Rigged

by Ben Mezrich

  Khaled paused long enough for the middle-aged man in tweed across the counter to get two yellow plates ahead of Hatfield, before answering with a shrug.

  “If they have the right incentive. Hate is a very expensive emotion, Mr. Hatfield. People only choose hate when there’s no other acceptable option.”

  David hadn’t been able to tell if Hatfield liked the answer or not; the Brit had simply turned his attention back to the conveyer belt, his snakelike arms striking forward, leaving Khaled and David to try to prophesize answers from his growing collection of colored plates.

  It wasn’t until they were outside on the street that Hatfield finally gave them his decision. They were about to put him into a cab when he turned and ran the back of a hand across his salmon-red lips.

  “I’m sorry, lads. I really can’t give you the clean answer you’re looking for. It’s just too controversial an idea for us to openly get involved.”

  David’s chest fell as he heard the words. He could tell that Khaled was equally disheartened from the way his friend’s shoulders suddenly sloped inward. But then Hatfield threw them the tiniest of bones.

  “But I will say this. If somehow, some way, you do actually get this thing up and running, I’ll work my hardest to convince the folks at UKP to take part in your exchange. Sorry to say, that’s the best I can do.”

  And just like that, in a flash of red hair and spindly limbs, he was into the cab and off, leaving David and Khaled standing on the curb. It was David who finally broke the silence, with words more air than voice.

  “Well, it wasn’t a total failure.”

  “No.” Khaled sighed. “A total failure would have involved humiliating laughter and maybe some finger pointing. He basically told us that he thought we were crazy, but if we succeed, he’d be right there to celebrate with us.”

  “It’s better than nothing.” David shrugged. “In fact, fuck it, I’d call it a victory. He didn’t say he wouldn’t support us—just that he couldn’t support us right now.”

  Despite their shared sense of frustration, Khaled grinned at him. “How very American of you. Silver lining and all. Are we supposed to celebrate the fact that he didn’t spit in our faces?”

  “Damn straight!” David joked, grabbing his new friend in a fake,

  Vitzi-style hug. Khaled laughed, then hastily fought his way free. “You’re going to scare the tourists. They’ll think you’re sub

  duing a terrorist.”

  David was surprised by the joke, which made him laugh even harder. They both needed to laugh, considering that it was beginning to look like their trip to London wasn’t exactly ending in

  success. When he had regained his breath, he jerked a thumb in the direction of their hotel—which happened to be right across the street.

  “Should we ‘celebrate’ at the hotel bar? I know you don’t

  drink, but the Mandarin Oriental’s Perrier is first-rate.” David wasn’t exaggerating: considering how lavish the hotel was, it probably had its Perrier shipped by private jet straight from the source. Even from across the street, the spotlit facade of the grand old twelve-story hotel dominated their view. David would never have stayed in a place like that himself—and the

  Merc certainly would never have paid for such luxury—but Khaled had insisted on setting the whole thing up, via the Ministry of Finance. David had halfheartedly argued with him about

  the expense—then had acquiesced when Khaled had assured him it was completely within his budget. David had done his research—and he wouldn’t even try to calculate what sort of budget Dubai would give the nephew of a multibillionaire sheik.

  To his surprise, Khaled was already hailing a second taxicab. “Before we celebrate, I want to show you something.” “Another nightclub with a laser show? Maybe some girls dancing in cages?”

  Khaled didn’t answer. Instead, he slid into the cab and ushered David to follow.

  Forty minutes and about an equal number of pounds later, the taxi turned onto a quiet, well-lit suburban street and pulled to a stop next to the curb. David squinted out through the window: narrow two- and three-story walkups squatted next to each other on either side of the newly paved road, and he couldn’t help thinking that the area reminded him a little bit of the Brooklyn of his childhood. That is, until his gaze settled on a domed, four-story building directly ahead of the taxi: the complex seemed newly refinished, with freshly painted walls, arched windows, and carefully designed Eastern touches such as two mock minarets rising from the roof and, of course, the dome—gilded in shiny gold leaf.

