Darke Mission (4 page)

JJ was waiting at the front door for Toby.

“Sorry for the text and the late hour JJ but we're in a bind.”

“No problem, Toby, come on in.” JJ was in his night time casual gear, polo shirt, cargo pants, no socks, and comfy leather slippers that could have passed for casual loafers. Toby's shirt still only had a nodding acquaintance with his pants. JJ wondered if he slept in it.

“Hey Toby,” called Cyrus. He had heard his dad's colleague come in and JJ had told his son that game night was over and that he'd be up for a while. Cyrus didn't mind, he was already pulverising his dad at virtual ten pin bowling.

“Hi Cyrus. How's it going? Still playing that tin whistle?” responded Toby.

“It's a flute, plank!” Cyrus retorted. He and Toby often had a sharp exchange of banter. Both of them enjoyed it.

“Given that you're here at 11.30pm at night Toby, does this mean you've done serious damage to my piggy bank?” Cyrus asked. He wasn't that bothered about money but he was mature enough to realise that that opinion was held predominantly by people who had plenty of it.

“Well, I haven't but there's a bunch of Greek fucks who might want to rob you and then sell you back your little bank of pig empty.” Toby was immediately embarrassed about dropping the F-bomb and looked at JJ, hoping for not too much disapproval.

“Don't worry, Toby, Dad's from Glasgow. The F-word is not so much an expletive there as an everyday adjective.”

JJ reluctantly recognised that Cyrus was right. In Glasgow it wasn't a very sunny day, it was a fuckin' beezer day. JJ had tried ever so hard to eradicate his casual use of the F-word, and the B-word and the C-word etc. but the boy knew his dad. There was no way Toby was in trouble. Well, at least not for his language.

“OK, you two. Verbal fencing time over,” said JJ. “Cyrus, I'll see you tomorrow. Have a good sleep. Don't feel too bad about losing at bowling. Love you.” JJ was amused at his attempt at stealing the bowling crown.

“In your dreams, big daddy. Love you more.” With that Cyrus headed up to his room for some peace and quiet or ‘piece of quiet' as he used to say as a kid.

JJ and Toby headed into the living room. Toby sat in one of the cosy, huge, armchairs. “Do you want a drink, Toby, or are we going to have to have the clearest heads possible?” asked JJ.

“We're going to need the clearest heads possible chief, but I'll have one of those eighteen year Macallans, straight, if you still have it.”

For a Scot, JJ didn't drink much. He didn't like beer at all and when he was at university he did have one term in his final year when he thought it would be seriously manly to drink Guinness. That whole term was a blur. The only good thing to come out of it was that he sat his final maths paper more or less drunk as a skunk and he was so relaxed, he just rattled through the exam and got a first. If Guinness TV adverts weren't so good, he'd have offered his story as a sales pitch. JJ did like the occasional Macallans or even the peatier Languvallen. He used to drink it straight, never with ice, but now he diluted it with a splash of Canada Dry. He got Toby his and one for himself.

“OK, Toby, what's up that couldn't wait till tomorrow?” enquired JJ as he settled down on the sofa opposite Toby. Toby took a sip or two, actually it was a glug or two, and began.

“So the short and long of it is that, according to Marcus, that bailout vote in the Greek Parliament scheduled for a fortnight's time might be tomorrow evening instead. Marcus has a pal, Theo Spiridakos, who is high up in Syriza, the official Greek opposition party. According to Theo, several of the PASOK party, the junior party that makes up the government along with New Democracy, are fed up to the back teeth with Prime Minister Samaras and, more importantly for us, no longer want to support New Democracy's commitment to the bailout package. If you take the number of MPs that Syriza has and add it to the smaller opposition parties MPs then you would have 145 votes if they all voted in unison. ND has 127 seats and PASOK 28, making 155 in total. Marcus says his information is that 6 PASOK members are ready to switch their voting allegiance. That would give the opposition 151 votes and the government 149. Marcus said that, in Theo's view, Alexis Tsipras, Syriza's leader will offer the opposition minnows more or less anything to vote with him against the government. Tsipras's plan is to win that vote, then call for a vote of no confidence in the government, win that, tell Merkel, the EU, the IMF and anybody else who cares to listen, to shove their bailout plan, default on their debts à la Argentina at the turn of the Millennium, come out of the single currency, whatever the legal ramifications, go back to their own currency, devalue by 40% vis-à-vis the implied current price for the drachma versus the euro, call it the New Drachma and, fucking hey presto, Greek exports will boom, imports will fall, unemployment will decline and all will be happy in the Hellenic Republic.” Toby felt the need for a few more glugs of Macallans at this point.

