Slow burn or not slow burn that is the question.

The sun beats mercilessly down. The bleached sand hurts the eye. The last of the gang makes it back and throws himself panting down behind the low stone wall into the dust beside you all. He smiles, its Jimmy Coburn back with another six gold bars.

You look left, Clint, Lee, Eli, Kris & Big George they’re all looking at you. Right, Jimmy and Bob Mitchum stare back. They all want a few dollars more.

It’s your call.

Gingerly you look over the wall at the wrecked remains of the railway carriage up on the track. It’s a mess, but a shed load of gold remains in its carcass. The blast was only supposed to blow the doors off but Jimmy the nitro man got carried away again. Another check at the carriage and you can see the biggest barrel, still miraculously in existence after that god almighty bang, and its slow burn is still on. You can see the smoke spiralling up from the slowly smouldering fuse, all you need is just over thirty more seconds. It’s your call.

The sun scorches the very air in your lungs, heart pounds, sweat pours. Ten seconds to run in grab 6 bars each, ten seconds back and then that’s it. Onto the horses and get the hell out of Dodge. One final run. You look past the gold wagon, past the remains of the flat cars towards the battered passenger cars. They’re all still crapping it in there no danger from them.

You call it and everyone leaps over the wall and heads for the gold. You keep a close eye on the smoking fuse. Three seconds later the slow burn is out and it’s going to go. Split seconds become minutes; microseconds become years and time stops. Dead but not dead just yet.

For us in the passenger cars this is where Catherine Austin Fitt meets Michael Ruppert.

Will the banksters get caught up in their own heist as Bob Chapman reckons?

Who knows?

However for us in the passenger cars, concusses, cussing, dazed and confused we know that whatever the headlines in Variety we’ve been screwed.