Lottery Dreams

4

Chapter 4: The Sting

Back in the Mediterranean, the pace of life moved on as smoothly as ever. Piers was sharing a joke with one of the Ambassadors. He couldn't remember which country, and it hardly mattered anyway.

Catrina was sitting on the arm of his chair. A trophy wife, but a real asset. Not hampered by political correctness, she had all the feminine power she wanted in the money Piers made. Nor did he begrudge a penny of it, every man in the room was looking at her now, as she laughed and threw back her head.

Piers knew that gave him more power. Envy was a terrible demon, but one he controlled now. None of the other men had brought their wives, as they were hoping to find new, secret, companions later that evening at the gaming tables. St Tropez was full of them.

"Now Piers, what about investing in this stock," said Durrant, his financial advisor, and ear to the real world of the stock exchange. "It's rising, and you could lose out if you hesitate."

"Good point Durrant, but we could make more money on the futures market," Piers wondered if he would take the bait.

"Yes, but we would have to be careful how we played it," added Durrant.

"Why is that?" asked the Ambassador, almost naive in these matters, for a politician.

"You see sir, we want to invest a lot of money, because we know the stock will rise," Durrant lent over the padded seat in the yacht's lounge to explain it to him. Durrant was never tired of this.

"Yes, I see." The man's small mind was racing to keep up.

"Well, if we do, everyone will know, and everyone will know it's us," Durrant pointed across the deep carpet to Piers. "So everyone will know it's a sure thing."

"Right!" said the Ambassador, nodding his head.

"So they will flood the market with their own money, knowing that if they follow us, they will score too."

"Yes."

"Well that's the worst thing in the world for us," said Durrant.

"Why?" The Ambassador almost spilt his brandy at the shock of this.

"Because we don't want them to make money too, we want to sandbag them."

"But you will make a lot of money?" The Ambassador was clearly struggling with this concept.

"Yes, but we don't need any more money. What we want is power. More power over people, so we can control all the money."

"Why?"

"Because we can," Piers spoke up, drawing on a Havana cigar.

"So tell me, gentlemen," said the Ambassador, shifting in his chair, "how will you take power from these men?" Power was something he understood very well. "You can't steal the money from them? And seeing as your stock will rise naturally, you will all make a profit?"

"Good point your Excellency," Durrant continued with the plan. "What we have to do, is lure them into a trap. Once we have them, we can control them any way we like."

"Hardly likely if they know what's to come?" said the Ambassador, holding out his glass for more brandy. "If your enemies know what's to come, they are one step ahead of you? I can't see your plan working."

"Under normal circumstances, you would be right Excellency. But we have to think several steps ahead, not just one or two." Piers wondered how many times they had put this plan into operation. "We have to make them think it's a sure thing. A rock-solid bet. Once they get wind we are pulling out, they will run too. So we have to make sure our money goes down the drain first."

"Madness!" cried the ambassador. "How can you lose money, like that?"

"We can afford to," smiled Piers. "Come this way sir, and I'll explain things a little clearer."

They walked into the private casino onboard the yacht. Piers sat at the roulette table and placed some betting chips on the velvet. He waved away the croupier staff with a smile, to show he did not want a serious game. He rarely played.

"Now suppose these chips are our stake money." Piers placed the chips across the cloth on various numbers. "This is the ball, and we know where it's going to fall. He placed the small ball on the roulette wheel, on black thirteen."

"So everyone knows where it's to fall," the Ambassador leant over the table to see what the plan really was. "If the ball lands there, everyone is rich?"

"Sure. But now we have to play for big money." Piers took a handful of chips. "We put up say, 10 million to start with. That will get people's interest. Certainly, it will pull in a few million, but not much. So once things start rising, we pour in another £50 million. That will get the market talking, but still won't get the big boys interested." He pointed to the huge pile of chips on the edge of the table.

"How much money would have to be on the table for them to bet?" The ambassador took a drink of brandy, the noise of the party growing outside the cabin.

"I spread the word around, and tell them we are to bet a 2 to 3 hundred million," Durrant took a fist full of chips and dumped them on the table. "The word will go out, that the professional markets are interested because they know it's a sure bet. That ball will definitely fall on that number."

"I still don't understand," the Ambassador took another concerning drink. "If the ball lands you will all make money? You can't steal their money as you would be stealing your own. So where is your bigger plan?"

"The plan lies in what we do next." Piers arranged the chips in long lines on the table. "We find a group of fund managers who are desperate and greedy. Someone like the insurance market, that has fallen so low, it will do anything to crawl back up again. We convince them there will be a huge movement in the market."

"There can't be that much money in the world, to pay all these players," Durrant added. "Plus, you have to remember the bookies- I mean the brokers- will know what's going on, and change the price. So there isn't enough money on the table to pay them all, no matter how certain they are of winning."

"Go on."

"So we throw the game," smiled Piers.

"What?"

"We make sure we lose the game," Piers took the small ball and moved it to another number."

