Famine

by Graham Masterton

  They were driving now through South Pass, towards the Piute Mountains and the Mojave Desert. The heat was killing. Ed had turned the Chevey’s air conditioning to Max, but it was coughing and choking like a tuberculosis patient, and giving, out nothing but a stream of uncomfortable tepid air. Shearson was fanning himself continuously with the wagon’s instruction booklet, which he had discovered on the floor, and Peter Kaiser was sitting staring out of the window like Rodin’s Thinker on a bad afternoon. Karen, amongst the corned beef cans and the sloshing water, slept.

  As they passed the Old Dad Mountains on their way to Ludlow, Ed saw a plume of dust coming up fast from behind. It grew nearer and nearer, and as it overtook the convoy, he recognised it as Dave Morton, in his borrowed Pontiac. He pulled over to the side of the road, and Dave Morton pulled up alongside.

  ‘You didn’t get back to Tucumcari?’ he shouted.

  Dave waved his hands. ‘I got back there okay,’ he yelled.

  ‘Then what’s the matter? Why didn’t you pick them up?’

  ‘They were dead, all of them. Looked like they’d been sick or something. There was nothing I could do.’

  Ed sat back in his seat. The vinyl was wet and sticky with cooled-off sweat. ‘Botulism,’ he said to himself. ‘One of those cans of food they were carrying must have been infected.’

  Della held his wrist. ‘There was nothing you could have done about it,’ she told him, gently. ‘It’s a risk that everybody’s taking, right now. They took the risk, those people, and they lost. There’s nothing you can do.’

  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.

  The convoy drove at ten mph along Hollywood boulevard, between the stores and the movie theatres and the parking lots, until Ed pulled the Chevy wagon in at the curb by Hollywood and Vine.

  ‘It’s here?’ he asked Della.

  In the back seat, Shearson Jones was asleep, and snoring heavily, with his nose in the air like a Walt Disney beaver.

  ‘A little further, I guess,’ said Della. ‘There – where that office entrance is. Let me take a look at the shingles.’

  Ed nudged the wagon forward, and leaned over to see the signs outside of the office building. It wasn’t much of an office building – a three-story, beige-tiled walk-up in that particular architectural style which you could only define as ‘Hollywood Boulevard east of Cahuenga.’ A little bit Spanish, a little bit 1930s, a little bit H.G. Wells.

  The signs outside read: Super AA1 Detective Agency, Inc.; Walston Retreat Tyres; BK Investments Ltd.; and YSS (Photographic) Inc.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Della.

  ‘What’s what?’ asked Ed. ‘I don’t see any sign saying “FBI”.’

  ‘You think we advertise ourselves? This is supposed to be a safe house – somewhere where agents can conceal themselves.’

  She opened the door of the wagon and stepped down. ‘I won’t be more than a couple of minutes,’ she said, ‘I’m just going to check if there’s anybody still there.’

  Although it was still quite light, Ed found it difficult to make out her face in the shadows. Maybe it was the way her hair was falling. Maybe it was simply the fact that there were no streetlights, no fluorescent display tubes in the derelict storefronts; not even a blazing vehicle to see by. Yet the names on the wall were clear enough.

  Ed said, ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Della told him. ‘And it’s really better if you don’t. They’re going to be pretty jumpy, and they might decide to shoot first and talk about the weather afterwards if they don’t know who you are.’

  ‘In that case, you go in first, and tell them that I’m bona fide. But I’d like to stay with you, all right?’

  ‘Who’s going to take care of Shearson?’

  ‘Shearson can take care of himself. What do you think he’s going to do – drive all the way back to Washington?’ Della hesitated, and then she said, ‘All right. I’ll call you when it’s clear.’

  Taking the pump-gun with her, she disappeared into the entrance of the office building. Ed waited on the sidewalk for what seemed like a half-hour, watched by a tired and pale-faced Karen, and by an indifferent Peter Kaiser. Shearson was still sleeping, and his rumbles sounded like minor eruptions of Mount St Helens.

  In the distance, towards Beverly Hills, Ed could hear firetrucks howling, and a quick rattling sound that was repeated again and again. It could have been machine-gun fire.

  At last, an upstairs window opened, and Della leaned out. ‘There’s nobody here,’ she said. ‘You can come on up if you like.’

  Ed walked back to the next car in the patient line of vehicles which were drawn up to the curb behind the Chevy. It was a tan Malibu wagon, driven by Jim Rutgers, Ed’s farm accountant.

  Jim asked, ‘Are we going to be stopped here long, Ed? I think everybody’s anxious about where they’re going to spend the night.’

  ‘Give us fifteen minutes,’ said Ed. ‘Mrs McIntosh has to try to make contact with the FBI, just to tell them that we’ve reached Los Angeles, and that we’re holding Shearson Jones. After that, it’s their problem. But they won’t be able to say that we didn’t do our duty as publicly-spirited citizens.’

