Dangerous Bet: A financial thriller

by Jack Gardner

  Sammy thought that the “fairness” was arguable.

  The VPO surveyed the room and discovered that no hand was raised. This either testified to the quality of the lecture, which left no room for misunderstandings, or simply meant that these busy people were eager to get to the tour and go on with their lives.

  Sammy, on his end, assessed that thorough attention and a great deal of means were given to make this process efficient and secure. His impression was that every minute detail was examined to such a degree that there was no way of forging the lottery’s results—which, to him, only posed a furthered challenge on his way to shattering the presumption that it is impossible.

  “Well, gentlemen…” If the VPO was disappointed with the lack of questions, he hid it well with a big smile. “Leora will be happy to give you a short tour. See it with your own eyes.”

  ‘Certainly,’ thought Sammy, while his eyes appreciated Leora’s tall and slim figure as she rose from her seat to lead them on the tour.

  “And then we’d be happy to have you over for lunch in our modest dwelling…”

  ‘Also a cute joke,’ thought Sammy. Considering that the Millionaires had an annual turnover of about one billion dollars, and considering the interior design and the contents of the building, it was quite easy to say that the people here did not wave the flag of modesty.

  3

  The only new item in the apartment was the door. A steel door with a cargo lock that would frustrate any ordinary burglar. ‘But when you passed through it, with the right key, of course,’ thought Sammy, ‘you entered an ancient world.’ “Old-fashioned” would be a better term: white walls covered with bulges and green moisture stains showing through them, the desperate attempt of an optimist who tried to embellish the place but failed miserably.

  The scant furniture was even older than the walls, and was probably brought there from an even older building, if such existed. There was a faded pink couch whose upholstery sunk in and had four wooden legs of a kind that hasn’t been made in at least half a century. There was also an armchair lined with a brown fabric and a large green patch covering a hole in the seat that had three wooden legs and one short metal pipe that someone improvised to make a fourth leg. There was a low wooden table, adorned with numerous stains, scratches, and scars, and a kind of bookshelf, with piles and piles of yellowing old newspapers that no one ever bothered to throw away.

  Except for this room, which used to serve as a living room, the apartment had a small corridor leading to two other rooms: a bathroom that has not been used in years and a kitchenette where you could find, if you so wished, a pretty new electric kettle, a jar of instant coffee, a pack of sugar, and four mugs. ‘All in all,’ Sammy thought to himself, ‘a pretty standard safe haven, whose role is simply to allow occasional short meetings that cannot be held anywhere else.’

  He was the first to arrive of the three men who were supposed to meet there. They coordinated their arrival times so that they would be separate by ten minutes from each other. They could not be seen together, even if only for a moment. He looked at his watch and saw that five minutes have passed from the moment he walked in. The window with the closed shutters overlooked the main street. He turned to the window and opened a small crack in the shutter, signaling to his friends that the coast was clear. Then he went to the kitchenette, washed the kettle, and filled it with water. He washed three dusty mugs and started making coffee. His face showed nothing of the smug and naïve exterior he displayed during the tour of the Millionaires. He seemed serious, like a man who pays attention to every minute detail, leaving nothing to chance.

  A key turned in the lock and a sturdy man dressed in an elegant brown suit walked in with a light step, closing the door behind him and locking it immediately. He nodded hello to Sammy, smiled at the chance of sipping fresh coffee, and sat down on the armchair, not before he tapped on it lightly to make sure there wasn’t any dust that might get his clothes dirty on it.

  Exactly ten minutes later, the door squeaked again and a third man, wearing a blue sweat suit, walked in and joined them.

  This was not a friendly gathering and they were not about to waste any time.

  It should be said that their aspirations were about much more than money: they aspired to climb the top of the power ladder. But in order to do so, they needed a monumental sum of money—that money they hoped to secure by obtaining the Millionaires’ first prize.

  Sammy explained the plan in fifteen minutes, and the two men listened attentively. The one in the blue sweat suit pulled a silver nail file and was busy polishing his nails while he listened, his head bent sideways. The man in the brown suit seemed frozen, not a single muscle moved in his body. Sammy finished and looked straight at them. These two had twenty years of experience and knowledge. He knew neither missed even a single detail. Now the verdict would come.

  Two minutes, which seemed like two hours, passed. And then the sweat suit guy smiled for the first time, saying, “I like it.”

  They both looked at the third. He did not say a word. He simply rose and shook Sammy’s hand. Then he shook the other’s.

  So it was decided.

  They left in an order opposite to the one in which they arrived, again in ten minute intervals.

  It was a pleasant May evening.

