EQMM, September-October 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  It's a good niche. Keeps the fees high.

  I started the search for Tarnbeck's anonymous raider the usual way: calling around to see if anyone would simply tell me the answer. Poring over endless pages of proprietary financials, which seem always to be printed in seven-point type, is a last resort. Tarnbeck was right; the traders were full of gossip, none of it particularly helpful. The stock's volume had more than doubled over the last month, with sharp peaks at odd times of day—11:15 A.M., 1:30 P.M., like that. Someone was out there, taking bites. But the big purchases were being routed through the all-electronic ECNs, impossible to backtrack.

  "Everyone on the east coast of North America knows they're in play,” said Johnny, generously giving me about a third of his conscious attention. His eyes stayed on the five monitors—no, six, he'd added another flat-panel since I last visited—that were streaming market data, news, and blogosphere rants. “And half of them are ready to make an offer. Tarnbeck's roadkill."

  Johnny and I were both finance majors in college, but afterwards, while I was learning how to jump out of airplanes and field-strip a .50 Cal, Johnny was clawing his way from entry-level I-banking to, eventually, running his own hedge fund. Who made the better choice is a topic for another day.

  I'd come down to his Beaver Street offices, where he oversaw a roomful of twenty-something traders, a floor-to-ceiling panorama of the Hudson River skyline, and 900 million dollars of smart money. The traders all seemed to have ADHD. Johnny's style was incremental; he could go in and out of positions in less than thirty seconds. Breakfast and lunch were catered every day, but the food mostly sat around getting cold, and the only consistent nourishment seemed to be cans of Red Bull and Jolt. In these days of algorithmic technical strategies, it was all quaintly retro.

  "Are you in?” I asked.

  "Nah."

  "You don't like the company?"

  "Oh, it's good enough. All those factories in the Midwest, so Old Economy. Nice pickings."

  "So, what? You think the field's too crowded?"

  Johnny shrugged and tapped his keyboard. Some day trader probably just got wiped out. “It feels funny, that's all."

  "Funny?"

  "I dunno. You know. Funny."

  Well, he was worth about a hundred million dollars, and I wasn't. I guess I'd trust his intuition. We talked about other matters—as a favor, Johnny runs some of my money in a beneficial account—but I left soon enough. Ten minutes is about all you can get out of him during exchange hours.

  * * * *

  Tarnbeck probably thought I'd be chasing his bugbear all by myself, down the mean streets of Greenwich with nothing but attitude and an equalizer. Truth is, I'd have preferred that myself—nobody likes to split a fee—but sometimes these jobs are just too much trouble. If Johnny didn't know whose door to knock on, I was in for a real plod. I needed help.

  I didn't have to think about who to ask. This kid named Leeson had been hanging around, buying me drinks and listening to stories. He was young, smart, and hungry—a little too eager to make a name for himself, maybe, but so were we all, once. He jumped at the chance to sign on, not even complaining about the hod-carrier's wage I offered.

  We met at the docks—not the working waterfront, but a glitzy marina on Stamford Harbor, filled with gleaming power cruisers and sailboats with computer-controlled ropes. I mean, sheets. Leeson, though he had some good points, was some kind of yachting fanatic. He loved sitting on the dock, squinting and grinning and explaining all that pointless seafaring jargon.

  At least it was close to Tarnbeck's corporate headquarters.

  "So what's the job?” Leeson finally got around to asking. A steady breeze blew off the ocean, cold and damp under the cloudy sky. Leeson, with that casual invincibility to inclement weather you have in your twenties, sat comfortably on the freezing bench. I pulled my jacket zipper all the way up and tried not to huddle into it too obviously.

  "I have a client with a business rival,” I said. “He'd like the rival to go away."

  "That's what we do.” Leeson nodded crisply, and I thought, we? Look, I've been in this game for years, but Leeson was just a snotnose C.P.A. Yeah, I know, he was in the Marines and Iraq and all that, before he went back to college, but that's the problem—anyone lucky enough to survive a year in Anbar thinks he's seen it all.

  "Whatever. Here's the problem—nobody knows who the rival is.” I explained the situation, how Tarnbeck needed to find out exactly which vulture fund was trying to kick the blocks out from his LBO.

