“Okay, let me see if I’ve got it,” said Medina with mock humility. “We’re going to dig a subterranean trench big enough to accomodate ten thousand pyramids, complete with mummies, construct five caissons as high as an Irishman on Saturday night and as long as an elephant’s memory, build a city from scratch to accomodate the workers, not to mention a couple of dozen miles of pipeline and several hundred of high-tension lines. And the shroud–
I almost forgot the shroud. How the hell could I forget the shroud? And the OTECs, twenty-six of them. Have I left out anything, lord and master?”
“Nothing important.”
“And what, pray tell, are you going to be doing while I’m working on these, ah, details?”
“Oh, I’ve kept the tough part for myself,” said Ripley Forte. “I’ve got to go up against Jennifer Red Cloud.”
17. CARMEL
10 JUNE 2006
RIPLEY FORTE FOLLOWED THE ROAD WINDING UP through the rustling pines until he came to a wooden gate with two big signs nailed to it. One said: “STOP–Private Property–Turn Back.” The other: “Trespassers Will Be Shot Without Warning.” He got out of his car, opened the gate, and drove in.
Around the next bend a much more substantial iron gate barred the way. He stopped. Men stepped out of the woods on his right and left. They were dressed in woodland camies and carried automatic shotguns in the crooks of their arms.
“Lost your way, sir?” said the one nearest him.
“I don’t think so,” said Forte. “My name is Ripley Forte. I have an appointment.”
“Yes, sir,” the unsmiling young man replied. From a patch pocket he produced what appeared to be a pair of binoculars with a short whip aerial. He handed it to Forte. Forte put it to his eyes and pressed the red button on top. There was a brief sensation of warmth as the EyeDentifier recorded his retinal pattern. Two seconds later, the house mainframe signaled that the subject’s identity was confirmed as Ripley Forte and that he was expected.
“You can leave your car here, Mr. Forte. We’ll park it for you.”
Forte stepped out of the car and stood, hands aloft, as
the guard inspected him with a magnetometer. Five minutes later a jeep appeared around the curve, and the guard raised the gate to let him walk through. On the crest of the hill, Ripley Forte climbed out of the jeep and followed the path down to the house. At one point he could look down the coast almost to Big Sur and out across the blue Pacific. The air was crisp with the fragrance of salt spray overlaid with the musty scent of redwood and fir. It was so quiet, he could hear distinctly the trilling of songbirds in the valley far below.
His ring was answered by a small wrinkled Filipino who conducted him into a spacious and simply but expensively furnished room with a single huge plate-glass window overlooking the sea. He was asked to be seated, supplied with the wrong brand of bourbon without having been asked, and told that Mrs. Red Cloud would be along shortly. Forte was gazing out at the Pacific spread out below him like a smooth blue carpet when he felt rather than heard Mrs. Red Cloud enter the room.
He turned.
He kept forgetting just how beautiful she was. When younger, she had been supple and athletic. Now she was mature, commanding, regal. She was wearing a high-necked, long-sleeved, floor-length gown of white silk jersey, split up the thigh cheong sam fashion, and from the tightness of its fit it was pretty obvious that it was all she had on. She was barefoot, and somebody had spent a lot of time working on her toenails.
“Hello, Red,” he said solemnly, advancing to meet her with hand extended.
She took it and stretched up to kiss him lightly on the cheek. Her perfume did things to his equilibrium that whiskey never could.
“What a pleasure, Ripley.” She indicated a chair with a languid hand as she sank into the chaise longue.
Forte sat.
“I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you for a long time.”
“About what?” he asked guardedly.
“Business, of course. What else do we have to talk about?”
Forte didn’t reply.
“Yes, I think it is time we came to an understanding. Some years back I was indulgent enough to buy you off for a rather extravagant sum–$5 million, I think it was– to ensure that I had no further interference from you in my affairs.”
“I remember it a little differently, Red. You and Ned cheated me out of about $100 million and the prospect of a lot more.”
“Apparently the warning not to meddle in my affairs didn’t take,” Mrs. Red Cloud went on equably. She leaned forward, her eyes narrowed, her skirt parting to reveal a disturbing length of thigh. “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to continue this way.”
Forte dragged his eyes away. “What do you intend to do, Red, have me put out of my misery?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary. Any day I can’t outsmart you and take away all your marbles, my dear Ripley, I’ll cut my throat.”
“Yes, well, let’s not talk right now about pleasant dreams but stern realities. I know your financial situation, Red. I have spies in high places. You’re skating on the thinnest of ice. When Salvation foundered, so did Raynes Oceanic Resources. What saved you was three providential bank loans. But while you’re engaged in your usual crooked maneuvers to recoup your losses, you’re going to have to pay the interest on those loans, and your cash flow is practically zero.”
“Don’t weep for me. I’ll recoup my losses. And when I do, I shall break you, if it takes the rest of my life.”
“Sure,” said Forte easily, “but meanwhile you have to get some money in the till. Those interest payments begin on the first day of 2007. What do you plan to do?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Don’t strain that beautiful brain of yours, Red. I’ve already thought of something for you.”
“If you mean sell out to you and Joe Mansour, forget it.”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’m talking about a straight business deal. Quid pro quo.”
Mrs. Red Cloud felt a surge of relief. It was axiomatic in the ocean engineering field that there was no better operations man and no worse businessman than Ripley Forte.
“I’m listening.”
“As you must have heard by now, President Turnbull has ordered the Department of Water Resources to fund an iceberg recovery program on the same terms that Raynes Oceanic Resources received, with Forte Ocean Engineering getting the prime contract.”
“I have in fact heard the good news. I have heard, as well, that you plan to bring your berg into Matagorda Bay, Texas.”
Ripley Forte whistled softly.
“You keep that beautiful ear close to the ground, I see.”
“And you are going to fail, Ripley. I shall see to it personally.”
“I’m sure you’ll try, Red. But meanwhile, those nasty old interest payments. I was thinking, if you could maybe dispose of that big inventory of OTECs that you planned to use on the Salvation but are now sitting uselessly in your dry docks, you’d be able to keep your head above water. In the present depression, you have no other likely customers for them.”
“You are proposing to buy them, I gather.”
“Lease them, all eighteen so far completed. And I’ll give you a firm commitment on a further eight if the terms are right.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
Her cash flow problems were solved! The production of power was going to be one of the essential factors in determining whether iceberg transport would be an economically sound proposition. Forte obviously had failed to find enough OTECs elsewhere. That meant that he had to come to her, at her terms. She would charge what the traffic–Joe Mansour’s immense bank account–would bear.
“I wasn’t trying to make you laugh,” said Forte.
“You never try, Ripley, but you amuse me all the same. Very well, you may have the OTECs but the terms are cash.” She made some swift mental calculations and named a figure.
Forte ground his teeth. It was more than double what he had thought he’d have to pay. “It’s too much.”
“Of course it is. But if you don’t buy them, I shall dismantle them and take a very large tax write-off. Either way I’m happy.”
“It’s a deal,” Forte said hastily, as if afraid she’d change her mind. “But on one condition.”
“You’re not in a position to impose conditions, my sweet.”
“Well, you’ll have to accept this one or the deal won’t go through, because without the Brown-Ash Mark IX I won’t be able to bring an iceberg into port, and now’s as good a time to settle that point as any.”
Her first impulse was to give a peremptory refusal, but some instinct held her back. The thought of parting with the Brown-Ash Mark IX to Ripley Forte was, to be sure, anathema. Its computing capacity was so prodigious that there was no telling what an imaginative international operator like Joe Mansour, with his nearly unlimited resources, might do with it.