FrostLine by Justin Scott

wondered, where’s the next bomb? Which way do we run?
    In an amazingly short time, the water was gone. The scale of the transformation was enormous. The gazebo towered on pilings like an oil rig, and Lake Vixen was an empty bowl of mud, seething here and there with puddles of stranded fish.
    The mood changed. Relief at no second explosion. The distance from the house played a part, too; nothing was damaged, except for the lake. Copious amounts of champagne already consumed, and an excellent desert-and-camel joke provoked laughter, which angry glances from Henry King stifled into hysterical snickers. All at once, everyone got the bright idea to go down for a closer look.
    Bottles were snatched from serving maids, and forty or fifty of us trooped across a lawn blessedly free of the flies that the cows had taken with them. Somewhat looped on Veuve Clicquot, I found myself romping between earnest Tim Hall, murmuring, “Poor Mr. King,” and a seductively smashed Vicky McLachlan, who kept bumping into me with firm hips, soft breasts and giggled apologies.
    I had a champagne epiphany: Vicky was my best friend in the world and I had really been stupid with her. As the insight further manifested as a deep ache in my groin, I began to pray that Tim would disappear in one of the many mudholes scattered about the lake bed.
    Glancing back at the house, I saw Henry King shouting into a cell phone—calling the cops—while resisting the staffers who were urging him inside. Fiona and the ambassador were disappearing in the direction of the cars, flanked by their uniformed chauffeur and a dangerous-looking young Brit with his hand in a shoulder bag.
    Their SAS bodyguard, I realized, and felt a little silly for a moment, seeing the explosion through the eyes of people who had been targets in crueler parts of the world.
    When I looked again, Julia Devlin was at King’s side, speaking urgently, guiding him indoors and ordering staff to secure Mrs. King, who was wandering around the lawn in a daze. By then, I was convinced the danger was over. Mainly because I assumed that Mr. Butler—fed up with lawyers and low-flying helicopters—had blown up King’s dam exactly as he had threatened.
    We skirted the muddy banks, heading for the wrecked dam, which had blown into numerous large chunks of concrete tangled together with steel reinforcing bars. Then Vicky crashed softly into me again and I was back home in Newbury where feuds were comical by comparison.
    â€œMrs. Ambassador ran away,” she whispered.
    â€œSo did Mr. Ambassador.”
    â€œCan you tell me what to do with Tim?”
    â€œBeats me,” I said stupidly and regretted it a long time after.
    Vicky kicked off her shoes and stepped into the mud.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” called Tim. “You’ll cut your feet.”
    â€œI want to see. Who’s coming with me?”
    Up at the house, steel shutters were belatedly sliding over the windows, buttoning it up like a bunker. Over on the helipad, the Bell Ranger rotors began circling with a whine. While down the driveway roared the ambassador’s Daimler limousine, swaying through the turns the way cars do when they’re weighted down with armor and bulletproof glass.
    I pulled off my shoes and socks and rolled up my trousers. Vicky passed me her bottle. “Come on Tim. Chicken.”
    Tim warned we’d cut our feet.
    â€œHe’s probably right,” I said.
    â€œThat’s ridiculous. Before there was mud there was grass. There’s nothing to cut our feet on.”
    In fact, there were things sticking up out of the mud, including an oddly crooked thick root that reminded me of something. I started toward it for a closer look.
    â€œ Ow !”
    I caught Vicky, saved her from falling face flat in the mud. “You okay?”
    â€œNo, it hurts.”
    â€œCan you walk?”
    â€œI can hop.”
    â€œI’ll carry you.”
    Vicky was an armful in