The Third Day (2 page)

Susan, the CPA, greeted me a couple of days later with a worried look on her face; the kind that told me she knew something was wrong without being able to explain why. 

That was a feeling I knew all too well.  The solution, in my experience, was just to lay everything out on the table and let the chips fall where they may, though as soon as she did so, I wished that she hadn’t.

I stared at the figures and turned pale. 

“762
million
dollars?”

This, according to the statements, was the happy couple’s present net worth. 

Susan nodded.  “Their contract with Markowitz allowed me to call the bank to confirm the numbers.  By the way, they’ve parked it all in 180 day T-Bills, set to roll over automatically.” 

I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes and took a deep breath; though at that moment, I’ll have to admit I was less concerned about the specifics of what my accountant had found than in how I could explain an oversight of this magnitude to my client and keep even a shred of my professional reputation. 

“How in the world did they make it?” I finally asked. 

“Let’s just say that Warren Buffett is a rank amateur by comparison.” 

I motioned for her to hand me her notes.  As it turned out, the Brysons had bought $10,000 worth of Wal-Mart stock in December 1973, which had grown to $2.5 million by the time they finally sold in June 1990. 

“That’s a good start,” I said.  “What did they do next?” 

Susan laughed. 

“Not being content with winning the lottery, our brilliant physicists went out and plunked it all on a single number on the IPO roulette wheel.” 

“What did they buy, Microsoft?” 

“Even better:  Cisco.  Our intrepid investors took their Wal-Mart profits and bought 80,000 shares of Cisco in August of 1990 – not long after the IPO.  Between then and the new millennium, the stock split almost every year.  They ended up with roughly 11.5 million shares, which they sold in February 2000 – right at the top, mind you – for an average of $120 per share.  You do the math.” 

I did.  Even after capital gains taxes, the Brysons were billionaires. 

“But their house is still mortgaged!” I said.

She nodded.  “They took out a standard 30 year fixed at 5 1/4 percent when they bought the place ten years ago.  I had a lawyer run by the courthouse yesterday to look at the documents. It’s all standard stuff.  They even took advantage of the down payment assistance program the university offers so promising faculty can afford to live near campus.”

“Did they refinance?” 

“No.” 

“And their cars?” 

“State registration data still list the same ones they owned when you conducted the first background check – an Explorer and a Camry.” 

Markowitz would at least get a laugh out of that.  Bonus time in Greenwich kept Lamborghini dealers in fine fettle.  Any of his traders driving a Camry would have been either laughed out of the building or dismissed as a hopeless eccentric. 

“A billion dollars, huh?” 

“Afraid so.  If it’s any consolation, you weren’t the only one to miss it. A billion got you on the
Forbes 400
in those years.” 

At the moment, that was small comfort. 

“What about their taxes?  Could you get hold of their returns?” 

She smiled as she opened her briefcase and extracted the documents.  She slid them across the desk. 

“Paid in full,” she said. 

I made a note to speak to my contact at the IRS, whose reliability suddenly fell into serious doubt. 

“Are they amended returns?” 

“No, as best I can tell, these are originals.” 

I thanked her and then poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, though I was sorely tempted to go for something stronger. 

I supposed it was possible.  Despite the popular images on celebrity TV, the truly wealthy people of my personal acquaintance took pains to avoid ostentatious display.  Even Sam Walton, with all his billions, drove an old pickup truck – though I suspected that after a while, this became part of a carefully crafted PR campaign. 

And the question remained:  why?  Why would a couple of billionaires seek investor money when they could have just as easily set up shop on their own?

***

What the television dramas don’t show – for obvious reasons – is the unbearable monotony that constitutes much of an investigator’s lot. 

The Brysons’ contract obligated them to send quarterly financial statements to their benefactor, along with copies of the invoices for all major equipment purchases.  Sorting through these was the clear first step. 

My staff and I spent the next week examining purchase orders, matching the requisitions with legitimate vendors, and confirming shipments with FedEx and UPS – mind-numbing tedium, to be sure, but it had to be done. 

We even visited suppliers to verify that the prices the Brysons had paid reflected economic reality and didn’t involve hidden kickbacks between the lab and their confederates at the equipment dealers – an all too common scam. 

The net result of our endless hours of toil:  if the Brysons had been cheating their patron, we didn’t have the slightest idea how. 

***

What was even more bizarre was our realization, as we waded through spreadsheets and sifted through endless piles of paper, that the intrepid physicists had poured millions of their own stock market winnings into the project. 

When we added it all up, their own contributions had matched, or even slightly exceeded, what Markowitz himself had invested, and all of this had occurred within the previous nine months. 

I gave my office a few well-earned days off as I considered what to do.  We had found no other trading accounts, so it didn’t appear that the Brysons had set up their own hedge fund – though my client would surely point out that we hadn’t found their billion dollars the first time around, either. 

One more issue nagged me as well.  I flipped open the folder and re-read their bios. 
Henry Bryson, born Buffalo, New York, October 12, 1958.  Juliet McGovern Bryson, born Sweetwater, Texas, August 4, 1963
. 

So, when they bought their first Wal-Mart shares, he was chasing girls at the local burger stand, while she was a happy fifth grader playing hopscotch in a small town 1,500 miles away.  Compounding the mystery, we had found no family fortunes on either side.  Henry’s father worked as an electrician; hers ran a drug store.  Both mothers stayed home. 

