Drummer In the Dark

by T. Davis Bunn

  “He spoke my name yesterday.” She sounded close to singing. “What do you need?”

  “I just wanted to pass on what’s happened.” She related the events, or at least some of them. She spoke only of the church and Wynn’s departure and Valerie’s arrival and Anna’s warning. Leaving out the images that floated about as she spoke. Saying nothing of their dinner, their talk, their leave-taking in the lobby. Or the way she had felt as Wynn left her room the night before, the sudden desire to walk down the hall, speak his name again, holding him as she did. The first time in over two years she had felt anything more than warning.

  Esther must have heard the slight tremor that escaped, and understood. For her voice flattened when she said, “Wynn Bryant is a handsome, dangerous man.”

  Jackie swallowed. It was so hard to speak up on behalf of any male. “I don’t think he’s the enemy, Esther.”

  “No? You’ve spent, what, two days in his company and you know him that well?”

  “People change. They learn, they grow. Not often. But it happens.”

  She waited for the bitter retort, but to her surprise all the older woman did was sigh the one word. “Cairo.”

  “Should I have gone with him?”

  “No. I suppose you might as well follow your instincts. Let me know what the detective says. And remember what that woman told you. Be careful.”

  26

  Wednesday

  IF YOU HAVE THE security right, you can do just about anything and do it safely. My task this morning is to be an enabler, and to help you protect your data and maintain the integrity of your sources.”

  Colin was two-thirds through his standard monthly spiel to the corporate fresh meat. All but three of the newly hired were finding it hard to stay awake. Which was very good, since he had designed the little talk to bore them senseless. It was his very own introductory course in corporate drivel. After this half hour, they’d do a moondance in feathers and warpaint in Hayek’s front office before ever seeking Colin out again.

  “The next step in data service is authentication, which is your way of ensuring the system that you are who you say you are.” He walked around the room handing out plastic blanks like unfinished credit cards. “These are your very own scratch-and-sniffs. Scratch the silver line there, then memorize your ID number. Don’t write it down. Don’t forget it. There is a five hundred dollar penalty for losing your number, and a five hundred dollar reward for finding someone else’s. You will receive a new one every quarter.”

  In his early days, Colin had found the nine-digit numbers scrawled in every imaginable place. He had used the rewards to finance the down payment on a new car. Since then people had wised up. “Access control is the other side of the coin. The Hayek Group uses a program known as Resource Access Control Facilitator, or RAC/F. This is a standard roll-base enabler and monitors all departments on an independent system. You will be permitted entry only to your designated portions of the mainframe’s data bank. Those sections you will find outlined on pages six and seven of your personalized folder.” Only one of them bothered to look. “If you require anything outside those areas, you will need to speak to someone with dedicated access.”

  The final pair of eyes glazed over. Total oblivion had set in. Proof that Dilbert clones were not born, but molded. “Today’s final point deals with data confidentiality, which is the system’s way of ensuring anything you write or, for you traders, any deal you make, remains hidden from all except those with . . .”

  His pager was set for silent alarm and vibrated against his belt. He glanced down and saw it was a call from Eric on the trading-room floor. Anything from the floor during office hours was to be treated as critically urgent. Colin looked out over the room. Not a single face showed any awareness that he had even stopped talking. He was momentarily tempted to just walk out in mid-sentence, see how long they would remain caught in soporific stasis. “To finish up, our internal corporate data system must be treated as a secure world. Our electronic premises must have each and every one of you acting as vigilant guards at all times. Any questions? All right then. Welcome to the Hayek Group.”

  Colin flew down the outer corridor. If it was a true emergency, seconds might mean millions. He slipped into the back of the trading room and waited to be noticed. Dealers raced and shouted their way through a normally frantic day. Eric caught his eye, lifted one finger, used it as an arrow to plant Colin where he was. Eric juggled two telephones as he went back to punching numbers into his board. Then he called over to his senior trader, “I’ve got a broker on the line from London. Looks like we might have an arbitrage opening up here.”

