The Domino Effect

by Davis Bunn

  And these five traders were poised to become extremely rich.

  If they succeeded.

  There was really no decision at all. The five personnel files had already been carefully vetted. Reynolds and Sir Trevor knew Jason had chosen well. They were here because the new team needed to understand they had the board’s unofficial backing. Secretly. Silently.

  Nothing was spoken about their new task. After all, there existed the slim chance that one government agency or another might eventually ask some very disconcerting questions. So there was nothing these five could say except that they had attended another meeting in the board-level conference room.

  The second reason for this meeting was to calm Jason down. The man was livid. Justifiably so.

  The five traders sensed Jason’s rage and immediately fled the boardroom. They were only too happy to leave the battleground before bullets started flying.

  When the three of them were alone, Jason growled, “Tell me this is not what I think it is.”

  Reynolds replied easily, “It’s not what you think.”

  “You’re siphoning five of my top performers off to the competition?”

  “Sir Trevor is partner in this new project.”

  “Holding four percent of the bank’s stock doesn’t make him a partner of anything,” Jason shot back.

  Reynolds tapped the table once, twice. “We are not handing part of your team over to Sir Trevor. Now that’s all the rope you’re going to get. Your job is to shut up and listen. Either pay attention or go back downstairs and bid your team a fond farewell. Because if you refuse to accept the new reality, you no longer have a place in this bank.”

  Jason blinked. Reynolds did not threaten. It simply was not part of his genetic pattern. The streets of Charlotte were littered with the corpses of opponents who never saw it coming. “I don’t understand.”

  “There is no way you possibly could. As far as the rest of your team is concerned, your initial assessment is correct. These five are gone, never to return. They have been stolen away to work for Sir Trevor’s group. It is essential that our remaining traders have no reason to suspect anything else.”

  Jason’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two men. He was an expert at reading markets and discovering the unseen road to profit. Not being in the know left him extremely unsettled. “Then what—?”

  “In nine days, Sir Trevor’s group is making a public offer to acquire CFM outright. The board has secretly given its approval.”

  Jason’s mouth opened, but he made no sound.

  Reynolds glanced at his new partner. This was the crux, the moment they had been working toward for five long months.

  Sir Trevor explained, “A new trading arm has been established in Bermuda. Officially it is merely an expansion of an existing Bermuda-based bank. Secretly, my group owns this bank outright. As far as anyone outside this room is concerned, you are going to take a brief holiday. During this time, you will serve as a consultant to the Bermuda bank. If anyone asks, Reynolds owes the president of the Bermuda group a favor and has reluctantly agreed to loan you for a time. You will then establish a new investment banking division. Your five subordinates will oversee it, along with five carefully selected traders from my own bank.”

  “They’ll have the resources to bring in support staff,” Reynolds added, “but we want them to run this operation as lean and mean as possible.”

  “Secrecy is a primary element,” Sir Trevor emphasized.

  Reynolds said, “If they succeed, if their operation remains below the official radar, if they refrain from letting any of their associates know where they are or what they are doing, they will receive a sizable bonus.”

  Jason was tracking the two men, his attention focused as only a trader knew how to do. “What size operation are we talking about?”

  “Seven billion,” Reynolds said.

  “How are you going to keep a seven-billion-dollar transfer off the radar . . . ?” Jason was then punched back in his seat by the realization. “The merger.”

  “There is a temporary window,” Reynolds confirmed. “Confusion created by two conflicting systems. Accounts and clients in forty countries. A maze of regulations. Different auditing requirements.”

  “We will let the outside auditors in both countries think they are competing for the one unified account,” Sir Trevor said. “They will tread very lightly, and they will take all the time we ask them to take before officially notifying us of the missing funds. When that happens, we fold up the Bermuda tent and it’s back to business as usual.”

  “After we have lined everyone’s pockets,” Reynolds added, “including yours.”

  Jason’s swallow was audible. “How long do we have?”

  “Thirty days,” Reynolds replied. “Six weeks at the outside.”

  Jason said, “You want me to play the cutout.”

  “As of today,” said Reynolds, “you are temporarily appointed chief of the new Bermuda division. This will be in addition to your current responsibilities.”

  “What’s my take?”

  “Double your standard commission.”

  “And the traders?”

  “Standard commission for the duration. If they succeed, and if they manage to keep this quiet, then a final payout of five million dollars. Each.”

  Sir Trevor added, “Needless to say, the bonus will be paid in Bermuda. Outside American tax records.”

  “For five million free and clear,” Jason said, “my team will hold their breath if required.”

  “That is our expectation,” Reynolds said.

  “So . . . what’s the target trade?”

  “We want you to return to pre-2008 tactics.”

  Jason nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”

  “The two latest trades you’ve made, they risk alerting the SEC. Move all such future tactics offshore.”

  “The rest of my group will scream bloody murder,” Jason said. “Those trades are the only reason we’re in the black this quarter.”

  “They must be kept quiet,” Reynolds insisted.

