Flood

by Stephen Baxter

  16

  Helen Gray was driven into central London. The jam was solid for kilometers.

  On East Smithfield the AxysCorp driver muttered an apology and swung the car off the road. Helen, riding in the back, was thrown against her seatbelt, and then jarred as the passenger-side wheels jolted up onto the curb. Sirens were wailing. A police officer in a Day-Glo yellow coat worked his way down the road, gesturing at the drivers to clear the roadway. All the way up the road ahead, Helen saw, with the twin spires of Tower Bridge looming into the gray sky beyond, the traffic had squeezed itself off the road, parting as if for Moses. Even the enormous new bendy buses found a way to shove themselves out of the way.

  The rain fell steadily, streaking Helen’s window. But she could see pedestrians pushing past, in waterproofs or just in City suits, under umbrellas or holding briefcases over their heads like shields, stepping through the murky, spreading puddles. Many of them had mobile phones clamped to their ears, or they spoke into the air, gesturing; even more glared at phones that stubbornly refused to find a signal. Talk, talk, talk; she imagined a mist of words rising up like steam from the soaked streets.

  But the car was warm and dry, and so was Helen, isolated from the chaos outside, comfortable in her blue AxysCorp all-weather, ten-year-durable jumpsuit. The only sounds were the soft hum of the idling engine, the hammering of the rain on the roof. Nothing outside the car seemed real.

  She still wasn’t moving. She tried to set aside her mounting tension. She had insisted on being brought back into London because she had a contact in the Foreign Office, a man called Michael Thurley who, nominally in charge of the case of her baby, had promised to meet her at the end of the working day and update her with progress. To Helen the whole jaunt out to Southend had turned out to be a distraction, irrelevant to her main purpose. Now she was determined to keep her appointment in Whitehall, whether London cooperated or not. But every time the car was brought to a halt like this, anxiety squeezed her. How bad was this flooding going to get? She had the sense of everything falling apart bit by bit.

  The reason for the road clearance became apparent. With a blare of sirens and a flash of blue lights a fire engine came barreling down the road, heading the wrong way down the lane. The engine rushed past Helen, a wall of red-painted metal. It led a convoy of police cars and vans, ambulances and paramedic vehicles, even a few camouflage-green Army trucks. The heavy vehicles threw up spray in great fountains.

  The AxysCorp driver was a solid-framed woman, aged maybe forty, her face square, her chin strong. She’d discarded her peaked cap some kilometers back to reveal close-cropped gray hair. “We’ve got it easy,” she said, listening to the murmur of her radio controller. “They’re using bulldozers to clear the North Circular and let the emergency vehicles through. What a mess, I hope they’re all insured.”

  The last of the convoy, a couple of police motorcycles, roared past. “Right, they’re through,” said the driver. She dragged at the steering wheel, gunned the engine, and pulled the car out into the lane that the police had cleared. She was among the first to react, and she pushed the car hard past walls of stationary cars.

  Just for a few minutes, before the traffic pulled back out onto the empty road, they made good progress. They overtook cars and yellow buses full of evacuated schoolkids, and ambulances and paramedic vehicles coming from the emptying hospitals. They hurried over the junction with Tower Bridge Approach. Then, with the brooding mass of the Tower itself to their left, they passed the big tube station with its open plaza. Helen saw thousands of people swarming up from the underground ticket halls, some of them looking shocked, many soaked even before they came out into the rain. Maybe the tube network was flooding, then. If so, she wondered where all these thousands spilling into the heart of the city were supposed to go.

  On a bit further they went, down Byward Street and along Lower Thames Street, the traffic slowing and clogging all the time. There were roadworks everywhere, great pits dug into the surface; London was always in the process of being rebuilt, and today the holes and ditches brimmed with water. Helen glimpsed the river itself, high and raging, looking as dense as some molten metal, like mercury, not like mere water at all, rising high beneath the functional concrete arches of London Bridge.

