The First Billion Read Free

This morning, though, the stormy skies suited him. What better companion to the acid drizzle corroding the lining of his gut?
    Gavallan drove the Mercedes hard, shifting down through the gears, enjoying the engine’s finely tuned growl, loving the communion of man and machine. He cracked the window an inch, and a blast of sea air freshened the car. Directly ahead lay the bay, and for a moment he lost himself in its blind expanse, wondering how much time had passed since so much had ridden on a single day’s outcome. The answer came immediately. Eleven years and five months. It was the calendar against which he measured his life. There was before the Gulf War and after the Gulf War. And sinking deeper into the black bucket seats, he felt himself strapped inside the cockpit of his F-117 Nighthawk, the turbofan engine rumbling to life beneath him, G suit tight across the waist, hugging his legs and his back. He recalled, too, the shortness of breath beneath the confident smile, the tingling that had taken hold of his stomach as he gave the thumbs-up and taxied onto the runway for takeoff that first night.
    A tingling not so different from the one he felt this morning.
    Shaking off the memory, Gavallan drove his foot against the accelerator, taking the sports car to seventy miles an hour. The rain hardened and a gust sheeted the windshield with water. Blinded, he downshifted expertly, braking as he crested Russian Hill. “Instrument conditions,” he whispered, eyes scanning dials and gauges. A moment later, the wipers cleared the screen. Off to his right loomed the Transamerica Tower, a pale triangular needle framed by a score of steel and concrete skyscrapers. The buildings were dark, except for random bands of light encircling their highest floors. He glanced at the mute forms a moment longer, feeling a kinship with those already at their desks. He’d always thought there was something daredevilish about starting the workday at four in the morning, something not completely sane. It had the whiff of tough duty that had always attracted him, the raised bar of an elite.
    At age thirty-eight, John J. Gavallan, or “Jett” as he was known to friends and colleagues, was founder and chief executive of Black Jet Securities, an internationally active investment bank that employed twelve hundred persons in four countries around the globe. Black Jet was a full-service house, offering retail and institutional brokerage, corporate finance advice, and merger and acquisition services. But IPOs had been the ladder it had climbed to prominence. Initial public offerings. The company had made its fortune in the technology boom of the late nineties and, to Gavallan’s dismay, it was still suffering a financial hangover from those halcyon days.
    Nine years he’d been at it. Up at three, to work by four, finished twelve hours later, fourteen on a busy day. Once, the days had passed with astonishing rapidity. Success was an opiate and mornings bled into evenings in a hazy, frenetic rush. Lately, the clock had assumed a less benign stance. Time meant money, and every month that passed with revenue goals unmet was another inch cut from Black Jet’s financial tether.
    Dropping a hand to the stereo, Gavallan spun the dial to National Public Radio. The 4 A.M. business report was under way, a summary of action on the world’s major markets. God, let it be an up day, he thought. In Asia, the Nikkei and Hang Seng Indexes had closed higher, both with solid gains. In Europe, markets were divided, with the London FTSE, or “footsie,” strongly ahead and the German DAX and French CAC 40
(“cack quarante”)
lagging only slightly below their highs. But what about New York? He’d been in the business long enough to know there was only one market that really counted. A moment later he had his answer. At seven-oh-five Manhattan time, the futures markets were up sharply, presaging a solid opening in just over two hours.
    “Nice!” he said aloud,