Drummer In the Dark

by T. Davis Bunn

  “I didn’t see any agent upstairs.”

  “Then he’s doing his job, Congressman.”

  Bowers drew Wynn out of the flow. “You’ve left the Willard?”

  “Moved into a room at the M Street Marriott.”

  “Smart, very smart. Give them less of a target. How’s your friend?”

  “They’re going to let Nabil go home tomorrow.” Wynn crossed his arms. “This is not a social call, so let’s hear the bad news.”

  “We’ve been getting messages for two days now,” the agent told him. “Evidence slipped through the mail slot, under doorways, left in cryptic code on our website. About how you’ve been involved in some serious business. Felonious activities in the form of insider trading, using your sister as a front. Enough to warrant a full investigation and a possible freezing of all your assets.”

  Wynn nodded slowly. Trying to figure out what he felt. Deciding the shock would strike soon enough. “Are you here to arrest me?”

  “No, Congressman. We’re not.” Gerald Bowers was not just ugly. He was a pusher. He shoved with his words and his gestures, punching the air between them, getting in close enough for Wynn to catch the stale odor of cigars. “Last time we met, you questioned our bona fides. So we’re laying it out plain as we know how. We’re not going to do a thing with this.”

  “Which doesn’t mean the press can’t attack you,” the agent warned.

  “They might, but we won’t.” Bowers leveled a stubby finger at Wynn’s nose. “Here’s the deal. We’re after one target and one target only, and it’s not you. That good enough to show which side we’re on?”

  “So why don’t you go after Hayek yourself?”

  The arm dropped. “Life as a top bureaucrat is as political as elected office. There’s just one rule to riding the Washington bull. Fight the battles you can win.”

  “I don’t get it. All the manpower and connections at your disposal, and your best hope is the greenest guy in Congress?”

  “It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” Welker replied. “Our first alert on Hayek came from somebody else without any logical connection to the financial community. A nobody acting as messenger for a group called Sant’Egidio. Does the name ring a bell?”

  “Let’s take this outside. I hate hospitals. They smell like bottled death.” Bowers led them into an evening mist too fine and windless to be called rain. “Here’s the thing. We know Hayek has been involved in some nastiness south of the border. But there’s nothing concrete we can pin on him.”

  “Mexico?”

  “Farther down. Doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, Hayek is tainted, but also very careful. We know for certain he’s not colluding with any of his Wall Street brethren. We also know he’s being flooded with funny money, enough so he’s started a second fund. But none of it traceable to anything illegal. Remember, there’s nothing illegal about betting against the market.”

  “But that’s not what you think is going on here, right?”

  Bowers’ spectacles glistened like glass flowers, hiding irises of angry blue. “Would I be wasting my Friday night standing in the rain if I did?”

  “Give us the ammunition, Congressman,” the agent said. “We’ll blast the guy right out of the water.”

  “We’ve heard that this Tsunami project might be aimed at crippling the U.S. financial markets,” Wynn ventured. “But we don’t have any proof. Not yet.”

  A swift exchange of glances, then Bowers allowed, “Hayek’s crew has suddenly gotten very busy this afternoon, buying dollars with both fists.” He shoved a card into Wynn’s pocket. “Cellphone and home numbers are on the back. You’ve already got Welker’s card. Stay in touch.”

  52

  Saturday

  THE TOP MAN IN Valerie’s firm owned a riverside house he stubbornly insisted was in Georgetown, although both the state and city lines were set firmly on the wrong side of his property. He paid Glen Echo city taxes and drove a car with Maryland license plates, but declared with all the inbred stubbornness of his Deep South ancestors that someday he would set the matter straight. Whatever side of the line, the place was still a jaw dropper. Three acres, mostly of trees and ridgeline, overlooked the steep-sided Potomac. Upon this plateau rested a redbrick throne embroidered with pillars, balconies, chandeliers, heart-of-pine flooring, and original oils. One associate claimed to have seen a letter from the chairman to the architect approving an order for three thousand square feet of granite.

