MBA Page 5
Part of him winced at this onward, relentless ripping-off of consumers, manipulated into buying ever more ridiculous ‘solutions’ for hitherto unknown needs. This was another face of global capitalism. For a second time Ben nearly discarded the SmartPants instructions. Then he realised that a bottom-feeding data pirate masquerading as an aircraft cleaner might find his code and sell it to hackers who specialised in wearable computing. He had not the slightest wish for the physics of his sensitive parts to end up on the web. He tucked the card into his wallet and waited to land back at Heathrow early on Wednesday evening.
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‘What’s physics envy?’ Connie asked. The two women were climbing into Dorothy’s brand new Fiat 500 for the drive back to the college.
Dorothy laughed. ‘It’s particularly appropriate for Frank, because he was a physicist originally. Did you know that his doctorate was in molecular hyper-magnetics? He showed me once but I couldn’t understand a word of it. Physics envy is what we suffer from in the social sciences. It describes our lust for all the stuff, testable theories and hard results, that you can get in physics. The whole thing’s a fantasy, of course; you can never measure human truth in the way you can measure weight or temperature or things like that. In any case, I find a good antidote to physics envy is ten minutes of advanced mathematics.’
The car eased onto the main road and picked up speed. ‘When I first came to Hampton and got to know Frank,’ she continued, ‘I know physics envy drove him mad. He wanted to study human organisations because he’d come to see that they are the most interesting “things” there are, but he hated never being able to pin down “truth” in a black-and-white way.
‘That’s why he took to finance. It’s the most objective of the management disciplines and he found the equations child’s play. But you know, I think it’s also why he’s such an outstanding teacher: he really believes there are important insights that he is trying to pass on.’
‘Is he right to be so rude about the dean?’
‘In my book, it’s never right to be rude. What do you achieve? Frank has good questions, but he doesn’t handle well the fact that the dean doesn’t have to answer to him. One time Frank stood for election to the board of governors, and he got trampled on. But like it or lump it, look at the tower, or the brand-new lecture theatres: they’ve been built with real money which the dean brought in. We haven’t borrowed at all.
‘I agree we don’t quite know what the dean is up to in Asia, but he’s always brought home the bacon far beyond anything his predecessors did. I wish Frank would give him more credit for that.’
WEDNESDAY 13 JUNE
Any life-form in any realm – mineral, vegetable, animal or human – can be said to undergo ‘enlightenment’.
ECKHART TOLLE 1
Habit 1 – Be Proactive. Being proactive is more than taking initiative. It is recognizing that we are responsible for our own choices and have the freedom to choose based on principles and values rather than on moods or conditions. Proactive people are agents of change and choose not to be victims, to be reactive, or to blame others.
STEPHEN COVEY 2
Wednesday, mid-morning. The Lexus was parked diagonally across a lay-by off the Alderley by-pass with the passenger door open. Since the boss had flown the coop yesterday, a remix of ‘I wish I was black and gay in 1985’ was giving the car’s six speakers a workout, covering the lay-by in surround sound. The driver’s own workout earlier in the morning had been 85 lengths of the college pool rather than the usual 50. However, his gelled hair (blond with a comma of black over his right forehead) showed no sign of disarray.
The afternoon would be spent with the son of a Yankee billionaire (the son would be a wanker but the helicopter tour of the college would be interesting), then collecting Ben from Heathrow at 6pm this evening. So the driver had a free morning, and hence the chance of this meeting in a lay-by, for which he was early. Being early was no problem, because Greg Martin had a talent for waiting. That is why he had chosen his current occupation and why his current occupation had chosen him. He lit a stick of incense.
Considering how much waiting children do (‘Are we there yet?’), the rarity of Greg’s insight was surprising. By the age of eight he had noticed that waiting was an overlooked activity, despite there being quite a lot of it in life, even for adults and royalty: Prince Charles could not escape his share.