  ***

  The Millionaires millennium raffle was to be held on Saturday night. The first prize was ten million dollars, and the directors hoped that this large sum would be divided between a large number of winners. They had made an educated guess, considering that by Thursday evening an all-time high of lottery forms were sent in. There was tension in the air, fused with many hopes. The early statistics foresaw between eight and twelve winners according to standard deviations. But statistics are statistics and people—even if they heard the details from countless experts who were invited to speak by every possible media—are not more than people, and prefer to repress unwanted information.

  They did not try to question the essence of the thing or what would happen to their lives in the aftermath. They’ll cross that bridge once they come to it.

  And so, on Thursday, an enormous amount of data came in from countless stations, including a distant station connected to the Millionaires’ central computer, which was working at maximum capacity in order to take in the hundreds of thousands of forms sent to it. The server’s username and password were familiar to the central computer, and its access was not denied.

  Supposedly, it was another natural entry to the system, like any of the tens of thousands other entries that day. Communication flowed on a standard 64K line, identical to the ones used by the private communication network used by the Millionaires—except for the fact that it was only recently installed, according to a standard request of the Millionaires, supposedly. Had this installation been more rigorously examined by the supplier, it would have seemed problematic, since the other end of the line was not a lottery office terminal, but a small room with no special characteristics.

  As soon as connection was established, a series of commands was fed on to the line, including the computer manufacturer’s original code—a secret code meant to allow the manufacturer offsite access into the system itself. This action, by the way, was never carried out—except for the first time where the system was tested before the plant provided it to the Millionaires. The computer, which recognized the request as an ordinary action, required a password and received it instantaneously.

  The password also matched its basic database, and from now on, the computer was able to do any action in the system itself. Next, the computer carried on a quite simple action in computing terms. It sorted and displayed in sloping scale—from the largest quantity to the smallest—the numbers registered in the gamblers’ forms up to that moment. At this point, the offsite access computer disconnected communications from the central computer, while the procedure it activated continued its calculations.

  In twenty minutes, the machine sorted millions of numbers
, while recording in a temporary spreadsheet how many times and in which combinations all gamblers chose each number. Forty minutes later, at 12:50 pm, the same offsite computer contacted the central computer again, identified its password, and gathered this table’s data. Once this action was completed, communication was cut—not before it ordered the central computer to erase the temporary spreadsheet.

  The person who activated the offsite computer had all reasons to believe that the first phase of the operation was successfully completed.

  A phone rang in the penthouse of a luxury residential tower. A man about forty-years-old, with a dark face and raven black hair, who sat on the couch with his hand near the phone, stared at the ringing appliance, counting the rings. Once it rang four times, the phone stopped. The man looked at his watch, following the hand showing the seconds. There were forty-five seconds of silence, and then the phone rang again. The man picked up the phone in a quick gesture.

  On the other line, a voice said, “the shopping list was received.”

  The man did not say a word. Only after he placed the receiver down did he allow himself a short sigh of relief.

  The caller did not waste any time. He quickly packed the laptop he used as an offsite server to the central computer, and left the premises. Less than an hour later, in three other apartments in different parts of the city, a specially-made assigned program installed on five high-end desktops started working. It began a concentrated preparation of lottery forms for the big raffle.

  Creating lottery forms through the use of assigned programs was commonplace. It was meant to minimize possibilities in order not to repeat identical series, as well as save the time spent filling the forms in. Regularly, the program would be fed all series of numbers from one to forty-five, from which it would create rows of guesses, six numbers per row. But this was the difference, too. In lieu of choosing series of six numbers from the forty-five available, this program built series of numbers from fifteen numbers only—the same fifteen numbers most gamblers did not choose—while ignoring the other thirty numbers. Obviously, the statistic meaning of guessing six right numbers out of fifteen—a chance of 1 to 5000, in comparison to choosing six numbers out of forty five, where the chance of winning is about 1 to 10 million—has such far-reaching consequences that it is, in fact, a substantial advantage for the gambler versus the organizers of the lottery.

  The computers that prepared the forms built forms with numerous guesses, each of which covered a wide range of possibilities. By building sequential series of these forms, the computers covered more than 95 percent of the winning possibilities—all for a cost lower than a few dozen percent of the prize’s value. Thus, in case of a comprehensive success, the group would have eight million dollars. A nice, round sum, which they planned to use to buy governance…

  Indeed, the three believed that their idea was so brilliant that it would receive a place of honor in the frauds hall of fame—if only such a thing existed.

  4

  Everyone has a small fixation. Something like a hobby or a job that strangers would not understand and friends will accept with no judgment as part of the friendship package. With me it was gambling.

  No, not a gambling addiction. Not something illegal, either. Nothing like that. It was a fixation on the system—or better yet—a way to beat the system. I’m talking about statistics. I’m talking about systematic tracking, meant to give an exact prediction of what would happen. I’m talking about a basic premise saying that the past very much determines the future. You can believe it or not. I do.

