Famine

by Graham Masterton

  ‘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.’

  ‘I don’t know… he’s got a picture of Nanette… and that oil painting of Mount Sunflower… I can’t think of anything else.’

  ‘An aerial view of South Burlington, right?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Yes, that’s over the fireplace.’

  ‘Well – who took that aerial picture?’

  ‘I don’t know. It was taken earlier this year, wasn’t it? I think I was away in New York, clearing up some business. I remember Mom mentioning it to me… she was real pleased with it… but that’s all.’

  Jack was very intense and excited. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘that aerial photograph was taken by a company called Your Spread From The Sky, Inc. They operated out of the airfield at Salina for about a year, touring Kansas and taking aerial pictures of people’s farms and houses.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Ed.

  ‘Their name’s printed on the bottom of the photograph. Your Spread From The Sky, Inc., Salina, Kansas. I talked to Willard about it, and he said that what they did was fly over your spread in a light plane – bright red, it was, with something like Aerial Photographs written on the side of it in white. They took a whole lot of colour pictures, and then sent you a sheet of proofs in the mail. If you wanted to buy a blow-up picture of your farm, you sent them back fifteen dollars, and they printed it up for you.’

  ‘So? I’ve heard of that kind of thing before.’

  ‘Sure you have. It’s very common, very ordinary. It’s so common and ordinary that nobody’s going to take any notice of it. But it’s the only way I can think of that somebody could overfly this farm at a very low altitude and spray the kind of virus that Dr Benson seems to believe this is.’

  Ed stared at him. ‘Jack,’ he said, ‘you’ve got your head in the right place. You’re damn right that’s the only way that anybody could do it. All the time I’ve been trying to think of surreptitious ways somebody could have poisoned the crops – night spraying, or flying the stuff in on kites – and all the time they did it right out in the open. Or could have done, anyway. You’re sure they’re not legitimate?’

  ‘I called their number at Salina. The operator told me they were gone. Then I called the agency in charge of leasing hangars, and they said that Your Spread From The Sky, Inc. had operated out of Salina for three months and then moved out. All rent paid up to date, everything cleaned up, and no forwarding address. They had a telephone number in Chicopee, Massachusetts, but when I called it this afternoon, it turned out to be the College of Our Lady of the Elms.’

  ‘Have you told anyone else about this? Dr Benson?’

  ‘Not yet, Ed. I wanted to talk to you first. And I didn’t like to make too much of a song and dance about it, in case I turned out to be wrong. I did call Walter Klugman, though, at Penalosa; and John Cafferty, out at Ninnescah Creek; and they’ve both had aerial pictures taken by the same people. All straight, all efficient, everybody got their photographs and everybody was satisfied. Whoever set it up was a real professional.’

  Ed rubbed his
chin. He had shaved in a hurry that morning, and it was rough with stubble. ‘Keep this to yourself for the moment. Jack,’ he said. ‘But do me a favour and call the Wheat Growers’ Association in North Dakota tomorrow. See if they’ll give you the names and telephone numbers of a couple of farmers up there, and check whether they’ve had aerial photographs taken or not. And you could do the same for a couple of corn and soybean farmers in Iowa while you’re at it.’

  ‘You’re not going to try playing detective?’ asked Jack. ‘I mean – once we’re fairly certain, I think we ought to turn this all over to the Department of Agriculture, don’t you?’

  ‘In time,’ nodded Ed. ‘But right at this moment. I’m just finding out one or two things about the Department of Agriculture, and I think I’d like to wait a while before we blithely hand them everything we know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But I can’t quite make up my mind what Senator Shearson Jones is up to. I can’t believe he’s organising this appeal fund for our benefit alone. Not just a few Kansas farmers with the seats out of their pants. And why has he played down this blight so much to the media? I can look out there tomorrow, when the sun comes up, and see nothing but ten miles of blackened fields. It’s the same all over Kansas, and it’s probably just as bad everywhere else. How come nobody seems to be excited? How come Shearson Jones can talk about a shortfall as low as eight per cent? The wheat harvest’s dead, Jack, in the space of a few days, and in my book that’s one hundred per cent shortfall. That’s disaster.’

  Jack nodded towards the house. ‘You think this Mrs McIntosh is going to tell you anything?’

  ‘I don’t know. She’s an Oklahoma lady, so maybe she might.’

  ‘Good luck,’ said Jack, tipping his hat in semi-serious respect. ‘From the looks of her, I think you may need it.’

  Eleven

  Over dinner, Ursula Hardesty warmed to Della McIntosh very quickly. Ursula had been a farmer’s wife, after all, and she liked plain speaking and she liked to talk about the land. She even found that she and Della had friends in common – remote friends, the Shaughnessys of Kansas City – but friends all the same.

  Ursula wore a powder-blue dress with silver stitching – a dress about which Season had always said, ‘It’s terrific taste if you’re planning on taking a time machine back to nineteen fifty-eight.’ Della had taken her suitcase up to the wide back-bedroom which overlooked the meadow where they usually landed the helicopter, and she had changed into a simple low-cut dress of bottle-green satin. She had bought the dress especially for this week-end, to impress Shearson.

  Perhaps Ursula wasn’t aware of Della’s shining red hair and her big, firm breasts. Perhaps she wasn’t aware of the way Della’s lips glistened moistly in the candlelight, and the way that she spoke to Edward in such a careful, modulated voice. But Ed doubted it. He knew that his mother liked Della a lot. She was a country girl, for all her involvement in Washington; and South Burlington Farm, in Ursula’s opinion, badly lacked the attention of a country girl.

  At nine-thirty, Ursula declared her intention of going to bed. She was going to return to her house in Independence in the morning, and ‘leave Edward in peace.’ Ed had never seen her retire so early, or in such good humour. He kissed her evasively, and said, ‘Good night, Mother,’ and she smiled at him as she left the room.