However, most people dealt with waiting with remarkable stupidity. They resorted to a particularly ineffectual combination of denial (‘I’m not planning to do any waiting today’) and surprised victim (‘Why now? Why me? Just when I’m in a rush’). This approach was not for Greg. It flew in the face of the principles of self-improvement, of which Greg had read many – from Eckhart Tolle to the latest Stephen Covey.
Breathing, patience, persistence, grace: waiting was like swimming. Greg had taught himself to like it and to do it well. To be fair, waiting had not become an obsession or an out-of-control condition. He was no waiting abuser: he had never queued for hours outside a club because, according to a rumour on MySpace, the service inside was particularly s-l-o-w.
Like everything else, waiting and action needed to be in balance. He intended that this morning’s meeting would lead to action. He spotted the white Corolla in plenty of time to snuff out his incense and kill the beats.
‘You’re looking very fine.’ Amelia Henderson gave Greg a peck on the cheek and a clasp. ‘So I trust you’re coping with the boredom.’
Amelia poured tea from a Thermos into plastic cups while they sat side by side on a picnic bench. The need to overcome boredom had become as familiar as the Welsh border rain during Greg’s training for undercover police work: your first assignment will last between six and 18 months, during which nothing will happen. Nothing. You will learn your identity. You will build and inhabit your cover – in his case, a new identity as Greg Martin.
‘Well enough. It’s waiting. I can do that. How are my mates doing?’ Six months on it still felt a shock to have gone from the 24/7 intimacy of selection and training to a blank void. Given the types that Amelia’s department selected, Greg’s experience of training as the only time in his life when the walls of being a loner had really crumbled, was a common occurrence. From that they went on to not knowing what any of their undercover classmates were doing, or who they were becoming.
‘They’re all fine.’ Amelia smiled. ‘Charlotte’s fine. You and she were the top of the class.’
As well as an item for the final three months, Greg reflected. His boss had known it as soon as the two of them knew it. The bedrooms as well as the grounds of the training establishment were observed; that this was so had been spelled out before any of them had applied. Anyone who could not cope with continuous observation of night-time habits was unsuited to the work.
‘But I think you will be the first into action,’ Amelia continued. Reading his mind she added, ‘No, I don’t say that to all the boys.’ She crumpled her empty cup and put it in her handbag. ‘So why this meeting?’
‘I think something’s going down where I am. At the college.’
‘I know you think that. I also know you’re keen as anything and bored silly – as you were warned in training.’
‘You picked me because I’m good at this, didn’t you? Well, look. Here’s a copy of the VIP acceptances for Thursday week. The college is going to have billionaires coming out of its ears. These guys are so rich, this afternoon I’ve got to go play helicopters with one of their sons.’
Amelia scanned the list that Greg handed her. Her eyebrows moved fractionally. ‘Fine. You’ve documented a terrorist opportunity. But there’s no credible threat.’
‘People this rich have enemies.’
‘Yes, but they also have security. There’s nothing to tie a particular threat to the college.’
‘There is – Frank Jones. He’s up to something.’
‘So y
ou said before, but you’re wrong. Frank Jones has no record, no suspicious associations. What’s more, which is a stroke of luck, in his final year at university he applied to the Civil Service. He didn’t take up a place, but we found a psychological assessment of him – an idealist, harmless, into non-violence. Yes, that was thirty years ago but it tells us about his character and there’s no evidence of any traumatic episode since. The reality is, Frank Jones is cleaner than you.’
‘What about the rabbit he pulled out of his hat two nights ago? His name’s Ben Stillman, someone Jones taught recently. Out of nowhere he’s gone into the dean’s office to mastermind the tower opening. Is that a coincidence? I’ve asked for him to be checked out.’
‘I saw that on the file.’ The 45-year-old from Inverness stood up and adjusted her hair in the reflection of the Lexus’s windscreen. ‘Greg, we picked you because you could become good at this, not because you already are. You’ll have to earn your grey hairs like the rest of us.’
