The First Billion

But a second look would give you pause. His gaze was direct, and when not combative, confrontational. His gait was compelling and hinted at tensions simmering within, some urgent, inner purpose. You would never, for example, stop him on the street to ask for directions. It was his hands, though, that gave him away. They were the hands of a brawler, large and callused, the knuckles swollen from long-ago fights. No Ivy Leaguer he, you might say, and take a step back. This one was hewn from rougher stock. This one had required polishing.

Even at this hour, the hallways were abuzz. The day's first conference call originated at four-thirty. Everyone present in the office at that hour- usually about sixty traders, analysts, and brokers- gathered in the company conference room to share earnings announcements, analysts' reports, and street gossip with branches in New York and London. Video cameras, color monitors, and microphones linked the participants, and for thirty minutes they hashed out anything that might boost a particular stock's price or knock it down. Information was the market's universal deity- rational, impartial, and above all merciless- and it was worshiped accordingly.

Inside his office, Gavallan turned on the light. A glance at his watch gave him ten minutes until the conference call began. Not bothering to unbutton his jacket, he sat at his desk and checked his E-mail. Seventy-four new messages had come in since yesterday evening. Hurriedly, his eyes scanned the flat panel screen. The usual brokerage recommendations: Buy Sanmina, hold Microsoft; so-and-so initiating coverage on Nortel. Delete. Delete. Delete. Notes from a few venture capitalists in the Valley. An invitation to a golf tournament in Vegas. "Don't think so," he muttered, hitting the delete key; he'd take his clubs out of storage when the world righted itself. A smattering of messages from his colleagues in the firm. He'd check these later.

"Byrnes, Byrnes, where are you, buddy?" He looked for Grafton Byrnes's handle but didn't see anything. "Damn it," he muttered, rocking in his chair.

He'd hardly slept, expecting his number two to call with an update on the trip to Moscow. At the least, he'd hoped for an E-mail. Finding nothing, he unlocked the top drawer of his desk and located a square slip of paper bearing the initials G.B. and a ten-digit number. He picked up the phone and dialed.

"Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. Good afternoon."

Gavallan snapped to attention. "Yes, good afternoon. I'd like to speak with one of your guests. Mr. Grafton Byrnes."

"One moment."

Where are you, my boy? he wondered, drumming his fingers impatiently on the desk. You're my ace in the hole. Pick up the goddamn phone and tell me everything's all right. Tell me I was a fool to worry and that we can put some champagne and caviar on ice for our European friends.

"Mr. Byrnes is not in the hotel."

"Very good," said Gavallan, though in fact he was curious as to why Byrnes hadn't finished his work yet. Drawing a manila file from his desk, he flipped open the cover. Inside lay the photographs- the reasons for Grafton Byrnes's last-minute trip.

The first showed the façade of a two-story building that could have been a warehouse or a manufacturing plant. A sign above the entry read "Mercury Broadband." The photo was captioned "Moscow Network Operations Mainstation." A second picture purported to show the building's interior: room after room packed with standard telephone switching equipment, circa 1950, gray rectangular dinosaurs sprouting black connector cables like unruly hair.

Founded in 1997, Mercury Broadband was the leading provider of high-speed Internet service in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, and the Czech Republic- an area that Gavallan, with his training as a Cold War jet jock, would forever think of as "the communist bloc." Through its network of coaxial cable, fixed wireless, and satellite relays, Mercury Broadband serviced over two million businesses and residential customers and had contracted rights to service an additional twenty-seven million. It also packaged and offered multimedia content and E-commerce in the form of Red Star, a multilingual portal similar to America Online that boasted over seven million subscribers.

But here was the good part: Not only had the company doubled its revenues each of the last three years, it had begun turning a profit as of third-quarter fiscal 2000. In six days, Black Jet Securities would take Mercury Broadband public on the New York Stock Exchange in an IPO set to raise two billion dollars. The seventy million in fees the deal generated was crucial to relieving Black Jet's worsening financial malaise. Every bit as important was the boost to the company's reputation a successful offering would bring. From regional mighty mite to international presence in one fell swoop.