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

For the next hour and a half, as the klieg lights blazed hot and a steady barrage of questions rained down upon him, Castle, with cool logic, defended the accuracy of the report.

He was still going strong when, just before eleven, a flying wedge of Secret Service men plowed through the pack of reporters at the rear of the committee room. Behind them, grinning broadly, came the President of the United States.

Only momentarily at a loss, Castle descended from the podium and warmly grasped President Turnbull's outstretched hand. Concealing his ire beneath a deferential welcoming smile, he escorted the chief executive up the three steps to the bank of microphones.

It was obvious to the assembled media that President Turnbull had come to defuse Castle's rocket before it got off the ground. He would trot out some old nostrum, perhaps water desalinization with solar power or even plain conservation, to divert attention from Castle's scheme.

Such thoughts paraded through the cynical minds of those present as David D. Castle cleared his throat.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "we are flattered and honored by the unscheduled appearance of the chief executive of the United States. It is obvious that he shares with all of us here a concern for our nation's plight, and like us invokes the intervention of the Lord so eloquently expressed in the Psalm,

'Oh God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee;

my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is..."'

--let the old coot try to top that!--"to favor us with a solution to this problem. I confidently expect he will now present it to us, as I now present to you--the President of the United States."

The chamber reverberated with applause. Castle nodded graciously, content to believe that it was for his adroit volley of the water crisis into Turnbull's court.

The President, doubting not that the applause was for him, raised his hands in the politician's victory salute and stepped up to the microphones.

"I thank Congressman Castle for his kind words," said the President, "and I thank him doubly for invoking the name of the Lord. His reference is a reminder that, as the Germans say, 'God does not give to all alike; to one He gives the goose, and to another the egg.' In the matter of water, in these first years of this century, as we all know, He, in His infinite wisdom, has given us a little of both: the goose egg.

"This evening, Congressman Castle has given us something else: an example--and hope. While the rest of us were blithely oblivious of the gathering black clouds of national disaster, the honorable gentleman from California was measuring its awesome dimensions and implications and sounding the alarm in this committee room.

"From the evidence he has presented this evening, it appears that miracles have not yet ceased, that he has indeed discovered the thread which will lead us out of the Minotaur's labyrinth onto the vast plains of national prosperity. So far, however, we have only the hope of victory. Hard work, imagination, money, dedication, and luck will be required to achieve our goal. Above all, leadership of the highest order will be needed to guide this vast national enterprise to success.

"To this end, tomorrow I will submit to the Congress draft legislation for the immediate establishment of a Department of Water Resources."

Castle suddenly felt faint and put his hand on the edge of the lectern to steady himself. He had neglected to consider the possibility that Turabull might go along with his proposal, steal the whole idea and make it his own, and freeze him right out of the picture. The hundreds of hours in the public eye, the millions spent for Grayle's services, the long sleepless nights rehearsing his lines, the dream of becoming President--all in vain.

He felt the President's arm around his shoulder. He could feel it coming--the Judas kiss. The old bastard was going to thank him on behalf of the nation and laud his true bipartisan spirit, or some such guff. He smiled through gritted teeth and swore he would somehow, someday make the old man pay.

"I am sure everyone will agree," the President was saying, "that there can be only one leader for this monumental project: the Honorable David D. Castle, Congressman from California."



9. JENNIFER RED CLOUD
24 FEBRUARY 2005



AS FAR AS THE EX-MARINE SECURITY GUARD IN THE SENtry tower could discern through his ten-power binoculars, Jennifer Red Cloud was without blemish. As she lay naked in the sun, her copper-hued skin seemed as soft as the feathery breeze that floated in off Montego Bay, her contours as smooth as the undulating hills beyond his eyrie, her hair sleek and lustrous, like that of a black panther at midnight.

He adjusted the focus and wondered what a woman like Jennifer Red Cloud would be thinking about. With a body like that, it could only be sex.

Jennifer Red Cloud was thinking about ocean thermal energy conversion. The theory was simple enough even for someone of her limited scientific training. The difference in temperature between warm surface waters of the ocean and cold waters of the depths was harnessed to drive a closed evaporation-condensation cycle and so generate electricity, like a refrigerator working in reverse. The warm surface waters contained enough heat to vaporize a compound such as ammonia. Then cold bottom waters would be pumped up to condense the vapor, to be cycled through evaporators using the warm waters to drive turbines linked to banks of generators.