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.

‘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?