The Global Put

"The Global Put" is a fictional thriller that weaves a tale of high-stakes financial intrigue, espionage, and revenge, inspired by the mystery of a vanished airplane. The story begins with the discovery of a plane flaperon on a remote island 508 days after Flight PA370 disappears on March 8, 2014, carrying 239 souls, including engineers with valuable tech secrets. Shadowy operative Theodore Alexander Cornelius Oakley (TACO) and his son-in-law, hedge fund manager Victor Hale, orchestrate a massive billion-dollar put option betting on the collapse of Peninsular Air's stock, anticipating a catastrophic "incident." However, at Argent Bank, compliance officer Chunmun Singh detects the suspicious trade through the bank's AI system, flags it as malicious, and blocks its settlement, thwarting the payout even as the plane's fate unfolds in the Southern Indian Ocean.
As the blocked trade expires amid global media frenzy over the missing flight, Victor is left ruined and fleeing creditors, eventually arrested as a scapegoat. TACO, enraged by the failure and exposure of his covert network, seeks vengeance on Chunmun, who loses his dream visa and career prospects due to blacklisting. Years later, Chunmun uncovers that TACO has stolen and weaponized his algorithmic code for new schemes, including sabotaging global infrastructure for profit.
Relocating to a Nordic bank, Chunmun turns the tables by open-sourcing a detection tool that exposes and aborts TACO's latest plot targeting undersea cables, escalating their digital war. In the climax, TACO launches psychological and cyber attacks on Chunmun, haunting his life and attempting to destroy his new employer's systems during a blackout. Chunmun captures a fragment of TACO's code, revealing his arctic bunker location.
The novella concludes with an open account, as Chunmun, now the hunter, prepares for a final reckoning against the man who turned his genius into a tool for chaos, emphasizing themes of integrity, the permanence of digital trails, and the unseen storms beneath global events.