Hoshino turned to glance at the screen. On the curve representing the Thai Baht exchange rate, another bottomless downward gap had suddenly been smashed open.
"Leave it alone. Stick to the established strategy—hold the offshore positions and never let go. Even if the sky falls, no closing positions!" Hoshino barked the order.
The traders nodded heavily and sat back down, continuing to hammer at their keyboards like mad.
"The overall situation is settled." Nakayama Takuya rose to his feet, unhurriedly tugging at the hem of his shirt. Not a ripple stirred in his eyes. "The Bank of Thailand has played every card it had. Administrative intervention cannot change the objective fact that its funds are drying up. Right now, it is nothing but a shell barely clinging to its last breath on a ventilator."
Hoshino rose with him, his gaze fixed tightly on the glaring red figures on the large screen. His Adam's apple bobbed.
"Managing Director, what do we do next?"
"Wait." Nakayama Takuya walked to the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, hands in his trouser pockets as he looked down on Tokyo's gray, rain-soaked streets.
"Wait until they spend the last cent in their treasury. Wait until they despair and pull out the ventilator themselves, announcing to the world that they are abandoning the fixed exchange-rate system." Nakayama Takuya turned to Hoshino. "When that day comes, it will be time for us to draw in the nets across the board and feast our fill."
Hoshino nodded hard, feeling the blood in his entire body boil.
The clatter of keyboards in the trading room remained as dense as a sudden downpour.
The red and green figures on the screens refreshed wildly.
Everything was racing toward that fated ending, where blood would flow into rivers.
Returning from the trading room, as clamorous