  That caught everyone’s attention in the spot trade section. The word meant different things to different kinds of traders. For currency hounds, an arbitrage was basically a gap between one group’s offer and another active bid. With e-trading, arbitrages grew smaller and flashed out quicker. But canny traders still found them. And grabbed them with iron teeth of greed.

  Alex, the senior spot trader, scooted his chair out far enough to see the trio of aisles that made up his world. “Who’s the shop?”

  “Won’t say,” Eric replied. “But Rawls is the broker. A troll might be at work here.”

  This meant Eric was probably up against a minor Swiss player who was keeping his sale confidential by acting through a currency broker. It had taken Colin months to understand both the lingo and the action. The study had become a hobby, something tied to his e-world but beyond it, another linked universe that amplified the high. The “shop” was either a bank or fund active in currency trading. These days there were two classes of shops operating out of Switzerland. The gnomes were the top-league traders, biggest of the big. Credit Suisse alone handled over six hundred billion in assets. Contests with gnomes usually turned into scalding experiences. It was critical when trying to play an arbitrage to make sure a gnome was not involved.

  Trolls were something different. Trolls were would-be gnomes. they operated in regional Swiss banks and pretended to a knowledge they often did not have. A true gnome would not allow a troll to open his car door, much less have access to a gnome-type lead. Which meant occasionally trolls would open arbitrage pockets big enough to hold a truckful of profit. Eric handled dollar-euro, and the euro had been on a wild and woolly ride since its introduction. Instability like this bred occasional chances for big profit. And bigger losses.

  “They’ve put up a bid for eighty million dollars at fifty.” Eric spoke in hushed tones, even though his phone mikes were muted.

  “What’s the market say?”

  “Stable at thirty points higher.”

  Thirty points was a spread of one-third of a cent, a huge difference for a relatively calm day. The senior trader rose to his feet. Alex quietly addressed his cadre, who waited poised at the cliff’s edge, every one of them ready to leap. “Call one friend each. See if there’s something out there we don’t know about.” The traders scattered.

  Eric said, “I’ve found a bid on-line for fifty at ten higher.” This meant he already had a buyer for fifty million of the anonymous seller’s eighty million, at ten points above the offered price. After commission it represented a marginal profit, less than a quarter-million dollars, but not bad for a sixty-second play.

  “Buy eighty, sell fifty,” the senior man ordered. “And put your broker on the horn.”

  Eric routed one of his phones through the speaker above his central screen. He shut off his mute button and said, “I buy your eighty at one-fifty.”

  “Sold at one-fifty,” intoned the dull voice over the speaker. “You in the market for more?”

  All brokers spoke like they were coming off a ten-week drunk, the effects of living on the knife’s edge of spot trading. One-fifty was a reference to the final cent and points, or hundredths of a cent. The rest of the exchange rate was not mentioned unless the shifts came in violent increments. Then the rates were not spoken but screamed. Colin had seen it happen twice, and both times the t
rading floor had become a battle zone.

  Eric was already flashing the sell order on his keyboard. He covered his phone mike. “Bought and sold.”

  “Right.” The senior trader rose up and hissed to his team, “What have you got?”

  He received a chorus of head shakes. One woman muttered, “According to Lehman, dollar-euro is holding stable.”

  Alex dropped back into the saddle. Said to Eric, “Tell the guy we’re in for more.”

  “How much?”

  “Go for a quarter. See what he says.”

  Eric tried vainly to hold to his calm. But the bug eyes gave him away. A quarter billion dollars was twice his limit and the biggest trade he had ever made. His voice was slightly strangled as he uncovered his mike and said, “Back to you with second query.”

  “Go.”

  “What’s your posit for more dollar-euro?”

  “Give me a size.”

  A nervous glance at Alex, who nodded sharply. Go. “Two hundred and fifty either way.”

  A fractional pause, then, “This is an authorized trade?”

  An authorized trade meant the query was backed by an actual right to deal. “Affirmative.”

  “Hold one.”

