Disaster Inc

by Caimh McDonnell

  “Hey, Marcia, my love, I hear you had to see me?”

  She pursed her lips at him and sucked at her teeth. “Don’t you be trying none of that silver-tongued charm on me, Darryl. I’m on to you, mister.”

  He grasped his chest in mock offence. “Why’ve you got to treat me so mean, Marcia!”

  “Because you love it, you incorrigible flirt.”

  Darryl smiled and glanced across at the reception’s waiting area. It was standing room only.

  “Wow, busy down here today.”

  “Yeah. Apparently there’s a bunch of people waiting for a meeting with that recruitment company on the fourth floor. Trish doesn’t know anything about it and that Andy guy is out of the office.”

  Marcia said the words “Andy guy” with the tone normally kept for international war criminals. He had committed the sin of dumping half a cup of coffee into one of the potted plants near the door that, while technically belonging to the building, Marcia considered to be very much hers.

  “So, you got someone for me?” asked Darryl.

  “I do. He insisted on speaking to someone from the consulate. I told him, you gotta make an appointment like everybody else, but he refused to leave. Said it’s life and death or some such nonsense.”

  Darryl lowered his voice so he couldn’t be overheard. “Probably just someone who’s lost their passport. They always think it should be treated like a national emergency.” Darryl glanced over at the waiting area again. “Which one is it?”

  “It’s the… it’s the…”

  In the nearly three years he’d worked here, he’d never seen Marcia short of a word.

  “Black guy?”

  “No, don’t be stupid. He’s…” She leaned across and whispered it. “The really, really short guy. I don’t know what’s the right word these days.”

  “Ah, OK. No problem.”

  Marcia ripped off a note from her pad and handed it to him. “Here’s his details.”

  Darryl took it and turned towards the waiting area. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed the bright and beautiful going about their days on Park Avenue.

  The reception area consisted of a square of couches, with individual chairs at the corners, arranged around a massive wooden coffee table where various magazines that nobody ever read were splayed out in fans. Every available space on the couches was taken. One of the seats was occupied by a very attractive redhead with a pair of legs that Darryl did well not to make direct eye contact with. There was also a large guy with a handlebar moustache, sunglasses and a seafarer’s cap.

  Darryl glanced over to the corner and nodded at Tito, the security guard. These walk-ins could be a little cuckoo.

  Sitting on one of the chairs was a dwarf, who watched Darryl walk towards him with a look of expectation. Darryl glanced down at the piece of paper.

  “Mr Leo Getz?”

  The man smiled. “That’s me, attorney-at-law. Anything you want, Leo – gets! Get it?”

  Darryl smiled. He had a peculiar feeling of déjà vu that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He extended his hand. “I’m Darryl Habana, from the South African consulate.” The man shook it firmly. “I believe there is some kind of emergency?”

  “Yes. Very important. Really important!”

  “OK.” Darryl looked around at the lack of available seating. As a rule, he didn’t like to bring anyone upstairs until he’d determined what the purpose of their visit was. It was a lot easier to end a meeting if it had never got past reception.

  Darryl pushed a couple of the magazines out of the way and perched himself lightly on the edge of the thick oak coffee table. It also put him down at his visitor’s eye level, which seemed polite.

  “So, what can I help you with?”

  “OK, OK, OK. A friend of mine wants to emigrate to South Africa.”

  “I see. Well, there is plenty of information on our website. There are restrictions as we only accept skilled workers in areas of need, or entrepreneurs with assets—”

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” said Getz. “You’re misunderstanding me. I need you to talk him out of it.”

  “OK. And why is that?”

  “Well, it’s just a really bad time for him to go over there, with all the trouble.”

  “Mr Getz, I assure you that, despite what you’ve heard about our crime rates, South Africa is actually a very safe—”

  “No, no, no. Not that.” Getz gave him a wide smile. “The guy’s from Jersey – Syria would be a holiday. It’s just… Well, you can meet him and then it’ll be clear.”

  Darryl glanced around at the other people in reception.

  “Oh, he’s here?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He raised his voice. “Alphonse!”

  A young black guy with a warm smile and rather large ears stepped out from behind a column and strode forward, hand extended.

  “Hello, I’m Alphonse, erm… Glover.”

  Darryl stood to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mr Glover.”

  “Alphonse, please.”

  “Alphonse. So, you want to emigrate to South Africa?”

  “But… but you’re black!”

  Shocked, Darryl turned towards the source of this last statement. It was from the white guy with the handlebar moustache and sunglasses who had just stood up from one of the other sofas. He spoke in an Afrikaans accent. Actually, as Darryl would realise when thinking back on it later, he didn’t. He spoke in what people who’d never properly heard one thought an Afrikaans accent sounded like.

  “Excuse me, sir,” said Darryl. “Who are you?”

  Before he could get an answer, Alphonse raised his voice. “That’s right! I want to go to South Africa and join my black brothers and sisters in the struggle against the white oppressor.”

  “What?!” Darryl gawped as Alphonse held his fist aloft and proudly proclaimed, “Apartheid never. Freedom forever.”

  It was then that all hell broke loose. Suddenly most of the waiting area was on its feet and joining in the chant.

