Dead Cat Bounce (15 page)

“My point is, Jonah, you are too young to be doing this.”

“The Baron doesn’t think so.”

“The
Baron
”—David said his name with even more disdain than usual—“is leading you down a dangerous path.”

“Is he?” Jonah answered sarcastically. “Well, can you explain to me why our desk made more money today than you’ve probably earned in your entire life?”

David snorted, “I guess we have different perceptions of what it means to
earn
money. And I as your father—”

Jonah cut him off. “The father card? Really, Dad? That’s what you’re going for? You’ve had sixteen years to be that person, and, as I recall, instead you decided to ship me off to boarding school.”

“Jonah, I—”

Jonah continued as if there’d been no interruption. “And honestly, Dad, that would have been fine if you hadn’t totally ignored me, if you’d shown up for a few track meets or sent me a card sometime, but instead you basically only remembered my existence when it meant telling me
not
to do something. And that’s okay—that’s a fatherly thing to do—but you don’t get to have it both ways.”

Regret seeped into David’s voice. “This is not what I wanted for us. It’s just that ever since Africa”—David’s voice broke—“and losing my job and your mother …”

“Oh, don’t go blaming it on her. The two of you deserved each other. You both like to pretend that you never had a son.”

“That’s not true, Jonah. I—”

Jonah waved his hand dismissively. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be going to bed. Early start tomorrow.” He headed for the door and began slowly trudging up the stairs. “And don’t follow me,” he added.

David didn’t.

“Allegro’s going down!”
Dog shouted, popping out of his chair.

“Blitzkrieg! Blitzkrieg! SELL AGAIN!” screamed the Baron.

Fantastic
, Jonah thought as he read the headline on his Bloomberg screen: “Allegro Home Finance fails to secure new capital. Takeover or bailout now only chance of survival.” He felt a hunger in the pit of his stomach: He wanted to see more collapses, more precipitous declines, to see this crisis play out to its worst possible conclusion. The feeling scared him, but he wouldn’t allow himself to admit as much, especially after last night’s lecture from his father. (That and the fact that the profit on his own trades was now through fifteen million.)

They had been working flat out all morning—selling, selling, selling—and they continued all afternoon, all through Thursday and on into Friday. The continuous bombardment of the banks became a blur in Jonah’s mind as the profits climbed ever higher.

One hundred and sixty million. One hundred and seventy million
.

The only pause was at one forty-six
P.M.
on Thursday, September 11, in observance of the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York. Jonah remembered the day even though he was eight years old at the time. The pictures were all over the television: the collapsing towers, the flames, the smoke, the people jumping. But that wasn’t the only reason these images were burned indelibly in his memory. Two weeks prior to the terrorist attack, his parents had told him they were getting a divorce. One week later, he’d been sent away to boarding school.

For two minutes the trading floor was silent, the traders’ heads bowed, the lights on the comms board extinguished, and Jonah relived those first days and months away from home—the feeling of desertion and loneliness, of waking up each morning expecting his mother to come and collect him, of finally understanding that it was never going to happen. He looked across the trading floor at his father and felt only disappointment.

Suddenly there was a nudge in his ribs. “One of the great trading weeks, iPod,” the Baron whispered. “I had a man who stood his ground there as the planes came in, picked up the phone, and talked me through it. The market dived, I hit it hard and made a lot of money.”

Jonah’s stomach dropped. “Did he get out?”

The Baron shook his head, locking his eyes onto Jonah’s. “No, he knew he was going to die. But he delivered. True loyalty.”

Jonah shivered, and the hairs on his forearms stood on end. Loyalty and trust, that’s what the Baron had given him, and what he now expected from him in return. He was the one who had guided him, who had molded his passion for finance, who had mentored
him when the other boys had looked at him oddly for being too busy trading to leave his room, who had motivated him in his running, and who had taken him out for lunch to celebrate his excellent exam results. And now he was the one whose expectations of loyalty and trust deserved to be met, not Jonah’s father’s.

