by Jeff Buick
Halima shook her head. "Not if I buy carrots, raisons and rice as well. You could make some money on that."
He raised a thick eyebrow. His pale blue turban moved with the motion. "And I get to choose how many carrots to give you."
Halima shook her head. "No, I get to choose."
"Then I'll probably lose money on them, too."
"If you're concerned about losing money, then I'll talk to another seller. I need to find someone who has good prices on all his vegetables."
"Why is that?"
"I have US dollars, and I want to buy all my food from one stall."
The man gave her a closer look. "You have dollars? Where did you get them?"
"From my father. He is paid in US dollars."
"How many do you have?" the man asked. The tone in his voice had changed. It was much more serious. The young girl with two sisters in tow was a paying customer.
"More than one," Halima answered.
His eyes softened a touch and he said, "Where is your mother, little girl?"
"Dead."
His head turned slowly on his thick neck, his gaze locked on his youngest customer of the day. "That is a common problem." He leaned forward over the tomatoes. "How many dollars do you have to spend at my stall? If you tell me, I can put together a selection of fruit and vegetables for you. More than you would get if you went to a different merchant."
Halima hesitated. "I need some money for naan."
He nodded. "That's a good point. I will allow for that. Make sure you have some change to take with you to the baker."
"I have two dollars."
"All right," he said. "Let's see what you can buy for two dollars."
Ten minutes of wrangling netted Halima two big bags of food. They were so heavy she could barely lift them. The merchant sent his son, about the same age as Halima, to buy her bread. When he returned, the merchant wrapped it in paper and handed it to Danah.
"What's your name, girl?" he asked as she turned to head home.
"Halima."
"Patience," the vendor said, then added when she looked confused. "That's what your name means. Patience."
She smiled at him, then turned and pushed into the throng of people in the narrow street. The bags were heavy and the weight hurt her shoulders. She couldn't hold Aaqila's hand, and had to keep reminding her youngest sister to grip one of the bags tightly. It would only take a moment to lose her in the congestion. Ten minutes of pushing through the crowd brought them to the edge of the market. They retraced their steps home, Halima growing increasingly worried that someone might try to take their food as the streets grew less busy. A couple of men in their twenties riding a motorcycle slowed down as they passed, then hit the gas and were gone. Halima breathed easier as they turned the corner onto their street.
Above her was the burnt-out shell of mud and brick that kept the rain and sand off them. Some days she hated it - and thought of it as a prison. It kept her from playing with her friends and going to school. Other days, like today, it was a beautiful sight. She climbed the stairs, knowing that her father would be pleased with her. It was a wonderful feeling. The best in the world.
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Chapter
10
Soho, New York City
Nicki knew she had to eat. She was sick, and for a CF'er not eating was pretty much a death sentence. She pushed the plate back and collapsed into the chair.
It was impossible. She couldn't do it.
Nicki rose and walked to the living room on unsteady legs, then sank into the overstuffed chair that looked out over the street three floors below. She stared at the window of Crocs, the shoe store on the corner of Spring and Wooster, and squinted to see if they'd put any new models in the display case. It was hard to tell and she gave up after a couple of minutes. She glanced at her watch. Eleven o'clock on Saturday morning. Carson would be home from the gym soon. And angry at her if she hadn't done her exercises. She corrected that thought. Not angry - disappointed. He was her biggest cheerleader and she could read his emotions when she strayed from the routine leading up to her surgery. Nicki hated letting him down, but the regimen was so extreme.
The thought of having her lungs removed and another person's inserted into her ribcage scared her. To hell with that - it terrified her. Of all the transplant surgeries, lungs were the toughest. But without the surgery, she was on her last legs. Dead within six months. There really wasn't much of a choice.
The lung transplant would grind the disease to a halt. For a while. Since it was genetic, the new lungs would never succumb to the disease. She could live for a number of years, breathing like a normal person, until some complication from the CF finally killed her. But the transplant was a double-edge sword. Following the surgery, she'd be on immunosuppressant drugs forever. Trading one disease for another. The post-transplant crap every CF'er suffered. And they were the lucky ones. She couldn't imagine where she'd be without the transplant.
Getting on the list was tough. Symbiatic, her health care provider, had been honest with her all the way through the process. There were only so many spots. Only so many lungs became available and you had to be one of the sickest to be slotted in. But there was a caveat to that. You had to be sick, yet still stand a good chance of surviving the transplant. She had fallen into that narrow category and been awarded another chance at life. There wasn't a day went by that she didn't give thanks for her good fortune.
Preparing for the transplant was tough. Four hours a day of cardio and weights, which couldn't be considered exhaustive exercises. At least, they wouldn't be exhaustive to most people. To her, they were like running a marathon then pumping a ridiculous amount of iron. Simply thinking about her exercises was tiring her and she reached for her oxygen. She tucked the plastic tubes in her nostrils and pulled the strap tight around the back of her head. She turned on the oxygen flow and almost immediately felt the uplifting effect of the increased O2 to her body. Relying on oxygen bothered her, as did how she looked with tubes sticking out of her nose, but it was a necessary evil.
