One-On-One

by Philip Spires

  I watched as his pattern of work was repeated. Everything he needed seemed to be within the pages of a solitary notebook he kept on his desk. He wrote very little, no more than a few lines each hour, and most of those seemed to be crossed out later. Most of his time was spent reviewing material from earlier in the book.

  Christine, meanwhile, continued with her own planning. It was all make believe, of course, since we had already identified the general thrust of each of her interviews, before she left. When eventually Cartwright emerged from his room to announce that he needed a break, I expected their conversation to start again. But Cartwright merely jumped into the sea and swam. A few minutes later he was back in his office, at work.

  Cartwright and Christine hardly interacted. He busied himself at the cooker on the back balcony while she reviewed her notes and wrote new ones. After another hour or so, it was clear that Christine was starting to get worried. She had by now been on Cartwright’s island for a full day and thus far had made no progress whatsoever. She did not even yet have an agreement that he would give an interview. She had clearly decided it was time to act and so she tore the page on which she had been making notes from her reporter’s pad and delivered it to Cartwright. He spoke first. “I got some dried shrimps. A curry ... okay?”

  She nodded. “Here are the areas I want to cover in our first interview. How about this afternoon?” He assented with neither a sound nor a nod. “We’ll have to set up on that side of the house, on the balcony, in full sun to get the best of the light.”

  “Then we should leave it until after five. We can’t sit in the sun earlier than that without some shade.”

  This was the sum total of their interaction until mid-afternoon. Cartwright took another short swim, showered off and then disappeared again into his office. He reappeared a few times during the afternoon, once or twice to stir his curry and then, once more on the front balcony, he sought Christine to tell her that she could eat whenever she wanted. “I’ll wait,” he said and disappeared again until after four. In the end he did not eat.

  During the afternoon, Christine experimented with the placement of chairs on the side balcony. They had to face the sunset and they had to leave enough room for her cameras. Equally, they had to allow angles where the subjects did not have the sun directly in their eyes. She did several tests to check picture quality, sound and angles. The technique was one we had used before, where we formed the interview from two cameras running simultaneously. Later it would be possible to inter-cut a final edited version and then insert continuity shots taken afterwards. The interaction suggested by the edits was not wholly artificial, of course. Just an occasional shot of the surroundings would provide visual punctuation. By four o’clock, she was as ready as she was going to be. She then sat with a plate of rice and prawn curry to await Cartwright’s reappearance from his office.

  He was carrying the paper she had given to him earlier. I knew, though Christine did not, that he had done no work during that last visit to his office and had spent all his time reading and re-reading Christine’s list of draft questions. Christine was clearly expecting a set of queries on the content, but instead he offered nothing verbal as he returned the paper to her.

  “The curry was superb,” she said. “Aren’t you having any?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll fry it up in the morning.”

  Christine nodded back towards the side balcony. “I’ve set up over there.” She paused but he did not react. “When could we have a go at the first interview?”

  Cartwright seemed surprised. “I thought you had set everything up...”

  “So you want to do it now...right now?”

  He nodded. And with that they took their places at the side of the house. She explained a little about the process and asked if he had any more questions. He did not reply. She assumed, therefore, that she could start the cameras and then begin her interview. I will record nothing of the process here, because the transcript will be available later. Cartwright, clearly, had prepared.

  One-On-One

  Christine Gardiner on Haji Salleh Abdullah (Thomas Cartwright)

  Programme one of three

  Awaiting transmission

  Final text

  [Standard title sequence and credits; cut to specific caption for this edition, as above; fade to continuity shot of host and subject sitting in bamboo chairs, host on the right, subject left; both two-thirds facing the camera but looking at each other; host holds clipboard and pen; cut to host full face for introduction]

  C Hello and welcome to a special edition of One-On-One, the programme that examines contemporary issues with those directly involved. In this first programme of a One-On-One special, a trilogy, in fact, we meet Tom Cartwright, or Haji Salleh Abdullah, as he now prefers to be known. Haji Abdullah has hit the news in the last year after he emerged from nowhere to become the world’s richest man, number one on the list. What is so interesting about Haji Abdullah’s wealth is that it has been amassed solely via trading on international markets. Two years ago, Haji Abdullah was just another retired academic. And today he is top of the tree. He has been described as either the luckiest man in the world, or the trickiest. And Haji Abdullah, as you may know, has thus far declined to give any interviews, has published no articles, has shunned radio and the internet alike, and, until now, has refused all requests to appear on television. But One-On-One has managed to persuade this reluctant, reclusive billionaire to speak and so here we are in Haji Abdullah’s remarkably simple and isolated home for the first of three programmes, where I intend to find out how he has engineered his quite remarkable fortune and his incredible rise to fame. So Haji Abdullah, which is it, luckiest or trickiest?

