Are You Ready to Get Decked?

The Lee Energy headquarters strategy conference room.

I was smiling—a rare sight.

Watching Black Vorg’s spokesperson on the TV screen, veins standing out on his neck as he read out that statement, I couldn’t help but laugh.

How do you people never manage to step outside the expected?

It was identical, word for word, to page three of the crisis-management manual I’d memorized during new-hire training at Black Diamond in my previous life.

“No factual basis,” “legal action,” “smear campaign.”

That trio was the purest expression of bureaucratic thinking—a result so devoid of creativity you could scrub your eyes raw and still not find any.

I understood the logic behind believing that, in a crisis, time mattered more than truth.

The public’s attention wouldn’t last two weeks; soon enough, some new headline would swallow it whole.

But this time, it won’t even survive two days.

I picked up the remote and turned off the TV.

The spokesperson’s face shrank into a black dot and vanished.

“You’re moving so predictably, I’m almost grateful,” I muttered.

On the table, freshly delivered evening papers were spread open.

At the bottom of the front page sat Black Vorg’s rebuttal advertisement.

It was like a child furiously building a sandcastle with bare hands just before the tsunami hit.

“All right. Now it’s time to turn this over.”

I set two thick stacks of documents side by side in the center of the conference table.

Everyone in the legal team, including Vito, flipped to the same page at once.

“These are the two decisive pieces of evidence that will bring Black Vorg down.”

I tapped the stack on the left lightly with my palm.

The original double books and embezzlement evidence Ethan Locke had risked a civil suit to smuggle out.

///////

At this point, it was almost outright financial fraud.

The shareholders and investors would be outraged from the first page alone; by the second, they’d be gripping the backs of their necks, and by the third there was a real chance they’d collapse from sheer rage and never wake again.

Vito nodded.

“There’s nothing that enrages people in a capitalist society more than finding out their money’s been stolen. I’m glad the IRS team leader understands that point so well.”

Alfie Solomons of IRS Criminal Investigation Special Team 1 had already begun the investigation.

According to yesterday’s call, IRS agents were already seizing and occupying every mailbox in sight on the Cayman Islands.

“All right, next.”

I pointed to the stack on the right.

It contained the cover-up report for the Texas refinery explosion and transcripts showing the instructions to downplay the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

///////

It was hard to believe a human being could be this textbook-level vile.

I set the transcripts down on the table.

“Public outrage will explode. Even the people willing to overlook a money issue won’t stay calm when they learn the company killed people and destroyed the environment.”

Expose the financial crimes and move the investors and shareholders; then stir the public as well with the environmental crimes and the contempt for human life.

I walked over to the organizational chart of Black Vorg drawn on the whiteboard.

Picking up a red marker, I drew a huge X over the Black Vorg logo.

“Our target doesn’t end with Black Vorg’s stock price falling.”

Over that X, I drew a long arrow, connecting it all the way to the logo of the parent company written above it: Black Diamond.

“These bastards are the real target.”

“Black Diamond... they really went and made a terrifying man their enemy. Did they do something to earn your grudge, Boss?”

Vito joked lightly.

I answered in kind.

“Why would I bear a grudge against prey?”

“Wow, Boss. That was genuinely villainous. A true big-time villain.”

“Then let’s do something even worse.”

Vito understood what I meant instantly.

“I’ll call Emil at the Wall Street Journal right now. Lift the embargo.”

“Good. At the same time, send quick copies of that stack on the right to ABC, CNN, and the major environmental groups.”

“Understood. I’ll choose only the most aggressive ones. You know the kind I mean. The ones that, two years ago, said they were against meat and then suddenly threw dynamite wrapped in pig intestines at a Michelangelo statue... If they see this material, they’ll probably come charging out swinging steel pipes.”

Vito left the conference room at once.

I glanced at Victor standing beside me.

He caught the signal immediately and winked.

That meant he would pass the short-selling timing to his father, Wolfman.

Short selling.

Borrowing stock, selling it first, then buying it back later at a lower price to return it.

If you know in advance that a stock is about to crash, there’s no surer way to make money.

The problem was the line between legal and illegal.

Trading on inside information—insider trading—was a serious federal crime.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s surveillance net was tight, and suspicious trading patterns were caught immediately.

Especially if a large short position was opened right before a stock’s plunge, it would be the first thing they investigated.

That was why timing mattered.

We had to act only after the report was thoroughly made public, leave no written record at all, and keep all communication verbal or nonverbal.

I trusted Wolfman’s instinct, honed over years on Wall Street.

He would open his position exactly thirty-one seconds after the news broke.

Too fast, and it would look suspicious. Too slow, and the profits would shrink.

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Thirty-one seconds might sound late, but given the analog machinery of the 1990s, it was actually a pretty quick response.

Well, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

To be honest, the profits from shorting Black Vorg were tiny compared with what I’d make by drilling oil anyway, so it didn’t matter much whether they came or not.

Even if Wolfman waited to avoid suspicion of insider trading and ended up moving too late for the returns to be great, it wouldn’t be a major issue.

Whatever position he took while managing my assets would be his own independent judgment, and have nothing to do with me at all.

“All right, then. Let’s begin.”

I checked the clock hanging on the wall.

There wasn’t much time left before Friday’s market close.

...tick! ...tick! ...tick! ...tick!

It was as if a huge fire had been lit on the end of a short fuse.