  The senior trader raised his hand like a conductor ready to lead the band into frantic song. The broker came back, “Two hundred fifty at one-fifty-sixty.”

  Either-way trade offers included both buy and sell prices. One-fifty-sixty meant the unnamed source was willing to either sell euros at eighty-one and fifty hundredths U.S. cents, or buy at ten hundredths higher. This buy-sell difference also included the broker’s minuscule cut.

  The senior trader’s upraised hand pumped violently. Nineteen traders went into hyperdrive. The first response came from across the aisle at, “Buy fifty at one-seventy!”

  Another, “Seventy at one-sixty-nine!”

  The senior trader’s arm pumped harder. Over the speaker the broker demanded, “Are we trading or am I walking?”

  Eric uncovered his mike but could not keep the tremble from either his voice or his hand. “Hold one.”

  “I don’t hold for nobody, boyo. Especially not some schmuck trading out of his league. You drop this, you don’t ever call me again.”

  A voice from across the room shouted, “Sixty-five at one-sixty-one!”

  The senior trader snapped, “Buy it all.”

  Eric’s voice raised an octave as he shouted, “Buy two-fifty at one-fifty!”

  “Done and good-bye.” The broker cut the connection.

  The senior trader shouted, “We’re still holding twenty-five. Find me anything over one-fifty!”

  “Twenty-five at one-fifty-six!”

  Eric stabbed his screen and managed, “Euro-dollar’s going south. The market’s gapping down!”

  The senior trader walked over to clap Eric on the shoulder. “Add fifty to your limit and a half-bill to your bonus.” He said more loudly, “Way to go, team!” Then he headed toward Colin.

  Colin said in greeting, “Eric buzzed me.”

  “I asked him to.” Up close Alex had the stretched-mask face of a trauma victim and a voice to match. He pointed to the balcony. “You see the new guys?”

  “I do now.” The glassed-in parapet was alive with activity. Upstairs traders went through a normal trading day. Only they were cut off by a glass wall and gave scant indication they were aware of anything down below.

  “Can you tap in and find out what’s going on?”

  “No. They’re using a secure line.”

  “Independent of the group’s computers?”

  “Independent of everything.”

  The senior trader looked very worried. “This is a bad idea, putting them up there. Traders deal in rumors, and I’m stamping out a dozen at a time. Half my guys have feelers out for new jobs. They can’t work in a place where they’re getting secondhand reports.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I don’t know anything. Hayek’s just getting back from Miami, the Unabomber’s not available, and I’ve got twenty new faces standing on top of my head. And I don’t know why.” The senior trader’s attention was caught by arm-waving from one of his cadre. Alex was a man who lived in twenty-second bursts. Colin’s time was up. “You hear anything, you let me know, right?”

  “Absolutely.” Colin watched him move away, grateful for this public connection. Alex had not met him today to ask about the new scene overhead. He wanted to show all the members of his eighty-by-eighty world that Colin was one of the good guys. His place was swiftly taken by Eric. Colin told him, “You did good out there.”

  “Today, maybe.” Eric’s high was gone, the fizz now flat. “You know what they say about the higher you climb.”

  “Yeah,” Colin replied. “The more money you put in your pocket.”

  “If that’s so, how come I’m the one always in debt?” Eric headed back to his desk.

  Colin searched the upstairs glass cage for the deadhead in Armani, but all the faces were fleeting blurs backlit by a hundred monitors. Colin turned from all the unanswered questions and headed back to his safe little hole.

  But he was halted at his cubicle’s entrance by the sight of a well-dressed foe perched on the edge of his seat. The usurper’s ivory linen jacket was pulled up his arms to reveal a gold Rolex. Super-dude shades sat on top of his spiky waxed hair. Colin could not believe his eyes. Nobody entered someone else’s cubicle without permission. It was one of the backroom’s unbreakable codes. “What are you doing?”

  The guy knew he had gone too far. He tried for cool, but the jerky way he snapped about, then flashed back to kill the screens convicted him. “Easy there. Just hanging around, playing the odd game.”