  Valerie’s wrought-iron chair was at one corner of the slate-and-stone veranda, an untouched drink on the table in front of her. All four senior partners were present. A bombshell she had promised, and a bombshell she was going to deliver. One big enough to require the privacy of an off-site meeting. “Yesterday evening I received information that should take down our principal opposition once and for all.”

  “That greenhorn congressman from Florida, what’s his name?”

  “Bryant. He was the CEO of a high-tech start-up. They sold out to the company formerly run by Jackson Taylor. Two weeks before the buyout, Bryant apparently used secret accounts in a Bermuda bank to purchase futures in Taylor’s stock, which had been depressed by a major court case that looked like it was going against them. The case was resolved through the acquisition of Bryant’s company. Bryant shared these profits with his sister. Very hush-hush.”

  “Dynamite,” her immediate boss declared. “This will totally destroy the guy.”

  “There’s a slight problem,” Valerie warned.

  “How slight?”

  “The sister is Governor Wells’ recently deceased wife.”

  “The one who was whacked by the Arab terrorists?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t like it.” The top partner was three years from retirement and considered himself more of a mover and shaker than a mere lobbyist. He had the booming tone of an actor reading unfamiliar lines. “We’re in this for the long haul. There’s a difference between striking hard and hitting below the belt.”

  Valerie gripped the arms of her chair, her features set in the concrete of having been through this many times before. This was precisely the sort of imbecilic rubbish she had come to expect from their top man.

  The others disagreed for her. “You weren’t there for the meeting with AIM’s representative. I was. They want to see this thing go away forever.”

  “Part of success in this business is knowing which trigger to pull,” another agreed.

  “They definitely do not want this baby to get out of the crib. Our job is to kill it in the cradle, before it can crawl out of committee.”

  Her immediate boss asked Valerie, “What else do you have planned?”

  “Monday we’re going after the political forces in the committee members’ home states. My people will be contacting the top fund raisers, showing them just how important it is to call in their chits. We’ll do the second round of meetings with the members themselves on Tuesday, if possible with a tame Treasury official in tow. The talking heads are getting their first strikes in tomorrow.”

  “When is the committee scheduled to vote?”

  “Nothing’s been slated, but this is being pushed hard. Our best guess is Wednesday.”

  The chairman declared, “I’m still not in agreement here.”

  “Your objection is noted.” The youngest of the senior partners did not bother to hide his sarcasm. “But I say we hit them with everything we’ve got. This is a top priority from one of our biggest clients, and we’ve just been handed a silver bullet.” He turned to Valerie. “You’ve got concrete evidence against Bryant?”

  “I’m told it is being couriered up to me tomorrow.”

  “I say run it by legal. If they think it’s solid, we should strike first thing next week.”

  Without another word, the chairman finished his drink, rose to his feet, and left the table. They waited for him to move out of range before the man slated to take his place said, “Way to go, Val.”

  “What’s
with the old man?”

  “He sees everything these days through the lens of hankering after a cabinet appointment.” The man next in line shrugged. “Val, you make this happen and there’s a chair waiting for you in the boardroom.”

  “Wiping the floor with the man fronting our opposition,” her boss agreed. “That’s the way reputations are made in this town.”

  53

  Saturday

  AS BURKE WAS CHECKING into the Forex Dealers convention at the Breakers of Palm Beach, he witnessed two brokers go toe-to-toe over the hotel’s one remaining suite. Framed notices stood to either side of the reception desk, announcing some of the goodies on offer. A wire service was hosting a daylong gambling cruise. Another welcomed every arriving broker with a half gallon of vintage Dom Pérignon. Dealing networks had set up six bars in the lobby and around the outdoor pool. Brokers spent the convention handing out Rolexes like candy. The air was full of false cheer and people determined to spend their way into a good time. Traders who made it to the top were paid to be instant and aggressive. Hit and pay, make and run. The language was physical, the tension constant.