"But you will lose?" cried the Ambassador.

"Yes, we will lose that money there," Piers pointed to the pile representing the 3 hundred million. "But remember, we know where the ball will really land. And that's the information we give to the big players."

"How big?" asked the Ambassador.

"We start out at 10 billion," said Durrant.

"How can there be enough money on the table to pay them?" the ambassador wanted to know.

"Remember, the whole world is looking at this stock now. Our modest 300 million, will have pulled in a lot more than that. Every little old lady, and spotty kids playing the market on the Net, will be wanting to make a killing from this. Now the big players hate those people and will welcome a chance to clip their wings. So there is a big pot of money to be taken away by someone." At that moment, both Piers and Durrant heaped a handful of chips onto the table, and the pile grew.

"Getting back to what you were saying about power," said the ambassador, "how will you gain any power over people who are as rich; if not richer, than you?"

"This," smiled Piers, "is the interesting bit. We are doing a scam right?"

"Right," said the Ambassador.

"So we let the fund-managers, into the secret. We tell them, there is a scam going down, and tell them how they can join us in making a lot of money. Ok?"

"Ok."

"Once we get them to put their money on the table we throw the game again. We ruin it for everyone. The whole damn thing goes down the drain." Piers raked all the chips off the table and dropped them on the floor.

The Ambassador just stood there holding his glass, his mouth well and truly open.

"Now everyone is ruined. The little man; the big insurance firms; the whole money world." Durrant grinned his most evil lea as they looked at the fallen chips.

"Once that happens, we step in." Piers wondered if the man was following.

"How? You are ruined?" The Ambassador pointed at the floor.

"That?" Piers kicked a chip with his foot. "Chicken feed. A few hundred million. Once we know the big boys are ruined, we step in to save them. But only on our terms. We ask for little things. Like when a bank is about to support a failing company, or a little war is to start."

"Anything we can make money out of," put in Piers.

"But you had a huge amount of money already? And you could have made more?" He still pointed at the floor.

"How much is it worth?" asked Piers. "Nothing unless we have ultimate power. Call it a million or a billion. It doesn't matter as long as we have more of it than them. And from then on, we call the shots."

The Ambassador was silent for a moment, searching for a cigar to steady his nerves.

"You want a piece of this action your Excellency?" asked Durrant.

"How do I know you will not dump me, like the big boys there?" He struck a match and pointed at the floor.

"Because we like you."

He did not know if they were joking or not. But it did not seem to matter. "How will you go about it? I mean what is the stock that will rise in such a fantastic fashion? Bearing in mind that it can only crash back down again?"

"Show his Excellency the papers you showed me earlier Durrant." Piers rose from the table and walked around the spilt pile of chips, to look out the huge picture window. The night was falling now. The sparkling lights of the other boats, glinting in the harbour.

"This is a contract for a big military project in the Middle East. Worth billions." Durrant went into his salesman's pitch as the two men poured over the paperwork. "It all hangs on the delivery of tanks parts. Once that is through, the profit from the company will be staggering. But remember we are not interested in that. What we want to do is sabotage the deliveries. Stop them from getting to their destination."

"Sink the ship?" asked the Ambassador.

No!" laughed Durrant, "Nothing as crude as that. What we have in mind is something, which will stop the flow of parts. We need a reason to halt the delivery. Once that happens the stock will crash."

"So how will you stop the flow of tanks parts?"

"Something British industry has wrestled with for years," said Piers looking over his shoulder. "Quality Control."

"How do you mean?"

"We question the quality of the parts being sent out. We simply find enough faults to make the parts useless," Durrant put in.

"They will know what you are doing? Someone in the factory will find out and blow the whistle?"

"Not if we control the Quality in the first place," smiled Piers. "We give the work to a small firm who cannot possibly cope. The quantities will be so big, they will never be able to make the tanks in time. So they will bang them together and turn out a shoddy job. Once the truth comes out, the whole process grinds to a halt."

"What if you get caught?" asked the Ambassador trying to re-light his cigar.

"Your Excellency this is not the first time we have done this. We have people put in place. People who can help us. They owe us a big favour and can alert us as to any problems which might arise." Durrant held out a match for the man.

"So these are people you have ruined in the past?"

"They don't know it was us that ruined them in the first place. As far as they are concerned, we are their white knights. Men who have come in to save them. If it was not for us, they might be seeing the world from behind prison bars. No. These are people who can only do us good." Piers drained his brandy and knew the evening was reaching its climax. Soon they would have to return to the other guests.

"May I ask who you have chosen to make these shoddy armoured vehicles?"

"I've found an interesting little firm in the East Midlands." Piers looked again at the paperwork and the picture of the factory. "You know the usual sort of thing? A bunch of country bumpkins pretending to be engineers. Government grants, and bloated opinions. Their eyes will be bigger than their bellies. We've seen it all before."

"What is the name of this place?"

"Something Called Cobol holdings."