  ‘You want a brandy?’ he asked Della, as he led her into the living-room. ‘It’s quite a civilised label. I didn’t distil it myself.’

  ‘I’d love one,’ she said, and watched him as he went to the drinks cabinet to pour it. ‘This is a very attractive house, you know. Dignified but friendly.’

  ‘Well, that’s us Hardestys all over,’ smiled Ed, handing Della her drink. He sat down beside her on the sofa.

  ‘Shearson Jones seems to be very taken with you,’ said Della. ‘He thinks you’ll make an excellent figurehead for this Blight Crisis Appeal.’

  ‘He does? And what do you think?’

  ‘I think he’s right. Now I’ve seen you, I can vouch for his intuition. He was a little worried you might look like Quasimodo, but since you clearly don’t – well, I think you’re just the man.’

  ‘What are his plans?’ asked Ed, sipping brandy, and looking at Della over the shining rim of his glass.

  ‘He wants you to make a live TV broadcast from Fall River on Saturday afternoon. As far as I know they’ve written the script already. It won’t be anything ridiculous or schmaltzy. All they’ll ask you to say is that you’re a young Kansas wheat farmer, that you’ve dedicated your life to cultivating your farm, and that through no fault of your own you’ve now found yourself flat busted. That’s it.’ Ed sat back. ‘That sounds simple enough. Is it going to be networked?’

  ‘Coast-to-coast, as far as we know.’

  Ed nodded. ‘That sounds okay.’

  There was a silence, and then he said: ‘What’s a pretty girl like you doing with a character like Shearson Jones anyway? He’s a major-league heavy, isn’t he? And not just politically, either. From what I’ve seen of him on television, he’s not exactly the world’s skinniest man. How come you’re working for someone like that?’

  ‘I wasn’t, until Wednesday.’

  ‘But why? I don’t know much about him, but from what I’ve heard he’s pretty hard to g. t near. The only way I got through to him in the first place was because my daddy helped him with some wheat-dumping deal. I don’t understand why you’re hanging around a man like that.’

  Della shrugged. ‘It’s the power, I guess. The influence. It’s very intoxicating.’

  ‘Even more intoxicating than good country air?’

  She looked up at him. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Whatever you want it to mean.’

  ‘You’re a married man, aren’t you?’ she reminded him. ‘A married man with a young daughter of six.’

  ‘You want to talk about families?’

  Della held her glass of brandy up to the light. An amber reflection curved across her cheek. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not particularly.’

  They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes and then Ed said, ‘What does Shearson Jones want out of this fund? Can you tell me that?’

  ‘Prestige,’ said Della. ‘Votes. It’s all very good for the public image.’

  ‘Is that why he’s working so hard to suppress the truth about this blight? How serious it is, and how wide it’s spread?’

  Della blushed. ‘I wasn’t aware he’d done anything like that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you, if you were in his position? Let’s face it, the moment the public realises how many crops have been destroyed, they’re not going to worry about Ed Hardesty and Walter Klugman and all the other poor jugheads of Kingman County, are they? They’re going to start worrying about themselves.’

  Della said, ‘I think this blight’s spread much faster than Shearson expected it to. He thought he’d have two or three clear weeks at least. Now it looks like a matter of days. But he’s collected something like eleven million dollars already, and if you do well on the television on Saturday – well, that could jump to twenty or thirty million.’

  Ed set down his glass. ‘He’s got eleven million already?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, that explains a lot,’ said Ed.

  Della leaned over towards him. ‘Don’t think too badly of Shearson, Ed. He’s all kinds of things, but he’s also a very professional and dedicated politician.’

  Ed found himself looking into Della’s eyes, very closely. ‘You’re an interesting woman,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know they bred them as interesting as you in Oklahoma.’

  ‘We’re not all hayseeds,’ she said. ‘And my mother was Miss Oklahoma City, nineteen fifty-one.’

  ‘You’re aiming higher than that, huh?’

  ‘I could be.’

  They had known what was going to happen from the moment Ed had invited her to stay over. All th
rough dinner their conversation had been leading inevitably to this one moment. Ursula had helped it to happen, too, by her active approval of everything that Della had said and done. She had smiled at Della with a toothy expression that could only be interpreted one way: wouldn’t I have loved to have you as a daughter-in-law?

  Ed said, ‘You must be tired.’

  ‘Not too tired,’ said Della, throatily.

  Ed stood up, walked across to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself another brandy. ‘Like you said,’ he told her, ‘I’m a married man with a young daughter of six.’

  ‘I’m not forcing you to do anything you don’t want to do,’ Della said.

  He turned, and looked at her, and then gave her a wry smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I know you’re not. But you must have guessed where my marriage is at, right now. And at times like this, I guess everybody’s looking for a little reassurance, and a little consolation, and maybe a little excitement, too.’

  ‘You think I’m exciting? Miss Kansas City Herald-Examiner, as was? Shearson Jones’s private messenger lady?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘She takes enough sleeping-pills to knock out a rhinoceros. Apart from that, she likes you.’

  ‘She likes me that much?’

  He walked back to the sofa, and stood close beside her. ‘Does it matter?’ he asked her, quietly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t.’

  Ed leaned forward and kissed Della on the forehead, just below the line of her bright coppery hair. It started off as a chaste kiss; as a kiss of friendly affection and nothing more. But she put her arm around his neck, so that he couldn’t break away from her, and she raised her lips to him, very soft and very moist and very willing. He hesitated for a moment, and then he kissed her again, and this time it was a long, searching, devouring kiss, a kiss that meant I want you, however wrong it might be. A kiss of lust, and shared frustrations, and sheer excitement at making love to someone new.