"Yes?"
"Mr. Frederick Barnes?"
"Yes. Who are you?"
"My name's Louis Troy, Mr. Barnes. I'm with the Securities and Exchange Commission." He held out his identification.
Barnes raised a questioning eyebrow, but if he gave a guilty start Troy couldn't see it, and he was watching for it. This could be his only chance of ever catching this guy by surprise. If Barnes was as phony as Troy believed, he was very good at it.
"Come in, Mr. Troy," said Barnes, gesturing toward a leather couch running the length of one wall of his office. Troy glanced around quickly as he moved to take a seat. The furniture was very good, the best, but this was no showplace executive office, meant to impress or intimidate. There were several file cabinets; on one a television sat atop a stack of computer printouts. The desk was littered with piles of reports and prospectuses, newspaper clippings and magazines. A state-of-the-art workstation sat in a corner, with a screen saver of iridescent moiré patterns that Troy found annoyingly distracting. He wondered if Barnes had purposely placed him facing the terminal. Barnes sat on the couch with his back to the monitor.
Barnes was tall, slender, tan, very fit for a man in his late fifties. He was dressed well, in an off-white suit that complemented his dark hair with the silver temples. His eyes flicked over Troy with casual curiosity, taking in his portly frame and sparse hair, his wrinkled suit. If he formed a judgment, he kept it to himself.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Troy?" he said.
Troy sank into the couch and set his worn briefcase beside him. "I am a special investigator for the Commission, Mr. Barnes. I would like to ask you some questions in regard to your investments, if I may?"
"To what end? I was audited just last fall, and there was no mention of any irregularities."
"I'm not with Auditing, sir. My bureau investigates questionable or unusual market activity."
"Questionable? Are some of my transactions in question?"
"Not at all. Your audit was very satisfactory. We have no reason to think your finances are anything other than as you reported them to us and to the IRS. I assure you, Mr. Barnes, we do not believe you are breaking any laws."
"I'm glad to hear it. I've always gone out of my way to cooperate with the various government agencies."
"Yes, sir. You have always been very open and forthcoming. There are numerous references in your file to that."
"I think you people do a hell of a job," said Barnes with a level look. "I mean that. No one likes to be monitored and regulated, but it's a necessary precaution against fraud. The stakes in this game are high enough to tempt a lot of people to cheat. Trust alone is not enough in today's world - probably never was. Without regulation and oversight the market couldn't function. I have nothing to hide, so I don't mind the occasional audits. All part of doing business."
"Thank you, sir. I wish more people felt that way." Troy relaxed, glad to avoid the tension of a hostile interview for once. But Barnes could be playing on that, too. Troy had met a lot of very good con men, and he'd liked every one. They didn't rise to this level unless they had great personal charisma. The best could make you like them with nothing more than a smile or a charming inclination of the head. Even when you knew they were lying to you, you wanted to believe it was true, for their sake. They made you feel that if it weren't true, it should have been. He liked Barnes already, and that made him suspicious.
"No, Mr. Barnes," he said, "all your transactions are very correct and well-documented. That's what makes me wonder how you do it."
"How I do what, Mr. Troy?" said Barnes, with a patient smile.
"How have you been so successful? You are now worth over two billion dollars, Mr. Barnes."
The eyebrow rose again. "Is that a crime now?"
"No, sir, but it is unusual. And it's my job to investigate the unusual."
"I don't see that I'm all that unusual. There are many men wealthier than I in the market. I can name half a dozen in this city alone."
"But not like you, sir. Theirs is either old money accumulated over generations, or money they have produced themselves through some breakthrough business development. But you did neither. All you do is play the market."
"Yes, I've been very fortunate."
"You certainly have, Mr. Barnes. For every one of the last seven years your portfolio has grown more than twice as fast as the best of the mutual funds."
Barnes gave a dismissive wave. "Fund managers are a cautious lot, Mr. Troy. They have to be. They're betting with other people's money, and they lose their jobs if their fund drops in value. I use my own money and, frankly, I can afford to lose some now and then. Because of that, I am free to take chances with promising but untested startups. Some of them came through very well - so well that it more than made up for the losses."
"That is something of an understatement, Mr. Barnes. I have analyzed your portfolio's history. You invested heavily in eighty-six speculative new offerings in seven years. Seventy-nine of those returned over 200% on the initial investment within six months. Then you sell it and buy something else. Often the company declines soon after."