  It started eight years ago with a pretty naïve curiosity. Just an idea I had at the time—to write down all the winning numbers in each national raffle of the Millionaires while looking for a common denominator: like numbers that tend to appear more often than others, or numbers with average appearance, or numbers that appear less frequently than others. Things like that. It’s pretty surprising what you can discover if you run through large series of predefined numbers.

  We all know the story about the professor who won against the casino after he noticed that the roulette’s wheel tilted slightly to a certain direction. He simply gambled on that direction, while doubling his winnings. Story goes, he didn’t have to wait long. In average, once in every seven spins one of the numbers from the tilted section came up. It took the casino two days to realize what happened. They wrote him a polite letter saying that his presence is no longer welcome at their casino. PR considerations led them not to use the words they really wanted to use.

  The Millionaires was run—as far as one could determine—as perfectly as possible in all that concerns the game’s credibility and the security arrangements surrounding it. There was never any suspicion that the games were fraudulent. The lottery machine, too, was selected to satisfy the most severe of all critics, down to the air bellows that whirled identical numbered balls in a container, randomly pushing one to the winning numbers tray. This process would recur six times for the winning series, and once more for the consolation number. They had three raffles a week, more than a hundred and fifty a year, and more than twelve hundred lotteries since I started documenting the results, searching for unusual phenomena.

  I had more than 8000 series, chosen from the forty-five predefined numbers. As time went by, I delved into statistical models, the way a true amateur delves into his hobby. I guess at a certain point, I went from amateur to semi-pro. Call it strange, say what you will, I will say that it is hard to argue with facts. And the facts are simple to the point of pain: there definitely are numbers with higher chances of winning than other numbers.

  I do not believe the explanation to this is mystical. Not that I know what it is, but it must be a combination of physics, chaos, and the air mix patterns, which no one really understands. Maybe even the initial condition of the sac of balls thrown into the container. I wouldn’t go past considering the ball color as a factor, as unfounded as it may seem. Still, even all this detailed, analyzed data would not allow me to win the grand prize, even in a million years of attempts. There just isn’t a realistic probability to hit the target six consequent times in six attempts. On the other hand, all this data wasn’t totally useless. According to my models, in 90 percent of the cases I could guess one number right and in 83 percent I could guess two. I even had a decent probability to guess three numbers successively. Moreover, for the past year and a half, my models did not fail even once when guessing two numbers out of six. Some people would call it impressive.

  The millennium raffle was something special and exciting. Ten million dollars—beyond being an immense sum—also promised that those who draw three or four numbers would win nice prizes.

  But I was most excited about this opportunity to test my models. I had almost-certain rows of pairs, and pretty decent rows of triplets. Guessing the fourth number was a reasonable investment. Well, reasonable meaning that I could afford it with the profits this hobby has generated, which were no longer negligible. And if it did, in fact, work, it would be accompanied by a nice sum of money. Guessing five numbers—not to mention six—was only a dream. The models did not account for it.

  ***

  I used to have a different life. I grew up knowing that family is the most important, loftiest value in a man’s life. Believing that, during my senior year in university I married a student from my faculty, with whom I fell in love at first sight. We were in love for three years and then, suddenly it was all over. Shortly afterward we quickly started pulling back, until we found ourselves with a fake feeling of pride, after the final goodbye, looking for a new life with new partners.

  My search did not last long. It was led by the faith—misled, I should say—that instead of marrying as the result of infatuation, one should sustain a loving relationship with another, with whom one seems to have the kind of compatibility that could assure a positive and constructive conjugal bond. And indeed, I found that woman—or she found me, maybe for the exact same reasons—and together we embarked on a jo
urney that would last for many years.

  Only that, like destiny, the urge to fall in love did not release its hold on me, and as soon as my second mission abroad, I met someone who was so clearly my soul mate that it left—at least at first—no room for considerations or doubts. We fell madly in love and at the same moment—even though, as things go, it would take a while for it to become clear—my life took a change of direction that led me to where I am today.

  For nine whole months, like the duration of a pregnancy, I was in love with one woman while sustaining a young family with another. And then, just as a labor cannot be stopped once it started, I also reached the end of my hesitations, which were incredibly hard. Being that I was a man who took his commitments seriously, I decided to renounce my new love and return to my family, forever this time.

  My wife received this renunciation, which injured my beloved who could not overcome her love for me, with forgiveness and a look forward into the future we were about to share. At the time, I was tempted to believe that this kind of forgiveness is possible, but time will tell that it was actually a trial period of forgiveness and that the clock was always ticking, waiting for me to slip.