Weapons

by Matt Rogers

  ‘We were about to,’ one of them said.

  The other elbowed him in the ribs.

  King smirked. ‘If you did, he’d probably still be alive, and I’d be dead.’

  They stood there, forlorn, looking at the floor.

  King said, ‘Let me get this straight. You couldn’t get your hands on those encryption devices, so—’

  Jian came up with a gun in his hand.

  King pivoted, lined up, aimed, and fired.

  The bullet caught Jian square in the temple and threw his head back, spraying gore from the exit wound over the unfinished cabinetry.

  His body slumped to the floor.

  One of the Geosphere workers let out a low moan.

  King scrutinised them.

  They were both younger than the other guy, probably in their late twenties, with pale complexions and thinning hair. They could have been mistaken for identical twins. King figured out the dynamic. They were programmers — the tech gurus. The other guy was the exec who’d given the entire illicit operation the green light. All three of them had been forced to flee.

  King said, ‘Help me put this together, and both of you might live.’

  ‘Y-you were on the right track,’ one of them stammered.

  The smell of death lingered in the air.

  King said, ‘You were supposed to go through with this anonymously?’

  Two nods.

  ‘Using all that hardware that was on the way in those crates?’

  Two more nods.

  ‘What was it going to do?’

  A pause.

  The more confident of the pair said, ‘You … wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Dumb it down for me then.’

  ‘It would have re-routed all of it offshore. We would have made all the trades vanish at surface level. If anyone dug deeper it would have looked like it came from overseas. It was to mask the fact that we were using our firm’s infrastructure to carry out the trades. But even that level of investigation would come far too late.’

  ‘How close were you to pulling it off?’

  Silence.

  Terrifying silence.

  King said, ‘Don’t tell me.’

  The guy shrugged. ‘Do you want us to lie to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then we’ll tell you the truth.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Will you kill us for it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We already did it,’ the second guy said. ‘Thirty minutes before you showed up, we executed it.’

  ‘Executed what?’

  No-one spoke.

  King’s ears were ringing from all the gunshots in the enclosed space.

  But outside, he heard faint sirens.

  He didn’t know if it meant anything.

  His phone rang in his pocket, and he fished it out.

  It was Violetta.

  He looked up at the Geosphere workers, and said, ‘What the fuck did you do?’

  Neither responded.

  They hadn’t expected to answer for their sins.

  King answered the call. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’re too late.’

  67

  Her voice was bleak, soulless, defeated.

  He said, ‘I know.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, King. This is bad.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The Dow Jones Industrial Average just fell twenty percent. This is worse than the GFC. That much market value has never been wiped off instantly. It’s only going to get worse.’

  ‘Where did it go?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s a reasonable answer for that.’

  ‘What are the consequences?’

  ‘I… I don’t know. It’s going to be bad. It’s going to be really, really bad.’

  ‘I’ll call you back.’

  King hung up with his guts twisted into a knot.

  The Geosphere workers stood there, shuffling from foot to foot, restless and horrified.

  King said, ‘I assume I’m an idiot for even suggesting this, but you can’t reverse it, can you?’

  Slowly, they shook their heads.

  ‘How did you do it?’ King said.

  ‘We used the leverage of our entire firm. We overloaded the markets with trades, using capital the Chinese funnelled to us. And our algorithms did the rest.’

  ‘How is this even possible?’

  One of the guys shrugged. ‘We’re in deep with the banks and the stock exchanges. And I mean deep. We’re down in the bottom of the system, in the foundations. We always figured we could pull off something like this, because we realised no-one fully understands how the market works. So we got scared because of the sheer potential of it all. That faded, and then we were approached by him.’

  He jabbed a thumb in Jian’s direction.

  ‘Who is he?’ King said.

  ‘He’s the right-hand-man for … you know who. He represented the nationalists. There’s more of them than you think.’

  ‘Why did you do this?’

  The first guy said, ‘We thought we could get away with it.’

  The second guy said, ‘If we didn’t do it, they would have approached one of the other HFT firms. And they threatened our families.’

  King had heard it all before. ‘What was the plan? After this was all over?’

  ‘Get paid into numbered accounts in the Caymans. Doesn’t matter if we crash the economy if we have more money than we know what to do with.’

  ‘But when those crates didn’t show up…?’

  ‘We lost our lifeline. Now, when we executed it, they’d know it was us. They’d find out, eventually. They’d trace it back to the source, no matter how hard we tried to cover it up. So we had to disappear, because we couldn’t back out. We had to flee. It was the hardest decision of our lives, but at least this way our families are alive.’

  ‘I feel terrible for you,’ King said.

  The sarcasm hung in the air.

  The first guy said, ‘What happens now?’

  ‘I killed your contact in the Chinese government,’ King said. ‘So you have no-one to turn to now. You said it yourself. They’ll track you down eventually. I assume you have endless server rooms upstairs?’

  Two nods.

  ‘And fibre cables under the grounds?’