  It was the sort of place David would have expected to see in Dubai—not somewhere east of London.

  “Where the hell are we?” he asked.

  “We’re in a predominantly Muslim suburb in East London,” Khaled responded. “That building is an Islamic school. It ser vices grades kindergarten through high school. And there are night classes open to everyone in the community, Muslim or not. They study Koran—also history, government, and business.”

  As he spoke, two young Arabic-looking men came out the front door of the school. They were both wearing sweatshirts and jeans, with books under their arms. They could easily have fit in with the college kids strolling around Union Square in New York—except for their long, traditional beards.

  “It’s very nice,” David said, wondering why Khaled had taken him there. Then he had a thought. “Did Dubai pay for this school? It looks brand new.”

  Khaled shook his head.

  “Not Dubai. My uncle sponsored this . . . reclamation.” He took a long breath, then turned toward David.

  “My uncle put two million dollars into this community. His generosity gave this place a chance. This neighborhood was desperate, starving—if things had continued on that path, it could have gone in an entirely different direction. Maybe a dangerous direction.”

  “But how do you know, a few years down the line, that the community won’t degrade again? Do you have to keep infusing money?”

  Khaled turned back toward the window. He touched the glass with his brown fingers.

  “This is a school—not some statue or swimming pool or amusement park. You build infrastructure like this, and you give a community a future.”

  Now David knew why Khaled had taken him to this Muslim suburb outside of London. This school represented exactly what Khaled was trying to do with the oil exchange in Dubai. This was the answer Hatfield had been looking for at dinner.

  “If only we could have made Hatfield understand. You change people’s minds by giving them a future,” David said.

  Khaled tapped the divider that separated them from the driver, signaling the taxi to take them back to the hotel.

  “A future,” Khaled said as they started back toward the city, “is something the Middle East has never had before.”

  David’s jetlag had begun to kick in full force by the time they found seats at the sparsely crowded Lucite and marble bar on the first floor of the Mandarin Oriental. The cab ride back through the pitch-dark, windy suburban streets surrounding London hadn’t helped matters, nor did the knowledge that they were going to be heading back to Heathrow in less than seven hours to catch a short flight to Geneva for the next—hopefully more successful—leg of their European tour. But David assumed that the bright lighting of the surprisingly modern hotel bar would keep him awake long enough to finish at least one Perrier.

  To his surprise, it wasn’t the fluorescent bulbs on the ceiling that gave his adrenaline a kick as he and Khaled launched into a conversation detailing the events of the day—it was the view from the opposite side of the bar. The second David took his first swig from the green bottle of carbonated water, he had spotted her—and nearly choked as the bubbles caught in his throat.

  Christ, she was beautiful. A brunette, like Serena, but with shiny, jet-black hair ironed so straight that you could see every strand; ivory, almost jarringly perfect facial features that seemed to have been chiseled out of the purest, blue-tinged ice;
and full, teasingly plump lips with a hint of white teeth peeking out between them.

  And the view below the neck only got better. David hastily turned his attention back to Khaled—but not before he’d followed her long, pale neck to the open collar of her designer, black-velvet corset top and the high, rounded bulge of her exquisite decolletage.

  “She’s quite something, isn’t she?” Khaled suddenly asked, and David realized his friend was grinning at him. David grinned back. “So you spotted her too?”

  “I’m Muslim, not dead.”

  David laughed. He took another sip of his Perrier, trying to play it cool in front of Khaled.

  “So why don’t you go over and talk to her?”

  Khaled shook his head.

  “I don’t usually find girls who share my—ah, interests—in bars. But why don’t you go buy her a drink?”

  David caught himself sighing. He quickly forced the sigh to transform into a cough.

  “Because I’ve got a girlfriend back in New York.”

