Termination Shock

Alastair and Rufus had staked out tables on opposite sides of the Money Car’s center aisle and were just taking it easy, gazing out the windows. Of the two, Alastair was drinking and seemed in a more sociable mood. Saskia sat down across from him.

“This might sound odd,” Alastair said, gazing quizzically into his Laphroaig, “but what is striking to me about all this is how cheap it is.”

“Yes,” Saskia answered, “that is a very odd thing for you to say, Alastair.”

“Did you see the sulfur pile?”

“Saw it, touched it, watched T.R. set fire to it. Well, part of it anyway. How did you know about it?”

Alastair peered at her. “You can see it from space.”

Saskia laughed. “That doesn’t impress me; you can read license plates from space!”

“Well, boat tours on Trinity Bay pass by it so that tourists can take selfies.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Can you guess how much it’s worth?”

“Some number that is surprisingly large or small. Please don’t make me guess.”

“Fifteen million dollars.”

“That’s all!?”

“That’s all.”

“You can buy that much sulfur for fifteen million dollars!?” Saskia was suddenly having to restrain an irrational urge to run out and buy a sulfur pile of her own.

“Not only that, but the price of sulfur on commodities markets has been going up during the last couple of years. So T.R. has probably made more, simply by owning that pile, than he could have made by investing fifteen million in an index fund.”

“It cost him nothing, you’re saying.”

“Less than nothing, in a manner of speaking. The pile sits on a property he inherited. Its value too appreciates over time. Last night he rented out a luxury hotel, of which he happens to be part owner. Today we ate barbecue at a truck stop he owns. Now we are in this beautiful railway carriage that he borrowed from a friend, being pulled across Texas by the cheapest form of long-range transportation that exists: a bloody freight train.”

“Granted. But you have to admit it’s extremely well staffed and organized.”

Alastair nodded. “That is indeed the big spend here. Almost none of these people actually works for T.R., of course. He has hired an event planning firm, a very good one.”

Saskia gazed down the length of the carriage. Bob had occupied a table at the other end for an impromptu catch-up with his entourage. A waiter was taking orders and a busboy was pouring water. Nearby was a man who was obviously security, just standing there, not gazing out the window, not checking his phone. An outgoing woman of about thirty was chatting with Fenna and Amelia, working in tour guide mode, explaining the history of this carriage, showing them old photographs. Of course it would be crazy for T.R. to have all these people on his permanent full-time staff. Of course it was a contract job.

“So what is your point, Alastair? That it’s all just smoke and mirrors?”

“Oh, no, on the contrary,” he returned. “The sulfur pile is as real as it gets. The tech he showed you—?”

“An experimental engine that burns sulfur.”

“Smoke then, but no mirrors,” he cracked.

“Sulfur dioxide actually.”

“What I’m really trying to say is that the man is really quite canny.” He pronounced the word as only a Scotsman could. “He spends where he needs to. That’s all.”

“That sounds like an endorsement, then.”

He recoiled slightly. “Of the whole program? Perhaps not. Not yet. But his overall conduct of the thing shows much more intelligence and sophistication than I was expecting when your staff first reached out to me about this, and I watched a lot of vintage T.R. McHooligan videos on YouTube.”

Rufus was seated across the aisle from them, arms folded, just gazing out the window. Alastair had glanced at him once or twice, as if offering to draw him into the conversation, but Rufus had paid him no heed. Finally now some little shift in Rufus’s body language signaled an opening.

“The land of your forebears?” Alastair asked.

“Hmm?”

“I downloaded a couple of books about the Comanches,” Alastair confessed.

Rufus shook his head. “Tough ol’ bastards.”

Alastair’s face relaxed slightly. Rufus had defused any social awkwardness that might have surrounded the Comanches’ well-documented practice of torturing captives to death.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Alastair agreed. “Anyway, according to the maps, we’re passing across the southern bit of Comancheria, am I right?”

Rufus looked at him. “We’ve been there the whole time.”

“I suppose that is true,” Alastair admitted, a little unsure. “Waco, the Brazos . . .”

“Nah, I mean in a larger sense.”

Alastair exchanged a bemused look with Saskia and said, “Do tell.”

Rufus had taken to rasping his stubbled chin between the thumb and index finger of one hand, as if limbering up his jaw for speech. He now used that hand to point, in a subtle, flicking way, down the length of the carriage. “That right there is a Comanche,” he said.