Ed stared at her, the muscles in his cheeks working with anguish. ‘Those people, as you call them, were the folks who made South Burlington what it was. Henry Carlsson. Mrs Tilsley. Keith Perks. Do you know that it was Mrs Tilsley who was the first person to tell me about the tooth fairy? And now what’s happened? She’d dead, in Tucumcari, New Mexico, of botulism. She wasn’t even allowed to die at home.’
‘Ed, these are terrible times. We’re all taking risks. They took theirs.’
‘You really believe that?’ Ed asked her. ‘All those people wanted to do was live their lives out in peace and order. That’s all. They didn’t want drama, or pain, or death in a strange city. They simply wanted to see the sun rise and set over Kansas for a few more years. That’s what I hate about this famine. It’s killing us all, but it won’t let us die in the America we’re used to. It wouldn’t even let me die on South Burlington Farm.’
‘You don’t want to die, not on South Burlington Farm, nor anywhere. Think of Season and Sally. Think of me.’ Ed looked at her, in her open plaid shirt, and her grubby white jeans. The pump-gun was still tucked down beside the passenger seat and the door. Her red hair was drawn back from her face with a green ribbon.
‘You?’ he asked her.
She nodded. ‘Even if you’ve got nothing else at all, you’ve still got me.’
As the sun went down on Sunday evening, the President was lying propped up in bed, papers strewn all over his gold-coloured quilt, looking bloodless and tired, Sitting astride one of the bedroom chairs beside him was his National Security Adviser Louis Krupner, a sharp-faced man with an equally sharp manner. By the window, diffident and quiet, soberly dressed in a dark suit, stood Charles Kurnik, Director of the FBI.
‘What I need is conclusive evidence,’ the President was saying, while his thin hand picked at the braiding on his quilt. ‘Until I have conclusive, irrefutable evidence, I can’t possibly order any kind of retaliation.’
Charles Kurnik said, ‘I don’t see who else could have done it. No other country has the motive, the organisational capabilities, or the finance. Think what the whole operation must have cost. Infiltrating canning plants, sabotaging grain elevators, spreading Vorar-D over every major farm between here and California.’
‘Still a whole lot cheaper than the cheapest armed conflict,’ said Louis Krupner, without taking his eyes off the President.
The President rubbed his eyes. ‘Charles,’ he said, ‘would you mind pulling that drape across the window? This sunlight’s getting in my eyes.’
Charles Kurnik did as he was told. Then he stood with his hands together, like a small boy about to give a recitation.
‘Mr President,’ he intoned, ‘unless we strike now, and unless we strike quickly, we’re going to be nothing more than a sitting target. As it is, I don’t think we can sustain hundred per cent national security for more than a few hours longer.’
The President picked up some papers and then tiredly laid them down again. ‘You’re the Director of the FBI, Charles, and a very good director. But you can’t use the same street-fighting methods when it comes to international diplomacy. Just for the sake of satisfying your hunches, you’re thinking of bringing the whole world down on our heads.’
‘Hunches? demanded Kurnik. ‘We already hold a list of two hundred cannery workers from Washington State to Florida – every one of whom has gone missing – and every one of whom has forged or questionable papers! We’ve already found out that most of the crop virus was spread by two phony aerial photography businesses – Your Spread From The Sky, Inc., and Hi-Lens, Ltd! We already know for a proven fact that the Soviet armed forces have between 70,000 and 100,000 chemical warfare specialists, and that every line regiment has a chemical defence company assigned to it!’
Kurnik reached into his breast pocket and produced a folded news-magazine cutting. ‘It’s public knowledge, for heaven’s sake! Look at this – from Time, March 10, 1980. “Using bombs, artillery shells, mortars, multiple rocket-launchers, air-delivered sprays or even land mines, the Soviets can attack with phosgene, mustard gas, hydrogen cyanide, nerve agents, botulin, and a variety of lethal viruses.” What more proof do you want, Mr President, when every half-informed adult in the country already knows it for a fact?’
The President closed his eyes. He spoke without opening them. ‘Charles,’ he said, ‘when you bring me just one of those two hundred missing cannery workers, and you establish to me beyond any reasonable doubt that your one cannery worker is a Soviet agent – when you bring me just one pilot from either of those aerial photography corporations, and prove to me that your one pilot works for Moscow – then I shall act. Immediately, decisively, totally.’
Charles Kurnik waited for the President to say something else, but he didn’t. He remained white-faced against his pillow, his eyes still closed.
‘And not until then?’ asked Kurnik, hoarsely. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Under no circumstances at all?’
‘Charles, you’re asking me to drop nuclear bombs on Moscow. You’re asking me to devastate a nation.’
Charles Kurnik wiped his mouth with his hand, as if he had tasted something objectionably bitter. ‘Well, why not?’ he asked. ‘They’ve already devastated ours.’
He stood silent, his eyes fixed on the floor. Outside, there was the intermittent popping and crackling of gunfire. The President said to Louis Krupner, ‘Hand me those tablets on the side-table, would you? Thanks.’ Then he turned to Charles Kurnik and asked, in a formal, curiously unreal voice, ‘Are you staying here for dinner, Charles, or must you get back to the office?’
‘Dinner?’ asked Charles Kurnik, with an expression of disgust.
Fourteen
They drove into Los Angeles at dusk on Monday night. They had been held up for more than half a day in the Mojave Desert by burst coolant hoses, clogged exhausts, and flats. Then there had been the treacherous business of driving in convoy through the small towns east of the Los Angeles conurbation – towns where small raiding parties still roamed the streets, shooting at any thing that looked like food.
Pasadena had been a ghost town, a white mirage that shimmered under the sandy peaks of the San Gabriel Mountains. They had stopped on the freeway overlooking the town for a twenty-minute rest, and a scrappy meal of processed meat, canned raspberries, and tepid water. They had seen nobody in the streets anywhere, and heard nothing but the persistent whistling of the warm wind. It was as if the whole population of America had eerily vanished.
As the sun glowered at them from up ahead, as crimson and sorcerous as a witch’s fire, they drove slowly westwards along the Ventura Freeway, weaving their way in between wrecked and abandoned cars, until they reached the intersection with the Hollywood Freeway. Ed had ordered that every car in the convoy should have at least one gun at the ready, but the freeways were deserted, and they saw nobody.
‘The first thing I want to do is check with the FBI office,’ said Della.
‘Where’s that?’ asked Ed.
‘On Hollywood Boulevard, between Ivar and Vine.’
The sun had gone by the time they reached Hollywood Boulevard turnoff. As they came up the ramp to street level, they saw the heavy palls of smoke hanging over Los Angeles, and they could smell burning and death on the wind. A police car sped past them along Hollywood Boulevard, heading east, with its lights Hashing and its siren warbling.
‘Just about the first sign of life since Victorville,’ remarked Della.