‘What are you trying to suggest?’ asked Peter. ‘This virus was sprayed on to the crops on purpose?’
‘That’s a remote possibility, yes,’ Professor Protter told him. ‘Depending on how slowly the base substance was designed to deteriorate, it could have been sprayed sometime during the spring, when the first shoots of the wheat were coming up. Whoever did it could have easily prepared the gelatinous base according to the average number of hours of sunlight expected in Kansas, so that when the wheat was ripe, the virus broke out. It wouldn’t even have been necessary to spray every farm at the same time to have the virus break out simultaneously. All they had to do was alter the composition of the gelatine to break down more quickly, or more slowly, or whatever they wanted. Anyone with a reasonably expert knowledge of virology and the preparation of photographic emulsions could have done it.’
Peter sat back in his seat. ‘You know what this means, don’t you? You know what you’re saying?’
‘I fully understand all the implications of everything I’ve suggested,’ said Professor Protter. ‘But I must repeat that so far it’s only guesswork – and by my usual standards, pretty wild guesswork. We may still find that this gelatinous material is completely unconnected with the virus.’
‘What about the samples from Iowa? The corn, and the soybeans? And all that stuff they were supposed to be sending you from California?’
Professor Protter paused for a moment, while he consulted his notes. ‘We haven’t run tests on everything yet. We just haven’t had the time. But we’ve examined some grapes from Bakersfield, California, and there isn’t any question at all that they’ve been attacked by a similar species of virus.’
Peter was silent. It seemed as if Dr Benson’s first guess at the cause of the blight had been correct. It was a virus – and even more frighteningly, it had been spread deliberately.
Professor Protter said, ‘It wouldn’t have needed much spraying to start the virus off, you know. Just a couple of acres out of each farm. Once the virus gets going, it’s almost unstoppable. We reckon it can ruin an acre of prime wheat in two to three hours.’
‘All right,’ said Peter, distractedly. ‘Thanks for everything you’ve done. You’ll complete those tests on the rest of that California crop, won’t you? And you’ll remember that you’re bound to complete secrecy by federal law?’
‘I won’t forget,’ said Professor Protter, sourly. ‘Although how you’re going to keep the lid on a nationwide blight for very much longer, I don’t have any idea. I’ve already had die newspapers and the television stations calling me here.’
‘We don’t want panic,’ Peter told him. ‘If people start to panic, they’re going to rush around to their local supermarkets and empty the shelves in an hour. Once the president knows what’s going on, he’ll probably want to issue rationing instructions.’
There was a silence, and then Professor Protter said, ‘The president doesn’t know?’
‘Of course the president knows. He’s aware of the blight, and he’s aware that it’s spreading, but he gets all his information from the Depar’I’ment of Agriculture, and so far we’ve tried to keep the blight in perspective.’
‘In perspective?’ asked Professor Protter. ‘Don’t you know what’s going on out there? We may have lost fifteen per cent of our annual crops already!’
‘Professor Protter,’ said Peter, tersely, ‘you’re paid to find out what causes crop diseases, and to suggest antidotes – not to indulge yourself in wild political speculation.’
‘Sometimes a job goes beyond what you’re paid to do,’ retorted Professor Protter.
‘And sometimes a job can disappear under your feet,’ snapped Peter. ‘Shearson wants the wraps on this blight until he’s ready to instruct the president himself, and if you try to blow it before then, you’re going to find yourself cultivating your own backyard for a living.’
‘I’ll call you later,’ said Professor Protter, and banged the phone down.
Peter sat at his desk for a while, pulling at the skin of his face in suppressed tension. Then he jabbed the button for Karen’s phone.
‘Karen? What’s the latest on the fund?’
‘I don’t know exactly, Mr Kaiser. Do you want me to find out?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t wanted you to.’
‘I’ll check it right away. Oh – and by the way – The New York Times agricultural correspondent is holding on extension four.’
‘Tell him I’m out.’
‘This is the seventh time he’s called today, Mr Kaiser. He’s beginning to think you’ve got something to hide.’ Peter frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing, Mr Kaiser. They were his words.’
‘All right. Put him through. Oh, and Karen—’
‘Yes, Mr Kaiser?’
‘Last night—’
‘Don’t even mention it, Mr Kaiser.’
‘But I wanted to show you how sorry I was for my clumsiness. I got carried away, I guess. It’s the strain of this blight crisis business. I thought maybe I could make up for it.’
‘I don’t know how, Mr Kaiser,’ said Karen.
‘You can stop calling me “Mr Kaiser” for beginners. My name’s Peter. And for seconds, why don’t you come to Kansas with me over the week-end to meet Senator Jones?
