Everything on the Street seemed so unnecessarily shaky, he thought, checking trend lines on stocks he considered good if stealthy bellwethers. That was one of the tricks, spotting trends and indicators before the others did. One of the tricks? Hell, the only trick. How he did it was surprisingly hard to teach. He supposed that it was the same in any field. Some people just did it, and he was one of them. Others tried to do the same by cheating, seeking out information in underhanded ways, or by falsely creating trends that they could then exploit. But that was…cheating, wasn't it? And what was the point of making money that way? Beating the others fairly and at their own game, that was the real art of trading, and at the end of the day what he liked to hear was the way others would come up and say, "You son of a bitch!" The tone of the comment made all the difference. There was no reason for the market to be so unsteady, he thought. People hadn't thought the things through, that was all.

The Hornets went off behind the first wave of Tomcats. Sanchez taxied his fighter to the starboard-side bow cat, feeling the towbar that formed part of his nosewheel gear slip into the proper slot on the shuttle. His heavily loaded fighter shuddered at full power as the deck crewmen gave the aircraft a last visual check. Satisfied, the catapult officer made the ready signal, and Sanchez fired off a salute and set his head back on the back of his ejection seat. A moment later, steam power flung him off the bow and into the air. The Hornet settled a bit, a feeling that was never entirely routine, and he climbed into the sky, retracting his landing gear and heading toward the rendezvous point, his wings heavy with fuel tanks and blue practice missiles.

They were trying to be clever, and almost succeeding, but "almost" didn't really count in this game. Satellite photos had revealed the presence of the three inbound surface groups. Sanchez would lead the Alpha Strike against the big one, eight ships, all tin cans. Two separated pairs of Tomcats would deal with the P-3S they had out; for the first time they'd hunt actively with their search radars instead of being under EMCOM. It would be a single rapier thrust—no, more the descending blow of a big and heavy club.