gas masks and gloves. A lot of good that would do them, he reflected grimly.
There was a space of about 20 yards between the blockade and the column of evacuees. As those at the head of the column entered that space they were met by jets of water from water cannon mounted on trucks and tear gas bombs. Soldiers were also firing what appeared to be rubber bullets into the throng and Slocock thought he heard the distinctive crack of 7.62mm army rifles. The fact that there were several unmoving bodies in front of the blockade confirmed that real bullets were being used as well as rubber ones.
Faced with this impenetrable barrier, and being continually pushed forward by the surging mass behind them, the people at the front of the column were forced to scatter into the two side streets that ran parallel to the North Circular Road. Presumably they would try again to break through at other junctions where, no doubt, they would be met with the same resistance.
As Slocock watched the screen a car suddenly emerged from the end of the column and sped toward the barricade. The driver obviously had the futile idea of crashing his way through the line of army vehicles. But even before he’d got halfway, there was the rattle of a heavy machine gun. The car swerved sharply and plunged into the side of a house on the corner of the road. There was a muffled whoof and the car was obscured by a ball of fire.
The camera abruptly panned upward to the sky. The commentator cried excitedly, “Something just happened above us to the north—yes, there it is!”
At the top of the screen an object could be seen turning over and over as it fell from the sky trailing black smoke. The camera closed in on it. It was a helicopter. It was burning fiercely and disintegrating as it fell. Pieces could clearly be seen breaking away from it. One of them looked disturbingly like a body.
“Yes, it’s a helicopter!” cried the BBC reporter redundantly. “It appears to have been attacked by that jet fighter.” The camera panned again, briefly catching a fast-moving dot in the distance. “An RAF Phantom, I think,” said the reporter. “There have been rumors that various wealthy persons have been offering vast amounts of money to any helicopter pilot willing to come in, pick them up and fly them out of the quarantine area.” The camera returned to the falling helicopter and followed it all the way down until it disappeared behind some houses. A mushroom of smoke marked its point of impact.
“This puts a whole new light on the government’s ban on commercial and private flights in and out of the restricted area,” said the reporter. “Clearly they mean business.”
The studio news reader reappeared on the screen. “We have just received information from sources in Northern Ireland that there are contingency plans to transfer the seat of British government to Stormont for the duration of the crisis. Sources at Westminster have neither confirmed or denied the story.
“Nor can we get information on the physical condition of the Prime Minister and the members of her cabinet. Rumor has it that at least three cabinet ministers have fallen victim to the fungal plague but confirmation has not been forthcoming. However one reliable source claims that Mrs. Thatcher, several of her ministers, and senior government officials have, for the past two days, been residing in the nuclear bunkers below Whitehall.
“But our science correspondent, Tom Southern, believes that this measure doesn’t offer much protection.”
The camera cut to another man who a caption identified as Southern. He was a young, serious-looking character wearing thick glasses. “The problem is that fungi are the most prevalent and varied lifeform, apart from bacteria, known to man. One handful of soil probably contains about 10 to 20 million individual fungi either growing or in a dormant state. And a cubic meter of air can contain 180,000 spores.
“In other words we live in an environment saturated with fungi of different kinds, most of which we never notice in our daily lives—until now. The agent, whatever it is, that is causing all the trouble has the power to alter the genetic programming of every fungus spore it comes in contact with. It’s acting like some cancer-causing virus within the fungi family, spreading from one species to another at an alarming rate.
“This means that all the government’s attempts to block the spread of the infection are futile. It only takes one infected spore, or microscopic fungus particle, to transmit the virus to another species of fungi. And as I said, those species are all around us. Even in the sterile conditions of the Whitehall bunker there are no doubt tens of thousands of fungi spores. And it’s likely that the virus has gained entrance to the bunker, carried in by one or more of the people taking shelter there. It could be in their lungs, their stomachs or their intestines.
“The grim truth is that unless we can rapidly isolate the cause of this plague and devise a means of counter acting it, we are all doomed, and that includes our leaders in their bunker.”
He then held up his right hand which he’d previously kept behind his back. Slocock thought for a moment he was wearing a purple woolly mitten. Then he recognized what it was.
The screen abruptly went blank. There was silence for a time, then light background music began to play. A test card came up with the words THERE HAS BEEN A TEMPORARY FAULT. NORMAL TRANSMISSION WILL BE RESUMED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Peterson got up and switched off the video machine. “That was the last news program from the BBC. The government accused them of spreading alarm and panic and pulled the plug. That was why this other program was recorded but never transmitted.” He held up another video tape, then put it in the machine.
The screen came back to life. There was a title, CRISIS SPECIAL, then the camera cut to the harassed- looking face of a middle-aged man. “Good afternoon,” he said quickly. “We have with us Dr. Bruce Carter from the Home Office. He was one of the first people to discover the outbreak and probably knows more about the nature of the plague than anyone else. But I must warn viewers that Dr. Carter has become a victim of a fungal infection himself.”
The camera pulled back to show that the commentator was not alone. Sitting opposite him was—
Slocock felt the whiskey-engendered warmth in his body fade away. It was replaced with a deep chill that spread upwards along his spine and then through the rest of him. Worse, he suddenly felt sober.
Dr. Bruce Carter’s head was covered with a series of overlapping brown, crusty slabs that had the texture of tree bark. The growths continued down his neck and disappeared into the collar of the loose-fitting shirt he was wearing. The shoulders of his jacket, which was also cut for someone several sizes larger than him, were grossly distorted by large bulges under the cloth.
Between the wart-like protuberances on his face his left eye could just be seen in one of the gaps. A crevice opened where his mouth should have been and Carter began to speak. He spoke with difficulty, his voice husky and wheezing. “I too would like to apologize for my appearance,” he said slowly. “I wish I could say it’s not as bad as it looks.” He followed with a strange sound that must have been, astonishingly, laughter.
“Shit, he looks worse than the flicking Elephant Man,” muttered Slocock.
“Shush!” ordered Peterson. “Pay attention, Sergeant.”
“Dr. Carter,” the interviewer on the screen was saying, “I understand you are of the firm belief that the plague is a man-made catastrophe and not a natural one.”
Carter inclined his grotesque head. “Yes, I am,” he wheezed. “If only one species of fungi had undergone a radical change in its metabolism and growth pattern then natural mutation might explain it, but the fact that all the species are being affected indicates an artificial agent.” He paused to suck in air, then continued, “We must accept that what has happened is the result of a genetic engineering experiment that has gone hideously wrong.”
“But who is responsible? Why don’t they come forward and explain what they’ve done?”
“Maybe they were the first victims of their creation,” said Carter. “Or they are in hiding, too afraid to admit what they’ve done. If the latter is so I plead with them to ring this number immediately.” A telephone number was superimposed across the screen. “I have been empowered to offer them complete immunity from prosecution. It’s imperative that we learn the exact chemical structure of the agent. Without that we can’t begin to devise an effective means of counteracting it.”
“Why hasn’t it been possible to trace the whereabouts of the laboratory responsible?” asked the interviewer. “Surely there can’t have been too many people doing research in this particular field.”
“True,” admitted Carter. “And in normal circumstances we would have pinpointed the source of the infection. But as you are well aware the circumstances are far from normal. Conditions here in London are already chaotic, and gaining access to records, and to people, is very difficult. But even so we are continuing to make progress in our investigations and I hope that we will have the answer very shortly.”
