Bandwidth Page 2

now, but it would always remember how to make money. It certainly

  wasn’t going to curl up or go fetal, not if Aaron Cannondale had anything to do with it.

  Aaron immediately got on the cell phone.

  “Lisa, any messages? Right ... uh, huh ... okay ... fuck him ... confirm it ... why? ... who? ... right ... I love it ... change it to the 14th ...

  can’t do that tonight ... right ...tell Nichols that I want him to follow

  up ... exactly ... turquoise.”

  Hayden hated cell phones. To him, they were one of the culprits

  responsible for the decline of the art of conversation. They encouraged a truncated form of the English language that left him feeling as

  malnourished as the emptiness that set in after polishing off a bag of

  Cheetos. He decided to get some reading done while Aaron was on

  the phone.

  Hayden opened a manila folder labeled “Speech Fodder” which

  contained articles that he regularly clipped from newspapers. They covered random topics: an article on the economics of semiconductors; another on AIDS research in Africa; an obituary of Charles K. Johnson, the founder of the Flat Earth Society; a history of the oyster in New York; a discussion on international tariffs; an interpretation of David Hume’s “An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding;” and some lines from Thomas Hobbes on the concept of commonwealth. There was no rhyme or reason to what he collected, he just

  knew that at some point he’d work it into a speech.

  One article from the Wall Street Journal caught his attention. It

  was about the Global Positioning System — the constellation of 24

  satellites that sit in geosynchronous orbit above the earth beaming

  radio signals to the U.S. military, shippers, truckers, hikers, and rental

  cars. The article pointed out that the signal coming from the satellites, which had to travel 11,000 miles, was so weak that by the time it

  arrived on earth, a single Christmas tree light was about 1,000 times

  as bright. The article went on to say that the signal could essentially

  be altered by anyone possessing a jamming device that they could get

  off of the Internet for $40.

  “A Christmas tree light,” Hayden mumbled to himself in amazement.

  “What’s that, my friend?” Aaron said, cupping the receiver of his

  cell phone.

  “Nothing. Just talking to myself, Aaron.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Rebecca’s is the kind of place where you pay $25 for an egg salad sandwich and a bottle of root beer. But to the inhabitants of Southampton, Long Island, it’s just their general store.

  Rebecca’s reminded Jack Braun of McMillan’s in Michigan’s

  Upper Peninsula because of the décor – spartan walls, fresh produce, homemade dills, tins of beans neatly stacked on pine shelves. Aside from the prices, everything else was pretty much the same - people coming in to pick up their daily newspapers, the owner’s daughter behind the counter, an American flag waving out front.

  Jack had fled Michigan a long time ago. He was Wall Street now. He had always yearned to leave the simple folk behind, somehow sensing there was more to life than eating Dinty Moore stew out of the can while ice fishing. When he got the math scholarship to Princeton, he took it, thanked his parents, and never looked back. And he never once made apologies for what he now had.

  Funny thing, jealousy. That’s what he sensed on the rare occasions when he went back to Michigan to check up on his parents. He had money, cars, a house in the Hamptons, a $6 million apartment in Manhattan, and a couple of horses that he raced, the sort of things that men and women back home only saw in movies or talked about derisively over cups of strong, black coffee in the diner. He was living the American Dream, but it wasn’t good enough for them. They still found a way to make him feel inadequate, to let him know that the secret to happiness wasn’t actually in attaining the things you wanted, but rather in the dreaming and the praying and the hoping that if you were good enough and God fearing enough, you’d find something special in your stocking one day.

  Bullshit. That’s what it was. Simple-minded, backwater bullshit. If there was one thing that he knew he had going for him that those cowards back at home didn’t, it was that he tried to limit the amount of time he spent dreaming. He preferred action. And as a telecom analyst in the mid-to-late 90s that’s what he got. When he started, they paid him $250,000 a year. At the height of the party, he was getting $10 million a year before bonus. They fired him after the telecom meltdown; said he was getting “too close” to the companies he followed. The real reason was that he was expensive, and that he had become too much of a poster child for an era that they wanted to put behind them.

  When they let him go, he took a year off to travel the world in his plane. Along the way, he picked up an assortment of 90s superheroes doing the same thing. In Norway, it was the former general counsel for an online property that provided answers to random questions posed by users. In Katmandu, he trekked with the former head of marketing for an online grocery company. He had a memorable dinner with the former head of sales for a clothing dot.com in Bangkok, and climbed part of Mt. Kilimanjaro with early investors in a company that delivered videos and snacks to your door. When he got to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, a place where he thought he could soak up the silence, he stumbled upon what felt like a summer camp for dot.com dropouts.

  His return to the States was lonely. Friends were gone or hiding in offline leper caves. That said, it all seemed prelude to him. Yes, he had gotten dinged like the rest of them, but he wasn’t staying down. He was now an analyst at Teestone Financial covering computer software and networking. His reports were gaining a following. He was good with words in a way that other analysts were not. That year back in college doing editorials for The Daily Princetonian had paid off. The ability to write was still a differentiator in an industry consumed with figures. Institutional holders bought and sold millions of dollars based on his remarks. The Wall Street Journal quoted him endlessly. Institutional Investor had just named him the top-rated analyst on the Street. He knew everybody, and they knew him. His reports were beginning to drive stocks up, finally. That gave people hope.

