The First Billion

"Rudenev Ulitsa 99," Byrnes said, yanking a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet and handing it to the man. "And hurry!"

Five seconds later, the Lada was barreling down the center lane of the Novy Arbat. Byrnes looked over his shoulder out the back window. Late-evening traffic had already closed in around the car. For a moment, he was able to glimpse the parking lot in front of Metelitsa. A long line of cars was pulled up to the valet. Men and women ambled toward the entrance. He saw no sign of his newest friend.

"Rudenev. How long?"

The driver held up a finger. "One hour."

Byrnes sat lower in his seat, catching his breath.

He knew it had been a lousy idea to come to Russia.

2

The early-morning sky was dark, a low cloud cover threatening rain as John Gavallan backed his Mercedes 300 SL "Gullwing" from the garage of his home in Pacific Heights and accelerated down Broadway toward his office in the heart of San Francisco's Financial District. It was a short trip: eight minutes in good weather or foul. At 4 A.M., the streets were deserted. The night owls had gone to bed; the early birds were only just beginning to rise. A fat drop of rain plopped onto the windshield, and Gavallan shivered. A week into June and he'd barely seen the sun. He recalled Mark Twain's quote about the coldest winter he'd lived through being the summer he'd spent in San Francisco, and smiled thinly. Normally, the prospect of another dreary day would have soured his mood. Reared in the southernmost nib of the Rio Grande Valley as he was, his blood had been boiled thin by the Texas heat, his soul stone-bleached by the subtropical sun. This morning, though, the stormy skies suited him. What better companion to the acid drizzle corroding the lining of his gut?

Gavallan drove the Mercedes hard, shifting down through the gears, enjoying the engine's finely tuned growl, loving the communion of man and machine. He cracked the window an inch, and a blast of sea air freshened the car. Directly ahead lay the bay, and for a moment he lost himself in its blind expanse, wondering how much time had passed since so much had ridden on a single day's outcome. The answer came immediately. Eleven years and five months. It was the calendar against which he measured his life. There was before the Gulf War and after the Gulf War. And sinking deeper into the black bucket seats, he felt himself strapped inside the cockpit of his F-117 Nighthawk, the turbofan engine rumbling to life beneath him, G suit tight across the waist, hugging his legs and his back. He recalled, too, the shortness of breath beneath the confident smile, the tingling that had taken hold of his stomach as he gave the thumbs-up and taxied onto the runway for takeoff that first night.

A tingling not so different from the one he felt this morning.

Shaking off the memory, Gavallan drove his foot against the accelerator, taking the sports car to seventy miles an hour. The rain hardened and a gust sheeted the windshield with water. Blinded, he downshifted expertly, braking as he crested Russian Hill. "Instrument conditions," he whispered, eyes scanning dials and gauges. A moment later, the wipers cleared the screen. Off to his right loomed the Transamerica Tower, a pale triangular needle framed by a score of steel and concrete skyscrapers. The buildings were dark, except for random bands of light encircling their highest floors. He glanced at the mute forms a moment longer, feeling a kinship with those already at their desks. He'd always thought there was something daredevilish about starting the workday at four in the morning, something not completely sane. It had the whiff of tough duty that had always attracted him, the raised bar of an elite.

At age thirty-eight, John J. Gavallan, or "Jett" as he was known to friends and colleagues, was founder and chief executive of Black Jet Securities, an internationally active investment bank that employed twelve hundred persons in four countries around the globe. Black Jet was a full-service house, offering retail and institutional brokerage, corporate finance advice, and merger and acquisition services. But IPOs had been the ladder it had climbed to prominence. Initial public offerings. The company had made its fortune in the technology boom of the late nineties and, to Gavallan's dismay, it was still suffering a financial hangover from those halcyon days.

Nine years he'd been at it. Up at three, to work by four, finished twelve hours later, fourteen on a busy day. Once, the days had passed with astonishing rapidity. Success was an opiate and mornings bled into evenings in a hazy, frenetic rush. Lately, the clock had assumed a less benign stance. Time meant money, and every month that passed with revenue goals unmet was another inch cut from Black Jet's financial tether.