One Child (20 page)

Russell
tapped the
record
button and replaced the camera in its case. He wondered if the people in Boston who watched the nightly news would get what he was saying. He suspected some would, and knew some wouldn't. There was nothing more he could do than go outside the wire and chase the stories. Report the facts and make them impactful. After that, it was up to the people.

It always was. It was what they did with it that counted.

Chapter

34

Peshawar, Pakistan

The trip back into Pakistan from Kandahar city had taken Tabraiz two full days. He was angry at the inconvenience, but glad to be back in his country. Afghanistan was becoming more dangerous with every passing day. Not the levels of violence. That he could deal with. The real danger to him was the Afghan National Police. They were quickly becoming a legitimate presence in southern Afghanistan. He blamed the Canadian military for the increase in police and army efficiency in and around Kandahar. He despised them for making his life so difficult.

He waited by the open window of his ornately decorated hotel room overlooking Peshawar's Old City. A light knock on the door stirred him from the chair and he pulled the door open without checking the eyehole. He knew who was in the hall, and God help them if it was anyone else. The Glock pistol in his waistband wasn't there for show.

"Ismail," he said. "Please come in."

"Thank you, Tabraiz Khan." The man was slender with thick eyeglasses and short-cropped dark hair. He had a tic, the right side of his face twitching every few seconds. It wasn't a problem. It never showed up in the pictures Tabraiz took and sent back to the parents of the children he brokered to his wealthy buyers. Ismail was his front man - his accountant and the father of the wealthy family who lived in Peshawar and took in poor children. So far he had been a very temporary benefactor to thirty-seven girls and boys. It had allowed him to become quite well-to-do by Pakistani standards. Ismail followed Tabraiz to the table and chairs near the windows.

Below the renovated 18
th
century
haveli
that was now the exclusive Khan Klub Hotel, the Old City was waking up. The call to prayer drifted over the Khyber Bazaar as carpet merchants and kebab sellers arranged their wares for the day. The wails echoed through the Kabuli Gate and into the Qissa Khawani, where storytellers had recited tales of bravery and battles since the rule of Alexander the Great. The pungent scent of spice and tea hung in the still air.

"I wanted to speak with you about the next girl. Her name is Halima and she is quite special. I have a very generous offer from one of my clients in the UAE, and this generosity will be passed along to you. Your fee for Halima will be four thousand US dollars."

Ismail steepled his fingers and bowed his head. "You are most generous, Tabraiz Khan."

"We need to move more quickly with Halima than in the past." He locked eyes with his front man. "This will be our last girl from Kandahar. The police are watching me. I need you to take the pictures when she first arrives. Have her dress in three or four different pieces of clothing so I can send her father the groups of photos about two months apart. It will look like she is still at your house."

"I understand."

"I will have other girls and boys for you, Ismail. But there will be a break. Kabul is a good source of children, but they are mostly orphans, ill-kept and covered with lice. Girls like Halima are hard to find in Kabul."

"I will have great patience," Ismail said respectfully.

Tabraiz smiled. "Yes, my friend, I'm sure you will. You have always been loyal to me, and that is something I will remember." Tabraiz stood to indicate the meeting was finished. "I'm bringing Halima from Kandahar ten days from now, on August 23
rd
. It will take one or two days to get her across the border. Be ready for me."

"Of course."

Tabraiz didn't walk the man to the door. He sat staring over the cityscape. Peshawar was the place of his birth and he owned two houses. But when he arrived back from Afghanistan, he always spent the first two or three days sequestered at the boutique hotel tucked away in the heart of the city. If the police were after him, they would visit his house and his housekeeper would phone to tell him. So far that hadn't happened, but being careful was gravely important in his line of work.

The thought of delivering Halima brought a smile to his face. She was so innocent. So pure. So perfect.

* * *

Outside Spin Buldak, Afghanistan

Russell
recognized the soldier walking toward them in the early morning shadows. He was about the same age as
Andrew
, had ridden with them in the same Stryker on one occasion, and had been introduced as Bobby. No last name, no rank, just Bobby. He was less than six feet, lanky, and moved with an easy gait. Despite the relentless scorching sun, his skin was pasty white with a touch of sunburn. He had a quick smile and disarming blue eyes. He nodded to
Andrew
as he approached.

"Hey, Andy," he said. His voice carried a strong Southern accent. "How y'all doin' today?"

"Okay."
Andrew
jerked his thumb toward the journalist. "You remember
Russell
Matthews? He rode with us to Dabarey."

"Yeah, sure, I remember. You're the writer guy."

"That's me."
Russell
extended his hand and they shook. He leaned back into the sandbags surrounding their bunk.

"Robert K. Sullivan. But you can call me Bobby."

"Bobby it is,"
Russell
said.

Bobby sat next to
Andrew
and held up his M-4. "Check this out. Brand new, baby."