‘But I can keep my eyes open.’
‘Keep your eyes open but your head screwed on. This isn’t about scoring on a first date.’ Amelia swivelled to pierce Greg with her gaze. ‘Believe me, I’ll fail you for active service just like that, if you give me cause. The department’s expectations of you are high, you know that; but you need to live up to them. We have plans.
‘Let me remind you of our suspicions of Alex Bakhtin and his companies: a lot that’s legit but terrific cover for money-laundering, arms, who knows what. We’re guessing he’s the main man; but we’re just guessing. So one day this autumn we’ll do Bakhtin’s driver for driving under the influence. You’ll be suggested as his replacement. What Bakhtin will do next is check you out with the dean of the college to which he has just given several million pounds and a glass chair. You need to pass that test with flying colours.’
All of which made sense, and Amelia had stroked his competitive ego – top of the class, early into active service – but the result of the meeting was not the action for which Greg had hoped. He climbed into the Lexus, hit the sound system and shot off.
Some say ‘house’ came from the Warehouse in Chicago in the 1980s, some say not. Regardless, house music soon copied Mr Heinz and spawned 57 varieties – acid, progressive, hard, tribal, electro and all the others. Everything that could change did change, except for one thing – the beat. House music did not just have a beat, it was led by its beat – the heartbeat of a bionic man, a metronomic 120, 130 or 140 times a minute.
Greg loved the house beat. It changed time. With no beat, the passing minutes were placid and friendly accountants who had boring jobs in clocks; 24 hours later Greg would meet all of them again. With the house beat, time passing could dissolve the world in quite different ways. Seconds became like fugitive sleepers beneath the trans-Siberian express, drops of blood falling onto a piano keyboard or iron bars in the world’s longest prison. Seconds flew past, not 60 but 120, 130 or 140 times each minute.
Greg had been the fifth-best advanced police driver in his year, and by the time he reached down twisty country lanes to the private airfield near Maidenhead, according to the on-board computer he had covered 52 miles in as many minutes.
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At the airfield, Casey Pinnacle was not hard to spot. For one thing, only four years earlier his face (then 25-years-old) had been splattered across the cover of Fortune, the Financial Times and The Economist. Besides, apart from the desultory fluttering of the airfield’s windsock, the only other life to be seen was a slightly older woman standing, like Casey, beside an aquamarine Lamborghini Reventón.
The coupé was parked as if it owned the place. Greg parked the Lexus more circumspectly and got out to take a better look. With a 6.5 litre engine and 3D longitudinal and transverse accelerometer, the Lamborghini was better equipped for flying than half of the parked aircraft.
Greg identified himself as Dean Gyro’s driver. Casey was wearing chinos and a monogrammed shirt with the collar unbuttoned. White gold cufflinks flickered with blue light. The woman was in a plain white-and-navy outfit. Her dark glasses struck Greg as too expensive for a chauffeur. Not the mother, not the girlfriend and probably not the secretary. Actually, who could suffer the embarrassment of owning a Lamborghini and needing a chauffeur to drive it? So perhaps she was the bodyguard.
‘Cool,’ said Casey. ‘This is Hilary. She’s going to take us up in the helicopter.’ To Greg’s surprise, he reached out to shake hands.
Greg could now see the blue light from Casey’s cufflinks more clearly. It showed digits which changed every few seconds. Greg remembered reading about them in the Financial Times.
In the classic rags-to-riches-to-rags family trajectory, Casey was overdue as the generation that would blow the lot. Casey’s grandfather, Wilson Pinnacle Senior, was the entrepreneur who had emigrated to America as a teenager in 1903, in time to be inspired by the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in December of that year.
Having spent a few years contemplating the matter, one midsummer’s day Wilson Senior had founded a bank, Virtual Savings of Delaware. Banking (Wilson Senior had concluded) would become to financial gravity as heavier-than-air flight was becoming to Newton’s discovery: an industry in which fortunes could be made by doing miracles safely everyday. The opening of Hampton’s glass tower on 21 June would mark the centenary of the doors of Wilson Senior’s dream first opening to the American public.
