Free Drought by Graham Masterton Page B

broadcast. Saskia, can I have a private word with you before I go?’
    â€˜Sure,’ said Saskia. She stood up and Joseph stood up, too. He held out his hand again and said, ‘An unexpected pleasure to meet you, Saskia. Till the next time.’
    â€˜Joseph?’ said Halford. ‘I’ll see you later on, my friend.
Semper fi
.’
    As they went back inside the golf club building, Saskia said, ‘You weren’t in the Marines, were you, Halford?’
    â€˜Are you serious? Of course not. But Joseph was. He was invalided out for some reason or another. Insanity, probably. No – only a joke! But I know for sure that he was at Abu Ghraib – that prison where the GIs were torturing Iraqi prisoners.’
    They were halfway along the corridor that led to the reception area when he suddenly opened a door on the left-hand side and peered inside. ‘Empty. Good. This’ll do.’
    Saskia looked inside, too. The room was windowless and airless and smelled of new carpet and leather. There was a long mahogany table in the center of it, with chairs all around. Halford held the door open wider and said, ‘After you, sweet cheeks.’ Once they were inside, he turned the key. ‘Don’t want anybody disturbing us, do we?’
    â€˜What do you want, Halford?’ Saskia challenged him.
    â€˜Maybe I’d like some reward for being so tolerant. You’re the only woman I ever allow to speak to me the way you do, and yet you have less of a right to do that than any other woman I know.’
    â€˜You’re a pig, Halford. And the trouble is, you know you are, and you just don’t care. In fact you wallow in it, don’t you?’
    Halford came up close to her and laid his hands on her shoulders, rhythmically squeezing them. ‘You know how serious this is, Saskia. One way or another, a whole lot of people are going to die. The only question is,
which
people. Somebody has to make the decision and I was elected to make life-or-death decisions so that’s what I’m doing. I can’t stop people from dying. But it’s my judgment that they’re better off not knowing in advance. Otherwise, what’s going to happen? Anarchy. And then even more people are going to die, the worthy as well as the worthless.’
    With that, he turned her around, so that she had her back to him, and he pushed her forward until her thighs were pressed up against the edge of the table. She didn’t resist him, but then she didn’t make it easier for him, either.
    â€˜Supposing I tell the media what you’re doing?’ she said.
    â€˜You won’t. Any more than you’ll quit from my specialist drought team. You’ll do what I want you to do because you can’t face the alternative. Apart from that, you’re the best at what you do, and you take pride in that, don’t you? Forget the ethics, forget the morality. You’re the queen of friendly persuasion.’
    He was standing so close behind her now that she could feel his hardened penis through his pants. She started to twist herself away, but he clamped his left hand around the back of her neck and forced her face-down on to the table. Then, quite casually, he lifted her floaty orange dress at the back, right up to her waist, baring her buttocks.
    â€˜I was wrong to call you a pig, Halford,’ she told him, with her cheekbone pressed against the surface of the table.
    â€˜Glad to hear it,’ he replied. She could hear him tug open his zipper.
    â€˜Calling you a pig, that’s an insult to pigs. I never knew a pig who blackmailed every other pig he knew, just to make sure that he always got his own way.’
    â€˜It’s not blackmail, sweet cheeks. It’s insurance.’
    â€˜Insurance?’ said Saskia. He was parting the cheeks of her bottom with his thumb now. ‘You just don’t have the stones.’
    â€˜Oh … I have the stones, Saskia. You know