Alan Hedges said, ‘Pardon me one moment, Mr President… the figures are right here. That’s it… we’ve completed all the shipments of canned goods and stored them in three separate warehouses around the city, as well as five truckloads of special emergency rations out at Anacostia Naval Annex. The rest of the refrigerated goods are arriving by rail just after nine o’clock tonight.’

The President ran his hand tiredly through his thatch of grey hair. ‘That’s okay, Alan, you did well. But I’m afraid we may have an extra problem. You’re going to have to check through those rations and make sure that none of them were produced within the last three weeks.’

There was a short silence, and then Alan Hedges said, ‘Is this on the level?’

‘I’m afraid so. I can’t give you all the details yet, but it appears any food containing any kind of cereal ingredient which was prepared and canned within the last three weeks may have to be considered a hazard to human health.’

‘You can’t tell me anything more than that?’

‘I’m afraid not. But I can assure you that when the time comes to make a public statement, you’ll be the first to know.’

‘Well,’ said Alan Hedges unhappily, ‘I appreciate your confidence in me.’

‘Thank you, Alan. Now will you check out those supplies for me?’

‘Yes, Mr President. Whatever you say.’

Neither the President nor Alan Hedges heard the extra click on their telephone line as Alan Hedges’ secretary Wanda Kaminski put her receiver down, too. And neither of them knew that directly afterwards she dialled the Washington bureau of The New York Times and asked to speak to Bill Brinsky.

The news on early evening television on Tuesday was grim, but less hysterical than before. The networks had all been personally requested by the President to ‘Keep the tone down.’ The crop blight was still spreading, although ‘great and urgent efforts’ were being made in Washington to prepare an antidote. The research had been seriously hampered by last week’s violent killing of Professor Protter, who had carried most of the information he had gleaned from his analysis of Vorar D in his head. Nonetheless, the Department of Agriculture hoped to be able to issue fanners with their first supplies of some kind of antidote ‘within two or three weeks.’