Casey’s father, Wilson Junior, was an accountant with an MBA from Wharton. Junior’s dream night out was to curl up with some financial spreadsheets and be interrupted at 11.30pm with half-time refreshments (ideally some lightly grilled sea bass and a green salad). He was a business genius, or else very lucky.
By the time he was 30 he had taken Virtual Savings and Trust (as the bank had been renamed) to a pan-American business worth in excess of one billion dollars. Through the next 30 years he topped this with a dazzling display of entries and exits into new countries, riding the crest of globalisation. Today, Virtual Savings and Trust was one of the world’s 50 largest banks – and the Pinnacle family still owned it all.
Enter stage left Casey, the solitary heir coming up to his 30th birthday later this summer. Presumably he was the disastrous wastrel or incompetent who in slow or quick time would smash the family fortune into smithereens? Not quite; or at least not yet. Junior had spotted this risk and moved to outflank it.
Prudently, Junior had settled an allowance on Casey – something modest, like the GDP of one or two small African states – but he had locked most of the family inheritance up in tax-efficient irrevocable trusts. So long as Junior with his healthy eating and abstemious habits stayed alive, Casey would only come into any really big money before he was 45 if he earned it with his own hands.
But Casey had inherited his family’s taste for financial wizardry and then some, although not their taste for hard work. Also he had come of age at the turn of the millennium, when the fashionable age to become shockingly rich dropped to below the age he was now. How could he solve this riddle without doing too much work?
Ordinary people regard stock exchanges as rather complicated, but rich people realise that they are basically ATMs where you put certain numbers in (you put them in prospectuses and similar documents) and cash comes out. The crucial advantage of stock exchanges over ATMs is that it is other people’s cash that comes out. Casey had mulled over what numbers he could put in.
The key to freedom came when he realised the significance of Bowie bonds. David Bowie had collected huge amounts of cash from strangers in return for promising them the future royalties from particular music, and many other artists followed. Like mortgaging your house it was cash now and pay back later, with the important difference that if your future income tanked, it was the suckers who had bought the bonds who got stuffed.
And so, coming up to his 21st birthday, in between attending a few classes at Harvard, Casey briefly
became a poster-child of financial capitalism. He was the first human being to float 49 percent of himself on a stock exchange. By legally forswearing the possibility of marrying or having children (what 21-year-old thinks this a hardship?), by promising to hire professional managers for his investments and finally by pledging to pay out 49 percent of his wealth and savings (including by then his inheritance) on his 46th birthday to his shareholders, he turned the wealth which Junior had tried to lock away in the future into cash now.
Had the landing of $1.6 billion in his bank account on his 21st birthday given him as much pleasure as outsmarting his dad’s prudence? It was hard to tell. As the Financial Times had reported, the blue lights in his wireless cufflinks told him his stock market value minute by minute. They showed $4.0 billion as Hilary piloted Casey and Greg into the air.
Casey sat in the co-pilot’s seat while Greg sat behind. The helicopter flew to Hampton back the way Greg had driven. Junior had negotiated with Gyro for Casey to celebrate his 30th with a war-gaming party in the college grounds at the end of July – upmarket paintballing, Gyro had called it. Reaching the head of the valley they flew over the student block, the new tower, the main administration and teaching block and the dean’s house, and then down the length of the lake. Seeing the college – including the new glass tower – from above even Greg found mesmerising.
‘Hilary, could we check out the glass tower again?’ Casey’s lips moved silently while a metallic rendition of his voice crackled out of Greg’s headphones. The helicopter dipped, turned and hovered over the top of the flying saucer. They looked through the glass roof and the glass floor to the scaffolding and the ground. ‘Dad will so like it! OK, so what’s over there?’