Hostile Takeover td-81

by Warren Murphy

  Their panic appealed to him. For it presaged the absolute anarchy which would soon reign when the opening gong sounded.

  Looncraft got up and stuck his head out the door.

  "Are we liquid yet?" he called.

  "No, sir, the DOT is backing up. It isn't taking our orders. "

  "Then get over to the Exchange!" Looncraft shouted. "Deal directly with the floor specialists. We must be liquid. The entire economy is about to collapse. I hear it on the street, and I hear perfectly!"

  Traders stumbling and struggling against one another, the trading floor emptied into the elevators.

  The phone on the secretary's desk rang. Looncraft strode toward her as she was telling the caller, "Let me check."

  Looncraft's secretary put her hand over the receiver. "It's the chairman of the Exchange."

  "I'll take it."

  In his office, P. M. Looncraft took up the phone without bothering to sit down. "Yes, Paul?"

  "We're on the brink," the chairman said hoarsely. "The DOT's in trouble. My God, if there's that much dumping going on now, you know what will happen when the Exchange opens."

  "Perhaps you are panicking prematurely," P. M. Looncraft suggested, his tone soothing. "After all, we came through the recent market upheavals without difficulty. This too may pass."

  "My information is that when we open, there will be more sellers than buyers. You know what that means."

  Looncraft knew. The knowledge brought a tight smile to his long cadaverous face. It meant that the entire fabric of Wall Street was close to unraveling. No buyers meant the sellers could not unload their stocks-not even at fire-sale prices. No buyers also meant that the consentual understanding that ran the stock market the one that said no matter how much prices fluctuated, stocks would always have some irreducible value-was disintegrating. And when that went, perhaps the monetary basis for currency would begin to unravel. If the Japanese hadn't already driven the dollar down to near-worthlessness.

  "We have less than an hour to act," the chairman urged.

  "Perhaps we should convene a meeting," P. M. Looncraft said soothingly.

  "I'll call the others."

  Less than fifteen minutes later, the board of directors of the New York Stock Exchange met around a long mahogany table which resembled an aircraft-carrier deck.

  The chairman of the Exchange stood up, his face haggard.

  "You all know the situation," he said. "The Far Eastern markets are in an uproar. The DOT is buried. When the gong sounds, I anticipate a fifteen-hundred-point instant drop. It would be more if the DOT was able to accept the load of sell orders that continues to pour into the system. In short, there is no question that we stand on the brink of a cataclysmic crash. Perhaps even a bottoming out of the market's total value."

  "What do you propose?" P. M. Looncraft asked smoothly.

  " I propose we not open today."

  "Not open? Wouldn't that exacerbate the panic?"

  "It doesn't matter," the chairman retorted. "It's so bad it simply cannot get any worse. I move the Exchange not open until we sort this out. We can blame it on the computers overloading. Your votes, gentlemen."

  " I vote against," said Percival Marylebone Looncraft, turning to the others arrayed around the table.

  "Against," voted Douglas Trevor Lippincott.

  "Against," voted Henry Cecil Hyde.

  "For," voted Aristotle Metaxas.

  "Against," said Lowell Cabot.

  "Against," said Alf Wenham. "For," said Sol Sugarman.

  In the end, the Brahmins had won, as P. M. Looncraft knew they would. Anglo-Saxon blood never betrayed its heritage.

  "If that is all," Looncraft said to a stunned chairman, getting to his feet, " I am needed back at the office."

  The others filed out of the meeting room, leaving the three dissenters, a Jew, an Italian, and a Greek. They looked at one another with sick, incredulous eyes, never realizing that they had been sandbagged by a two-hundred-year-old conspiracy.

  The Dow did not drop fifteen hundred points at the opening bell, as predicted. It dropped seventeen hundred. The DOT system had processed more sell orders than anyone had expected. In fact, it was working marvelously-all things considered.

  Trading was halted for an hour, in accordance with NYSE rules regarding two-hundred-point drops. But when it resumed, so did the collapse.

  There was panic in the pits. Several traders sold their expensive seats on the Exchange before trading had progressed five minutes. More than one trader sold off his Rolex-worn as a hedge against calamity-to cover option puts.

