Rigged

by Ben Mezrich

  Khaled gravitated toward one of the photos on his desk, one of David Russo in an Oxford crew sweatshirt that, like most of the other photos, Khaled had pulled off the Internet. Originally, it had been printed in the Oxford school newspaper, after Russo’s crew team won some long-forgotten race.

  Russo was grinning in the picture, his square jaw and wavy brown hair having captured the attention of the photographer as much as the expression of pure joy on his face. Looking at the picture, Khaled was reminded of a story from his second year at Cambridge about an American from Oxford who had punched out the captain of the Cambridge crew after a particularly nasty race. Khaled had no doubt he was looking at the same American; he could see it in his eyes, the competitive heat, the determination. This kid was a fighter.

  And he was also smart. Over the past twenty-four hours, Khaled had been both surprised and impressed by how fast Russo had caught on to what Dubai was all about. He’d understood, almost instinctively, what Khaled was hoping to achieve by bringing an exchange to the Middle East: Dubai would benefit in so many ways by being a part of the pricing of oil—and the entire region would move forward in the wake of such a venture. When Russo had first told Khaled about his father and the emotional injuries he’d sustained on 9/11, he hadn’t been searching for sympathy; he had been letting Khaled know that the obstacles they would face had nothing to do with money. The obstacles they would have to overcome had to do with people, beliefs, ideas, and emotions.

  Khaled felt his hands ball into fists. Of all the projects he’d been pitched since coming to Dubai, only the exchange took aim at truly making Dubai the representative of a new, worldly Middle East. The very obstacles he and Russo would face— people, beliefs, ideas, and emotions—were the things that needed to change if Islam and the West were ever to truly become two parts of a whole.

  David Russo understood, and he was a fighter—but he was also young, and he didn’t have a billionaire sheik as an uncle. By his bloodline, Khaled had the ear of the minister of finance and enormous resources at his fingertips. David Russo would be fighting his side of the battle on his own. And though David had not been specific, he had said that there were powers at the Merc who would certainly try to stand in his way.

  Khaled paused for a moment, letting the vibrations of the guitar strings clear a path for his thoughts. Then he reached for his phone.

  It took him a full ten seconds to dial the fifteen digits from memory; the call was now encrypted, as secure as modern technology allowed. After a series of metallic clicks, Khaled heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line:

  “Khaled, this is indeed unexpected. You’ve caught me with my pants down—quite literally. I was about to change into a wet suit because your uncle has decided to go for a swim.”

  Khaled smiled, trying to picture the sheik’s enormous Lebanese bodyguard in a bathing suit. Agha must have been quite a sight, his bulging muscles rippling beneath the overstretched rubber. Among other things, Ali Agha was an expert diver; before the sheik went in the water, Agha always surveyed what would be swimming beneath him. Agha was thoroughly professional— which was exactly what Khaled needed.

  “I’m glad to hear my uncle is out enjoying the sun,” Khaled responded.

  “We’re off the coast of Corsica at the moment. The girls are taking turns waterskiing off your uncle’s new cigarette boat. It’s quite a scene.”

  This Khaled chose not to picture. He paused, collecting his thoughts, then spoke quietly into the phone.

  “Ali, I have a favor to ask.”

  “Anything, young sir.”

  Khaled quickly told Agha what he needed—down to the very last detail. If Agha was surprised by the request—and most certainly he had to be, since Khaled had never asked him for anything like this before—he did not let it show in his voice.

  “I can put together a team,” Agha finally responded. “With your uncle’s approval, of course. It shouldn’t be too difficult, from what you’ve described.”

  Khaled nodded. He was not concerned about his uncle’s approval; his uncle would understand, since the project was exactly the sort of thing he was born to support. Khaled was much more concerned that the favor he was requesting be executed with the utmost discretion.

  “I will personally get involved,” Agha continued, putting Khaled at ease. “If your uncle approves, I can even go to New York myself.”

  “Thank you, Ali,” Khaled said, completely confident in Agha’s professionalism. “I doubt that will be necessary, but thank you. I will send you all the information I have right away.”

  After more pleasantries were exchanged, Khaled hung up the phone and began to gather the photos and notes from across his desk. He’d messenger the entire package to Agha—and then the thing would be put into motion. Khaled had no doubt that the Lebanese bodyguard was entirely up to the task.

  David Russo would still be fighting the battle on his own, but if the battle turned ugly, Khaled—and Agha’s team of professionals—would do what was necessary to help out.

  Chapter 29

  January 15, 2003

  You have three minutes. Don’t embarrass yourself.”

  It wasn’t exactly Caesar inspiring his troops to battle, but David took what he could get. He tried to hide the fact that his hands were shaking as he moved toward the front of the boardroom, clutching a bound copy of his proposal against his chest. He could see that Harriet had already done a thorough job of circulating the proposal to all of the board members; he counted at least twenty bound copies on the table, interspersed between plates of half-eaten bagels and steaming Styrofoam cups of coffee. Although the proposals had been handed out earlier in the day, David could tell from the bindings on the copies on the table that very few had yet been disturbed; hopefully, after he spoke, that would change. He had put a whole lot of sweat into those pages.