  Leeson's reaction was unexpected. He lost all interest in the boats, even when a trio of women crew walked past, young and blonde and openly checking him out. He just whistled out a long breath and said, slowly, “I'll be ... Tarnbeck? Tarnbeck. Wow."

  I frowned. “What about him?"

  "Gerald A. Tarnbeck.” Like he was reading a cue card. “Sixty-three, five-foot-ten, left-handed, married twice but not for long, no children, residences in New Canaan, the Upper East Side, and Nassau, drives a silver Range Rover."

  A long pause. “I don't know about the car,” I said.

  "And as of last Tuesday, ATF transaction records showed him in possession of twenty-one handguns, eight long guns, ten semiautomatic rifles, and three shotguns."

  I stared at Leeson, and he gave it back without blinking. Sea-gulls cawed, water slapped at the dock pilings, and halyards banged on their spars. I was learning all sorts of useful information today, not just nautical vocabulary.

  "I don't suppose he hired you, too,” I said. We were edging away from each other on the bench, looking for fighting room, like a pair of cats who just decided they're deathly enemies. “How'd you get into ATF?"

  "On the Internet. Data brokers can get whatever you want."

  "Really? I should look into that."

  "Sure. Costs, though. There's a guy in Colorado I like.” He was almost on his feet now, every muscle tense.

  Time to stop stalling. “At least I don't have to keep looking for Tarnbeck's nemesis,” I said. “Want to tell me who it is?"

  Leeson shrugged, a fractional lift of one shoulder. “Why would I do that?"

  Well, it was worth asking. A few moments passed.

  "This is stupid,” I said finally. “He hired you to whack Tarnbeck, right? He must think that'll make the acquisition easier, since Tarnbeck would probably rather see the whole place go bankrupt before handing it over."

  Leeson wasn't ready to concede anything, and he just grunted.

  "So instead of, you know, working it out in a meeting or something, they take contracts out on each other.” I shook my head. “Good thing they're introducing those mandatory ethics seminars in the business schools."

  "It's been nice talking to you.” Leeson stood up, ready to back away.

  "Oh, sit down. I promise I won't try to shoot you. What's the point? I don't get paid unless your guy's six feet under, and Tarnbeck's sure not worth dying over. Let's try to figure this out."

  He might have left anyway, but the three boat bunnies walked past again, giggling, and Leeson, unable to hold too many thoughts at once, was flustered enough to rejoin me on the bench.

  "You're thinking, all you have to do is land Tarnbeck first,” I said. “Pop him and you win. But if I get to your guy, you lose anyway, since you won't get paid."

  Leeson relaxed, obviously feeling he had the advantage. “You have no idea who he is."

  "It won't take as long as I thought—not now that I know he hired you. It's not a needle in a haystack anymore.” Leeson wasn't getting it, so I had to explain. “You met him in person. I'm sure of that. They always need to see us themselves, right? So all I have to do is walk you back. And that's a lot easier."

  It started to drizzle. How nice. Leeson, Boy Scout, pulled a ball cap out of the pocket of his windbreaker. I sighed and frowned and got wet.

  "It's a race, then,” said Leeson, cheering up after he thought about it. “Want to synchronize watches?"

  "Use your head. Once
you're on your way, first thing I'm going to do is call Tarnbeck and warn him. He'll be locked down so tight you'd have a better chance at the Pope."

  "Oh.” Leeson's good mood evaporated. “But I'll do the same thing."

  "Of course. So, stalemate."

  We watched rain fall onto the boats. My pants and jacket gradually soaked through, but I had to ignore it, since Leeson didn't seem to notice.

  "Wait, I got an idea,” he said suddenly. “We can work together. It's perfect."

  "How so?"

  "You set Tarnbeck up, I shoot him, we split my fee."

  I admit, I thought about it. But in the end I decided that, as limited as my chosen vocation's ethics might be, killing my own client for the sake of an easier buck just wasn't on. Word might leak out, after all, and then no one would ever hire me again.

  "Still, you might be on to something,” I said. “How about, we only pretend to zap Tarnbeck?"

  "Huh?"

  "Hollywood-style, fake bullets and everything. Make it a real show."

  "But..."

