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  “The torturers? I did not know.”

  “I was forced to cashier him, but regard for my own safety negated thoughts of

  punishment. I filled his pockets with rubles and sent him away.”

  “And you had to include this woman, Naveeva?”

  “She may be worse. And woman is the wrong term for her. I had to let the female

  go, too.”

  February 12

  The apartment on the Frunzenskaya Embankment was small, a two-bedroom and bath

  in a block formerly reserved for medium-rank party officials.

  The previous tenant had left the carpets and second-class Finnish furniture. There

  was a single human touch, a wide, floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with treatises on

  human anatomy and the central nervous system.

  The members of Staranov’s section—Parenko, Naveeva, and the two former FSB

  ruffians who had last aided Parenko in dealing with the turnip farmer—were gathered for

  the distribution of the rewards relative to the Kastroma cocaine. Staranov distributed the

  U.S. dollars, then smiled. “And the remainder is for me.”

  Treshchkov and Evesky were former enlisted men in the Second Chief Directorate of

  the KGB. They were peas from the same undistinguished pod—six feet, muscular, blond

  crew cuts, Slavic faces, and small blue eyes.

  Treshchkov stood. “No.”

  “No?” Staranov said. “What does no mean?”

  “Not enough for me.” He looked at Evesky for support. “Not fair.”

  “You want more?” Staranov said.

  Treshchkov shrugged and nodded.

  “All right. You can have more. I have more in a safe set in the floor.” He pointed to

  Parenko. “Help our dissatisfied associate roll back my rug.”

  They rolled the patterned Siberian rug back. There was no break in the flooring. Treshchkov, still kneeling, looked at Staranov. He saw the clasp knife in Staranov’s

  hand and the beginning of the stroke that cut his throat.

  Staranov wiped the blade on the corpse’s shirt. “Anyone else?”

  There was no response.

  Staranov smiled. “Parenko, you and Evesky have two tasks. Rid me of the

  mutineer’s remains, then divide his portion of our reward between yourselves.” He

  turned to Naveeva. “Clean the floor. Replace the carpet.” He yawned. “I am retiring

  now. I must rest.”

  Chapter 5

  February 19

  A fat man wearing in a worn camel overcoat barged into Rubenstein’s office, yelling

  as he entered. “All right, what’s the big emergency? I’m not—”

  There was no one there. He struggled out of the overcoat and hung it on a

  Government Issue coat tree. The sport coat and trousers were from a slimmer time. He

  stared at the computers for a moment, then collapsed into a chair.

  His face was round, his nose short and broad, with wide nostrils. He had fought

  many battles as an adolescent over his hog-like features. His forehead was short and

  sloped back to thinning brown hair pasted by perspiration to his scalp. His skin was

  blotched with the signs of excesses—tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and the drug de jour. Rubenstein returned a moment later. “Tom! Thanks for—”

  “All right, what’s the big deal?”

  Rubenstein handed him a printout. “Look at the percentage!”

  Cooper pushed the sheet away. “Aaron, I don’t give a good goddamn about another

  percentage point. I’ve been working on this turkey for fifteen months. I’m tired and I’m

  broke. What I care about is your getting this goddamned thing ready to sell!”

  March 6

  Larson sat at his desk, his hands wrapped around the cup. He had underestimated the

  March wind and worn thin warm-ups to recover his The Wall Street Journal. He was preparing to buy a block of Xerox when his telephone rang.

  “Sam Larson.”

  “Sam, it’s me. T.C.”

  “Who?”

  “T.C. Tom Cooper.”

  “I didn’t recognize your voice, T.C. Been a while.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Word has it you’re getting into money management.”

  Larson tucked the handset under his chin and continued to prepare for his proposed

  purchase. “Maybe.”

  “What I’ve got for you is a guy with the end-all black box.”

  “Another magic machine to predict the market?”

  “Right.”

  “T.C, I sympathize with you about being fired, but I can’t help you with this sort of

  thing.”

  “Sam, I—”

  “Call me if there is something realistic I can do, T.C.”

  Cooper telephoned the operations manager at the Atlanta branch office of Mathewson, Barber. “Rachael, T.C.”

  “As in Tom Cooper?”

  “In the flesh. How goes life in the back room?”

  “Uh—fine.”

  “That’s really super.”

  “What can I do for you, T.C?”

  “I’d like to get together and—”

  Rachel looked around the operations room and turned off the speakerphone. She lowered her voice. “T.C, that night was a long, long time ago and—”

  “Rachael, I just want to spring for a drink sometime.”

  “Maybe.“

  “But before we set a date, you have some information I’d like to have. No big deal.”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s about Sam Larson.”

  “Resigned a couple of months ago. I don’t—”

  “I know. My question’s about his old customers. I just want to know if any big money has moved out.”

  She hesitated. “Why do you—”

  “Bet I’ve got going with Bobby Streeter.”

