"da Cruz, Daniel - Republic of Texas 02 - Texas on the Rocks" - читать интересную книгу автора (Da Cruz Daniel)

"What do you suggest?" said President Turnbull, adjusting his handsome features into an expression of concern.

Horatio Frances Turnbull looked the way a president should look. He was tall, substantially built, and ruddyfaced, with the silver mane of an antebellum southern senator. He had a pleasing baritone voice, the gift of sounding as if he were confiding a secret to a valued friend even when addressing an audience of thousands, and a patent sincerity of manner that won him friends and elections. He did not, it was true, adhere to any fixed principles but cast his vote with the majority, on the indisputably democratic premise that the majority is always right. Advice was a nuisance he endured: It made his associates happy, and Turnball liked to see happy faces around him. But when it came to political decisions, he relied on instinct, and it had never failed him yet. So he would listen to Dr. Sidney Bussek with attention, as he listened to all his advisers, and do precisely as his instincts had told him to do all along.

"That there is a water crisis," said Dr. Bussek, "cannot be denied. But a variety of simple measures can alleviate it. Every American could start in his own home, for example, and reduce water consumption by 50 percent by such simple means as putting a couple of bricks in the toilet's water closet. That would save 2.5 billion gallons a day. Installing the Clivus Multram composting toilet, a Swedish invention of thirty years ago which uses no water at all, would save 4.2 billion gallons."

"Forget toilets," said Pat Benson emphatically. "People don't vote for toilets."

"Tell you what you do, Sid," broke in President Turnbull. "Write me up a memo and lay it all out. Give me

the problems, the solutions, their drawbacks and advantages, the time it will all take, what new agencies we'll need to create, if any, the people we should recruit to handle it, what political interests we've got to avoid alienating in the process--that sort of thing. Give it to me in the usual form--one page. Tomorrow."

He lowered his feet to the floor and rose. "I want to thank you for dropping in, Sid. I hope you'll make it a habit, because I need somebody to lean on I can trust in this era of rapid technological progress. Ben here is good in getting out the vote, but he can't tell a hawk from a handsaw."

He saw the two men out the door, massaging Dr. Bussek's arm as he went, considered a sure sign of personal regard by President watchers, and returned to his desk. He sat down in the big leather chair, folded his hands behind his head, and regarded the ceiling. He chuckled.

"Come on in, Mr. Grayle," he said.

The door opposite that through which his aides had just departed opened, and William S. Grayle entered. He was a tall, spare man with abundant wavy gray hair, a luxuriant gray beard, and dark glasses that obscured the rest of his face. He walked slowly and carefully, his steps rationed by old age.

"Did you hear?" said President Turnbull, coming around the desk to hold the chair for his guest.

"I heard."

"What do you think?"

"They suspect nothing."

"Exactly," said the President, nodding vigorously as he returned to his desk. "And if Pat suspects nothing, then nobody suspects nothing--anything. Well, Mr. Grayle, what now?"

Grayle stroked his beard with his gloved hand. "We let nature take its course. We're right on schedule. During the next three sessions, the committee will deal with ways, mostly visionary, to augment the nation's water supply. Castle will quite properly reject them all as too little, too late, or impractical. Only one possibility remains, he will intimate. And on that note he will adjourn the hearings to give a little time for public suspense to build up.

"When it peaks in about ten days, Castle will hold a

televised press conference. He will announce the solution to America's water problem."

"Beautiful," said the President, his eyes alight with admiration for the astuteness of William S. Grayle, who had quietly emerged from retirement recently with a scheme to guarantee his, Horatio Francis Turnbull┤s, reelection in 2008.

The plan was going to cost the Republican National Committee dear but would be worth every penny. Known only to Turnbull himself, Grayle's plan guaranteed that during the next four years, Congressman David D. Castle would receive so much favorable news coverage and deal with the nation's gravest crisis with such vigor and imagination that by convention time all other contenders for the Democratic nomination in 2008 would be steamrollered into obscurity. It was, as Turnbull admitted, a great plan. With David D. Castle as Democratic nominee, Turnbull could not possibly lose. Unless...

"But what if--" he began, a frown clouding his face.

"--Castle does succeed in bringing an iceberg into San Francisco Bay?" said Grayle. "If he does, he wins by a landslide, of course. But no, the drums will beat and the banners will wave until, just before convention time, it will become apparent that he has failed miserably. And you'll sail into office for a second term."

"Yes, yes," said Turnbull. "But if he does succeed?"

"Impossible. The California Current will defeat him. Castle doesn't have the chance of a snowball in Hades. Nobody does. Castle is living in a dream world."