  T Neither. [pauses and smiles impatiently] And, for the record, I have also given up beating my wife.

  C [laughs] We will come to that later, if we may... I must press you to answer. Let me quote from the Wall Street Journal. Last April they ran an interview with Lindon Barnes - himself the owner and administrator of a leading hedge fund for decades, so he speaks with both authority and experience - they quoted Lindon Barnes as saying, “What Cartwright has done has been incredible, and I use that word literally. To have risen from a few thousand dollars to billions in a year means he is either the luckiest man alive or, more likely, the trickiest. Perhaps he has routine access to information that is denied the rest of us.” Can I ask again, Haji Abdullah, are you luckiest or trickiest?

  T Why do you keep blaming my father?

  C [pauses] I don’t understand...

  T My name is Salleh, not Abdullah. If I had been born a Muslim, then Abdullah would be my father’s name. I would be Salleh, son of Abdullah. Since I am a convert to Islam, I have taken the name of Abdullah ibn Salim as my father’s name, as is usual in this part of the world. Really, you should call me Haji Salleh bin Abdullah Trevor, in honour of my own father, but it does sound a tad incongruous. I usually leave off the Trevor, since I reckon my dad probably wouldn’t have altogether appreciated the association. But Abdullah is not a surname, it’s a father’s name, so thus far in the interview, you have addressed my father, and not me. If you ask me, I may condescend to answer. My father, unfortunately, cannot be here to contribute on his own behalf.

  C How about I just call you Tom?

  T Haji Salleh will do, since it’s my name.

  C All right, I’ll do as you ask, or we will go nowhere in the half an hour. [impatiently] Haji Salleh it is. So I will ask you again, Haji Salleh, are you the luckiest or trickiest man alive?

  T [pauses and smiles] I recommend you review the framework of your question. There may be other possibilities.

  C Such as?

  T [pauses] The brightest?

  C So, in all humility, you claim to be the brightest man alive?

  T I have been successfully led up the garden path you laid with your superlati
ves. Let’s compromise and say one of the brightest.

  C I want to pressure you on these two words, luckiest or trickiest, if I may. What role - if any - has good fortune, Lady Luck, if you like, played in your commercial success?

  T [sighing and dismissive] It’s self-evident - and a platitude - that I could have achieved nothing without luck. For instance, there are thunder storms around here every day. It’s probably pure chance that one of their lightning bolts has never hit my house, so without my share of luck I would not even be sitting here with you. For heaven’s sake, Christine, this applies to the two of us - both of us - in particular. [raised voice]

  C [dismissive gesture with pen, prodded in direction of interviewee, hand raised from clipboard on her lap] We will leave all of that until a later programme, if we may...

  T [interrupts] So without luck I would have achieved nothing...

  C [interrupts] But my question asks about any specific role luck has played in the amassing of your fortune. Is your trading success just down to luck?

  T Not at all. But without luck, there would have been no trading.

  C So let’s finally be clear. Your trading success is not just a result of your repeatedly getting lucky?

  T Accepted.

  C Well we got there in the end! [smiles dismissively and impatiently] Now let’s examine the tricky option. Have you achieved your position by being tricky?

  T [hesitates] Tricks. Magic tricks. [hesitates] There’s no magic in the universe, only mechanisms.

  C [interrupts] Before you obfuscate again, you know what Lindon Barnes was referring to. You know he was talking about insider information and the like. You understand, of course, why I have to pursue this? There have been accusations that you have used insider knowledge, and insider trading, we know, is illegal...

  T [laughs] I do think you need again to reconsider the entire framework of your question. It may be the style of the Western media to presume an editorial position and then embed it in the viewers’ consciousness by repeatedly hammering it in, despite its denial and contradiction, but that does not make the position either credible or correct. You can repeat ‘insider trading’ as much as you like, but it is self-evident rubbish.

  C Why self-evident? Should not the burden of proof be upon you to disprove the allegations?

  T Absolutely not. They are not based on evidence. I could claim that my decisions are always based on divinations from the happenstance angle between the balls of slaughtered tomcats, if it would make you happy and create good copy. But there is no factual basis for that either.

  C The allegations come from people such as Lindon Barnes, and he should know what he is talking about.

  T Do me a favour, Christine. [gestures with both hands] It is not credible. Insider trading almost inevitably applies to single deals. There’s a takeover brewing, for example, or a move to refinance via the market, a boardroom putsch perhaps - but always inside one organisation or corporation, a sector at the most. Before the information becomes public, there’s an opportunity for someone in the know to place deals one way or the other before the change takes place. But, I repeat, the opportunity comes about as a result of a specific, single, unpublished event. Now my company makes many trades every day. They vary from a few tens to thousands each day, and every one deals in a highly traded equity, commodity or currency on one of the world’s major markets. Do you think I have insiders everywhere, in every company boardroom? And do you think that such opportunities come falling out of the sky every minute of every day? Christine, if I did not know you well, I would have described your line of questioning as inane.

