Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page A

competitors. Faster and more versatile than its rivals, it provided access to all major markets, currencies, and commodities, seamlessly integrating them into one interface. Its operations were baffling to anyone unfamiliar with the bizarre language of the marketplace—its screen would appear to be something like hieroglyphics to a layman—but a seasoned trader could work it like a maestro.
    Whitely Cracker made it sing better than most. He was legendary among fellow traders for his ability to keep up with a myriad of complex deals simultaneously. In the worldwide community ofMonEx 4000 users, many of whom only knew each other virtually, Whitely’s virtuosity had earned him the nickname “the great white shark”—because he was always moving and always hungry.
    This day was no different. Within a half hour of the opening of North American markets, he had already made twelve million dollars’ worth of transactions, and he was just getting warmed up. He had just pulled the trigger on a 1.1-million-dollar purchase of cattle futures—he would sell them long before they matured four months from now, because Lord knows there wasn’t space in the decompression center for that many cows—when the MonEx 4000’s instant messaging function flashed on the top of his screen.
    It was from a trader in Berlin to whom Whitely had just made an offer.
    Selling short again, White?
    Whitely’s handsome face assumed a slight grin. His fingers flew.
    Just hedging some bets elsewhere. Looking to shore up some significant gains. You know how it is.
    The top of the screen stayed static for a moment, then a new message appeared.
    Ah, the great white strikes again.
    Whitely studied this for a moment, weighed the benefits of prodding the guy a little bit, and decided there could be no harm. He was offering the Berliner what would appear to be a solid deal. The guy would be a fool not to take it.
    Don’t worry. You’re not my tuna today. Just a small mackerel. Maybe even a minnow.
    Whitely enjoyed this, the jocularity of bantering traders. He liked the money, too. But the real benefit was, simply, the deal itself. He was an unabashed deal junkie. Buy low, sell high. Un-earth an undervalued asset, snap it up. Discover an overvalued asset, sell it short. Big margins. Small margins. Didn’t matter. The deal was his drug. Whether he made millions, thousands, or mere hundreds was immaterial. As long as it was a win. The high was incomparable. When he was trading, he was even more engrossed than he was when he played his video games. The hours just slipped by. The outside world barely mattered when he was trading.
    He certainly didn’t notice that his every move—and every trade—was being captured by three tiny cameras that had been hidden behind his desk: one in the bookcase, one in a picture frame, one in the liquor cabinet.
    Each had a perfect view of every trade he offered and accepted. Each relayed its crisp, high-definition video feed to an office on the eighty-third floor.
    On the other side of his desk, and littered in numerous spots throughout those six thousand square feet, there were more cameras and bugs. It helped that Whitely preferred such lavish furnishings: It made for more hiding places. His home in Chappaqua, his various cars, anywhere he regularly went—even his health club—were festooned with them. There was nothing he did, no conversation he had, that wasn’t being monitored by a person well trained in the ways of killing.
    Whitely was oblivious to it all, just as he was oblivious for the first three minutes Theodore Sniff spent lurking in his doorway midway through the morning. Sniff had been Prime Resource Investment Group’s accountant since its inception. He did not have his boss’s charm, and certainly lacked his good looks: Sniff was short, fat,
and
balding, the Holy Trinity of datelessness. His clothes, which seemed to wrinkle faster than ought to have been scientifically possible, never fit right. By the end