  Men who had made fortunes speculating, not on the value of the firms they invested in, but on the projected prices of stocks, were bankrupted in seconds. Windows all over Wall Street were shattered by chairs, and men jumped to their death rather than face the financial ruin they had brought upon themselves. It was 1929 all over again. Except that now the repercussions were not limited to Wall Street and its satellites-brokerage houses and mutualfund groups around the country. It was a global panic.

  In London the Financial Times Stock Exchange was still trading. As word of the Dow's nearly two-thousand-point plunge hit the City, prices dropped faster than some of the bodies striking Manhattan pavements thousands of miles west. The pound sterling lost value against everything except the U. S. dollar.

  Dr. Harold W. Smith saw it all happen on his computer screen. The declining broadtape numbers marched by his eyes with sickening speed. Then certain stocks dropped off the tape. That meant they were no longer being traded, having dropped below their yield value. Despite their being worth the return their yearly dividends realized, no one was buying them.

  No one, that is, until precisely 11:02, when with the Dow fluctuating between 766 and 967 points, one investor began to buy, and buy heavily.

  The numbers fluctuated so slightly, in comparison to the drop, that at first Harold Smith didn't perceive the new factor for what it was.

  When he realized there was a buying splurge going on, he logged onto the Looncraft, Dymstar d mainframe, assuming that was where the activity originated.

  But Looncraft, Dymstar d computers were simply standing by. They were not buying, they were not selling.

  Smith accessed Looncraft's personal computer. It was buzzing with strange cross-talk, but no selling activity.

  Smith went around the chain of conspirators. None of them was buying. They were too busy communicating with Looncraft on the Mayflower Descendants' net.

  Smith checked with Nostrum. Nostrum was not buying. Of course, with Chiun in London, there was no one there to orchestrate a response to the increased selling pressure.

  Frustrated, Smith logged onto the DOT computers at the New York Stock Exchange. He saw the stream of buy orders. They were starting to back up. Every buy order bore the same origin.

  "Oh, my God," Harold W. Smith said hoarsely.

  It was Crown Acquisitions, Limited. It was buying up everything in sight, obtaining significant interest in major banks, insurances companies, newspapers, radio and television stations, and major industries. Key stocks and bluechips were being gobbled up by its voracious maw.

  Crown was buying America's economic and industrial underpinnings.

  Only then did Harold W. Smith understand what the whole mad scheme was all about.

  It was a hostile takeover-on a scale never before imagined.

  Chapter 25

  In Oxford, England, Sir Quincy Chiswick sat in the dimness of the far corner table in the Wheatsheaf pub, away from the common herd. The pub buzzed with low voices. Occasionally a student would enter his field of vision to take away tea or a shepherd's pie from the worn wooden kitchen counter.

  They never looked his way, even those who were his students. Sir Quincy preferred it that way. It was the reason he wore his raven-black professorial gown in the pub.

  It was bad enough that he had to earn his bread teaching the spotted bastards, but to socialize with them was more than a body could bea
r.

  Every year it became more of a chore.

  Sir Quincy drained the last of his shandy, tossed a pound coin on the table, and rose to leave.

  He overheard several people speaking about the stock market's travails, but paid them no mind.

  "Oh, Professor," one of them called out.

  Sir Quincy was so flummoxed by the lad's temerity that he forgot himself and turned.

  Three young students were hunkered over their ale. One had his hand up, as if in a lecture hall. He looked like a right prat.

  "Yes, what is it?" Sir Quincy deigned to say.

  "You've doubtless heard of the economic chaos brewing in the States, Professor. Our own markets are coming a cropper. What do you suppose this augurs for the U. K. economy?"

  "I have not heard of the economic chaos, as you so quaintly put it," Sir Quincy retorted. "And I pay no attention to the dreary modern world. My field is history. Now, if you will excuse me, unlike yourselves, I must prepare for tomorrow's classes."

  And with that, Sir Quincy Chiswick, Regius Professor of History at Oxford's Nuffing College, turned about and fled the Wheatsheaf like a fugitive from an abbey.

  He stepped out into the early dusk already blanketing Oxford's multitudinous spires.