  Although Braun had been tainted, he was considered too smart, too relentless, too connected to be cast aside - a 90s Milken whom people couldn’t help but gravitate toward, regardless of past sins. Other analysts liked having Braun back in the saddle. He lent a certain gravitas to a market trying to right itself. Investors liked him because he was beginning to make money for them again. CNBC liked him because he gave them pithy quotes and reminded them of the good old days. His appearances were beginning to boost their ratings. People were in a forgiving mood.

  Even the Sartos who ran the diner back in Michigan had made contact again. His recommendations in the late 90s had lost them $20,000 of their hard-earned money. Guilt prompted him to cover them out of his own pocket. They went their separate ways, but only a month ago they had sent him a letter saying they saw an interview with him, had decided to invest in a couple of companies based on his comments and had made some money.

  The CEOs of the tech companies who hadn’t given up liked him because he stroked their egos and re-validated their visions. They, in turn, were beginning to throw their investment banking business to Teestone, albeit within the confines of the newly reinforced, so-called Chinese walls that were supposed to exist between the investment banking and analyst sides of the house.

  It was Braun’s Man in the Arena tenacity that had won over Aaron Cannondale. Aaron kept a copy of Teddy Roosevelt’s words in his pocket – “… the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause...”

  Aaron had run a
cross Braun back in the day. How had a former ski mask and beauty aid outfit transformed itself into a telecom company? Braun. How had a former wholesale fish company converted itself into a wireless player? Braun. The way Aaron saw it, he needed a guy like Braun to help him give flight to what he had in mind. So it wasn’t completely surprising that while Braun was standing there in line for a grilled cheese sandwich and a chocolate milk at Rebecca’s, his cell phone rang. He stepped out of line and made his way down one of the small aisles for more privacy.

  “Braun speaking.”

  “It’s Vaughn.”

  Terry Vaughn – the investment banking guru at Teestone, Friend of Cannondale, and arguably one the most connected guys on the Street.

  “Jack, did you catch Cannondale’s speech at the UN this week?” “Cannondale? He’s been out of the news for a while.” “We all have.”

  Braun grinned a knowing grin. “I didn’t hear the speech, no. What did he have to say?”

  “Same old digital divide crap. He called me the other day, Jack.” “And? He’s not getting into fiber optics, is he? It would be a bit late to go down that path.”

  “Not exactly. But he’s onto something.”

  “Like what?”

  “He’s not saying, entirely. I get the impression that he’s looking around.”

  “Interesting.”

  “It is. I know I don’t need to tell you this, Jack, but he’s one of the elephants.”

  “I know.”

  “We lose him, and … well … you can kiss more than just bonuses goodbye this year.”

  “I understand, Terry.”

  “It’s important to keep guys like him happy. Lord knows we could use the juice. The last couple of years haven’t exactly …”

  “Terry, I get it.”

  “I know you do. Come by on Thursday and I’ll fill you in on what I know.”

  “Done.”

  “Oh, and Jack.”

  “Yeah, Vaughn.”

  “That buy rating you put on Western Line.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Nice. They were very pleased.”

  “They should be. It was a gift.”

  “Talk to you, Jack.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Monique, Graham here. Listen, I’m on my mobile so I might lose you. Tell Alfred that I need that dossier finalized in a fortnight … What’s that? … Madrid? … Fine … but I need to get back to Brussels the following day … Who? Tell them it’ll have to wait until after my speech … Listen, I’m about to walk into the conference hall. I’ll have to call you back …”

  Sir Graham Eatwell stood taller than he had at any time during his career. He was in Paris for a technology conference. The big guns were there – the former head of Vivendi, senior executives from Bull, Hewlett Packard, Olivetti, Intel, and IBM. France’s minister of technology was present, as were his German and Dutch counterparts.

  As European Commissioner for Competition, Eatwell was one of the most powerful men in Europe. He could play God by deciding which mergers and acquisitions could go through – not just European companies, but global companies. He could also bust up cartels and throw his weight around when it came to providing aid to EU member countries.

  In the three years since Eatwell had joined the Commission, he had successfully grabbed turf from other commissioners in an effort to transform the role of Competition Tsar into something that had incisors. By all accounts, he had been successful. The rest of the world didn’t get the European Union. That much was clear. It didn’t understand what went on in the paneled backrooms of Brussels. A journalist once said of the European Commission that “if it had a sense of theater to match its mission, its members would gather for their meetings in a dimly lit medieval hall, clad Jedi-style in flowing robes, and accompanied by a light saber-wielding palace guard.”

  This was all fine to Eatwell. He kind of liked it that way. The world may not understand Europe, but it sure as hell was going to respect it, at least on his watch.