  Two hundred pages to be exact. David could see, as he reached the front of the room, that many of the board members were eyeing the bound tomes with a mixture of awe and fear—not unlike what David would have expected if he had shown up at the board meeting with a box full of poisonous snakes. He knew he was taking a risk with the massive compilations; most presentations to the board ran less than ten pages. But David had always been thorough. And considering how controversial his proposal was, he could not have approached the task half-assed.

  The two-hundred-page manuscript represented nothing less than the past two months of David’s life: fifteen-hour days, seven days a week. Some of that time had been spent in the Merc library, compiling economic graphs and predictive matrixes, using information that already existed. Some of that time had been spent on the phone with Khaled, who had been an invaluable source of knowledge on everything to do with the Middle East, oil production, and the like. Some of that time had been spent agonizing over the plan itself: What steps did he need to take to convince the board to let him at least feel such a project out? How could he convince these men who’d grown up thinking one thing about the Arab world that a partnership could indeed work, that the Merc could benefit by taking such a huge first plunge into such unknown waters? And some of that time, unfortunately, had been spent arguing with Serena about the direction their relationship was taking—and about when David might turn back into the human being she had fallen in love with back in Boston. He had tried to explain that if he had gone into investment banking or consulting he’d have kept much the same hours, but that hardly changed the fact that their happy relationship was one of the temporary sacrifices he had chosen to make in his quest to bring this project to the board.

  That Reston was even letting him make the presentation was a sign of David’s perseverance. When he had first returned from Dubai and told Reston about the idea, the Texan had reacted with pure skepticism. An exchange in the Middle East? What were they going to trade, camel contracts? And who was going to do the trading? Some nut job in a turban spinning a scimitar over his head?

  It had taken David about a week to convinc
e Reston that he was serious; at the same time, he had been convincing himself, letting Reston represent his own inner reservations at following through with what he’d decided in Dubai. By the end of the week, he had convinced himself that the project had immense merit, that Dubai was the next big thing, and that they’d be crazy not to jump at this opportunity. Reston hadn’t acquiesced so easily: he’d conceded that the Merc could make a fortune by partnering with Dubai and launching new oil contracts that wouldn’t compete with what was being traded in New York but instead would bolster trade in both places. And he’d understood that, as in New York, the Merc would get a cut from every trade, buy, or sell. Reston had also instinctively understood how Khaled had been able to convince his own people to attempt the project: Dubai would benefit by becoming the most important energy player in the entire Eastern world. It would thrust the entire region forward, forging relationships with every aspect of the global financial market. In short, Reston had seen that, on paper, purely from a financial and strategic perspective, the idea was entirely win-win—but in reality, in Reston’s words, that didn’t mean shit. Because the reality was, no matter how much money the Merc could make, no matter how wonderful it would be to play nice with the Arab world, selling this idea to the board and to the worldwide energy community was going to take more than chutzpah. It was going to take an act of God.

  “You don’t have a shot in hell,” Reston had finally conceded. “But I’ll give you a forum at the first board meeting after the New Year. Be ready by then.”

  David was fairly certain that Reston had given him his one shot simply to get him to stop bothering him. Reston had assumed— probably rightly so—that David would be shot down within the first thirty seconds of his appeal and that would be that. But David didn’t care about his odds; he had been given a brief green light, and thus a marathon two months had begun. With nights running into mornings running into afternoons, he pondered his strategy—both in getting the board to let him move forward and in deciding what steps he would take if he somehow got that second green light.

  Now it all came down to three minutes—180 seconds—to convince this group of middle-aged men, many of whom had never been out of New York City, of the importance of building an oil exchange in Dubai.

  If ever a moment had existed when David needed to straddle the two worlds he had come from—Brooklyn and Harvard—this was it.

  He reached the front of the room and waited for the place to go silent. He could see that Reston hadn’t taken his usual seat at the head of the table; instead he was standing by the door, arms crossed, like a determined substitute teacher, making sure that the board members were all giving David the floor—at least for his three minutes. He could also see that Gallo was indeed in his customary place—straight ahead on the other side of the long table, his pitted eyes narrowed into slits. David quickly looked away. When the room finally was as quiet as it was going to get, Reston nodded at him, and David began.

  “Gentlemen, by now you’ve all gotten a copy of a proposal I’ve put together, on a very unique project that I think is something the NYMEX should seriously consider. Simply put, we’ve been offered a chance to partner with the Ministry of Finance of Dubai to open an energy exchange in that country.”

  Well, there it was, out of his mouth and into the boardroom. David paused for a moment, half-expecting someone to stand up and walk out, but nobody moved, not even Gallo. The board members were all waiting for him to continue.

  “I’ve been to many places in my life,” he said, gaining confidence, “but I’ve never felt an energy like I have in Dubai. The amount of money pouring into the place is staggering. Their infrastructure is first-rate, and they are serious about this idea at the highest levels. Regardless of what we decide to do, Dubai is going to be a strong player in energy. I believe we should take this opportunity to get involved.”

