October 16, 2001, Manhattan, New York.
Seok-won, dressed in a navy bespoke suit, entered the trading floor together with his executive secretary, Han Jiseong.
Beyond the wall of floor-to-ceiling glass that filled one entire side, the skyline of Brooklyn stretched out across the river. With only thirty minutes remaining until the market opened, the trading floor was already brimming with hurried movement.
As he moved deeper inside, Seok-won watched the traders busily checking developments that had unfolded overnight in the Asian and European markets.
At that moment, Andrew—who had been conferring with Dan Baradan, the senior investment chief, their heads close together and expressions grave—noticed him first and greeted him.
"Have you arrived?"
Seok-won gave a slight nod and stepped closer before asking,
"How's the pre-market mood?"
Andrew replied, his face slightly stiffened.
"In Genoa, Italy, a mailed package containing white powder was discovered, resulting in five people being hospitalized. And at Canterbury Cathedral in the United Kingdom, an Arab man broke into the underground chapel, scattered white powder, and fled. Hundreds were evacuated, and the cathedral has been closed. It seems the fear of terrorism has intensified even further."
Dan, who once again had his dress shirt sleeves rolled up to show off his thick forearms, added a comment from beside him.
"As Asian and European markets are both showing weakness, all three major index futures are currently in the red."
Seok-won lifted his head and looked toward the large market display board mounted on the opposite wall as he spoke.
"We've cleared out all the short positions, right?"
Andrew immediately nodded in response.
"We've wrapped up everything in Japan and Hong Kong, and in New York, there's only about one billion dollars' worth of positions left. If we finish short covering today, we should be able to complete the liquidation."
"That's good. Then let's finish everything during the morning session."
As fear of terrorism continued to spread, the stock market kept drifting downward, which left him with a sense of regret. But with most of the positions already unwound, there was no turning back now.
"Yes."
"Understood."
At that moment, as if something had happened, a ripple of agitation spread across the trading floor. Mason hurried over and delivered the breaking news in an urgent voice.
"Breaking news just came in! A letter containing white powder was delivered to the Senate Majority Leader's office, and the entire U.S. Capitol has been completely shut down!"
"What?!"
"Good grief. This just keeps getting worse."
Andrew and Dan could not hide their shock at the news that even the Capitol—one of the nation's core facilities—had been targeted by an anthrax attack.
The memory of the previous 9/11 attacks resurfaced, when hijacked aircraft had struck the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon, and had even attempted to attack the White House, amplifying their sense of unease.
"To have something like this happen right before the market opens… At this rate, today's stock market is bound to be shaken severely."
Andrew turned to him with a stiff expression and spoke.
Dan, too, had his face set rigidly, as if he were expecting all three major indices to plunge sharply.
Yet Seok-won, even amid the tense atmosphere, did not lose his composure and spoke in a calm, even tone.
"Who knows? We'll find out soon enough."
"…?"
While everyone else was predicting a crash, Seok-won remained relaxed.
The two of them could not help but click their tongues at how utterly unshaken he seemed, even in the face of such severe bad news.
Seok-won checked the watch on his wrist, then looked at Andrew and Dan as he spoke.
"The market will be opening shortly. Once we finish liquidating all the short positions, immediately start buying the stocks listed on the sheet I gave you last time and rebuild the portfolio."
His attitude suggested that the anthrax panic spreading through the market did not concern him in the slightest.
The two wondered if this was really all right, but for now, they complied with his instructions without protest.
"Understood."
"We'll do as you say."
At that moment, one of the traders raised a finger high and shouted.
"One minute to the open!"
Dan adjusted the headset hanging around his neck, placing it squarely over his head, and scanned the monitors on his desk with a tense expression.
In the pre-market, all three major indices were in the red, and the trading windows were filled to the brim with sell orders, as if screaming in panic over the anthrax terror.
Moistening his dry lips with his tongue, Dan straightened his posture and looked toward the large television mounted on one wall.
Right on cue, breaking news footage showed the Capitol building in Washington. Emergency response personnel, their bodies completely sealed in stark white protective suits, were hurrying into the building, which had been placed under an urgent lockdown.
