Chapter 25
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Jack crawled around his sleepless bed that night, tastes, smells and textures of Lee dancing in his head. He slept with a pillow under his knees, because of his back. He finally fell asleep around three. Too few hours after that his inflamed sciatic nerve woke him twanging like a guitar string. After fifteen minutes of stretching, he could walk without much of a limp. All his squirming hadn’t altered Lee’s snoring, much less disturbed her sleep.
His back doctor talked about another operation and his massage therapist said the doc was nuts. He didn’t want anybody cutting on him again, but some mornings it took him more than his allotted fifteen minutes to be able to walk. One day, and who knew when, he might wake up unable to move, or in pain he couldn’t deal with.
He visualized himself gathering up all the pain in his back and stuffing it in a sack. Then he put the sack in an imaginary metal box, closed the lid and went to work. All of the stocks on their list had heavier volume than normal, even the controls. No one was shorting any of them more than usual except Genotopian. Short activity on Genotopian was double normal.
He searched the web under the stock name, the genetic engineering sector, and all of Genotopian’s major executives. Earnings reports had come out three weeks before and were right on track. The company was headquartered in Austin, Texas. Like many such companies much of their research staff worked out of Palo Alto. The president, Ayadih Singh, had flown in to take his senior science staff on a wilderness adventure. Jack imagined Outward Bound with pocket protectors. Then his buzzing phone pulled him out of his daydream.
It was Seiji Hiromatsu returning his call. “Action Jackson, jumped out of any perfectly good airplanes lately?”
Hero had been a Marine Corps platoon leader about the same time Jack had been fomenting Kurdish revolt. Hero never missed a chance to take a shot at his old profession.
“No Hero, I quit jumping when they quit paying me. Thought about charging any machine gun nests lately?” He replied without much wit, blaming his weak answer on lack of sleep.
Hero laughed and said. “No, but if the market stays this choppy, I might reconsider.”
Hero was head of research in Tokyo for one of the major investment banking houses. He was fourth generation American and didn’t fit in Japan. They promised him Zurich next if he’d stick out it out for his three-year assignment.
“And, you called because…?” he asked, getting down to business.
“Do you know anything about problems at Viral Countermeasures?”
Hero said, “I’ve haven’t heard a damn thing. Do you want me to check it out for you?”
“Yep.” He had just used his buddy Hero as part of their little charade. Jack wanted to ask him more because if anyone would know about genetic stocks, it would be Seiji, but he didn’t want to talk to Seiji over the unsecured line until he’d clued him in on his part of the disinformation campaign.
“And, I need to confirm some other stuff, but I’m late for a meeting. I’ll call tomorrow evening, okay?”
Hero said bye, sounding confused and a little pissed off. Jack walked down the stairs instead of taking the elevator, going as slow as he could, taking his weight in his calves first. By the time he’d walked to DealMaker the pain in his back had dropped to the level of a compound fracture. It took fifteen minutes to get through to Hero. The error message said something about extraordinarily high sunspot activity.
When the assistant put him through Hero opened with, “So what was that bullshit earlier, somebody listening to your calls?”
“They sure are trying to. I dropped Viral Countermeasures in so I could watch transactions on the stock and maybe figure out who is listening. Do you know anybody with inside information on ReWire, Inc., ticker symbol RWIR or any other biotech stocks?”
Jack waited a long time for an answer. He knew Seiji was still there because he could hear Tammy Wynette playing in the background. He could picture his friend sitting in a corner office, snakeskin cowboy boots up on the desk, a good Cuban cigar clamped in his teeth, enjoying the fact that the Japanese expected senior executives to ignore no-smoking rules.
“Jack, I can’t say I’ve heard anything I could take to the bank, more like rumors about gossip that might possibly be true. I’m going to tell you what I heard and I’m warning you, right up front, to be like Casper the Friendly on this. If it ever gets out I told you, my fat little butt’s going to be in a sling. What I heard was this: A religious organization, headquartered in Asia, name unknown, found a way to get good inside information on a number of genetic engineering companies. This church/cult/whatever was making a small fortune with said information. Rumor had it said church was politically connected in the land of the rising sun and in the home of the brave.”
Jack waited a while before asking, “Okay, Hero, what’s the gag?”
Hero sighed and said, “Good Buddy, all I can tell you is what I heard. I was out doing the obligatory drinking with the boys and that’s what the drunken fellow said. I don’t know how in the hell you are going to confirm it. I’m not going to crap on the relationships it’s been next to impossible for me to build here by telling you who told me or anything else, so you are on your own.”
“Thanks partner. Next time you’re in town, come down to the Judo club and I’ll kick your ass again.”
Hero laughed and said, “No way, big boy. I walked with a hitch in my get-a-long for two weeks after the last time. But, I’ll take your money on the golf course any old day.”
Seiji agreed to help with the disinformation campaign. Golf hell! Jack thought if he wanted to take a walk, he would go fishing. He sat back in the chair watching fog blow in under the Golden Gate. He had more questions than answers. He was starting to feel like he didn’t even know what game he was in, much less what the rules were. An hour of staring blankly out the window didn’t do any good. He used his iPhone to take nice pictures of the board in case he forgot anything. Then he erased the board and cleaned it so no one from an opposing building could read it.
DVORA AND LEE sat smiling and chatting at the small table in the sitting room. All of the new cabal’s communications were by handwritten note. Defeat high tech with low tech or no tech. He handed the two ladies their scripts. They read them quickly. Lee rolled her eyes and jotted a quick note, showing it first to Dvora and then to him.
“He could always make a living writing bad soap operas.”
The comment almost got a smile from Dvora. Almost.
“I can’t stand this anymore. We have to do something. And, by something I don’t mean pretending like nothing is happening and telling me that everything is going to be okay. Meghan is in the hospital and you are just sitting here. How can you just sit here? Well, I can’t. I have to at least try.” With that Dvora slammed the door on the way out.
Lee said, “Wait! Dvora, don’t leave,” a second before the door slammed.
“Is it me or…?”
“No baby. It’s not you. Anything new from your people on Viral Countermeasures?”
Nothing yet, but a couple of my sources haven’t checked in yet.”
Why don’t we go out for a while?” He asked.
“Give me a minute to put my face on.”
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