Страница 55 из 60
CHAPTER 42
FLINT ASKED, "WHAT do you want me to do with the bodies?" Ta
Ta
TANNER AND PAULINE had reached the redbrick building. Ta
Pauline watched as Ta
Ta
"I'm listening." "It's a little technical, so bear with me. Microwave lasers, created with the nano-technology my brother produced, when fired into Earth's atmosphere, make free-forming oxygen that bonds with hydrogen, thus producing ozone and water. Free oxygen in the atmosphere pairs up-that's why it's called O2-and my brother discovered that firing that laser from space into the atmosphere made the oxygen bond with two hydrogen atoms into ozone-O,, and water-H2O." "I still don't understand how that would-" "The weather is driven by water. Andrew found in larger-scale tests that so much water was created as a by-product of his experiments that winds shifted. More lasers, more wind.
Control the water and the wind, and you control all weather." He was thoughtful for a moment. "When I found out that Akira Iso in Tokyo, and later, Madeleine Smith in Zurich, were close to solving the problem, I offered them jobs here, so I could control them.
But they turned me down. I couldn't afford to let them finish what they were working on." He sighed.
"I told you that I had four of my top meteorologists working on the project with me." "Yes." "They were good, too. Franz Verbrugge in Berlin, Mark Harris in Paris, Gary Reynolds in Vancouver, and Richard Stevens in New York. I had each of them trying to solve a different facet of weather control, and I thought that because they were working in different countries, they would never put the pieces together and find out what the ultimate purpose of the project was. But somehow they did.
They came to see me in Vie
Ta
"That's the presidential palace." The picture switched to a dining room inside, where a family was having breakfast.
"That's the president of Portugal and his wife and two children. When they speak, it's going to be in Portuguese, but you'll hear it in English. I have dozens of nano-cameras and microphones set up in the palace. The president doesn't know it, but his head security guard works for me." An aide was saying to the president, "At eleven o'clock this morning, you have a meeting at the embassy, followed by a labor union speech. At one p.m., luncheon at the museum.
This evening, we're having a state reception for-" The phone rang at the breakfast table. The president picked it up. "Hello." Then Ta
"I'm a friend." "Who-how did you get my private number?" "That's not important. I want you to listen very carefully. I love your country, and I would not want to see it destroyed. If you don't want terrible storms to wipe it off the map, you must send me two billion dollars in gold. If you're not interested now, I'll call you back in three days." On the screen, they watched the president slam the phone down. He said to his wife, "Some crazy man got my phone number. Sounds like he escaped from an asylum." Ta
Ta
The telephone on his desk rang.
"Now." Ta
The president picked up the telephone apprehensively. "Hello." "Good morning, Mr. President. How-?" "You are destroying my country! You have ruined the crops. The fields are flooded. The villages are being-" He stopped and took a deep breath. "How long is this going to go on?" There was hysteria in the president's voice.