  Sir Trevor said, “Once the merger goes public, they’ll understand.”

  “The whole team will need to receive a bonus,” Jason said. “Otherwise we’ll see attrition along with the kind of questions we don’t want.”

  “Promise them whatever you feel is appropriate,” Reynolds replied. “I’ll sign off on any such request.”

  Jason walked to the door, then turned back and said, “I want a completion bonus of my own. Ten million.”

  “Jason—”

  “Take it or leave it.”

  Reynolds gave what he hoped was not too theatrical a sigh. “Done.”

  When the door closed behind the bank’s senior trader, Reynolds let the silence linger. The question they both faced almost glowed in the window’s warm sunlight. Finally Trevor asked, “Do you think he bought it?”

  “Hook, line, and sinker.” Reynolds replied. “We spoke the only language Jason understands.”

  “I must say, you showed a master’s touch,” Sir Trevor said.

  “Jason sees an opportunity to make a huge amount of money,” Reynolds continued. “The fact that it’s a scam means he has to keep it quiet. He won’t want to dig further because it will risk his take.”

  Which was very important. Vital, in fact.

  Because everything they had told Jason was a lie.

  17

  TUESDAY

  The next day rocked Esther’s world before she had even opened her eyes.

  She woke from a dream about her father. Since childhood, Esther had not been able to think about him without a burning rage. This morning was different in every possible way. The dream was very brief, scarcely the length of a dozen breaths. Any longer and the years of regret and anger would have jerked her awake. In the dream, she was nestled in her father’s lap. He read to her from his favorite book of the Bible, the one after which she was named. Esther watched him turn the page and begin relating
elements that brought the story to life. She knew the story already by heart, but she loved to hear him repeat the tale.

  When she awoke, she was sobbing.

  Esther put on a robe, made a pot of coffee, and sat on her back porch watching the day strengthen. She was drawn back inside by the ringing of her phone. When she answered, Craig said, “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “I’ve been up for hours. Did you sleep?”

  “Some. A little.” He sighed. “Not well. Never mind. I wanted to tell you the dean called. The faculty agrees with your assessment.”

  “I suppose I should be glad.”

  “One of the university trustees has told the dean he wants to contact you.”

  “Did they say why?”

  “I asked. Either the dean wasn’t told or he’s been instructed not to say.” When Esther did not respond, Craig said, “I can ask to put them off.”

  “No. No, it’s fine. Well, not fine, but . . .” Esther did not want to talk about her analysis or the trustees. “When are you seeing your two girls?”

  “I’m picking them up from school. Their mother . . .” Another sigh. “I’ll take them somewhere for dinner.”

  “Bring them over here. I’ll make us something. I would like to meet them.”

  “Esther . . . they can be extremely difficult.”

  She looked out over her back garden. But what she actually saw was herself as a young teen, raging against a destiny she refused to accept as her own. “It will be fine.”

  Esther dressed and gave the markets a quick scan. Everything was holding steady, so she decided to visit Nathan. She phoned her office from her car. Jasmine answered, and she asked, “What’s new?”

  “Oh, like you’re not calling to give me a big I-told-you-so.”

  “I’m sorry I was sharp with you.”

  “Girl, I needed that more than I need a steady man. And I need that man bad.”

  “Even so, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You handled Jason?”

  “I walked over and I repeated what you told me. Minus the instructions for him to come down off the wall he was climbing. He didn’t fire me. If that means he was handled, then yes.”

  “When does the portal close?”

  “Two hours and counting. Listen, Esther . . .”

  “What?”

  “You remember how during the last countdown the whole trading floor just got . . .”

  “Frozen,” Esther recalled. “Tense. Extremely nervous.”

  “Yeah, well, this time it’s different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Girl, if I knew how to describe it, would I be stumbling here?”

  “I was going to stop by and see my brother, but maybe I should come in.”

  “And do what? Nobody’s trading. We haven’t heard a peep from anybody all morning. They’re all just in there sulking.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “Check on your brother, then come see for yourself.”

  “I won’t be long,” Esther said, then clicked off.

  But thirty minutes later, Esther had only just finished another difficult meeting with the clinic’s director. As she finally walked down the hall to her brother’s room, a newly acquired document weighed down her purse. Across the top of the first page was written Legal Notification of Patient Transferal. It felt like an order for her to cease and desist.

  She entered the room but did not sit down. She stared at Nathan’s back, sensing as usual that he was awake yet intent on willing the world away. She said softly, “This week you’re going to be moved.” She sought for something else to say, to warn him of what was about to take place. But in the end, all she could manage was, “Nathan, don’t leave me. Please.”

  18

  On the drive to the office, Esther was struck by a sudden thought. She called Rachel, Patricia’s sister, and asked, “Don’t you have a teenage daughter?”

  “Sure thing. Why, are you in the market for one?”

  “No thanks.”

  “We’ll let her go cheap. Today only, special price.”

  “Actually, I’m calling for some advice.”