  The traffic congealed further as the driver maneuvered the car around the approaches to London Bridge. To her right Helen glimpsed the City’s spindly new skyscrapers, extraordinary sculptures of glass erected since her capture. Helicopters slid past their impassive faces. Still they kept moving, past Cannon Street and Southwark Bridge. But now their luck ran out, the road clogging like a furred-up artery. Worse, she could see pedestrians streaming over the spindly Millennium Bridge from the South Bank, adding to the congestion.

  The driver shrugged. “I guess this is it. Sorry. You want I should turn around? The worst problems are going to be in the West End, up ahead. We could go north and—”

  “No. I’ve got to get to Whitehall. There or the RAF Memorial on the Embankment. That’s where I said I’d meet my contact if I couldn’t get to Whitehall.”

  The driver glanced at her, not unsympathetic. “Whitehall? Look, it’s not my place to give you advice. You’re the one who’s trying to find out about her kiddie, aren’t you?”

  “That’s my business,” Helen snapped.

  “It’s just that Whitehall’s practically on the river. If anywhere’s going to flood it will be there.” She showed Helen a kind of sat-nav screen, a bit more advanced than the technology Helen remembered. It showed flickering high-resolution map panels, Westminster and the West End, whole areas marked by a gray overlay. “Mr. Lammockson trained us up in flood scenarios. They’re probably evacuating the government buildings, if they haven’t already.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” Helen said miserably.

  “Are you sure? I can still get you out of here, you know.”

  “I know. Thank you. I have to do this . . . What will you do now?”

  “Don’t you worry about me.”

  “Do you have family?”

  The driver turned away. “Two boys. Their dad pissed off back to Greece with them five years ago. At least they won’t get flooded out there, hey. You see, we’re in the same boat, you and me. Although today I wish I had a bloody boat, ha-ha. You don’t know London, do you?”

  Helen shrugged. “Only as a tourist.”

  “Well, it’s not a good day to be sightseeing. Listen. If you get stuck, head for the Strand. Off Trafalgar Square. You can’t miss the Strand.”

  “Why there?”

  “Because that’s where the old shore used to be, the docks, before they concreted over the river. ‘Strand’ means ‘shore.’ And even if the river’s bursting its banks it’s not going to go higher than that, is it? Stands to reason.”

  “I’ll remember. Thanks.”

  “You take care.”

  Helen lifted her hood over her head, and pulled it tight at her neck and around her face. She checked her coverall was zipped up. Then she braced herself and opened the door.

  17

  She had to push against the wind. Gusts of rain soaked her face immediately, and stuck lanks of hair to her forehead.

  She moved away from the car, shoving through panicky crowds, working her way westward, toward the Blackfriars bridges and the West End beyond. There wasn’t much difference between the road and the pavement now, with people working their way around the stationary traffic. Drivers were abandoning their cars too, the doors opening like shells cracking, people emerging wincing into the rain. Above the babble of shouted conversations she heard car alarms and the wail of sirens, the flap of helicopter rotors somewhere overhead, and everywhere the hiss of the rain, from the roofs of the cars, the tarmac, the clothes and umbrellas of the pedestrians. The world was cold, windy, wet, noisy.

  And under it all she thought she heard a deeper growl, coming from the east, from downstream, like the shuddering snarl of an approaching animal.

 
; It was slow going. It was barely possible for Helen to get ahead a meter or two before being brought to a halt by the anxious directionlessness of the crowd. There were people with kids, tourists. She saw a huddle of Japanese or Koreans in see-through plastic ponchos, their eyes wide with shock, shouting into mobile phones. The men wore shorts and sandals, their legs black from the murky water.

  After a time, pissed off and already tiring, Helen stopped at a Coke machine, dug out some money and bought a bottle. A soldiers’ trick she’d picked up in her time in Barcelona: you drank the soda for the sugar rush and the caffeine. She drained the bottle quickly, and just dumped it and walked on. It wasn’t a day to be too concerned about litter.

