＜ Shadow of Panic. (3) >
smart.
“Master, this is James. May I go inside?”
I woke up to the sound of knocking. I opened my pocket watch to check the time, and it had already been over 50 minutes since I spoke to the Navy’s Colonel Sampson.
I opened the door and James was waiting outside the door with a nervous expression on his face.
I beckoned to the room.
“Sorry, I kept you waiting. The call just ended.”
“No. Rather, I was worried that I might have disturbed you. Did you solve the problem better than that?”
“For what? Ah. Well done.”
I nodded my head shyly.
I asked Colonel Sampson if it was okay to carry a Wall Street Journal reporter on the USS main ship, and he was a little stunned when he got an unexpected response.
I scratched the back of my neck and recalled my conversation with Colonel Sampson.
– Is that all? Don’t worry, I’ll give you one or two reporters, or even 100 more rides to USS warships. Because the demands you gave us are much heavier. On the contrary, I’m sorry that I couldn’t listen to that.
– Then, are you blocking the entry of reporters from other newspapers?
– Of course. Their access is in the hands of our Navy (NAVY). If we give you permission, how the hell do they get on a warship? Easy daily.
Colonel Sampson’s loud laughter echoed through his mind.
Although the hopes of the discharged naval service members and the assistant secretary’s liking, they poured out praise rather than praise after that.
For me, I was relieved that only reporters from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) were allowed to enter the USS main ship.
‘I hope things will be solved this easily…’
But I didn’t slow down.
“I’m sorry, James, but I still have one more place to call.”
“Yes, call me. I will be working at my desk.”
“Thank you.”
Click-
I picked up the phone again and dialed Franklin Roosevelt. There was an important matter to discuss with him before starting work in earnest.
Torr….
‘The Groton School break isn’t over yet, so Frank will be in Hyde Park, New York.’
click.
When a response came over the receiver, I clasped my palms. Soon after, Frank’s voice came through the receiver.
– Morgan?
“Well? Frank, I hope you know I called.”
This is not the time to know the sender.
So when Frank quickly realized it was me, he was surprised and asked, followed by a brief uncomfortable silence over the receiver.
– I don’t have friends.
“Oh sorry.”
– Okay, what’s the purpose?
Frank’s question made me nervous inside.
In fact, before starting this job, I wanted to apologize to FDR, whose father is the vice president of the railroad company.
No matter how much money I could make by short selling this time, I didn’t want to proceed until I lost to the future four-term president. FDR is not a person who is pressed and pressed, and I could not even imagine World War II and the Great Depression without FDR.
“Is your father at home?”
– If it were my father, as soon as I told my friend that I was on the phone, he ran like a deukdal and was eavesdropping on the phone? I am about to shed even tears of emotion. Damn, I’m not teasing people.
“Frank, ask your father if he knows anything about railroad accounting fraud.”
– What? Fraudulent accounting? Wait a minute.
Suddenly, Roosevelt and his father whispered over the phone. I couldn’t even hear the conversation, but the atmosphere started off light at first and then got heavier.
click.
– Morgan, where did you hear about the accounting fraud of the railroad companies?
“The reporter is a secret. I can’t tell you that this is hedge fund policy. But, from what I’ve found, it’s quite large.”
In fact, $100 million in accounting fraud was not a ‘quite large’ amount, it was a huge amount, but I did not know what would happen if I let this go now, so I explained it carefully.
– therefore? I know it’s about accounting fraud, but what’s the exact purpose?
“This time, I thought about exposing the fraudulent accounting of railway companies and trust companies to the press and moving a hedge fund to raise profits through short selling. So I called.”
– Short sale… Wait a minute.
There was a moment of silence over the receiver.
Soon after, Roosevelt chatted with his father and picked up the receiver again.
– I think you just need to fulfill a few conditions.
“……really?”
– My father also took the crane off the filthy corruption at the railroad company, so he begs them to come to their senses.
“What are the conditions?”
– Can you expose the double ledgers of the Delaware-Hudson Railroad and the Southern Railroad?
“……!”
Frank spoke lightly, but understanding the meaning behind it, I put my tongue at the Roosevelt’s skill. Obviously, I was just telling you about accounting fraud, but the Roosevelt father and son were contemplating getting rid of the strife this time with a conversation that lasted less than three minutes.