  C [angrily] Thank you...

  T Nothing personal...

  C But the comment was made by Lindon Barnes. He’s been a top player in world finance for twenty-five years...

  T [interrupts] Chris...

  C I would prefer Christine, if you don’t mind.

  T Touché. [there is a short pause and a smile] I am not about to divulge anything about how I make my money, but rest assured I give nothing away if I say that Lindon Barnes, despite his excellent track record and years of beating markets, is simply not in my league. What I do is fundamentally different from anything that Lindon Barnes understands. That renders his comments at best irrelevant and at worst libellous. They are not just wide of the mark: the mark is not even in sight.

  C He has merely commented that he does not trust your methods.

  T He doesn’t understand my methods.

  C Who does?

  T I do.

  C And you alone?

  T Precisely.

  C How many people are there in your company? How many people do you employ?

  T I employ no-one. I do everything myself.

  C But, Haji Salleh, with due respect, that is simply impossible. You have just said that your company can carry out thousands of trades a day. You can’t possibly make them all yourself. You surely need people to press buttons on your behalf?

  T I can’t make them myself? That is quite true. In fact, I don’t place any of the trades. And you know that already. My systems are completely automated. I don’t even intervene. And you know that already as well. Why are you pursuing this line of questioning? Are you trying to demonise, by any chance?

  C What I know and what I understand are quite separate things. You are correct. I did already know that all of your trades are carried out automatically. That much we do know. But, like everyone else, I don’t know how they are carried out.

  T Yes you do. The trades are all online, through personal computers.

  C And it’s all automated?

  T That is part of my system, a crucial part. If the system were not automated, it would not work. Human intervention would reduce it to what other humans already achieve, being inconsistency and mediocrity.

  C But you do not trade via your own computers, and that’s the point. Your business seems to be conducted, as far as we know, via the computers of perfectly innocent people, without even their knowledge.

  T My system hunts around for spare machine time, that’s all.

  C ...and then takes it without the person’s knowledge...

  T They don’t even notice.

  C Haji Salleh, I put it to you that you are stealing people’s computer time. One case that came to light recently showed that a child using a games console had, and completely unbeknown to him, initiated and then confirmed the sale of several million dollars worth of mining shares, and all in the space of a few seconds. And these transactions, as far as the recipient of the instructions was concerned, appeared to have been initiated by your company and your account was credited with the proceeds. You made three million dollars on the deal, as far as we can tell, of course, and all from a private games console, without even interrupting the teenager’s fun. How on earth is it done? And doesn’t the teenager deserve a share of the profits?

  T I can’t answer a specific question like that because I did not initiate the deal.

  C But it was made on your behalf.

  T I don’t deny that, but I did not initiate it.

  C Then who did? A twelve year old communing via the internet with his fellow gamers?

  T No-one initiated the deal.

  C So it just happened?

  T In essence, yes.

  [There is silence for approximately eight seconds. The final edit cuts between Christine Grainger and Thomas Cartwright. Neither speaks until...]

  C [mumbles, looks down at notes]

  T You are so far away from the mark, so far from grasping even the concept of what is going on, that it makes it impossible for me even to engage in the discussion. You simply do not have the knowledge to be specific or the context within which you might frame something sensible. You can’t ask any question that would elicit anything useful about my method
s, because the system is utterly unlike anything previously devised and thus it is beyond your comprehension.

  C And you don’t feel like volunteering the detail?

  T Spot on this time.

  C Is there nothing you can say by way of explanation? Because if there isn’t, you will surely accept that someone is going to accuse you of criminal behaviour...

  T Criminal? Isn’t that a bit of a jump from where we were? What on earth might I have done that could possibly be seen as criminal?

  C Invaded someone’s privacy, stolen computer time, exploited a twelve year old with a games console...

  T That’s about as close to rank nonsense as any professional can get.

  C With respect, it’s far from nonsense. These are issues that concern everyone...

  T [interrupts] If people are concerned about their computer time being used, then why do they use browsers that collect and transmit details of their internet use? Why do they allow ads to be displayed on their screens? Certainly in these two cases, there is computer time being used without the express permission of the user. My systems do no more than this and, compared to ads, they take up less time, use fewer resources and pose less of a threat to the user’s experience or privacy, for that matter.

  C But they still do things without permission...

  T Here we go with the editorial line again. Why don’t you say it again? Go on, repeat it...

  C I merely want to get at the truth. [pauses]

  T Have you ever heard of a mask?