Authors: Nic Bennett
“I think we’ll need a new photograph,” she laughed, and Jonah had to stand self-consciously at the desk while she pointed the digital camera at him. “Take a seat, and I’ll tell him you’re here, Mr. Lightbody,” she said, causing Jonah to look over his shoulder in a panic, thinking that she was referring to his father. He’d managed to evade traveling to work with him this morning by using the lame excuse that he had to polish his shoes before beginning his first day, and it wouldn’t have surprised him if his father had been waiting there in the lobby, eager to tell him once again that he was making the wrong decision by joining the firm, even if it was only temporary. Fortunately, there was no one behind Jonah, and he acknowledged his error quickly enough to turn back around and say thank you without the receptionist noticing any odd behavior.
There was only one set of chairs in the reception area. They were made from black leather and chrome and arranged around a glass table. Jonah walked over to them, sat down, and threw his newspaper on the table. He’d read it already, and regardless, anyone in banking—and for that matter, the world at large—knew what it said. Another two banks deemed “too big to fail” had been rescued over the weekend, and there would probably be more.
The world had changed since Jonah was last here. It was now in the midst of a massive financial crisis, one that looked like it was to have global ramifications. Jonah looked upward to the towering ceiling, then downward at the modern art on the walls, and back across at the sharks, the solidity of the building around him warming his heart. Despite all the chaos out there beyond the firm’s revolving doors, Hellcat itself hadn’t changed. It was as invincible as ever.
Jonah smiled to himself.
Kind of like him
, he thought. He sat back in his chair, reached into his inside pocket, and pulled out a well-creased old letter, the one the Baron had made sure was waiting for him upon his arrival back at school four years previously.
When Jonah caught sight of a woman coming down the escalator that led to the trading floor, he promptly put the letter away and watched as she, a grim-faced man behind her, and a security guard—carrying a black garbage bag—descended and crossed the reception floor, never once exchanging a word between them. The receptionists, too, stopped talking as they passed. The only sound was footsteps on the marble floor. Jonah found himself frozen with fascination. The trio reached the revolving doors, and the woman stopped and turned to the melancholic-looking man. She held out
her hand, and he took off the security pass from around his neck and handed it to her. The security guard gave the man the black garbage bag. Still there was silence. Finally the woman spoke. “I hope it all works out,” she said.
“Yeah right,” the man replied and walked out of the revolving doors, garbage bag in hand.
Jonah watched the security guard and the woman head back toward the escalator and saw Sophie the receptionist walking toward him.
She really was very pretty
, he thought, standing up. She stopped in front of him, handing him a security pass. “This is valid until the eighth of December, three months from today.”
“Great, thanks.” Jonah placed the pass in his pocket, nearly forgetting the spectacle he’d just observed as his heart began to race in anticipation.
If Sophie noticed Jonah’s excitement, she kept it to herself. She simply said, “The Baron says you can go straight up.”
“Excellent,” Jonah replied. “I know the way.”
Jonah ran the
security pass across the sensor and watched as the double doors opened up. A shiver went through his body, and he shook his head as if trying to wake himself as his eyes swept across the cavernous space in front of him. It was smaller than he remembered and quieter too. Many of the desks were empty, their chairs devoid of jackets, casualties of the financial crisis. Jonah could sense immediately that, despite his impressions of the lobby, this was no longer an army on the charge. This was a force in retreat, hunkering down in the trenches, waiting for the next barrage of market-crippling news. These were individuals hoping to just get out alive, to return home each day with their jobs intact.
Or at least that was the case outside the Bunker. With a quick glance at his (still tie-less) father over in Drizzlers’ Den—no Neanderthals there anymore, he noticed—Jonah strode over to the Bunker, where he could already hear a buzz of determined activity.
Here was the Resistance!
The Lego fort and airplanes were still there, as
was the fishless tank above which now hung a row of plastic trash bags, lifeless and black, the antithesis of Christmas stockings.
“Achtung! Achtung! Heeeeere’s iPod,” the Baron shouted when he saw him. “And he needs a hair cut!”