Barnes flashed his friendly, approving smile. "You've done your homework, Mr. Troy. I respect a man who comes prepared with the facts. You are correct, of course. I specialize in high-risk companies. That segment of the market is unstable; companies come and go quickly. I try to get in early, ride the initial wave, and kick out at the top. Some of them later go on the rocks, if I haven't overused the surfing metaphor. But not always. Many have continued to climb after I pulled out. I can't guess them all right."
"You guess most of them exactly right. In the past seven years you have turned an initial investment of eight thousand dollars into a multi-billion dollar fortune. Overall, Mr. Barnes, you have been incredibly successful."
Barnes chuckled. "There is no doubt I have had unusual success. But whether it is incredible, Mr. Troy, is for you to decide."
"What the Commission finds incredible, sir, is your uncannily consistent success. The only law you seem to be breaking is the law of probability. You shouldn't be able to roll a seven every time."
He laughed aloud. "I'm an investor, not a gambler, Mr. Troy. I am not rolling dice here." He gestured at his cluttered desk. "Like yourself, I do my homework. I too am an investigator. It is my business to investigate new companies, new technologies, new materials. I keep abreast of the research, I read the journals, I scan the international papers. When I see commercial potential and find someone trying to develop it, I help them to reach their goal. If they succeed, I profit. If not, we both lose. Usually I've been right. I could tell you it's all due to my superb judgment, but I won't. I have a great research staff, the best in the business. They deserve the credit."
"You didn't have a staff at all when you started. There's lots of smart people out there, all trying to do exactly what you're doing. The best ones can triple their money in the best year of their lives. Nobody makes four hundred and fifty percent seven years in a row."
Barnes shrugged good-naturedly. "My investments weren't all winners. I made some bad choices in there, too; companies that never did make anything. I lost my shirt on that manganese nodule business."
"That's true, and on six others as well. In between, nothing but wild success. I am a statistician by training. I have run numerous statistical models against your investment history, and I cannot approach your success rate. Even if you were somehow getting insider information, I couldn't see how you could be privy to the secrets of seventy-nine companies. There is more than luck and skill and good research involved here, Mr. Barnes. The laws of statistics insist upon it."
"What is your theory then? How do you think I do it?"
Troy hesitated, studying Barnes' expression. Then he apparently came to a decision. His voice, when he spoke again, trembled slightly.
"I believe that you must be able to travel through time."
Barnes stared at him for a long moment, but he didn't laugh. Troy felt a drop of sweat trickle down his chest. He resisted squirming under the other man's steady gaze, waiting to see what his reaction would be.
"Is this the official conclusion of the SEC?"
"No. It's mine alone."
Then Barnes did laugh. Troy felt his face go hot.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Troy, I'm not laughing at you. I was just imagining what Joe Pollard had to say when he heard your theory."
Troy was discomfited to hear his chairman's name used so informally. He hadn't known that Barnes and Pollard knew each other. But perhaps this was just another of Barnes' tricks to throw him off guard. He tried to regain his composure.
"Actually, I didn't mention my suspicions in my final report."
"I'm not surprised. It is a rather unorthodox theory, you must admit. At least in the august halls of the SEC."
"No, sir, the Commission isn't ready for time travel yet." They smiled at one another, and Troy again caught himself relaxing his guard. He didn't dare do that, not yet.
"You said your final report, Mr. Troy," said Barnes. "Does that mean the SEC has completed its investigation of me?"
"Yes, sir. I reported no evidence of any wrongdoing and my conclusion has been accepted."
For the first time, Barnes seemed nonplused. "I don't understand. If your investigation is complete, why are you here now?"
"To tell you the truth," said Troy, "I am here on my own initiative."
Barnes' steady gaze changed. He studied Troy as he sat there on the other end of the couch. It was as if he were evaluating him anew, as a man, not a bureaucrat.
"I see," he said. "Why?"
"To see if I can find out the truth. You see, time travel has always had a fascination for me, ever since I was a boy. I still read all the science fiction about time travel; I follow the scientific research that touches on the subject."
"So it's somewhat of a hobby for you then."
"I suppose you could call it that. I'm convinced that the development of time travel is within our potential. Not yet, certainly, but at some time in the future."
"But you don't believe anyone has discovered it yet?"
"No, sir. It is still well beyond our current understanding."
