by Ben Mezrich
“Well, look at you. Helping out, way past your bedtime, eh, Harvard boy?”
Reston’s Texas accent was really coming out; David smelled whiskey on his breath and assumed he had just come from the lounge upstairs.
“I try to do the right thing,” David said. “Once in a while you have to at least pretend to be human.”
Reston snorted, about to respond, when muffled drunken voices came out of the elevator behind him. They both turned just in time to see Vitzi and Rosa wrestling to see who could get through the open elevator doors first—the effect being that neither one of them was likely to make it before the doors reclosed on them.
“Hey, David,” Vitzi yelled through the few inches of space between the shutting doors. “We came back for you. You still owe us a pitcher.”
David quickly thought through the work he had left, then sighed. “Maybe in a few hours, if you’re still at the bar. Otherwise, you jackasses are on your own.”
Before they could respond, the elevator had shut. David turned and realized Reston was staring at him.
“A few days ago, these guys are calling you my girlfriend and putting enemas in your hospital room. Now they’re inviting you out to drink with them?”
David shrugged.
“My report cards always said I make friends easily.”
“Maybe you’re not as pathetic as I’d thought. You keep getting in good with the meatheads, and I’ll get some use out of you yet. Hell, you’re going to be my goddamn guinea translator!”
Now David knew Reston was drunk. But to tell the truth, he kind of liked the designation. That’s exactly what he was, a guinea translator. One foot in the traders’ world, one foot in Reston’s.
Then Reston said something that pricked at David’s thoughts.
“You know, the time’s gonna come when I’m going to have the power to make some real changes around here. Giovanni has tried—but he’s got too much to lose to really do things right. But me—I’ve got nothing to lose. And Giovanni isn’t going to be here forever. When he leaves, who do you think is going to be running this place? And if you somehow manage to last long enough to be here when that happens, you might just luck out yourself, Harvard boy. ”
David opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He wasn’t sure if Reston was talking out of his ass or, in his inebriated state, really trying to tell David something.
Either way, it was kind of a scary thought: the most powerful exchange on earth in the hands of a thirty-five-year-old Texan and his Guinea translator.
Chapter 15
September 21, 2002
If one were to choose a place in which to have an existential dilemma, one could do a lot worse than a two-story penthouse suite in the Burj Al Arab Hotel.
Khaled leaned back against a luxurious leather couch in the center of one of the suite’s huge, glass-walled living rooms, while he watched two European men unroll blueprint after blueprint across the raised, circular glass coffee table in front of him. The two men were well dressed—both in tailored blue suits with crisply ironed ties—but their sartorial splendor paled in comparison to the magnificent decor surrounding them. Polished marble floors, multiple flat-screen TVs, Impressionist art on the walls, a redwood bar running the length of the room that would have rivaled the bar in most watering holes in Cambridge—and this was just one of two living rooms in the suite. Khaled had been given a full tour before the meeting began, and he knew that behind the bar a Plexiglas spiral staircase led upward to a second living room that contained a free-standing, smoked-glass wet room, a media center, two Jacuzzis, and a full-scale model of the everchanging city down below.
Still, the decor of the place was secondary; it was the glass walls and the 360-degree views they provided that justified the thirty-thousand-dollar-a-night rate the hotel was charging the Europeans. The view was fitting, of course, considering the reason the Europeans had invited Khaled to their suite—and the reason he had accepted their invitation on his eighth day of work with the Finance Ministry. Even from his sunken position on the plush leather he could see the forest of cranes, the framework of constant construction clawing upward into the monumental work in progress that was the city’s skyline.
Madness. He could think of no other word for it, though of course even that choice of word was not sufficient. Madness had a negative connotation; what was going on around Khaled was not wrong—it was simply mad. He could honestly say that the past eight days had negated everything he had ever learned in business school. Because what was going on outside that window, every day, was so unique in human history that no business textbook or lauded professor could possibly hope to explain it.
The Europeans were a case in point. Khaled shifted his gaze from the windows to the closer of the two men. He had introduced himself as Evin Mcdonough; to Khaled, he was a wild-eyed Irishman with a crown of bright red hair and shiny gold rings on all ten of his fingers. At the moment, he was fighting with one of the blueprints, trying to get the corners to stay flat against the glass table.
The second European was leaning over the Irishman’s shoulder, watching the battle with a mixture of bemusement and concern. He had called himself Nigel Barrett, but to Khaled he was an officious Englishman with wire-rimmed glasses and a thin, almost lipless smile.
It was a trick Khaled’s uncle had taught him: names were never as good labels as images, which is why people often forgot names but never forgot first impressions. Khaled doubted he would ever forget this meeting in the Al Arab’s lavish penthouse suite. Because it wasn’t just a first impression of the two men he was witnessing, but a first impression of what his new role in life would be.
Thus, the existential dilemma.
He watched, silently, as the wild-eyed Irishman finally got the blueprint to behave, then stood back, a wide smile on his triangular face. The Englishman looked expectantly toward Khaled, waiting for his response.
Khaled simply could not find the words.
