The president made no move to take the buff-coloured folder that Hedges offered him. After a few moments, Alan Hedges placed it carefully on the edge of the president’s desk.
Hedges said, ‘I’d very much appreciate it, Mr President, if you could make a statement tonight or tomorrow morning that places the whole blight question into its proper perspective. Otherwise we’re going to have the newspapers full of scare stories, and we’re going to find that all the reserves of food which ought to be carefully held back to keep the situation under control for next year – well, you know what people are like – they’re going to panic and those reserves are going to dwindle away in front of our eyes. We wouldn’t want to have a famine on our hands, would we?’
The president stood silently beside his desk for a long while. Then he said, ‘Are you sure of what you’re saying, Alan? You don’t have any ulterior motives for playing this blight down?’
Alan Hedges blinked at him. ‘Ulterior motives, Mr President?’
The president gave a quick, humourless smile. ‘I want the Department of Agriculture to keep an hour-by-hour check on this blight, Senator. I want daily reports on any new outbreaks, and I want constantly updated estimates of this year’s agricultural production. I’m also going to direct a special team to give me an assessment of the nation’s grain and frozen food reserves, as well as canned and dried products. You know that Canada’s suffering the same blight, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. I’ve already had reports from their agricultural people in Winnipeg.’
‘Good. Make sure that any research materials are pooled, and that we keep a close eye on what they’re doing.’
‘Very good, Mr President. Will that be all?’
‘Not quite, Alan. One of the reasons I called you in here alone was because this spectre of food shortages raises a very delicate issue. But I want to tell you that if any hint of what I have to say to you now were to leak out of this office, the consequences would be grave in the extreme.’
Alan Hedges said nothing, but took off his spectacles and sat upright in his chair, listening.
‘It’s part of a president’s duty to act with unnatural foresight,’ said the president. ‘Now, from what you’ve told me this afternoon, it seems as if there won’t be any severe problems with food shortages during the coming months, provided everybody keeps his head. I’m going to commandeer a few minutes of television time tonight to do what you’ve suggested, and explain to the public at large that we don’t have anything to worry ourselves about, at least for the time being. But there’s one thing else I want you to do, and I want you to do it in complete secrecy.
‘If things go wrong, and we do find ourselves drastically low on food, I want to make sure that the administrative centre of this country is well stocked with supplies. I want you to arrange for enough canned and dried foods to be shipped into Washington during the next two weeks to keep the senior executive staff of our major departments at a nutritional subsistence level for six months. Do it discreetly, by a variety of different methods of transport – train, airplane, ship, truck. And if anybody asks you what the supplies are for – just tell them they’re for federal quality control tests. Something like that.’
‘Am I going to see an Executive Order?’ asked Alan Hedges, softly.
The president looked at him without any expression on his face at all. ‘Take it as an Executive Understanding. The same way Hoover took Roosevelt’s wire-tap instructions.’
‘You think I’m deliberately underestimating this blight?’ Alan Hedges wanted to know.
The President inclined his head in a gesture that could have meant anything at all. I believe you, I don’t believe you, what does it matter anyway?
‘Let me put it this way, Alan,’ he said. ‘If this nation is going to be threatened by severe shortages, it’s going to need a vigorous, active, and healthy government. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter.’
‘Very well, Mr President,’ said Alan Hughes, getting up from his chair. ‘If that’s the way the management of this theatre wants it, that’s the way it’s going to be.’ Out at South Burlington, Ed had been giving Della McIntosh a tour of the blighted crops. It was almost dark as they drove back to the farmhouse, and the headlights of the Jeep jounced and flickered across the devastated fields.
‘Have you noticed something?’ said Ed, pointing to the beams of the headlights. ‘No moths.’
Della looked at him. ‘Do you think the virus might have killed them, too?’
‘It’s possible. Maybe they just don’t like dank, decaying wheatlands.’
The lights were shining in the house with deceptive normality as they parked outside on the red asphalt yard and stepped down from the Jeep. Della untied the scarf from her red hair, and said, ‘I guess I’d better be getting back to Wichita. What’s the time?’
‘Eight-thirty. But you don’t have to go all the way back into the city. You could stay here.’
‘I have a room booked at the Mount Vernon Inn.’
‘So what? I’ll call and tell them you couldn’t make it. It’s a hell of a boring drive back into Wichita at this time of night.’
‘Well…’ said Della. ‘I’m supposed to be preparing an objective assessment of your suitability as a figurehead for Shearson’s fund.’
‘What’s non-objective about staying for dinner and sleeping overnight? Dilys is a great hand at fresh pecan pie.’ Della laughed. ‘In that case, you have utterly persuaded me. Pecan pie is my third greatest weakness.’
They walked across to the farmhouse, and stepped up on to the verandah. ‘I don’t suppose I dare to ask what your first two greatest weaknesses are,’ smiled Ed.
She paused, her red hair wild and curly in the light of the verandah lamp, her big breasts emphasised by the slanting shadows. She was just the opposite of Season in so many ways – direct, relaxed, and noticeably at home in rural surroundings. Ed had noticed the way she had run an appreciative hand over a hand-made saddle that had been lying in the back of the Jeep.
‘My second greatest weakness is the country,’ she said. ‘You see that moon up there? That big harvest moon? That’s a real Kansas and Oklahoma moon. You don’t see anything like that in Washington, or New York City.’ They were just about to go inside when Jack Marowitz drove up in his yellow Pinto, climbed out, and slammed the door.
‘Ed?’ he asked. ‘You got a moment?’
‘Sure, Jack. Della – this is Jack Marowitz, my technical genius. Jack, this is Mrs Della McIntosh. She’s working with Senator Jones on the Blight Crisis Fund.’
‘Pleased to know you,’ said Jack, shaking Della by the hand. ‘Listen, Ed – can you give a minute of your time? No offence meant, Mrs McIntosh – but alone?’
‘No offence taken,’ said Della. ‘Maybe I’ll just go right along inside and introduce myself to your mother.’
‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Ed. ‘I won’t keep you long.’ Della went inside, and the screen door banged behind her. Then Ed said, ‘What’s the problem, Jack? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘It’s a theory,’ said Jack. ‘That’s all it is. But somehow it seems to make a whole lot of sense.’
‘Go on.’
‘Have you been into Willard’s house lately?’
‘Sure. I was there last night. We had a drink together, Willard and me and Dyson Kane.’
‘Okay – then you can remember what’s on the wall.’
Ed frowned. ‘What’s on the wall? What do you mean – wallpaper?’
‘No, no. Pictures. Think of what pictures he’s got on his wall.’