  Jim turned around to his wife, and the four children sleeping in the back seat. ‘I just wish the public were as publicly-spirited as we are,’ he said. ‘I think about these kids, and what their future’s going to be, and I can tell you something, Ed, it makes me frightened.’

  ‘Me too, Jim,’ said Ed, as comfortingly as he could. ‘Just give me five minutes, and then we’ll find a place to stay for the night.’

  He walked back to the office building and climbed the stairs. It was so dark inside that he had to feel his way up by the handrail. There was a smell of burned paper and urine. He reached the second-storey landing, and he was just about to climb up to the third when Della appeared from a doorway beside him.

  ‘They’re in here,’ she said. ‘Or, at least, they were in here.’

  Ed stepped into a small reception area, divided off with reeded glass. On the wall was a calendar supplied by Mitsubishi Aircraft, with a picture of the Diamond I executive jet flying over San Francisco Bay. There was a grey filing-cabinet, with all its drawers open and empty, and an IBM typewriter with its keys jammed together, and a blank piece of note-paper still protruding from the carriage.

  ‘They didn’t even leave a telephone,’ said Della. ‘But I’m going to write a message and pin it to the wall. Maybe one of their agents will come by and contact us.’

  ‘And meanwhile we have to keep Shearson Jones captive?’

  ‘What else do you suggest we do with him?’

  Ed looked around the deserted, shadowy office. ‘I suggest we let him go. Both him and Peter Kaiser. There’s no chance at all that we can bring either of them to trial. Not now. And, really, what does it. matter any more?’

  ‘You were the one who thought it was so important to expose Shearson on coast-to-coast television,’ said Della. ‘Now you want to let him go?’

  Ed sat down at the receptionist’s desk, and tugged the piece of notepaper out of the typewriter. He read the letterhead carefully, and then laid the paper on the desk beside him. When he spoke, his voice was quite changed – distant and unfriendly.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I want to let him go because none of this famine crisis has turned out to be what it seemed to be.’

  ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘I know. But neither is anything else. If this is a safe house for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as you claim it is, then why were they using notepaper for Your Spread From The Sky, Inc.?’

  Della frowned. ‘That was their cover. An aerial photography outfit. That’s all. You don’t expect them to put “J. Edgar Hoover” on their paper do you?’

  Ed said, ‘Your Spread From The Sky, Inc., was responsible for spraying my crops with Vorar-D. As well as most of the other wheat farms in Kansas. And you want me to believe that it was a cover name for the FBI? And that you’re a legitimate FBI agent?’

  He stood up. ‘Did you really call the FBI office when you were outside of Wichita? Or were you just making it all up? Come on, Della, I think it’s time you came clean with me, don’t you? Why are you really holding on to Shearson Jones? You don’t have any serious hopes of arraigning him. Maybe you never intended to. So why have you brought him all this way, and guarded him so well? What’s your connection with Your Spread From The Sky, Inc.? What the hell’s going on?’

  Della smiled at him, and put her head on one side, i
n a winning Shirley Temple kind of a gesture. ‘Ed,’ she said, ‘you don’t seriously doubt what I’ve told you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ed snapped angrily. He found that he was quivering, from exhaustion and shock, and from a sudden vertiginous sensation that the floor had disappeared from under him, ‘I just want you to tell me what all this is all about.’

  ‘How much do you actually know about Your Spread From The Sky?’ asked Della.

  ‘I know what Jack Marowitz found out. That they were flying over almost every farm in Kansas, just before the Vorar-D virus broke out And that’s too much of a goddamned coincidence to be true.’

  Della carefully laid the pump-gun down across the desk. Ed didn’t miss the significance of the gesture, but he didn’t take his eyes off Della’s face, and he didn’t change his intense, unhappy expression.

  ‘Well,’ said Della, softly, ‘you’re right. They did overfly those farms. But the reason they did it wasn’t to spray any poison virus on them. The reason was that they had a tipoff about the blight, and they were reconnoitring the farms in the least sensational way they knew how, to see if they could detect who was doing it, and how.’

  There was a long, taut silence. Then Ed said, ‘You expect me to believe that? You’re trying to tell me the FBI knew about the blight in advance, and they didn’t warn anybody? Not the Department of Agriculture? Not the President? Not even Shearson Jones?’

  ‘Until the blight actually broke out, Ed, they weren’t sure it was going to happen at all.’

  Ed stood up, and walked across to the office window. He parted the lopsided Venetian blinds and looked down into Hollywood Boulevard. He couldn’t see the convoy of cars and wagons, but he could see Sam Gasiewicz on the other side of the street keeping guard, his rifle over his shoulder.