The Vulture Fund

by Stephen W. Frey

  From the rooftop of the administration building a terrorist rose to spray the assault troops with a hail of Black Rhino shells that would shred their steel vests like paper. But before the hooded figure could even depress the trigger of his weapon, he was picked off neatly by a sharpshooter leaning through the slightly open door of a dark, hornetlike helicopter hovering in the night sky several hundred feet above the building. The man was hurled back by the force of the sharpshooter’s bullets, and he cartwheeled over and over until he came to rest facedown, dead on the sticky tar of the roof.

  Four more terrorists rose from their protected positions on the rooftop to deliver deadly fire. Three were gunned down instantly by sharpshooters in the helicopters. But for a moment the fourth man escaped the heavenly fire and was able to deliver a horrible payload of fifty rounds into the gloom below. Six of the assault troops were hit as they sprinted for the main storage area of the compound, where the great tanks of compressed liquid natural gas stood side by side—in essence, huge bombs begging to be ignited. A second later the terrorist on the roof who had momentarily managed to escape the fire from the helicopter was hurled backward, dead.

  Through his night vision goggles the captain of Assault Unit Three could see the men of Units One, Two, and Four beginning to converge on the main storage area from their entry points at the other three gates. So-called friendly fire—as if any gunfire could be so termed—could be a problem. The men were acting mostly on adrenaline and instinct, and some of them might fire at anything now, despite the intense training they endured daily in preparation for a situation exactly like this one.

  Suddenly the sound of a Diamondback rocket, a new handheld weapon developed by the Iraqis, pierced the air.

  “Cover!” the captain yelled. He had not seen the missile’s launch but recognized its eerie whine instantly. The men threw themselves to the asphalt, chest first, as the rocket sliced through the air above them. A moment later it slammed into the street beyond the facility’s fence, detonating in a burst of fire. Deadly shrapnel flew forward with the momentum of the rocket, shattering the windows of buildings on the far side of the boulevard.

  So they were not trained well in the missile’s ways, the captain thought as he screamed at the men to push forward again. The terrorists should have made certain that the rocket struck the ground in front of the assault teams. Then the razor-sharp metal would have cut them to ribbons as the tiny pieces of scrap flew forward.

  The men of Unit Two suddenly changed course and veered away toward the administration building, from which the Diamondback had been launched. Another brilliant burst of fire momentarily lighted a second-floor window of the building, and another Diamondback seared through the air. This time the weapon had better aim, and it slammed into the cement in the middle of the running troops. Seven men of Unit Four tumbled to the ground. Almost immediately the second-floor window from which the rocket had been launched exploded in a fireball. Grenades, hurled by the assault troops of Unit Two, blew out the window completely, leaving a gaping hole in the building. Three more explosions followed in rapid succession as the Diamondback rockets not yet fired by the terrorists were ignited by the grenades’ explosion. Two hundred feet away the captain could feel the intense heat.

  They were almost to their target. It was just yards away now. Sixty-six men, what remained of Units One, Three, and Four, came together at one end of the first mammoth storage tank; the men of Unit Two had entered the administration building to secure it after taking out the Diamondback launchers. As the troops reached the storage area, the captain of Unit Three spotted two terrorists through the darkness. They were kneeling at the far end of one of the tanks, a hundred yards away, trying frantically to attach something to the base of the structure. The captain could not see exactly what it was they were focused on, but he had a damn good idea. “There!” The captain pointed at the two terrorists and began to lead the rest of the men toward the targets. He knew the terrorists were hunched over a bomb that, if attached to the storage tank and detonated, would instantly incinerate most of downtown Los Angeles in a horrific fireball. What the hell were city planners paid for anyway? How could they leave this facility so naked and unprotected in this day and age?

  The captain fixed his gaze upon the two terrorists as he ran, marveling in a way at their absolute devotion to task, their willingness to die so as to kill others. Just to make a statement. There would be nothing left of them if the tank blew. It is suicide, he thought. But they don’t care if they kill themselves in the process. They have been brainwashed into believing that they will go to a better place when they are dead. How can we fight that dogma if they truly believe what they are taught? He pressed forward. There was no time to try to figure out the secrets of another man’s religion at this moment. The bomb could explode at any second.

  Fifty yards now. Close enough to fire. There is the chance that our bullets will ignite the bomb or the tank, but we must take that chance, he thought. There may be no time left now.

  As the captain slowed to fire, one of the two terrorists pivoted toward the troops and unloaded the cartridge of his automatic rifle. Tiny bursts of white light spit from the gun he wielded. The captain went down, four bullets instantly paralyzing him below the neck. He fell heavily to the asphalt. With a huge effort he raised his head one last time and saw the two terrorists killed in a hail of fire. The Wolverines had won. Some had died, but they had saved the country’s largest city from certain devastation. Then the captain tasted the blood filling his lungs, throat, and mouth, and his cheek fell back to the dirty asphalt.

  3

  Long dark hair fell carelessly about her delicate face in highlighted layers, framing the perfect skin, deep blue eyes, thin cheeks, and pouty lips, which curled into quick, sultry smiles as the men in nearby seats flirted with her. And though most of her body was obscured from his view by the fawning admirers and the table behind which she sat, he had no doubt that the rest of this woman was as alluring as what he could see. Quickly he removed his gaze from her. His eyes had lingered too long in her direction.

