by Ben Mezrich
“I took a shortcut,” David said, trying to control his breathing. The Fat Man looked to be about forty, but it was almost impossible to read his expression; his eyes and mouth were fighting a losing battle with the gravity-worn topography of his obese face.
“Where is your Arab colleague? I thought there were going to be two of you.”
David shrugged as he pulled a nearby wicker chair over to the couch.
“He got detained. But I’m ready and authorized to give you whatever you need.”
The Fat Man looked him over. Then he slouched forward, the rolls of fat beneath his drooping, hangdog face rippling like oil from a desert well.
“I don’t like surprises. I was expecting two, now there’s one. Why should I believe that you have the authority that you say?”
David eyed the man for a moment, then reached into his pocket and removed a sealed envelope. Although Khaled hadn’t ex pected the two of them to be separated in China, he’d given David the envelope before they’d boarded the flight to Beijing. When David had asked what was inside, Khaled simply shrugged: “On this trip, we are both representatives of the emir; I assure you, the seal on that envelope opens more doors in this part of the world than your American passport and your Mercantile Exchange ID.”
Obviously, from the look on the Fat Man’s face as he ran his thick fingers over the wax royal seal on the back of the envelope—imprinted with the names of two sheiks—Khaled had been correct. He handed the envelope back to David, unopened, and showed his wide palms.
“So tell me about this exchange of yours,” he said, grinning once again. Yes, he was a mercenary—and the seal on that envelope guaranteed that David and Khaled could match any price he desired. Now it was just a matter of convincing him that he could get them what they needed in return. Without further niceties, David launched into his practiced—tried-and-true—pitch about the Dubai energy exchange.
From that moment on, David was no longer in some ratty hotel in Beijing; he was five years in the future, on the morning of the first ringing of that trading floor bell—the bell that was going to change the future of the Middle East, and with it the future of the world.
David wasn’t going to stop talking until the Fat Man saw that same morning, heard that same bell, and imagined that same beautiful future. And after that, David didn’t care if he got caught in some government crackdown in the streets outside or got collared trying to sneak back into his hotel—because at that moment nothing else mattered to him. The Fat Man was the key to understanding sharia law, and sharia law was the next step in their journey.
David hadn’t come this far to let a little international incident get in his way.
Chapter 36
Febr u a r y 20, 2003
If the villains in a James Bond movie had been anywhere near as expedient as the Fat Man, good old Bond would never have lived past the opening credits. A bare twenty-four hours after David had managed to sneak, unnoticed, past his Chinese government minders—who, along with Ms. Chen, were watching a soccer match on a portable TV instead of watching the locked hotelsuite door of an American “agitator”—and into his room at the Grand Hyatt, Khaled had gotten the phone call from the Saudi embassy in New York. Not only had David and Khaled been granted a meeting with the two highest-ranked Saudi religious officials in New York—but the meeting was going to take place in just a few short hours. That meant there would be no chance for Gallo to pull any more of his shit—on the off possibility that he’d somehow figured out what David was up to in Beijing—or for anything else to get in their way. At the very least, they would be getting a fair hearing on the issue of sharia law.
David had half-hoped the meeting would take place at the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., itself—he could only imagine what level of majesty he’d find inside the three-story stone building steps from the White House—but instead he’d had to settle for a visit to the Saudi consulate building on Second Avenue in New York. The consulate, it turned out, looked pretty much like every other building east of Fifth in Midtown—except for the security post out front, complete with X-ray detectors staffed by armed members of the New York National Guard.
David and Khaled had quickly been ushered past the security by a young Arabic man in a dark blue suit, then led through a quiet marble lobby to a mirrored elevator. Four stories higher, they’d been met by another young man in a similar suit, who’d taken them to another lobby, this one carpeted, with pictures of Saudi Arabian cities on the walls and two framed portraits of King Fahd. A third young man had collected them in the second lobby and led them through a pair of double wooden doors into a well-appointed office—fifteen-foot ceilings, expensive-looking Oriental carpeting, and lavish tapestries on three of four walls. There was a desk on one end of the rectangular office, facing a sitting area, complete with elegant Italian couches, a low wooden coffee table, and a pair of high leather-backed chairs. Both chairs were occupied by elderly Arab men in robes—presumably the Saudi religious leaders—who rose the minute David and Khaled entered the room.
