The Sealed Letter
Mealtime had grown far warmer than it had been at the start.
Martin tipped his wineglass and said, “My daughter, you know, has been wildly popular with the boys in the neighborhood since she was little. Back in high school, she got as many as eighty invitations to the dance.”
“Dad!”
Caroline’s face reddened as she set down her fork. “That’s an exaggeration. It wasn’t eighty—it was seventy-seven.”
“No, it was definitely eighty. This father counted them himself.”
“Counted them? Honestly, what are you even talking about… sigh.” Caroline covered her face with both hands.
I smiled faintly.
A father who never tired of bragging about his daughter, and a daughter who was embarrassed but secretly pleased by it.
Spread across the table was a Texas-style dinner.
The main course was brisket.
Prepared in the old Central Texas way, it had been smoked for more than twelve hours over Post Oak, and the thick cross-sections showed a vivid pink smoke ring.
The meat was so tender that the slightest press of a finger made it fall apart along the grain, and the moment I bit into it, rich juices burst out with an appetite-whetting scent of oak smoke.
On one side of the large platter sat sliced white onions, dill pickles, jalapeños, and oranges, with coleslaw, baked beans, and cornbread slicked generously with butter lined up beside them.
It was the true Central Texas dry rub approach—seasoned only with coarse black pepper and kosher salt.
It was a world apart from the Kansas City style, which smothered the meat under layer upon layer of sweet tomato sauce until the flavor of the beef itself was buried beneath it.
“There’s always debate about where the best barbecue in Houston is,” Martin said, lifting a piece of brisket with his fork. “But the real good stuff is what you make yourself at home. I smoked this one in the backyard pit myself, starting last night.”
Caroline jumped in. “Dad never lets anyone else handle barbecue, Boss. He gets up at four in the morning to light the fire, then goes out every two hours to check the temperature and—”
“If a Texas man hands brisket over to somebody else, then that makes no sense! He’s not a man!”
Martin shrugged as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Caroline leaned close and asked me, “How is it, Boss? Good, right?”
“Since this is informal, just call me Sanha. And yes, it’s really good. The smoke ring is perfect. It’s almost a full centimeter thick, isn’t it?”
“Oh, you noticed that?”
Martin’s eyes brightened.
“You know your barbecue pretty well, friend. That’s right. The smoke ring is a barbecue’s calling card. It tells you at a glance how much care went into the smoking.”
“Very classic Central Texas style, then. Dry rub only, no sauce on the side.”
“Exactly.” Martin looked pleased with himself. “American barbecue changes completely depending on the region. Kansas City smears on that sweet sauce mixed with tomato and molasses until it buries the meat’s natural flavor. Memphis is all about pork ribs, with both dry rub and wet styles coexisting. Then you go down to Carolina, and it changes again. Eastern North Carolina uses a vinegar base, South Carolina uses mustard-based sauce, and it’s all pork-focused….”
Martin really did seem to be deadly serious about meat.
He speared another piece of brisket with his fork.
“But Texas is beef. Only beef. And true Central Texas barbecue is just salt and pepper, that’s the whole thing. The rest is handled by Post Oak smoke and time.”
“Hmm. Eastern Texas is different, though, isn’t it? I hear they use sauce and serve the meat chopped.”
“Ah, now there’s a fellow who knows his stuff. That’s right. East Texas has Southern influence, so they use a sweet tomato sauce and chop the meat up for sandwiches. To Central Texas folks, that’s heresy. If someone told me to eat East Texas barbecue, I’d rather go hungry.”
With my agreement, Martin seemed to grow even more excited and launched into an impassioned lecture on barbecue.
Caroline sighed. “Dad, there he goes again….”
“What do you mean, ‘again’? This is a matter of principle!”
As they talked, one glass of wine emptied after another, and before long it had given way to brandy.
Near the end of the meal, Martin wrapped both hands around his brandy glass and casually brought up the subject.
“By the way, Sanha.”
Maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe he simply liked me, but he had become noticeably softer in how he addressed me.
“From what Caroline says, you’re also broad-minded when it comes to the markets. The energy sector looks pretty chaotic these days—how do you see it?”
“Is there something in particular on your mind?”
“...Well, actually, there is one thing that’s been giving me a bit of a headache. Or maybe not a headache—just a slight one, shall we say.”
After downing the brandy, Martin went on. “It’s a coal company up in northern West Virginia, called Mountain Core Resources. Heard of it?”
Mountain Core Resources.
It was a company that had won enormous federal subsidies under the banner of environmentally redeveloping aging coal mines.
“They’re issuing bonds right now. High-yield paper, fourteen percent. The stock’s the same. Once the government money goes in, the value of those mines will probably triple, and then the share price will climb with it. My broker is pushing it hard. What do you think?”
Expectant eyes flickered in the way he held the brandy glass.
But I had been chewed up and spit out on Wall Street long before my regression.
I had heard that name before, both in my previous life and in this one, and that made for a quick judgment.
“You must not touch those bonds or that stock.”
