“Why do they keep going broke?” Tom asked Wyatt, hoping she’d know.
Wyatt made a strange noise. She was making an odd face, her lips compressed into a tight pucker, her eyes very wide. She resembled some sort of fish.
Yuri answered in her stead. “They purchased many rugs.” Then he pointed at the floor, as if Tom hadn’t seen them.
“Yeah, I got that.” Tom rolled his eyes. “I don’t get why they weren’t forced to sell them all off. You know, if my dad bought a car he couldn’t pay for, he’d have to give it back. He wouldn’t get to keep the car and get someone else to pay his debt for him.”
“Your dad is not Reuben Lloyd,” Yuri said.
The next corridor resolved the paradox. Reuben Lloyd led them before a vast collection of portraits spread across the wall. “Here are Wyndham Harks’s most valuable assets.”
Tom read the placards beneath the photos of the executives, then gave a start as his neural processor began identifying them as powerful government officials. There was Sheldon Laffner, the head of the Department of Homeland Security; Kristyl Chertowitz, the chief of staff to the president; and Aubrey Bremmer, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There was Barclay J. P. Goldman, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve; Vice President Julian Richter; and President Donald Milgram himself. All of them were former Wyndham Harks executives or current shareholders.
Tom stared at the photos, and it clicked into place.
This was the key resource Wyndham Harks controlled: the government. Of course the politicians always said Wyndham Harks was essential to the world economy. They were Wyndham Harks men and they were the ones saying it. It was like some big, global scam, and Tom shook his head, amazed at how these guys had played everyone else in the world for suckers for so long.
Reuben Lloyd wasn’t in on his own joke, though, because he ended the tour by turning on them, chest puffed with pride, and announcing, “I hope you understand now how fortunate you’d be to align with our company. We at Wyndham Harks do God’s work.”
Silence dropped over the room.
Except Tom. He started laughing.
Reuben Lloyd’s shocked gaze swung to him.
Tom snapped his mouth shut since, after all, he had to make a good impression here. He knew that laughing wasn’t the response Reuben Lloyd wanted. He wanted awed respect, silence.
But then Tom heard Wyatt make that strange noise in the back of her throat again, and when his gaze shot to her face, he saw that she was doing the bizarre fish-expression thing again, her eyes huge and her lips pursed.
He couldn’t help it. He exploded in laughter again. It was such an awful time to laugh that Tom laughed more, and his dawning horror at his uncontrollable laughter made him laugh harder still. He recognized this. This had happened to him before, more than once. It was the same impulse that made him bust up laughing when Blackburn came into his bunk to accuse him of treason, the same thing that had made hundreds of tense situations in his life much, much worse. But he couldn’t help it. Everyone was staring at him, and now he couldn’t stop.
He dropped to his knees, giggling helplessly, smothering his mouth in his arms. Even then, he might’ve regained control of himself if he’d had a few moments more, but then Wyatt tried to be helpful. She gave Tom a discreet thumbs-up and unveiled her hidden forearm keyboard. Tom tried to shake his head at her, and he saw Vik and Yuri also shaking their heads, trying to catch her attention. It was too late. She unleashed a computer virus that hit the surrounding trainees, triggering hysterical laughter in them, too—trying to mitigate Reuben Lloyd’s wrath toward Tom by diluting it among everyone.
Soon the entire room was filled with hysterical laughter, all directed at Reuben Lloyd, the powerful CEO in charge of Wyndham Harks. Everyone else laughing made Tom laugh harder, so he collapsed onto his back on one of Reuben Lloyd’s prized carpets, his ribs hurting.
All in all, this wasn’t the impression he had come here to make.
On the disgraced elevator ride down, Vik thrust his fingers into his hair, exasperated. “Why did you do that, Wyatt? You made it a hundred times worse. Not only did Tom laugh at him, but Tom’s now the one who got a whole bunch of other people laughing at him, too.”
The buildings outside grew taller and taller as their elevator plunged down. “Hey, it’s fine, guys.” Tom stuffed his hands into his pockets, seeing the shadow of his smirk in the glass before him. “Wyndham Harks didn’t go so well, but so what? We’ve got a bunch of companies still to go. We’ll be A-OK.”
TOM WASN’T PLEASED to learn their next destination was the City of London, the financial district containing Dominion Agra’s headquarters. As soon as they left the Interstice, the other trainees were led to the meeting place with Dominion’s new CEO, Diamond MacThane, and Dominion’s chief shareholders, the Roache brothers. Tom did not go with them.
He had expected trouble, maybe to be banned, maybe to be expelled from the facility. He hadn’t expected to be set upon by a bunch of the private contractors who formed the larger part of the British police force. They slapped on handcuffs and hauled him into a secluded interrogation room. Then they cuffed him to a chair and interrogated him about his plans while in their country.
Apparently, Tom was on some watch list and classified as a low-level terrorist. All thanks to the Dominion executives he’d swamped with sewage.
One hour dragged by as constables wandered in and out of the police station, each with a barrage of new questions. Just as Tom was about to lose his mind with boredom and frustrated anger, Dalton Prestwick himself showed up to enjoy the sight of Tom in handcuffs.
“Well, well. Quite a predicament you’re in there, sport.”
Tom felt a surge of dislike at the sight of his mom’s smarmy boyfriend with his gelled brown hair and expensive suit. “What are you doing here, Dalton? Did you run out of people to suck up to on the other side of the Atlantic?”
Dalton’s eyes narrowed. “You’re in Dominion Agra territory now. My territory. I’d show some respect.”
“Why should I?” Tom leaned toward him as far as the chair allowed, eyes on his. “After all, the last time I saw you, we both agreed that I could destroy you whenever I chose. That kind of gives me an upper hand here.”
Dalton paled a bit at the reminder that Nigel Harrison had told Tom of Dalton’s role in leaking the CamCo names—in committing treason. Tom had some potent blackmail he could use against him and they both knew it.
“I haven’t forgotten our previous conversation, Tom. It’s the only reason you’re sitting there in that chair, unharmed.”
Tom slouched back, unimpressed by the implied threat. “I can’t believe you got me declared a terrorist over the Beringer Club.”
Dalton gave a snakelike smile. “What makes you think it was me? You terrorized quite a few very powerful people that day.”
“So ‘terrorism’ doesn’t mean ‘killing innocent civilians to cause fear and advance a political cause.’ It now means ‘disrespecting the rich and powerful.’ Is that it?”
“My,” Dalton said, “you just figured that out, did you?”
Tom fell silent. The sentiment was so cynical, Neil could’ve spouted it—but it was different coming from Dalton. He said it with a gloating air like he was exulting in it.