by Ayad Akhtar
Pause.
NICK: I’m going to need things. Access to information. To markets.
IMAM SALEEM: Bashir has been looking into that. Very diligently, you will be happy to hear.
BASHIR: Can all be arranged. Through a good laptop.
IMAM SALEEM: You won’t be allowed within a meter of any computer.
NICK: Fine…
(Beat)
No more handcuffs.
IMAM SALEEM: That is at Bashir’s discretion.
NICK: Not acceptable. My hands need to be free. I need to be reading, making notes. I cannot work with these. They hurt.
BASHIR: Fine.
(Beat)
You get any fucking ideas? They’ll be back on your wrists right quick.
Beat.
IMAM SALEEM (To Nick): You are certain you can get the three million?
NICK: There’s a way. Through my personal accounts in Grand Cayman.
Pause.
IMAM SALEEM: Then it’s settled. We keep you alive. We treat you well. Bashir learns what he can. You make your ransom. We let you go.
Beat.
NICK: What’s my assurance?
IMAM SALEEM: My word is your assurance.
NICK: Your word?
What happens when you don’t like me anymore? Or when you start having problems with Lashkar again?
IMAM SALEEM: Lashkar?
NICK: Bashir told me—
IMAM SALEEM (Cutting him off): We are not Lashkar. We have nothing to do with Lashkar. I don’t want to hear that name. They call themselves Muslims. They’re animals.
NICK: Understood.
Pause.
IMAM SALEEM: When I was younger, I spent some time in Trenton, New Jersey. Not far from where you went to school. Princeton, right? Don’t be so surprised. We should know some things about you by now.
So much struck me about your country. The poverty. Which I did not expect. And the fat people. But what I found truly amazing was the lawyers. Nothing happens in your country without a lawyer. No trust. In yourselves. In each other. No conduct of life a man will not break. That’s what it means to be American, isn’t it? Nobody’s word means anything.
Beat.
NICK: Sir, I used to read about what people in my country were doing to the Koran in Guantanamo? It disgusted me. That’s wrong. Don’t abuse what’s sacred to someone.
BASHIR: What’s your point?
IMAM SALEEM: No, I understand…
(Beat)
So tell me, Mr. Bright, what’s sacred to you? Is it the lawyers? Or the fat people?
Lights Out.
Act One: Scene Four
That night.
The room is dark except for the sharp streak of silver moonlight coming through the single barred window.
Nick lies on the cot, still.
Beat. He sits up in bed.
Quietly, Nick heads for the door downstage right and—getting there—kneels, his ear to the lock.
He listens for a long beat.
(We may or may not hear the faint sound of snoring wafting through the door from the hall on the other side.)
Nick looks satisfied as he stands and now heads for the window upstage center. On his way, he quietly scoops up a chair from its place at the table center stage.
Placing the chair silently against the far wall, he stands on it and peers out the window.
Nothing there. Only the faint sounds of insects at night.
Now Nick heads for his cot, carefully pushing it out of the way to expose the wall and make room for himself…
… as he pulls out the nail cutter…
… kneels and begins picking away at the mortar between the bricks in the wall behind where the cot stood.
We listen to the soft scratching sounds and watch him work.
Lights Out.
Act One: Scene Five
Three days later.
The same room.
Now center stage is taken up by two tables. Both covered with newspapers, financial magazines, papers written on, etc.
At one table, Nick sits buried in the papers. And in printouts.
At the other table, Bashir is in the process of fiddling with a laptop. Loading software and installing.
Throughout the scene, we should barely register the intermittent distant buzz discussed earlier.
NICK: What about Jalalabad Concrete?
BASHIR: Not sure.
NICK: But he was sure about Srinagar Industries?
BASHIR: Imam said that’s for sure.
NICK: But see, Jalalabad has the same history of price spikes whenever there’s good political news for President Randani.
BASHIR: So it’s prolly his. Wouldn’t be surprised. Mr. Thirty Percent.
NICK: Ten. Don’t they call him Mr. Ten Percent?
BASHIR: That was before he was president. Now? He takes as much as he wants. Greedy fuck’s what he is. And a midget. Chota. That’s what they call him.
NICK: Chota?
BASHIR: It means small. Which he is. Prolly more ways than one.
NICK: You know I’ve met him a few times.
BASHIR: Randani?
NICK: It’s true. He’s smaller than you’d expect.
BASHIR: Don’t say it to his face. The man’s a fuckin’ sadist.
NICK: Has always seemed nice enough to me.
BASHIR: Nice?
