Sunday, June 28, 1914.
The ticker tape room at 26 Broadway was silent.
It shouldn't have been open. It was Sunday. The New York Stock Exchange was closed. The clerks should have been at church or in the park.
But Jason Underwood had ordered everyone in.
Fifty men sat at their desks, sweating in their shirtsleeves. The air conditioning hadn't been invented yet, and the fans just pushed the hot, humid air around.
They were waiting.
Junior paced back and forth in front of the window, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.
"This is madness, Ezra," Junior whined. "It's a beautiful summer day. Nothing is happening. The markets are asleep."
"The markets are never asleep," Jason said.
He stood by the main telegraph receiver. He was perfectly still. His eyes were fixed on the brass hammer of the machine.
He checked his pocket watch.
10:45 AM in New York. That meant it was nearly 5:00 PM in Sarajevo.
It had already happened. The Archduke was dead. Gavrilo Princip had fired the shots. The world had changed.
But the news hadn't crossed the Atlantic yet. The undersea cables were slow.
Jason was betting everything on the lag.
"We should go home," Junior said. "Father is asking why we have five million dollars in liquid capital sitting in the trading account. He thinks you're gambling again."
"I'm not gambling," Jason said. "I'm investing in tragedy."
Clack.
The telegraph hammer hit the ribbon.
The sound was like a gunshot in the silent room.
Every head turned.
Clack-clack-clack.
The machine began to chatter. It spit out a thin strip of paper.
Jason snatched it before it even hit the basket.
URGENT. PRESS WIRE. SARAJEVO.
ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND SHOT. DEAD. WIFE SOPHIE DEAD. ASSASSIN CAPTURED.
Jason read it. He felt a cold shiver go down his spine. He knew it was coming. He had studied it in history class.
But holding the paper... seeing the ink still wet... it made it real.
He looked up at the room full of confused clerks.
"It's begun," Jason announced.
He slapped the paper onto Junior's chest.
"Read it."
Junior read. His face went grey. "The Archduke? The heir to the Austrian throne? My God... this means war."
"It means chaos," Jason corrected. "And chaos is profitable."
He turned to the floor manager, a sharp-eyed man named Miller.
"Execute the trades," Jason commanded. "Now. Before the news hits the street."
"Sir?"
"Short the German Mark," Jason barked. "Short the Austrian Crown. Sell everything. Leverage it ten to one."
He pointed to the second row of clerks.
"You! Buy steel futures. Buy copper. Buy wheat. Buy every bushel of grain in Chicago. When the armies mobilize, they will need to eat."
"But sir," Miller stammered. "The exchange is closed! We can't trade until Monday!"
"We trade on the London off-hours market," Jason said. "We trade in Tokyo. We trade private contracts. Do it! We have maybe an hour before the world wakes up!"
The room exploded into action.
Men shouted into telephones. Telegraph keys hammered out buy and sell orders. It was a symphony of greed.
Jason watched. He felt the adrenaline surge.
In one hour, Standard Oil—and his own private accounts—would make more money than most countries generated in a year.
He was shorting an empire.
BOOM.
The heavy double doors of the lobby blew inward.
Smoke filled the room. Thick, acrid, black smoke.
"Fire!" someone screamed.
"No," Jason shouted. "Gas!"
He grabbed a wet towel from the water basin and pressed it to his face.
Through the smoke, he saw shapes moving. Men in gas masks. Men carrying truncheons and axes.
They weren't firemen.
They were the cleanup crew. The German sabotage unit.
They knew.
Berlin must have realized the news was breaking. They knew Jason would try to corner the market. They were here to physically stop the trades.
"Cut the lines!" a muffled voice shouted in German. "Smash the machines!"
The intruders charged into the room. They swung axes at the telegraph tables.
CRASH.
A machine shattered. Sparks flew.
"Stop them!" Junior screamed, cowering under a desk.
Jason looked around. He didn't have a gun. He had left it in his office.
But he saw the red box on the wall.
In Case of Fire.
Jason ran to it. He smashed the glass with his elbow. He grabbed the heavy fire axe.
He turned.
A German agent was raising a crowbar to smash the main transmitter—the one sending the sell orders to London.
"Hey!" Jason roared.
The agent turned.
Jason swung the axe.
He didn't aim for the man. He aimed for the crowbar.
CLANG.
The axe head struck the metal bar, jarring it from the agent's hands. The man stumbled back, shocked.
"Get out of my building!" Jason yelled.
He advanced. He looked like a demon emerging from the smoke—eyes watering, tie loose, wielding an axe like a viking.
The agent reached for a pistol.
BANG.
A shot rang out.
The agent dropped, clutching his leg.
Jason looked toward the door.
O'Malley, the Irishman from the docks, stood there. He was holding a smoking revolver. Behind him were six burly stevedores carrying baseball bats and lead pipes.
Jason's new "counter-intelligence" unit.
"Sorry we're late, Boss," O'Malley grinned. "Traffic."
"Clear the room!" Jason ordered.
The Irishmen charged. It was a brawl. Bats met helmets. Fists met jaws. The Germans were professionals, but the dockworkers were brawlers. And there were more of them.
Within two minutes, the intruders were dragged out, unconscious or groaning.
The smoke began to clear.
Miller, the floor manager, popped up from behind his desk. He looked terrified.
"Sir! The main line is cut! We can't confirm the London trades!"
Jason looked at the smashed machine.
"Use the backup," Jason said. "The trans-Atlantic cable in the basement. It's shielded."
"But the power—"
"Use the generator!" Jason screamed. "Crank it by hand if you have to! Get those orders through!"
Miller ran.
Ten minutes later, a bell rang.
The confirmation slip printed out.
LONDON EXCHANGE: SELL ORDERS CONFIRMED. POSITIONS SECURED.
Jason dropped the axe. It clattered on the floor.
He leaned against the wall, gasping for air.
He had done it.
He had bet against the Kaiser, fought off a hit squad, and secured the fortune that would finance the war.
The phone on his desk rang.
It wasn't a normal ring. It was the private line. The unlisted number.
Jason picked it up.
"Prentice," he said, breathless.
"Herr Prentice," a smooth, cultured voice said. "This is Ambassador Bernstorff."
The German Ambassador.
"You are playing a dangerous game," the Ambassador said softly. "Interfering with Imperial interests. Attacking my men."
"Your men trespassed," Jason said. "And they failed."
"For now," Bernstorff said. "But you must understand... money does not stop a bullet."
"No," Jason said. He looked at the confirmation slip in his hand. "But money buys the gun. And I just bought all of them."
"We will remember this."
"Good," Jason said. "Tell the Kaiser I said hello. And tell him to sell his steel stocks. They're about to plummet."
He hung up.
He walked to the window.
The smoke was drifting away from Broadway. The sun was shining. Pedestrians were walking below, oblivious to the fact that the world had just ended.
Junior crawled out from under the desk. He was sobbing.
"Ezra... what have you done? You started a war."
"No, Junior," Jason said. He looked at his reflection in the glass. The soot on his face made him look like a soldier.
"I just finished the preseason."
He turned back to the room of stunned clerks.
"Get back to work," Jason commanded. "The market opens in Tokyo in an hour. We're buying nitrates."
He sat down.
Let them fight.
Let the empires burn.
He would sell them the matches, the gasoline, and the coffins.