UniteDead Kingdom

By Stuart Irving

Can you be a selfish misanthrope and still a survivor in a brutally violent new world?

It is Britain in the year 2030. Zan is an unstable, arrogant and successful trader in the City of London, fighting to suppress painful memories. Tragedy strikes when not only his success comes to an end but his very life is threatened by a darkness let loose on the world, a darkness caused by those who abandoned him. Now he must rediscover himself and prove to others just what he's capable of in order to get revenge ... or redemption.

Journey with him as he meets fellow survivors and formulates a plan to save both himself and his country. Along the way he discovers what happens to love, trust and the truth when you've lost everything. And when the end is nigh, can he confront his damaging past and still overcome the odds to save his and everyone's future ... ?

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 27, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456626624

Book preview

…

Chapter 2: Exit Interview

Some swirling colours, the sound of someone shouting. More shouting, quite close. Was he in school? Was he in trouble?

Wake up. Yoo-hoo! Wake up, Zan, you little piece of SHIT! It was a vaguely familiar voice from school, wasn’t it? He felt groggy.

He realised who it was and that he certainly wasn't in school. He felt it in his stomach, like he’d been recently punched. The appalling trading loss he’d suffered and the abject misery he'd just inflicted on himself and potentially everyone … these things were nauseatingly real. The room swirled into focus. He was in Ed's room. Ed; the man, the myth, the legend. The bank's glorious, notorious leader. He orchestrated his work-force from the room Zan now sat crumpled in. In front of the same mahogany desk he’d sat the previous year to get his bonus number. Probably the last time he felt truly happy.

Actually, scratch that, he thought. Not happy, that doesn’t quiet capture it … vilified. It felt great knowing I was simply … better. Better than others. Specifically, my colleagues and, let’s be honest here sports fans, better than my friends.

He became aware of a looming presence sitting on the edge of the desk. Zan looked up; it was Sir Ed himself. It was said that, when presented with a leaving card for a self-styled master-of-the-universe trader who’d quit for another firm, Ed wrote, 'Congratulations but … who the fuck are you?’ He was a white-haired gorilla in a tailored suit with the agreeable demeanour of Alan Sugar and the humility of Donald Trump. The only reason he kept Zan in such a high profile role was Zan's other-worldly ability to handle vast trade sizes; his ability to bet with the bank’s capital and not even blink. But not anymore. Ed's impatience with even the slightest mistake made it likely that a cluster-fuck like this wasn't going to be a smooth ride.

The room was deathly quiet whilst they stared each other down. Zan felt some composure returning. He sensed very quiet breathing a couple of metres behind him. Then silence continued, it crept up past a minute, but easily felt like an hour. Zan tried to swallow but his mouth was too dry.   

Has someone died? he wondered. It definitely feels like a death! Of what, my career? Clever boy! This may as well be its funeral. Zan groaned. No-one could mock him quite as expertly as himself. Perhaps Ed was about to put that to the test.

"OK, Zan, try not to look so … bug-eyed and strange. Relax. So … I’m glad you've decided to join us away from your desk, thanks for that, we have a few little items to discuss. Some little fucking bullet points on the agenda for today, as it were. First things first, I’m going to attempt to make this as pleasant as possible for you so I can find out what went wrong. Although, side note, don't mistake my pleasant demeanour for approval. And do understand I'm your friend for as long as you tell me the truth. In fact, your happiness and livelihood will depend very much on your answer to my next question. So think extremely carefully before answering. Extremely carefully."

He paused.

Are you in cahoots with anyone over these losses?

… uh, absolutely not, sir.

Are you lying to me? It's relatively easy for me to find out if you are.

Definitely not sir, I just took the—

Stop, no explanations are needed right now. That will come soon, but not yet. Again, I want you to listen to me very carefully.

OK, sir.

"So … let me make things crystal clear for you, ass-clown. This is the single worst day of the company’s history, Zan. I don't think you fully comprehend, or CAN fully comprehend, the gravity of what you've done today. Let me put it in perspective for you since it’s one of the many things people have lost these days - a sense of perspective. After all, giant fuck-off numbers don't really give this pickle we're in any justice. You young hot-shots are prone to forget this firm existed long before you started to ply your so-called trade. So here goes …

"We were founded by my great-great-GREAT-grand-father in 1883 with just one aim - to make healthy, consistent profits for our customers, investors, the founder and his family. We were different as a lender from the beginning, taking bold, but heavily considered bets. We bankrolled the war effort in 1914 - providing more capital to the UK government than the famous Rothschilds. We lent money to industries on their knees in the depths of The Great Depression, often in the face of total ridicule from our peers. But in the process, getting this country back on its feet and miraculously - according to some but not to us - turning a profit.