  Past Blackfriars she rounded the curve of the Victoria Embankment. The road here was lined by trees and lamp posts, and monuments stood in memory of Britain’s grander past. The river side had a protective wall at about waist height, with steps where you could climb over to get down to a jetty or a pleasure boat. Today the river raged high, splashing just below the lip of the wall, sending showers of spray into the road. She hurried on toward Waterloo Bridge. The south bank opposite was crowded by the IBM building and the National Theater, with a huge new block of flats behind the theater, yet another newcomer dominating the view.

  And then a tremendous sheet of water rose up above the embankment wall, towering into the air and splashing down over the hurrying crowds. The water was filthy, muddy. People screamed and cowered back. But others lifted their cameras and phones to capture the show. Helen pushed on, booted feet splashing through muddy water that ran down the camber of the road to the drains. But the drains themselves were full, backing up, spilling more water than they swallowed.

  Passing under Waterloo Bridge, with the Eye a fine circle on the opposite bank, she could see the pale sandstone of the Palace of Westminster, far down the curve of the river. Still the river roared, its uneven surface flecked with white-capped waves. Helen got past the Cleopatra obelisk and under the Hungerford railway bridge. No trains were running, and people were fleeing over the bridge on foot, fleeing in both directions, spilling onto the road. Everywhere people were staring into their phones, pressing the keyboards, shouting into them. Others, desperate for news, crowded around the stationary cars, many of which had radios working, powered by their batteries. Cars and phones and running people, and the surging river, and the endless rain.

  At last she reached the RAF Memorial. She stopped here, staring helplessly. The memorial was a bronze strip-cartoon plaque that illustrated the exploits of pilots and ground crews during the Second World War. She had been brought here to see it six or seven years ago; she couldn’t have been much more than eighteen. Her parents had sneered at it as poor art, but Helen had been rather affected by its directness and emotional engagement. Lashed by rain, muddy water pooling around its base, it seemed entirely irrelevant now.

  And here came Michael Thurley, walking toward her from behind the memorial.

  About forty, he was dressed reasonably sensibly, compared to most around him; he wore a serge suit with Wellington boots, and a robust-looking bright red parka. But the rain obscured his glasses and he wiped the lenses compulsively.

  “Mr. Thurley.” She was so overwhelmingly glad to see him she felt like kissing him, but you didn’t kiss Foreign Office officials. “You got my message.”

  “Yes, I did,” he said ruefully, “but I rather wish I hadn’t. Bloody silly rendezvous point in the circumstances, Ms. Gray, if you don’t mind my saying so.” His voice was clipped, brisk, his accent containing a trace of a public-school-and-Oxbridge background.

  “I couldn’t think of anywhere better—I don’t know London. You came, anyway.”

  “I couldn’t very well leave you standing, could I?” He pulled his parka hood forward to shield his face better; he had to shout over the noise of the rain, the river’s raging. “We do have a sense of responsibility in the FO. And your friend Nathan Lammockson has been pulling various strings to make sure we act. But I have to tell you Whitehall’s mostly been evacuated already. Actually in the emergency I’ve been assigned as a liaison to New Scotland Yard—the police, you know, I’m working on protocols regarding getting various foreign dignitaries out of London. But even Scotland Yard’s been evacuated now, relocating to Hendon, the police college, and that’s really where I ought to be . . .”

  “I appreciate your staying for me.”

  “Yes. But it’s all such a mess, isn’t it? Look, you can see how we’re fixed; today is not a good day to be pursuing your case, I’m afraid. But we do have assurances from the Saudi government and the Spanish police that no harm has come to your baby—”

  “You told me that yesterday.” She dropped her head, suddenly oblivious to the rain, the pushing people, the water around her feet. After the efforts it had taken her to get here, to know that she was no further forward was crushing.

  Thurley stepped a bit closer. “There’s no more we could have done in the circs, I’m afraid. I understand. Well, actually I don’t suppose I do understand, or ever can. No kids myself. What I mean is, I sympathize.”