  Burke tipped a bellhop to carry his bags upstairs and began his first circuit. He was there to observe and be seen. He passed a table where five men were shouting over a female first-timer. College, they called the fresh meat. One of the men barked, “Deal you twenty-six, twenty-eight on the college.”

  “Hit you fifty,” another called back.

  The girl was doing her best not to look like a total turnip off the truck from Chicago, but she clearly did not have a clue to what the men were talking about. When she just sat there with her pasty little smile, the first dealer leaned over his floral-print belly and said, “Whattaya make me, College?”

  “I—I’m sorry, I just wanted a drink.”

  “Drink, schmink. Look, Alfie here’s got fifty thou you’re either under twenty-six or over twenty-eight.” When she faltered, he popped his fingers like castanets. “Word of advice, College. People figure if you talk slow you think slow. And if you talk quiet you ain’t got power for the floor. So give it to us loud and now.”

  “Shout out the age, College,” Alfie agreed. “Make me a happy man.”

  Burke walked away. Senior traders could never leave it behind. They were addicts looking for the next fix. The later the hour, the higher soared the bets. It was all about instant gratification. They’d bet on anything.

  Two years earlier, when the Forex convention was in London, Burke had watched a group of traders go a hundred thou each over whose main course had the highest number of green beans. They’d slipped the ma"tre d’ five thousand dollars to play ref and count the stringers on each plate. Two guys tied for first and walked off with four-fifty apiece. It was all gone by the next day, lost to a female trader from Singapore who won the pool on how many towels were in the sixth-floor pantry. Twenty-two traders had taken that action, trooped upstairs, bribed some Chinese cleaning woman with a hatful of cash, crammed into and around the pantry, then watched and shouted as she counted the towels for them. The woman trader from ING Bank had woken up the entire floor when she won and shrieked and walked off with the convention’s top draw of just under two million bucks.

  That had also been the year the brokerage firms stacked their receptions like chips, so the traders could visit them all. The firms had drawn their times out of a brass champagne bucket, and moaned and argued over the placings but held pretty much to the schedule. The best by acclaim was the reception given by the French brokers, a Parisian saloon with can-can dancers that hadn’t started until four o’clock the final morning. Which meant there’d been so many nightlong drunks they’d called the last breakfast buffet the Xerox convention, since almost everybody showed up wearing the same clothes they’d had on the night before.

  As he headed for the lobby’s rear doors, Burke caught the drift of a senior trader talking on the phone, ruining a minion’s weekend. “If it breaks the year low, I don’t want anything to do with the euro.” A pause, then the words became a shout. “Look, I don’t care what your analysts say. You’ve got your stop orders. If it hits the low, dump every euro in the bucket.”

  Burke entered the sunlight and walked toward the bayside pool, the banter splashing off him like rain.

  “That guy runs a real book in London. A genuine triggerman.”

  “Hit and pay, that’s what I told him. I’ve stuffed you. You owe me a name.”

  “All of a sudden, the guy next to me screams, Feds at ten o’clock! I felt the old ticker do a total freeze.”

  “I talked to my contact at Bubba, then the top guy at the Old Lady. They gave me nothing. I hit the ground running just the same. Was up half a big one by lunch.”

  Burke felt eyes on him from all directions. But he’d had a lifetime’s experience ignoring those who assumed he was of a lesser breed. He seated himself at an empty poolside table, isolated by his own preference, there only because Hayek had ordered him to come. And waited.

  It came as no surprise when the traders at the next table swiveled their chairs in order to include him in their conversation. “Where are all your boys, Burke?”

  “I’m the token force this year. I guess you heard, we had a sudden inflow of new cash this week.”

  “So how are things around Hayek these days?” This from the top Barclay’s New York trader.

  “Busy.”

  “You guys missing Wall Street yet?”

  “Like we would a boil.”