The door opened and Carson stepped in. He grinned and headed straight over and kissed her on the forehead.
"You look like you've been exercising," he said, sitting beside her on the arm of the chair.
"I tried," she said. She left the oxygen tubes in, despite desperately wanting to pull them out and look nice for him. "I didn't get through the whole thing."
He stroked her hair. "You need to stay strong. We could get the call any day now."
"I'm trying, Carson. It's so hard."
"I know," he said. He slid off the arm and squished his butt onto the chair beside her. She pushed into the faded leather, giving him a bit more room. "You're doing great."
"And how are you doing at work?" she asked. "Mr. High Frequency Trading guy."
"Fantastic," he replied. "Had a meeting yesterday morning. It went really well. The whole team is behind me." He paused, then added, "At least, I think they are."
"Why would you wonder? They either are or they aren't." She brushed an errant hair from his forehead. "You know all these people. You've worked with them almost every day for two years."
"I had to push Alicia Crane a bit and she pushed back."
"Alicia's brilliant," Nicki said. "Every time I see her I'm so impressed. I love talking to her. She seems to know a little bit about a lot of things. Makes for great conversations."
"She's smart, all right," Carson said. "Too smart sometimes."
Nicki pushed back in the chair and gave him one of her looks. "What's going on, you?"
"Nothing. I asked her to streamline the algorithm a bit."
"What's wrong with your algorithm?" Nicki asked
. "You designed it, along with Alicia and Chui."
"We're being gamed. Probably by Goldman Sachs. We need to speed it up by a millisecond or two. I asked her to take a couple of iterations out until we find a better fix."
Nicki stared at him. "How many times have you told me that stripping down the algo threatens its integrity?"
He shrugged. "We're still running the data through five iterations to predict the market direction. It's fine."
"Is it?" she asked.
"Sure," he said.
"Carson, high frequency trading is dangerous. You need to be careful with what you're doing. The last thing the market needs is another meltdown.
"Dangerous is a little harsh, don't you think?"
"No, I don't. The Immediate or Cancel orders you and Goldman and all the other players use are driving the market." She wagged a finger at him. "You're not supposed to be a market-maker. The stocks should find their value based on tangible assets, not the market liquidity you guys inject into the system."
"High frequency trading represents almost 80% of the daily trades on the US markets," Carson countered. "Of course we're market makers. We should be. We drive the market and deliver liquidity."
"Based on what?" Nicki said. "Your computers issue sell orders for small lots until the buyers stop biting, then you cancel and sit back. That's not liquidity, that's driving stocks to their absolute max, maybe beyond. You do that every day with thousands of stocks and the market is overvalued. And the next thing you know...," she looped her hand down in a long arc, "...we have another crash. Remember 1987?"
"You're being a pessimist."
"I'm being a realist. The games you guys play are scary. When they backfire, people get hurt. They lose their life's savings."
"Why are you attacking me?" he asked. "I'm only doing my job."
"Don't use that excuse," she said quietly. "It doesn't fly. If you know what you're doing has the potential to cause harm, then you should back off. Economics shouldn't trump ethics."
His eyes were serious - sad, almost. "But it does, Nicki. You know that."
They sat in silence for a minute, then Nicki touched his arm and said, "I'm not attacking you, Carson. But privilege doesn't come without responsibility."
He managed a smile. "I should never have linked up with another MIT grad. Too smart."
She punched his shoulder. "That's a horrible thing to say. Shame on you."
"Fact is, you are smart," he countered. "It's tough to get away with things. I always get caught."
She grasped his hand and clutched it as tightly as she could. "I don't need to tell you what's right and wrong, Carson. You already know."
He hugged her and they embraced for a full minute. Her body shook with every shallow breath. She was right and he knew it. Stripping down the algorithm was like outfitting a downhill ski racer with faulty equipment. Speed was dangerous, whether it was on the side of any icy mountain or in the CPU of a supercomputer designed to trade on the world's stock exchanges. But if a downhill racer crashed, he only injured himself. If the computer made a grievous error, millions could be hurt.
For a moment, he considered calling Alicia and telling her to back off.
He didn't.
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Chapter
11
Day 6 - 8.01.10 - Morning News
Paris, France
There was no reason for Trey Miller to stay in New York. Paris and Moscow held the key to bringing the Russian down a few notches.
He walked through Charles de Gaulle and hailed a cab outside the airport's main doors. He gave the driver the address for Hotel de Seine in St-Germain-des-Pres, then settled back as Paris flashed past his window. He enjoyed Paris more than any city in the world. The raw beauty of the buildings, the passion of its people, the elegance of the museums and monuments. And most importantly, men and women who operated in the shady world of covert ops. The ghosts who, like him, could appear or disappear at will.
