Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome Read online

  Create a bubble, then pop it, and only he knew when it would collapse. It was simple, effective, and highly lucrative, albeit illegal and unethical. Then again, all great fortunes had great crimes at their root, and Griffen was simply using the same techniques the stock manipulators of the Roaring Twenties had used to build dynastic wealth. Just as icons like Joe Kennedy had created manias in worthless companies, then once the public was enraptured with their shares, kicked the chair out from under them and made millions as the stocks plummeted, so too did Griffen. Human nature hadn't changed much in a few generations, and the same techniques worked, again and again. Only an idiot obeyed the laws, especially when the regulators were asleep at the wheel and virtually never enforced them. He was comfortable that he was a criminal – actually reveled in the knowledge, truth be told. All the wealthiest of the Wall Street mob were gangsters at heart, in spite of the tripe the industry’s PR machine put out day after day. It was just far more lucrative to carry a cell phone and a calculator than a machine gun, these days. Everyone at the top knew how the game was played. Big gains required big balls, and often meant crossing lines that lesser mortals were barred from even considering breaching. That was the game, and he was very, very good at it.

  At the same time, he was on the invitation list for the Governor’s dinners and Mayor’s functions; rubbing shoulders with celebrities – a fixture in the New York social scene. His investors were highly appreciative of his continued performance and discretion, and always ensured he wanted for nothing. The best looking call girls, pharmaceutical grade cocaine, two hundred dollar scotch. If Griffen could imagine it, he got it; there were literally no limits for the man with the golden touch.

  Steven watched in fascination as the screen normalized, and trading that had been erratic and plunging slowed to a crawl.

  “Unbelievable. It’s like they flicked a light switch,” he muttered to himself.

  He moved to the other screen and brought up a window. The message boards had also slowed to nothing. When the stock was being pummeled the boards had been saturated with hundreds of posts advising shareholders to sell, that somebody knew something, that institutions were bailing, that the stock was going to zero. Psychological warfare – all par for the course. Organized teams hit the boards, attempting to sow the seeds of panic and confusion.

  Then, just as suddenly as the selling normalized, the panicked posts were gone.

  The rest of the day’s trading wore on, slow, plodding, predictable. Once Griffen’s related accounts stopped trading back and forth to create artificial volume, the stock action was stagnant. The close was a non-event, down a few pennies. The polar opposite of the chaotic frenzy of the earlier part of the day, and further evidence to Steven of the omnipotence the manipulators wielded.

  * * * *

  Chapter 3

  “Wonder how they’re going to enjoy having their bullshit exposed?” Steven muttered.

  Avalon looked up from the floor, evaluating whether there was a promise of a treat in the statement. Finding none, he resumed his well practiced canine repose, uninterested in whatever drama was unfolding with his master.

  Trading had concluded hours earlier. After wolfing down lunch, Steven had returned to his workstation and spent the rest of the afternoon typing furiously on his keyboard, putting the final touches on the website he’d been working on for the last month.

  Satisfied with the way the fields lined up, he clicked ‘save’ and decided to call it a day. He looked at his watch, then reached his arms over his head and stretched, finally finished with the huge project he’d taken on.

  Steven padded over to an overstuffed chair in the corner of his den and sat down, assuming a familiar position – hands clasped in his lap, eyes closed, head slightly bowed. His breathing subsided to a few intakes per minute, shallow breaths, hardly discernible. His blood pressure dropped, heart rate slowed.

  Meditation had been an important part of his martial arts discipline for eighteen years. The experience inevitably left him feeling cleansed and focused, and he found it helped every aspect of his performance. Synapses were better aligned, reflexes improved, responses more immediate.

  He stayed in a meditative state for twenty minutes, until some distant part of him signaled a return to awareness. His vital signs increased, breathing became deeper, and he opened his eyes, revitalized and refreshed.

  The first few moments were always dreamlike, almost the same as walking out of a quiet museum or a church after mass; the senses re-calibrating to motions and sounds and near- constant stimuli.

  Rising from his tranquil spot in the corner, he ambled over to the sliding glass doors and considered the view. It was dusk, and the sun was beginning its spectacular descent into the glittering sea.

  Avalon lollopped over to greet him, hopeful for an outing. They walked onto the patio, taking in the non-stop passage of tourists and locals skating and rolling and pedaling past his vantage point. He noticed Gilbert, the resident homeless guy who invariably shuffled along this very route every evening, engrossed in discourse with invisible companions who assisted him with his inspection of the garbage cans lining the path.

  Steven went inside and rummaged through the refrigerator for last night’s leftovers and searched in his pockets for a few small bills. He knew Gilbert would never beat whatever afflicted him, but to Steven’s way of thinking, it didn’t matter. Sometimes you win...

  He hopped over the gate and greeted Gilbert by the little bench on the strand, as was his custom. They talked a while, and Steven handed him what he had to offer, which was always gratefully accepted. Avalon, adept at following Steven over the gate, looked up at him hopefully, tongue lolling happily out of his mouth.

  “Don’t worry, boy. There’s still some chicken left for you.”

