Zero Sum Read online

  Somehow the sight of his adversary in a robe, with his hair matted to one side, clutching his paper, made the battle seem winnable. He uploaded it to the site, and linked it to the message boards, under the heading, ‘Wall Street Wizard Plots Next Master Move’.

  Funny, funny stuff. Maybe Griffen would feel a little more vulnerable after seeing the photo. He hoped so. The prick's arrogance was palpable, and it was high time somebody took him down a few notches.

  Steven packed his bags and checked out of his room early, and made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. He was scheduled to arrive back in California by two o’clock, leaving much of the afternoon available for relaxation. He considered an early evening cruise on his sailboat with Jennifer to watch the sunset, and calculated that he had plenty of time; the trip hadn’t been such a big disruption after all.

  The flight across the country was smooth – the traffic from the airport home predictably terrible.

  In the late afternoon, Peter called from Florida, catching Steven on the way out the door to the boat. His news on Allied was largely negative – the management team was sketchy; there had been virtually no external audits of the technology or their financials, and it had many of the earmarks of a classic stock promotion scheme lacking any real underlying fundamental value. It had all the telltale signs of a company with something big to hide. His news on Griffen was not as encouraging.

  “Steve, these are bad guys. Even by Wall Street standards, they stink. There’s rumors of them being mobbed up, and they seem to have unusual connections in a lot of regulatory areas. My contacts at the SEC went dark when Griffen’s name surfaced, other than to disclose he’d developed a reputation as a very savvy player. The NY attorney general won’t comment except to point out that securities regulation is the province of the SEC. There’s nothing in the FBI computers on him, although they had a jacket on his former partner. That was closed, but they’re digging it out for me.”

  “I didn’t even know he had a partner. Why was it closed?” Steven asked.

  “That’s standard operating procedure when the subject is deceased.”

  “Deceased? When did he die?”

  “About three years ago. It was in the organized crime file section. It’ll take a few days to pull it out of the archives.”

  “I really appreciate the input, Peter.”

  “I don’t know the full scope of what these jokers are up to, but I can tell you that in my day at the Bureau this would have been more than enough to get a full-scale investigation going. But it doesn’t look like anyone wants to know anything about it, which is just strange, is all I can say.” Peter paused. “Be careful, Steve. I don’t like the way this is shaping up, and if my gut’s right this may be something you should walk away from. I hope you aren’t doing anything to piss them off.”

  “It’s a little late for that.”

  “Watch your back. I’ll check in when I have something more solid.”

  Steven picked up Jennifer at her condo and they made their way down the coast to the boat; a 34 foot Catalina berthed in Dana Point. It was his one foolish indulgence, which he’d acquired the second year his company had been profitable. When he was working ten hour days, he needed some reminders of what he was slaving away for, and the boat had proved a powerful symbol of freedom and success. The upkeep on it was a small fortune, but there were some idiocies that one just had to participate in, no matter what the cost.

  Once past the breakwater a moderate offshore breeze kept the summer doldrums from requiring the little engine be run, which made for a quiet and peaceful afternoon on the water. They both enjoyed the sensation of being pushed through the waves by the usually mellow wind and tried to get out as often as possible, which wasn’t easy given their schedules. They tacked out a few miles, then up towards Newport before pointing the bow back south and heading for home.

  After the cruise they enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Jennifer’s favorite place in Laguna Beach, and rounded off the day by weaving tipsily back to Steven’s house, replete and at peace with the world.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Un-fucking-believable.” Griffen was lost for any other words. That didn’t happen often.

  “I figured you’d want to see it firsthand,” Glen said.

  “I want this prick. I don’t care what it takes. He’s totally fucking with the wrong guy. Who does he think he is?”

  “I didn’t hear that. Any of it.”

  Griffen was sitting in the study of his expansive home, staring at the flat screen monitor on his ornately crafted desktop. There was his picture, from that very morning, hair askew, face puffy, windblown, disheveled. It wasn’t the most flattering shot. Glen stood next to him as they considered the image, arms folded over his chest, the golfing hat and sunglasses on his sepulcher-like features creating the impression of an animatronic vision of death on holiday.

  “This is way over the line. Fucking unbelievable. I spent half of yesterday, a Saturday for chrissakes, fielding calls from investors wanting to know if I’m in trouble on Allied. And now I have my fucking privacy blown apart by some anonymous shit-rat? How did he find out where I live? Is he trying to threaten me? Is he trying to say I can find you but you can’t find me? I want this asshole.” Griffen trembled with rage at this invasion into his life.

  “Germany should have some feedback soon.” Glen paused, reading the caption underneath the photo. He carefully considered his next words. “I think he’s trying to be funny.”

  “I’m laughing inside. I want him.”

  “I’ll show myself out,” Glen said. “Enjoy your weekend.”

  Griffen listened to Glen’s footsteps retreating and the sound of the front door closing.

