World War Moo by Michael Logan Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes and enjoy the simple warmth of the sun on his face, his mind momentarily stilled. He was on the verge of dozing off when the crunch of wheels on gravel and the purr of an engine announced the arrival of his sole surviving relative. Grandfather Carstairs, dapper as ever in a linen suit, white hat, and bushy silver moustache, eased his way out of the black Mercedes and shook Geldof’s hand as the chauffeur carried his leather valise up into the villa.
    â€œYou’re looking good, my boy.”
    â€œYou, too, Granddad.”
    This was something of a white lie. His grandfather was approaching eighty, and even the few months since his last visit had been enough to deepen his stoop, which was now so pronounced he had to raise his eyes to look at Geldof. Beneath the gray pallor of his cheeks, blue veins fluttered as his blood tried to summon up the enthusiasm to make another weary circuit of his body.
    â€œHow’s business?” Geldof said.
    In contrast to his appearance, his grandfather’s voice remained strong and even. “Recovering. The U.K. crisis hit profits hard, but at least I don’t have to pay wages there any longer, and we’re diversifying into new markets. Your legacy is secure, my boy.”
    That at least was good news. Geldof was living in the villa at his grandfather’s expense, and if the company were to collapse he could well find himself not only an orphan, but a homeless orphan. From there, he may as well throw in glue-sniffing, drug use, and becoming a rent boy—which would at least lose him his virginity on a technicality. He supposed if there’d been any sign of collapse his grandfather would have divested himself of all the assets, uncaring about the jobs lost, to safeguard his personal fortune. Geldof still marveled at how far apart his mum and grandfather were, or had been, on the pragmatism/idealism scale. Then again, Geldof had spent most of his time in Scotland trying to be as dissimilar to his mum as he could, so he supposed it was natural that she’d done the same thing with the father she’d fled and whose continued existence she’d hidden for so long.
    Geldof’s grandfather took off his hat and dabbed at his brow with a handkerchief. “Let’s have a nice cool drink on the balcony. I have some news for you.”
    Frowning, Geldof followed him up through the cool interior of the house and onto the large balcony overlooking the sea. Recently, his grandfather had been sending e-mails full of hints that it was time for Geldof to move on from his seclusion. He kept raising the prospect of business school so Geldof could take over the coffee empire one day—a day that would come soon enough. As much as Geldof liked the idea of being obscenely rich and knew he needed a goal to stop him drifting along like the flotsam and jetsam the sea washed up on the beach, he didn’t fancy having to run a corporation. He wanted to study mathematics and get a research job probing the mysteries of the universe, not spend his days worrying about coffee prices and exploiting poor workers on plantations. Increasingly, he felt like he’d escaped one set of expectations for another: from being encouraged to bring down The Man to becoming The Man. Nobody seemed to think about what he wanted.
    Anyway, discussions of his future were moot. Geldof had no doubt about the inevitability of the virus—which he thought of as a malicious, sentient entity—escaping the cordon around his former home. He’d tried to encourage his grandfather to cut loose enough cash to buy a small island and had identified several likely candidates in the South Pacific and Caribbean on privateislandonline.com , where he could live an idyllic life of fishing, swimming, and not being munched up by hordes of angry infected. The six million dollars or so required would be small change to his grandfather, but the old git refused to part with the cash. Buying such a