  He rose to the podium with characteristic poise. He liked the way his suit fell on his body. Cameras flashed. The conference host introduced him in French. He shook the gentleman’s hand, took off his watch and placed it on the side of his speech book to time himself. People clapped. He was popular. Few things were quite as gratifying as being the center of attention:

  “Mesdames et messieurs,” Eatwell said without accent. “Merci pour l’opportunité de m’adresser à vous. The economic state of Europe is sound.”

  (Applause)

  “The headlines of late depict a bruised Europe – a stumbling

  Europe.

  “We are experiencing a period of introspection about who we are and what it means to be European. The people of Europe are speaking, and the obedient bureaucrats of Brussels must listen. “But I hope our period of introspection is brief. I hope that as we emerge from our torpor, we gain strength from the array of successes that our European Union has wrought. “Europe has a single currency in its pocket for the first time since the florin or possibly even the denarius. We have expanded our membership to 27 countries. But we have not lost sight of the ideals that brave men like Monnet and Schumann put forward after the Second World War.”

  (Applause)

  “We should take pride in what we have accomplished. But we cannot rest. A new century is upon us - a century that will be driven, perhaps like no previous century — by technology and innovation. “

  (Applause)

  “We have proven to the world that by working together we can prevent war and bloodshed. We are a model for economic cooperation. We are a leader. You see it in our labs, in our companies, and in the marketplace. Mark my words, a day will come in the not too distant future when Europe will have its own Microsoft.”

  (Applause)

  Eatwell could feel the energy rising from somewhere within him. He was born to talk like this. He was tailor-made to stir a crowd.

  “… Take Europe’s global satellite positioning system, Galileo. Until now, we have been dependent on the GPS infrastructure that the American military put in place. And we have benefited. But soon, we will have a fully-functioning system of our own – a European system, built by Europeans for Europeans.”

  (Applause)

  Eatwell paused for effect. He was at a point in his career where he could say what he meant, not what he felt he had to say. He was laying it on the line – take it or leave it. He took the audience through a quick review of the EU’s technology budget. He pointed to areas of progress in various member states. He riffed a bit on how the Mediterranean was the cradle of Western Civilization, and how it once again was poised to teach the world.

  At the twenty-minute mark, the watch that he had placed on the podium made a low-pitched beep. He always tried to keep his speeches to 20 minutes. Anything more was gratuitous; anything less, incomplete.

  “These are important gatherings. But as we gather, let us keep one thing in mind. “We are a privileged people – privileged by the wear and tear of time to know our strengths and weaknesses. And when it comes to technology, we are far from weak. We are strong. We have choices. We can treat this conference as just another conference, or we can treat it as the start of something. For our collective sake, I hope we choose the latter.”

  “Thank you.”

  The crowd clapped. Several members of the audience stood, followed by more, and still more until the majority of the room was on its feet. Eatwell had connected. He had shamed them and then played the pride card. It always worked.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  More than 640 kilometers away in the small Dutch university town of Groningen, a twenty-nine-yearold graduate student named Peter Van Weert watched Eatwell’s speech on TV. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Peter didn’t like Eatwell, or his toff accent, but this Eurocrat had spoken the truth.

  Europe needed to get off its ass. Peter had tired of reading about young Americans his age with half his talent who had managed to cash in thei
r dot.com millions before things had gotten really ugly. Deep down, he knew the tech revolution would bounce back, and when it did, he wanted a piece of it – he wanted the buckets of money, the notoriety and the respect. His problem was that he was lazy. He didn’t like to work all that hard. And he preferred to let his ideas speak for themselves.

  Most of his ideas eddied around the subject of water. More than hash, more than sex, more than John Wayne westerns, Peter was consumed with water. It had always been a big deal to him. Growing up in the northern part of the Netherlands, it could not be avoided. When the warm winds of spring prevailed, his family would sail the choppy waters between Holland and Denmark. At other times they would visit friends in Hoorn, where they would rent a flat-bottomed Friesian boat for three or four days, wandering the calm waves of the Ijsselmeer – formerly the South Sea until a series of storms and floods forced the Dutch to build a 19-mile long dike that turned it into a fresh water lake.

  “I never really left the placenta,” Peter used to say in his undergrad days when he was feeling intoxicated by the power of H2O. His pals thought he was a bit odd. He couldn’t believe that a decade had gone by since then, but it had. The millennium had come and gone. He was now in year seven of his PhD. He had decided once and for all that it would be his final year. What he would do next, he hadn’t a clue, but he was somewhat confident that it would be related to an idea that had been swishing around in his head for some time. The Eurocrat’s speech brought it to the fore once again.

  Peter walked over to his stereo, turned on some Brahms and fired up his computer. He was restless. He had wanted to get away for a while, and started surfing the Web for cheap air fares to Rome. The Internet connection was painfully slow. After minutes of waiting for a page to load, Peter smacked his fist on the table, knocking over a glass of water. The water oozed across the uneven contour of the wooden desk top, rolling toward the lowest part of the plain. Hanging on a cork board on the wall just above the place where the water dripped off the table, hung a postcard of New York – an old one dated by the presence of the World Trade Center towers sticking out their chests.