“No trouble, I hope,” said the Turkish captain worriedly when the naval officer conveyed his respects and asked to examine the ship’s log.
“No, no.” The American smiled. “Just routine. We’ve just had a message saying that state public health authorities in Florida have issued an alert.”
“Alert?”
“Pneumonic plague. They’ve already picked up two dead infected rats on the docks, and they have seven people under observation, including a bartender, two whores, and a couple of sailors.” He leafed back through the log. “But so long as you didn’t hit Tampa, you’ll be all–oh, I see that you did put in there.”
“Yes, a little over a week ago. Nine days, to be exact.”
“Oh, well, you’re all clear, aren’t they, Doc?” He turned to the round-faced man with medical corps insignia and lieutenant’s bars.
“I should think so,” replied the doctor. “The incubation period is usually from three to six days. On the other hand, it can be an unpredictable disease–sometimes takes ten days for its symptoms to appear.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Glenn,” said the Navy commander impatiently, “I hope you aren’t going to tie us up here. Nine days, the captain just said. And we’re supposed to be on a patrol.”
The medical officer shrugged. “The captain has to make the decision,” he said, nodding toward the Turk.
The Turkish captain was uneasy. “Is there anything I should be doing?”
“I don’t think so. Any respiratory problems among your officers and crew?”
“A couple of men have colds. Is there anything we can take–pills or shots or anything?”
” ‘Fraid not, Captain. Once the symptoms appear, that’s it. Of course, vaccine administered before onset of symptoms is a hundred percent insurance.”
“Do you have any of this vaccine?”
The medical officer chuckled. “Why do you think we’re here?”
Twenty minutes later, after the two corpsmen had given the captain and his twenty-five officers and crew their shots, the party from the submarine saluted the quarter-deck and climbed back down the Jacob’s ladder into the waiting boat. On the way back to the submarine, the coxswain from the Kara Deniz slumped over the tiller.
A sailor from the submarine gently pushed him aside and took the tiller. He turned the motorboat back to the Kara Deniz. As the officers climbed back aboard, they didn’t seem surprised that no one came to receive them.
But then, no one had been expected.
38. CASTLE ROOKED
7 JULY 2008
THE COMMANDER OF THE THIRD REGIMENT, FIFTH DlVIsion of the Army of the Republic of Texas, an aficionado of round figures, estimated the crowd at one million. The Forte family’s Houston Herald, fully as partisan but perhaps more precise, put the number at 700,000. Whatever the truth, people filled the bleachers erected for the occasion and spilled over all the way to the edge of the Alamo’s mooring, five hundred meters away and in direct line with the reviewing stand.
The ceremony was typical Texas. There had already been a march-past of the Fifth Division, regimental commanders riding in front of their units on matched palomino ponies. Bands from all over the republic both preceded and followed, some out of tune but all loud, mainly supplying background to the hordes of prancing, batontwirling drum majorettes. Rodeo riders dashed to and fro, giving an exhibition of fancy horsemanship and roping. The Texas Air Force put on a display of high-speed aerobatics, resulting in only one midair collision.
The crowd ate it all up, and a lot more. Food vendors did a roaring business, liquor flowed in stupendous quantities, fistfights were not unknown, and everybody had a marvelous time.
And why not? This was the big turnaround. This was the beginning of a new era for the Republic of Texas. Its oil had dried up along with its parched acres, and the cattle business had vanished with the lush range and winter forage, and for the first time in their lives Texans had began to think small.
What had kept them alive was the promise of fresh water in unlimited quantities. Water would change everything in Texas and for Texas. With its hand on the spigot, Texas would no longer be harrassed by jealous legislators from the forty-nine states back in Washington who were forever pressuring the infant republic to rejoin the Union. Texans of all political stripes resented that pressure. After all, they had earned the right to be free to make their own mistakes, to be free of the responsibility of paying for the mistakes of others. They had earned that right by the supreme sacrifice of Gwillam Forte, ten years ago to this very day, when he had saved both Texas and the United States from Russian domination.
This freedom they intended to keep. They had kept that resolution during the bitter days when their resources had dried up and blown away, and by God they were going to keep it now that the tide had turned and for a change they were holding trumps. The water that Texas initiative had brought to Matagorda Bay was going to awaken the sleeping green goddess of agriculture. Soon herds of cattle would home on the range, revived by Texas water. The wheels of industry would spin again, powered by the electricity that was already beginning to flow from the towering OTEC installations installed during the past two weeks atop the Alamo.
These pleasant circumstances were, naturally enough, the theme of the President of Texas, the Honorable “Cherokee Tom” Traynor, when, after the parades had passed and the warmth of the Monday morning sun and rivers of good bourbon had begun to course through the veins of his audience, he rose to speak.
“Mr. President,” he began, inclining his head deferentially toward President Horatio Francis Turnbull, who sat to the right of the podium, “distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen–and–and–” He paused, as if trying to remember something. A puckish smile appeared on his pleasantly ugly face, and suddenly he jabbed his finger at the crowd. “Oh, yes–” and bellowed: “–and all you good ole boys and girls of our great and wonderful Texas.”
Pandemonium.
President Turnbull, sitting on the reviewing stand next to Secretary of Water Resources David D. Castle, turned to him and smiled. “Well, at least the drought hasn’t affected the crop that made Texas famous,” he stage whispered.
Cherokee Tom covered the microphone with his hand and glanced over his shoulder, smiling broadly. “I’d have thought that you, of all people, would appreciate how much political nourishment there is in a load of good old-fashioned corn.”
The clamor died down, and Traynor shifted into low gear, starting his speech on a pedestrian level so that his thunderous peroration would seem all the more dramatic by contrast.
Turnbull tuned out, thinking about the coming election. The polls had been bettering projections of his margin of victory by one or two percentage points each week for the last six weeks. His lead over his putative Democratic opponent, David D. Castle, was now 61 percent to 34 percent, with the remainder undecided. Were the election held this week, he would surely win. But November was still four long months away, and empires had been lost in less time than that. Moreover, David D. Castle was a forceful public speaker, a faithful supporter of his fellow legislators both in the House and on the hustings, an able advocate of popular causes in the Congress, and an indefatigable and efficient administrator of the most mediagenic agency of the U.S. government, the Department of Water Resources. Under the proper conditions, he would be a hard man to beat.
Turnbull’s adviser, William S. Grayle, had counseled him not to worry, insisting that in David D. Castle he had created a man with sufficiently powerful political credentials to win the Democratic nomination going away but not nearly enough voter appeal to defeat that silver-maned, golden-tongued man of the people, Horatio Francis Turnbull. Besides, they had taken out an insurance policy in case Grayle’s plans went awry.
The insurance policy. Might not this be the perfect occasion to cash it in? He was pondering the matter when, through the mists of Cherokee Tom Traynor’s oratory and a standing ovation, he realized that the President of Texas had finally concluded his speech and was calling on him to address the nation.
Turnbull rose to applause that was hospitable but scarcely thunderous. The tepid reception more than chilled him: it telescoped time. It made him see himself four months from that moment, when the fickle electorate might have become bored and restless. It was in this moment that his resolve faltered, that he decided to cash in his insurance.
“President Traynor, ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the Republic of Texas. As I think most of you know, I am a politician, and a politician, first and foremost, must think about the needs of the people he represents. My people are those of the forty-nine states, and their most pressing need–and yours–during these past four years has been water.