David didn’t know whether to bow, shake hands, or simply drop to his knees. Khaled had explained to him that these two men were extremely high up in the hierarchy of Saudi religious academia; both were leading scholars at the premier religious university in the Saudi capital, with the ear of the ruling family. Though this meeting itself was unofficial and would never be spoken of in the press or in any other public forum, it was David and Khaled’s one shot at getting the necessary, implicit approval from the Saudi religious establishment to go forward with the Dubai exchange. Without these men, and their good graces, David and Khaled’s attempt at an exchange would basically unravel in the face of the eight-hundred-pound gorilla that was the Saudi empire; even the threat of a religious edict against the exchange would render it null and void. In short, these two scholarly men held all the cards, so David followed Khaled’s lead: a little bow followed by a handshake for each of the men, then a third little bow of respect toward another portrait of King Fahd that hung on the wall behind the Italian couch. Then one of the robed Saudis made a gesture at the young man who’d brought them in, and he quickly scurried around the desk to collect a silver tea set that had already been prepared for the meeting. The young man offered the tray to David and Khaled, who each took a steaming cup.
Once he was seated next to Khaled on the couch, David did his best not to blush, fidget, or turn away as the two elderly Saudis both looked him over. When they finally turned their attention to Khaled, David exhaled, relieved that at the very least they hadn’t thrown him out of the room. Though he couldn’t be sure exactly how old the two men were, from the depth of their wrinkles and the mass of concentric circles around their eyes, they had to be well into their eighties. Certainly, they were important men; it was obvious from their robes, which seemed to have been spun out of the finest silk, and from their wizened features, which seemed to emanate nobility in a way David had never seen before. Something about the taller of the two men reminded him a little of Giovanni; one day, when he was old enough, Giovanni would sit with that same, high-shouldered bearing—the look of a man who had earned his respect, not a man who had been born into it. David had no idea what sort of lives these two religious leaders had lived, or how they had gotten to this place, but he knew, instinctively, that they deserved his respect.
For the next three hours, David gave them that respect—and little else, considering that the entire meeting took place in Arabic, Khaled only paused to translate the few times that the two religious leaders nodded in David’s direction, and by his fourth cup of tea David was spending much of his energy trying to keep his fingers from trembling too noticeably from the caffeine.
From the few snippets of the conversation that Khaled gave him, he understood that the main issue the two elderly men were discussing had to do with derivatives. It seemed that the main problem with the idea of a Dubai exchange was the implication of certain tenets of Islamic law that derivati
ves were essentially haraam—prohibited. Under a strict interpretation of the Koran, the concept of interest was not allowed. And the trading of all derivatives—be they gold futures, stock options, or oil contracts— had an unavoidable component of interest.
As the two religious men dug into this issue, the questions they asked Khaled seemed to grow more heated; at one point one of the men even rose halfway out of his seat, jabbing a wrinkled finger in Khaled’s direction as he made a point in thick, furious Arabic. But Khaled remained perfectly calm, bowing as he seemed to agree with the scholar—then quietly explaining why, even so, the exchange should be permitted. David caught a few terms in his response that helped him understand the gist of Khaled’s argument—even before Khaled whispered a translation to him.
Basically, Khaled argued, Dubai’s emirate had indeed instituted free zones where such interest was allowed, in practice. The two religious men countered, again somewhat heatedly, that the Dubai exchange would incorporate trading policies that would extend well beyond the free zones: as people flocked to trade oil from all over, derivatives would essentially be traded out of Dubai from one end of the world to the other. But Khaled, undeterred, explained that this process was more like the arbitrage that went on in the souks of the Arab street than the interest-bearing strategies forbidden by sharia law.
