Flood by Stephen Baxter Read Free Book Online Page B

make.”
    “That doesn’t surprise me,” Gary said. He had drained his champagne and was reaching for another. “Guys like that always have calls to make.” He pointed at the left-hand wall. “Isn’t that a Gauguin?”
    “Never had you down as an art lover, Boyle.” A couple approached them. It was Piers Michaelmas, in a crisp new British army uniform, with Helen Gray on his arm. “But of course you’re quite right. And Gauguin is exactly the sort of obvious choice this gang of hedgies and market players would splash their money on. Hello, you two.” Piers stood straight. His dark hair was cut short, military style. Only the lines around his eyes might have been a clue that here was a man who had spent much of the last few years in utter silence, his face hidden under a filthy towel from captors he could not bear to have look at him.
    They compared notes. Their lives the last few days had been similar, a round of medical checks and debriefings and family visits and media events.
    Only Piers seemed itching to get back to work. “All this ruddy climate stuff,” he confided to Lily. “It’s really kicked off while we’ve been banged up, quicker than the boffins ever expected. Something new going on, so I’ve heard, though nobody knows quite what . . .” He didn’t have a word to say about their captivity or its aftermath.
    Behind his back, Gary mouthed to Lily:“Denial. That guy is a walking case conference.”
    “Hush,” she hissed back. She turned to Helen, who wore a simple black dress; she was beautiful, Lily thought, her blond hair cut short and expensively teased. But the dress, the hairstyle, just brought out her thinness and pallor, and a haunted look in her blue eyes.“So any news about Grace?”
    “Nothing but dead ends,” Helen said. “He was an AxysCorp employee, that doctor who took hold of Grace in the first place. But since then they’ve passed her around like a live grenade. A US Army medic took her from AxysCorp, and then the British army took her from them, and then the Foreign Office got hold of her, and then . . . When I call any of them they put me on hold or refer me to a counselor.”
    Gary said, “I’m sure she’s safe. They wouldn’t harm her—”
    “That’s not the point,” she snarled at him. “She’s not with me . I don’t care if she’s the bastard child of a Saudi prince or not, I’m her mother.”
    “We’re all as baffled as you are,” George Camden said.“And we sympathize, Helen. We really do. And we intend to do everything we can to help.”
    “That’s true, that’s very true, I endorse everything George has said on AxysCorp’s behalf.” The new voice was booming, commanding; they turned as one, on a reflex.
    Nathan Lammockson walked toward them.

9

    L ammockson was a short man, hefty, his suit jacket a fraction on the small side so that his belly pushed out his shirt. He wore his gray-flecked black hair cut short to the scalp, and his double chin and fleshy nose were moist with sweat. He came trailed by a school of news crews. Murmuring inconsequential words, Lammockson shook hands with each of the four of them, the four he had saved from the clutches of the Spanish extremists. Lights glared and mike booms hovered. This encounter was clearly the centerpiece of the occasion, for him.
    Lily had researched their rescuer in her free time since returning to England. Forty-five years old, Lammockson was a third-generation immigrant from Uganda. His grandparents had fled Idi Amin. He looked vaguely eastern Mediterranean; he claimed not to know or care what his ethnic origins were. By forty he had become one of the richest men in Britain. As far as Lily understood he had got that way mostly by buying up huge companies, using their own assets to secure the loans he needed to do so, and then selling them on for immense profits.
    When the cameras were done with them Piers Michaelmas stepped away politely, inspecting what looked to Lily like a futuristic