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

Castle handed over his glass, wondering when Grayle would get to the point.

Grayle made invisible magic with his decanters and pressed the result into Castle's hand. "Getting impatient, are you, Congressman?"

"Not at all," lied Castle.

"That's good. Because we are on the verge of discovering the only crisis that can vault you into the presidency in 2008. Shall we drink to it?"

And about time, too, you old goat, thought David D. Castle to himself. He touched his glass to the other's in the dark.

He drank deeply...

He tried to scream, but the pain was too intense. Liquid fire seared his mouth, scorched his tongue, flamed down his esophagus, poured into his stomach like red-hot lava. The son of a bitch had filled his glass with Tabasco sauce!

"Water!" he croaked.

"Precisely," said William S. Grayle.





4. TAKEOVER
12 NOVEMBER 2004



"ICE?" ASKED YUSSEF MANSOUR.

Ripley Forte glowered.

Mansour laughed, a remarkably deep and robust laugh from so small a man, and filled the glass with bourbon. Had it not been for ice, in the form of icebergs, neither of them would have been in the main salon of Mansour's 1,600-ton yacht Linno to discuss the fate of the Yellow Rose Oil Company. Conferring a silent blessing on ice in all its myriad forms, Mansour dropped a cube into his own glass, added two fingers of Scotch, and smiled over the rim at the Texan.

"Cheers!"

Forte grunted and sampled the bourbon. It was the best. But then, everything about Joe Mansour was the best. Forte put the glass on the spindly little Louis XVI table beside him. He would drink no more, for he needed a clear head.

"I'm flattered that you found my loan request for a mere $300 million important enough to come all the way from Beirut," Forte said.

"I have been following your battle with icebergs for several years, Mr. Forte, and I'm happy for the excuse to make your acquaintance. Besides, Beirut is horribly crowded these days, what with the Russians and Germans and Poles flocking to our beaches and--"

"Beaches?" broke in Forte. "In November?"

"Why not? The water along their Baltic beaches in the middle of July is colder than our Mediterranean coast in midwinter." He glanced through the salon's picture window at the howling snowstorm that was sweeping the deck outside and shuddered.

Mansour's delicate gesture seemed to Forte right in character with his rather effeminate appearance. Short and rotund, he was resplendently dressed. His shoes came from his personal shoemaker in Milan, his silk shirts from his shirtmaker in Geneva, his foulards from an artisan in Lyon to designs by Miss Noon, his linen from Madeira, his suits from his tailor in Brussels, his belts from his Seville beltmaker, his hats from his Bond Street hatter.

What Forte failed to appreciate was that Mansour's sartorial elegance was only partly a matter of personal fastidiousness. For Mansour, it was a weapon: he had learned that his splendid attire inspired condescension in his adversaries, who imagined that a man so preoccupied with his appearance could spare little thought for business.

"Well," observed Forte, gesturing toward the driving snow, "as you can see, we sure don't have any shortage of rotten weather here. That, as I explained in detail in the loan application, is all that has been holding up the Yellow Rose Field. During the past twelve months we have had close to fifteen thousand bergs to worry about."