NICK: I mean…
BASHIR: My uncle? Owned a petrol pump in Islamabad. He was a good man with a family. Making an honest living. As honest as you can around these parts.
One day, a black limousine stops for petrol…
Randani gets out. Looks around. Bastard goes inside, very nice, very charming. Shakes my uncle’s hand. Takes off. Two days later, some of his men show up. Turns out Mr. Asif Randani would like to buy the station.
And not for the going market rate, if you get what I’m saying…
NICK: What happened?
BASHIR: My uncle sold it.… After he lost two fingernails on his right hand.
NICK: Jesus.
BASHIR: That’s how nice he is.
NICK: Well, says here President Randani’s day is coming.
BASHIR: So what if it does?
NICK: If Randani is indicted, his net worth is going to take a major hit. The companies he owns will, too.
BASHIR: So what?
NICK: That’s information we can use to make money. See, trading’s about having an edge. Knowing something, understanding something that others haven’t figured out yet.
BASHIR: An edge?
NICK: Yeah.
BASHIR: But you’re reading about that in the newspaper, right?
NICK: What’s your point?
BASHIR: So you’re not the only one who knows it, right?
NICK: Yeah…
BASHIR: So where’s the edge?
Beat.
Nick ignores the question. Noting the distant buzzing sound.
NICK: What is that sound? I always hear that…
BASHIR: Drones. Americans keeping their eye on Lashkar.
NICK: Really?
BASHIR (Ignoring the question): Fuckin’ nightmare with those things flying around. Everybody’s always running for cover. You never know what they’re going to hit.
NICK: Those are drones?
BASHIR: Yeah.
NICK: I haven’t heard any explosions.
BASHIR: Then you’re not listening.
Beat.
NICK: So you’re saying the imam confirmed Srinagar as a definite yes.
BASHIR: And Buttee Holding Company. Don’t forget that one.
NICK: Right. Buttee.
BASHIR: Imam Saleem said everybody knows President Randani owns that.
NICK: And Asmaan Textile Group. Okay. So with Jalalabad, that makes four companies. Let’s start with that.
(Beat)
Can you log into the exchange yet?
BASHIR: Still waiting on that approval to go through. Waiting on calls and something or other.
NICK: Puts.
BASHIR: That’s right. Puts. What are those?
NICK: Remember options to buy?
BASHIR: Yeah.
NICK: Puts are options to sell.
BASHIR (Perplexed): Okay…
NICK: Look, just type those companies’ names and the words “options chains” into Google. Print that out.
BASHIR: I don’t get it.
NICK: Get what?
BASHIR: Why’d you be buying that stuff if you reckon they’re gonna go down in price?
NICK: We’re going to short those companies. Bet against them. It’s how you make money off a stock that’s dropping.
BASHIR: Shorting?
NICK: Yeah.
BASHIR: How do you do it?
NICK: It’s kind of complicated.
BASHIR: Okay…
NICK: Little too complicated to explain right now…
BASHIR: Sort of your job, innit?
NICK: My job is to make money. You’ll learn whatever you learn by watching. That’s how I learned.
BASHIR: Right.
NICK: What?
BASHIR: You’re all the same.
NICK: What are you talking about?
BASHIR: You always think you’re better than everyone else.
NICK: I always think—
BASHIR (Over, continuing): It’s true.
You look down on me because of what I’m doing. Here. At least that’s what you think. But in fact, that’s not it. Not even. ’Cause the thing is? Wouldn’t be any different if I was back in London driving around in some black Beemer in my Dolce Gabbanas, chasing after white girls like my schoolmates. You’d look down on me then, too, just in a different way.
NICK: I think you’re calling me a racist.
BASHIR: I think you’re right.
(Beat)
Where I grew up? Hounslow? It’s a slum, really. Where they stuck all of us. My father? Spent his whole life being stepped on, spit on by white people. Selling ’em knickknacks, and thank you, sir, and thank you, ma’am, can I have another? I wasn’t going in for a life like that.
(Beat)
Something I was good at in school? History. Though you probably don’t believe that, neither.
NICK: I never said I didn’t—
BASHIR (Over): Thing is, I remember this unit we had about European history. The Spanish Civil War. All these young men from different countries running off to give their lives to fight the dictator, Franco. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what a whole generation of us’re doing. Giving up soft lives in the West to fight for something meaningful.
NICK: Uh-huh.
BASHIR: See, the system’s pants. There’s no use working inside it. We gotta change the system. We gotta take it to the Man. Bring him to the ground and stomp his heart out. And you know what? If people gotta die in the process, so be it.
NICK: This? Is not helpful.