  He leaned back in his chair. From the doorway of the study the smell of jasmine floated into his space. A strikingly beautiful Eurasian girl, half French, half Thai, about twenty years old, entered. She was slim and looked much taller than her five foot three frame suggested. She wore a red silk gentleman’s smoking jacket and five-inch heels, and nothing else. He quickly closed the offending web window, pulled out a vial from his center drawer, dumping a little powder onto an antique mirror he kept in the same drawer. He drew it into his nostril in one powerful pull, using a jade tube with an elaborately carved dragon motif on its side. Viagra and cocaine cocktail.

  “What’s wrong, don’t you want to spend any more time with me today? Isn’t there something I can do to make you feel better? Let me help you relax…” She came around the desk, and lowered herself to her knees in front of him.

  He slapped her. Hard. It was so sudden, so brutal, it took her completely by surprise. She looked up at him and winced through forming tears.

  “I told you not to talk unless I tell you to. Now shut up and suck.”

  Late that night Griffen’s phone rang. Groggily, he fumbled through the dark to reach it, stubbing a finger in the process and swearing as he lifted the handset to his ear.

  “Hello?” he croaked into the receiver.

  “Mr. Griffen? This is Gunther Peck, an associate of Mr. Vesper’s in Germany. I hope I’m not calling too late, but Mr. Vesper indicated I was to call as soon as I had any information available. Do you have a pen? I have the name from the credit card used in the registration. There is no address information but a post office box, yes?”

  “Just a second. Let me turn on the light and get this.”

  ~ ~ ~

  In the hour after dawn, the grey Town Car made its way through the Washington suburb of Georgetown to a small coffee house that opened at 5 a.m.. It double-parked outside until a young man in a sweater vest and skater shorts exited the building and jumped in. Upon closer inspection the young man was in his thirties and looked less like a student than a yuppie who watched too much MTV.

  He handed the driver a key-sized flash drive. “Here’s the data we have so far. It would be most helpful if site creator was kept occupied – his interest shifted to other areas. We have reason to believe the site’s
an impediment, and he’s beginning to have a negative impact with his activities. We’d appreciate if he was kept busy for the duration.” The speaker was nondescript, calm, but with a note of steel to his voice.

  “I’ll see what we can do. This becomes complicated if it goes much further. We have to be careful of domestic operations. We can hassle him, but not much more. But I’m thinking if we do it right, we can tie him up for months.” The driver never looked over at the passenger.

  “Any help will be welcomed,” said Emil. He shouldered the door open, stepped out onto the curb and was gone in seconds.

  Chapter 9

  Griffen sat in a small deli on the upper West Side, deep in discussion with a giant of a man squeezed into the booth across from him as Manhattan’s Monday morning rush hour crawled past outside. The big man spoke in a hearty voice as he sipped his espresso from a cup that resembled a shot glass in his massive hand.

  “Tell me what you need and I will see that it is taken care of. We’ve had a good working relationship, and I am very happy with your management of our assets.” Sergei Rajeslsky spoke deliberately and could have been thanking Nicholas for buying lunch.

  Griffen nodded. “I appreciate your understanding of my difficulty. I have some insight now into who’s causing me the discomfort. It would be helpful if any solution was handled discreetly.” Griffen watched Sergei’s face for any reaction. As a successful import/export broker, his wealth qualified him as an important investor in Griffen Ventures, not to mention that as the head of the Red Mafiya in the U.S. he commanded significant unorthodox resources.

  “I am always happy to solve a problem for a friend. Think no more about this. It will be attended to… is the correct word, expeditiously?” Sergei had a better command of the language than many English professors, but still liked to play the Russian bear on occasion. It was a habit that he’d developed to cause adversaries to underestimate him; not a mistake they typically got to make twice.

  Griffen had some initial trepidation about approaching him, as there was always an inequity to the quid pro quo, but he needed the website issue to go away before it really got out of hand.

  Who could have predicted the site would call the science into serious question, and also map out the links of some of his network of media cronies and investors? There really was no precedent for the website thing. He was definitely not accustomed to seeing most of his proprietary pump and dump strategy laid out in black and white.

  That was too close for comfort.

  Now he was taking financial hits, and if the price began tumbling...it could be terminal. If he started unloading shares to get out of his long position, the price would collapse and take his fund with him – there wouldn’t be enough patsies to sell to, much less to go short and make money on the downswing. He really needed at least two more months or so of upward trajectory, then a couple of months to sell around the top and establish his short. The website was causing the bubble to lose air far too soon – it took a lot of time and trading volume to unwind as massive a stake as he’d accumulated. The timing right now couldn’t have been worse.

  He was already in enough financial trouble. Several other unlucky bets along with the Allied play had turned the $1 billion in his domestic and foreign funds he’d started the year with into about $800 million as of today, meaning he needed some short term volatility successes, as well as a short sale home run to get back to even before he had to do his year-end investor report. That left about six months to pull it out of the bag.

