Pandemonium Read Online Free PDF Page B

only natural. We’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of our lives. But we’re safe now. I wish you hadn’t let me go to sleep. I wanted to attack you, too.” As he reached out to tickle her, the phone rang. Geoffrey answered and listened for a moment. “OK,” he said, and hung up, dropping his head. “There’s a limo out front. They found us.”
    “Surprise, surprise. I need a shower. I can’t wear this hula skirt on the plane for nine hours.”
    “But we’re going to Kauai.”
    “Ha.”
    “I’ll go down and stall them.”
    He kissed her and dragged their luggage downstairs.
    9:07 A.M.
    In front of the dorm sat a huge black limousine. The Secret Service must have tracked her cell phone signal and, in the most annoyingly polite way, were waiting in front of the dormitory to escort them to the airport for their honeymoon. Geoffrey plucked a pink beach rose from the hedge bordering the sidewalk outside Brick Dorm. Then he peered into the open back door of the limousine.
    Inside the cavernous cabin, which was far more opulent than their usual ride, he saw a large man reclining with his back to the driver and stretching telephone pole legs toward him, crossed at the ankle on the spotless black carpet. He wore expensive loafers on his feet. Geoffrey smelled strong cologne. Long black hair was combed back from the man’s sharp widow’s peak, and his massive, jutting face was overhung by bushy eyebrows, his jaw framed by a beard with snow-white brackets on his chin. He wore a stylish charcoal suit with a white dress shirt opened at the collar. Leaning forward toward Geoffrey, he grinned, flashing a gold tooth, his ice blue eyes strangely magnetic. “Come, come!” he boomed with a prodigious voice. He waved Geoffrey in with one hand and extended a drink with the other: “A mimosa for groom!”
    Geoffrey accepted the fizzing mimosa and noticed a gold ring set with what looked like a 20-carat diamond on the man’s pinkie finger. “Is this the right car?”
    “Yes, Dr. Binswanger, this is right car !” laughed the man. His voice was not only deep but also explosive— like a Gatling gun inside the broad barrel of his chest. “Come, come! Let me introduce myself. I am Maxim Dragolovich !” He reached out hands as big as goliath tarantulas to grasp Geoffrey’s hand. “You cut your hair, yes?”
    Geoffrey winced as the man nearly crushed his hand and pulled him inside the car. He sat on the nearest seat and smiled. “Did you say Maxim Dragolovich?”
    “Yes. You heard right.” With his jutting jaw and nose like the broken ram of a trireme, and his six-foot-five-inch frame, the man was imposing in a way that handsome men cannot be. Geoffrey had certainly heard of the legendary Russian oligarch. His celebrity-adorned rooftop soirees in his Upper East Side mansion on Fifth Avenue were frequent grist for the “Page Six” gossip mill. The billionaire’s latest investments were headlined in The Wall Street Journal . His hobbies were sports teams. His homes were feature spreads in Time magazine. For a man with such an outsized profile, Geoffrey thought, he certainly lived up to the hype.
    “Congratulations on your wedding! Here is to bride !” With a sweep of his long arm, Maxim toasted Geoffrey so lustily, the biologist felt obliged to lift his glass. As he sipped the drink, he felt a kick of vodka in the “mimosa.”
    “Don’t worry, Doctor. I have come with wonderful proposition for you!” The billionaire peaked his eyebrows apologetically, softening the natural threat of his countenance.
    “Oh, yes? What would that be?” Geoffrey asked.
    “Being capitalist, I promise to make your cooperation quite agreeable. I require expertise only you and your bride can provide. I am prepared to pay two million dollars for not more than few months of your time. Maybe only few weeks, perhaps.” He shrugged. “With condition that you leave today. Right now, in fact.”
    Geoffrey laughed. “My wife and I are