would give him the strength. He began driving carefully toward the safe house. There, Moustafa would check his computer for any last instructions from Caliph. There, Moustafa would pray.
.
London, England
High in a Fleet Street skyscraper, two Barclays financial analysts were seated at adjacent desks. Each had two computer terminals, and the man and woman multitasked nimbly between their screens, deciphering information from one machine while the other spun through commands, then vice versa. As if this was not enough of an overload, stock tickers ran a sliding banner on the wall in front of them, all the major movers and indices represented.
The trading day was about to commence and, as was their custom, the man and woman scoured the Internet for traces of bad luck, disaster, or scandal, anything that could sway their specialized sector--energy. The problems usually came from the Middle East--pipeline attacks in Iraq, seaborne tanker politics in the Straits of Hormuz. Lately, Nigeria and Venezuela had been doing their share of damage, and pirates around the Horn of Africa had been acting up again. But this morning was quiet. No petro-tragedies, and little activity from Hong Kong, where the overnight volatility coefficients had been unusually low.
It was the young woman who spotted the first article, a quick blurb on the Houston Chronicles Web site. She said, "Olson Industries had a fire last night. Their primary furnace manufacturing operation has been decimated. It's going to be down for six to nine months."
The man, older and more experienced, did not even reply. He typed the name of a Russian corporation into his own computer. The results came immediately. "Bloody hell!" he said. "Petrov I. A. burned to the ground!"
The woman's voice took an edge. "There's one other manufacturer, right? Isn't it Dutch --"
"DSR," the man spat, having already typed the full name. The wait seemed interminable, but when the computer finally gave its answer, the man exhaled a deep, controlled sigh. "No, nothing there. DSR is fine."
The two looked at one another. If they had been corporate planners they might have viewed the events in strategic terms, a market opportunity worth targeting. If they had been policemen they might have been curious about the coincidence on a criminal level. As it was, the two financial analysts did their job. They got on the phone.
In the first thirty minutes after the London market's opening gavel, Barclays was on the leading edge of a small wave. Futures indices for gas oil, heating oil, and unleaded gasoline blendstock rose three percent. DSR traded up twelve.
Some people had trouble sleeping on airplanes. Davis could sleep anywhere. He had snoozed on a metal pallet in a C-130 transport, crashed on the deck of an Aegis class missile cruiser in the Red Sea, and slept like a baby in an ice cave during Arctic survival training. So when he got to France after a long night in a Boeing 777 first-class sleeper, he was fully rested.
His first stop was the airport restroom where he ran an electric razor over his face and splashed cold water on the back of his neck. He also donned a fresh polo shirt--dark green and dull, just how he liked it. Diane had bought him a pink shirt once, tried to tell him the color was something called "salmon." Jammer Davis knew pink when he saw it.
From Paris he caught the TGV, a high-speed train that would deliver him to Lyon in less than two hours. He took a window seat in an empty row, settled back as the train began its smooth, quiet acceleration. Not like a Boeing, he reckoned, but quick all the same. In no time, the urban center of Paris gave way to soft brown pastures. Trees vacant of foliage and tawny hedges waited patiently for the coming of spring. Davis watched the countryside roll by, a misty morning blur at almost two hundred miles an hour.
He had spent three years in France as a teenager. His father, a sergeant in the army and a linguist, had been assigned embassy
.
London, England
High in a Fleet Street skyscraper, two Barclays financial analysts were seated at adjacent desks. Each had two computer terminals, and the man and woman multitasked nimbly between their screens, deciphering information from one machine while the other spun through commands, then vice versa. As if this was not enough of an overload, stock tickers ran a sliding banner on the wall in front of them, all the major movers and indices represented.
The trading day was about to commence and, as was their custom, the man and woman scoured the Internet for traces of bad luck, disaster, or scandal, anything that could sway their specialized sector--energy. The problems usually came from the Middle East--pipeline attacks in Iraq, seaborne tanker politics in the Straits of Hormuz. Lately, Nigeria and Venezuela had been doing their share of damage, and pirates around the Horn of Africa had been acting up again. But this morning was quiet. No petro-tragedies, and little activity from Hong Kong, where the overnight volatility coefficients had been unusually low.
It was the young woman who spotted the first article, a quick blurb on the Houston Chronicles Web site. She said, "Olson Industries had a fire last night. Their primary furnace manufacturing operation has been decimated. It's going to be down for six to nine months."
The man, older and more experienced, did not even reply. He typed the name of a Russian corporation into his own computer. The results came immediately. "Bloody hell!" he said. "Petrov I. A. burned to the ground!"
The woman's voice took an edge. "There's one other manufacturer, right? Isn't it Dutch --"
"DSR," the man spat, having already typed the full name. The wait seemed interminable, but when the computer finally gave its answer, the man exhaled a deep, controlled sigh. "No, nothing there. DSR is fine."
The two looked at one another. If they had been corporate planners they might have viewed the events in strategic terms, a market opportunity worth targeting. If they had been policemen they might have been curious about the coincidence on a criminal level. As it was, the two financial analysts did their job. They got on the phone.
In the first thirty minutes after the London market's opening gavel, Barclays was on the leading edge of a small wave. Futures indices for gas oil, heating oil, and unleaded gasoline blendstock rose three percent. DSR traded up twelve.
Some people had trouble sleeping on airplanes. Davis could sleep anywhere. He had snoozed on a metal pallet in a C-130 transport, crashed on the deck of an Aegis class missile cruiser in the Red Sea, and slept like a baby in an ice cave during Arctic survival training. So when he got to France after a long night in a Boeing 777 first-class sleeper, he was fully rested.
His first stop was the airport restroom where he ran an electric razor over his face and splashed cold water on the back of his neck. He also donned a fresh polo shirt--dark green and dull, just how he liked it. Diane had bought him a pink shirt once, tried to tell him the color was something called "salmon." Jammer Davis knew pink when he saw it.
From Paris he caught the TGV, a high-speed train that would deliver him to Lyon in less than two hours. He took a window seat in an empty row, settled back as the train began its smooth, quiet acceleration. Not like a Boeing, he reckoned, but quick all the same. In no time, the urban center of Paris gave way to soft brown pastures. Trees vacant of foliage and tawny hedges waited patiently for the coming of spring. Davis watched the countryside roll by, a misty morning blur at almost two hundred miles an hour.
He had spent three years in France as a teenager. His father, a sergeant in the army and a linguist, had been assigned embassy
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