  I played the scenario out in my mind. “Look. It'll make the news, so you get paid. Better yet, once everyone thinks Tarnbeck is gone, there's no more reason for secrecy, so your Green Hornet can take his mask off. And that'll give Tarnbeck what he wants."

  Leeson wasn't keeping up. “But....” he said again. “Okay, I see how I earn my fee. But how do you make anything out of it?"

  "After you ride off into the sunset, what do you care? I'll finish my assignment for Tarnbeck, bye-bye Green Hornet, and there we go, everyone's happy. I'd call that a win-win-win.” I paused. “Well, except for the dead guy."

  That bothered Leeson, oh, about as much as you'd imagine, but he thought up another objection. “We'd both be taking the same risk,” he said slowly. “How do I know we're, you know, getting an equal reward?"

  "I get paid, you get paid. What's the problem?"

  "Yeah, but ... how much are you making on this?"

  We looked at each other.

  "You first,” I said.

  After some fruitless sparring, we tabled the question of compensation. At least Leeson was excited by the whole special-effects aspect—it's true, everyone really does want to be in the movies.

  As we finished up, the rain now a steady downpour, sheets of water coursing across the dock, Leeson thought of one last question.

  "How are you going to convince Tarnbeck to go along?” he asked. “I mean, why would he?"

  "Don't worry,” I said. “He's eating out of my hand. He'll do whatever I suggest."

  "You're out of your mind.” Tarnbeck glared at me like I'd just asked to marry his daughter. “Bobby Jakes told me you were okay, but he must have been off his meds. That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard."

  We were in his car—a Range Rover, yes, but shiny white, not silver. So much for Leeson's backgrounding. Tarnbeck was driving, and he'd picked me up not far from his house at six A.M., on the way to the office. No driver, which was unusual for a major-league CEO. I suppose he wanted to keep our conversation private.

  Horns blared on both sides, and Tarnbeck snapped his attention back to the road, just in time to slam on the brakes. Tires screeched as a Lexus missed us by inches, and a motorcycle roared past on the right. I glanced back and saw another vehicle slew out of control, skidding to the side of the street but not running into us. Tarnbeck growled and yanked the wheel, back into traffic.

  "You want me to find him the usual way, fine,” I said. “But it's going to take time—longer than I think you have. Once another offer's on the table, your board is obligated to consider it."

  "I pay those freeloading morons a hundred grand to play golf together four times a year. They'll do what I tell them.” Tarnbeck seemed comfortable with nineteenth-century notions of corporate governance. “I'll get a unanimous vote, don't worry about that."

  "Maybe.” If the board was that venal, they'd no doubt jump ship for an extra ten percent, but I didn't want to get into it with Tarnbeck. They were probably his friends. “I know Congress is pulling back the reins on Sarbanes-Oxley, but there've been too many lawsuits against directors lately. Unlimited personal liability can encourage some inconvenient backbone."

  "Bah."

  "Anyway, you might be looking at this through too narrow a lens."

  "What?” Tarnbeck glanced at me, but only briefly. These backroads were surprisingly crowded for dawn—all the exurb-to-suburb commuters trying to beat rush hour, I guess. Cars filled the drive-through lanes of the bagel and coffee shops we kept passing, and we had to sit through at least two cycles at every stoplight. Give me downtown Manhattan any day, thanks.

  "You've been CEO for, what, eleven years?” I said. An eternity, for a public company in 2008. “Let me ask you something. Do you really know who your friends are?"

  Tarnbeck grunted. He was smart enough to understand what I meant, and not be offended by it. Executives at the very top live in a bubble, a cocoon of sycophancy and fawning agreement. Even the sharpest, most cynical tyrants can lose perspective.

  "When the world thinks you're dead,” I continued, “we won't just flush out your anonymous rival for the LBO. There'll be a window of uncertainty when everyone's true colors will be visible. You'll learn more about your staff than you would in six months of team-building retreats."

  I don't know if it was that possibility that convinced him, or his own secret desire to star in a movie, or maybe just despair at getting anything more useful out of me. But by the time we rolled into the VIP lot of his corporate headquarters, Tarnbeck had signed on.

  "Where do we do it?” he asked, pulling into a large, marked space with its own immaculate patch of lawn and a sidewalk gleaming in the first golden rays of sunrise.