While David listened to the two robed men arguing with Khaled and then with one another, he was amazed at how technical their discussion seemed to be; this wasn’t some question of kosher foods or holiday ritual—this was an argument about a complicated financial instrument. And yet, the two old men didn’t seem to have any problem discussing the subject. Likewise, Khaled never backed down from their questioning, no matter how inquisitive and strident they became. He remained calm, collected, respectful—but forceful as well. He wasn’t going to give up, and David could see that Khaled’s persistence impressed the two scholars almost as much as his arguments. And it was also obvious that the two men had already done much research into the questions they asked, because most of Khaled’s answers did not seem to come as surprises to them. Obviously, the Fat Man had done his job—for which he’d been highly compensated by Khaled’s people—by communicating the issue in great detail to the two old men, and now they were deliberating on the subject as if it were no different, or more secular, than a question about feeding pork to a starving man.
By the end of three hours, David was literally on the edge of his seat. It wasn’t simply the caffeine that had his feet bouncing beneath the coffee table—it was the idea that these two men were about to make the decision that would change the Dubai exchange from an idea into a reality—or would stop David and Khaled dead in their tracks. Although Khaled was still calm and collected, David could see he was beginning to tire. The sheer intensity of the questioning from the two religious men was beginning to take its toll—when suddenly, without warning, the two men stopped speaking entirely and rose, as one, from their seats. Before Khaled or David could move from the couch, the two Arabs moved away from the seating area and headed straight toward the door. David started to rise after them, but Khaled grabbed his arm and pulled him back down.
“They leave first,” he said simply. “We wait, out of respect.”
David nodded, swallowing back his nerves. When the two men were out of the room, he turned to Khaled.
“What happened? Did they say yes or no?”
“Neither.” Khaled’s expression was unreadable. There was sweat on his brow, which he wiped at with the sleeve of his jacket.
“Neither? What the hell does that mean? Don’t tell me we need to find another Fat Man. I’m not climbing out of any more hotel windows.”
Khaled straightened his lapels, quietly finished his tea, then finally rose from the couch. Then he smiled, and David could see the excited relief in his eyes.
“No more hotel windows, David. Tomorrow I am heading back to Dubai. If your board agrees, in two weeks we will break ground on the Dubai exchange.”
David gasped at him. Suddenly he understood. It was exactly like it had been with the board at the Merc: the Saudis weren’t going to say yes, and they weren’t going to say no—and it was only the second part of the equation that mattered.
They hadn’t said no. Which meant that the Dubai exchange wasn’t haraam. It wasn’t forbidden.
David grinned, and before Khaled could escape, he gave the Arab kid his second Russo hug.
“This is it, isn’t it? We’re almost there.”
“If you don’t get off me, they’re going to arrest both of us for improper behavior.”
As Khaled separated himself from David’s grip, David realized that his cell phone was going off in his pocket. He retrieved the phone as they headed out of the office and back into the consulate lobby.
He didn’t recognize the number, but he was in such a good mood that he answered anyway. To his surprise, he definitely recognized the voice.
“David, guess what? I’m in New York.”
The French accent tugged at an area much lower than his heart, and he nearly dropped the phone.
“Jasmine?”
Khaled looked at him, and David could see the warning in his friend’s eyes. He had told Khaled about the night in Geneva, and Khaled hadn’t judged him on his momentary lapse of control—but Khaled hadn’t wanted to hear the details either. That sort of lack of control wasn’t something a lifelong Muslim truly understood.
“Yes, it’s me,” Jasmine said. “I’m at the Mandarin New York. One night only. And I’d love to see you.”
David swallowed, heat rising in his cheeks. Then a sudden thought hit him. He hadn’t given Jasmine his cell phone number. He was hotheaded, but he wasn’t that stupid.
