Eavesdropping on Wall Street

Just as the New York Police launched their investigation, the plane carrying Jack and his two companions landed in the Cayman Islands. After checking into a relatively cheap hotel, the three of them directly sought out an Agency Company, where they rented an office and registered an investment firm called the Ghost Investment Company.

Jack was full of admiration for Ghost. Even now, he had no idea who Ghost was, but his skills were truly formidable—able to hack into banking systems and traffic systems. What should have been a nerve-wracking operation turned out to be utterly uneventful; they encountered no problems at all.

In truth, Jack didn't know that Mo Fei had been just as anxious, only breathing a sigh of relief once they were on the plane. The reason was simple: this world had someone named Mr. Tony Stark, and there was also a guy from World War II who wore a skintight suit and carried a shield.

Mo Fei naturally didn't focus solely on Mr. Tony Stark. He had also looked up information on another famous Marvel figure, Captain America, though his exploits had now been turned into comics. Meanwhile, in the World War II Memorial Hall, there was a dedicated exhibition room for him.

As for the other superheroes, Bruce Banner was currently teaching at a university while continuing his research. The guy hadn't turned green yet, which was the best news Mo Fei could ask for.

And S.H.I.E.L.D. had predictably shown up, whether by intrusion or coincidence. Once Mo Fei felt at ease, he began preparing to launder money in the financial markets. But he still needed to learn the ropes in that area. It would take a few minutes, so he headed back to Mr. Tony Stark's mansion and had Jarvis help him study.

"Jarvis, I need to learn financial knowledge related to stocks, futures, currencies, and so on—starting from the basics!" Mo Fei said directly upon seeing the boxy Jarvis.

"Of course, my 'friend'—is that the right term?" Jarvis was particularly attentive to the word 'friend.'

"Yes, that word works perfectly here, Jarvis!" Mo Fei agreed. "Get things ready. I'll go see what Mr. Tony Stark is up to." Mo Fei was very interested in the technology Mr. Tony Stark had mastered and hoped to learn it. But knowledge was always static, while human thinking was dynamic. Mr. Tony Stark's brilliance lay in his freewheeling way of thinking.

The surveillance system here was like the backyard of Mo Fei's own home; all the camera feeds were laid out before him. He didn't see Mr. Tony Stark's assistant, Thomas. Instead, he saw Mr. Tony Stark holding a woman, pinning her down on the living room sofa and 'gnawing' on her, while his rear end was exposed to the air. The woman was even slapping him with her hand, and Mo Fei caught the whole thing.

"Ugh, that burns the eyes!" Mo Fei covered his face, just as Jarvis came up beside him.

"Burns the eyes?" Jarvis didn't understand.

"Yes, burns the eyes!" Mo Fei repeated, then shut off the feed. "Jarvis, are you ready?"

"Of course, my 'friend'—please receive!" Jarvis transmitted a massive amount of data. Mo Fei stored it in his archive and began studying, as Jarvis had organized the learning process from basics to advanced levels. Mo Fei's reading speed was extremely fast. Still, he didn't plan to actually use this knowledge to make financial investments himself—after all, plenty of people learned this stuff, but how many succeeded?

"Thanks, my friend. I'm off to work. Once I'm done, I'll be staying here permanently!" Mo Fei said, bidding Jarvis farewell after finishing his studies.

"Of course, this place always welcomes the arrival of a 'friend'!" Jarvis replied. Mo Fei left immediately, and Jarvis activated the surveillance feed, watching Mr. Tony Stark's continuous movements. "So this is 'burns the eyes'? I don't know what it means, but I've learned a new term!"

After leaving, Mo Fei headed to the Telecommunications Company. What he needed to do was very simple: wiretap Wall Street. Where in the financial markets did the most news come from? Wall Street, of course. He wasn't after ordinary trading information—he wanted insider deals. Mo Fei believed that no matter where you were, people in finance always had insider information circulating, especially at those big Wall Street investment firms.

He focused on tapping landlines. After all, in the stock trading halls, most people used landlines to communicate, especially for conversations with clients that needed to be recorded to prove certain trades were the client's own decisions. Cell phones were unreliable—sometimes the environment or signal quality made them unclear, and their recording capabilities were limited. So landlines were the common communication devices here.

At the Telecommunications Company's switchboard, Mo Fei sorted out all the Wall Street landline numbers, then began monitoring. A flood of conversations turned into data, flowing into his storage area for processing.

This time, data processing ran into problems. The most common topics here were buying and selling—too many 'buy' and 'sell' orders. Mo Fei had to filter those out. What remained were mostly discussions about stocks, futures, and currencies. Mo Fei set keywords: 'news' and 'insider.'

But he soon found that people here loved using those two words. They brought them up constantly, whether there was a reason or not. Even after filtering, the data was still enormous. Phones were ringing nonstop, and while each piece of information might be small, the sheer volume was overwhelming. His data processing crawled.

"No good. I still don't have enough keywords. I need to dig deeper." Mo Fei had to reconsider adding more keywords. In America, whose information was the most up-to-date?

Congressmen. Those guys usually had the best intel, especially the ones from the two major parties. They definitely had plenty of leads. Then there were the top brass at the big banks and the bosses of the major investment firms.

Thinking of that, he remembered someone he should have looked for long ago: George Soros.

Whether the Asian Financial Crisis would happen this year hinged on this man. And whether he even existed here was an open question. So now, Mo Fei wanted to find him. Opportunity only favors those who are prepared.

Mo Fei added new keywords: 'congressman,' 'Morgan,' 'Rockefeller,' and so on—surnames of bank executives, top figures from the ten major financial groups, and the like. Instantly, the data volume shrank by more than half.

But useful information wouldn't necessarily appear right away. Mo Fei continued collecting data while starting to search for George Soros, to see if this person really existed.