  From his position at the front of the amphitheater Mace scanned the ninety faces in the Columbia Business School classroom. Located in upper Manhattan, a short cab ride from the world’s most famous money center, Columbia was perennially a top ten business school with its pick of bright, aggressive applicants. After two years of intense study most of them were graduated with seventy-five thousand dollars of debt, or more, and a piece of paper that claimed he or she was a master in the ways of business, which didn’t amount to a hill of bean counters in the real world. But many of them were graduated with six-figure jobs too.

  Those trying to land marketing positions with Procter & Gamble, Philip Morris, or any of the other well-known consumer product companies sat in the first row of the tiered classroom because they were obnoxiously enthusiastic and believed they could sell themselves to the professor more readily by being physically near him. Those who coveted high-salaried jobs at McKinsey & Company, Bain, or other top consulting firms sat in the second row because here they were at eye level with the professor and believed they could be more convincing in the middle of the class, with the people, so to speak. The engineers sat in the third row because the other seats in the room were already taken when they arrived—precisely on the hour—and they didn’t have time for mind games anyway. They were there to learn, not just for the diploma.

  The sky deck, as the M.B.A. students affectionately nicknamed the fourth and top tier of the classroom, was typically occupied by the wolves who wanted to go to Wall Street after graduation. From the sky deck they could enter class discussions opportunistically and risk having their opinions attacked only from below, only from inferior positions, in which the other students had to turn uncomfortably in their seats to face them. In the sky deck they could prepare for their next class without being easily spotted by the professor. And from the sky deck they could also make fun o
f another’s lame attempt to answer the professor’s query without being obvious. The intelligent, paranoid, and painfully cynical occupants of the sky deck were the investment bankers of the future.

  Mace knew a good deal about M.B.A. seating charts and M.B.A. career expectations because he had graduated from Columbia Business School only four years ago, prior to joining Walker Pryce’s Real Estate Advisory Group. Perhaps his Wall Street career was progressing better than those of his former classmates because he hadn’t followed tradition and occupied sky deck seats. He had sat with the engineers in the third row—and learned something.

  With practiced indifference Mace made eye contact with each of the students in the top row. He moved slowly from face to face as they chatted with one another so that when his gaze again came to the beautiful woman, it would not appear obvious that he was staring at just her. Not until the student on which he was focused stole a glance in his direction, as each did, would Mace move on to the next individual. One reason he was sacrificing two nights a week to teach this semester’s real estate finance class was that Walker Pryce would be a step ahead of the other New York investment banks in recruiting Columbia’s top prospects. So it made sense for him to try to remember their faces before the official recruiting season started in another three weeks at the beginning of February.

  The class was packed because the students knew that was why he was here: to find out who the best prospects were. Down deep, each of them, even the budding consultants, harbored fantasies of being an investment banker. The money was simply too good.

  Finally Mace’s gaze made its way unobtrusively back to the woman. He watched her eyes move seductively as she glanced noncommittally at each of her admirers. He watched her face break into smiles that gave the appearance of sincerity and pushed the men to fawn over her to even greater degrees. Then suddenly he realized that she was staring back at him from the top row of the classroom. It was not the sly glance the others had stolen. There was no attempt on the woman’s part to hide her intentions as the others in the room had tried to do. She simply stared straight at him.

  Mace met her gaze for a few seconds; then his eyes dropped to the nameplate that stood before her in the groove at the front of the tabletop. Rachel Sommers. The name seemed vaguely familiar. He searched his memory quickly but came up with nothing. Slowly he looked back up the baggy knit sweater until he was again staring into the dark blue eyes. Her full lips broke into the smile he had seen before, but this time she tilted her head slightly to one side, acknowledging his reconnaissance.

  “All right! Settle down.” Charlie Fenton, dean of Columbia’s business school, rapped his scuffed pipe on the lacquered dais. “Now!”

  Immediately the hum of thirty conversations evaporated. Mace smiled as he watched the tall silver-haired gentleman peer out at the faces. So Charlie hadn’t lost his touch. He could still silence a roomful of arrogant M.B.A. candidates with a rap of that pipe.

  Charlie liked to think he could quiet a room so quickly because he was naturally commanding. In truth the respect he garnered from the student body was a direct result of his high-level Wall Street contacts. Charlie Fenton knew the senior officers and partners at every bulge bracket firm on the Street, and he could jump-start a career for a Columbia student at one of those firms if he so chose, a career that could make you a multimillionaire.

  “That’s better.” Dean Fenton paused another moment for effect, then pointed at Mace with the hand holding the pipe. “This is Mace McLain. He is a vice-president at the firm of Walker Pryce & Company, one of Wall Street’s elite investment banking establishments.” Dean Fenton said the last few words with an aristocratic, nasal accent, which conveyed a subtle dislike. Despite the fact that Fenton sincerely treasured his Wall Street contacts, he also enjoyed making himself appear to the students to be an outsider, though Fenton’s mansion was located next door to that of a Goldman Sachs partner in Darien, Connecticut.