  David wasn’t sure if he was explaining the situation to Khaled or vocally reminding himself—but either way, the fact was a fact. Serena, the girl he was assuredly in love with, was back in his apartment in Midtown, probably watching TV while wearing one of his oversize college sweatshirts. She certainly wasn’t out at some bar, staring at unbelievably high cheekbones, gazing down a long, arched slice of neck, floating across curves that seemed so lickably soft—

  Khaled tapped the bar with his fingertips, bringing David back into focus.

  “And do you look at your girlfriend back in New York that same way?”

  David stared at Khaled, exasperated. But to be honest, he wasn’t sure. Definitely not recently; though he and Serena had patched things up as much as possible before he’d left for London, his job had certainly taken a major toll on their relationship. He tried to picture Serena as he had last seen her—curled up in the bed, watching him pack, a look of frustration on her pretty, puckered lips.

  Damn it, David thought to himself. Then he held up his palms, the universal sign of surrender.

  “She’s a girl in a bar,” he said finally.

  Khaled seemed to understand and dropped a twenty-pound note on the open check in front of them, taking care of the Perriers.

  “Then let’s call it a night. We’ve got another big day ahead of us.”

  David nodded. He took one last quick look at the brunette— then he rose from his seat, finished his drink, and with a cough that was really a sigh, followed Khaled toward the elevators.

  Chapter 32

  J anu ar y 25, 2003

  If ever there was a moment that seemed to justify the decisions David had made over the past six months of his life, this was it.

  Legs furiously pumping as a crisp, clean breeze splashed against his cheeks and tugged at the wool hat he’d pulled down low above his eyes; the sound of crushed snow crunching beneath his sneakers, harmonizing perfectly with the rhythm of his heart pumping in his chest; and the warm swirl of blood beneath his skin, heating him from within, forced his mind to become wonderfully clear as he focused on the path winding through the closely packed trees ahead of him, though his eyes caught glimpses between the snowy branches of the scenery beyond— the powerful Rhone River rushing by, churning waves glistening in the wintry moonlight, and of course the great Alps rising up above, massive but never menacing, a sloping, fertile brand of magnificence that spoke of rolling meadows, sloping vineyards, postcard villages, and picturesque fields.

  It was hard to believe that just six months ago David had been trapped in a cubicle at Merrill Lynch, looking forward to a lengthy incarceration trudging away on the bottom rungs of the financial world’s massive, mechanized pyramid. Now here he was, jogging along a river in Geneva, burning off the adrenaline rush of an evening spent addressing four hundred of the top energy players in all of Europe.

  It was amazing how his life had changed so quickly: from a chance meeting at the National Italian American Heritage Institute gala to a strange invite from the heads of a country he’d barely even heard of, to a friendship formed by way of all-night bull sessions, world travel, and shared ambition—to this, a moment when things cautiously seemed to be coming together, when the impossible was slowly starting to feel, well, at the very least, slightly less impossible.

  Three hours ago, when David had first taken the podium next to Khaled in the imposing main lecture hall at the University of Geneva, he had half-expected the two of them to be laughed right off the elegant, snowbound campus. At the very least, he had expected to be met by the same level of skepticism they’d encountered with Hatfield. The five-hundred-seat circular amphitheater had been nearly full, the audience a veritable who’s who of the European energy community. Representatives from the big oil companies, analysts from the major international banks, energy academics from all over the world, journalists from more than a dozen European business media outlets—nearly all facets of the energy world were gathered together for a five-day post–New Year’s conference on the state of oil as it pertained to the European community. David and Khaled could not have asked for a better place to publicly float the notion of a Dubai exchange, but for David’s part, he would have wished that the opportunity had come further down the line, not bare weeks after he’d first pitched the idea to the board of the Merc. No doubt, to be shot down in Europe by such a prestigious audience would mean certain doom.