Heads popped up around the desk like meerkats in the desert. There were smiles and thumbs-ups and high-five signals. Then, just as quickly, the heads went down, back to work. Jonah couldn’t be certain, but it dawned on him that, despite how positive his last interaction had been with the Bunker Boys, maybe Dog and the rest of them weren’t actually all too happy about having him there.
“Hello, mate. Glad you could make it.” The Baron shook his hand. “Summer off looks as if it treated you well. What’s with the hair?” he teased.
“What’s with the trash bags?” responded Jonah, refusing to be drawn into a discussion of his barbering decisions.
There was no sign of Franky.
“Oh, them? A mark of disrespect for the departed. One for every job lost. Another one went this morning,” the Baron answered loftily.
Jonah thought about the grim-faced man in reception and nodded. “Yeah, I saw him.”
“Terrible business, it is,” the Baron added somewhat unconvincingly. “But fortunately, we have little of that here at the Bunker.” The Baron raised his voice. “Right, boys?” he called out.
“Hell no!” came a combined military-style chant.
“What goes in the trash bag?” Jonah asked, still trying to absorb the change in atmosphere since he’d been here last.
“Possessions.” The Baron waved his hand airily. “When you’re chopped, we don’t want you hanging about. You might smash up a
computer or put through some dodgy trades. So it’s desk cleared and into the bag, and you’re out of the door, security guard on your shoulder, check in the post, game over.”
Jonah counted twenty-seven trash bags below the fish tank. “That’s not what happened to Franky, is it?” he inquired.
“Naaaah,” the Baron sneered. “I told you we don’t have any of these corporate-mandated layoffs here in the Bunker.” The Baron punched Jonah in the shoulder, laughing heartily. “No, she’d had enough. Made enough money, she said. Though who knew there was such a thing? Her doctor boyfriend proposed and that was that. Off to get married and have babies.”
“Good for her,” said Jonah, though his enthusiasm was cut short when he noticed a shadow pass across the Baron’s face.
“Yeah well. Maybe. But it’s been carnage without her. She’d been doing some assistant duties for me as well—as you know, I never could find an assistant who I felt could really follow in your footsteps.” Here the Baron shook his head despairingly. “The whole lot was as bad as Jammy. Which is why you’re back!” He paused for a moment before adding, “By the way, what did your dad say about you coming to fill in for the next few months?”
“Pretty pissed off but not a lot he could do,” said Jonah. “I cleared it with the school first. They think it’s a great idea. Kind of like the exchanges we do with other schools, only this one is giving career experience.”
“Ah, I knew I liked you!” the Baron exclaimed. “Smart approach.”
Jonah nodded casually in agreement. “Then I told the Drizzler that they’d said it was a good idea, and if he didn’t let me do it I’d leave school.”
The Baron cracked up. “Wish I could have seen the look on his face.”
“Me too,” Jonah replied, though that wasn’t entirely true. “But I did it over the telephone!”
“Good man, good man,” the Baron muttered, nodding his head. “No reason to drag it out.”
“Guess not,” Jonah agreed, and falling more completely into the rapport he and the Baron had developed over the last four years, he added, “Would have helped though if you’d told me I was only here until you found a full-time replacement for Franky!”
“Did I not mention that?” the Baron replied, a mock guilty expression on his face.
“You did not. You just said to ‘come for a few months.’”
“Well, you know, we’re looking really diligently.” Here the Baron rolled his eyes.
“I can see that.” Jonah gestured at the files on the Baron’s desk, which he guessed were unopened job applications.
The Baron laughed heartily, his hands on his stomach. “So have you seen the old man at all this summer?”
“I’m not looking at him?” Jonah teased, causing the Bunker Boys to glance up from their work, their faces filled with shock that the kid would try something like that with their boss.
Dog whispered to Jeeves, “Fifty quid he doesn’t let him get away with that.”
“Haha, I had that one coming,” the Baron said, patting Jonah on the back, causing Jeeves to cackle. “So tell me what you were doing this summer?”
Jonah tried to ignore Dog, who was now swearing. “I’ve been all
across Europe touring music festivals like you suggested. Best time of my life!” he said to the Baron
“Hence the hair,” noted the Baron, cocking his head.