  “APARTHEID NEVER! FREEDOM FOREVER!”

  Darryl noticed that the half-dozen or so people, now including the not-really-Afrikaans man, had taken out signs, all with various poor attempts at spelling the word apartheid.

  “Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “No,” said Alphonse. “The freedom of the black South African majority is no joke, sir.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Apartheid hasn’t existed for twenty-five years. I am a black South African.”

  Darryl turned at a tap on his shoulder to find Tito the security guard standing there. “Erm, Darryl, I think they’re doing a scene from Lethal Weapon 2.”

  “What?”

  The man with the handlebar moustache had now started up a chant of “Free Nelson Mandela”, and other people were joining in.

  “Shut up,” said Darryl, his patience now a distant spot in the rear-view mirror. “What are you people talking about? The great Nelson Mandela is dead.”

  The crowd fell suddenly silent – a brief moment of respite – like they had reached the calm eye of the storm of madness. Then the dwarf – who Darryl was beginning to realise probably wasn’t called Leo Getz, and whose law qualifications were looking increasingly doubtful – stood on the oak table and pointed an accusing finger. “They killed Nelson Mandela!”

  The next ten minutes were pure chaos, as Tito the security guard, Darryl, and even Marcia, out from behind her desk, struggled to get the “protesters” out of reception. A crowd had started to form out on the street, watching as the protesters chanted their resistance to a long-gone political system. Eventually they got everybody out onto the street, which is when the cops finally showed up. The consulate’s donation to the NYPD’s Christmas fund would not be quite so generous this year.

  Alphonse then raised his hand and pulled it down, clenching it into a fist. “And – scene!”

  The protesters immediately stopped protesting and instead burst into applause.

&nb
sp; “Well done, everybody,” said ‘Leo Getz’. “That was absolutely fantastic work. Really committed. Beautiful.”

  Darryl looked around at the half-dozen people who were now smiling warmly at him. “Who are you people?”

  The black guy who called himself Alphonse produced a business card and extended it to Darryl with a bow. “We are the Situational Actors’ Collective, bringing great scenes from the cinema to life.”

  Darryl took a few seconds to process this, and then said, “But… why?”

  Tito was standing at Darryl’s shoulder again. “Erm, Darryl, the cops want to know if you want to press charges?”

  The question was met with a murmur among the actors and a few worried glances.

  “Yeah,” said Darryl, “like ‘South African consulate charges people for protesting against apartheid’ is a headline the boss wants.” He turned to Alphonse. “Can I assume this is over now?”

  He nodded. “Well, unless you’d like an encore?”

  “Thanks, but I’ll pass.” He turned to Tito. “Tell them it’s fine.” Then he turned back to the actors. “Who put you up to this?”

  “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say,” said Alphonse.

  “It was Frederick from the Swiss consulate, wasn’t it?”

  This was met with just a smile.

  Darryl tapped the business card against his chin. “I bet it was. That son of a… Hey, can you guys do scenes from The Sound of Music?”

  Three minutes later, Darryl walked back inside, one of the misspelled signs under his arm so he could show the rest of the office. As he beeped himself through the security barrier, Marcia was behind her desk, complaining loudly. “Goddamn it, one of the fire exits has been opened now. Tito, can you go to the back and check it. It must be a full moon or something. Crazy is out to play.”

  As he walked down the hall, Darryl noticed the attractive redhead with the killer legs walking towards him. She gave him a wide smile. “Hey, sweetie. Hope y’all are having a good day.”

  Darryl smiled back and tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. Instead he watched as she caught the security gate just before it closed behind Tito. Then she was out and walking away.

  Darryl sighed and pressed the elevator button and one of the sets of doors reopened. He entered, stepping into an elevator containing a large man in a black coat with a thick beard.

  “Thanks.”

  “Not a bother.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Matt Clarke walked into the bathroom stall, locked the door behind him, closed the toilet lid and sat down. He didn’t need to use it. Apart from a burger yesterday – or was it the day before? – he’d hardly eaten in the last four days. What little had been in his system on Monday had been spewed up as soon as they’d got back from their meeting with Mrs Miller. He’d barely slept since then either. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was his baby sister, terrified and alone, in the situation he had put her in. He’d needed to be sharp over these last two days in order to do what Miller expected of him, so his stomach fizzed with a cocktail of coke, Adderall and something Brad had begrudgingly given him for the anxiety. It wasn’t working. Matt could feel his heart thumping, like it was building up momentum to lift off, rip through his chest and make a break for it. A half sob, half giggle slipped from his lips at the image of his internal organ scampering off down the hall. He was aware his mind was only hanging in there by a thread.

  What was torturing Matt wasn’t the fear of getting caught, it was the certainty that he wouldn’t be. He had spent the last three hours in his office, willing the phone to ring. Someone from the SEC – “We’d like to discuss your recent trade patterns, Mr Clarke.” Elizabeth the receptionist – “Matt, Detectives Gregaro and Mason from the NYPD are back; they want to talk to you again about Charlie’s murder.” Hell, he’d take the FBI barging in, seizing computers, slapping on cuffs. He was carrying off the most audacious insider trade in Wall Street history and nobody seemed to care.

