Ground Zero

To satisfy the food requirement, they each ordered an appetizer. Jack chose the fried calamari. This being an Irish pub, he figured he’d be dealing with the equivalent of breaded rubber bands, but nobody said he had to eat it. The waiter departed reasonably happy.

When they were alone again, Harris pulled the manila folder from his backpack and shuffled through the papers.

“My guy wasn’t alone.” He peered at a sheet. “Here. In the week before the Towers attack there was no bad news about air travel in general and no bad news about either American or United in particular. Both were trading in the low thirties. Yet on September sixth and seventh, the CBO—”

“The what?”

“The Chicago Board Options Exchange—it handles zillions of puts and calls. It recorded over forty-seven hundred puts on United and less than four hundred calls those days. The volume on the sixth, the Thursday before the attack, was two hundred and eighty-five times the average—an incomprehensible increase.”

“All in one account?”

“No. In numerous accounts. The people who knew what was coming were moving to cash in.”

Jack shook his head. “You’ve got to be making this up.”

“I’m not. Same thing happened to American Airlines on the tenth, the day before the attack—over forty-five hundred puts. Way, way, way above average. Same with Morgan Stanley: twenty-five times the usual daily average in puts. The stock markets were closed the rest of the week after the attack, but when they reopened on the seventeenth, United dropped forty-three percent and American dropped forty. Morgan Stanley dropped too. The result: Anyone who held puts on those stocks cleaned up.”

“But everything dropped,” Eddie said. “The whole market tanked. Someone could have simply shorted the indexes and cleaned up.”

“Not to the extent our boy did. Relatively, the Dow dropped a mere fraction of what United, American, and Morgan Stanley suffered.”

The conversation was making Jack gladder than ever that he kept his money in gold.

Harris said, “At that time, a one-hundred-share put on United was selling for around ninety bucks. He bought a hundred of them for nine grand.”

“Meaning he had options on ten thousand shares,” Eddie said. “How much did United drop?”

“Thirteen bucks.”

Eddie whistled. “He made a hundred and thirty thousand on that one deal alone.”

Harris nodded. “Fifteen hundred percent profit. But that’s not all. Our boy also purchased calls—meaning he expected the stock price to rise—on Raytheon.”

Jack looked at them. “Which is . . . ?”

“I’ve heard of it,” Eddie said. “A defense contractor. They make Tomahawk missiles.” He sighed, puffing out his cheeks. “I can guess what happened to Raytheon when the market reopened.”

Harris was nodding. “Big jump—thirty-seven percent.”

Jack was finding all this . . . incredible. Literally.

“Is this for real? I mean—don’t take offense—but we have only your word that any of this went on, and we don’t know you.”

Harris shrugged. “I know it’s a lot to swallow, but it’s all verifiable. Look it up yourself. The put-call ratios are a matter of public record.”

Well, if so, that raised an obvious question . . .

“Hold on a sec. If this kind of bump in activity was recorded, how come no one else noticed?”

“Believe me, plenty of people have noticed. The SEC even launched an investigation—or at least said it did.”

“And?”

“And nothing. Have you heard of any arrests?”

“No, but then I don’t pay much attention to—”

“I do,” Harris said. “I pay a lot of attention. And not a single person has been arrested.”

“But how do they explain—?”

Harris shrugged. “They don’t. It’s been dropped.”

“Sounds like How to Spark a Conspiracy Theory one-oh-one.”

“For sure. And the conspiracy theory is bolstered by the fact that two and a half million dollars’ worth of puts remain uncollected.”

Eddie leaned forward. “Why do you think that is?”

“I don’t think they expected the markets to close so quickly. They probably pla

“What about your boy?” Jack said.

“With his foreign account, he managed to execute the options and get away with it.”

“I gather then from what you said to Weezy that you’ve been looking for this Cardoza and you’ve found him.”

“Well, yes, and no. There is no Emilio Cardoza—at least, the Emilio Cardoza who opened the account doesn’t exist.”

“Then you haven’t found him.”

Harris smiled. “Oh, but I have. Louise assumed it was a false identity and asked me to look into it. She bought me tickets to Basel and Madrid and paid all my expenses. With the help of a bunch of euros—also supplied by Louise—I managed to get my hands on a security photo of Cardoza.”

Jack spread his hands. “So he does exist.”

“Only on paper. I speak decent Spanish and in Spain I showed his photo around and learned that his real name is Bashar Sheikh, a Pakistani whose last known residence was just outside Tarragona, Spain.”

Jack’s bullshitometer was redlining. Pass a few euros in Switzerland and get a photo . . . show that photo around in Spain and get a real name. All Jack knew about international intrigue was what he’d read in novels, but whatever the reality was, it couldn’t be that easy. And Harris was no George Smiley.

Eddie looked equally baffled. “If this is supposed to mean something, it doesn’t.”

Harris said, “I don’t know what it means either. Sheikh hasn’t been seen or heard from since the spring of ’04. I’ve never heard of the man, but he immediately looked familiar. I’ve seen his face before, but I can’t place him. But I knew Louise would recognize him because—”

“—she never forgets anything,” Jack and Eddie said in unison.

Harris stared at them, nodding. “Right. I guess you two really do know her.”

“As only a brother who grew up in her academic shadow could.”

Jack remembered how Weezy always did well in school and could have been number one in her class, year in and year out, if she’d chosen to be. Not only did she have that photographic memory, but she could put all her stored data to use—often in ways that were a little too unique for her teachers. Eddie had had a hard time following in her footsteps. Academically, he’d been the Andrew Ridgeley of the Co

“So anyway, when I got back yesterday I started calling her as soon as I landed.”

“Why didn’t you call her from Spain?” Jack said.

Harris gave him a look. “Do you have any idea how closely overseas calls are monitored?”

Jack didn’t. He didn’t travel.

“Okay. You waited till you got back. You called and got no answer, and became worried.”

“Right. I mean, I wasn’t worried at first. Sometimes she goes off the grid—turns off her phone and doesn’t check her e-mail—but never for more than a day. I thought yesterday was one of those days, so while I was waiting I went through my photo files, looking for that face. But it wasn’t there. Today I began calling again and still no answer. Now I was worried. So I came over.” He shrugged. “And the rest you know.”

“No, pal,” Jack said. “Not even close. You said there were multiple accounts buying those puts. Why did she choose this particular one?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

“Well, since I can’t do that, I’m asking you.”

“Well, then you’re out of luck, because she didn’t tell me. She tells me only what she thinks I need to know, and I guess she didn’t think I needed to know that. But I have an idea.”

“We’re waiting.”

“Emilio Cardoza was listed as from Tarragona. In July of 2001, Mohammed Atta, the leader of the nine/eleven attacks, visited Spain and dropped out of sight in the Tarragona area. It’s widely believed he met with high-ups from al Qaeda to finalize the plan of attack. I will bet—although I have no facts to base it on—that they used Bashar Sheikh’s home as a safe house.”