  They returned to their little patio to watch the show. Catalina Island shimmered in the distance and remote oil platforms jockeyed with tankers in the shipping lanes for preeminent position for the evening’s sunset performance.

  He registered the garage door opening and closing, and soon felt hands on his shoulders.

  “You’re a lucky bastard, my friend.” Jennifer had already changed out of her work outfit – khakis and black blouse – and into sweat pants and a tank top.

  “Rather be lucky than smart.” They’d been dating for a couple of years, a comfortable relationship that had developed a rhythm that satisfied their needs.

  Jennifer considered his profile before looking over to the desk with the pile of research and notepads inside the house. She knew about his web project. “Aren’t you worried about waving a cape in front of the bull?”

  “These dirt-bags are selling junk to widows and orphans, wiping out life savings, and ruining the market,” he said as he leaned back and closed his eyes. “I’m just leveling the playing field. No big deal.”

  “When are you planning to put it online?” she asked.

  “Why not tonight?”

  “I don’t know, Steven. I’ve had a bad feeling about this since you started with it.” She pulled away and was quiet for a moment. “Where do you want to go to dinner?” she finally asked, moving the dialog to neutral ground.

  Steven pulled at his chin. “Hmm…let’s go down the strand and do Italian. A little chicken Marsala never hurt. Yum yum yum. A little wine, a little song...”

  “Sure. I’ll throw on some shoes and grab a sweater.” She stared at the top of his head for a minute, the ocean breeze tickling her face as she thought about saying something more, then she sighed, and turned to go back into the house.

  The website had been structured as an expose of the junk science and questionable nature of the technology Allied was touting and the suspicious trading patterns the stock routinely enjoyed. Steven had conceived the site after finding sites targeting the shady dealings of large Wall Street banks, like GoldmanSachs666.com. If a site like that could expose the underhanded actions of Wall Street’s icons, he figured he could create one on a smaller sca
le and illuminate the crookery in play with Allied and the Griffen gang.

  His new website detailed the questionable nature of the science the company claimed to be developing and pointed out that many of the company’s proponents were a network of physicians, scientists and stock promoters who’d been active in other, ultimately worthless shams that had cost investors everything. It also pored over public filings and exposed the ownership of the company’s stock, highlighting the massive role Griffen played.

  All in all, it presented a compelling argument that trading in Allied was anything but fair and honest, and went into significant detail to link the players in the nefarious pump and dump scam.

  Damaging stuff to be sure, but a hair shy of proof. Oh well, nothing was perfect. The time had come to put the site up and fire a salvo across the opposition’s bow.

  When they got back from dinner he uploaded the site to an internet service provider in Texas. He’d deliberately chosen a service in a different state so anyone interested in silencing the site would be looking in the wrong places. He’d registered the domain name using the address of a now-defunct Irish pub in New Orleans, and created a blind account for e-mail contact. It all added up to making the site’s creator invisible and impossible to trace.

  www.AlliedExposed.com went live at 12:04 a.m..

  Before going to bed, Steven typed a post on one of the most popular internet message boards, inviting readers to the website. With any luck some exposure would get the regulators and the mainstream public interested in the doubtful technology and trading chicanery, resulting in some badly needed enforcement of the anti-manipulation rules. Steven just hoped it would go viral after his fellow message board denizens spread the word around. He’d done all he could at this point by collecting the data and highlighting all the abuses; it was in the public domain now, and would take on a life of its own – or die – based on forces outside of his control.

  * * * *

  Chapter 4

  Griffen was thoroughly livid. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged, and certainly wasn’t used to being publicly mocked and put on display. His livelihood and success depended on obscurity, on being able to operate in the shadows without prying eyes disturbing his plans. He knew how to play the media game. He understood exactly how effective propaganda could be, and didn’t like it directed at him.

  The last thing he needed was some website documenting the blow by blow of his promotion of Allied, and exposing his network. He, more than anyone, grasped the power of information control; and he realized there was a potential disaster in the making the second he heard about the site. There was way more at stake than just the one company’s fortunes. His funds enjoyed invisibility from regulators by virtue of the unseen hand of one of his investors, and publicity and exposure invited the kind of attention he didn’t need. This had to get stopped cold, or he’d be incurring significant risks he couldn’t afford. And with those risks could come ugly consequences.

  His staff knew from harsh experience he was best avoided at times like this, opting to give his desk a wide berth as he screamed down the phone.

  “Goddamn mother fucker!” Griffen hollered. “Can’t you sue this shithead, get an injunction or something? He’s calling me a fucking criminal and saying the company’s voodoo. You’re my attorney. Do something!”

  “It’s not that straightforward,” Vesper told him. “He’s clever. He never actually says you’re breaking the law or acting criminally; he just documents your holdings, shows your connection to the media outlets who’ve been supportive, lists other companies the positive analysts hyped in the past, and then hypothesizes that your massive stake in the company makes you extremely interested in the stock skyrocketing, at all costs. It’s all opinion.” Glen Vesper knew the law cold. “He’s suggesting that if you were engaging in a scheme to pump and then dump Allied’s value, that would be criminal, but he doesn’t come out and say you’re breaking the law. That’s a critical legal distinction.”

