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

"Is this as fast at this goddamn machine will go?" she demanded.

Ernesto noticed that her eyes were a little crazy. It was the kind of thing, as good as he was, no makeup could cover.

Mrs. Red Cloud was six minutes late, but it didn't matter, said Miss Brill, Castle's wan, middle-aged secretary. He was still tied up with his ten-thirty appointment, and would they please have a seat? On the wall behind Miss Brill a life-size portrait of President Horatio Francis Turnbull in a stainless-steel frame gazed down like Big Brother.

"No, thank you," replied Mrs. Red Cloud, her eyes coming to rest on the rotating spools of the tape recorder in the open side drawer. Miss Brill shot a quick look at Gustafson, who had taken the trouble to get to know the Secretary's secretary. He smiled and nodded.

Miss Brill demonstrated the decisive action that made her so valuable a civil servant. She rose, locked the outside door, and entered the five-number code that permitted her to transcribe a conference in progress. The voice of a man came through the desk-top speaker.

"...only in bare-bones outline, of course," Ripley Forte was saying.

"Some outline," marveled David D. Castle. "Your plan is remarkably like that proposed by the scientists whose report I commissioned, not only in scientific theory but in execution and projected production costs and goals. If I weren't a hundred percent sure that it couldn't be done, I'd think you had somehow gotten hold of it."

Ripley Forte smiled blandly. "There's less a mystery about my knowledge of the subject than there appears, Mr. Secretary. Remember, I have been battling icebergs for more than six years. When I started, I didn't know a damned thing about them. But when they began knocking over my rigs and killing my men, I learned fast. Within two years, I think it's safe to say, I knew as much about icebergs on the working level as any man alive. But it wasn't enough, because I was still losing money and men. Like you, I commissioned studies--mostly by Canadian, Norwegian, and Australian glaciologists, oceanographers, and cold weather experts. They--"

"Why not American experts?" broke in Castle.

"Good question. In the first place, Canadians, Norwegians, and Aussies, being nearer to Arctic regions, have more experience along those lines. Also, I was beginning to suspect that icebergs might play a role in solving the water shortage--a role that could make money, and I didn't want to alert American competitors."

"Go on, Mr. Forte."

"Well, the more I dug, the better it looked. Not for Arctic pinnacle bergs, of course--they capsize and are too small in any case. But if big tabular bergs from the Antarctic could be tamed and towed, I realized, there could be enormous returns. I intensified my researches, and naturally I came up with much the same answers as you did. Two minds with a single thought, you might say."

"Yes," agreed Castle, "that makes sense." It had to. There couldn't be any other explanation.

"What it all boils down to, Mr. Secretary," said Forte, "is that your research and mine have demonstrated, independently, the feasibility of transporting icebergs from Antarctica to America."

"That's true."

"And that I'm the man to do it."

"Ah, that is something else, Mr. Forte. This is a project of historic dimensions which--"

Forte raised his hand.

"Let me put it to you briefly, Congressman. This is a project which, if it succeeds, will give you as its father a very good chance of getting to the White House in 2008. If it fails--oblivion. It will take me, at my best estimate, no less than forty months to do the job. Pick anybody with qualifications inferior to mine and you'll miss the conventions and the presidency. It's up to you, Mr. Secretary."

Castle smiled wryly. "It's a good thing you're an engineer, Mr. Forte. You'd never go far in politics with so blunt a tongue."

"Does my blunt tongue pound home the point, Congressman?"

"It does. And my first instinct is to name you as prime contractor and get the show on the road at once. But as a lawyer, and especially as secretary of water resources,

I cannot. There are others in the running, and I must consider them. For instance, General Dynamics, Lykes Lines, Boeing, Bath Shipbuilding, and IBM are meeting at this moment to form a consortium, and I shall be seeing them tomorrow."

Forte rose. "They don't scare me. I'll have a berg halfway to America while they're still forming committees and arguing about executive compensation packages."

Castle came around the desk and shook Forte's hand warmly.