“Let me ask you a few questions, and I think your answers will provide a basis.”
“By all means,” assented Castle.
“What’s in it for you?”
“I beg your pardon,” said Castle, drawing back.
“You can forget the public service routine, Mr. Castle. You want to be President of the United States. It sticks out a mile–has for months. And you believe that the iceberg project will be your springboard into the White House.”
Castle smiled wryly. “Some such suggestion has been made.”
“If the project succeeds, you will stand a good chance of achieving your ambition. For its success, you need to organize the best scientific brains and the best operational talent available. The organizational framework already exists: Raynes Oceanic Resources. The brains, the brawn, and the hardware can all be bought. Raynes will put up a token sum, the U.S. government the remainder.”
“Is that all?”
“That is my offer.”
“Then I must regretfully tell you, Mrs. Raynes, that your offer is not irresistible. The gentlemen with whom I have just been in conference, Mr. Ripley Forte–”
“I know, he’s just made an offer you can’t refuse. And besides, he knows more about icebergs than anybody.”
“Exactly.”
“But you’re losing sight of your objective. Forte is interested in bringing in an iceberg. You are interested in becoming the President of the United States.”
“And you?” countered Castle.
“I am interested in getting the contract, and unlike Ripley Forte, I also want to see you President of the United States.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“I’ll spell it out, Mr. Castle. If Forte brings in the iceberg, you may well become President. If he doesn’t, you are nothing. If I, on the other hand, bring in the iceberg–and I can muster as impressive a list of resources as Forte, remember–you stand the same chance of sitting in the Oval Office. But what if I fail? You shall be President of the United States just the same. For I will put the entire weight of Raynes Oceanic Resources behind you. My company is worth $780 million, and every penny necessary will be used to convince the American people that they need a forceful statesman like you to lead them. Money has done it before, and it can do it again.”
What she said was true, Castle had to admit. And no question about it, two chances were better than one. Why tie his fortunes to the delivery of an iceberg if he could gain the supreme office in the land whether he delivered it or not? But, to rephrase her own question, what was in it for her?
The answer was devastatingly simple, direct, and convincing, and he wondered why it had not occurred to him before.
“I want,” said Jennifer Red Cloud, smiling for the first time, “to be First Lady of the Land. With you, David, as numero uno, I will be.”
11. EMPIRES
4 MARCH 2005
A WEEK EARLIER MlSS BRILL HAD BEEN SECRETARY CAStle’s lone staffer. Now she was chief administrative officer, one of a whole battalion of legislative assistants, program officers, analyists, policy planners, legal counselors, associate directors, deputy associate directors, assistant deputy associate directors, and deputy associate assistant administrators. Her single outer room had mushroomed to a suite of offices, stiff with secretaries busily clicking away at word processors, its anterooms filled with milling reporters eager for a word, if not from Secretary Castle himself, at least from a deputy assistant assistant deputy secretary.
It was through this legion of spear carriers that Ripley Forte elbowed his way more than a week after his first interview with Secretary Castle. For the first few weeks of that week he had been on the telephone, contacting the men who would form the nucleus of his team from among the hundreds of specialists in many fields he had worked with over the years. On Thursday, he flew to Bermuda, where Joe Mansour’s Linno lay at anchor, to make his progress report. It was now Friday, and he was back in Washington, ready to get rolling.
And in all that time, there was still no word from Secretary Castle.
Forte was not perturbed. He knew the ways of Washington well. It took time and effort to build empires, and Castle’s was growing with unprecedented speed. He would
be working day and night drafting the enabling legislation that would officially establish the Department of Water Resources and lobbying for the huge supplemental congressional appropriation to finance the research and development of iceberg recovery methods. Still, Ripley Forte had gone about as far as he could go without an official endorsement.
Miss Brill greeted him with an effusive bonhomie that should have put him on guard. “Oh, Mr. Forte,” she gushed, “what a coincidence seeing you here. My secretary has been trying to contact you for days.”
“Really?” said Forte, taking the lie at face value. “Funny, the girl who works for me never mentioned it.”
“Well, you know how it is. We’ve been expanding our office force so fast that messages get lost in the shuffle, and I–”
“That’s okay,” said Forte with a wave of the hand. “I’m here now. Maybe you could tell Mr. Castle that I’d like to see him.”
“Oh, I’m afraid that won’t be possible this morning, Mr. Forte. As a matter of fact, I was calling to tell you that perhaps he could squeeze you in next week–late next week. Say Friday afternoon.”
The coin dropped.
Forte flushed. He was about to speak but thought better of it. Before Miss Brill could interpose her scrawny body between him and the door, he stalked into Castle’s office.
Castle looked up from his papers with annoyance. When he saw that the intruder was Forte, he rose and extended his hand. “Why, Mr. Forte,” he said with his paste-on politician’s smile, “what a coincidence. I’ve been trying to contact you for the past week. That will be all, Miss Brill,” he said over Forte’s shoulder to his secretary, who was dithering in the background.
The door closed behind her.
“Please have a seat, Mr. Forte,” said Castle, taking his own.
“I’m not going to take up a lot of your valuable time, Mr. Secretary, but you’ll appreciate that I’ve got to get cracking if we’re going to bring that iceberg into port in
time for the presidential convention. And money. As I mentioned last week, I can raise the $2 billion through conventional financing so long as I can assure the underwriters of the bond issue that it represents no more than 10 percent of the total investment, the other 90 percent being earmarked for the project in government funds. So all I need from you to start stalking on Wall Street is a go-ahead.”
“Go-ahead?”
“It doesn’t need to be anything final, understand,” said Forte. “A simple letter of intent to name Forte Ocean Engineering as the prime contractor for the iceberg project will suffice. Something I can wave under the noses of the bankers.”
Castle leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers lightly on the arms. His expression was solemn, judicial. “The iceberg project–by the way, we have come up with a name for it, an inspiring name: Salvation–is not, you’ll grant, one which can be awarded without some deliberation. During the past week I have been literally besieged by aspirants for the prime contract. Every one of them has powerful political backing I cannot ignore. Those who are putting pressure on me are the very men whose votes I will solicit for the funds needed to get Salvation off the ground and into the water, so to speak.”
“Sure, you need to stroke a few backs,” said Forte, “but the proof of the pudding is the eating, and there won’t be anything on the menu unless I put it there. You as much as said so yourself.”
“That was last week, Mr. Forte.”
“What’s changed?”
“As a matter of fact, I have been pleasantly surprised to learn that there are several candidates who could qualify for the prime contract, and their credentials are–I regret to have to tell you this–fully as gilt-edged as your own.”
“There’s no man who can do the job as I can do, and you know it,” said Forte, his choler showing.
“Perhaps a man was not what I had in mind.”
Forte felt his bones turning to mush. The ripe odor of double cross filled the air. “She got to you, did she?”
“I beg your pardon?” said Castle haughtily.
Forte regarded him with eyes like basalt. He leaned forward, his huge hands kneading his knees.
“Listen to me, Castle, and listen carefully. Jennifer Red Cloud put me through the grinder once, and I let her get away with it. It’s not going to happen again. If you award the prime contract to her, I’m going to sink her without a trace, and that goes for anybody who happens to be along for the ride. Not only will I see, personally, that your Salvation never touches the shores of the United States, I’m here to guarantee that you’ll never be President.”