Armageddon Conspiracy

by John Thompson

  Brent turned back and waited. Wofford slowly tore his eyes from the painting.

  “Welcome to the firm,” he said at last.

  TWO

  NEW YORK, JUNE 8

  “HERE’S TO PROGRESS,” UNCLE FRED said, raising his wine glass in a toast. “It was a long slog, but you got there.”

  Brent smiled and raised his own glass. “Thanks.”

  “But you’re in the same shitty industry,” Fred said, shaking his head. “After all that crap in Boston you should’ve wised up.”

  Brent would have resented the comment coming from anyone else, but since Fred had raised him from the time his mother died, he shoveled a forkful of pasta bolognaise into his mouth and took it. They were at a restaurant in Little Italy, Brent’s treat on his uncle’s first foray into Manhattan in probably ten years.

  Fred hacked off a hunk of veal chop, shoved it into his mouth, and kept talking as he chewed. “I mean, you got a degree from that fancy-ass college in New Haven and a MBA from Stanford, and these Wall Street scumbags won’t hire you for six months cause you turned in a couple crooks at your old firm.” Fred waved his fork in disgust. “Guy as smart as you can’t get a job cause he’s too honest. Jesus H. Christ!”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Brent suggested, seeing the way heads were starting to turn in their direction as Fred warmed to his topic.

  “Why? Cause you don’t want me to remind you that you always said you were going to teach?”

  Brent leaned forward, lowering his voice, hoping Fred would take the hint. “How could I? After growing up in your house, they wouldn’t allow me around children.”

  “Lemme tell you, buddy, you were raised in the lap of normal,” Fred growled. “When people stop paying you ten times what you’re worth, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.” Fred took a gulp of red wine and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Boil this Wall Street stuff down, and it’s all about giving the big shot assholes blowjobs in the washroom.”

  A well-dressed couple at the next table turned and stared with outraged expressions. Fred fluttered his eyes at them. “What?” he asked. “I can’t say washroom?”

  “Forgive my uncle,” Brent said. “He’s suffering from Tourette Syndrome.”

  The man threw a careful glance at Fred, whose pugnacious blue eyes held neither the compulsive tic of Tourette’s nor of the confused vacancy of an Alzheimer’s victim. A second later he looked away.

  “Nice job,” Brent said quietly.

  Fred raised his eyebrows. “I raised you to be something better than a money vulture.”

  “Like maybe a dirt-mouth who can clear out a restaurant.”

  Fred jerked his head at the couple and scowled. “Pussies! This whole city’s full of ‘em.”

  “But you have to admit the food is good,” Brent said, forking up the last of his pasta and trying again to change the subject.

  “Not good enough to make a person live here,” Fred replied sourly. “Nothing is.”

  • • •

  When they left the restaurant the evening was pleasantly warm, and they decided to walk rather than take a cab. Neither of them spoke as they wandered up Mott Street then over to Lafayette, continuing to Great Jones. Brent went slowly to allow for Fred’s bum knee. At Great Jones they turned east, and as if by some unspoken agreement, came to a stop opposite the fire station that held Engine 33 and Ladder 9. They stared at the building.

  “First time here?” Fred finally asked.

  “Yeah,” Brent replied. He studied the dark brick façade and the Maltese Cross on the glass of the garage doors as if the structure contained some indecipherable secret message.

  “You gone down to the site?”

  “Nope,” Brent said, thinking he never would because the emptiness was too painful. That day was branded in his memory. He remembered sitting helpless in front of his office television as the Trade Towers burned, knowing his older brother had to be inside because nothing ever kept Harry back. He’d pictured Harry charging up the fire stairs, floor after floor, past the streams of fleeing office workers, Harry always in the best shape, the one who’d get to the top first. Get out of there, you stupid sonofabitch! he’d shouted over and over at the TV.

  When the collapse came he knew Harry had been all the way up, right where spilled jet fuel would have been melting girders, the roar of flames drowning the cries of trapped victims. Even if Harry had sensed the building coming apart, he wouldn’t have budged.

  Harry and his father were both firemen, both killed in the line of duty. His mother, too, was killed in her own fire. Brent still awakened sometimes at night from his old familiar nightmare, the one where he and Harry were trapped in the flames.

  “God, I wish he’d been somewhere else that day,” he said.

  “Harry made his own choices.”

  “Shitty choices,” Brent said, and resumed walking. He heard Fred limping behind him.

  “He did what he wanted to do,” Fred said. “So did your dad. So did I. Let’s talk about your choices. You work with slime bags and then you go back for more?”

  Brent spun around. “Harry made what . . . maybe sixty grand, and he went in and rescued guys making a hundred times that much. You and Dad did the same thing, and you’re the only one who’s still around, with a bum knee and hardly enough money to hang onto to your house! And you tell me I’m the idiot!”

  “We did what we wanted,” Fred said, his tone remarkably calm given his usual quick temper. “I just hope you’re doing the same thing.”

  “I am,” Brent said, the words tripping out too quickly. He felt a white-hot anger but at the same time the sharp point of a knife in his heart.