"This building you’re in … this venerable landmark that you drag your sorry ass to every day - suffered a direct hit from the German Luftwaffe in 1943, killing all but a dozen staff. We still opened for business the next day. The next FUCKING DAY, Zan. Some called us mercenaries, but we financed and bankrolled this great nation in its darkest days. Decades later we made profits in the Black Monday of ’87, the credit crunch of ’08 and the incineration of Argentina and The Great Panic of ’24. One by one, our peers crumbled to dust as we grew to be the most prestigious, respected firm in this City. This firm isn't just steeped in history. Time and time again this firm has fucking MADE it.

But this, Zan, mmm this … His voice trailed away and he looked out the window. This mess you have created is … juvenile. This isn't a grown man's mistake. This is a child let loose on his father's antique Ferrari with a FUCKING CLAW HAMMER. What you have done, fucko … what you have done, he cleared his throat and flared his nostrils, is to take something my family have lovingly built for one and a half centuries and fucking GANG-RAPED it! But apparently you did this ALL by yourself, like some sort of wizard!

He reached forward until Zan could see the veins in his temples throb and smell the coffee on his breath, But you are not a wizard are you Mr. McMaster? Silence. That’s right, I thought so. You are in fact just a dirty. Reckless. Amoral. Shit-hawk. And you will pay, you will FUCKING pay! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?!

Zan looked down at his shoes; Ed was now red-faced, towering over him, shaking with rage and spitting venom. Zan feared that the slightest provocation could escalate into violence. Years of physical atrophy whilst spearheading the bank would ordinarily make that contest reasonably one-sided in Zan's favour. But he recalled a magazine article about the recently deceased former martial star, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme had said something along the lines of, 'he could take any man on in a fight, except one he had wronged.' And here it was. Zan had wronged this man; gross sociopathic bully or not.

I can’t even say Ed’s response was melodramatic. I have destroyed something noble; something forged by decades of intelligence and cunning. Something meaningful. He felt nauseous again and lifted his heavy head so he could be face to face with Ed.

I've just started with this interview, Zan. Ed said. This is as pleasant as it gets for you from here on in. Let's look it at it another way… He paused and looked down to check the scrolling read-out hovering millimetres above the left sleeve of his suit. It was the firm-wide profit and loss number, refreshing every second.

Two hundred and forty-one billion pounds underwater, Zan. How are you going to swim out of that one you snivelling piece of shit?

But it was …

SHUT UP!! Ed screamed, his face inches away from Zan’s, his roar splitting the air and rattling his eardrums.

… ugh Zan groaned.

As I said, I will ask and you will answer, but that doesn’t include rhetorical questions. Now, who are you in cahoots with? Or are you claiming there’s such a thing as a solo-gang-rape?

No. What … no one, sir, I promise. Swear to God.

I'M GOD IN THIS FUCKING BANK! Ed screamed then smirked momentarily. How did you override the risk limits? We have the best operational risk system in this fucking city. Who are you working with? WHO ARE YOU FUCKING WORKING WITH?!

Zan paused to consider his options. He rapidly sifted through a number of alternative risky actions, ready to take the least unpalatable one. It can't get much worse than this, surely? he thought. He’d taken a humongous hit, he was about to get fired and his boss was accusing him of industrial espionage. I’ve had better days. He breathed in deeply. None that it really matters in the grand scheme of things - who's going to care in a hundred years?

He sat up in the chair and became more mindful of his surroundings to see a way out. His decade-long trader’s training was coming back. Battling the financial markets every day imbued him with needle sharp focus in the midst of most dramas, all so he could choose the best possible trade to make.

He noticed Ed, almost imperceptibly, nod a single time. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Ed's chief of security and personal minder shift slowly forward until he was just a metre to his right. The cold grip of fear started clutching Zan’s heart. He may well have brought down London's most prestigious investment bank, but this was the first sign of mortal danger. He felt blood pumping in his chest and a jagged, visceral fear for his safety.

