"MacLean, Alistar - Seawitch" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maclean Alistair)

All ten were, in various degrees, suppliers of oil to the United States and had one common interest: to see that the price of those supplies did not drop. The last thing they all wanted to see was an oil-value depreciation.

Benson, whose holiday home this was and who was nominally hosting the meeting, opened the discussion.

"Gentlemen, does anyone have any objections if I bring a third party -- that is, a man who represents neither ourselves nor Lord Worth -- into this meeting?"

Practically everyone had, and there were some moments of bedlamic confusion: they had not only objections but very strong ones at that.

Borosoff, the Russian, said: "No, It is too dangerous." He glanced around the group with calculated suspiciousness. "There are already too many of us privy to these discussions."

Benson, who had not become head of one of Europe's biggest oil companies, a British-based one, just because someone had handed him the job as a birthday present, could be disconcertingly blunt.

"You, Borosoff, are the one with the slenderest claims to be present at this meeting. You might well bear that in mind. Name your suspect." Borosoff remained silent. "Remember, gentlemen, the objective of this meeting -- to maintain, at least, the present oil-price levels. The OPEC is now actively considering hiking the oil prices. .That doesn't hurt us much here in the U.S. — we'll just hike our own prices and pass them on to the public."

Patinos said: "You're every bit as unscrupulous and ruthless as you claim us to be."

"Realism is not the same as ruthlessness. Nobody's going to hike anything while North Hudson is around. They are already undercutting us, the majors. A slight pinch, but we feel it. If we raise our prices more and his remain steady, the slight pinch is going to increase. And if he gets some more TLPs into operation, then the pinch will begin to hurt. It will also hurt the OPEC, for the demand for your products will undoubtedly fall off.

"We all subscribe to the gentlemen's agreement among major oil companies that they will not prospect for oil in international waters -- that is to say, outside their own legally and internationally recognized territorial limits. Without observance of this agreement, the possibilities of legal, diplomatic, political and international strife, ranging from scenes of political violence to outright armed confrontation, are only too real. Let us suppose that Nation Alas some countries have already done -- claims all rights for all waters a hundred miles offshore from its coasts. Let us further suppose that Nation B comes along and starts drilling thirty miles outside those limits. Then let us suppose that Nation A makes a unilateral decision to extend its offshore limits to a hundred and fifty miles -- and don't forget that Peru has claimed two hundred miles as its limits: the subsequent possibilities are too awesome to contemplate.

"Alas, not all are gentlemen. The chairman of the North Hudson Oil Company, Lord Worth, and his entire pestiferous board of directors would have been the first to vehemently deny any suggestion that they were gentlemen, a fact held in almost universal acceptance by their competitors in oil. They would also have denied equally vehemently that they were criminals, a fact that may or may not have been true, but it most certainly is not true now.

"He has, in short, committed two of what should be indictable offenses. 'Should,' I say. The first is unprovable; the second, although an of-fense in moral terms, is not, as yet, strictly illegal.

"The facts of the first -- and what I consider much the minor offense -- concerns the building of Lord Worth's TLP in Houston. It is no secret in the industry that the plans were stolen -- those for the platform from the Mobil Oil Company, those for the legs and anchoring systems from the Chevron Oilfield Research Company. But, as I say, unprovable. It is commonplace for new inventions and developments to occur at two or more places simultaneously, and he can always claim that his design team, working in secret, beat the others to the punch."

Benson was perfectly correct. In the design of the Seawitch Lord Worth had adopted shortcuts which the narrow-minded could have regarded as unscrupulous, if not illegal. Like all oil companies, North Hudson had its own design team. They were all cronies of Lord Worth, employed solely for tax-deduction purposes; their combined talents would have been incapable of designing a rowboat.

This did not worry Lord Worth. He had no need for a design team. He was a vastly wealthy man, had powerful friends -- none of them, needless to say, among the oil companies -- and was a master of industrial espionage. With these resources at his disposal, he found little trouble in obtaining those two secret advance plans, which he passed on to a firm of highly competent marine designers, whose exorbitant fees were matched only by then extreme discretion. The designers found little difficulty in marrying the two sets of plans, adding just sufficient modifications and improvements to discourage those with a penchant for patent-rights litigation.

Benson went on: "But what really worries me, and what should worry all you gentlemen here, is Lord Worth's violation of the tacit agreement never to indulge in drilling in international waters." He paused, deliberately for effect, and looked slowly at each of the other nine in turn. "I say in all seriousness, gentlemen, that Lord Worth's foolhardiness and greed may well prove to be the spark that triggers a third world war. Apart from protecting our own interests, I maintain that for the good of mankind and I speak from no motive of spurious self-justification -- if the governments of the world do not intervene, then it is imperative that we should. As the governments show no sign of intervention, then I suggest that the burden lies upon us. This madman must be stopped. I think you gentlemen would agree that only we realize the full implications of all of this and that only we have the technical expertise to stop him."

There were murmurs of approval from around the room. A sincere and disinterested concern for the good of mankind was a much more morally justifiable reason for action than the protection of one's own selfish interest. Patinos, the man from Venezuela, looked at Benson with a smile of mild cynicism on his face. The smile signified nothing. Patinos, a sincere and devout Catholic, wore the same expression when he passed through the doors of his church.

"You seem very sure of this, Mr. Benson?"

I've given quite some thought to it."

Borosoff said: "And just how do you propose to stop this madman, Mr. Benson?"

"All don't know."

"You don't know?" One of the others at the table lifted his eyebrows a millimeter -- for him a sign of complete disapproval. "Then why did you summon us all this distance?"

"I didn't summon you. I asked you. I asked you to approve whatever course of action we might take."

"This course of action being —-"

"Again, I don't know."