed a few minutes ago, and now the board members were being ushered into it by Hood and some of his thugs. He saw June running out towards the helicopter, holding the piece of paper he had given her. Hood stepped in front of her, shaking his head, and one of his thugs took her by the arm. She was shaking her head, protesting and waving the piece of paper, but then the wind from the helicopter’s rotor blades caught it and snatched it from her grasp, to blow away over the side of the building. Hood shook his head forcefully again, and June collapsed, weeping, to the floor. Hood and his thugs boarded the helicopter and it lifted a few feet from the roof just as a group of running figures sprinted into camera shot. One of them threw a petrol bomb that flew through the open door and exploded inside the passenger compartment. The helicopter veered off course, clipped the edge of the building, flipped onto its side and disappeared over the side to explode out of camera shot. Sir Oliver looked on grimly. Good God, he thought, I often said we should wipe the slate clean, but not like this. By the look of those flames we’ll need a new building too. Absurdly, the fire sprinklers in his office came on, spraying him with jets of cold water as he sat at his desk, awaiting the final act. He placed his Purdies on the desk in front of him. Both were loaded with solid shot. Outside in the corridor he could hear shouting, the sound of running feet. He stood and raised his shotgun. There was a crash in the ou
ter office, the sound of breaking glass. The magnificent oak double doors to his office flew open and there was a great explosion as he fired… at his wife! It was Lady Sarah. What in God’s name was she doing here?

  ‘Sarah? Sarah, darling, is that you?’

  ‘Of course it’s me, Oliver! Who do you think it is?’

  He looked around, startled. He was lying on the sun lounger beside the pool at Manor Park, his country estate in Hampshire.

  ‘Oliver, darling, you fell asleep and you’ve been dreaming again. Was it that same nightmare? Look at you – you’re covered in sweat. I think you’d better go and have a shower. I’ll call Rogers to bring us both a cup of tea. Unless you feel you need something stronger?’

  He looked at her, baffled. He was soaked.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Oliver, you can see for yourself.’ She nodded towards a beautifully engraved sundial next to the pool. ‘It’s three o’clock in the afternoon.’

  Sir Oliver looked at the sundial. It was beautifully ornate, an intricate mixture of brass, copper and gold. There were only two others like it in the world, and he owned both of them – he kept one each next to the pool for London, New York and Tokyo.

  ‘And what day? What date?!’

  ‘Sunday 26 April 2009,’ she said pedantically.

  ‘Phew,’ he gasped, breathless. ‘At least there’s time.’

  ‘Time for what?’ she asked him, puzzled.

  ‘Time to hand over to that bastard Collins. He’s wanted it for years. Well, now he can have it. One more bonus, cash in my stock options, and then retire.’

  She relaxed a little. He sounded more like his old assured self. He turned to her. ‘Darling, if you’re speaking to Rogers, tell him to bring us a bottle of Krug.’ He was staring into the middle distance, his mind contemplating the future. ‘Yes. There’s a lot to do, but we have time. I definitely think we should be celebrating!’

  Merger

  ‘WHAT WE NEED in Europe is bandwidth!’

  Oh God, thought James, here we go again. He found the grating American accent almost unbearable. The two men were sitting in James’ office overlooking Broadgate Circle. A nice office, thought James, as he stared out at the lunchtime ice-skaters, it’ll be a pity to lose it – and to think of the department moving to Canary Wharf, of all places.

  ‘And traction! That’s the other thing we need. We need bandwidth and traction in Europe. That’s why our two boards decided to merge Mordheimer with Barton’s.’

  What is he talking about – ‘bandwidth and traction’? More capacity, perhaps? Greater resources? More stamina? God only knows, and it’s not really his fault. He probably doesn’t know himself. He’s just repeating the latest in-phrases from the current Wall Street guru, the way they all do.

  James spoke for the first time.

  ‘I’m interested in your views, Herbert, but I’m not sure that’s the way our people see it.’

  F. Herbert Bachuber III gave James a long sideways look. He was the taller of the two men by a full head, and was dressed in a classic dark blue Wall Street suit with clashing shirt and tie, red braces and slicked back hair. James Barker-Smith was altogether more soberly dressed, pinstriped, portly and balding, but comfortable in a faded, lived-in sort of way.

  ‘Well, Jim,’ Jim?! No-one calls me Jim, ‘they’d better, that’s all I can say, they’d better. If they don’t get with the programme, well…’ F. Herbert made a cutting gesture across his throat with one forefinger. ‘We take no prisoners in this business, you know, Jim, we take no prisoners. That’s just not the American way, at least on Wall Street.’

  He gave James what was clearly meant to be a meaningful look. Oh, for God’s sake. James cleared his throat.

