The New Mexico Highway Patrol located Mary’s Diner within twenty-three minutes of being called from Phoenix. Mary, bewildered and shocked, confirmed that the Abbott family had eaten hotdogs there on Saturday evening. Eight airmen and a truck driver had also eaten there, but they had all chosen hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or reubenburgers. The Highway Patrol officers took away all the fresh meat from Mary’s Diner, sealed it in plastic, and sent it to Phoenix for tests.

On Monday morning, at 10.30 a.m., Donald Abbott died of botulism.

*

The death of Donald Abbott and his family had yet to make news, however. What was news, as Sunday became Monday, was that a Kansas wheat farmer had stood in front of the cameras on live coast-to-coast television and announced that Americans were facing a whole lot more than ‘a noticeable percentage of inconvenience’ from the crop blights which had struck all over the country. They were facing nothing less than the total destruction of their agricultural economy, and possible starvation.

The television people hadn’t pulled the plug on him, as Ed had expected them to. The director had recognised good hard news material when it was handed to him on a plate, and Shearson Jones had wrathfully decided it was better not to intervene. If he had ordered the transmission to be killed, he would only have given Ed’s comments more public credibility. But he had sat on his throne and glared in fury at Ed with a face like a malevolent blancmange.

Ed had been chilled but sweating as he faced the dark, polished, noncommittal lens of the television camera. He had been aware of Shearson Jones, smouldering in his chair; and of Della, who had returned from the verandah to listen to him. In some ways, though, the most disconcerting face of all had been that of the elegant young black prompter, who had continued to hold up his idiot cards regardless of what he was actually saying. There had been moments when he had almost slipped into his pre-written speech, simply because he was groping for words, and there they were, up in front of him.

‘I was supposed to stand here today and tell you how much we Kansas wheat farmers need your help,’ he had said.

‘The trouble is, I can’t do that. My conscience won’t let me. Because the truth is that every one of you is going to need help just as badly as we do. This blight that you’ve been hearing about – these isolated crop diseases – well, they’re neither as slight nor as isolated as you’ve been led to believe.

‘What’s happening is that every major fruit, vegetable and cereal crop in the entire continental United States is being quickly destroyed by a virus. They’re not totally destroyed yet, by any means, but unless an antidote can be sprayed on the worst of them within a matter of days, this country is going to be facing shortages like you’ve never seen before, and that’s quite apart from the prospect of complete economic collapse.