JJ had listened to Toby's tale without interruption. As each snippet of information came out, JJ's brain was assessing, analysing, calculating. If the information was accurate then, at best, they only had till Friday, tomorrow, lunchtime to ditch one big bucket load of Greek bonds.

“Toby, given that the entire crux of this depends on how worthy this Spiridakos fellow's information is, what makes Marcus think that it isn't some desperate spin doctor's wishful thinking. The bloke's in the opposition party, perhaps he wants a bit of market chaos to put pressure on the government ahead of the vote. In fact, would Marcus's pal, who he may not have seen for ages, really tell him this kind of stuff?”

“Well,” said Toby deliberately, “Theo Spiridakos is not so much Marcus's pal, as his brother-in-law. Marcus believes the information is 100% reliable.”

Now it was JJ's turn to have a gulp of malt whisky. “Jesus Christ, Toby,” said JJ after a pause. “There is no fucking way we can unload our Greek bonds by tomorrow lunchtime, even if we have till tomorrow lunchtime, without causing serious, or even fatal, damage to our unrealised profit on those suckers. The market won't wait till they find out if Tsipras's plan works. They'll just beat the holy shit out of the bonds, the euro, equities and whatever else is directly linked to them, the bloody second they smell that any of those PASOKs are going to jump ship. It's the fucking financial equivalent of shoot first, ask questions later. And if they shoot, we're dead.”

“I know,” said Toby, feeling a bit worse for wear by now. “That's why I'm here on your armchair. It can't wait till tomorrow and I don't know what to do.”

JJ stood up, walked over to his drinks cabinet and poured himself another whisky and Canada Dry, gesturing to Toby asking if he wanted another one. Toby was flagging at this point and declined. Toby was expecting JJ to say something and sensing this JJ said softly, “I'm thinking, give me a few moments,” and sat back down.

While the Scot's internal computer was whirring away, Toby was contemplating his potential financial demise. If these Greek bonds went belly up, he'd be getting no bonus and if JJ got the chop because of any debacle then he'd certainly be out as well. In hedge fund world you're really only as good as your last trade. Reputation takes time to build but a nanosecond to lose. Who'd want to hire a trader whose CV read ‘butt-fucked by a bunch of Greek wankers'. Nobody was the answer.

JJ was contemplating. All that time it took to research the Greek trade, the work with Yves-Jacques on the game tree, the apparently misplaced confidence that there was a 70% probability, at least, that the unrealised massive profit in the bonds was intact. It was all about to go down the toilet because a few Greek politicians couldn't take the pain of the hair shirt that their own prior mistakes determined that they should don. There was no point greetin' too much over that now, thought JJ. It's in the past. If Marcus's brother-in-law was straight up then by tomorrow afternoon there was going to be a shit-fest of red on all Bloomberg screens. Ironically, as it would be the first Friday of the month, US non-farm payrolls data, the pivotal data statistic of any month, would be released at 1.30pm GMT prompt. These were expected to be good, around 300,000 new jobs created in November if market consensus expectations and Wednesday's ADP job figures were anything to go by. NFPs were often regarded as the key market data release from the US depicting the health of the economy. From a proper economist's perspective they had no predictive value. After all, they were out of date and more accurately reflected what the economy was like three to six months ago, but the markets had taken them to be predictive and that was that. In any event, it didn't matter a monkey's butt what the US jobs numbers were tomorrow. Greek news, if there was Greek news, would dominate and any asset price linked to a bullish, optimistic view of the world, would in an inkling turn crimson red.

“Toby, are you still awake?” JJ eventually piped up.

“Yes, chief. Do we have a plan?”

“Kind of. Can you make sure that Yves-Jacques gets out of his pit now, or whoever's pit he's in, and gets himself into the office. I'm assuming he's got a twenty-four hour pass?”