  ‘Leaving aside our two countries’ respective attitudes towards prisoners of war,’ you pea-brained, one-dimensional oaf, ‘at Barton’s we pride ourselves on the way we treat our people. We may not earn as much as you Americans, but our corporate finance department has one of the lowest staff turnover rates in the City. As head of department last year I attended three dinners for members of the department who have served twenty-five years at the firm. We look after our people, and in return they’re loyal to us.’

  F. Herbert cleared his throat, stood and turned to look out of the window. James could swear he saw the beginnings of a grin on the man’s face.

  ‘Well, Jim, all I can say is that the winds of change are going to blow pretty hard through this old City of yours.’ He turned and James could see that he was indeed grinning. ‘And some of your guys will have a bad case of the wind!’ He turned back to the window, chuckling at his joke. ‘Jim, people are a commodity. It’s been that way on Wall Street for years, and now it’s London’s turn. You Brits have to get with the programme. We fire the worst-performing ten per cent of our employees routinely every year. But we pay our top performers real money! And that’s what we like – incentivisation. We want our people motivated, Jim, so they get out there and generate business. If they don’t, they move on. And come to think of it, if they do, they move on too, because they get poached. Stars always get poached. In the past ten years I’ve worked for six different firms. If someone stayed twenty-five years in the same department at Mordheimers, I’d fire him and his boss, because I’d know that neither of them could be any good.’

  James sighed. Oh dear, this is not going well. Are all department heads going through something like this? What’s Sir Oliver thinking about, agreeing to a merger with these people? Talk about no meeting of minds – I don’t think these people have minds that we could meet with.

  He leant forward sympathetically. ‘But Herbert, if our people simply try to generate transactions for the sake of doing business, our corporate clients will no longer trust us. We have a long tradition of offering impartial advice. We’re not salesmen. Our clients know us and respect us and in the long term they reward us well. It’s a matter of principle.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ F. Herbert was suddenly galvanised, striding round the room, almost physically intimidating with his six-foot-odd physique. James stared at him. What do they feed these people? ‘Jim, let me tell you one thing. On Wall Street it’s a matter of principle to have no principles. We live from month to month, quarter to quarter. If your monthly revenue run rate’s down on last year, you’d better have a good reason. We live or die by the deals we do. The whole team sweats all year round, every year. No one’s comfortable, no-one gets complacent.’ Another meaningful look, oh dear. We’re clearly not going to get on.

  ‘Herbert, it’s most interesting to hear your views. You obviously run your department here in Europe very differently from the way I run mine.’

  ‘You’re damned right, Jimbo!’ Jimbo! Good God, we’re definitely not going to get on. ‘And let’s not forget that Mordheimer’s corporate finance revenues are three times those of Barton’s.’ His words had a crudely threatening tone.

  Oh no, let’s not play silly numbers games.

  ‘Globally, yes, you’re right, Herb.’ F. Herbert straightened and raised an eyebrow at the familiar form. ‘But the global numbers aren’t really a like-for-like comparison, are they?’ Time for my most supercilious, patronising smile – I hope it’s not wasted on him. ‘In Europe, our Mergers and Acquisitions practice is three times as big as yours. Obviously, we’ve never established an American practice, and certainly wouldn’t claim to compete with the Wall Street majors such as yourselves.’ Time for a graver, more serious tone. ‘But over here, you’ve never really cracked it, have you? You’re small fry, chasing the scraps from the big boys’ tables. Aggressive, yes, and sometimes spectacularly successful, but no consistency. Or am I being unfair?’

  How astonishing – he’s lost for words. I wonder if he’s really American after all. Presumably not used to ‘the Limeys’ fighting back.

  ‘Just what are you saying, Jim?’ F. Herbert almost growled the words. He stepped forward and loomed threateningly over James’ desk, staring down at the smaller
man. ‘Just what the hell are you saying, you pompous, arrogant, small-minded, prissy little Brit?’ His jaw was sticking out and he stared venomously at James. James swallowed. This is getting out of hand. Time to calm things down.

  ‘Look, Herbert, I don’t think we should personalise this, do you? We’re going to be colleagues, after all, and it’s important that we start off on the right foot.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Well let me tell you, pal – this already is personal! Business is personal. War is personal, and business is like war. Have you read The Art of War? Don’t tell me, you were too busy studying Shakespeare. Look at the two of us. I work out every day of my life. I train and I sweat, because that’s what Americans do. Look at you – you’re forty pounds overweight if you’re an ounce!’

  ‘Steady on,’ interrupted James, ‘I play the occasional round of golf, and I do shoot, you know.’

  ‘Steady on,’ mimicked F. Herbert, attempting to parody James’ indignant response. ‘Listen, pal – I’ll give you “steady on”. I’ll give you “steady on” up your arrogant English ass.’ He reached inside his jacket pocket and threw a letter down on James’ desk. ‘These were distributed this morning to the key members of the new senior management team. Read it – you can see who it’s from.’