BASHIR: Of course it isn’t helpful. It’s nothing you like hearing, so it isn’t helpful.
NICK: You done?
BASHIR: D’you know Ronald Reagan had the Taliban to the White House when he was president? He called ’em the moral equivalent of your founding fathers.
NICK: I doubt that.
BASHIR: No, he did. I’ll show you. It’s on YouTube.
NICK: Actually, I’d rather you pull up the options chains for the companies we’re talking about.
Beat.
BASHIR: For what? For your shit idea that everybody else already knows about?
NICK: Do you have a better one?
BASHIR: You looking for an edge?
NICK: Yeah.
BASHIR: Information that no one else’s got?
NICK: You have it?
BASHIR: Your best mate, Bilal Ansoor?—
NICK: He’s not my best friend—
BASHIR (Over): Gonna be meeting his maker in two days.
NICK: Excuse me?
BASHIR: Bilal Ansoor. Minister of Water and Energy. Gonna be hit. Lashkar’s got a bombing planned day after tomorrow.
NICK: You know this? For sure?
BASHIR: Imam Saleem’s not the only one who thinks privatizing water is not in the people’s interest.
Beat.
NICK: We need to get to work.
(Crumpling up the list)
We’re gonna need a new list.
Lights Out.
Act One: Scene Six
Two days later.
Bashir sits at the table, the laptop open. Eager.
Nick paces behind him. Agitated.
NICK: What time is it?
BASHIR: Ten past three.
NICK: Why hasn’t it hit the news yet?
Bashir refreshes the screen. And again.
NICK (CONT’D): Now?
BASHIR: Not yet.
NICK: You have the trading screen open?
BASHIR: Yes.
NICK: All five companies listed?
BASHIR: Look for yourself.
Nick peers in over Bashir’s shoulder.
NICK: Good.
(Scanning)
Jaan Subsidiaries.
Paani Filter Technologies.
First Wave Ltd.
Gwadar De-Sal.
What about Kaghan Pure? Where’s that?
BASHIR: Right in front of you. KPOXX.
NICK: Oh, right.
Nick steps away. Pacing.
BASHIR: What’s gotten into you?
NICK: I’m fine.
Okay. Good. So those are the water concerns I know Bilal Ansoor had major ownership stakes in. I don’t know if they’re all exposed the same way. And he’s probably got more. But that should get us somewhere.
BASHIR: So what are you worried about?
NICK: It’s a fucking huge position. Two and a half million on a bunch of crappy options.
BASHIR: What’s the risk? If nothing happens—
NICK (Coming in): Cost of the transaction? On a two-and-a-half-million-dollar position? Significant. And that’s if nothing happens. If for some reason prices don’t drop but rise? We lose serious money.
Beat.
BASHIR (Perking up): Okay. There it is. Pakistan Times. Breaking news. Suicide bombing in Karachi. Omni Hotel. Yep, yep. At least fifty injured. Water minister Bilal Ansoor reported dead.
NICK: Okay.
BASHIR: What now?
NICK: Just wait. See what happens.
BASHIR: Nothing.
NICK: Just keep waiting.
BASHIR: Not a thing.
Pause.
NICK: Those are real-time quotes, right?
BASHIR: You know they are.
NICK: Actually, I don’t. I didn’t set it up.
BASHIR: They’re real-time.
(Suddenly)
Right, here we go. Jaan and Paani down. Jaan three, four and a quarter. Paani down two and a half. Two. Two and a half. Four. Wow. Christ, Nick. Just like that. Went down seven.
NICK: Right.
BASHIR: Kaghan, First Wave not moving. But… Gwadar De-Sal… down… wait a second… thirteen rupees.
NICK: Okay, it’s not a lot, but they’re moving together. Just keep watching.
BASHIR: First Wave starting to move down. Four rupees. Six. Six and a half. Ten. Kaghan moving, too.
NICK: What’s the rest of the market doing?
BASHIR: Not much.
NICK: How’s volume?
BASHIR: Where’s that?
NICK: The last column.
BASHIR: That one?
NICK (Approaching the computer): Right. Good.
They’re pouring in. Buyers are coming in.
BASHIR: Kaghan down fifteen to two twenty-five. Paani down twenty-four! Jaan down forty-three rupees. Jesus. They’re moving, Nick! They’re moving!
NICK: Yeah, it’s picking up now.
BASHIR (Excited): What do I do?
NICK: Nothing. Just wait. Stay calm. Making money can get intoxicating. You have to stay sober. Bad things happen when you’re not thinking straight.
&n
bsp; BASHIR: Everything down. Dropping.