  Twenty minutes later they reached Penn Station, where Fred would board a PATH train to Hoboken and then catch the Morristown Line to his home. Brent was feeling calmer, having walked off the helpless rage that seized him when he thought about Harry’s death, but that was only until he saw the plywood barricades where reconstruction work was still going on from February’s bombing.

  Over a hundred people killed, he thought as the familiar mix of anger and terrible loss seized him all over again.

  Fred stopped at the bottom of the escalator and clasped Brent’s arm. “Harry did good,” he said in a somber voice. “All of us have to die sometime. We just want to make sure it counts for something when it happens.”

  Brent nodded. He was trying to count for something, too. He just wished he could explain.

  • • •

  Two blocks from his newly rented apartment, he turned into a nondescript bar that looked like a hangout for the over-fifty crowd. It was dimly lit, mostly empty, and he took a table near the front window. A moment later, a woman with gray hair, her plump thighs filling out a navy blue pantsuit, walked through the front door, glanced around, and then sat at Brent’s table.

  “Well?” Ruth Simmons demanded.

  “It’s only been two days. I hardly know where the men’s room is.”

  Simmons’s lips turned down. “I thought you were a quick study.”

  She was a lawyer at the Department of Justice, running a special task force that focused on the financial industry. She was also a first class bitch, Brent thought, but she was the reason he had his job at Genesis Advisors.

  She had first contacted him several months earlier, claiming they’d met sometime after he’d blown the whistle about illegal trading practices at his old firm. Brent had taken her at her word because there had been so many lawyers that names and faces were a blur. She’d taken him to dinner and asked if he’d be willing to do something else to help the government. She’d told him the new situation involved illegal use of inside information and was much bigger than the Boston case. His country needed his help, she’d said.

  At that point, frustrated from months of fruitless job searches and behind on his bank loans and maxed-out credit cards, Brent signed a heavy-handed confidentiality agreement, and agreed to help go after Genesis Advisors.

>   Now, groping for something to report, he repeated what a young partner named Owen Smythe had revealed that day at lunch—that the firm managed over a billion dollars of Prescott Biddle’s personal money and that while the firm was a partnership in name, Biddle often ruled over his fellow partners like a dictator.

  Simmons shrugged. “That’s not evidence.”

  “No, but it’s unusual.” Brent tried to recall Owen Smythe’s exact words. “Smythe said that Biddle takes control when he gets ‘messages.’ I tried to ask more questions, but he clammed up and wouldn’t say any more.”

  Simmons’s harsh expression softened a little. “I know I tend to get impatient. Don’t push too hard. Give it time.” A sardonic smile flickered across her lips. “After all, you are being paid quite well for your patriotic duty,” she said, referring to Brent’s three million dollar a year salary, paid bi-weekly in installments of a hundred fifteen thousand dollars before withholding. It was a staggering sum that was going to allow him to pay off his mountains of debt in only a few months. “Or maybe you’d prefer to trade that for a government paycheck.”

  “Unlikely,” Brent said, wondering if bitterness over his salary was what made her seem so contradictory.

  Simmons interrupted his thoughts by holding out her hand. “By the way, give me your cell phone.”

  Brent blinked in surprise but did as she asked. She put his phone in the pocket of her jacket then pulled another phone out of the opposite pocket and handed it across. “Use this one from now on. The first number on speed dial will reach me twenty-four hours a day,” she said. “If you ever feel threatened or in danger, call me.”

  “In danger?” Brent smiled.

  Simmons leaned forward, her voice dropping to a whisper. “You’re going to take their business down.”

  “These guys are money managers, not drug dealers. They’re not going to pull something stupid.”

  “If your cover gets blown, I wouldn’t assume anything.”

  Brent thought her warning was melodramatic. Everything he’d seen so far told him the Justice Department had the situation wired, starting with how easily they’d maneuvered him into the firm. Even though his resume was rock-solid, there had to have been other strong candidates. But then Simmons had sent a twenty-five thousand dollar donation in his name to Prescott Biddle’s church, some kind of evangelical denomination called the New Jerusalem Fellowship. They believed in the literal interpretation of the Bible, but apparently they also believed in money because once the check had been cashed he’d been the only candidate that mattered.

  • • •

  Minutes later as he walked the remaining blocks to his apartment, he glanced over and imagined his brother walking beside him, Harry’s cheeks permanently chapped from flames and heat, the sleeves of his tee shirt rolled up to display the NYFD tattoo on his thick bicep.

  Harry had his head thrown back. He was laughing. My little brother, the secret good guy!

  Brent scowled.

  So, what’s your beef?

  “Even if these are bad guys, I feel like a traitor.”

  You just hate taking crap from Uncle Fred.

  Brent nodded. “I almost told him.”

  About working undercover? Good call that you didn’t. Fred hasn’t kept a secret in his life.

  “I know.”

  Just remember, where there’s smoke there’s fire, little bro.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  We’re the guys who put out the fires.

  “That was your life, not mine.”

  You sure about that?

  “I’m not too sure about anything.”

  If Harry were still alive, he would have responded by slapping the back of Brent’s head or popping his shoulder with an elbow. Of course, nothing came. There was only the noise of the city all around and the echo of Brent’s footsteps as he walked the avenue alone.