  “Mace is a member of the club,” Fenton continued, his voice still full of mock contempt, “which isn’t necessarily a good thing to be. He works sixteen hours a day seven days a week. He eats Chinese food and pizza for dinner and cold Chinese food and cold pizza for breakfast.” Dean Fenton paused for the appropriate titter from the audience, then resumed. “He camps out on a sofa at work four nights a week and knows more about the inside of most major airports around the world than you and I know about the inside of our homes.”

  Mace shook his head and smiled. Fenton was right.

  “Oh, sure”—Fenton went on—“he makes lots of money, probably owns a condominium in an exclusive Upper West Side building, and gets to work and socialize with some of the most interesting and intelligent people in the world.” The room was deathly silent as the M.B.A. candidates listened with capitalistic intensity. “But I bet that condominium on the Upper West Side doesn’t have a stick of furniture in it except for a mattress, a beat-up dresser, and an unused exercise bike because he hasn’t had a minute to think about furniture since he moved in. And those people he deals with can be pretty damn difficult. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the sacrifice isn’t worth the money.” Fenton turned toward Mace. “Mace, how many first-year associates did Walker Pryce hire last year from the nation’s top business schools?”

  Mace glanced around the room at the hungry men and women who hadn’t had real jobs in almost two years. It was difficult not to smile. Charlie was doing such a superb job of softening them up. It was the reason Lewis Webster, the senior partner at Walker Pryce, wanted Mace to teach this class. When Charlie finished the introduction, every person in the classroom would be falling all over himself to be hired by Walker Pryce. “We hired thirty-three last year, Charlie.”

  “Thirty-three, thirty-three…” Fenton said the words to himself, as though lost in thought.

  Here it came. As Webster always said, Fenton could sell ice cubes to Eskimos and down parkas to Jamaicans. It was beautiful the way he worked them over. And no other investment bank had this intimate opportunity to sell itself to the top M.B.A. students at Columbia because Fenton wouldn’t allow it to happen. Only Walker Pryce was allowed to teach a semester-long class.

  “And what was the average annual compensation of those thirty-three individuals, Mace?”

  “One hundred and seventy-seven thousand dollars.”

  A gasp raced around the room.

  “And what was the compensation of the top earner in that group, Mace?”

  Mace shot a lightning-quick glance at Rachel Sommers. Her lips were pursed, and the blue eyes stared straight at him. “Two hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars.”

  Again an involuntary gasp shook each student.

  Dean Fenton’s gaze dropped to the scuffed tile floor, and he shook his head. “Twenty-seven-year-olds earning two hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars. My God, what is the world coming to, Mace?”

  “Young people at investment banks work hard, Charlie,” Mace responded. “They deserve to be paid for that work at whatever rate the market will bear.”

  The free market disciples seated in the four tiers before Mace nodded as if in a trance, as if they all should make $232,000 their first year out of business school.

  Dean Fenton let out a long sigh. “I guess so. It just seems so out of whack with reality.” He shook his head again, then continued. “Well, enough talk about compensation. This is real estate finance, and Mace McLain is your teacher when he doesn’t have a deal stranding him in Los Angeles or London”—Fenton’s voice became suddenly paternal—“although I do have assurances from his senior partner that he will make every attempt to be here, or else…” Fenton raised a silver eyebrow at Mace, who nodded in agreement. “All right then, I’ll leave you alone.” And he was gone, out the swinging door at the side of the room.

  Immediately Mace removed his suit jacket, laid it across the small black table standing next to the dais, and began. “Okay, let’
s get started. Who here can tell me about IOs and POs?”

  No one raised a hand.

  “Come on, people, unless you’ve never heard of the Wall Street Journal, you know about IOs and POs.”

  Still no one volunteered. No one wanted to engage the investment banker who stood before them with four years’ experience in the industry.

  Mace gestured randomly at a curly-haired man in the third row and read his nameplate. “I’m going to have to cold-call Mr. McDuffy over there unless someone volunteers.”

  McDuffy threw both hands in the air and gazed skyward as though seeking divine intervention. The action evoked a gush of nervous laughter from the class.

  “The terms IO and PO refer to interest only and principal only strips of mortgages.” The laughter subsided quickly as McDuffy’s prayers were answered. All heads turned toward Rachel Sommers. Her voice was confident. “Several years ago investment bankers began pooling large numbers of similarly structured mortgages and then selling securities backed by these mortgages to public investors. Subsequently, to broaden the investor market further, they stripped the interest piece away from the principal piece and sold them separately.” Rachel folded her arms before her as she finished.

  Mace stared at the young woman for a few moments. So she was beautiful and bright. “Excellent.” He nodded at her, then glanced around the class. “Somebody please tell me what a REIT is.”

  The spell had been broken. Rachel had calmly jumped through the fire and come out the other side unscathed. Hands shot into the air.

  “Yes, Mr. uh…” Mace could not read the nameplate of the dark-haired man in the back left corner of the sky deck.

  “Jensen.” The man prompted Mace, pointing down at his own nametag.

  “Yes…Jensen. Go ahead.”