  “So what’s your suggestion?”

  “Just don’t say anything at all,” Vesper advised. “Ignore it. The flip side of the site is that it doesn’t prove anything. It’s all conjecture. I’d regard it as a conspiracy kook’s hobby and pretend it doesn’t exist. If you go after him with an injunction you’ll only increase the exposure and publicity; if we could even get an injunction in the first place.”

  “So I let the cocksucker call me a liar and a thief in front of the whole planet and just smile and ask him if he’d like to fuck me in the ass when he’s done?” Griffen asked. “That’s the best you can do?”

  “Nicholas, we don’t even know who’s behind this – it could be anybody. At this stage we know nothing about them…or their motives.” He paused, collected his thoughts, sighed. “I pulled the registration info on the site and it places it in New Orleans, owned by a guy named Stanley Jorgenson with a Hotmail account; probably a dead end. That’s all we have. I’m looking into the address and the ID, but it smells fake. For now, just let it go. That’s my advice.”

  “Thanks for absolutely fucking nothing,” Griffen hissed, frothing with seething indignation. He slammed down the handset. Lawyers. Blood-sucking parasites.

  Still, Glen had a point.

  Steven spent the whole morning at the computer, the stock not doing much. Following lunch, he switched to polishing his new site, trying to make it more presentable. Why did everything usually take longer than it should, with nothing ever as easy as it initially looked? Websites were apparently no different.

  After a full day of staring at screens he decided he needed to depart cyber-reality and work the tension out of his system. He drove to the dojo where he practiced his skills, and donned his white gee. Steven was an eighth degree black belt in Karate, a gold sash adept in Wing Chun Kung Fu, and at master level in Jeet Kune Do.

  He began with Karate, always, starting with the Geri Waza and Uchi Waza form, then through the Tsuki, Uke and Hiji. Switching disciplines, he practiced the various nerve strikes and hand forms for Kung Fu, and finally wound down with stretching and isometric exercises.

  His fascination with the disciplines stemmed from watching Bruce Lee films when he was ten years old, and from the first days when he began learning the initial stances and kicks he’d been mesmerized by the sense of self-possession they instilled. His interest had continued unabated throughout his adult life and he’d now evolved to the point where the requirement to practice the forms was more out of homage to the skills than from necessity.

  That lifelong involvement in martial arts, along with four years in the military, had instilled a quiet confidence and self-reliance in him, even if it had also made him a loner. Perhaps that solitary streak explained why he’d never gotten married and settled down – had a family – it always seemed like stuff of the future, but right now he wasn’t in a big hurry to get to that future. He was comfortable with things as they stood.

  Back at the house, he rinsed off and checked his e-mail. His new mailbox had 38 messages congratulating him on the new site. Jennifer was spending the night at her place, while Avalon was chasing rabbits in his sleep in the den, so Steven was free to begin slogging through his inbox.

  Once done, he logged into what he thought of as his ‘paranoia group’, an invitation-only collection of cyber friends with ‘unusual’ interests in fringe topics and esoteric conspiracy theories. He’d been invited to join years ago, when his company had developed software for a longtime friend who structured privacy solutions for clients concerned with cyber-snooping. Steven had always been interested in clandestine and off-the-beaten-path knowledge, probably a kickback from his military days, or perhaps just a function of his somewhat conspiratorial personality – so the invitation had been readily accepted. When Steven’s friend had moved to Ireland, he’d remained in ‘The Group’, as it was called by its participants, and Steven was still an active poster.

  If you could sit through the sometimes contentious sparring over the best mecha
nism for creating a Trojan horse to invade a server, or the ongoing debate over the level of Big Brother’s encroachment into everyone’s privacy, he found the repartee and information exchanged was often riveting. Everyone was anonymous in the group, and used aliases. Steven’s was ‘Bowman’.

  He hadn’t shared with The Group that he’d created the site yet. All the participants would have strong opinions on everything from the font style to the background color. He figured he’d work out any bugs before letting the gang have at it.

  Still, he couldn’t resist a tickler post:

  [Fellas, this is Bowman. I've got a little surprise for you. I’m a webmaster now - been working on a hobby site that’s live and kicking.]

  Immediately several responses came back.

  [What’s the URL?]

  [Since when do you know how to work anything more than a mouse?]

  [What program did you use to write it?]

  [Is it porn?]

  Ahh, you could always rely on the lads to be inquisitive.

  [Sorry gang, not porn, though if it was I’m sure you’d know how to route it through Kabul. Just a little project that will be ready for your shredding in a day or two.]

  A few seconds, and the predictable:

  [If it’s not porn, I’m not interested.]

  [Just what the world needs, another site hosted by a sad geek who wants to whine about how misunderstood he is.]

  [You mean he ripped off your site?]

  And so on. Fun banter, but these guys were some of the sharpest he’d ever encountered.

  After spending a few hours catching up on the latest scuttlebutt he decided to log off, scarf down a sandwich, read a little and tuck in early. He was beat from weeks of focused activity developing the site, and needed some rest.

  One last look confirmed the site had already gotten 2,861 hits; my, but word spread quickly on the web.