Had she looked him up on some hotel guest list? He didn’t remember ever putting his cell phone number down on any registration form, but then again, Khaled had made all the arrangements; maybe Khaled had listed David’s cell as a contact number when he’d booked the rooms?
David realized he was being foolish. Even if Jasmine hadn’t found his number on a hotel form, plenty of people had his cell phone number—one call to the Merc, and she could have gotten it from Harriet. Or she could have called his home in Staten Island—which was listed—and simply asked his mom. There were a dozen ways she could have tracked him down. The question wasn’t really how—it was why. And why now? Considering how well things were going, this was a distraction—and a complication—he certainly didn’t need.
An image of her flat naked stomach, arched against the snow, flickered behind his eyes. Then he quickly shook his head.
“This is kind of a bad time,” he said into the phone as he followed Khaled toward the elevator that led out of the consulate. “And I’m about to step into an elevator—”
“David, just come by the hotel and see me. One drink. And I promise, there’s plenty of Toblerone in the minibar.”
Khaled was already in the elevator. David knew he needed to hang up the phone. He needed to forget about her high cheekbones and incredible curves—
“I won’t twist your arm,” she said finally. “It’s okay. I just thought it might be fun to see you. But if you’re too busy, I understand.”
And just like that, David felt himself saying the words: “I’ll be there in ten minutes. But I can’t stay long.”
Then he was in the elevator, the connection was lost, and Khaled was looking at him like he was the biggest fucking infidel in the Western world.
Sadly, for once, David couldn’t disagree.
Chapter 37
In a perfect world, David would have come to his senses the minute the icy, early-evening breeze hit his face when he and Khaled stepped out of the Saudi consulate and onto Second Avenue. But in reality, David didn’t reach for his cell phone until his cab was past Fifty-seventh Street, just a few short blocks away from the Mandarin, and he didn’t dial the number that had shown up when Jasmine first called for a good five minutes after that. In fact, the cab was pulling to
a stop in front of the luxury hotel—uniformed doormen swarming like the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz—when David finally waved at the driver to keep on going, destination unknown, as he held the cell phone to his ear.
Jasmine answered on the third ring. She sounded a little out of breath, bringing up more memories of Geneva, but David was determined to do the right thing. He wasn’t sure what had made him change his mind—but now all he could think about was Serena and the future he hoped to one day have with her. A dalliance in Switzerland was one thing, but a full-out affair simply wasn’t in his personality.
“I’m sorry,” he said into the phone. “Something came up.” Jasmine seemed to understand.
“Okay, David. Maybe next time.”
The taxi driver was looking at him, and David just gave him
another wave. Keep on going, man, anywhere but here. “The thing is, Jasmine—”
“Not necessary. You don’t build expectations out of a roll in
the snow. But it’s a small world we live in, David. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”
With that, she hung up, and David lowered the phone, exhaling. He looked out through the cab window. It was dark now, a little after seven-thirty, and the lights from the traffic and the storefronts on either side blended into strips of flashing color. More than anything, he felt—relieved.
“You want to go somewhere in particular?”
The driver was looking at him through the Plexiglas divider. David was about to give him his address when the phone in his hand started vibrating. He glanced down and saw the text message as it appeared across the display.
Need to see you, asap. Trading floor. Twenty minutes. Nick.
The phone number was unlisted, which was a little strange considering that David had Reston’s BlackBerry number imprinted in his cerebral cortex by now. But things were now moving quickly with the Dubai exchange, and since David and Reston hadn’t spoken since Beijing, it wasn’t surprising that some sort of brushfire had obviously popped up. Maybe Gallo was making some noise—or maybe it had nothing to do with Dubai at all. Reston’s text had asked David to meet him on the trading floor. Maybe it had something to do with automation, Reston’s other pet project. In many ways, automating the trading floor was an even bigger firestorm waiting to happen than Dubai. Gallo and his kind would survive the Middle East, but Microsoft was another monster altogether.