  He knew the SEC was not going to come looking. David King, one of their lead dogs, had come to see him last month. The man had a fearsome reputation. Amongst a largely toothless organisation, he was one of the few who was happy to go hard if he smelled something was off. King had asked for a private meeting, and Matt had been concerned but not fearful. He had gone in with all of his stories well prepared. Over the last couple of years, he’d got very good at covering Lanark Lane’s and the fund’s tracks. All of the big moves they’d made were backed up by compelling research and analysis. It was a much easier gig when you started from the point of knowing the result and worked backwards. Still, when he’d gone into the meeting with King, he’d been better prepared than he’d been for any exam he’d ever taken, although it turned out he hadn’t needed to be. King had made awkward small talk for twenty minutes before they’d come around to the purpose of the meeting. “I just want you to know,” King had said, “that I’ve looked at Lanark Lane’s deals from over the last couple of years, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re all absolutely fine and above board.”

  Matt had been bemused, as this was a very odd statement for someone in King’s position to make unbidden, and he’d suspected some kind of trap. King must’ve interpreted his reaction differently, as he reached across the table and touched Matt’s hand, his voice suddenly low and shaky. “Please, tell them I said you were OK. I’ve got a family. Everything is fine. Tell them I said that.”

  Matt had been freaked out. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  King had pulled his hand back, like a guy who’d made a misjudged pass. “Right. Of course. I just meant… I wanted you to know that after a careful investigation, we at the SEC are happy the Lanark Lane are a top-notch firm. You’re just the man with the golden touch.” Then he’d pushed out an overly forced laugh and the meeting had ended soon after.

  King had thought he’d been sent to send a message to Matt’s employers, but he hadn’t. He’d been sent by those employers to send it to Matt. We are untouchable. In hindsight, it was preparation for getting Matt committed to what came next, in all of its terrible, horrifying glory.

  As expected, shares in Millennium Faction Data had been suspended; they’d file for bankruptcy by the end of the week. The initial wave of sympathy for the company was turning to anger, now that the flaw in their system had been exposed and the true impact of the lost data had been realised. Matt felt for them. How could you anticipate that an employee would rig your mirroring software to send phoney data to the backups for three days and then blow up the primary site with him still inside it? Not even Matt had thought of that, and he’d gone looking for disaster scenarios.

  People on the TV were calling the attack a knife to the economic heart of America, and everybody seemed to accept that Adaal Ackbar, a thirty-six-year-old data engineer, born and raised in Delaware, had, out of nowhere, become a jihadi radical. The guy had coached his kid’s baseball team and sung in a barbershop quartet, and yet nobody questioned it. Nobody smelled a patsy. Adaal Ackbar and five other people were dead, and it was Matt’s fault.

  A few months ago, Miller had asked him for the biggest target imaginable, and after weeks of painstaking research, he’d come up with this. Thinking back, he couldn’t remember what he’d thought they would do with the information – or if he’d even thought about it at all. Had he really been dumb enough to believe that there might just be a fire and the building would be evacuated? Or that they’d use hackers, or the wrong cable might get cut? Had he really been that naive? Then, twelve days ago, Miller had sat him down and explained in great detail exactly what would happen. She’d said that she had to, as the investment would be far too great to risk any misunderstanding. They were going all in, and there could be no mistakes. The only time there’d previously been an issue had been last year, when Matt had been informed that a certain airplane manufacturer would have a serious issue with the engine on one of its aircraft. They’d not given
Matt enough details, and so, when an older model, no longer sold by the company, had indeed experienced an issue, resulting in a cargo plane going down in the Philippines, it had not had the effect Matt had expected. The plane had been out of all warranty and, due to cost-cutting measures, the recommended service schedule had not been maintained by the airline, so the manufacturer could easily wash their hands of it. Hell, seeing as it’d pushed two other airlines to order up-to-date planes from the same manufacturer, it had actually nudged their stocks up slightly, rather than causing the expected dip. Matt had shorted their stock heavily and the fund took a hit. Not a big one in the overall scheme of things, but enough to require an explanation. So, this time, Mrs Miller had told Matt everything. She had even told him the name – Adaal Ackbar. More than anything, he wished she’d never done that. The name had made it real. He was aware that other people had died previously – the pilot of the cargo plane, for one – but this had felt different. As much as he’d been able to coherently assess what had gone so wrong in his life since that meeting with Mrs Miller twelve days ago, that was one conclusion he’d reached: she should never have told him the poor patsy’s name.

  Matt pulled some sheets of toilet paper from the dispenser and wiped the sweat off his brow. It had been a “big day” on the markets. Lanark Lane had cashed in their chips the day before so that the money would be clear by tomorrow, as instructed by Miller. The traders on the desk were giddy with excitement, although even there, Matt could see that the smarter ones were highly suspicious. How could they not be? This had been The Fund’s last big score, so even the pretence of subtlety had been abandoned. They were smashing the piggy bank and pulling off one of the biggest heists in Wall Street history. Matt’s greatest creation. Disaster Inc’s crowning glory.