  The first guy said, ‘No. We communicated directly with our HQ in New Jersey to execute the trades.’

  ‘That sounds like a lot of work.’

  ‘It took months to set it up discreetly.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to rip it all out in time?’

  ‘Not a chance. And besides, it wouldn’t matter. They’ll find the virtual paper trail. They probably already have.’

  ‘What was the plan after this?’

  ‘Get smuggled out of the country. Spend our millions somewhere else. India, maybe. They’d never find us there.’

  ‘But they’d know it was you.’

  ‘We were going to have to do our best to purge our old lives, and pretend it never happened.’

  ‘And now you’ll have to face the consequences.’

  The second guy, who’d been mostly silent, blurted out, ‘Can you kill me?’

  King stared at him. ‘You don’t have the balls to do it yourself?’

  ‘No,’ the guy admitted.

  King thought about it. He wanted to. Nothing would make him happier — not because of the killing itself, but because he could close the chapter on this godforsaken townhouse forever. It was the seed of pure evil, and now millions of hard-working Americans were going to pay the price for it, and these two sociopaths in front of him were so detached from the consequences of their actions that they were practically delusional.

  Or maybe they did know, and didn’t care.

  Which made it worse.

  King said, ‘I’d rather you both rot in jail for the rest of your lives. So you can live with the fact that your families will know what you did. Your kids will know. When th
ey grow up, they’ll understand that their fathers were monsters. And they’ll never be able to escape from your shadow. That’s what you’re going to have to think about for the rest of your days.’

  They were both crying when he finished.

  He put the Glock back in his appendix holster, and said, ‘There’s guns by the front door if you really want to end it. Next to the bodies of the men you paid to protect you. But I’d wager neither of you have the guts to do it, so enjoy your lives in prison.’

  There was no colour in their faces.

  King didn’t need to kill them.

  They looked dead already.

  He turned around and walked straight out of the room.

  A many-months-long, multi-layered operation to destabilise the United States economy, implemented by three of the best and brightest high-frequency traders in the country, executed with the press of a button.

  And King had been thirty minutes too late to prevent it.

  He stepped over the bodies of the mercenaries, and cursed how easily money corrupted. They’d known full well what their employers were doing. They hadn’t cared.

  They’d been getting rich in the process.

  King made sure his Glock was concealed before he stepped back outside. There were tiny flecks of blood all over his sweater, but they looked like a pattern.

  He left the scene of the slaughter, and sleepwalked like a zombie back onto the sidewalk.

  There were pedestrians everywhere, brows furrowed, hunched over their phones, refreshing news sites, murmuring to each other.

  It was beginning.

  With hopelessness crushing him, pressing him into the ground, weighing on his shoulders, King headed for the Upper East Side.

  Then a voice stopped him in his tracks.

  ‘Hey!’ it cried.

  He turned, and saw one of the Geosphere guys standing in the doorway, looking like he’d seen a ghost.

  King didn’t say a word.

  The guy called out, ‘There’s something we need to tell you.’

  68

  Will Slater and Ruby Nazarian stepped back into King’s penthouse.

  They’d been sent straight up by the new concierge — a fresh face brought in by Violetta as part of her all-inclusive security package. The guy looked like Special Forces, and Slater treated him with deserved respect. He and Ruby were whisked up in the private elevator and they spent the time standing apart, staring absent-mindedly at their reflections in the doors, too shocked to speak.

  As soon as they’d touched down at JFK, they’d been brought up to speed on what was rapidly unfolding across the country.

  They walked in, and Violetta was there, hunched over one of the bar stools in the centre of the giant space, staring up at the wall-mounted TV, practically traumatised.

  Not so much from what was happening now.

  But from what was to come.

  Slater said, ‘What the hell is going on?’

  She barely registered his arrival. She glanced sideways, and saw him, and saw Ruby, and nodded curtly to each of them. She said, ‘Are you Ruby Nazarian?’

  Ruby said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  There was nothing genuine in the exchange. It was simple pleasantries — necessary introductions.

  Everyone turned straight back to the television.

  The market was collapsing, and it wasn’t a flash crash. There was no recovery yet, and Slater knew there wouldn’t be one. Not for a long time. There would be layoffs in droves — an incomprehensible number. Unemployment would skyrocket. The homeless population would soar. Infrastructure would strain to accommodate all the new soup kitchens and shelters.

  It would be a disaster in the long term.

  And because the country had been through a smaller financial crisis before, in 2008, everyone seemed to know what was coming.

  News anchors were glum. They were reporting half-heartedly, as shocked as the rest of the nation. It was worldwide news. Speculation ran rampant, with pundit after pundit dialling in to lend their opinion on why it had happened. Perhaps the truth would come out eventually. Not for a while, though. Not while panic flowed through the population’s veins.

  And it would flow for the foreseeable future.

  Slater exhaled, and bent over and put his hands on his knees.

  Ruby rested a palm on his shoulder.