None of this made any sense. 

I put off calling Markowitz as long as I could, but eventually I had no choice but to pick up the phone. 

Over the course of my years in the Army, I had learned that I was usually better off just admitting that I didn’t know something rather than trying to BS my way through, so I just laid out the facts as we had found them. 

Markowitz appreciated the candor.  Though he still suspected that we had botched the initial background investigation, he admitted that he found the lack of overt fraud as puzzling as I did. 

We concluded that our logical next step was to go to Boston and confront Juliet directly – though he added a catch. 

“I’m sending Ray with you,” he said. 

I had met his son once.  The boy – actually a young man in his late twenties – seemed bright enough, and unlike so many of his wealthy peers, his vices didn’t extend to the white powder and club-hopping.  Instead, the kid spent his family’s fortune on his obsession with adventure sports. 

“I’m not sure what he could do,” I said.  “What does he know about any of this?” 

Markowitz, to his credit, restrained himself from snide comment; and I had the sense to realize that this was a battle I couldn’t win.  He wanted another set of eyes – completely reliable eyes – and I was in no position to refuse. 

Ray met me in my office the next morning, and we drove up to Boston together.  Alicia, the receptionist, greeted us with a friendly smile, though I could detect a faint whiff of irritation that our presence had forced her away from her primary duties – split between the latest fashion magazine and a half-finished game of solitaire. 

She pressed a button and announced that Markowitz and yours truly, Bill Culloden, were waiting at the front entrance.  A minute or so later, a set of double doors opened. 

“Welcome,” Juliet said as she shook our hands. 

Apparently, she had known we were coming.  

I was pleased to see that she had remained the trim, attractive woman I remembered from three years before.  The only visible changes were that her hair now carried the thinnest shocks of gray, and that she had replaced her gold rimmed glasses – the ones that reminded me of my junior high math teacher – with something more fashionable. 

She walked over to a set of double doors.  “Would you gentlemen please follow me?” 

We entered a cavernous room that resembled one of the big warehouse stores, though instead of merchandise, the shelves were stacked floor to ceiling with black electronic boxes, each flashing lights of various colors. 

Markowitz and I glanced at each other in curiosity. 

“
This
is the quantum computer?” he asked.

Juliet smiled.  “Not at all.” 

She kept going toward the rear of the building, though she finally turned around when she realized we had not followed. 

“I assume that as part of your audit, you examined our electric bills?  The power consumption of this facility is enormous.” 

“It did cross our minds,” I said. 

Indeed, one of the ironies of the information age was that supposedly the greenest of all industries gobbled up massive quantities of coal fired electricity, a fact the young activists rarely considered as they updated their social networking pages. 

“Nothing here has the slightest relevance to our research,” she said, “but it provides a reasonable cover story.  Do you remember your visit a couple of years ago, Mr. Markowitz?” 

He nodded. 

“A month or two later, we had what passes for a heat wave in this region, and the power company called to ask if we could cut back our usage temporarily.  After that, we decided that we needed a way to explain what we were doing in case some authority showed up and demanded a better look.” 

“I get that, but why the racks full of servers?” replied Markowitz. 

“To a casual observer, we could explain that we were either storing vast quantities of data or conducting an exercise in massive parallel processing.  Either way, they would see what they expected to see:  the bustle of industry and lots of flashing lights.” 

I couldn’t help but laugh.  “You sound like you’ve read those management books:  ‘Bias for action’ and all that nonsense.” 

She smiled.  “Feverish activity is the essence of progress, is it not?  At least in the minds of the unthinking.” 

***

Juliet flipped a switch and the racks of machines went dark. 

“We only turn them on for the occasional visitor,” she said.  “After all, they do consume power we could otherwise devote to more constructive purposes.” 

“Yes,” I replied.  “If you don’t mind, we’d like to ask you about those purposes.” 

“You
have
built a quantum computer?” said Markowitz. 

“Of course.” 

Juliet led us to a small box and pressed a security code.  After a brief second’s delay, the door opened to a small room containing a bank of lockers. 

“This way, gentlemen, if you please.”  

The door closed quickly behind us and we immediately noticed that the temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees.  

Juliet opened one of the lockers, took out a thick yellow jacket, and then handed us two larger ones – both colored in the most fashionable safety orange. 

“These appear to be your size,” she said. 

Markowitz and I glanced at each other, then donned the coats and followed her to another door at the opposite end of the room.  She punched the codes once more, and after a brief delay, this door opened automatically as well. 

This passage led into a storage closet, filled with file cabinets.  However, when Bryson removed a key from her pocket and turned the lock closest to our left, the center cabinet swiveled around, exposing an elevator sized opening. 

“Go ahead,” she said.  “It’s just what you think it is.  Just be sure to step over the red line.” 

She stepped in behind us and pressed a button.  The doors closed and we could feel ourselves descend.  About half a minute later, the doors opened again to reveal a large rectangular chamber, with banks of computers and instrumentation lining each of the four walls from floor to ceiling. 

Markowitz shivered and pulled his coat tight.  He glanced up at a thermometer atop the nearby console:  minus 20 ºC, or minus 4 ºF. 

“How far down are we?” he asked. 

“Thirty meters,” she replied.  “About a hundred feet.”