“What?”
Martin’s hand stopped.
“Why not? It’s fourteen percent. In this rate environment, that’s…”
“That company is destined to go bankrupt within six months.”
I said it without hesitation.
Martin set the brandy glass down on the table.
He clearly hadn’t expected such a blunt declaration, and he couldn’t quite hide his confusion.
“Bankrupt? On what grounds are you saying that…?”
“Have you looked at Mountain Core’s financial statements?”
“I have. They looked solid.”
“Their annual report will show two hundred million dollars in assets and eighty million in debt. On the surface, yes, it looks healthy.”
“Exactly. That’s what my broker said too.”
“But did you read the footnotes carefully? The environmental liability section.”
“Environmental liability?”
“The mines Mountain Core owns are in regions where reckless hydraulic fracturing has been carried out since the 1970s. Groundwater contamination is already underway. The EPA is about to review them for Superfund designation.”
Superfund was the program the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to designate and clean up severely contaminated sites.
I knew quite a bit about the program even before my regression, and through the process of acquiring Black Bog in this life, I had become even more familiar with it.
Besides, hydraulic fracturing could become a major source of groundwater contamination if used recklessly, and I knew that well because Lee Energy used the method too.
But I had anticipated the problems it could cause and prepared for them thoroughly in advance.
I had triple-lined the borehole walls with cement casing to fully isolate them from aquifers, and I had excluded toxic chemicals from the fracking fluid, replacing them with eco-friendly additives.
All recovered wastewater was collected in sealed tanks, purified at our own treatment facilities, and then reused in a closed-loop system.
It was far more expensive, but if I wanted to develop the surrounding land later without harming people, I had no choice but to accept that burden.
I explained all of this to Martin.
“Hold on, hold on. So… I understand all that. But how do you know Mountain Core has these problems? That part doesn’t quite make sense to me. Internal EPA reviews are supposed to be strictly confidential, aren’t they?”
“Actually, not long ago I had dinner through Professor Cromwell, one of my Harvard mentors, with the head of a special investigation team at the Internal Revenue Service.”
“With an IRS chief? Huh….”
“As it happened, the IRS was already investigating Mountain Core for tax evasion. During that process, they apparently coordinated with the EPA. The Superfund designation is basically already decided; they’re only waiting to announce it.”
Martin’s face went pale.
“The IRS and the EPA are moving at the same time? That’s like having two grim reapers after you.”
“Yes. And there are indications that Mountain Core’s CEO intentionally understated the environmental liabilities on the financial statements. Once accounting fraud is added into the mix, the Securities and Exchange Commission will step in as well.”
“……”
“Bond investors will be pushed down the repayment ladder if the company goes bankrupt. As for the stock, there’s no need to even mention it. That fourteen-percent yield is bait. There’s a serious chance your principal will vanish in an instant.”
“...I see.”
Martin wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.
He was clearly trying to act calm, but his voice had started to shake just a little.
“I’d better call my broker right away and cancel the purchase order. That was close. I nearly walked straight into disaster.”
“Mr. Martin, do you remember what I mentioned earlier about the North Sea deal?”
“You mean the British one?”
Martin’s eyes gleamed.
“Yes. The British Energy Department is going to begin bidding on new North Sea blocks soon. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s Sakhalin fields have started opening up to foreign capital as well.”
“...Sakhalin, huh.”
Martin stroked his chin.
A vast oil-bearing region off the coast of the Sea of Japan.
It was a place that had once been utterly beyond reach in Soviet times, and now the door had only just begun to crack open.
I continued. “If we move now, there will be almost no competition. The major American oil companies still don’t trust Russia.”
“Exactly. Exxon, Shell, all of them are just watching and waiting. They’ve all seen with their own eyes how Soviet-era contracts turned into scraps of paper. The legal protections are uncertain, the foreign-exchange remittance rules keep changing every day… there’s no way the risk management department would sign off on it.”
“But I see it differently. This is the opportunity. If your connections and my capital are combined, we can enter both the North Sea and Sakhalin. Whoever we make entry through, we’ll need a line into the White House.”
“……”
Martin said nothing at all.
He looked as though he were chewing over my words.
Meanwhile—
“Hehe.”
Caroline sat with her hands clasped, wearing a delighted smile.
According to her, Martin was the stubborn sort of man who never listened to anyone else’s opinion, so it seemed both strange and gratifying to see him taking my words seriously.
I let a faint smile show and turned back to Martin.
“And Mr. Martin, there’s one favor I’d like to ask.”
“A favor?”
I took a sealed envelope from inside my jacket.
A plain white envelope with no recipient written on it.
“Could you deliver this to the White House?”
“The White House?”
“You’re from Texas, Mr. Martin. I’m guessing you have connections on President Bush’s side.”
George H.W. Bush.
He was a president who had made his money in the oil business based in Houston, Texas.
A man who had spent thirty years in the Texas oil industry like Martin had, there was no way he wouldn’t have some overlap with that circle.
