The Prince of Risk A Novel(34)

Alex took up the crowbar and pried open the box. Inside was a single metal tube, drab green, looking like nothing more than a plumbing fixture. She knew better. Gripping the tube at one end, she gave a yank and it telescoped to twice its length. Lifting it to her shoulder, she unlatched the vertical sight and put her eye to the crosshairs.



“That what I think it is?” asked Mintz, with equal measures fright and disbelief.

Alex spun and pointed the TOW antitank weapon directly at him. “Ka-boom.”





22




Astor left the elevators on the sixtieth floor of the Standard Financial building to find Bradley Zarek waiting. “Bobby. Great to see you. Thanks for coming so quickly.”

“I was in the neighborhood,” said Astor.

“I know it’s a tough day. We’re all in shock about what happened last night. If I could have waited on this, I would have. But…” Zarek splayed his hands to show that events had overtaken them both. The market was their master. “Come on down to my office. Let’s chat.”

Zarek was a senior vice president in the bank’s prime direct brokerage division. Prime direct was a little-known but extremely profitable branch of banking, set up to deal with very high net worth individuals, private equity firms (or “sponsors,” as they were known in the business), and hedge funds like Comstock. In effect, prime direct was a bank for other bankers and traders. When Astor needed to borrow money, he went to Zarek or one of his clones at any of the banks where Comstock did business.

Zarek showed him into his office and shut the door. Investment banks place a premium on space, and even a big shot like Zarek commanded a glassed-in cubicle barely larger than Astor’s guest bathroom. From the memorabilia crowding the shelves and credenza, it was apparent that Zarek was one of the last Mets fans in the city. Astor picked up a worn mitt, slipped it on, and gave the pocket a few good thumps with his fist.

“That was Tom Seaver’s,” said Zarek nervously as he sat down at his desk. “He pitched with it in the ’69 World Series.”

“Some year.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Zarek, brightening as if he had lived it. He was chubby, average height, with a five o’clock shadow at 2 p.m. and a scrub of curly black hair. He was maybe forty years old, which meant he had been just a twinkle in his parents’ eyes when the Mets had made their miracle run. “They came from nine down in mid-August and won thirty-nine of their last fifty games to take the division. Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into the same kind of jam.”



Astor examined the glove, then leveled his gaze at the banker. “Way I see it, we’re favorites to win the Series.”

Zarek chuckled uncomfortably. “That’s not quite how we see it.”

Astor took a step toward Zarek. “Oh? How do you see it?” He had no intention of making Zarek’s job easier. For years Comstock had been one of Zarek’s best customers. When Comstock borrowed to leverage up a position, Astor could count on getting a call from Zarek and his cronies, asking much too politely if they might get a piece of the action. As a rule, Astor only accepted investments starting at $25 million (and preferably $100 million). He went further, limiting his clients to other hedge funds, sponsors, family offices, and sovereign wealth funds. But Astor knew how the game was played, and he always set aside a few scraps for Zarek and his fellow remoras.

“Look, Bobby, we know you have a track record—”

“That track record put your kids through elementary school.”

Zarek smiled even more uncomfortably than he had a minute before. “And I’m grateful. But you’re a little over your skis on this one.”

Astor punched the sacred mitt a few more times just to see Zarek wince. “Says who?”

“No one thinks the Chinese are going to devalue. Not when they’ve been letting the yuan increase for the past five years. The RMB is up thirty-one percent since 2006.”

RMB for renminbi.

“So?”

“So…” Zarek’s face creased into a single fold of disbelief. “What makes you think it’s going to change?”

Astor slammed his balled fist into the mitt again. “Tell you what, Brad. You want, I can still let you in on the fund.”

Zarek’s eyes widened like a virgin’s in a strip club. He rose a few inches out of his chair, only to sink back. “Not this time, Bobby. But if you’d like to tell me something you know about the currency that I can share with the loan committee…”

Astor was hardly about to reveal his investment strategy to Bradley Zarek. Zarek was a drone—a highly paid, expensively educated, whip-smart, hardworking drone, but a drone nonetheless. Astor shot him the mitt with a little mustard on it. “Okay, Brad, let me have it. What gives?”