"Then how could I be using it to make my fortune?"
"Well..." Troy paused, suddenly reluctant to appear foolish in front of this self-assured, worldly man. "Sir, I think you are from the future."
Barnes laughed aloud, a deep and hearty laugh. His laugh was contagious, and Troy found himself smiling self-consciously.
"So you think I've come back from the future to plunder the market?"
"It is possible. You see, I figured that if man does somehow develop time travel in the future, we should already know about it because we should have met people who are visiting from the future."
"But we don't. Doesn't that disprove your theory?"
"Not necessarily. We can assume that visitors from the future would try to keep a low profile, to avoid paradoxes, not to mention panicking the natives."
"I see. So you think there may be visitors from the future among us right now."
"Yes. And I determined to try to detect them."
"How would you do that? You don't know what they would be like."
"I assumed that human nature wouldn't have changed much. Certain traits haven't changed in thousands of years."
"Such as?"
"Such as greed. People still seek personal gain. Given the opportunity, people will grab the money and run."
"Granted. But if the trait doesn't change, how does it help you identify these visitors?'"
"I reasoned that the safest and surest way for them to make money would be to play the stock market. The market has been very volatile for the last ten years. New companies are starting up all the time, in genetic engineering, information technology, telecommunications. A few people are becoming fabulously wealthy overnight. Fortunes are there to be made, more so than at any time since the days of the robber barons. I think that if there are such raiders from the future, they would come to this time. With their knowledge of which companies are going to succeed, they could make a fortune in a very short time."
"Like myself, you mean."
"Exactly. Do you know what a gopher is, Mr. Barnes?"
"I take it you don't mean the rodent. I believe it's some kind of a computer program."
"Yes, one with sufficient built-in intelligence to run without human intervention. You see, in addition to science fiction, I'm also a computer hobbyist. Almost ten years ago I developed a gopher. Its sole mission in life was to sift through mountains of market data, looking for investors who were consistently correct in the timing of their investments. I set it to burrow through the very extensive databases maintained by the SEC and the IRS. It ran for years, unseen and unknown, sifting data, compiling its own databases. Several times it surfaced to report a short list of suspects. But in each case they turned out to be statistical flukes. An investor would simply get lucky for a while and hit a string of successes. But each time their luck would run out and they would sink back into the statistical norm."
"You are most resourceful, Mr. Troy. I admire your diligence."
"Thank you, sir. It's been extremely challenging. Then, four years ago, the gopher brought me your name. Your trading history was extremely complex. Many of the transactions were executed by other entities, but deep in the records of each entity, it discovered your name again and again."
"I do participate in numerous legal entities, for tax purposes. It's all quite customary, and legal."
"Yes, sir, I know. The only unusual thing about you is your continual success. I have been monitoring your activities ever since, and you have remained consistent, well above any statistically reasonable average. The only way that is possible is if you know in advance what is going to happen. It defies any other explanation."
Barnes peered at Troy over steepled fingers. "You overestimate me, Mr. Troy. I have been extraordinarily successful, as you say, but I have had my failures as well. The manganese, that cold fusion fiasco, then the debacle with GSI in Silicon Valley..."
"Yes, seven very visible losses in seven years, each separated by eleven to thirteen months. Also statistically improbable."
"I see what you're getting at. You believe these were deliberate losses, just to throw off anyone sniffing about, like you."
"Yes, sir, I do."
"These were significant losses for me. Do you really think I invest in companies I know are going to fail? I lost millions in GSI's germanium semiconductor scam. I was taken in, like a lot of other investors."
"Yes, sir. But by then you were worth more than a billion. I submit that to a man like you, spending six million dollars to throw the Commission off your track would be a worthwhile investment."
"An interesting theory, Mr. Troy. But exactly why are you here? If I were from the future, would you expect me to admit it to you?"
"No, sir. You're much too careful for that. But I believe that I have proof."
Barnes' eyebrow rose again. "Proof that I am from the future?"
"Yes, sir. You see, I have finally turned up evidence that you have received insider information."
"Indeed? I would find that very unlikely. But you said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing."
"There isn't. That's why I didn't mention it in my report."
He blinked once. "You're losing me."
"I came across a man named Charles Whitaker. Does that name sound familiar, Mr. Barnes?"
"No. Should it?"
"He worked for GSI. He was the senior researcher on the germanium chips."