  “No big money’s moved out. Rose, his old sales assistant—you remember Rose?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s a broker now and running his old customers. Doing a good job.”

  “Great! Thanks.”

  “Now, about the drink?”

  “I’m pretty tied up, but—”

  Cooper flinched as he heard the handset hit the telephone cradle.

  March 27

  Three weeks after his first call to Larson, Cooper found another old friend in the

  Mathewson, Barber backroom in Atlanta and established that no appreciable amount of

  assets had moved from Larson’s old accounts.

  Larson was dressing for tennis when Cooper called.

  “Sam Larson.”

  “Sam, I—”

  “T.C, I’m about to leave for a match. I don’t have the time or the interest to hear any

  more about your black box. Why don’t you—”

  “Just listen for a minute, damn it! The first quarter numbers are dynamite.” Larson switched the speakerphone on and continued lacing his shoe. “What rate

  of return?”

  “Forty point sevenseven for the quarter.”

  “Aw!”

  “Honest.”

  “T.C!”

  “Honest.”

  “Cooper hesitated. “Well—none. It’s just on paper.”

  “You know better than that, Cooper!”

  “You got a lot of other stuff going on right now?”

  Larson didn’t respond.

  Cooper’s voice was calming. “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to bark at you, but you

  ought to take a look.”

  Larson surveyed the empty top of his desk and considered the long list of exploratory

  calls he had scheduled for later in the day.

  “All right, T.C, all right. What do you want me to do?”

  “Just meet my man.”

 
“One time and not very long.”

  “He’s away right now. Be a couple of weeks.”

  “Let me know.”

  April 9

  Two weeks later Larson locked the Porsche Carrera’s door and jogged across the

  parking lot.

  It was just after twelve. The midtown Atlanta college hangout was jammed with

  Georgia Tech students. His senses were assailed by the odor of a variety of frying foods,

  a hundred conversations at high levels, and a background of loudspeaker summonses to

  recover orders.

  Cooper and a late middle-aged man were standing half way down the long order bar. Cooper grabbed Larson’s hand. “Good to see you, Sam.”

  Larson managed a smile. “T.C.”

  “Sam, this is Aaron Rubenstein. Aaron, Sam Larson, world’s greatest stockbroker. ” Rubenstein’s grip was firm. He wore a rumpled tweed sport coat, blue Oxford cloth

  shirt with a rolled collar, and a club tie—evidence of schooling somewhere in the Ivy

  League. His hair was long, wavy, bright red-orange, and parted in the middle. Oldfashioned horn-rimmed granny glasses were balanced on the extreme end of his short

  nose.

  Larson studied the face. The laugh lines were faint, the lines at his mouth

  pronounced, the forehead smooth, and the green eyes deep-set.

  Rubenstein smiled. “Something wrong, Mr. Larson?”

  “Sorry. Please excuse my staring.”

  Rubenstein chuckled. “Quite all right. Happens all the time. My face isn’t what one

  would expect with a name such as Rubenstein. My mother was born in Dublin. When I

  was old enough to have a distinctive face, my father said that since I had inherited an

  Irish face and body, perhaps I had inherited his Jewish intelligence.”

  “And he did,” Cooper said. “Aaron is Doctor Rubenstein.”

  Rubenstein chuckled again. “But available for neither surgery nor house calls.” Cooper gestured toward the Georgia Tech campus. “He’s a researcher at the NOAA

  office over there.”

  Larson frowned. “NOAA?”

  “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. We are collocated with the

  University’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. I’m involved in weather

  prediction.”

  Larson nodded.

  Cooper led them toward a table away from most of the restaurant’s noise. Larson was already talking as he pulled out his chair. “I don’t mean to be rude,

  Doctor Rubenstein, but—”

  “Aaron, please.”

  Larson nodded. “Okay, Aaron. I’m Sam. I don’t mean to hurry you, but I’m a little

  short of time. Tell me what you have that might interest me?”

  “Sam suffers from being a little too direct, Aaron,” Cooper said. He stood. “You

  guys ready to order?”

  There was no response. Cooper shrugged and walked away.

  “I have a computer-based tool that does well in predicting the movement of one of the

  aspects of the stock market, the Standard and Poor’s Five Hundred.”

  Larson nodded. “How does this relate to weather prediction?”

  Rubenstein smiled. “You are direct. Well, there are many similarities between the

  two. For example, there are multiple factors contributing to change in both. Also, their

  relationships are complex and in some cases quite hidden. And events in their

  movements should proceed in a manner that can be anticipated.”

  “Anticipated meaning predicted?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is something you do for the Government?”

  “No, it’s hobby.”

  “A hobby?”

  “I find the activity relaxing and, since it relates to my work, I have full access to the

  NOAA facilities.”

  “Which do you find the more complex, weather or the market?”

  “Global weather is an order of magnitude more complicated than the American stock

  market. Perhaps two.”

  “Order of magnitude?”