  He placed his proposal down onto the table, with the minimum of flourish, catching a glance at his watch on the way down. One hundred and twenty seconds—a minute to spare. Short and sweet, but hopefully he’d covered all the bases. He looked up at the board members—and to his surprise, saw that nobody was looking at him. In fact, the board members were making a point to avoid catching his gaze. His stomach churned. He had expected questions, a conversation, an argument—hell, he had expected something. But this was even worse than an argument. They were actually ignoring him. Even Mendelson, usually a supportive face, was concentrating on a spot on the wall behind David.

  In fact, the only one who wasn’t treating him like Serena’s invisible man was Gallo. Quite the opposite—Gallo was boring holes in his skull with those dark, deep-set eyes.

  “Is this a fucking joke?” Gallo muttered under his breath, his cigar jerking up and down in his lips.

  Although the question hadn’t exactly been aimed at David, he realized he had less than a minute to salvage the Dubai exchange. The project was crumbling right in front of him—and he knew he had to act fast. He had to make them acknowledge him. He had to break the fucking silence.

  Swallowing the fear that was dancing up his esophagus, he stared right back at Gallo, matching eye to eye for the first time since he’d met the man.

  “Do you have something you’d like to ask, Mr. Gallo?”

  The words hit the room like a leather strap yanked tight. Now the board members were looking up, most with shocked expressions on their faces; it was one thing for Reston or Giovanni to go head to head with Gallo, but for a twenty-five-year-old kid to call the Don out like he was an uppity kindergartener—it was nearly blasphemy. But David didn’t care. He had worked too hard over the past two months to throw this moment away so easily. It wasn’t even about the exchange at the moment—it was personal. He wasn’t going to back down before he even started. That wasn’t his personality. Fuck it, he knew he was young—but he was also a vice president of the Merc. He deserved at least a modicum of respect.

  Then he saw the color in Gallo’s face darken and those eyes narrow into venomous slits—and his resolve nearly ran right out of his body, along with all feeling in his lower extremities. He gripped the edge of the table, just to stay standing, as Gallo halfrose out of his chair, his voice almost guttural with fury.

  “Yeah, I got something to fucking ask, you goddamn piece of shit! Where the hell do you think you are? Fifty fucking yards from the hole in the ground where those ragheads crashed two airplanes, and you want us to partner with them? Dubai? What the fuck is Dubai? You can stick your goddamn two hundred pages up your ass if you think any one of my traders is going to squat in a fucking desert next to those bastards.”

  David swallowed, his face turning red. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Reston mouth the word “careful,” but he wasn’t going to step down. The truth was, he’d secretly hoped Gallo would react like this; in fact, if he was going to get the board behind him, he’d actually needed Gallo’s explosion. Because Gallo was only saying what many of them were thinking—and the ugliness had to get right out there, in the open, if David was going to have any real chance.

  “I know exactly where we are, Mr. Gallo,” David said, keeping his voice completely calm. “We’re in the boardroom of an exchange so important that barely one day after those planes hit, this place was up and running; your traders were moving oil just like they’d done two days before, because both as a symbol and as a market, this exchange is at the heart of our free economy. And now we have an opportunity to bring this unique, powerful market to a part of the world that is moving forward just as we’re moving forward.”

  David glanced around the table at the board members, who were watching both him and Gallo. Amazingly, they actually seemed to be listening to what he was saying. Perhaps it was Gallo’s bigoted language, or the fact that David hadn’t immediately backed down to the Don—but David hadn’t lost them yet, as far as he could tell. At least he was still in the room.

  “What the hell do the Arabs know about trading oil?” Gallo grunted angrily. />
  David noticed that the Don had backed away from the derogatory language; maybe he’d realized that his outburst had done him more harm than good with the board. Nobody likes to have their own prejudices thrown in front of them—and there was nothing uglier than a shared sense of bigotry. David knew that he had an opening—and it was time to go in for the kill.

  “Absolutely nothing. This will be a partnership from the ground up. Your traders will never have to set foot in the desert; if all goes well, we’ll get international traders to do the work for us. And over time, it will be immensely profitable for both sides.”

  David knew his time was nearly out. For the moment, he felt he had made his case as well as three minutes would allow.

  “In any event, I’m not asking for a decision from the board— just for the chance to investigate this opportunity, to see where such a partnership might lead. As crazy as the idea of a Merc in Dubai might seem, it would be even crazier just to walk away without at least giving the idea a chance.”

  David cut himself short before Gallo could respond again, thanked the board, and took a step back from the table. Thankfully, he watched as Gallo finally lowered himself back into his seat. The color was gone from the old man’s cheeks, but his eyes were still slits, and his cigar was hanging so precipitously from his lips, it looked like it was suspended by nothing more than saliva and sheer force of will.

  As for the rest of the gathered board members—well, they had gone right back to ignoring David. David’s stomach flip-flopped again as he searched for even the slightest sign that he had gotten through, but it was like trying to decipher Stonehenge—a useless endeavor. David had thought he’d made his point, but from the reaction of the room, it certainly didn’t feel like a victory.