Tankinato refilled his goblet, took a healthy sip, and continued.
“Second, the lake, being manmade will be free of the usual trash associated with other
Florida lakes. There will be no garbage fish. No out of control weeds. A nice sandy bottom. Solid firm banks. Everything your sports minded or recreational family wants for a super vacation. The manmade mountain with a waterfall and tropic lagoon will be a vacation paradise and will also disguise all the plumbing and hardware necessary to maintain a weed free and clear water environment. A perfect setting for the new millennium type family. Third and definitely not least is the resort hotel. The biggest and best of its kind in the country. Everything high tech and security controlled. The perfect place for our wealthy friends in business and their families. The business meeting rooms will be designed with the latest in computer technology and relaxing enough that all the fortune five hundred companies will be jumping over each other to make reservations to stay with us. We will have complete marina facilities for the boat owner and enough rental units to keep any number of guests perfectly content. Well that’s basically my end. Let me now hear your input before we put this in gear.”
Tim Coonsby, still weary from his last minute flight from New York, stood up and pointed at the artist’s rendition hanging on the portable display easel.
“Okay, as you know my company did all the procuring of land for this project. This is a very profitable undertaking because of the location that we have obtained. The only problem that I have discovered is the availability of water to supply our manmade lake. There are no rivers in the immediate area to siphon the water from and we surely are not going to get enough rain to do any good so, what is our option?”
“I can probably answer that better than anyone.” Pepin Rantuski rose from his chair and replaced Tim Coonsby in front of the easel.
“My men have been researching this area since Mr. Tankinato brought this project to my attention three months ago. Florida has an extremely large aquifer area. For you men who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’ll explain. The aquifer is the area under the ground that contains all the water that has come from springs, underground rivers, soaked in rainfall, etc. The aquifer maintains a very healthy level year round even though the environmentalists always say we are sucking it dry. Political talk is all that is. There is enough water in the ground to last millions of years. All we are going to do is suck enough out to fill the lake and believe me, nobody will know the difference.”
“I have a slight problem with that.” William (Bill) Forham stated. “My partner Kevin Backlin and I feel, after much sound vibration testing, that the land that you plan to build on is geologically unsound for any extensive building, especially after you suck the water out of the aquifer.”
“Listen Bill, and you too Kevin, I really appreciate your concern but we are not going to damage any sensitive land area. Besides, any water we remove will replenish itself in no time. The rainfall levels will keep the aquifer nice and full. We brought your company in here for that very reason, we did not want to damage anything and now we know everything is going to be just peachy keen, right?” Bolstered Tankinato.
“Didn’t you hear what Bill said?” Kevin exclaimed loudly. A building won’t be safe on that land. It is too unstable”
“Now, don’t get upset. There is a ten thousand-dollar bonus for each of you for all the work you have done. Don’t worry about anything. I promise you. Nothing at all will happen.”
Kevin Backlin raised the plastic cup to his lips and downed the last of the scotch. He shrugged off the bitter taste and stared back at his friend and business partner Bill Forham.
They had been friends since growing up together in Spring, Texas, a suburb of Houston. Their business relationship was based not only on very deep trust but the respect of each other’s brilliant mind. Graduating from Spring High School together they both decided to go to Texas A&M and that decision probably was the most important of their lives. They both met their future wives at the college and the degrees they had received in civil engineering kept them closely associated in the business world. Bill Forham had gone to work for a construction company building resort hotels in various parts of the world. Kevin Backlin on the other hand had gone immediately to work for the Federal government in the branch that oversaw the construction of damns and water resource lakes throughout the states.
Their families kept in touch and always spent the Christmas holidays together. Both men, being environmentally conscious since their teens, always discussed the impact nature had on their various jobs whenever they spent time together. Discussion after discussion, many times with their wives and even sometimes their children, finally led to the creation of a partnership in a company that monitored the impact of what man was doing to destroy nature whenever construction was done on environmentally sensitive lands. Funding from many private and public organizations had strengthened their company and their reputation as watchdogs for the environment had blossomed nationwide.
“Listen Bill, that bastard can’t buy us off with a twenty thousand-dollar bribe.” Kevin hissed. “He’s fixing to kill some innocent people if he builds what he wants to. That ground is not stable enough for putting up a picnic table much less a resort. We have to shut him down before he stops.”
“I feel exactly the way you do Kevin, but it’s out of our hands. He plans to build on useless old cattle land and sterile orange groves. Nobody cares about that part of the state and besides he is actually helping the land by adding a very, I may add, large lake. The governor is a personal friend of his and has already said he will endorse Mr. Tankinato’s project as a boon to tourism. We were hired to monitor the impact on the environment. Just because we don’t personally think its safe we still have to give him a green light because he isn’t harming anything. Believe me, I wish we could stop the project.”
“Well, I’m glad you agree with me on this. It’s just a damn shame that just because you are rich and have friends in the right places you can get away with murder.”
“Look at it this way, Kevin.” Bill replied soothingly. “Nobody has died yet and hopefully nothing will happen down the road.”
“I hope you’re right Bill. All I know is I’m going to be there when this place opens and hopefully just walk around with a smile on my face and say nice job Hiruto, nice job.”
The hissing sound was not unlike what an angry alley cat would make if trapped in a corner of a dead-end alley by an inquisitive mongrel mutt. The weakened seam of the four-inch diameter PVC pipe was from an incident that had happened six months before. A nineteen-year old apprentice plumber had wiped the primer carefully around the male and female parts of the ready to assemble pipe. Claustrophobia had sunk in very deeply by the time the PVC cement was to be applied. John Pemple, the apprentice would actually shiver whenever he couldn’t see the sky over his head and the tunnel he was in completely blocked his vision of the blue of the sky. He never knew the cause of his phobia but, many nights he had awoken, his shivering body twisted among sweat-stained sheets, the vivid nightmare of being buried alive in a satin lined casket, his fingers in the dream, bloody stumps, from trying to claw his way to freedom. The sweat on his forehead was clammy feeling in the seventy-degree temperature in the bottom of the tunnel and his slippery hands nervously dropped the cement container he had been gripping too tightly. In his haste to exit the tunnel he righted the spilled can and grabbed a rag to soak up the mess before his boss saw the waste he had caused. He blotted what he could in the wet dirt, stuffed the gritty rag in the back pocket of his navy blue work pants and picked up the two sections of pipe and twisted them together. His courage definitely on the back swing John Pemple grabbed his hacksaw and three quarter empty can of cement and rushed down the fifty-foot length of the tunnel to the upright shaft that led to the surface. He climbed the extension ladder as fast as his body would allow him and the pumping motion of his legs missed every other step painfully banging his shins on every missed stroke. Gasping large amounts of air when he was finally on the surface, he had by then completely forgotten the uncemented joint. The tunnel, built by an innovative earth moving machine called “The Mole”, had been dug for the purpose of laying the pipeline for the equalization system of the lake. “The Mole,” had been developed by one of Tankinato’s many subsidiaries and had been in operation less than a year. It was a unique machine, cone shaped, all stainless steel body with tank type tracks down both sides. The machine had a large screw type auger on the front that could burrow into almost any surface and funnel the debris through cylindrical channels above the tracks and deposit it out the rear. The diamond tipped auger, virtually indestructible, was driven by a six-inch wide chain attached to a gear driven by the machine’s six hundred and fifty-horse diesel engine. Tankinato planned to market “The Mole” worldwide after the trial run at the resort. The pipes, ten pairs in all, would move enough water in or out of the lake to compensate for any weather condition, from drought to summer monsoons.