  “Sugar, the only thing I can help you with is how to lose your temper.”

  “I have an angry almost-fourteen-year-old and her eleven-year-old sister coming to dinner tonight.”

  There was a longish pause, then Rachel asked, “Are these Craig’s girls?”

  “Well . . . yes.”

  “Oh, wow, give me a minute to finish my dance around the kitchen.”

  “You know they’re going through a tough time.”

  “And putting Craig through it with them. Yes.”

  “I want them to feel, well . . .”

  “At home. How totally cool is this.”

  “I’m just trying to help out a friend.”

  “Yeah. Right. Whatever.” Rachel laughed. “Listen to me. I sound like my daughter.”

  Esther stopped in the bus zone before the entrance to the bank’s parking garage. She didn’t want to lose the connection, no matter how much Rachel’s laughter embarrassed her. “What should I do?”

  Esther started by walking across the back of the trading floor, reading the invisible signs. The atmosphere was highly charged as usual. What was different was the sullen rage she saw on every face, as though Jason’s latent fury had infected the entire floor.

  Jasmine was up and moving as soon as Esther entered her department. “See what I meant about the mood on the floor?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Soon as the bell rang yesterday afternoon, Jason was called to a meeting with Reynolds Thane. Two hours later, Jason came back in a rare state.”

  “How are the markets?”

  “As stable as when you called an hour ago.”

  “Give me the rest.”

  Jasmine loved being the center of attention, even when stressed by unknowns that crowded their space. “All I know is, yesterday Jason came back downstairs shouting and yelling and driving the poor admins crazy. I wouldn’t work in that man’s office for a million and change. Well, okay, maybe for a million. But I’d want it up front, because if I lasted thirty-six hours it’d be—”

  Esther cut her off mid-sentence. “Any idea what got him so hot?”

  “Jason spent most of last night poring over the division’s personnel files. The confidential files. Then this morning he called five staffers at home. Told them to show up pronto.”

  “You know this how?”

  Jasmine dimpled. “Me and Hewitt, we been getting friendly from time to time. I think he might even be a keeper. Long as he remembers to stop playing trader when he’s off the floor.”

  “So Hewitt is one of them. Which other traders did Jason single out?”

  “Gavin, Lenoir, Stett, and, let’s see . . .”

  The MIT newbie offered, “Mandy Charles.”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Her.”

  Esther held up a hand, thinking hard. The five were all mid-level traders. Each had enough rank to be given their own book, the trader’s term for being assigned capital with which they made their own trades and formed their portfolios. Which also meant Esther tracked them. They were fairly successful, but mostly because they followed Jason’s lead. Other than that, she could not see an identifiable trend. “Go on.”

  “Thirty minutes ago, all five of them went up to the board level with Jason. They’re still up there, cooling their heels in the reception area.”

  “Think Hewitt would be willing to update you?”

  “I already asked. He doesn’t have a clue . . .” The phone in Jasmine’s hand buzzed. She checked the screen. “They’re headed into the conference room. Sir Trevor’s in there with Reynolds.”

  Esther turned to her Far East specialist. “The Asian markets are still holding steady?”

  “Tokyo up a tick. Shanghai is still closed after the run.” He shifted screens. “Hong Kong reopened and is down two percent.”

  Not important. “Wh
en does the portal close on yesterday’s trade?”

  “Forty-four minutes.”

  “Okay, let’s hang tight.” She swept the team together with both arms. “We’re after intel, people. Check with your allies inside all markets, see what you can find. We reconnect in an hour.”

  Twenty-one minutes later, Jasmine stormed into Esther’s office and yelled, “The creep just dumped me!”

  “Who?”

  “Hewitt! He wouldn’t even say it to my face.” She shoved her phone into the space between them. “Can you believe? A text! ‘It’s over, ciao.’ What am I, chopped liver?”

  Esther’s alarm bells started jangling. “Phone him.”

  “I already did. Five times!” Jasmine stuffed the phone back in her pocket. “Voicemail!”

  Slowly Esther rose from her chair, crossed the office, entered the division bullpen and looked around. “Anything?”

  She got a unified headshake, a chorus of stable markets. Esther said to Jasmine, “Walk with me.”

  Jasmine fumed beside her as they crossed the skyway and entered the trading floor. Esther stopped Jasmine with a touch to her arm. “How long do we have left on the trade?”

  Jasmine looked at her. It was not like Esther to ask a question when she already knew the answer. “Nineteen minutes.”

  “Right. And assuming the markets don’t tank, how much are they going to net?”

  Jasmine shot her another look, then walked to the nearest empty station and drew up the Asian markets. She calculated swiftly and said, “Ninety two mil and change.”

  “Making this the second biggest trade of the quarter.” Esther studied the gloomy faces below, none of which even glanced their way. “Do they look excited to you?”

  Jasmine managed to see beyond her own distress. “They look . . .”

  “Exactly. Go talk to your pals. Find out what they’re thinking.”

  “What about you?”