Jonah nodded at the Baron, about to say that if given the choice, he’d die for him as well, but then the alarm rang, signaling the end of the two minutes of silence, and before he knew it they were scrambling back to their screens and phones.

The earlier cacophony only grew more intense with their arrival back. “Confidence and perception issues are overwhelming Allegro Home Finance’s franchise value as its shares fall forty percent,” reported the man on the television.

“Financials drag Europe stocks lower,” flashed the headline on the screen.

One hundred and eighty million. One hundred and ninety million. Two hundred million.

The words “Bank shares battered” scrolled across the bottom of the television.

A research analyst messaged them on the chat screen: “Restructure doubts over Allegro Home Finance hammer markets.”

Two hundred and fifteen, two hundred and twenty.

“We’ve got another ton cleared, iPod. You take fifty and I’ll take fifty,” whispered the Baron.

“I’m on it,” said Jonah.

And then it was as if there were an echo in the room.

“I’ll sell you ten million of OPM,” said the Baron.

“I’ll sell you five million Allegro,” said Jonah.

“I’ll sell you five million National Mutual,” said the Baron.

“I’ll sell you fifteen million Debtbank,” said Jonah.

Two hundred and forty, two hundred and forty-five.

For three solid days they sold the life out of the world’s banking system, until finally at three o’clock on Friday Jonah saw the Baron lay his phones down on the desk and close his eyes.

“What’s happening?” Jonah asked, worried. Up until now the work had been so unrelenting that the events that normally punctuated the day—waking up, going to the office, eating lunch, going home—had begun to give way to a steady hum of work, work, work, and nothing else. Jonah even suspected that Milkshake had reworn one of his shirts from one day to the next—that’s how bad things had gotten.

“Our work is done, iPod.” The Baron smiled at him, his eyes giving off their usual twinkle. “It’s time to take the money.” He stroked his mustache, stood up, and coolly announced to the desk, “Silence please.”

The Bunker Boys turned to look at him.

“Gentlemen, it is time to buy. Cover our positions if you will. I am going for a short walk … to the pub! Join me when you are finished. I am calling a Sympathy Session in honor of the obscene bonuses we will be receiving.” The Bunker Boys cheered, and the Baron gave them the flat-handed salute before packing his laptop into his briefcase. He snapped the briefcase shut and turned to Jonah. “One final thing, iPod. Buy an extra twenty-five million dollars of Allegro Home Finance stock. There’s a chance the U.S. government will find a way to save it—it’s too big to fail—and after they do, the price could easily skyrocket in a couple of days. It’s
worth a small punt.”

“On it!” Jonah shouted, pressing the function key that transferred their trading positions from his screen onto the TV behind him.

Now everyone in the Bunker was on their feet screaming and shouting, reversing their short positions in a frenzy of buying at lower prices than they had sold.

“Buy twenty Allegro!”

“Buy fifty National Mutual!”

“Buy ten OPM!”

“Buy thirty Banque de Triomphe!”

Jonah was inputting and trading at the same time, his left hand working the keyboard, his right hand punching the comms board. His phone was tucked into his neck, and his eyes jumped from screen to screen, his ears alert to the trades going on around him.

“Financial sector gets boost from expectations that Allegro Home Finance could be taken over!” shouted Birdcage, reading a headline. “This is too easy!”

Jonah shook his head—if it was too easy for Birdcage, he didn’t know what to think. “Market recovering strongly!” he screamed, the headline invigorating him further.

“I’m going to the pub,” cried Dog. “Enough of this nonsense. We’ve made our money.”

“I’m coming too. iPod’s got it covered,” answered Milkshake. “Though I think I’m going to run home to pick up a new shirt before I go.”

“Is that right?” said Birdcage.

“About the shirt or iPod?” Jeeves taunted.

“Both,” replied Birdcage.

“Failure is not an option,” shouted Jonah.

“Well, there’s your answer,” Jeeves said, adjusting his bow tie and standing up.

“Ale, ale, we want more ale,” sang Dog.

