Debt of Honor

with computers whose collective value was something only the accounting department knew, and whose current utility was approximately zero. The European markets would soon open. And do what? everyone wondered. There was ordinarily a nightwatch here whose job it was to trade European equities, to keep track of the Eurodollar market, the commodities and metals market, and all the economic activity that occurred on the eastern side of the Atlantic as well as the western. On most days it was like the prologue to a book, a precursor to the real action, interesting but not overly vital except, perhaps, for flavor, because the real substance was decided here in New York City.

But none of that was true today. There was no guessing what would happen this day. Today Europe was the only game in town, and all of the rules had been swept away. The people who manned the computers for this part of the watch cycle were often considered second-string by those who showed up at eight in the morning, which was both untrue and unfair, but in any community there had to be internal competition. This time, as they showed up at their accustomed and ungodly hour, the people who did this regularly noted the presence of front-row executives, and felt a combination of unease and exhilaration. Here was their chance to show their stuff. And here was their chance to screw up, live and in color.

It started exactly at four in the morning, Eastern Standard Time. 'Treasuries.' The word was spoken simultaneously in twenty houses as European banks that still had enormous quantities of U.S. T-Bills as a hedge against the struggling European economies and their currencies suddenly felt quite uneasy about holding them. It seemed odd to some that the word had been slow to get out to their European cousins on Friday, but it was always that way, really, and the opening moves, everyone in New York thought, were actually rather cautious. It was soon clear why. There were plenty of 'asks,' but not many 'bids.' People were trying to sell Treasury Notes, but the interest in buying them was less enthusiastic. The result was prices that dropped just as fast as European confidence in the dollar.

'This is a steal, down three thirty-seconds already. What can we do?'

That question, too, was asked in more than one place, and in each the answer was identical:

'Nothing,' a word in every case spoken with disgust. There followed something else, usually a variant of Fucking Europeans, depending on the linguistic peculiarities of the senior executives in question. So it had started again, a run on the dollar. And America's biggest weapon for fighting back was out of business because of a computer program everyone had trusted. The No Smoking signs in several of the trading rooms were ignored. They didn't have to worry about ashes in the equipment, did they? They really couldn't use the fucking computers for anything today. It was, one executive snorted to a colleague, a good day for some maintenance on the systems. Fortunately, not everybody felt that way.

''Okay, here's where it started, then?' George Winston asked. Mark Gant ran his linger down the screen display.

'Bank of China, Bank of Hong Kong. Imperial Cathay Bank. They bought these up about four months ago, hedging against the yen, and very successfully, it appears. So, Friday, they dumped them to cash in and bought up a truckload of Japanese treasuries. With the movement that happened here, it looks like they turned twenty-two percent on the overall transaction.'

They were the first, Winston saw, and being first in the trend, they cashed in big. That sort of hit was of a magnitude to cause more than a few expensive dinners in Hong Kong, a city well suited to the indulgence.

'Look innocent to you?' he asked Gant with a stifled yawn.

The executive shrugged. He was tired, but having the boss back in the saddle gave everyone new energy. 'Innocent, hell! It's a brilliant move. They saw something coming, I suppose, or they were just lucky.'

Luck, Winston thought, there was always that. Luck was real, something any senior trader would admit over drinks, usually after two or three, the number required to get past the usual 'brilliance' bullshit. Sometimes it just felt right, and you did it because of that, and that's all there was to it. If you were lucky, it worked, and if not, you hedged.

'Keep going,' he ordered.

'Well, then other banks started doing the same thing.' The Columbus Group had some of the most sophisticated computer systems on the Street, able to track any individual issue and category of issues over time, and Gant was a quintessential computer jockey. They next watched the sell-off of other T-Bills by other Asian banks. Interestingly, the Japanese banks were slower off the mark than he would have expected. It was no disgrace to be a little behind Hong Kong. The Chinese were good at this thing, especially those trained by the Brits, who had largely invented modern central banking and were still pretty slick at it. But the Japs were faster than the Thais, Winston thought, or at least they should have been . . .

It was instinct again, just the gut-call of a guy who knew how to work the Street: 'Check Japanese treasuries. Mark.'

Gant typed in a command, and the rapid advance in the value of the yen was obvious—so much so, in fact, that they hardly needed to track it via computer. 'Is this what you want?'

Winston leaned down, looking at the screen. 'Show me what Bank of China did when they cashed in.'

'Well, they sold off to the Eurodollar market and bought yen. I mean, it's the obvious play—'

'But look who they bought the yen from,' Winston suggested.

'And what they paid for it . . .' Gant turned his head and looked at his boss.

'You know why I was always honest here, Mark? You know why I never screwed around, not ever, not even once, not even when I had an in-the-bank sure thing?' George asked. There was more than one reason, of course, but why confuse the issue? He pressed his fingertip to the screen, actually leaving a fingerprint on the glass. He almost laughed at the symbolism. 'That's why.'

'That doesn't really mean anything. The Japanese knew they could jack it up some and—' Gant didn't quite get it yet, Winston saw. He needed to hear it in his own terms.

'Find the trend, Mark. Find the trend there.' Well, son of a bitch, he told himself, heading to the men's room. The trend is my friend. Then he thought of something else:

Fuck with my financial market, will you?

It wasn't much consolation. He had given his business over to a predator, Winston realized, and the damage was well and truly done. His investors had trusted him and he had betrayed that trust. Washing his hands, he looked up into the mirror over the sink, seeing the eyes of a man who'd left his post, deserted his people.

But you're back now, by God, and there's a ton of work to be done.

Pasadena had finally sailed, more from embarrassment than anything else, Jones thought. He'd listened to Bart Mancuso's phone conversation with CINCPAC, explaining that the submarine was loaded with weapons and so filled up with food that her passageways were completely covered with cartons of canned goods, enough for sixty days or more at sea. That was a sign of the not-so-good old days, Jones thought, remembering what the long deployments had been like, and so USS Pasadena, warship of the U.S. Navy, was now at sea, heading west at about twenty knots, using a quiet screw, not a speed screw, he thought. Otherwise he might have gotten a hit on her. The submarine had just passed within fifteen nautical miles of a SOSUS emplacement, one of the new ones that could hear the fetal heartbeat of an unborn whale calf. Pasadena didn't have orders yet, but she'd be in the right place if and when they came, with her crew running constant drills, leaning down, getting that at-sea feeling that came to you when you needed it. That was something.

Part of him dearly wished to be there, but that was part of his past now.

'I don't see nothin', sir.' Jones blinked and looked back at the fan-fold page he'd selected.

'Well, you have to look for other things,' Jones said. Only a Marine with a loaded pistol would get him out of SOSUS now. He'd made that clear to Admiral Mancuso, who had in turn made it clear to others. There had been a brief discussion of getting Jones a special commission, perhaps to Commander's rank, but Ron had quashed that idea himself. He'd left the Navy a Sonarman 1/c, and that was as good a rank as he'd ever wanted. Besides, it would not have looked good to the chiefs who really ran this place and had already accepted him as one of their own.

Oceanographic Technician 2/c Mike Boomer had been assigned to Jones as personal assistant. The kid had the makings of a good student, Dr. Jones thought, even if he'd left service in P-3's because of chronic airsickness.

'All these guys are using Prairie-Masker systems when they snort. It sounds like rain on the surface,