Andrew
showed an interest in the gun. He took it from Bobby and held it in both hands as if weighing it, then sighted on some point outside the wire. He checked the magazine and handed it back.

"Nice. You get it from the shipment that came in a couple of days ago?"

"Yeah, sure did."

"What was wrong with your gun?"
Andrew
asked.

Bobby shrugged. "I dunno. Just wanted a new one, man. Nothin' wrong with that."

"Nah, nothing wrong with a new gun."

"Where you from?"
Russell
asked.

Bobby offered both men a cigarette, then lit his and
Andrew
's. "Augusta. Wrong side of Broad Street."

"Augusta,"
Russell
said. "The Masters. Great tournament."

Bobby looked away and said, "The Masters ain't what it's about in Augusta, man. It's about survivin'." He wagged his finger at
Russell
. "You thinkin' about Augusta National and all the magnolias and shit that goes with one weekend in April. But I'm all about workin' a min-wage job and worryin' about my momma's health. That's what's real for fifty-one weeks a year if you live there. Then there's that one week when all the rich folk come into town and pay shitloads of money to rent houses and eat in restaurants. So what you see on television ain't nothin' close to the truth of what Augusta's all about."

"Sorry, man. I didn't know,"
Russell
said.

"It's okay." He pointed at
Andrew
. "Can't all have rich parents."

It had never occurred to
Russell
that
Andrew
might have come from a wealthy family. In fact, he hadn't asked the specialist any personal questions. "Is that true?" he asked. "Your parents rich?"

Andrew
gave off a sheepish grin. "Yeah. Not excessive, though."

Russell
looked off to the horizon, where the morning sun was cresting the mountains. He was a fool. If this were school, he'd be flunking out of first-year journalism. Never assume. It's one of the first things eager wet-behind-the-ears reporters are taught. And he had committed the cardinal sin by stereotyping
Andrew
James. It had never occurred to him that
Andrew
might be from a wealthy family. There usually wasn't a lot of incentive for young men and women with influential doors opening in front of them to choose the army as a career. This was
Andrew
's second tour. He'd returned knowing the incredible toll it took to survive on the front line of a war zone. He understood, and now he was back.

Returned to the hell that was war.

"Are you going to college when you finish this tour?"
Russell
asked.

Andrew
sucked on the cigarette and shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not sure. I need to know what I want to do."

"Any ideas?"
Russell
asked.

"I think I'd like to stay here on the ground and work for an NGO. I want to be part of the rebuilding."

"Rebuildin' what we're takin' apart," Bobby said. "Shit, man, that's good stuff. First you blow it up, then you get a job with an NGO puttin' it back together."

Andrew
laughed. "You think
we're
the ones who are taking this country apart?" he asked the other soldier. When Bobby shrugged the question off,
Andrew
said, "It's the Taliban, man. They're the ones with their fingers on the destruct button. We're only trying to patch things up." He turned to
Russell
and said, "You know what these guys are. We talked about it."

Russell
nodded. "Sure. Drug dealers."

"Yeah, exactly,"
Andrew
said. "The Taliban are nothing more than a group of well-financed drug dealers. They've been moving heroin and opium through the Baluchistan Province into Iran and Turkey for years. They want to control Helmand and Kandahar for one reason and only one. They want the drug money from the poppy fields. Fuck religious idealism. These guys are greedy bastards who could care less who they kill or what they destroy so long as they get paid."

"Sorry," Bobby offered. "Didn't mean to push your buttons so early in the morning."

"It's okay."
Andrew
settled back against the wall of sandbags. "I don't like to see people caught in the middle of this mess."

"You got that," Bobby said. "We better get fed. We're rolling out of here at 0800." He shouldered his new gun and headed off to the kitchen for breakfast.
Andrew
followed a minute later, leaving
Russell
alone in the shade with his thoughts.

Russell
closed his eyes and mentally stacked up the obvious differences between the two men.
Andrew
was from an upper-class family in California, Bobby from a dirt-poor upbringing in the deep south of Georgia. He liked to think people were above things like money or skin color or gender, but the divisions still lingered. Here, in a world where the man next to you was the guy who could save your life, no one cared if you were rich or poor or white or black. Just do your job and get your buddy's back. There was the occasional thing about working and living in a war zone that made sense. Equality was one of them.

He wondered how he could have misjudged
Andrew
so badly. He had assumed the young soldier was from a middle-class home. Where his father drove a bus or fixed cars. Maybe his mom worked as a receptionist at the local Ford dealership. Who knew. Who really cared. Over here he was just another grunt, M-4 resting on his chest and ten full magazines in his vest pockets. He wanted to apologize, but there was no reason. He leaned back and tried to get comfortable against the sand bags. There wasn't much time to rest, as they were leaving for Mushan in about an hour. What was it the soldiers called the town? The Wild West. That was it. He shook his head at the absurdity.

Talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Chapter

35

New York

The meltdown started at six minutes after ten on Friday morning. It took one hour and nine minutes to run its course, and in those sixty-nine minutes, almost unimaginable damage was done to five highly valued stocks.

The Platinus algorithm, now stripped of most of its pattern recognition software, began seeing trends in the market that did not exist. It started placing flash orders on an exchange, valid for less than half a second, then terminated them before the orders could be matched on a competing exchange. That made Platinus a poster, not a responder, and put it in a position to collect the rebates offered by the exchange. But flash orders generated by the ultrafast computer with a shaky algorithm had their downside. The computer began chasing its own orders.

The moment that happened, the stock prices on five companies the Platinus computer was chasing began to rise. The bid-ask raced upwards and the high-frequency feast was on. The computers at Getco, Renaissance, Citadel and Goldman immediately spotted the trend and added to the feeding frenzy. In just over an hour, the value of the five stocks the computer targeted had soared between thirty-five and eighty percent. At 11:15 the regulatory boards stepped in and suspended trading on all five stocks. But it was too late. The damage was done.

Carson
was aware that the algorithm had gone rogue within three minutes of when it started to chase its own tail. He watched the carnage on the screen, aware that pulling the algorithm would immediately identify Platinus as the company responsible for the meltdown. That was something he was not willing to do. When trading was suspended, he called Chui and Alicia and told them to have someone rein in the algorithm and reinstate the old one. He asked them to meet him in his office. They were standing in front of his desk in less than two minutes. Both were showing obvious signs of stress.

"What's the damage?"
Carson
demanded.

Chui shook his head. "We won't know for sure until trading ends for the day, but it's not good. The algo ran five stocks way past their true value. They're going to crash when the market opens on Monday."

"Are we visible?"
Carson
asked.

"I don't think so," Alicia answered. "The trades were all under naked sponsored access. We should be okay."

Carson
nodded. Naked sponsored access was a method by which traders used a broker's identification to trade directly on the exchanges. It allowed anonymity and saved the traders time. The problem was, with the trading happening in faceless trading arenas known as dark pools and a variety of traders using the broker's ID, there was no way of tracing back what company was front-running the stocks. Bad for the companies whose stocks had just been overvalued, but in this case, lucky for
Platinus Investments
. Chances were good that Platinus could sidestep the puddle they had created and not get their feet wet.

"Monday is going to be ugly," Chui said. "One of the companies, Benediem Inc., is up almost eighty percent. It's going to dive big time."

"I don't know the name. What are they?"
Carson
was sweating now.

Chui checked his file and said, "An umbrella company for a bunch of health care providers. Shit's going to hit the fan on Monday when the execs get in front of the cameras and tell them they have nothing to substantiate the increase in the stock price."

Anger flashed across
Carson
's face. "I know what the fallout will be, Chui. I hardly need to be reminded."

Chui snapped. "The algo was dangerous. We should have waited for the new one."

Carson
leaned onto his desk, his face taking on more color. "Do you
want
to be unemployed?" he asked, civility lacking in his voice.

Chui matched his glare. "You wanted to make a splash when you took over the department,
Carson
. We warned you. Shit, you
knew
this could happen, but you pushed ahead. You caused this. So don't sit behind your desk and threaten me because you made a huge fucking error. I'm watching your lips moving, but all I'm hearing is that you know you screwed up and you're taking it out on us." He stood up and closed the file. "Unless you're going to fire me on the spot, I'll be at my desk."

Carson
watched him leave without twitching a muscle. He was right. So right. He had pushed the limits and then some. Gone too far in an industry where the fallout was huge. Right now, in offices across the country, men and women who held important positions in large corporations were meeting behind closed doors, trying to figure out what had happened and how to repair the damage. Damage they had neither caused nor anticipated.

"He's upset," Alicia said quietly.

"So am I,"
Carson
whispered. "It's true. I really fucked up."

She didn't respond for the better part of a minute, then said, "We can't be timid in this game - we'd get steamrollered. When everything works, we make the investors a fortune. When they don't, well, things get a bit ugly."

He let out a long breath and shook his head, almost imperceptibly. "Yeah. Tell that to all those people whose savings just tanked."

"I need to get back to eighteen. It's chaos down there right now. No one is going to want to move on anything without Chui or I okaying it."

Carson
nodded and she left. He checked a number on his Blackberry, dialed it on his office phone and swiveled about in his chair to face Central Park. Overhead, the sun shared the sky with a handful of popcorn clouds. Beneath, trapped by a fortress of buildings on all four sides, the park remained its staid self. Verdant green, peaceful, unchanging. The ringing stopped and
Fleming
answered.

"It's
Carson
Grant. There's something you should be aware of."