  His haggard fortyish visage was glum as he trudged along like an ebony-winged crow. He took no comfort from the sight of the witchlike spire of his own Nuffing College on his left.

  He walked up High Street, past the Covered Market, and turned up Cornmarket Street. From Magdalen Street he took the Friar's Entry shortcut to Gloucester Street. Its blue lights were sepulchral tonight.

  At the end of Gloucester, he crossed Beaumont to come, at last, to St. John's Street and its modest row houses.

  Sir Quincy entered number fifty by a blue door in the scabrous white stucco facade, locked the door behind him, and glanced at the row of antique grandfather clocks at the foot of the stairs. The last one was a minute slow. He made a note to have it adjusted as he trooped up the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other lifting his black gown so as not to snag a step.

  "Is that you, sir?" a middle-aged woman's voice called from the downstairs flat.

  "Yes, Mrs. Burgoyne," he called down. "Has there been any mail today?"

  "No, sir. I set tea and scones for you, as always."

  "Odd," Sir Quincy muttered. In a normal voice, he said, "Thank you, Mrs. Burgoyne. You are very kind."

  "Good night, Professor."

  "Good night, Mrs. Burgoyne."

  Sir Quincy unlocked the door to his shabbily genteel room. It was high-ceilinged, its eastern wall dominated by two beds, set like bookends, each covered by a yellowing bedspread.

  In the center of the room stood a small writing desk burdened by a tea-cozy-covered object, a tarnished pewter tray heaped with scones, and two varieties of jam in serving compotes set beside the lion-patterned tea cozy.

  Sir Quincy sat down. From a drawer he took a coilshaped heating element, plugged it into a floor socket, and dropped the reddening element into the china teakettle.

  While he waited for the water to come to a boil, Sir Quincy plucked the oversize tea cozy from a tiny computer terminal. He hated to use the bloody device, but the mails to America were dreadful these days. He wondered what J. R. R. Tolkien, who had once occupied this very flat, would have thought of the infernal thing.

  The water began bubbling as Sir Quincy turned on the computer. He logged on. The legend "MAYFLOWER DESCENDANTS" appeared at the top of the screen.

  The board was busy with scrolling paragraphs. The Loyalists had become a chatty lot since he had given them permission to communicate amongst themselves. It worried Sir Quincy. He was a bit foggy on the security of these computer devices. Perhaps it was safe enough, but he would have thought that his principals would know enough to keep shtum until the matter was concluded.

  When Sir Quincy felt the steam coming from the kettle warming his face, he knew that it was ready. As he poured, he watched the ever-changing cross-talk.

  DO YOU SUPPOSE BEAR-MAN WILL SHOW HIS FURRY FACE AGAIN?"

  "DID YOU ALSO RECEIVE A WARNING TOOTH FROM THE BLIGHTER?"

  "I SHOULD SAY SO. BUT I AM READY FOR HIM THIS TIME."

  "YOU BOYS HAD BETTER CIRCLE YOUR WAGONS. I TANGLED WITH THE VARMINT. HE DON'T TAKE NO CRAP FROM ANYBODY."

  Sir Quincy frowned. What manner of English was that one communicating in? Must be some vulgar American slang. Well, that, too, would soon become a thing of the past.

  He used a dull butter knife to separate a fresh hard scone into equal halves. The computer talk was focusing on the crisis in the New York stock market. Sir Quincy looked away, frowning. Economics was not his forte. And at the moment he faced a pressing problem. Mrs. Burgoyne had set out for him both of his favorite jams.

  Which did he most fancy-greengage or plum?

  Chapter 26

  At five P. M. London time, crack British SAS counterterrorist commandos surrounded the Morton Court Hotel in London's busy Earl's Court district. They took up sniper positions on the rooftops of neighboring apartment buildings, behind shrubbery, and in the hotel's modest lobby.

  Remo Williams peered over the sill of the third-floor room's single window. It looked down over the leaf-strewn yard of an apartment building.

  "We're surrounded," he told Chiun, who sat cross-legged on the floor, the Royal Sceptre on his lap. The Master of Sinanju's shiny bald head was tipped back to see the high-shelved TV set.

  "Shh," Chiun said.