Dan frowned slightly and glanced back.
But Seok-won, standing with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets, remained utterly calm, showing no change in expression whatsoever.
'Switching from short covering to an aggressive long position when a sudden bad news has hit, and downside pressure is mounting. His nerve really is something else.'
Dan muttered to himself inwardly and steeled his resolve.
Andrew, standing beside him with his arms crossed, also kept his mouth tightly shut, looking visibly tense.
Moments later, the opening bell rang. At the same time, the traders who filled the trading floor began placing orders all at once, and trading commenced.
"Buy forty thousand shares of Dell at market!"
"Intel! Twenty-five—no, twenty-four fifty-nine—buy twenty thousand!"
"AMD at 10.40, done!"
"Thirty-two dollars? Are you kidding me right now? I won't buy unless it's 31.20."
"Applied Materials—position fully filled!"
"Secure sixty thousand more shares of Dell!"
Unlike the Eldorado Fund traders, who were relentlessly pressing forward with buy orders, the market itself was plunging the moment it opened, with all three major indices down more than three percent.
Dan rubbed his rough jaw—unshaven since the morning—and watched the situation with a grave expression.
At that moment, Mason, who had been seated in front of him, twisted around in his chair and spoke.
"All short covering is complete."
Dan nodded and shifted his gaze toward him.
Then Seok-won issued his next instruction in a voice that was not loud, but perfectly clear.
"Keep buying."
Dan hesitated for a brief moment, then grabbed the microphone attached to his headset and spoke.
"Everyone, buy the listed quantities for each stock written on the new sheets being handed out."
The traders, who had just finished short covering and were catching their breath, looked bewildered at the instruction to keep buying amid the escalating fear of an anthrax attack.
"Yes?"
"You really want us to continue?"
Meanwhile, the junior staff tore open the sealed document envelopes and hurried around, arms full of stacks of prepared papers, distributing them everywhere.
"Here you go!"
Mason picked up the document a junior had placed on his desk and left behind, and his eyes widened as he read what was written on it.
[ExxonMobil (XOM) : 1,000,000,000 shares]
"What the hell is this?"
Considering that international oil prices had surged due to the impact of the Afghanistan offensive, pushing ExxonMobil's share price to fluctuate around thirty-five dollars per share, the amount required to buy up that stock alone came to a staggering thirty-five billion dollars.
No matter how enormous the profits they had made through short selling, pouring such a massive sum into a single stock—especially while the market itself was in decline—was something that defied common sense.
What was even more shocking was that each trader had been given orders to accumulate different stocks, ranging from hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars per name.
"Buying one billion dollars' worth of Amazon stock… You're sure this isn't a case of someone putting the decimal point in the wrong place?"
The junior sitting beside him asked, as if unable to believe what he was seeing.
Mason turned around with a flustered expression, then caught sight of Seok-won standing there calmly, as if nothing at all were out of the ordinary despite issuing such an outrageous command. Without realizing it, Mason let out a hollow laugh.
"Ha."
Just how far ahead was the boss seeing?
The sheer audacity of it all sent a shiver through him—this was the kind of boldness no ordinary person like himself could ever hope to match.
Looking at the still-bewildered junior, Mason gave a wry smile.
"This isn't kids fooling around. There's no way there'd be a typo."
"No, but it's still a billion dollars."
"You said you were disappointed last time that you couldn't get in on a big investment, right?"
"Ah, yes."
"Well, maybe today you'll finally get your wish—so keep your head on straight."
The junior, still not quite grasping what he meant, tilted his head in confusion.
"Right now, the boss is trying to flip the entire market on its head."
"!"
Mason's eyes glittered with excitement.
"Doesn't it click when you see him finishing all the short positions and then immediately sweeping up stocks on this massive scale?"
"B-but no matter how powerful the boss is, overturning the entire market—not just one stock—has to be impossible, doesn't it?"
Mason broke into a crooked grin, flashing his white teeth.
"Of course it won't be easy. But this isn't just anyone—we're talking about the boss."