He reset his watch to local time. Ten-eighteen on August 1st. Mid-morning was the best time to arrive to avoid the usual congestion on the roads, but it was Sunday and the volume was light. Traffic was flowing on the Boulevard Peripherique and the signs giving estimated times to off-ramps were dark. The Eiffel Tower poked through the maze of buildings intermittently, and overhead the summer sun warmed the city as it had done for countless centuries. A handful of clouds, white puffballs against a striking blue background, floated lazily on the breeze.
What a wonderful day for a little treachery, he thought.
The cab reached the hotel and he paid the driver and wheeled his lone piece of luggage into the lobby. Like many upscale Paris boutique hotels, it was small but filled with quiet elegance. The main reception desk was paneled wood with a wall mural depicting a jungle scene on the back wall. Miller had always thought that piece of the hotel to be out of sync and wondered why someone didn't notice and change it. He approached the desk, which was attended by a middle-aged man in a freshly pressed suit.
"Reservation for Ambrose. I made it on the Internet yesterday afternoon," he said in fluent French. He placed an American passport with his picture and the name Roger Ambrose on the marble counter. Anonymity started with never letting anyone know who or where you were. He dropped a Platinum VISA card next to the false passport. Same name. Deception worked best when all the details were taken care of.
The clerk smiled. "Yes, it's here. Welcome back, Mr. Ambrose. We've upgraded your room to a suite. Our thanks for staying with us on so many occasions."
"My pleasure," Miller said. "I like your hotel."
What he really liked was the we-could-care-less-who-you-are attitude. Pay the exorbitant rates, tip well and the staff left you alone. He found his room, opened the door and threw his suitcase onto the bed. The hotel provided free wi-fi and he switched on his computer and Googled Details Matter. The website for U2's security provider didn't even make the first page of Google. It was number thirteen. That bothered him more than if it had been number one. Successful companies that preferred to remain in the background were the ones that built their reputations on quality. Clients came looking for them, not the other way around. And if Details Matter was handling the security for U2 while on tour, they were guaranteed to be good at their job.
It took a few minutes of searching to discover the person behind the company. Julie Lindstrom. He read her bio - sketchy - but enough information to tell him that she was American and at some point had been involved with either the CIA or the FBI. She didn't have to come out and say it, he could tell. The more he read, the more he was convinced she was ex-FBI. Warning bells started going off. Lindstrom was a woman who had excelled in the male-dominated world of high-level security. She was not a person to dismiss lightly. He sent a quick e-mail to Fleming before packing up the computer.
Assembling team. P today. M tomorrow. Worried about Lindstrom.
The curtains were open and he checked the view. Across the street was a white stone building, conspicuous in its cleanliness, and below him was Rue de Seine, one of the more famous arteries in the Left Bank. Miller used the hotel phone to call a local number. A woman answered and he set a meeting in ninety minutes at the city's oldest church, a few blocks away. He showered and changed into a clean pair of jeans and a crisp dress shirt that he left untucked. He slipped a set of drawings into a thin leather briefcase, then wandered out into the street and headed for the Cafe des Deux Magots, a favorite hangout of Picasso and Rimbaud. A double espresso and a quick look through the daily newspaper revitalized him and he set out through the heavy pedestrian traffic at a brisk pace for St-Germain-des-Pres.
Trey loved the church. It was a Romanesque marvel, rising harshly over the brasseries and c
afes that littered the square and the web of narrow streets that spun off in all directions. It had stood since the 11th century, destroyed and rebuilt more times than the history books could record. He reached the base of the buttresses that supported the bell tower and opened the door. Inside, the church was dimly lit and quiet, a world apart from the busy street scene. The Sunday service was over and only a handful of stragglers remained, lighting candles and sitting silently in the empty pews. Trey recognized her hair from the back and made his way up the left-side aisle to where she sat, facing the chancel.
"You're early," he whispered, sitting next to her.
"A church on Sunday morning," she answered. "Really inconspicuous. Brilliant place to meet." Her voice was laced with sarcasm. Maelle Robichaud was mid-thirties and kept herself well toned. Her deep-brown shoulder-length hair matched her eyes, and her skin was unblemished and tanned. Her face was lean and nicely proportioned, but not pretty. There was a tinge of hardness to her eyes and her movements that made most men wary.
"I forgot it was Sunday," he said easily. He shrugged. "Whoops."
"It's over a year since the last time we met," she said. "How have you been?"
"Very well. Better than that, actually. Fantastic."
Maelle raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, or are you simply trying to impress me?"
"Serious. But impressing you is probably a good idea." He let his eyes roam over her body. "You want to have sex?"
She shook her head. "Well, it's nice to see that you haven't changed." He was the same Trey Miller who spent two decades globe-trotting on a CIA expense account.
"See, stability counts," he said. "What about my question?"
She hesitated, then said, "Maybe. If you're a good boy. And if I like whatever job you have on the go."
He grinned. "I think you'll like this one." He pulled the drawings out of his briefcase and handed one set to her. "U2 is playing Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow on August 25th."