  Cooper appeared with a bag of potato chips and a large cup of CocaCola. “Times

  ten.” He grinned. “You get to learn a lot of stuff hanging around with the doc here.” Rubenstein studied Larson’s face. “You don’t agree?”

  “I’ve always thought our stock market was the most complex thing around.” He

  paused. “What about the reliability of your predictions?”

  “We’re running in the thirty-nine to forty-two percent range.”

  “So T.C. said.” Larson smiled. “Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. How are

  you measuring that performance?”

  “I am taking a simplistic approach, return on investment. I am prepared to invest an

  imaginary ten thousand dollars every day. If the—”

  “Investing in what?”

  “I don’t invest—as such—in anything. I make my prediction, then award myself a

  percentage gain—or loss—depending upon the day’s results.”

  Larson gnawed a callus. “Ten thousand every day?”

  “No, no. My statement wasn’t clear. I am prepared on any given day to make that

  large an investment. Imaginary investment. The actual amount varies with the strength

  of my prediction.”

  “Strength?”

  “The likelihood of a correct prediction is variable. On some days there is a strong

  likelihood of success, but there are days—many of them—when circumstances in the

  market are unclear and the likelihood of success is small.”

  “So there are days when you have less than ten thousand on the line?” “Or none.”

  Larson nodded. “Now, for the sake of argument, why isn’t your system perfect?” “First, system is a misnomer. There are no classic systemic activities. My program

  does not—Rube Goldberg fashion—roll a ball down a track that activates a switch that

  opens a door that releases a cat. There’s just a signed, numeric reading.” “Plus or minus?”

  “Up or down,” Cooper said.

  Rubenstein frowned at Cooper. “Yes, up or down. The sign tells me whether at the

  end of the day the S&P500 will close above or below the level at which it began.” Larson nodded.

  “The numeric value indicates the strength of the prediction. A large number indicates

  strong confidence, while a small number is a prediction not be trusted.”

  “And the correlation between your predictions and the market activity?” “High. And growing as I improve the processing.”

  Larson nodded. “Now, how does the process relate to weather prediction?” “Air pressure is a good analogy.”

  Larson cocked his head. “Air pressure?”

  “When one sees weather forecasts on television, one is informed of the barometric

  pressure of the atmosphere above a specific terrain. The weather entertainer tells the

  viewer that there’s a dome of high pressure over Houston.”

  “Okay.”

  Cooper stood. “Order ought to be ready. Nobody wants anything?”

  There was no response. He walked away.

  “The significant question is level of specificity. My associates and I can predict

  general conditions and changes of air pressure over North America, but we can also make

  local predictions that are far more accurate.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Now the analogy. Think about the Dow Jones Industrials as being the State of

  Georgia. NASDAQ might be the Pacific Northwest.”

  Larson nodded and smiled. “Okay, I’ve got it.”

  “So, using the same analytic tools that I employ to predict the weather for Savannah

  tomorrow, I c
an predict the direction—think of it as the change—of the S&P500’s close

  versus yesterday’s close.”

  Larson nodded. “I understand.” He stood. “Aaron, I’m finding this much more

  interesting than I would have imagined. I’ve got to postpone a meeting. Will you excuse

  me for a moment?”

  Rubenstein nodded. “Take your time.”

  Cooper returned with three hamburgers, a large container of French fries, and another CocaCola. He offered the container to Rubenstein. “Fry?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Where’s Larson?”

  “Making a telephone call.”

  “What do you think?”

  Rubenstein smiled. “I think Sam is an intelligent young man.”

  “And?”

  “And beyond that, I have no opinion.”

  Larson returned. “Thanks for your indulgence. Now, what else?”

  “That’s all I have, Sam. Tell me what your interest in my tool might be?”

  Larson shrugged. “It is very interesting, but even if you can in fact call the market, I nevertheless see no fit with my objective.”

  “Thank you for being frank, but will you describe that objective?”

  “As T.C. should have explained, I’m in the process of becoming a manager of managers. Your methodology might be of interest to someone one level down—a manager whom I might hire.”

  Rubenstein shrugged. “I understand. I see no fit.”

  Larson stood.

  Rubenstein raised his hand. “But a moment, please. How many managers will you have in your pool?”

  Larson sat. “Maybe five.”

  “And what does having this multiplicity of managers provide?”

  “It spreads the risk. If I select correctly, when one manager’s down, two will be up.”

  “I see. Now, I understand you’re not yet in business. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Might you consider changing your objective—consider employing my capability?”

  “I don’t see—”

  Cooper brushed his crumbs off the table. “Go with a winner. Forget being a manager of managers and be a first level money manager with a super investment technique.”

  Rubenstein leaned forward. “I’ve had my program fine-tuned to its present performance for almost two years and I’ve never had a monthly loss.”

  “T.C. tells me that you’ve also never invested any money.”

  Rubenstein frowned.

  “I mean you’ve never had any of your own money riding on your predictions, have you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Investment decisions are sometimes confounded by the possibility of loss of one’s own money.”