Bombardiers

The bombardiers in Po Bronson's novel are bond salespeople at the firm of Atlantic Pacific, grunts who wake up at 4 a.m. to hustle financial products they barely understand. They work the phones, shout the morning line, sacrifice their personal lives, and push themselves to the physical limit to meet their quotas. They are soldiers of an economic superpower, ragtag troops staking the front line of American corporate influence. The reluctant hero of Bombardiers is Sidney Geeder, King of Mortgages, who dreams of cashing in his lucrative company stock and quitting his job. The only one who can replace him is Eggs Igino, a rebellious boy wonder who refuses to be seduced by the money or intimidated by management threats. When Eggs Igino mysteriously disappears, Sid is caught in the ensuing havoc and eventually is forced to choose between his promised pay-out and his long-anticipated freedom. Sid and Eggs are joined in the trenches by an unforgettable group of salespeople: Lisa Lisa, a woman tough enough to call Alan Greenspan a peckerhead but incapable of keeping a lover; Nickel Sansome, a bald company man who couldn't sell mittens in a snowstorm; and Coyote Jack, the sales manager so overwhelmed by corporate ambition that he forces his traders to sell more bonds than they can handle. As the deals swirl, faster and riskier and bigger, the transactions become increasingly bizarre: shifting around the debt of failed savings and loans, financing investment in bankrupt Eastern European nations, and, finally, arranging a corporate takeover of certain assets in the Dominican Republic (in this case, the entire country). Set at the nexus of pure capitalism, the Information Economy, and high technology, Bombardiers will change the way you think about modern business.