  “You’re trying to help. I know that. It’s just I never expected my life to turn out like this.”

  He forced a smile. “You’re what, twenty-five, six? Your whole life’s ahead of you, believe me.”

  “But my whole life is defined by the baby. By a rape. Like my feet have been nailed to the floor, and I’m never going anywhere ever again.”

  “I’m sure it’s not like that . . .”

  She heard screams. She looked up. Suddenly the water was rising all along the street, as if it were a vast bathtub filling up. People were splashing in their summer shoes and sandals through the water, climbing steps, some even climbing onto the river wall. As the water rose around their wheel arches, the stranded cars’ alarms started to sound.

  Thurley pointed. “Look. It’s coming out of the drains.” Manhole covers had been forced up by the sheer pressure of the water, which was bubbling out of the ground. “Good God, I think that’s a rat!”

  Now that distant thunder deepened. She looked along the river, facing downstream. And she saw the storm coming. A vast wave spanned the river, white-topped, scouring toward the Hungerford Bridge. Where it passed fountains of spray leapt up over the river walls. People were standing on the walls photographing it; she saw the speckle of flashes. But water was pouring down the Embankment itself now, a river on the road surface, paralleling the surge. It was still a long way off, but she saw people being knocked off their feet, stationary cars pushed aside like toys before a hosepipe.

  Suddenly this day of flooding was more than an inconvenience, more than just something in her way. People must be dying, right here in her field of view.

  She tried to focus, to think. She grabbed Thurley’s arm. “Come on. We need to get away from here.”

  He seemed hypnotized. “Ah . . . Quite. But which way?”

  “The Strand,” Helen said immediately, remembering her driver. “This way.”

  Pushing through the crowds, they hurried back along the Embankment. They had almost reached their left turn into Horseguards when the water reached them, a knee-deep wash. There was garbage in the water, bits of paper and plastic bags and fast-food wrappers, slicks of oil and sewage. People clung to the wall, to lamp posts, to the stranded cars; others were knocked off their feet, to come up drenched and sputtering. Even now people held onto their phones rather than use both their hands to support themselves; Helen saw the little screens glowing everywhere. She found herself leaning into the current, pushing to make her way forward, like walking into a tide, but she and Thurley kept their feet.

  And now the river reached a new height and poured over the river wall in a torrent. The cars jostled forward, like boulders in a fast-flowing stream. People screamed for help.

  Helen and Thurley made it to Horseguards. There was no respite here; the black, muddy, oil-streaked water surged after them as they struggled through the crow
d. Helen was tiring by the time they reached Whitehall, and Thurley was wheezing, out of condition, exhausted.

  But Whitehall itself was already flooded. They stared at another river that gushed down the street toward them, immersing people up to their thighs, pouring away from the higher ground to the north. It ran down past the pale sandstone frontages of the grand government buildings and flooded eagerly into roadwork trenches.

  Thurley looked south, the way the water was running. “Look at that.” He pointed at a rubber police launch fighting its way against the current. “That’s Downing Street. They’re evacuating.”

  “Yeah.” She turned and looked north. She could see Trafalgar Square at the end of the street, the steps and pillars of the National Gallery rising like a cliff. “We can get out that way. But we have to fight the current . . .”

  They started to slog upstream. All around them a crowd of people had the same idea. They pushed up the street, or climbed along rows of railings. But the current was growing more powerful.

  Thurley slipped. Grabbing for him, Helen fell herself, face down. She felt the turbid stuff pushing into her hood, soaking her hair, and seeping inside her coverall. She kept her mouth closed, remembering the water that had come bubbling out of the sewers. She nearly made it up, but then somebody fell into her and pushed her down again, and she couldn’t get her feet underneath herself. She felt herself slide backward, along the tarmac of Whitehall. She panicked, she wouldn’t be able to get up, she would drown in a meter of dirty water.