“Hence the hair,” Jonah repeated, standing his ground. There was a moment of silence when Jonah wondered whether the Baron was going to tell him to get it cut, but instead he sat back down and motioned to Jonah to do the same.
“Right. That’s enough banter. Let’s get to work. We don’t want to make the rest of these punters jealous, now do we?” He shot a glance at Dog, who was shaking his head in apparent disbelief, and then returned his attention to Jonah, raising his voice a fraction. “You’re being paid now, so I’d better get my money’s worth! You’ll remember what
this lot
is like: badly written tickets, mismatches, screw-ups. We are trading our socks off, and there’s been nobody to clear up
their
mess. Clive in Settlements, you’ll meet him later, has sorted some of it, but he’s got the whole floor to deal with. So, you’re stepping straight into Franky’s shoes as well as those of my long departed trading assistant. All right?”
Jonah looked at the overflowing tray of tickets sitting on the desk. He’d thought he’d come here to trade, not input. “Yeah, I reckon that’ll be all right. Though I’m not sure high heels suit me,” he quipped.
“Ha bloody ha. Good. What’s the time? You’ve got to see some people this morning.” He glanced at his watch. “Eight fifty. Amelia’s first, at nine. Remember her?”
“The breakfast lady? I’m not doing breakfast again, am I?” Now Jonah was really concerned.
“No,” said the Baron. “Those days are gone, and she’s gone up
in the world since then anyway. You’ll find out.” He winked. “After Amelia you’ll do Pistol—Harry Solomons—in Legal—Compliance we call it—at ten, boring but legally necessary. That’ll be followed by a visit from the tech boys at eleven thirty and a twelve o’clock with Clive.” He changed his voice to a sneering cockney accent and was rubbing his fingers and thumbs together and screwing up his face. “After that it’s on the desk making money … loads of money.”
Jonah smiled, the excitement reaching his eyes. So he would be trading.
The Baron reverted to his normal voice. “Now go, or you’ll be late for Amelia, and that will upset her. You don’t want to upset Amelia. If there’s a Hellcat in this place it’s most definitely her. Fifth floor, follow your nose.”
Jonah stood back up again, removed his jacket, and placed it on the back of his chair.
In Switzerland it
was nine fifty in the morning, one hour ahead of London time. Kloot stood at a window of his mansion in the Oberstrass, the wealthiest area of Zurich. He was smoking a cigar and contemplating the five hundred million dollars he had made from trades relating to the U.S. government’s bailout actions over the weekend.
These governments were so predictable,
he mused. Two banks rescued so far but there would be more. He’d seen it happen twenty years ago with the savings and loan crisis. What had they pumped into that one? Over a hundred billion dollars, and he’d taken a good slug of that, thank you very much. This wasn’t the end of this latest financial crisis, and if he got it right he could make a financial killing even bigger than the one he’d made twenty years ago or what he’d earned from the Russian Crisis in 1998 or even the attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001. This was a special time. Situations like this were precisely what the Apollyon Fund was designed for, a situation in which fear reigned. He
would drive the fear and Apollyon could feed its greed.
His plan was simple: force the U.S. government into another rescue situation. Stage one would be to harness the power of the financial markets to create a complete crisis of confidence in New York’s banks. There was so much panic around, it wouldn’t take much to cause another stampede of investors to the exit doors. Once the market had flushed out the next target, his operative inside the Federal Reserve would be in the position to feed him the information he required to execute the trade. And stage three would be the trade itself: a massive bet that would reap massive profits.
He took a long draw on his cigar, blowing a series of smoke rings into the air, and turned toward his desk with its encrypted telephone. He didn’t want anyone listening in to what he had to say. Once he had marshaled the Apollyon network, he would return to Africa, his original home, and admire the carnage from somewhere warm. Switzerland was too cold, even in the summer.
Jonah was outside
Amelia’s “Boudoir,” as the sign on her office advertised itself, when he heard her unmistakable high-class purr. Up here the smell was a long way away from the blood, sweat, and tears that pervaded the trading floor. “Mr. Lightbody! iPod!” she exclaimed. “My, haven’t you grown into a fine-looking man!”