“How about Chief of Staff Harold Baker? I understand he’s from Houston as well.”
“...Your powers of deduction are no joke. That’s right. My line there is solid too. It’s the key network that let me succeed as an independent landman and lobbyist. I’ve known Harold since we were young.”
Martin rubbed his chin.
Harold Baker.
An alumnus of a prestigious Houston law firm, long-time confidant of President Bush, and the current White House Chief of Staff.
Martin toyed with the sealed letter intended for him.
“Even so, I can’t exactly pass along something without knowing what it is. Can I ask what’s in here?”
“I’m afraid the explanation will be a long one, so let me talk about that after dinner. For now, I’ll only say that it concerns information related to the November election.”
“The election?”
Martin’s eyes widened.
It was the summer of 1992, and a presidential election was only a few months away.
Incumbent President Bush was set to face Arkansas governor Bill Clinton, and in the middle of the economic downturn, Bush’s approval ratings were showing no signs of recovery.
Martin studied me for a moment.
“You’re saying you have information that could affect the presidential election?”
“Yes. I’ll explain it in detail after dinner.”
“All right. You don’t seem like the sort who’d bring me nonsense, and I’ll have Harold’s line tested first.”
“Thank you, Mr. Martin.”
“All right, all right. We’ve wandered off topic during dinner. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
And so, in a reasonably cheerful atmosphere, the barbecue party continued.
* * *
Several days later.
Martin sat on the sofa in his study and unfolded a newspaper.
The bold headline on the front page of the Washington Post burned into his eyes.
.
.
.
A single bead of cold sweat slid down Martin’s spine.
Inside the article were even more brutal details.
...Seventeen of Mountain Core Resources’ coal sites had been designated as Superfund targets. The arsenic detected in groundwater was twenty-three times the EPA limit, and lead levels were seventeen times higher. The Securities and Exchange Commission had picked up signs that the company intentionally understated its environmental liabilities on the books and had launched an investigation into accounting fraud. The Internal Revenue Service was also reportedly cooperating on a separate tax-evasion case....
The diagnosis the young Asian man, who had visited the house not long ago, had given them was chillingly accurate.
Once the Superfund designation was announced, Mountain Core Resources’ stock cratered by more than eighty percent in a single day.
The bond rating was downgraded to junk, and investors lured in by the fourteen percent yield were left uncertain whether they would recover even their principal.
The press splashed it across every front page.
Public opinion turned in an instant, and an arrest warrant was sought for Mountain Core’s CEO on charges of accounting fraud and environmental crimes.
Martin let out a sigh of relief.
If he had invested in those bonds and that stock, he would have wiped out his retirement savings in one fell swoop.
Then the study door opened.
“Dad!”
It was Caroline.
She was wearing jeans and a Harvard-logo hoodie, with a bag slung over her shoulder.
“Oh, our princess. You said there was something going on at school today?”
“The semester kickoff barbecue party! It’s with the professors and upperclassmen and everyone. Boss is coming too. Sanha!”
“Sanha is coming too? Last I saw him, he looked pretty busy….”
“He’s insanely busy. I’m the one managing his schedule, and I’m suffering right along with him. But he doesn’t skip school events. Oh, right!”
Caroline suddenly remembered something and said, “Dad, did you see the news just now? Mountain Core really collapsed. The stock crashed, and the CEO got arrested too.”
“...Yes. I’m glad your friend warned me ahead of time. If not, I might have invested in those bonds and that stock myself.”
“Exactly! Now do you see how amazing my boss is?”
“Hoho, that boy, huh.”
Martin chuckled as he looked at his daughter’s proud expression.
The truth was, he had been wary at first.
That young Asian fellow his daughter called her “Boss.”
But remembering their conversation from a few days earlier, it was obvious that the young man was no ordinary person.
Eyes sharp enough to spot hidden traps in financial statements that even brokers had missed, a view broad enough to see through the energy map after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a network that let him dine with an IRS investigation team leader and a Harvard professor, the nerve to want to step beyond this immense United States and make a push into the world, and above all, the boldness to ask Martin to deliver a sealed letter to the White House....
In fact, after that sealed letter was handed to Chief of Staff Harold, the White House reached out to Martin separately with additional contact.
Harold had carefully asked who had sent the letter.
“Caroline.”
“Mm?”
Martin looked at his daughter.
“Bring that friend over again sometime. Let’s have dinner together. I’ll prepare even better barbecue this time.”
“Really? Really, really?”
“What, is that a problem?”
“No! Of course not! I’ll tell Sanha right away! It’s just... this is the first time Dad’s told me I can go hang out with a guy!”
Caroline smiled brightly.
Then, with a light kiss on Martin’s cheek, she called out, “Thank you, Dad. I’m off!”
Shouldering her bag, Caroline walked out of the study with a brisk, buoyant step.
Martin watched the back of his daughter as she receded down the hall.
...That kid. When did she get so grown up?
The warm afternoon sunlight was shining over the old oak trees of River Oaks.
---