  He needed this debunking site closed down yesterday, and the noise to fade so he could get on with business as he was used to conducting it. Griffen needed a level playing field with investors taking a skeptical view of Allied like he needed a hole in his head. Desperate times called for desperate measures, and Sergei was the court of final appeals.

  Only he would be settling out of court…

  Griffen sipped the dregs of his tepid coffee and looked up at Sergei. “I knew I could count on you.”

  Sergei smiled back. A cozy breakfast on a busy day in the big city. Neither one’s eyes had a trace of friendliness residing in them. Bills would come due eventually, and the piper always had to be paid. Griffen didn’t want to guess what this go-around would cost.

  Chapter 10

  Steven groaned as the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m.. He pawed at the clock to silence it and then reluctantly rolled out of bed, almost falling over Avalon, who’d decided to sleep at his bedside; uncharacteristic for him. Maybe he was feeling under the weather. They both padded downstairs into the kitchen, where Steven downed his coffee as Avalon munched his dog food; their usual preparation for the morning run.

  They loped easily down the strand in tandem; two lone figures covering a lot of ground in a relatively short time, surprising the occasional gull with their approach as they made their way to the pier and back. The weather was ideal for it, and by the time they were rounding the home stretch Steven felt invigorated. When they returned to the house, Steven noticed his answering machine was blinking.

  Strange. He didn’t get a lot of calls, much less at six a.m.. He punched the play button and turned the volume up.

  “Mr. Archer, this is Kevin at Lone Star Web Associates. Please call us ASAP; we have an issue. It’s urgent.” Steven replayed the message, grabbing a pencil to jot down the number. Satisfied he had gotten the digits correct, he deleted the message.

  He dialed the number.

  The same voice answered. “Lone Star, this is Kevin.”

  “Hi, Kevin, it’s Steven Archer. I got your message. What’s up?”

  “Uh, Mr. Archer, we’ve never had anything like this happen before, but apparently the server was hacked sometime last night, and your website was corrupted. The files are unreadable.” The voice sounded hesitant.

  “That’s not the end of the world, I’ve got it on my hard drive; I’ll upload it in a few minutes.”

  Kevin cleared his throat. “That’s not really what’s disturbing to us. We have a pretty bulletproof firewall, and it’s virtually impossible to breach it. In the past, attempts have been shut down within seconds. This was different. We’re still going over the logs and trying to figure it out, but it appears that this was extremely sophisticated, unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “There’s a chance some user data was compromised. We have you listed as Stanley Jorgenson and your payment listed via money order; but the servers clock the IP’s coming in, and yours could conceivably have been logged on a site upload. I don’t see how an intruder could have gotten to it, but it’s a risk that’s there nonetheless.”

  “I understand, Kevin. Thanks for the heads up. My IP is one of a group from my cable company, so anyone who wanted the IP identity would have to subpoena the user data to get anything. That would take months, according to my lawyer, and it wouldn’t be a given. So I think we’re good. I’ll get online and reload the site this morning.” He paused. “You don’t have my phone number in the system, do you?”

  “No, not in that section of the files, anyway. Your number is in a blank field in our contacts log files, with no associated site or name.”

  Well, that was something, anyway. Didn’t seem much had been compromised.

  “All right. I’ll upload in the next few minutes,” Steven advised.

  “I’m really sorry about this. We’ve never had one of these breaches succeed. It’s an anomaly, and we’re contacting the firewall software manufacturer to see if they know how it could have happened.”

  “Keep me posted if you figure it out. I’ll be online in five.”

  Well, he had to expect there’d be some sort of attempt to hack the site. It was always a calculated risk, hence all the precautions surrounding his identity. Still, it was unnerving to have the possible become the actual. But if they kept trying to hack it, he would just keep uploading it. Two could play that game.

  Steven took the stairs three at a time, div
ing in and out of the shower in record speed, and pulling on a threadbare sweatshirt on the way to his desk downstairs. He logged onto his system, and began the morning ritual of opening the streamer windows – and then his system crashed.

  He rebooted, and waited patiently for Windows to restart all the files. Halfway through the process, the system crashed again. An error message declared ‘damaged sectors or files’. He’d been meaning to get a new computer for the last six months, and today of all days his hard disk had decided to give up the ghost. One more try, but no go. Damn.

  Fortunately, he’d backed up his data to CD-ROM, so he grabbed his laptop from upstairs and hooked up the monitors and peripherals. He copied all the data to his hard disk, and then logged in and reloaded the site. The whole annoying process had taken almost an hour, and the market had been open for most of that time, so his next step was to load the quote systems and see what the damage was. Amazingly, they were down eight cents, on light volume. That was a relief.

  Finished, he went back upstairs to check on Jennifer, who’d left a note for him when he was out running that she’d called in sick and was asleep. She’d started feeling out of it Sunday night and was pretty miserable by Monday morning.

  He got her some water and gently woke her. No fever, just a little achy. She insisted she’d be fine and wanted to stay and just hang out and watch TV. No problem. Provided the market kept stable today, and he wanted to go out and run some errands anyway.