Suddenly Jonah was alone on the desk. It was past six o’clock by the time he processed the final trade. Despite the enormous profits Jonah had become used to lately, he still couldn’t get over the number he saw in front of him: more than a quarter of a billion pounds!

They had made a killing.

Six thousand miles south, Kloot was looking to make an even larger killing. He was at his hunting lodge, a short helicopter ride from Johannesburg, South Africa, the gold mining capital of the world and the source of many inside trading tips over the years, including his highly successful River Deep Mountain High coup four years previously. He was accompanied only by his bodyguard, Klaasens, so that there was no chance of any witnesses to what he was about to do.

It was time. Allegro Home Finance was on the brink, driven to the precipice by its own stupidity and the power of the Apollyon network. The next stage was to confirm what the U.S. government was going to do about it.

Kloot’s operative at the New York Federal Reserve, the organization that was at the epicenter of the U.S. government’s frantic efforts to prevent the complete collapse of its financial system, would let him know the second the Americans decided whether or not Allegro Home Finance was worth saving.

At that very moment the operative was making the first in a series of calls to the CEOs of Wall Street’s biggest banks. The message was simple: the U.S. government needed them to rescue Allegro Home Finance before the markets opened on Monday morning. It was in their own interests. After all, if Allegro Home Finance were to fail, any one of them could be the next to go….

Kloot would have his answer within the next couple of hours.

The pub was
heaving when Jonah arrived, packed shoulder to shoulder with Hellcat traders celebrating and commiserating the end of a long week all around. Jonah had hoped that Creedence would be there, but he couldn’t see her anywhere through the thick and chaotic crowd. Fat wedges of bank notes were being handed over the bar, champagne was being drunk straight from bottles, and it was so noisy that all conversation had to be done by shouting and hand signals. Jonah forced his way through the melee to where he could see Birdcage, a head taller than the rest of the crowd. When he reached them, a bottle of champagne was thrust at him, but Jonah shook his head.

“Come on mate, you’ve got to celebrate being a millionaire,” said Dog, waving the bottle in front of him.

“What do you mean?” Jonah shouted back.

“Bonus mate. Bonus,” Jeeves explained, waving a huge wad of cash in the air.

“Yeah!” Milkshake added. “On the numbers we pulled today you’ll make it straight into the million club after only one week.”

Dog squeezed Jonah’s shoulder. “HOW DOES THAT FEEL?!”

Jonah stared at their expectant faces, totally baffled.
Was it that quick? Was it that easy? One week and he was a millionaire?
If he were stuck at school, he’d be busy doing homework, hoping that the Baron would call to save him from his misery. “IT FEELS GOOD!” he shouted and grabbed the bottle of champagne. As he was about to take a swig, the noise in the pub suddenly died, and everybody turned toward the bar. Jonah turned too: The Baron was standing there, his eyes closed and his arms raised. The power of his presence had silenced the room.

He brought his arms down and opened his eyes. As he did so, Jonah guiltily hid the bottle of champagne behind his back before any alcohol had touched his lips; the Baron didn’t drink and had advised Jonah to do the same. “I thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” said the Baron when all was quiet. “And I agree with young iPod. IT FEELS GOOD!” he roared, and the traders roared with him. He raised his arms again, and the noise died. “Ladies and gentlemen, good things seem to happen when iPod is on the trading floor.”

There was another cheer, and Jonah felt slightly uncomfortable at the attention, particularly with the champagne bottle in his hand.

“The last time we had a Sympathy Session he had to leave. This time he’s here to stay!” Another cheer went up, and the sound system began to pump out the tune that Jonah now knew so well. Some of the traders began to join in with the drumming, but they were silenced by the Baron. He wanted the stage to himself. He
breathed in deeply and began to sing his own parody of “Sympathy for the Devil”:

Please allow me to introduce myself

iPod is my name

I’ve been around for only a week

But I’m well pleased that I came

A random hand slapped Jonah on the back, and Jonah could see other traders straining to see his reaction.

I was there when Homeloan Corp

Crashed and burned, went down in flames

Saw the U.S. government

Pump in twenty bill to ease the pain