By Joe Wallace

Copyright wsj

TANGLEY, England—Steve Schwarzman once said his business philosophy was to seek war. The Wall Street billionaire may have met his match in the chalk hills of southern England.

One morning in early September, refrigeration consultant Lawrence Leask woke before 3 a.m., got into his car in pajamas and slippers and waited. It wasn’t long before he spotted his quarry, a water tanker passing through this rural parish. Leask tailed it to the town of Andover to learn where it would eventually unload thousands of gallons of water.