It was common knowledge in the high-stakes investment community that even the slightest delays in transfers could cost tens of millions of dollars, and funds transfers were often just as costly. When the alarms were given, some of the wealthiest Asians were astute enough to order their stored gold bullion to be carried to corporate jets whose pilots had been told to plan predawn flights to inland high ground located at least two thousand miles to the west. Others received calls, but deferred action until morning. By then, it was too late.

Over the years the creation of wealth had become an Asian obsession. As the supreme leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, put it before his death, “To be rich is glorious.” During the 1980s and 1990s, an Asian frenzy had developed to buy and sell the real estate in the coastal cities. In one transaction, which was not that extraordinary by Asian standards, a one-acre plot of land in Hong Kong sold for $2,000 per square foot, which translated to $88,000,000 per acre. James Wong had watched as property values in Japan had been bid to ridiculous heights, reaching a mind-boggling fifteen trillion dollars at one point. There was a time when the estimated market value of the land dedicated to the grounds of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo was higher than the sum total of the market value of all the property in the entire state of Florida. Any rational trader would have seen that this was an unreal market valuation that was bound to lead to chaos.

The valuation did not stop there, however. Japanese banks loaned money based on stratospheric land valuation. The market price of Japanese industrial stocks was bid up based on valuations of corporate land holdings. The major Japanese corporations began supporting the overall stock market valuations by buying one another’s stocks and bonds. A giant financial pyramid was erected that, in turn, rested on the value of land whose fate depended on the continued peacefulness of the ocean called by that name . . . Pacific.

Now, it’s no longer peace, but fury that’s roaring their way, James thought. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “The prospect of hanging concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully.” As another workday was about to begin in Asia, the minds of Asian leaders were riveted on how the California meteor would affect them. James doubted, however, that most of the leaders could fully comprehend that all the money, all the stocks, all the real estate in Asia would mean nothing, once the tsunami hit.

Chapter Ten

CHAPTER TEN