He’s spending the week-end at Fall River, and we’re bound to have a terrific time. When Senator Jones entertains, he really entertains.’
Karen hesitated. Then she said, ‘I’ll think about it. Okay? And don’t blame yourself for last night. Everybody makes faux pas once in a while.’
Peter grimaced. ‘All right, Karen,’ he said. ‘If you want to come, just book yourself a seat. I want to leave by nine o’clock Friday night. And don’t forget to rent a car from Wichita to take us to Fall River.’
‘Very good, Mr Kaiser. I’m just putting The New York Times through now.’
It was Bill Brinsky, a hoarse-voiced veteran reporter whom Peter had run up against more than once. Bill Brinsky’s thirst for Chivas Regal was legendary, but as Peter had once discovered to his cost, it didn’t matter how many whiskies you bought him, and how sozzled he appeared to be, he always sat down to his typewriter with a clear head and a very sharp way of setting out the truth.
‘Bill,’ said Peter, with a high note of false jollity. ‘How are you doing?’
‘I’m doing a lot of waiting and a lot of running around, Peter,’ said Bill, in a harsh, barely courteous tone. ‘I’ve been trying to get the facts on this blight of yours, and I’m beginning to feel like a Cherokee Indian riding round and around a circle of wagons. I know there are scalps in there, Peter, but I can’t get at them.’
‘Have you talked to the press office at the Department?’
‘Oh, sure. Yesterday, and this morning, and early this afternoon. It’s always the same story. “Yes, Mr Brinsky, there is a serious blight. Yes, Mr Brinsky, it is still spreading. Yes, Mr Brinsky, there have been outbreaks in other states apart from Kansas. No, Mr Brinsky, we do have the whole situation completely under control. And, no, Mr Brinsky, we don’t expect a national shortfall of more than ten per cent.”’
That sounds fair enough to me,’ said Peter. ‘They’re the facts as we know them.’
They’re not facts,’ growled Bill. ‘They’re Department of Agriculture bullshit. I’ve been calling stringers in Oregon and Washington and North Dakota and Wisconsin and California and all over. Sure, we’ve got ourselves a serious wheat blight in Kansas. But what about the sweet potato crop in North Carolina? What about the oranges and the tomatoes in Florida? What about the sugar-cane in the Mississippi delta, and the Louisiana rice? What about the grasses, too? Alfalfa, and timothy, and lespedeza?’
‘Bill—’ interrupted Peter, ‘before you give me a whole agricultural geography of the United States – let me tell you one thing. Every year, every single year, every crop in America suffers from losses through drought or blight or insect activity. A co
uple of years ago, we had an unusually high number of typhoons and storms. Orange groves in Florida lost thirteen point five per cent of their anticipated output. Wheat farms in North Dakota fell short by nearly twenty per cent. Far more than we’re talking about today! But, all of a sudden, just because we have this very serious grain blight in Kansas, you and every other agricultural correspondent who’s out looking for some page one limelight – all of a sudden, you look around and try to read a scare story into something that happens every single year!’
Bill Brinsky was silent for a second or two. Then he said, ‘How much has Senator Jones’s Blight Crisis Appeal Fund raised so far?’
‘Three million, maybe a little more.’
‘Only three million? I heard nearer ten.’
‘Well, you know how people like to exaggerate.’
‘I heard something else, too. I heard Senator Walsh from California was thinking of raising a similar fund for vegetable growers in his state and that Representative Yorty was planning on a compensation programme for soybean farmers in Iowa. I also heard that Senator Jones reminded both of those gentlemen that they owed him a favour for the help he gave them during that big commodity scam on the San Francisco stock market. And the result of that reminder was that Walsh and Yorty both agreed to delay launching their funds until Senator Jones’s Blight Crisis Appeal reached pledges of twenty million dollars, with at least fifteen million dollars cleared through the bank.’
‘You hear fairy tales,’ said Peter, flatly.
‘I do? Well, maybe I do. But what if I were to print those fairy tales exactly like fairy tales? “Once upon a time, there was a magic kingdom which was stricken down by a terrible blight… all of its crops died away on the branch… but the wicked viziers who ruled that land decided to make a whole heap of gold out of the disaster… they pretended that only three poor farmers had been stricken by the blight… and they asked everybody in the land to donate gold to these poor farmers… with every intention of keeping the gold for themselves.’”
‘You print anything like that and we’ll sue you to death,’ said Peter, in a totally cold voice.
‘Are you going to try to stop me?’
