Chapter 369: We Are All Good People

[Chapter 369: We Are All Good People]

While most people remained skeptical about whether Iraq would invade Kuwait, starting at six in the morning on August 1, Kuwaiti time, eight Iraqi combat divisions stationed at the Iraq-Kuwait border quickly moved into attack formation within just one day. The previously silent radio communications suddenly became dense with encrypted messages.

American military intelligence, observing this through military spy satellites, realized that Saddam seemed to be getting serious.

But it was too late. The Pentagon could only send a top-level war alert to Kuwaiti authorities. At one a.m. on August 2, Kuwait time, with a single command from Saddam, one hundred thousand Iraqi troops surged across the Iraq-Kuwait border, flooding into Kuwait. The news of war spread around the world in less than an hour, shocking everyone.

The moment war broke out was precisely at six p.m. on August 1, Eastern Time.

...

Before the closing bell that day, informed investment firms seized their last opportunity to flood into the crude oil futures market, placing large orders. Within a mere two hours before closing, crude oil prices surged by 0.7 dollars, closing at 21.6 dollars with an increase of 3%.

However, for the speculators who had poured massive amounts of funds into the crude oil futures market during this time, this was just the beginning. A door opened; some found themselves in paradise while others tumbled into hell.

As the war commenced, everyone on Eric's team let out a sigh of relief. Although full of questions, after more than a month, everyone finally got a good night's sleep. In a corner of the Persian Gulf, cannon fire rumbled, while in a luxurious suite at the Soho Hotel, Eric held onto the little girl, sleeping particularly soundly.

...

At midnight in New York, dawn broke over the Persian Gulf. The Iraqi army took just eight hours to occupy all of Kuwait, and seventeen hours later, the fighting ceased entirely. Saddam announced to the world that Kuwait was now part of Iraq, becoming its nineteenth province. The Emir of Kuwait fled with his family by helicopter to Saudi Arabia.

...

New York, August 2, Thursday.

Having rested soundly through the night, Eric had breakfast with Drew. At nine o'clock, he met with Chris and the trading team. Everyone in the team looked at Eric with surprise and confusion, but Eric made no effort to explain himself.

In a cafe on Sixth Avenue, Eric sat across from Chris, and Drew with her sunglasses stirred her coffee out of boredom. With an hour to go before the crude oil futures market opened, everyone was taking a short break there.

"Dad took a flight back to his farm in Maryland at ten. Emily already dropped him off at the airport. He said he doesn't want to see you, the little rascal who's kept him on edge for a month, again," Chris said, a faint smile creasing his lips, though his gaze still bore confusion.

Eric chuckled lightly. "Let's talk about business."

Chris seemed to take a cue from this and continued. "Alright, what's the next step?"

Eric shrugged. "I've done everything I could. Now it's your guys' turn to handle it."

Chris nodded. What Eric had done involved a great deal of pressure, betting all their chips on the crude oil futures market for over a month. Chris couldn't fathom where Eric had gotten his hunch from. Just a month ago, there had been no signs of a war in Kuwait.

Now that Iraq had invaded Kuwait, it represented a quarter of the known oil reserves. If the two countries merged under Saddam's policy of reducing production to raise prices, skyrocketing international oil prices were inevitable.

"So you have to give me a rough plan, right? Like, when do we pull out of this?"

Eric stared out the window at the traffic for a moment before replying, "In three months. We'll liquidate everything in three months."

Chris looked intrigued, leaning closer with his arms on the table. "Three months? Eric, care to share what you sensed this time?"

With a serious expression, Eric said softly, "I sense that on the last day of October, a lot of ghosts will appear in the streets and alleys of the federation, stealing countless candies from countless homes."

Drew, who had been silently eavesdropping, burst into laughter.

Chris rolled his eyes.

After a joke, Eric threw up his hands. "Chris, I'm not a fortune-teller, really. So don't ask me what I sensed. Just getting the timing right this time was a huge stroke of luck."

"Alright, then I won't ask. I'll follow your lead and exit within three months," Chris replied, returning his focus to the snacks and coffee.

Eric secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't know how to explain everything to Chris and seemed unable to clarify it forever.

...

Due to the fact that electronic trading systems didn't enter the futures market until 1992, crude oil futures trading remained primarily manual.

At ten a.m., with the opening of the crude oil futures market at the New York Mercantile Exchange, prices began rising rapidly along a steep curve.

Eric and Drew wandered through the bustling trading hall for a moment but quickly stepped outside, unable to take the noise any longer.

As he had said in the cafe, he had done all he could in July, and now everything could be left to Chris and the trading team to manage.

Returning to the hotel with Drew, Eric had barely walked into the lobby when the front-desk attendant stopped him. "Mr. Williams, please wait a moment."

Confused, Eric looked over, and the attendant handed him a notepad filled with phone numbers. "These are calls that came in for you after you left this morning. They said they couldn't reach you on your cell or room phone."

"Oh, I turned it off to avoid disturbances," Eric explained as he took the notepad, thanking her before heading back to his room with Drew.

"Eric, who called?" the girl leaned in to peek at the notepad in the elevator.

"The folks from Los Angeles, a bunch of old-timers," Eric replied nonchalantly.

Drew spotted names like Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, and Steve Ross, then rolled her eyes and diverted her gaze.

...

Once back in the room, Eric connected the telephone line and dialed the numbers on the notepad.

On the other end, as soon as the call was answered, Eric made a sympathetic face. "Mr. Murdoch? Sorry, I wasn't feeling well before and disconnected... No, no, it's alright... It's too early to say right now..."