“I'll send him a message right now and if I don't get a reply in five minutes I'll hound his Gallic ass till I do,” responded Toby, now feeling somewhat more upbeat as JJ might have a plan, kind of.

“Tell him we'll meet there in half an hour. The Asian markets are already open but equities are up so far in China and the Nikkei is having a good start, something to do with the weaker yen and plans for more infrastructure public spending by the Abe government. That means there's been no whisper of Greek drama as yet.”

Both men finished up their Macallans and JJ texted Gil to see if she could come over and just be there when Cyrus awoke. She was on her way. He popped upstairs and quickly got changed into his work gear; a dark Zegna suit and shirt, black socks and a pair of shiny black leather size ten brogues were the order of the day. No time for a shower, so a quick squirt of Knize Ten. If things went well he might try to pop over to the RAC club in Pall Mall where he was a decade-long member and have a shower later. Same watch as yesterday, the IWC Top Gun Miramar pilot's watch. Time would be of the essence tomorrow, actually today, but whatever watch he wore wasn't going to make any difference. Nevertheless it was big and bold and that's exactly what JJ and his team needed to be for the next few hours. JJ picked up his leather back pack and he was ready. By the time he came back downstairs, Toby had contacted Yves-Jacques and had a response in return. The young Frenchman was in his own bed with his own girlfriend so that worked out well. Toby had Hailo-ed a cab which was now ticking over outside JJ's house. Yves-Jacques would be at MAM's offices before them, computer fired up and hot to trot. Game on.

* * *

On arrival at the office, JJ and Toby went straight to the third floor where Yves-Jacques's open plan desk was situated. The night security guard on reception didn't really recognise any of them, why would he, none of the band of three had ever before been to the office shortly after midnight. They all had their swipe ID passes with photographs so there was no delay.

“Hi Yves-Jacques,” called JJ as he and Toby marched towards the Frenchman's dark mop of hair. He didn't look in too bad a way given that he'd been summoned out of his REM time without as much as a by your leave. His shirt wasn't fully tucked into his pants, not quite Fathead style but close enough for JJ to hope that this particular style virus wasn't contagious. JJ's thought processes often wandered off into the irrelevant when he was under pressure, but he swiftly realised that the time for daydreaming was not now, get back to the point he told himself.

“Thanks for coming in, in the middle of the night, Yves-Jacques,” said JJ. “We're in a mega bind and over the next few hours the three of us had better prove our worth or we'll all likely be seeking new employment,” he continued.

“No problem, Mr Darke… I mean JJ. Hi Toby.” The French analyst tried his best to appear normal but inwardly he was startled by JJ's reference to potential unemployment. He'd only just been employed! He loved it at MAM and he sure didn't want to be seeking a new job, especially as it was nearly Christmas. No joyeux Noel for him if he was in the dole queue.

JJ and Toby briefly filled in Yves-Jacques about the problem, Toby refrained from too many ‘fuckin' Popadopadopolases' insults and JJ didn't drop the F-bomb once.

“Right,” said JJ in a manner that meant his two colleagues needed to pay attention now. “Here's the plan. It's plan A and it's the entire alphabet plan. We have neither the time nor the luxury of a plan B so we're going with this one for better or worse. Toby, the face value of our entire holding of Greek bonds is, what, approximately €400 million?” enquired JJ. Toby had a spreadsheet open on his laptop.

“€420 million JJ.”

“How much could we reasonably unload between 8am and 12 noon this morning without markedly moving the price against us and assuming there is no breaking Greek news to our detriment?” continued JJ.

“Well, if I get the guys on the trading desk to help…”

JJ interrupted, “Forget it Toby. It's just down to us. If you get the guys on the desk to help, they'll blab whether they know they're blabbing or not. It'll be on their BBMs and within twenty minutes it'll be all over everybody's BBMs that MAM are dumping Greek bonds. That'll cause the dealers and brokers to smell a rat and they'll start digging. Loose lips don't just sink ships, they torpedo hedge funds as well.”

Toby knew JJ was right. The time between one Bloomberg instant message and then getting the initial message back to you from some random dealer was often no more than twenty minutes.

“OK,” reassessed Toby. “Spread evenly over three or four hours with multiple dealers, I can probably sell around 120 million of the 420 million without triggering chitty-chatty price anxiety amongst the community.”