"Oh, yes. I think I remember reading his name in the coverage of the investigation. I never met him."
"No, he left the company before you invested in it. But I met him. I investigated that case for the Commission. As you remember, there were allegations of insider information being leaked."
"Nothing was ever confirmed, though."
"Not at the time, no. Whitaker left the company on bad terms. He had done the seminal work on germanium semiconductors. He linked up with some wealthy investors to found GSI and fund the commercial development. It all looked very promising. A very attractive startup, just the sort of thing you get into."
"The prospectus and the scientific analyses were very impressive," said Barnes. "I spent a lot of money researching the technology. My experts assured me it could succeed. That's why I invested so heavily even before the development was complete."
"Yes, sir. But by that time Whitaker had discovered that it would not work, at least not well enough for commercial application."
"He knew that then? Before GSI went public?"
"A week before the IPO. That's what he told me. The germanium effect could not be made to occur at ambient temperatures. Whitaker told the principals at once. They told him to shut up. They were already heavily out of pocket for the research and the brick and mortar of the lab. The talk on the street was that GSI stock would be very hot. They didn't want to take the loss by themselves."
Barnes nodded, his eyes never leaving Troy's face.
"They argued. Whitaker was overruled. Apparently it got ugly. He threatened to hold an independent press conference and announce his failure."
"Why didn't he? He could have saved me a lot of money."
"According to Whitaker, he was threatened. He claims that one of the officers of GSI spoke to him privately and made it clear that Whitaker's family wouldn't be safe if he talked. He wouldn't take that risk. He left the company but kept quiet. A week later they went public and the stock took off like a rocket. Six months later the whole scheme collapsed and all that money was out the window."
"What has all this to do with me, Mr. Troy, other than the fact that is was mostly my money flying out the window?"
"Whitaker is not a businessman, he's a researcher. Accordingly he is burdened with something you don't meet very often in the world of finance a conscience. He couldn't bear to think of all those investors throwing their money into a hopeless cause. He told only one other person what he knew, his neighbor and best friend, Barry Lopez."
Barnes did react to that name. "I know Lopez. He's a broker and analyst, one of the best. I use his services frequently."
"Yes, sir, I know. Whitaker told Lopez the germanium effect was useless. He told him so Lopez wouldn't recommend GSI to his clients. This put Lopez in a difficult legal and ethical position. He was now privy to insider information. Lopez searched his own conscience and decided that he had nothing to gain by speaking out. He would simply not recommend GSI to his clients."
"That seems perfectly correct."
"It is. But then a few days later, you came along and asked him to buy a very large number of shares of GSI."
"Barry knew this before I approached him?"
"Three days before."
"He must have felt that it violated professional confidence. Brokers walk a very fine line when it comes to insider information."
"Except that telling you not to invest would not constitute insider trading. He could simply recommend against it, without going into specifics."
"Then why didn't he tell me?"
Troy coughed nervously into his hand.
"But he did, Mr. Barnes."
Barnes' smile remained fixed, but his eyes went cool. He said nothing, waiting for Troy to go on.
"I talked to Lopez. He denied all knowledge of the affair at first. He said that he had discouraged investment in GSI, but not because of any information from Whitaker. He says he'd heard from other sources that the technology wasn't practical."
"So where does that leave us?"
"I'm afraid I was less than completely honest with Mr. Lopez. I was questioning him as part of the Commission's investigation of GSI. But I also knew of him through my personal research into your dealings. I took advantage of my official position to pressure Mr. Lopez into telling me about your purchase. You have no idea how the threat of an SEC investigation terrifies brokers. It's like the most intense IRS audit, with the threat of losing his license always hanging over his head. I was careful to leave any threats unspoken, of course, but his fear filled in the gaps. I'm afraid I was rather ruthless in my interrogation."
"I'm shocked, Mr. Troy. You don't seem the threatening type."
"I had spent years pursuing you, Mr. Barnes. This seemed like my only chance to pin something on you. In the end, after considerable hedging on his side and completely unauthorized promises of immunity on my part, he told me that he had told you all about Whitaker and GSI. You are his biggest client, he wanted to protect you, as well as impress you with his knowledge. He said you of course then withdrew your buy order. Imagine how surprised he was when it all blew up later and he found that you had gone ahead and bought GSI through another broker. Of course he couldn't say anything then without incriminating himself."
