Chapter Twenty three

~ September 26th, 2008 ~

 

On the western shore of Grand Cayman, Todd Morgan, also known as Cricket, sat in front of the real life version of his screensaver. His bare toes danced on the horizon of the deep blue waters as he settled into the white Caribbean beach chair.

He’d shorted the stock of Washington Common Bank over the last four months and amassed a respectable small fortune of almost 55 million dollars, and rented a nice villa just off Seven Mile Beach. He was in the lap of luxury.

Margarita in hand, he read the news and watched the news videos on his laptop. Washington Common knew they were in the cross-hairs of a well-connected enemy bank, but helpless to stop it. The enemy had private numbers, had painted a terrible picture in the minds of those responsible for the TARP program, and it certainly didn’t help that Washington Common wasn’t part of the Wall Street club. The bank was an outsider with few political connections and vulnerable to those with interconnected advocates.

Deals were struck between all the large financial institutions. They were made to temper the financial meltdown and to encourage the flow of money. At least that was what the public was led to believe. But there was also an epic battle for power being waged between the institutions—not only to make or reserve money, but also to limit exposure to debt and rid themselves of competitors.

The playing field was not fair, in fact, according to some investigative journalists, the rules of the playing field changed, were modified or ignored, apparently on the whim of the federal regulator and the bank to which the rules were being applied.

He knew the pundits and politicians were all screaming, “too big to fail.” But in the end, three or four banks would consume all the others and the U.S. would end up with even larger banks.

Todd Morgan knew all of this and took advantage.

He wasn’t surprised when news hit that the well-connected Wall Street bank, his Project Northwest client, had won the fire-sale bid. A bid of 1.9 billion dollars for the 300 plus billion assets of the troubled Washington Common Bank was completed within hours and on a Thursday, no less. He silently laughed. It took longer to buy a 15 thousand dollar car. He closed his laptop and stared across the Caribbean Sea.

Cricket never saw Nathan Jones, also known as Mr. Wrong, creep up from behind.