Haut chortled and said, ‘Today I was speaking to an engineer in Melbourne who may work with me. He told me about an old bloke in the house next door to him who worked hard in his yard on a system of batteries running a car using a primitive form of water energy. Ford heard about him. They offered him a million in 1977—the year I had my vision—to stop his invention. They threatened him. The old bloke took the money, and Ford took away his invention—car, batteries and everything.’

‘I sense you’d never capitulate.’

‘Never!’

24 ORANGEY SQUEEZE

24

ORANGEY SQUEEZE

Haut’s time away developing his cold fusion technology coincided with the rise of Ingrid Orangey, a political star who had her professional roots in the union movement. She was becoming a senior figure in Tasmanian politics. In a phone call to Cavalier, Haut pointed out his concern about this ‘rather masculine, porcine woman, already with a big reputation for former corrupt activity on the docks’.

‘Is she going to give you trouble?’ Cavalier asked in a phone call with Haut.

‘Oh, yes,’ Haut said with a sigh. ‘Conquer will bribe her, for sure.’

Despite this new concern, and another substantial figure lined up against him, Haut had completed several months’ work on the cold fusion technology, spending a million borrowed dollars on building a reactor.

‘I did take my eye off the ball with my companies,’ Haut admitted. ‘They’ve declined because of the busy inactivity of Sir Harry Askew.’

‘He always seemed big on bonhomie and even bigger on industrial inertia.’

‘There’s more to it. Sir Harry’s charm turned out to be a clever cover for his dirty work. We had break-ins, threats to murder staff and sabotage, such as equipment being destroyed, again. I wouldn’t mind betting that Conquer and Fat Cow Orangey combined to destroy the company. I fired him before it was too late. But even after he left, research and production operations were interfered with. More bureaucrats and politicians have been bought off. Even some of my workers have been bribed.’

‘There are rumours Conquer wants to take over Shelf Energy. It already has a forty per cent stake in it.’

‘They want to lift it to sixty per cent and take control. Then they can count Shelf Energy’s reserves as theirs.’

‘Will they go after it?’

‘Could. But the federal government could be persuaded to stop a takeover. The treasurer is not keen on too much foreign investment, which has ballooned out in the last years with China trying to take over the country by economic stealth. The public doesn’t like it. There are votes in stopping it.’

‘Why is Conquer hell-bent on taking Shelf Energy?’ Cavalier asked.