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  Still, I needed to appease the intellectual part of my psyche. So I argued some more.

  “That’s a noble speech. You almost make it sound like what we’re doing is the right thing. But it’s not. How can it be? If we try and analyze what you just said, then your argument breaks down.”

  Mo smiled and nodded. “Go on.”

  “You’ve heard of Immanuel Kant?”

  Mo frowned at me. “I think so. German philosopher?”

  I nodded. “He had a test for whether an action is ethical or not. He called it the categorical imperative.”

  Mo lit a cigarette. She kept her eyes on the road and gestured for me to continue.

  “Kant said that you should imagine a world in which everyone else does what you’re about to do. If that imaginary world is reasonable and sustainable, then the action is ethically correct.”

  Mo shook her head. “I see where you’re taking this. No, I don’t think a world full of vigilante killers would be a reasonable or moral or acceptable place. It would be a sick, savage place with even more misery and injustice than there is now.”

  “Exactly.” I sat back and crossed my arms. I felt smug.

  “Don’t look so smug. The reason I said that is because there’s no way everyone else could have access to the resources we have for validating our targets.”

  “But I thought you said we were on our own. Two-person cells where the Alpha unit is connected to one other unit. The Gamma unit, or some shit like that.”

  “Omega.”

  “Whatever. So what validation does this super-top-secret Omega person do?”

  “It depends. It’s a two-way communication. My Omega gives me an initial reading on where to look. Or, if we identify potential targets, I pass that information back up. Then it gets passed through the relevant areas of the Network for validation.”

  “So what’s the validation?”

  “Three things. Number one is whether there is consensus amongst the Omega network as to whether the evidence is strong enough to ascertain guilt. Number two is that the group is reasonably sure that legal action would be useless.” Mo went quiet.

  “And number three?”

  “Number three is that we’re reasonably sure our targets are not already slated for elimination by a government agency. And please don’t ask me how we determine that.”

  I sighed. My head hurt. “So what now?”

  “Well, I need you at Walker-Midland for another week or so to finish up this scoping work. Then I’m moving you to another consulting project. An insurance company. There’s an opening on a project with the investment management division of a large mutual insurance company outside Chicago. All-American State Insurance is the company. I need you to get in there and follow the float.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Figure it out. You’re a consultant, after all. I’ve already told the client I’ll be sending out a float allocation expert next week. So you have a week to become an expert.”

  I swallowed hard. But I wasn’t surprised. This was what we did. We became experts. Once we figured out what kind of consultant a client needed, we did what it took to become that consultant. We read articles, studied industry reports, browsed chat forums where experts discussed their work, interviewed the handful of other consultants that actually were industry experts. We reinvented ourselves, driven by the fear of being found out and the guilt of the subtle deception. We often ended up justifying our billing rates simply because we were too paranoid about not being worthy of the obscene invoices that we delivered to clients.

  “Okay,” I said. “Sounds good.”

  Mo nodded. “Another thing.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll be on your own for the first couple of weeks. I need to finish up here at Walker-Midland before I can spend any time with you in Illinois.”

  “Okay. So what do I do in the meantime?”

  “Do your real job, of course: be a consultant.”

  “You know what I mean. The other . . . job.”

  “Lie low until I get there. For now, just follow the float.”

  NINE

  The float, it turned out, is a common insurance term. Float is where an insurance company makes its money. An insurer takes in money when we pay our premiums, and it gives out money when it has to pay claims. Competition between insurers is so strong that insurance prices usually settle at levels where they balance the money taken in as premiums with the money expected to be paid out as claims. In other words, an insurer can’t expect to charge a whole lot more in premiums than it expects to pay out over the long term. If it did, some other insurance company would have room to undercut its price and drive them out of business.

  So the real profit for All-American State Insurance came from the float. The float is the pile of money that an insurer holds on to until it has to pay it out in claims. As we all know, we pay premiums now in order to insure ourselves against future events. This means there is a time lag between when insurers take money in and when they have to pay it out. And, as they say, time is money. The insurers take this money and invest it—in stocks, bonds, and everything in between. And when you’re talking about billions of dollars of float over several years, the interest and other gains add up quite well.

  My job was to follow the float. See what All-American was investing in. Figure out what stank—from a legal standpoint for my consulting assignment, and from a moral standpoint for my other assignment.

  The consulting piece was actually pretty mundane. I was part of a small consulting team that had been asked to study the current allocation of float money and make sure it was in line with government regulations. Not an actual audit, but kind of a check to make sure things were in line for when the real auditors came in.

  The government regulations were pretty straightforward. In order to prevent an insurance company from making too many risky bets and perhaps not having enough cash to pay claims, the government simply said that a certain percentage of the float needs to be in cash, some needs to be in high-rated government bonds, and the rest can be in more risky securities like corporate bonds, stocks, real estate, hedge funds, and so on.

