Stern’s voice rose higher and higher as he went on and he was screaming again by the end.

“Mark, Mark! Settle down and listen for a moment, please. We’re trying to piece together the facts now, okay?” Stern grunted but hushed. Andretti was staring longingly at the empty Scotch bottle. “Now you’re telling us that someone at the SEC…someone you have planted there…found something you believe we were hiding from you. You must tell us what that bit of information might be before we can confirm or deny that we know anything about it. Sound fair enough, Mark?”

Stern, still steaming, bit off his words one at a time. “The Goldman woman. The one some stupid asshole tried to whack and shit in our nest in the process? Seems she didn’t take the Caribbean vacation we arranged for her after all.”

Smythe’s mouth popped open and he dropped his glasses onto the shattered table. “Of course she did. The other guy…what’s his name? He’s been here since the other day, rubber-stamping everything we put in front of him as you said he would.”

“That’s right,” Andretti confirmed. “We haven’t seen the Goldman bitch in several days and there’s no way she could get in here or into the Exchange without somebody seeing her and letting us know.”

“Well, I don’t know how the hell she did it but she managed to break into your system and she’s been traipsing all over your precious code.” There was a pause. Andretti stifled a belch. Smythe held his breath. “Guess what. She found where you bastards bypassed the short-sale rules.”

Smythe was stunned. Andretti was the first to squeal.

“What the hell are you talking about? We haven’t touched the short-sale module. They follow the Exchange business rules to the letter. You found where we played with the trade timing, but that was the only bogus stuff that we stuck in there. We figured that would be plenty enough to make us rich. We didn’t dare try anything else for fear of getting caught.”

“Well, someone sure as hell jiggered the system and they did a good job of it,” Stern yelled right back. “It had to be somebody inside, somebody greedy, somebody stupid enough to get caught, and that points at you two!”

Alan Smythe’s voice was surprisingly calm when he responded, “Mark, I can promise you it wasn’t us. You know what that means? That means somebody else was playing with the code. I’d wager they are the same ones who are putting the strong arm on Mr. Andretti and me.”

“What the hell are you saying?” Andretti asked.