  He said to Violetta, ‘How the hell do we recover from this?’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she said. ‘Not immediately. Our greed got the better of us.’

  ‘Surely someone understands what happened. Aren’t your people working on it?’

  She looked at him blankly.

  He said, ‘Sorry. I’m sure you’re doing everything you can.’

  ‘This is so much bigger than us,’ Violetta said.

  ‘So we failed?’ Ruby said.

  Violetta nodded.

  Ruby said, ‘Why did you save me?’

  Violetta said, ‘There was a substantial threat made against your life. And I’ve already been briefed on what happened in Tulum. The pair of you left dozens of bodies. Isn’t that proof enough…?’

  ‘No,’ Ruby snapped. ‘I mean — why was I a priority?’

  ‘Because you’re one of the best operatives to come out of—’

  ‘That’s all bureaucratic bullshit,’ Ruby said. ‘Maybe if Will had been here, he and King could have got the job done faster. Then this wouldn’t have happened at all.’

  ‘How late was King?’ Slater said.

  ‘Thirty minutes. We’re getting a spoonful of reports through our intelligence channels. The shitstorm was executed twenty-four minutes before he entered the townhouse.’

  Slater said, ‘I could have cut that down. If I’d been here.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Violetta said.

  ‘You shouldn’t have prioritised me,’ Ruby said. ‘I could have handled it myself in Tulum. I didn’t need a babysitter.’

  Violetta stared at them, but she didn’t argue. She said, ‘We’ve all made mistakes.’

  ‘Neither of us could have handled that on our own,’ Slater said to Ruby. ‘Not you. Not me. We came out of this alive.’

  Ruby said, ‘You think that matters compared to what’s unfolding across the country right now?’

  Slater shrugged.

  He wasn’t sure what any of this meant anymore.

  He wasn’t sure what mattered.

  ‘So what happens now?’ he said. ‘The ying pai swoop in? They take advantage of our weakness and avenge all this time they’ve spent underneath us? They become number one?’

  ‘Looks that way,’ Violetta said. ‘Unless…’

  ‘Unless what?’

  She chewed her lower lip. ‘We’re thinking there’s more to it than this. They said there was more than one event…’

  Slater stepped forward and hit a desk lamp off the table next to the sofa. It crashed to the floor, echoing through the penthouse. Violetta took a step back, concern spreading across her face.

  Slater said, ‘I’m sick of this shit.’

  ‘What?’ Violetta said.

  ‘I know this is the way it’s always been done, but if your operatives are going to be effective, they can’t be kept at arm’s length. You always say “we.” But we only ever see you. You have the entire United States government behind you. Who are we talking to in their ranks? That’s right — no-one. We’re kept in the dark, and orders come down through you. Ever think myself, or King, or Ruby, might be integral to figuring this shit out in advance?’

  Violetta came back with a vengeance. Initially, Slater’s outburst had caught her off-guard, but now she descended into icy stoicism.

  She said, ‘If you have a problem with the way we operate, take it up with someone else. I don’t have time for this shit either. I don’t need you throwing a tantrum like a spoiled brat. We’ve got entire teams of psychologists and tacticians who’ve figured out the bes
t way to approach this. It’s a streamlined channel, and it allows us to convey accurate information as fast as we can to the operatives. If you and King and Ruby are in the mix, sitting in on meetings and intelligence briefings, it’ll do nothing but muddy the waters.’

  ‘And how’s that working out for you so far?’

  ‘Incredibly well,’ Violetta said. ‘We can’t win them all, Slater.’

  He lifted his gaze to the television headlines. The media frenzy was in full effect. Doomsday predictions were racing in by the second.

  This time, they may be right.

  Slater stumbled over to the sofa and sat down and exhaled.

  Above all else, he hated to lose.

  Then Jason King came in through the front door, and stepped into the room, and it all got so much worse.

  69

  King paused for a beat to take in the scene.

  He saw Slater, and he saw Violetta, and he saw a new face with glowing amber eyes and deeply tanned skin and long flowing hair. She was beautiful, but he could see the killer in her. He could see the venom in her eyes, brimming below the surface, ready to unleash at the drop of a hat.

  He liked that.

  He said, ‘Are you Ruby?’

  ‘Yes. You’re Jason King?’

  ‘In the flesh.’

  ‘Glad to finally meet you. Heard a lot about you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  There was a poignant silence.

  King said to them all, ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Violetta said.

  ‘It is. If I was faster, if I—’

  ‘I got complacent,’ Violetta said. ‘I trusted your “one-man-army” shtick above everything else. I should have deployed all the resources I had available. I had everything relying on you, and that’s not your fault — that’s a tactical error. It will never happen again.’

  Despite her apologetic tone, her words cut deep.

  Because at the end of the day, all they said was, You failed. I shouldn’t have trusted you.

  You fucked it all up.

  King said, ‘What’s on the news?’

  ‘Nothing good.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Did you walk back here?’

  ‘Sure did.’