On Mason's face, having watched everything Seok-won had accomplished so far, there was an unmistakable air of firm conviction.
He looked at the junior, who still wore an expression of disbelief, and lightly tapped the documents lying on the desk with his finger.
"Just look at how much money the boss is about to pour into the market. No matter how huge the New York stock market is, if you shove in this much capital all at once, you don't think the market will get shaken?"
The junior glanced once at the documents in his hand and swallowed hard.
"…Well, with this kind of money, it would have some kind of impact on the market, at least."
His voice trembled slightly, as if he, too, were sensing something.
"So don't stand around looking lost—hurry up and buy the stocks you've been assigned. If you drag your feet and miss the timing, and the index jumps, you'll just end up buying at a higher price."
"Ah. Yes."
Startled by Mason's remark, the junior took a sharp breath. The moment he checked Amazon's share price, he immediately reached out and picked up the handset.
"...."
Mason glanced once more at Seok-won standing behind him and murmured in an excited voice,
"Trying to turn around a collapsing stock market all by himself. If this bet succeeds, another Wall Street legend will be born."
A thrilling surge of adrenaline erupted, coursing through his entire body.
Straightening his posture, Mason quickly began firing off buy orders one after another.
Like a small stone thrown into a pond, sending out massive ripples across the calm surface, the huge wave of buy orders pouring out of the Eldorado Fund roughly seized the plunging market by the scruff of its neck—a market that had been spiralling downward as fear spread rapidly amid economic slowdown and the threat of bioterrorism.
***
As the Capitol was shut down over fears of a bioterror attack, Wall Street traders—still haunted by memories of 9/11—scrambled to reduce their positions, like rats fleeing a sinking ship in the middle of a storm.
"Bank One! Sell at market!"
"You said it was twelve dollars twenty cents just a moment ago—damn it! Sell it at that price if you have to!"
With the sense of crisis mounting that the stock market might be shut down again due to an anthrax attack, just as before, everyone, without exception, became frantic, dumping stocks and rushing to convert their investments into cash.
Lachman, a senior trader at Lehman Brothers, was no different. Holding the phone with both hands, he was so busy firing off sell orders in a desperate attempt to shrink his positions as quickly as possible that his head was spinning.
"Twenty-four forty-five?"
Frowning deeply, Lachman glanced at the stock chart on his monitor, watching the losses widen by the second, and shouted hurriedly,
"Fine—sell five thousand shares of Intel at that price!"
As soon as the trade was executed, Lachman set the handset down, let out a long breath, and loosened his tie.
"Did you finish unwinding your positions?"
"Almost done now. What about you?"
"I just sold everything. Damn it! I'd finally clawed my way back to break-even, and now this puts me back in the red again."
Dietz, seated next to him, vented his frustration, his face looking as if it had aged ten years in the span of moments.
"Who would've thought anthrax powder would end up being delivered to the Capitol of all places?"
Either way, there was no time to hesitate.
Just as Lachman picked the handset back up to dump the rest of his remaining positions, Dietz's voice suddenly came from beside him.
"Huh? What's going on?"
With the handset still pressed to his ear, Lachman turned around. Dietz, wearing an equally baffled expression, was pointing at the large market display board.
"Look at this. The index is going up."
"What are you talking about?"
Lachman clicked his tongue and lifted his head.
And sure enough, the market board—which until just moments ago had been a sea of red, drenched in blood—was rapidly switching to green, one by one.
"…What the hell? What's driving stocks up?"
Lachman muttered blankly, too stunned to form a proper thought.
That was when Dietz's eyes flew wide open and he shouted,
"Holy shit! The Eldorado Fund is scooping up stocks like crazy!"
The Eldorado Fund again?
"Just how much are they buying for prices to jump like this?"
Frowning deeply, Lachman checked the trading window.
It was as if money were being poured in without limit. The sell orders that had been filling the screen were being executed and disappearing at breakneck speed.
The moment a sell order appeared, it practically evaporated.
The two stared at each other, mouths agape, disbelief written all over their faces.
"This is insane."