‘Giving a double ledger would mean cutting out all the items unfavorable to the vice president’s own line with scissors, collecting only the double ledgers unfavorable to the company’s political opponents, and packing them tightly.’
Anyway, how the heck did the genes of the 4th term president get fed back? Because Suwan is not normal.
“OK. Any other conditions?”
– The S-class fund that my father and I invested in before, can you accept additional investment?
“Additional funds are always welcome. the amount?”
I asked lightly, and Roosevelt placed a heavy dollar on the scale over the handset.
– Five million dollars.
“Pooh-!”
I spit out the Coke I was drinking.
No, $5 million is not a dog’s name, and if there is a total of $20 million in the hedge fund’s S-class fund, you’re going to dump a quarter of that at once?
Are you sane?
“Crazy, if it’s $5 million, haven’t you been raking up all of your family’s available cash? Are you going to put it all in the S-Class fund?”
– It’s a win-win. Morgan. ‘If you’re going to do it properly’ is our family’s motto. no?
f*ck.
Roosevelt’s smile seemed to glimmer over the receiver. As if I said no, I felt the will to withdraw my message and wipe my mouth, so I waved the white flag first.
Well, if a $20 million fund is upgraded to a $25 million fund, it’s me.
“…a $5 million investment is good, but time is running out and you will have to deposit it quickly.”
– My father, are you already calling the family asset manager and depositing money?
No, what is action?
Didn’t you just hear about accounting fraud?
Then I heard Roosevelt’s voice.
– Morgan, your dad says he helps too, so if you need help, call me anytime. My father, from a Harvard Porcellian, has broad feet. break up
drop.
The phone is disconnected.
I put down the receiver with a blank face. Then James came up to me with a worried face.
“Master, what are you doing?”
“……”
James couldn’t hear him. Instead, the hairs all over his body stood erect at the fact that he had asked for Roosevelt’s consent.
Now was the real start.
‘I asked for Roosevelt’s pardon.’
Now there is no more to fuss about.
The steam locomotive’s vehicle, the coal to put in the furnace, and the passengers to board were all prepared. Now that the last brake is ready, as the head of the engine, all that remains is to light the full accelerator and run like a runaway locomotive.
I chewed my lips well.
“Let me call my father”
“……!”
last brake.
It attracts JP Morgan Bank to the rear.
I looked out the window at 23 Wall Street with tense eyes. Securing an exit strategy by attracting JP Morgan Bank.
And I, and the hedge fund, are at the forefront and run wild.
I smiled rigidly, mixed with tension.
‘We’ll run wild in front of you, so you need to support us from the back…’
Awkward-
When I squeezed my hand until it turned white in tension, I crushed the receiver. Drops of red blood dripped down the floor, but my heart started beating more and more.
I muttered with hard lips.
“……father.”
***
February 1898, Manhattan, New York.
23 Wall Street.
railroad board.
Executive directors of JP Morgan Bank, who had been dispatched to each railroad company, dressed in black suits and entered the executive meeting room of JP Morgan-Drexel Bank, 23 Wall Street.
Chic-
The head of the conference room, where the heavy silence subsided.
JP Morgan lit a match and burned an 8-inch Meridiana Cigar.
Whoo-
There was a strong snort and smoky cigarette smoke.
“I sent you as a director to revive the bankrupt railway companies, but you finally came back empty-handed.”
Despite J.P. Morgan’s mellow tone, the railroad directors kept their lips shut and slammed their heads down to the floor. The day you open your mouth, you die. They were acutely aware of how cruel JP Morgan was.
JP Morgan’s eyebrows twitched at the silence of the railroad directors.
“Why are there no answers?”
“……”
“Yeah, I also checked the quotes you guys put together. It’s nice to have a million dollars in revenue from debt restructuring of the railroads. That’s good.”
Woodduck-
JP Morgan crushed the paperwork he was holding with all his might.
“At the end of the day, it seems that all the railroad companies that we took over are thrown into the trash!!!”
bang-!
JP Morgan struck the oak desk with the palm of his hand.
The shoulders of the railroad directors trembled greatly.
“Did you know that I bought the railroad companies to get this one million dollars? Trust, trust! I wanted to build an exclusive trust, so I took over 20% of the railroads across America.”
“But what? Come back empty-handed? Do you have any conscience in your heart? no there won’t be If yes, write your resignation letter. Because I shouldn’t have come back!!!”