  "Will you shut that off?" Remo snapped. "These guys are heavily armed. I think they're getting ready to storm the place."

  Chiun touched his wispy beard. "They will not invade the hotel without first asking our demands."

  "What makes you think they give a flying jump about our demands?"

  The phone rang before Chiun could reply.

  Remo scooped up the receiver and barked out a rude hello. He listened. Then, turning to Chiun, he said, "They want to know our demands."

  "Tell them that as a gesture of good faith, the sphinxes guarding the so-called Cleopatra's Needle will be set correctly."

  "You're joking."

  "And they will broadcast the fact," Chiun went on firmly, "or the Sceptre will be pulverized down to its smallest ruby and emerald."

  Sighing, Remo relayed the message. Then he hung up.

  "They said they'll get back to us. They're not going to do it, you know."

  "They will, for they know that they are dealing with the House of Sinanju.

  "What makes you think they'll care?"

  "We performed a minor service for one of their recent queens. "

  At Buckingham Palace, Her Britannic Majesty, the Queen of England, received the news with indignation.

  "We will do nothing of the sort!" she said furiously.

  She quieted down when the queen mother entered the sumptuous throne room, clearing her throat.

  "Yes, Mum?" the queen said in a timid voice.

  "This letter left at Whitehall bears the insignia of the House of Sinanju. They did a job of work for us during Victoria's reign. The Ripper matter."

  "Ah," said the Queen of England, understanding perfectly. No wonder the rotter had never been captured. He had been assassinated.

  "We will comply with these demands instantly," the queen mother directed. "Broadcast the work as requested."

  "At once, Mum," the Queen of England said meekly.

  BBC 1 and BBC 2 broke in on regular programming with simultaneous bulletins. A stuffy red-faced newscaster read from a trembling sheet of paper as a graphic of Cleopatra's Needle floated beside his ear. A barge-borne crane was lowering the second basalt sphinx into place, facing outward to guard the granite monument. The other sphinx had already been set to rights.

  "They did it!" Remo exploded in an unbelieving voice. "They actually did it."

  "They still remember," said Chiun in a tight, pleased tone.

  "Remember what?"

  "The
royal house had a minor problem at the end of your last century. An embarrassment they called John the Cutter. "

  "Not Jack the Ripper?" Remo said. "We took care of him?"

  "We did not," Chiun said haughtily. "My grandfather attended to that one. You were not even born then."

  " I was using the collective 'we,'" Remo said defensively.

  Wordlessly, Chiun stood up, the Royal Sceptre gripped in both hands.

  When the phone rang, the Master of Sinanju took it.

  "Do not speak," he said. "Listen. The problem that is plaguing the world's economy comes from somewhere in your government. This person will be brought to my quarters by dawn." Chiun paused. " I tell you it is true, and I will have him."

  Chiun hung up. He returned to his spot on the floor.

  Outside the window, SAS snipers were repositioning themselves.

  "Don't look now," Remo said. "But I don't think they like your latest demand."

  "They do not have to like it," Chiun said distantly. "They merely have to execute it."

  "I think execution is exactly what they have in mind," Remo said glumly.

  Down in the lobby, Colonel Neville Upton-Downs listened to the voice of the prime minister as it came through the desk telephone.

  "At once, ma'am," he said.

  Hanging up, he nodded to a trio of soldiers crouched in the corridor, facing the elevator and stairs, their telescopic rifles at the ready.

  "We're going in, lads," he told them. "Half of you hold the lift. The others go up the staircase. Third floor. End of hall. Look sharp. "

  The men deployed. Three guarded the elevator while the others went up the steps, their boots making a frightful racket.

  Colonel Upton-Downs was so confident in his men, noisy feet aside, that he did not feel compelled to lead them into battle. By all accounts, the two terrorists were unarmed. One was an ancient Chinese or some foreign sort. As he waited, he wondered why it had taken so long for the prime minister to give the green light.

  Going outside, Colonel Upton-Downs signaled his men that the matter was about to be brought to a successful conclusion. They visibly relaxed at their posts. He strode around to the rear of the hotel and into the yard beneath the window they had pinpointed as belonging to the terrorists.