  But Colin was no longer listening. He seldom felt rage, even less often acted upon it. But to find this man seated in his space working on his system pushed him way beyond redline.

  “Chill, dude. It’s all part of a day’s play. I mean, it’s not like you’ve got anything worth hiding, am I right?”

  A weapon. Colin found nothing to hand except the ficus tree guarding the cubicle opposite his. He raced over and hefted it, bucket and all.

  “Hey!” A voice from inside cried, “You can’t—”

  But Colin was already hurtling back across the narrow aisle, gathering what speed he could. He hefted the tree, bucket first, aiming straight for the deadhead’s slack-jawed face.

  It was a lousy shot. The guy ducked in time, and Colin managed only to graze the top of his head. But it was enough to dislodge the bug-eyed shades and dump a ton of dirt down the back of the guy’s shirt.

  “Help!” The guy was down on all fours now, or at least threes, with one hand wrapped over his head. “This idiot’s gone berserk!”

  “You miserable cretin!” Colin flipped the empty bucket to one side, gripped the tree by its branches, and whipped the roots down on the guy’s back and shoulders. Leaving filthy stripes across the guy’s jacket. Feeling the shades crunch under his foot. “You ever come in here again I’ll kill you.”

  The worst blow came not from Colin at all, but rather from the guy catapulting out of the cubicle still blinded by the hand covering his head, and ramming straight into the opposite wall. He went down hard, which gave Colin time to get in another two swipes across his back and one solid kick to the ribs. The guy shrilled a noise too high for human vocal cords and fled, leaving a trail of dirt and leaves in his wake.

  Chest heaving, Colin stood staring down the corridor. Then he realized he was not alone. He turned to find the aisle behind him jammed with round-eyed spectators.

  Somebody said, “Plaudits, dude.”

  “Yeah, way to rage, Colin.”

  “Was that one of the new guys?”

  Colin nodded, then said to his colleague from across the aisle. “Sorry about the tree. I’ll buy you another.”

  The young woman was an Indian who rarely said more than hello. Surree somebody. “My mother gave me that thing. I’ve always hated
it.”

  The neighbor to his left asked, “Need a hand cleaning up?”

  “Sure, thanks.” But when he reentered his cubicle, he ignored the dirt and leaves and burrowed under his desk. Searching. “Anybody see him come in, or how long he was here alone?”

  “No.”

  There it was. Duct-taped to the back of his server. Wired in and out between his dedicated lines. A second ghost feed. A tracer. Colin pried it free, reattached the wires as they should have been, and slid out.

  The sight froze all motion. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Someone else asked, “Why would anybody want to bug their own security guy’s system?”

  Colin rose to his feet, brushing futilely at the dirt. “I’ve got to see Alex.”

  COLIN’S CUBICLE HUMMED with a power all its own. He had maneuvered for an ergonomic chair like the senior traders, nylon strung tight as a pro’s racket, balancing every part of his body and offering flow-through ventilation. His desk held six monitors, two more than the average trader, and his were all twenty-one inch Fujitsu LCDs. State of the art, five thousand dollars a pop. Not to mention his two independent servers. Six dedicated lines, three in, three out. It was the nerd’s equivalent of strapping into the saddle of an F-16. Clicking in, blasting off. Locked and loaded.

  The gabardine menace’s invasion left Colin seriously assaulted.

  He sat as Alex led in five other senior traders, a third of those managing the Hayek floor. All of them were tense and impatient over being dragged away from the end of trading. He watched them do a quick sweep of his gear. A couple of them whistled appreciatively.

  Alex instructed, “Show them what you found.”

  Colin handed him the coupling, explained, “It’s a high-speed drone, flashing a duplicate signal of every incoming and outgoing message I send over the wires. A wiretap for computer transmissions.”

  “Now show him the others.”

  Another trader barked, “He found more?”

  “Two on the trading floor’s outgoing feeder lines,” Alex confirmed.