  But somehow, by the end of their forty-minute presentation, David realized that the gathered experts weren’t going to shoot down their idea; more than anything, the assembled crowd was simply curious about the partnership that he and Khaled were attempting to put forward. The enthusiasm of the crowd’s questions during the brief Q&A was heartening—that was, until one high-level executive from one of the Swiss banking conglomerates asked if the Merc’s board was truly going to green-light a boisterous, American-style trading exchange in a place so close to Saudi Arabia, where foreigners were literally flogged on the street for wearing shorts. David had expected their entire presentation to unravel right there and then, but somehow Khaled had talked their way out of the situation, explaining that Dubai, though often shadowed under the Saudis’ gentle wing, was a very different bird. Or something poetic like that—David couldn’t remember the exact words. In any event, by the end of the presentation the audience seemed to be at least moderately on their side.

  If they weren’t moving forward by leaps and bounds, at least they didn’t seem to be moving in reverse. They were raising awareness of their project, and sooner or later pieces would begin to fall into place. At least, that was what David hoped. At the thought, he felt a new burst of adrenaline and launched himself at full speed over a frozen tree root. He kept up the intense pace for a few more minutes as he followed the jogging path through a series of sharp turns. The river, a glowing ribbon of water so close David could feel the icy moisture against his skin, was fully visible now.

  Breathing hard, David finally slowed to a walk and checked his watch. He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone, but it was definitely time to get back to the hotel. He had no doubt that Khaled had already written up a veritable tome of notes for him to go over for the meetings of the next few days, and he’d be lucky to get six hours of sleep before they headed back to the airport for the next leg of their journey.

  It took him a good thirty minutes to wind his way back to the hotel, and by the time he stepped into the subdued, art deco lobby of the Mandarin Oriental Du Rhone, his Oxford crew sweatshirt was drenched with sweat. He quickly navigated past the sunken couches and bucket loveseats, glad that the place was fairly deserted for ten at night. He still felt out of place in these bastions of affluence and half-expected some Swiss security guard to come after him with a hose and a bar of soap; maybe on their next trip he’d convince Khaled to let him pick the hotels. Nobody had ever felt self-conscious sweating his way through the lobby of a Courtyard by Marriott.

  Thankfully, David reached the elevat
or without incident. After hitting the button with a damp palm, he was carefully wiping the damn thing dry with the sleeve of his sweatshirt when the gilded doors slid open. Without looking up, he stepped forward—and nearly crashed headlong into a woman on her way out.

  “Excuse me,” he started, and then his eyes widened and he froze.

  She was wearing a black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, ankle-high leather boots, and a white cashmere scarf wrapped around her long, angled neck. Her jet-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her high, almost elvish cheekbones glowed in the light from the lobby’s chandeliers. Her dark cat eyes peered out at him from behind anime-length eyelashes, and her eyebrows crooked upward as her full red lips pulled into an amused smile, revealing more of her startlingly white teeth.

  “Are you going to let me out of the elevator, or are we going to stand here all night?”

  David blinked. Her accent was unexpected—decidedly French, though her vocabulary seemed perfect—and she was much taller than she’d looked the night before. Then again, the night before she’d been seated at the bar—and now she was standing right in front of him, arms crossed, impatiently tapping a leather heel.

  “Are you following me?” David croaked, feeling foolish the minute he’d said the words.

  The girl’s eyebrows moved up another notch—and then recognition flashed across her chiseled features.

  “You were in the bar in London. Sitting with a young Arab gentleman. You were drinking Perrier.”

  David exhaled and took a step back, letting her out of the elevator before the doors slid shut.

  “So you are following me,” he joked, realizing it was obviously just a coincidence—an amazing, terrifying, wonderful, horrible coincidence. “Keeping tabs on what I’m drinking and who I’m hanging out with.”

  The girl laughed, a beautiful, high-pitched sound.

  “Yep, you caught me. I’m the worst spy in the business. I was hiding in the elevator when you pushed the button.”