In response to JP Morgan’s decree, the faces of the railroad directors could not be darkened and became as white as corpses in a mortuary.
Cold complaints or notices of dismissal were already flying in their minds, or the desks disappeared with their titles the next day, passing one after another like a film winding.
“President.”
Then one of the railroad directors raised his hand.
The attention of the conference room was focused on it at once. JP Morgan fired the laser with blazing eyes.
James Hill.
The man who raised his hand enthusiastically was the only giant on the railroad board who completed the transcontinental railroad by integrating the railroad companies he had revived under the name of the Great Northern Railroad.
“Honestly, there is no answer.”
“…….What?”
Railroad directors gathered in the conference room, including JP Morgan, doubted their ears. JP Morgan chairman frowned and folded his arms.
However, Hill added the remarks in a resolute tone.
“The current situation in the railroad industry is so messed up. Just to list the issues that immediately come to mind, the secret relationship between the railroad companies and the state government, the dirty bribery relationship with each police agency, the railroad tracks built in different ways, and the serious accounting fraud caused by excessive price competition.”
Hill widened his eyes.
For many years, the audience was overwhelmed by his spirit, a strong bone in the railroad industry.
“There is absolutely no way to solve this in a normal way.”
“…..”
The conference room is frozen like Siberia.
J.P. Morgan burned his cigars silently for a while.
“So, can’t other railroads be able to revive like the Great Northern Railroad?”
“I’m sorry, but the biggest reason I was able to complete the Great Northern Railroad was because I had control of the company with a strong talent pool rather than voting rights. It has a different character.”
“Then, is it impossible to revive other railway companies even if I leave it to you?”
“Yes. The situation is even worse with railroads, where the Vanderbilts hold real power, like New York Central.”
“Hey, there’s no answer to this.”
JP Morgan was also aware of how serious the railroad company’s condition was. But hearing James Hill’s words, the situation seemed more serious than I had expected.
He put out the cigar he was burning.
“Let me rest for a while. I have something to think about on my own, so let’s all get out of the meeting room for a while to cool off.”
***
“It’s very bullshit.”
When the railroad board was suspended for a while and the railroad directors pulled out like a low tide, only Chairman Morgan and his personal assistant remained in the meeting room.
“Chairman, I think we have done everything we can as a commercial bank. The current situation in the railroad industry itself is very bad.”
“You are right. I’d like to give a compliment to the railroad directors who mined a million dollars from a rotten, rotten railroad company. But the original purpose isn’t something like a million dollars, isn’t it?”
The secretary added a remark to JP Morgan’s lamentable tone.
“The railroad tycoons of the old gilding era are drunk on the rusty glory of the past. As Director James Hill said, it does not seem possible to deal with it in a normal way.”
“I will.”
“Shock. We need an external shock that can shake up the internal structure of the railroad company. And while they’re unconscious, we have to rush in and clean up the rotten people.”
“It’s a shock…”
However, there should be no internal impact.
JP Morgan Bank is a kind of financial hub that controls the entire US economy beyond Wall Street. Morgan himself doesn’t know what spies are lurking inside.
A shock is the act of hooking and hitting without the other person’s knowledge.
It is meaningless only if the operation is exposed in advance.
It’s an external shock.
‘!’
In an instant, in JP Morgan’s mind, the image of James, who looked up accounting data at JP Morgan Bank and the Federal Railroad Association, flashed like a lightning bolt.
“The second?”
“Yes?”
“Didn’t the chief secretary, who was attached to the second one, go through the account data of railway companies? I remember when I told you to put a watch on it.”
“Oh, the Detroit master is watching you from the secretariat.”
“That’s right…”
smart
At that moment, an urgent knock on the conference room door broke the silence of the conference room. President Morgan and his secretary’s heads turned toward the door.
“someone?”
“Chairman, there is a phone call to your office.”
“Come in.”
“Excuse me.”
The secretary with a small notepad cautiously entered the conference room. He quickly walked over to President Morgan and handed him a note.
President Morgan quickly glanced at the memo he was handed over.
f*ck.
“They said that even a tiger would come when I said it. He’s a bad guy.”
“Yes?”
“A call from the second. Let me guide you to the office.”
“Yes!”
creak-
Chairman Morgan rose from his leather chair and raised the corners of his mouth.
＜ Shadow of Panic. (3) > end