Was he going to be physically harmed for creating this mess? Surely Ed can't be—

In that instant he felt big hard calloused fingers grab him round the throat, but from behind! Another one of Ed's thugs had been behind him all along and was now pressing hard on his windpipe. After just a couple of seconds of this Zan felt tears sting his eyes and pressure build as he tried to breathe. Panic started to engulf him and he battled to stay calm. From nowhere he remembered a documentary he'd watched on self-defence. With stars flashing in his vision and his remaining strength starting to fade Zan reached up to grab the thug’s pinkies …

STOP! shouted Ed.

The thug released his grip and stepped back behind him. Zan coughed and spluttered and looked behind at the smiling, shaven-headed ape and felt himself getting angry. But he couldn’t let it out, he just suddenly felt … very tired. He sat forward in his chair and put his head in his hands. Ed seemed to relax at that gesture and sat back on the edge of his desk in his time-honoured, statesman-like pose.

"OK look … Zan, I'll level with you. There are, eh, individuals you are unaware of … who you would never want to meet at the best of times. People who operate above politicians, police and the media. Real power, Zan, not like you with your high stakes trading or me running what used to be a highly regarded bank. Behind the scenes power, which is the greatest power, trust me. And who - there’s no kind way to put this - will want you dead for what’s happened today. Do you understand? Chopped up, remains burnt, no traces. And nothing in the media of course. Your disappearance and, suspected drug-dependency (he lifted a finger to shush Zan's imminent objection) will be a very convincing rumour. And then, like all titillating rumours, it will become the truth, as the actual truth dies without trace. A bit like you.

I’ve checked your psychological report Zan; Dr. Douglas is on record as saying you have schizophrenic and psychotic tendencies. Acute mood swings and paranoia. Delusions of grandeur. It would be a piece of piss to explain to detectives or journalists how you unravelled after what you’d done. Perhaps even to suggest the very real suicide risk you presented. Oh yes. You see Zan, everyone has a boss. Even me. It doesn't have to be an actual manager of course, just someone who you can’t contradict. I don't want to have to step aside and see you get killed, that would be eh … unethical … as the steward of this bank.

Hah. Zan spluttered a derisory laugh. He guessed that was the first time Ed had said the word 'unethical' about himself out loud.

Yes, yes, very good. Laugh it up. Shall we carry on discussing how to avoid your violent dismemberment? Thought so. You can avoid that grizzly outcome if you just tell me who you were working with. We’re not making a deal on your employment here, I am simply offering to save your life. After all, these … individuals … will also want to pursue your criminal friends for damages, both direct and indirect. That will take the heat off you. You could be painted as an ‘unwitting pawn’. Otherwise, make no mistake; this loss you have presided over will hit the news wires by early tomorrow morning, despite everything we can do to prevent that. It is now … five past four. The individuals want names from you by five pm London time. There is no other option, it is simple survival. Forget your career; that is already over in this bank and the whole of London. This bank is also finished unless you give us those fucking names right now. This firm has one chance of survival … and so do you.

Zan craned his neck to look out the window at the Japanese garden downstairs. The overdressed woman was still there but feeding the one solitary swan. It also wandered into view, thus far hidden by the window frame. It was a beautiful radiant white. But something didn't look right, something about the …

ZAN! Stop looking out the window, no one out there will help you now. Take this fucking pen and write down the fucking names NOW.

LOOK! said Zan, his face straining with exasperation. For god’s sake, I worked alone; I was simply trying to make me and every person working here a gigantic bonus. And, by the way, I know the internal systems here inside out. Just by overwriting a couple of lines of code I could leverage the bank’s capital by a factor of a thousand for a few hours. I’ve made these sorts of bets before. But no one could have imagined the markets moving as they do, you must know that! And sir, might I also say… Zan cleared his throat. If I was still trading I would go even more leveraged in those positions. There is a massive unnatural spread between those markets. You must see that!

Well, thankfully Zan, your trading is no longer a liability we have to put up with. Ed looked down to his left arm again and raised one eyebrow. But … I’m going to give you benefit of the doubt. The markets are actually starting to move back in our favour. I have already assigned a trading team on damage limitation, looks like that’s already paying off. The firm may yet survive this … episode as a going concern.

Zan looked down at his own number. His PnL was down one hundred and eighty-four billion pounds. And although that was still double the revenue the bank made in its record year, the clammy nauseous feeling that had gripped him since being summoned was actually receding. Was this the worst of it? he dared to dream. He swallowed loudly and sighed hard, shutting his eyes. Perhaps he would be OK. He exhaled slowly.