  THREE

  GREENWICH, CT, JUNE 9

  FRED WOFFORD’S PHONE JERKED HIM from a deep sleep. He felt his wife shift beside him as he opened his eyes in the darkened bedroom, checked the bedside clock then fumbled for the receiver. It was nearly five thirty, time to be getting up anyway.

  He put the phone to his ear and listened as a disembodied voice in the background announced a train, the sound echoing off a cavernous ceiling. He knew it was the sound of Union Station in Washington, D.C.

  “Up two hundred thousand,” the caller said.

  “Two hundred thousand,” Wofford repeated. “Go with God.”

  “Go with God,” the man said.

  FOUR

  NEW YORK, JUNE 9

  IN CENTRAL PARK BRENT PRACTICED his taekwondo katas on the East Meadow as the day’s first light began to pierce the dark, early morning sky. As a third degree black belt, running through all of them took well over an hour. The air was cool and the mist drifted from the wet grass like smoke. Slick with sweat, he ran hard around the reservoir as the apartments on the West Side began to glow with the dawn light, striking a hard contrast on a pale sky. Through it all he tried to keep his mind blank and surrender to the joy of physical exertion, to the insistent beating of his heart, the in and out of his respirations.

  He had planned his workout in hopes that it would help him burn off some of his confusion about his current assignment. Only the moment he finished and started walking home, it came racing back.

  If the GA partners were using inside information, he was doing the right thing if he helped bust them. He thought about the firm’s client list, the eleven billion dollars they managed. It seemed preposterous, maybe even impossible, that the firm’s senior partners would break the law. They were making tens of millions of dollars, so why risk it?

  Even if Biddle occasionally overruled the rest of his partners, it was probably because he was an egomaniac. Nothing illegal about that—egomania was as common as pigeons on Wall Street. Brent shook his head, unable to stave off his doubts. What if the Justice Department was wrong and overzealous? It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe rather than doing a good thing, Brent was about to ruin the reputation of a brilliant man.

  • • •

  An hour later in the morning meeting, his uncertainty continued to nag as he looked around at the other members of the firm. It was a boys’ club for sure. The partners were all Caucasian, and other than Owen Smythe, who appeared to be in his midthirties, they were all late forties to early sixties. Their hair was uniformly short, their shirts white. They looked as similar as members of some WASP fraternity, and he wondered how their investment style could be so much more aggressive and edgy than their appearance.

  He heard little that appeared noteworthy, and it seemed like the meeting was starting to wrap up. Brent pushed away from the table and was halfway out of his chair when the room fell silent. At the head of the table, Wofford had folded his hands. “Let us give thanks,” he said.

  The others were still seated. They all bowed their heads, and Brent felt a wave of hungry expectation wash over the room. Instinctively, he put his hand in his pocket, found the recorder, and pressed the on button.

  “Lord Jesus,” Wofford intoned, “we give You thanks for making our minds keen so we may build wealth for our clients and Your church. Make our hearts true as we prepare the world for Your return. In Your name we offer our obedience, Amen.”

  Brent glanced around. The prayer was over, but no one moved. Wofford let the silence build. “Biddle called early this morning from Europe,” he said suddenly. “The Lord spoke to him last night. He is blessing us with prosperity, and the economy is strong. So speaketh the Lord.”

  The others began to stir. They exchanged knowing looks and brief nods as if important information had just been communicated. Several mumbled, “Amen.” As they filed out of the room, Brent remained frozen, wondering whether to risk a question. “Excuse me,” he said.

  Wofford raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

  “The unemployment report is supposed to be announced at ten this mornin
g.” Brent noticed that several of the portfolio managers had stopped and turned. “The market expects employment to be down by maybe a hundred thousand.”

  Wofford nodded.

  “Are you saying it’s going to go the other way?”

  “I think God is saying it’s going to go the other way,” Wofford corrected.

  Brent looked at him for a moment. “Okay,” he said.

  • • •

  From the hallway outside his office, Brent looked through Smythe’s open door and saw him hunched over his computer keyboard. “Got a second?” he said.

  Smythe glanced up then pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He was probably six-five, maybe an inch taller than Brent, but he had narrow shoulders, bad posture, and the tallowy skin of a non-athlete. “Just checking my cash position.”

  “Was Wofford’s announcement supposed to be a buy signal?” If the employment report were up sharply, the market would explode to the upside.

  Smythe nodded. He had a slight double chin and receding brown hair. “Better believe it.”

  “Sounds like God tells Biddle what the market’s going to do?”

  Smythe shrugged. “Whatever works.”

  Back in his own office, Brent turned off the recorder. What he had on tape wouldn’t constitute evidence, but he understood its importance. Several large “short funds” as well as a number of hedge funds had made recent, highly publicized bets against cyclical stocks. The sudden perception of a strengthening economy would cause those stocks to shoot up, forcing the funds to cover their positions at significant losses, and that would push prices even higher.

  Suddenly, his phone rang and he answered. It was Joe Steward, the head trader. “I’m waiting for your buy orders,” he said.