Troy sat forward then. He was excited now, nervous. Sweat beaded his upper lip. "You knew GSI was worthless, but you bought it anyway. Why did you do that, Mr. Barnes? That's what I came to ask you. Why would a man intentionally lose a great deal of money, unless he knew he could always make it back, because he knew exactly what each stock was going to do?"
Barnes stared straight ahead, unseeing. Troy sat, tense and motionless, on the edge of the couch, watching his face. Twice Barnes opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Finally he gave a shy, embarrassed grin.
"I can't imagine," he said.
Troy let out his breath with a gasp, sinking back into the couch.
Barnes sighed. "GSI was perfect for my needs. Impeccable prospectus, exactly the sort of thing I go for. And doomed to go up in a flash of publicity that would make it clear that the great Frederick Barnes could still make big mistakes.
"I couldn't have been more surprised when Barry told me about Whitaker. I had no way of knowing that Lopez knew about it. The link between them never came out in the investigation. How was I to know they even knew each other? Neighbors, of all things. I had to withdraw my order, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I gave it to a broker in Zurich, through a whole screen of shadow companies."
Troy was beaming, his round face shining with excitement. "You did a good job, sir. It took my gopher months to trace it."
"You're good, Troy. Very good."
"Thank you, sir. Coming from you, that means a lot to me."
Barnes shook his head ruefully. "Such a tiny mistake. What were the chances anyone would discover it? Only a computer hacker with a fixation on science fiction and high security access to the SEC files could have found it."
"I was rather lucky myself," said Troy deprecatingly. "I was in the right place at the right time." He looked up at Barnes shyly. "More than can be said for you, sir, if you take my meaning."
Barnes gave a wry smile. "Meaning I'm not in the right time. You are quite right, of course." He shrugged. "So now that you've found me, what do you intend to do with me? Turn me in?"
"For what? The only insider trading I can prove is GSI, and there's no law against using insider information to lose money."
"So what do you want, Mr. Troy?"
Troy hunched over close beside Barnes.
"I want in, Mr. Barnes."
"You want me to give you information about how companies will perform?"
"No, no. The money doesn't matter to me. I want in on the time travel."
"Oh, I see."
"Is it possible? Could you take me with you?"
"There are strict regulations against it."
Troy was ready for this. He gave a conspiratorial wink. "I suspect, Mr. Barnes, that in your time there are strict regulations against doing what you've been doing."
Barnes laughed at that. "You're no fool, Troy. Of course there are."
"So you've been breaking the law and getting away with it for a long time."
"Yes."
"Could you get away with taking me back with you?"
Barnes considered for a few moments. "It would be difficult. New people do not suddenly appear in my world. I would have to create an identity for you, a place for you to fit. It would take some time and considerable money."
"If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Barnes, you have unlimited amounts of both."
"So I do, Mr. Troy, so I do." He gave his infectious laugh again.
"I even believe that I know enough about you to think that you would enjoy the challenge of taking me along with you."
"I might at that," he chuckled. He held out his hand. "All right. You have a deal, Mr. Troy."
Troy gave a whoop of excitement as he shook Barnes' hand. "Please, call me Louis."
"Just call me Barnes."
"When are you from, exactly?"
"Twenty-twenty-three."
"Oh."
"You're disappointed?"
"Well, I was hoping you could tell me about the wonders of the far future. You know, space travel and such."
"Sorry. My world's not all that different from yours. No ray guns, no starships. It would be like you going back to the sixties. Clothes and cars would be different, but it's the same world. You'd blend right in."
"I suppose so. Sometimes I don't feel like I blend into my own world."
Barnes considered him. "I know what you mean. In my own time I'm an ordinary man, completely unremarkable. Here I'm a billionaire. I'm happier now than I ever was in my own time. But being a time traveler can be a lonely business. You have this incredible secret that you can't share with another person. And you have this God-like knowledge of the future. It's fun, but it's also dangerous. It's so easy to slip up and mention something that hasn't happened yet. You have to be careful every minute. And because you know things they don't, it's all too easy to start thinking that you're superior to the people native to this time line. But as you've proven, they're just as smart. So maybe it'll be good to have a partner, someone I can talk to. The more I think about it, the more I like it."
Barnes gave his infectious laugh again. Troy looked at him in surprise. Barnes threw his arm around Troy's broad shoulders.
"Louie," he said, "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
copyright 1996 by Brian K. Crawford