Well, Zan, said Ed, looking at his sleeve, Just over a hundred and seventy billion underwater. If this recovers to a hundred billion loss your life will probably be saved. None of your positions were closed out; there was no choice on that score. The markets would have found out for sure and all hell would break loose. However, there is no amount of recovery that will safeguard your job. You are still finished here. Even if this miraculously went to profit. He looked down at his sleeve and raised his eyebrows. Almost a smile appeared. You committed fraud and you still represent an unacceptably high level of operational risk here at this bank. I will accept your full resignation with immediate effect.

Zan opened and closed his mouth. He looked down at his loss of one hundred and forty-one billion. He swallowed hard again. Fuck this, it wasn’t fraud! Anyway, resignation would mean a pay-off, and my trading ideas could still work somewhere else. Or on my own, although starting my own firm would be a hassle. But fuck it, why not? I’m better than this place with its oppressive traditions and rules. Or I could get a golden handshake worth thirty or forty million in a West-End hedge fund. Maybe this was for the best.

He felt his shoulders relax and he let out a hiss of relief. What would my father say? Zan cast his mind back to the day his father left to start a new medical research facility in Switzerland, taking his big brother Colin with him. He remembered looking up from his bed, into the darkness of the hall, seeing his Dad’s unmistakable tall slim shape. He couldn't figure out if it was a dream; then Colin also moved into view, looked at Zan blankly, and walked down the stairs without a word. The effective end of a largely empty sibling relationship. Then his father said his last words to him for several years …

No matter what you do, son, be courageous. Goodbye, Zan.

Not knowing what he'd done wrong, but terrified of the words, a single tear had immediately fallen. He was frozen in his bed, not understanding, still hoping it was a nightmare. A minute later he plucked up the courage to give chase downstairs and out into the street, but all he could see in the road were red lights in the distance. Zan was fourteen years old.

He tried to live up to those words like they were branded on his soul but never felt he succeeded. The same old questions surfaced in times of stress, and on cue they popped into his mind. Why did his Dad really have to go in the middle of the night? Why take his twenty-one year old brother Colin with him? Why did his Mum let them both go without a fight or even a raised word? Years later, confronting his Mum, she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) shed any light on why. Zan sighed at the agonising memories and then looked up at Ed. He was whispering into his sleeve. He stopped whispering and addressed Zan.

The firm’s now seventy-six billion pounds underwater. We will continue to monitor the situation and unwind the positions gradually and carefully from here. If we end up in profit by the New York close you may get five per cent of the net profit. Consider that your farewell gift and never talk of this to anyone ever again. You’ll be back in this room if you do. Gather your shit, you’ll be escorted out. His voice was the calmest it had been since this ordeal began. He almost looked disappointed it had ended the way it had, the sick old fuck. Ed’s faithful and predictably buxom Hispanic secretary appeared at the table beside him, carrying a couple of sheets of paper and put them down beside Zan.

Sign those, Mr. McMaster. It will be your best course of action today. she said flatly. He looked up at her doll-like face and scowled. What, a fucking secretary is giving me career guidance today?! Fuck you. Now I’m definitely happy to be out. Scanning the pages it had the stark resignation spelt out, citing reasons of 'stress' and 'executive burn-out' and thanking the bank for its stewardship as he embarked on a 'well-earned career break'. The guarantee of five per cent on any remaining profits wasn’t there.

What about the five per cent you just promised?

Zan, you almost brought down the bank with your illegally leveraged positions. The only reason you’re not in cuffs or much, much worse is because your positions are now … he looked down … only forty-nine billion off-side. Also, it's clear from your miserable, fear-stricken face that you acted alone. A lot of the theatrics back then were just to make sure. I’m actually beginning to believe that it might end up the trade of the year. What a turn-around, you lucky little shit. But let’s face it; it was too much risk for the profit it might generate. And we're not in the business of making bank-busting bets to only make a few billion quid. So, Zan, you’re still out for good. The five percent is just a possibility; let’s see by tomorrow what mood I’m in. Right now it’s a foul one and will only get better once you sign your FUCKING RESIGNATION LETTER!

What is with this guy and shouting, Zan thought as he reached forward on the desk. He slowly bowed his head, reread the short contract, closed his eyes and signed. He shakily got to his feet, stood facing Ed as if to initiate a handshake, but saw the barely disguised disgust on his thin lips and thought better of it. He turned and walked in slow motion to the door, and onto a new life beyond.