  The first week was nice. Really nice. The other consultants were a lot of fun—all junior consultants from the Chicago office. Fresh-faced and super-enthusiastic. Reminded me of the old days when I was a motivated and ambitious young consultant just out of business school and ready to climb the ladder and rule the world. The days before I started down the transformative path to self-righteous murderer.

  Our client contact was the chief investment officer, Mr. Wesley. He was a nervous sort, which is not necessarily a bad thing for a chief investment officer. You kind of want the guy managing the money to lie awake at night worrying about whether his investment decisions were the right ones. I liked Mr. Wesley. He was a bit jumpy, but he also made these little jokes. The jokes weren’t funny, but he giggled when he made them, and it’s hard not to smile when you see someone else break out into a genuine smile. I hoped I wouldn’t have to kill Mr. Wesley.

  The first week passed quickly and with no unpleasantness. We were in a distant suburb of Chicago, and all the consultants went out to Dave & Buster’s every night after work. We’d eat bar food and drink beer and play pool. Then we’d drive the quarter-mile to our hotel and have another couple of drinks at the lobby bar before stumbling into the elevators. Life was good.

  Then, on the Tuesday of the second week, Mo called, and I remembered that life wasn’t good. Life sucked. Life was hard. And it was going to get harder.

  “How’s it going, Frank?”

  “Okay.”

  “You turn up anything?”

  “Anything on what? The asset allocation study? It’s going well. These kids from the Chicago office are bright as hell. We’re going to be done on time and under budget. A couple more weeks, I think.”

  I heard Mo sigh over the phone. “Maybe we need to come up with a way to distinguish between what you’re doing
for C&C and what you’re doing for our assignment.”

  “You mean like a code word?”

  “Yes. But something simple. Something that no one would notice if they overheard us.”

  “Okay. Why don’t we just call it a mission?”

  “I don’t know. That sounds a bit too dramatic.”

  “Well, it is dramatic. We’re killing people.” I whispered the last sentence.

  “Don’t ever say that over the phone. I can’t believe I need to tell you this.”

  “Shit. Sorry.”

  “Anyway. It just sounds too weird to talk about a mission. People will wonder if they overhear us. So let’s keep it generic—when I’m talking about your consulting work for C&C, I’ll call it the job. And the other work will be the assignment.”

  “That’s it? Job versus assignment? How crafty.” I thought about it for a second. “Doesn’t it sound better the other way round? So the job is, you know, the job.”

  Mo sighed again. “No. We stick with what I said.”

  “What’s the big deal? Let’s just flip it.”

  “No. This is better. C&C pays you a salary, so what you do as a consultant is your job. As for the other work, well, I assign that to you. So it’s your assignment. Simple as that.”

  Now I sighed. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Sorry. The Network is kind of like the consulting world: not as glamorous once you’re inside.”

  “No shit. Anyway, so as far as my assignment goes, I don’t have anything. I don’t even know what to look for.”

  “I have a little more information. See if these guys are investing any of their float in one or more of these hedge funds: Charter Capital, The NationFirst Fund, or MacroResearch LLC.”

  “Okay.” I scribbled down the names. “I should be able to do that in the next few minutes. I’ll call you back.”

  I hung up and logged on to the read-only reporting section of the investment database. We had been given guest credentials to look at where the company was investing its float. I wasn’t worried about being called out for looking up this information. We were running hundreds of reports and analyses using the same user ID. What I was doing wasn’t unusual.

  Most hedge funds would fall under the riskier classes of investments: equities and alternative investments. I checked under both those sections, but turned up nothing. I shrugged and called Mo back.

  “Did you check the other investment categories?” she snapped. “Check the entire universe of their investment portfolios. It has to be in there somewhere.”

  I protested. I don’t like to be told I’m wrong. “Hedge funds wouldn’t be under any other category. That’s the whole point of the classification system. All-American isn’t investing in these hedge funds. Your lead is wrong.”

  “It’s not a lead. It’s concrete information. We know they are investing in these funds. I need you to figure out which investment professionals made these decisions. And to do that, you need to find the records of those investments.”

  “Fine. I’ll look through the other categories and see what I can find out.” I leaned back on the office chair and rubbed my forehead. I thought about Mr. Wesley, and I felt scared and sad. “What’s the big deal with these funds, anyway?”

  “I’ll make that part of your assignment. You figure out what the big deal about these funds is and who’s responsible for pumping All-American’s money into them.” Mo paused. “And then wrap up your assignment with those people.”

  “Okay. But you’ll be coming out here, right? I mean, you’ll be here for the, er, final presentation.” I felt ridiculous using such lame metaphors.

  “Nope. Sorry. I have to fly out to the West Coast to help sell a big new project. This one’s all you.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Of course I’m not kidding. Call me when you get the names of the people responsible. I’ll have them checked out, and then I’ll give you the final go-ahead.”

  The air conditioning was churning out freezing air, but perspiration gushed from my forehead. I ran my hand across my brow and drops fell onto my notepad and all over the desk. Then I felt a chill as the sweat rapidly evaporated from my skin. I sneezed just as the realization hit me. Mo never planned to be out here. This was my first solo assignment. My Assignment Zero.