  There were rules of engagement to be followed in such an exchange. Power was tightly stratified among traders. Minnows talked to minnows, the sharks only with other sharks. Burke knew these guys were aware of Hayek’s extraordinary Friday moves. But they could not say anything outright. It was like bidding in bridge. Everything had to be done in code.

  The senior Dresdner Bank trader was from Singapore by way of Chicago, and known for his Cuisinart blend of accents. “We hear buyers started coming out of the woodwork late Friday.”

  Burke pretended surprise. “What’s the spot?”

  “Come on, Burke.” The Barclay’s senior American trader was an utterly hairless man who wore a straw boater to protect his pate. “Like you guys weren’t nose down at the trough.”

  The Dresdner man pressed, “Dollars against euros, sterling, yen, anything so long as the position has them dollar long.”

  “The dollar does look pretty firm, doesn’t it,” Burke said.

  But the cognac and the company had fueled the Dresdner man’s ability to mask his worry with angry bluster. “It’s a panic spree.”

  Burke smiled at the guy. “You’re telling me you’re long euros?”

  “We’re looking at a sure-fire arbitrage. I’ve told my guys it’s a mopping-up exercise.”

  “Not me.” Barclay’s spoke to the Paribas guy but was eyeing Burke, hoping for a sign. “I told my people they better have their buyers locked in before they move. Either that or they’ll be planted on the street.”

  “The dollar’s overvalued, I’m telling you.” This from Dresdner.

  Burke smiled once more. “Then why are you sweating?”

  “The heat down here stays cranked up to sauna, that’s why. Look, have your guys call my guys. We’ll take whatever you’ve got on offer.”

  The Barclay’s guy moved in tight. “Unless Hayek is trying to form a bull corner on the dollar market.”

  “Cornering is illegal,” Burke replied coolly. “The Fed would plant their inspectors in our front room and shut down our operation for the duration.”

  “So there’s nothing to the rumor,” the Barclay’s man pressed, “that Hayek is holding some juicy big news, something that might really strike the market hot?”

  “All I can tell you is what I’ve already said. The dollar is looking pretty solid from where we stand, and the current investment flow seems to be pushing it higher.” Burke rose to his feet, gave the table a benign smile. “Think I’ll go check out the action in the bar.”
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br />   He took his time maneuvering through the tables, exchanged greetings with people he knew from previous conventions. Things were moving just as Hayek had predicted, and it was important for the gathered traders to see him and take note. All the while, Burke marveled at Hayek’s plan. Currencies often made huge fluctuations in August and early September. The same thing happened between Christmas and the New Year, when the gnomes of Zurich closed down for their annual migration to Gstaad and St. Moritz. The financial press often assigned blame to whatever political or interest rate crises happened to be brewing. But the reason was far simpler: less liquidity. Fewer traders were exchanging less money. A relatively small amount of activity was therefore enough to cause a massive shift. Hayek’s plan was to push the markets around, and do so violently. The best time to do this was when the fewest senior traders walked the floor. The senior traders were the ones allowed to trade the bigger positions. And come Monday, these traders would be on the third day of a serious annual binge.

  Burke smiled to the palms and the manicured lawn and the blistering heat. One thing was certain. Hangover or not, come Monday the gathering would be swarming like a hive on fire.

  54

  Sunday

  SUNDAY MORNING CARTER Styles picked Wynn up and drove him first to church with his family, then the three blocks from the church to their tract home on the outskirts of McLean. Carter’s wife was a quietly intense woman who did statistical research for the American University science department and three local labs. The two Styles children were six and nine, and mercifully resembled their mother. Their home was a two-story brick cookie-cutter with a large fenced-in backyard full of swings and toys and an ecstatic golden Lab.

  Carter tended burgers on the grill as he sipped a glass of iced tea and made short shrift of his background. “I was born and raised in Fort Pierce. Little town of about fifteen thousand, double that when the snow birds come flocking down. Sits between Vero Beach and Boca. Place is full of your basic hourly wage crowd.”