Minutes later, after hanging up, Eric noticed the girl sprawled on the sofa, happily rolling around with a cushion.

He gestured at her to be quiet, making the motion of zipping his lips, and she immediately understood, nodding.

The trading team Eric had hired had already signed strict confidentiality agreements, and since they would earn massive commissions from this trade, there was no way they would leak details about its process. Jeffrey and his son were even less likely to share anything. Other than Drew, no one else knew the specifics of this trading situation. Though Eric trusted the girl not to spill anything, he nevertheless took the extra step to caution her so she didn't accidentally let something slip.

With Drew being as sharp as she was, Eric believed one gesture was all it would take for her to know what to do.

Having issued the warning, Eric dialed back to respond to the others. While many knew Eric had placed heavy bets in the futures market, no one knew whether he was betting up or down.

After all, due to months of rising crude oil prices, there were more speculators betting against the market than for it, since even with large troop deployments along the Iraq-Kuwait border, most still didn't believe a war would break out in the Middle East. Unfortunately, Saddam's actions caught many by surprise.

After spending some time returning calls, Eric returned to the sofa and turned on the TV, selecting NBC's news channel, which was currently live-broadcasting news from the Middle East. Drew snuggled up, grinning. "Eric, I bet you can't keep this under wraps."

"It's just delaying the news," Eric chuckled. "Those guys are all old foxes; they can't be kept in the dark."

The girl made a face. "So you just..."

"What if they got too excited and had a heart attack after hearing the news? When you think of it that way, I'm actually a really good guy," he joked.

She giggled. "I'm a good person too."

...

After five and a half hours of trading, at two-thirty in the afternoon, the crude oil futures price skyrocketed from 21.6 dollars at opening to 23.5 dollars, marking a staggering increase of 8.8%. That day, Eric's account profited by six hundred million dollars.

During dinner, Chris relayed the good news to Eric, but Eric noticed faint sadness on Chris's face. After asking, Chris revealed the truth. "A good friend of mine at Morgan Stanley called after the closing bell to check in on things here. I had consulted him about some information a while ago, and he knows I've been trading oil futures lately."

"Hmm?" Eric questioned, aware that Chris was just getting started.

"In the afternoon, a senior executive at Morgan Stanley embezzled twelve million dollars from headquarters to short the oil futures, using ten times leverage, and after the market closed..." Chris trailed off.

Eric fell silent as well. Chris collected himself and said, "Eric, I don't know how you made your judgments this time. I'll credit you with having absolute confidence, but please, please don't play like this anymore."

Eric nodded gravely. "I promise."

Chris stood and patted Eric on the shoulder. Just then, Drew burst in carrying a pile of shopping bags, exclaiming, "Eric! I walked past Fifth Avenue, and I saw someone jump! It was all so disgusting, and I heard there have already been several jumpers!"

After chattering on, Drew finally noticed that both men's faces had turned a shade darker and immediately stuck out her tongue, retreating into her own room.

Chris shook his head. "I don't like that girl. She's too capricious and cold-hearted."

Eric glanced toward Drew's room and replied, "If Drew hadn't connected me with Jeffrey, I wouldn't be here now, and there wouldn't have been Firefly either."

Chris seemed to know a lot about the past. He shrugged. "Fine, I'll pretend I didn't say anything."

"Come on, Chris. She's just a kid."

"She'll grow up," Chris shook his head again. "If you're not one hundred percent sure you can handle her, then it's better to let go sooner."

"I know," Eric smiled as he walked Chris to the elevator door before returning to his room.

...

Drew had now returned to the living room, cross-legged on the sofa, looking miffed. "I heard everything!"

Eric approached and pinched her cheek. "Did Chris say anything untrue about you?"

"Hmph," she pouted, twisting her head in an attempt to shake off Eric's hand.

"Chris had a colleague who jumped this afternoon. You just sounded so excited talking about it; did you expect him to say nice things about you?"

"But I just don't like him saying that about me. Eric, don't you think I'm... that kind of person too?"

Eric pulled her into an embrace, affectionately saying, "You're you, and never worry about what others say. You'll always be my little girl."

"Hmm," the girl replied, resting her chin on Eric's shoulder. "Eric, I love you."

"I know."

"When did you start loving me?"

"That's a bit complicated," Eric joked. "You see, you've gained weight lately, and I don't like chubby girls."

"No way!" she immediately protested, playfully hitting Eric's back. "I weigh myself every week, and I'm not gaining at all!"

Drew said, sitting astride Eric's knees and leaning back slightly, lifting the hem of her T-shirt to reveal her flat belly, and twisting it ostentatiously: "Hey, look."

"Well, little black girl," Eric teased again. It had been a month, and the girl's skin had become much whiter after being tanned on the Hawaiian beach, but the overall color was still not as white as before.

"Don't call me little black girl," the girl said angrily, bumping her head against Eric's chest.

"Okay, get up, let's go finish dinner, what do you want to eat tonight?"

"Hmm, let me think about it..."

...

By the time night fell, Eric had heard of at least ten more jump cases from traders losing everything due to today's spike in oil prices.

Although he wore a pleasant expression with Drew, he still felt quite impacted internally. The futures market was a betting arena; all contracts were bi-directional. If you bet up, someone had to bet against. The fact that Eric had earned six hundred million dollars today meant someone else lost just as much.

"Those guys got what they deserved. Who told them to go all in without leaving any escape routes?" Drew said, snuggling up beside Eric after her shower.

"I'm getting the feeling you're including me in that too."

"Not at all! We're the winners; the winners take all."

"Winners, huh!" Eric sighed, glancing at the well-thumbed Futures Guide lying in front of him. 

*****

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