It would have been easier to respond if the two men really were mad—but if anyone deserved to be in a suite such as this, it was these two. The wild-eyed Irishman controlled a sevenbillion-dollar real estate fund. The lipless Englishman ran one of the biggest architectural engineering firms in the world. Together, they had built many of the world’s most impressive hotels, skyscrapers, museums, and shopping malls. Still, nothing they had ever done before came close to the projects that were represented by the blueprints they had laid out in front of Khaled.
And these blueprints were just the tip of the iceberg. All week long Khaled had been taking meetings like this. Indeed, dealing with this sort of insanity was the bulk of his job at the ministry. Looking out the windows at the cranes that stretched for miles and miles in every direction, what else could he have expected?
Madness. Even though the entire city-state around him had a population of only 1.4 million people, the relative level of construction dwarfed that of the entire Asian continent, China included. By creating an economic free-zone—unique in the region—and vigorously pursuing foreign partners, the great emir had turned the city into the fastest-growing metropolis on earth. But Sheik Maktoum and his brother Muhammed had not been content to build just another Arab city in a remarkably free corner of the Arab world—each construct had to be remarkable in its own right.
You couldn’t simply build a hotel; it had to be the Burj Al Arab, the tallest hotel in the world, with a huge sail spanning its entire thousand-foot facade.
You couldn’t simply build an island: the Palm Islands, when finished, would be the world’s largest man-made island structure—built from a staggering billion cubic meters of sand. And even that was not sufficient for the sheiks: plans were already in place to build an even bigger set of islands, designed to resemble the entire world when seen from the air.
You couldn’t simply build a shopping mall. The planned supermall that was soon to break ground had to be the largest shopping mall in the world. Twelve million square feet, cont
aining fifteen mini-malls, an ice skating rink, an aquarium, and the world’s largest Arab souk.
You couldn’t simply build a skyscraper. The emir would soon announce the construction of what would become the world’s tallest structure—the final height of which would be a closely guarded secret, an indication of his resolve to attain and hold the title for years to come. Estimates that Khaled had seen in the finance minister’s office called for a height upward of twenty-five hundred feet.
And the list continued, on and on:
The world’s largest indoor ski slope.
The world’s largest museum.
The world’s largest—and only—underwater hotel. Completely submerged, accessible only by submarine.
And then there was what the two Europeans were now proposing. If Khaled had not been staring at the blueprints with his very own eyes, he would have thought it was some sort of bizarre joke.
“Of course, some of the technology is still in development,” the Englishman finally said, to break the silence. “But I assure you by the time we near completion—2010, we believe—it will be fully operational.”
Fully operational. Khaled stared at the blueprint, but still could think of nothing to say.
A fully operational space port, where one day tourists would book trips to the stars. Khaled would have laughed out loud—except it wasn’t a joke. It was utter madness—but it was all real.
Khaled had been listening to men like the two Europeans all week long—architects, developers, money managers, urban visionaries—and by now his brain was overflowing with images of a country transforming so fast that it simply did not exist in the present tense.
By the year 2010, when this space port would be completed, the emir’s goal was to have fifteen million annual tourists—to a country of one and a half million people. A country whose outdoor temperature regularly reached over 120 degrees. A country that happened to be located smack dab in the center of the wartorn Arab world.
A noble, region-changing goal, magnificent and on a scale almost unimaginable. And Khaled was proud to now be a part of the emir’s vision. But at the same time he knew that his role as an agent of tourism—even on the scale that the sheiks hoped to achieve—would not ultimately be fulfilling. He believed he was destined for something more.
Khaled had to believe that for him there were more important things ahead than ski slopes and underwater hotels. He knew, from his own studies, that the emir’s goal of turning the country into the ultimate tourist destination was more than simply impressive—it was actually a matter of survival. Unlike other sheiks in the region, the emir’s source of wealth had an expiration date—because, simply put, unlike other sheiks in the region, he was facing a situation unique in the Arab world: his oil reserves were going to run out—perhaps within the next fifteen years. So he had come up with a plan to use the wealth he had now to create a new source of wealth for the future.
Tourism to replace oil.
But to Khaled—and assuredly to the emir—this was only the beginning. Tourism and oil were very different beasts. To Khaled, raised in part by a sheik whose seemingly limitless fortune and power were based on what the Arab street had long called “the Black Blood of Allah,” oil was much more than just a source of wealth. A nation built on oil was not the same as a nation built on tourism. Khaled, and certainly the emir, knew that tourism alone would simply turn the city-state into a curiosity, an amusement park of sorts. A huge Arab Disney World.
There had to be more. And Khaled was determined to use all his faculties to find that next, magnificent leap forward—whatever form it took.
“So,” said the wild-eyed Irishman, coughing, his fierce energy finally overcoming his patience, “what do you think?”
Khaled took a deep breath, then pressed his hands together, resting his chin against his fingers. “A space port. Very intriguing. Maybe we could also add some layers to the project. Maybe find some prehistoric DNA. Build an amusement park next door, filled with giant dinosaurs.”