‘Listen to me. Bill, you don’t have any substantive evidence and you know it, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking fairy tales. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you give me your word that you’ll hold back on all this innuendo you’ve heard – if you give me your word that you won’t print any of it – then I’ll guarantee you an exclusive copy of the federal laboratory report on the virus as soon as I get it. That’ll be Monday morning, at the latest.’
‘Virus?’ asked Bill Brinsky. ‘Did you say “virus”?’
Peter bit his tongue.
‘Nobody said anything about a virus to me,’ said Bill. ‘Has somebody told you something I don’t know?’
‘All right. Bill,’ said Peter. ‘The federal laboratory has run some preliminary tests, and conjectured – only conjectured – that the Kansas wheat blight is a virus. You can print that if you like.’
‘What about die other crop failures? Are they caused by a virus too?’
‘Bill, the other crop failures are nothing more than natural wastage. I keep telling you.’
‘All right,’ said Bill, less aggressively, pleased with the tidbit of information that Peter had accidentally let slip. ‘But don’t forget that lab report on Monday, okay? I’ll hold you to that’
‘You’ll have it,’ Peter told him. ‘You know how straight we play the game here.’
‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ said Bill.
*
By four o’clock that afternoon, the news media were beginning to smell a bigger story. Whatever reassurances the Department of Agriculture had been giving them over the past two days, it was inevitable that small-town reporters were going to visit the blighted farms all across Iowa and Nebraska and Kansas, and see the crops for themselves. From all over, they began to file human-interest stories about farmers who had been digging and tilling and ploughing for twenty years or more, only to lose everything they owned to the wildfire spread of the blight.
On the early evening news, there were pictures of blackened spinach crops, decaying com, rotting oranges, and wilting lettuce. Later editions of The New York Post were running a front page which proclaimed: BLIGHT KOs CROPS – A LEAN YEAR AHEAD?
At six, the president called Alan Hedges, the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, into the Oval Office. Alan Hedges was a slow-speaking, white-haired, dignified old man from Alabama; while the president was short, clipped, and energetic, a liberal Democrat from New Hampshire.
The sun was falling across the White House lawns outside the Oval Office windows as Alan Hedges settled himself fastidiously into the studded leather chair facing the president’s desk. The president stood with his hands clenched behind his back, staring out at the evening sky.
‘Alan,’ said the president at last, without turning around, ‘I feel that you’ve been less than direct with me.’
‘Oh?’ asked Alan Hedges. He lifted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles out of the breast pocket of his dark-grey suit, and wound them around his large red ears.
‘The latest briefing that Shearson sent me about the wheat blight in Kansas suggested that the blight was restricted to the Mid-West, and that any outbreaks of blight in other areas were purely seasonal and usual. From what the newspapers and the television channels are now saying, it appears that you and Shearson have somewhat underestimated the extent of the blight Wouldn’t you say that was true?’
‘Well, Mr President…’ Alan Hedges began.
The president tinned around. His iron-grey hair was cropped very short, and his face was as rugged as a boxer’s. ‘From what the newspapers and television channels are now saying, it appears that you and Shearson have been deliberately playing this whole thing down. Wouldn’t you say that was true?’
Alan Hedges let a long sigh fall to the floor like a tired spaniel. ‘Mr President, sir,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t become any of us to over-react to the reality of a situation simply because the media see their chance to sell more newspapers or gain more viewers. Let me tell you something about agriculture. It’s an up-and-down business. These days, we’re used to having it up all the time. After the Second War, modem techniques improved farming beyond all imagination. Did you know that in nineteen forty-six this country couldn’t expect more than twenty-six bushels of corn per acre? These days with hardier strains of crop and better techniques, we’re getting ninety-seven bushels an acre, and more. And that’s with only six man-hours, instead of one-hundred and eight. Did you know that in nineteen forty-six, the average US farm worker fed only eleven people with his efforts, but that nowadays he can feed fifty-two?’
‘I know the agricultural capacity of my own country. Senator Hedges,’ said the president, frostily. ‘I just want to know how serious this blight situation actually is.’
‘I’m trying to explain, sir,’ said Hedges. ‘What I’m saying is that by nineteen eighty expectations, we’re going to suffer a loss of yield. But by nineteen seventy-two expectations, we’re still going to do phenomenally well.’
‘This isn’t nineteen seventy-two,’ snapped the president. ‘No, sir, it isn’t. But our food supply commitment isn’t so much greater today that we can’t cope with it. If you want, I have all the figures here. You can see for yourself that everything is under control. Unpleasant, yes, and very unfortunate for many farmers. But under control.’
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.
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