  "Good question.” We stayed in the Rover to finish talking. “It needs to be public, more or less, so people will be around to see it. But it can't be too public, because we need to set it all up beforehand and, ah, control for eventualities."

  "How about in front of my house?"

  "Hmm, no, I don't think so. It's too private, with that ten-foot spiked fence and the guardhouse and the dobermans in the yard.” Like everyone lived that way. “And the shooting range isn't so hot either, not with all that live ammunition around."

  "So?"

  "How about right here?” I gestured at the parking lot. “Lots of witnesses will look out those windows and swear they saw you assassinated in broad daylight. Including the FedEx guy and maybe some visitors, if we time it right. But it's all your property, so we'll be able to manage the environment."

  He didn't take much convincing. It's one of the few admirable traits I've noticed among the C-level executives I deal with—once they make a decision, they never look back.

  We brainstormed some ideas, worked through the logistics, considered the best way to handle the immediate response. By the time we wrapped up, Tarnbeck was chuffed, happier than I'd seen him yet.

  "Just one question,” he said, as we shook hands. I was about to go call a taxi, and he had underlings headed his way from the building's grand entrance. “You've done this before, right?"

  "Of course,” I said. “Many, many times."

  "Good."

  "It's all in the planning—we do a good job ahead of time, and it'll run like clockwork."

  "All right, then.” He nodded and abruptly turned away, off to shape the lives of fifty thousand employees.

  I've never failed to fulfill a contract yet. Clockwork.

  * * * *

  The first thing that went wrong was the weather: more rain, cold and steady and depressing. The action itself wouldn't be affected—assassins, even fake ones, work in all conditions, and the FX gimmickry under Tarnbeck's shirt was durable enough—but our audience would be much reduced. I wasn't about to reschedule, though. Tarnbeck's worst micro-managing instincts had emerged over the last five days, as we scripted the play. No detail was too minute for him to offer a contrary opinion. Shouldn't we be using .233-ca
liber rounds, like in The Unit? Maybe he should fall backward onto the Range Rover's hood, roll over, and crawl a little? Could we leave some red herrings on the grassy knoll, like a donut bag and some hand-rolled cigarette butts? He was calling me at three A.M. with ideas like that, for Christ's sake.

  Like I said, everyone wants to be a movie star.

  To maximize viewer share, Tarnbeck contrived some excuse to show up at work a few hours later than his customary pre-dawn arrival. The security guards were in on it, too, so we wouldn't have any unfortunate live-ammunition heroics. Or so I hoped—Tarnbeck was supposed to arrange all that, since I didn't want anyone to see my face but him. We'd practiced the whole scenario in a big empty lot at one of the manufacturing plants Tarnbeck had shuttered last year, after outsourcing production to China. It had come out just right.

  At eight-thirty I parked a borrowed utility truck outside the discreet wire fence that surrounded the headquarters campus. Across two hundred yards of lawn, down a slight slope, I had a nice open view of the main building and its parking lot. Of course, anyone looking the other way had an equally nice view of me, but that was the whole point. I was going to stand up on top of the truck, out in front of God and everyone, holding a Dragunov rifle with Leupold glass and, just for show, a mounted bayonet. How video game is that? I'd even gotten a Lone Ranger mask from a party store at the mall. Not exactly Day of the Jackal, but we were keeping the plot line simple.

  An hour later, the lot was half filled, a couple of package-delivery trucks idled near the entrance, and people were occasionally dashing from their cars to the building, holding umbrellas or laptop cases over their heads against the downpour. At the front gate I saw the white Range Rover roll in, just as my cell phone rang.

  "Ready?” Tarnbeck must have forgotten he wasn't supposed to call.

  "All set.” I looked at the rain coursing down the windshield and wished I'd brought full waterproofs. “It'll be just like the run-through."

  "See you in the morgue."

  During the half-minute it took Tarnbeck to reach his spot, I clambered out and onto the roof, slipping and swearing. The Jackal would have been inside the vehicle, of course, warm and dry and holding his rifle on a tripod. I lifted the Dragunov “standing unsupported"—that is, Rambo style—and found the Range Rover in the scope.