The Irishman looked at him for a full beat, then rubbed his angled jaw. “I’m not sure that’s something we’ve figured out yet, is it?”
There was a brief pause, and then the Europeans finally realized Khaled was joking. The Englishman let out a little laugh, then took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with a sleeve. “Seriously, Mr. Aziz, let’s get down to business. The space port is just one idea. We’ve got plenty more.” Undeterred, he pulled another blueprint out from behind the coffee table and placed it on top of the space port plan. “Now this is something really cool, a tenmillion-square-foot water park that rotates three hundred sixty degrees every six hours. And get this—the entire thing is actually one hundred feet underground.”
Somewhere between the man’s description of an inverted waterfall that ran up instead of down and the longest man-made lazy river in existence, Khaled’s mind began to wander. If he had all the money and power of a sheik, and he really wanted to change the world, where would he look for inspiration?
Chapter 16
November 23, 2002
I could get used to this,” Serena said, and David squeezed her hands through her wool mittens, going in for a little kiss.
“See, I told you window-shopping could be almost as satisfying as the real thing. Who needs stuff anyway? It would just get in the way of our squalor.”
Serena laughed, then pulled him along after her to look at the next store display. David nearly dropped his hat—a Russian job, rabbit fur on top and earflaps that made him look like something out of a 1960s cartoon—and had to twist his body to avoid running into a pair of foreign tourists in matching bright blue puffy coats.
“Slow down,” he said. “The windows aren’t going anywhere.”
With his free hand, he pulled his hat down tighter against his head. The air was crisp and cool, and it was one of those bright fall afternoons that smelled and felt and sounded like New York. He and Serena were strolling hand in hand down Fifth Avenue—the crowded blocks right up near the park— people watching, windowshopping, decompressing from what had been a tense few weeks in their lives and their relationship. And for the first time in days they were both smiling; the reflection David had seen dancing across the glass facade outside of Trump Tower had filled him with pure joy. Serena laughing in the white coat with fur trim that he had given her for her last birthday, a brightly colored scarf wrapped around her throat; he chasing after her, in the foolish hat and one of his father’s old gray overcoats, the collar turned up and the buttons running all the way down past his knees. David was almost beginning to feel human again. After an entire month submerged in the world of high-stakes oil, this was the first afternoon he had spent away from the exchange—and he was loving every minute of it. More important, he was beginning to feel like part of a couple again after four weeks of being an invisible man—coming home after Serena was asleep, leaving before she woke up, every phone conversation becoming an argument about how much he was working and how much more of this she thought she could take, the sort of conversations that David could imagine happening all over the New York financial world. The bottom line was, to succeed in David’s game, you had to be smart, you had to be determined—and you had to put in the time. You needed someone by your side—and she had to be the most understanding girl on the planet. Serena was understanding, but certainly no saint; she’d gone after David and his work hours on more than one occasion, to the point where he’d even begun to wonder if he was making sacrifices that could cause a real rift in their relationship. But the more he got inside the inner workings of the Merc, the more he knew that he belonged there, that he had made the right decision that late night after the meeting at Morton’s. The truth was, he had become more Reston’s kid than Giovanni’s. Sure, Giovanni handed him the odd assignment from time to time, but most of David’s days were spent on projects that came directly from Reston’s office. The fact that Giovanni was almost never at the Merc—or, for that matter, in the country, as fa
r as David could tell—was part of the reason things seemed to work that way, but David was also beginning to believe that Giovanni had intentionally delegated much of the Merc’s business to Reston. It was Reston who came up with the topics for the board meetings. It was Reston who had drafted most of the recent amendments to the exchange’s manifesto. And it was Reston who arbitrated the ugly issues that came up from the trading floor— almost on a daily basis, and almost always involving Gallo or his extensive network of influence.
Giovanni was still David’s idol, but Reston had become his boss. And the thing was, even after a month, Reston still hadn’t warmed to him. No matter how hard David tried, he’d been unable to earn Reston’s complete trust. It was driving David crazy. He had never worked so hard in his life: ten-hour days, seven days a week, learning the ins and outs of the energy exchange, following the traders from the floor to the upstairs lounge to the bars, sometimes to nightclubs and strip joints—just about everywhere. Sometimes those excursions lasted all night—and once in a while even longer. In fact, one party the traders threw at Crowbar, the legendary Manhattan nightclub, had gone on until noon the next day and cost Vitzi and his friends almost a quartermillion dollars. David had been there until the last guest had stumbled away—because every minute he was with the traders was a minute he was learning about the Merc.
He had truly become Reston’s guinea translator: every time Reston wanted to know what the traders on the floor would think of a project he was about to implement, he’d come to David—and David would give him the traders’ perspective with near-perfect accuracy.
And yet Reston remained detached and even skeptical—and his attitude toward David often bordered on palpable disdain. Sometimes Reston went so far as to have David bring a notepad to work with him; he’d make David follow a few steps behind, taking notes like a secretary. Write and walk, he’d tell David as they went, that’s how you learn in this business.