Chapter 3: Back to School

Several months passed. Zan travelled, drank, played video games, went to archery club and tried to establish, once and for all, a new fitness regime. That failed when he realised, quite simply, he had nothing specific to get fit for. His plan to form his own trading firm crumbled for a similar reason; once he sat down and did the sums he lost the appetite for more risk and stress in his life. He'd worked for over a decade with little more than a week off and, despite squandering most of it, particularly in his time with Angela; the diligence of overpaying his mortgages had saved him. The champagne years were over but after he sold his two investment properties and paid down his debts it gave him the option to concentrate on quality of life. The five percent of his last day’s trading profit - which would have been sixty million pounds - never came. Let's face it, he thought, the money would have been good for my financial freedom but not so good for my state of mind. I didn’t expect to get it anyway. Maybe I should be thankful.

Predictably, Angela didn't take to the new low-powered, slothful Zan and high-tailed it for her next banking Alpha-male. He mourned her loss for nearly a month, then slowly but surely distracted himself with the search for a new girlfriend. As time marched on he thought less and less about her; once an hour became once a day, then once a week. He ended up missing her much less than he thought. Maybe the drama of my exit from the bank has killed my spirit for good, he thought, in one of his many days of reflection afterwards. Then as time passed, slowly and insidiously, reflection became isolation and then depression.

On one of his rare positive days, Zan got the urge to walk the streets of South-East London, hoping his next adventure would come to him. He didn’t have to wait that long. On an exceptionally hot summer’s day in July 2030 Zan nursed a coffee in the local Starbucks. The window read his unemployed status and science background, and flashed an advert only he could see …

"YOUR LOCAL SCHOOL NEEDS YOU.

As you are no doubt aware, tragedy has struck the local school maths department and we have lost three of our talented maths teaching team. We cannot let their passing prevent us from carrying on the educational needs of the school. We urgently need someone with a maths/science/engineering degree to help our local children pass their ULs (University Level exams). Salary starts at …"

The salary is shocking, Zan thought; about the same as my annual spend on booze and party powder in my trading days. But it would mean being productive and doing something good for a change. The idea of being intellectually challenged but not working from dawn to dusk had a novel appeal too. He typed the contact details on his sleeve and carried on his day.

Just a week later, after the excessive form-filling of the application, the first interview proved to be tougher than imagined. There were question marks on his commitment. And, according to the deputy head, the other candidates were fully qualified teachers with long track-records. They’d been flooded with candidates due to the emotional job advert and the media attention on the tragedy. But ultimately, the school committee couldn’t spurn the marketing opportunity of hiring the ex-head of derivative trading at the world’s most famous investment bank.

So, barely a month after seeing the advert, he found himself on a Sunday night in late August 2030 anxiously preparing his only formal clothing (which had doubled as his interview suit) for his first day of teaching. He looked at himself in the mirror and felt something he hadn't felt in a long time; at peace. He looked forward to passing on what he knew to eager young minds. He felt relieved at not having to do battle with the markets while colleagues screamed at each other. Most of all, he no longer felt haunted by the past, both immediate and distant.

Despite all the high-pressure moments he’d been through, Zan was somewhat daunted by the first morning of high-school. Not dissimilar to how pupils probably felt moving up from primary school, he reflected. They gave him a gentle start; three maths classes a day in the first term. Teaching proved to be unusually varied and immersive. Standing in front of rows of naïve, expectant young faces who hung on his every word was more rewarding - and at times tougher - than he expected. Along the way, there were pupils whose insight on the subject gave him some pause for thought. That was certainly the case on April 8th 2031, some seven months after he started: -

… so as I was saying, the idea of the normal distribution is quite simple. Much of life is random and unpredictable so the best we can do is to estimate things as having a likelihood. This likelihood has to be parameterised. By ‘parameterised’ I mean it has to have its elements defined, such as confidence level of the estimate and—

Sir, why don’t you just admit this is all bullshit? The voice came from the back of the class. Zan froze. For just a fraction of a second Zan had an acute sense of being exposed. It was a momentary disquieting feeling of having been called out as a fraud and the palpable sense that not only was it true, it was only a matter of time before EVERYONE FOUND OUT.

Who am I to be teaching them, he thought, when only a few months ago all I was doing was gambling disgusting amounts of money on the markets. I was heralded as the ‘New London Whale’ in the papers because of my trading size. Wasn't