  TEN

  I didn’t join the other consultants at Dave & Buster’s that evening. I just didn’t feel up to it. The past week had been relaxing and fun—not terms I’d normally use to describe the first week of a consulting job. When you first get to a project, you’re usually stressed out about impressing your clients and proving to them why your billing rate is so high. But I hadn’t been worried about impressing anyone. Maybe that’s why my client, Wesley, had been so impressed. Go figure.

  Anyway, that fun week was over. It was different now. Speaking with Mo had reminded me that my job wasn’t my only job. I also had an assignment. My Assignment Zero.

  And so I spent the evening doing research for the assignment. The three funds Mo had named were relatively easy to find. I had missed them earlier because I had only looked under the equity and alternative investments categories. It turned out they were included under the debt category. And not corporate debt, but sovereign debt. In other words, the three funds—Charter, NationFirst, and MacroResearch—didn’t invest in companies. They invested in countries.

  Still, I didn’t see what the big deal was. Securities of foreign countries were fine investments. Insurance companies put their float in those securities all the time. Sure, All-American could have bought directly from the central banks of each country and saved the management fee that these hedge funds were undoubtedly charging. Still, the funds were probably investing in a basket of various nations’ debt that was optimized based on their own proprietary research and models. That’s what hedge funds do. No big deal.

  I browsed to the websites of the hedge funds, but there wasn’t much to look at—just login screens for current investors and phone numbers for institutional sales. Fairly standard for hedge fund websites. Many hedge funds are run by a couple of people, and they don’t waste time building fancy web pages. I knew enough about the hedge fund business to know that neither the size of the fund nor the graphics on its website had any correlation to how well the fund performed. So, as I said, I didn’t see what the big deal was.

  But like any good dog that’s been asked to do something, I now had an assignment, and I wanted to do well. Mo had said I’d have to figure this one out. Which meant she knew that something was up with these funds, and she wanted to see if I could discern that myself. She was training me. Or just testing me again. Probably both.

  I sighed and picked up the desk phone. I was about to dial the number for Charter Capital, but then realized it would show up on their caller ID as an All-American corporate number. So I picked up my cell phone, typed in that code that lets you block your number from caller ID systems, and then dialed Charter Capital. I was half expecting a gruff man with a strange accent to answer, and was relieved when I heard a pleasant, Midwestern sounding woman.

  “Charter Capital Institutional Sales. What extension, please?”

  “Um, hi. I’m looking for some information on your fund.”

  “Thank you for calling. What company do you represent?”

  “None. I’m a private investor.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. We don’t take on individual clients. Our funds are only open to institutional investors.”

  “It’s okay. I’m a qualified investor.” I knew that hedge funds were only allowed to accept individuals who met certain qualifications: a net income or net worth above a certain level.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Have a nice day. Thank you for calling Charter Capital.” She hung up.

  I cursed at the phone. Then I tried the next fund—NationFirst—and got an almost identical response. I cursed again, and went downstairs to have a smoke. I watched the sun go down over the strip malls in the distance and breathed deeply as the nicotine
did its job. By the time I was done with the smoke, I had decided what to do next. Yes, I would lie.

  I went to my laptop and pulled up a domain purchasing site. After checking out the available names, I settled on smokeyhillscapital.com. It sounded generic enough for a fund-of-funds—a hedge fund that invests in other hedge funds instead of directly purchasing securities. The site cost $7.99 for a year’s worth of hosting space. In a few minutes I had put up a generic page using one of the web hosting provider’s HTML templates. I set up an e-mail address with the Smokey Hills domain name. All of this took less than fifteen minutes. I love capitalism.

  I dialed the number for the third fund on my list.

  “MacroResearch. May I help you?” What was it with these Midwestern women answering phones? I was in the Midwest, and it was late here, so their offices must be on the West Coast for them to still be open.

  “Yes. I’m a managing director at Smokey Hills Capital. We’re a three hundred million dollar fund-of-funds that’s just starting out.”

  “How may I help you?”

  “I’m interested in learning more about your fund. Is there a prospectus or some other literature that you can send me?”

  “I can connect you to our head of institutional sales. Whom may I say is calling?”

  “Um. John Smith.”

  “Okay, Mr. Smith. Before I transfer you, may I ask how you heard about us?”

  I was flustered. I wasn’t prepared for these questions. You’d think as a consultant I’d be a better bullshitter, but no. That’s probably why I was just a mediocre consultant.

  “From a friend who invests with MacroResearch.”

  “A friend? Sir, we don’t have any individual investors. Do you mean someone who invests on behalf of an institution?”

  “Yes, of course that’s what I meant.”

  “May I have the name of the institution?”

  Now I was stuck. Could I lie about this? I had no idea how many clients MacroResearch had. If the number was in the hundreds, I might get away with making up a company name. But this woman seemed to know at least some details. And her voice was already getting a bit stern.