Colonel Christie permitted himself a wintry smile. He had long since realized that he had been absolutely mistaken about that wine business. It was here, deep in the mountains of southern France, that he had found the very soul of this disagreeable nation; it was here that he would take his justly merited revenge.
The Colonel stepped forward as if to examine a particularly choice round of ripening Roquefort. As he did so, he activated the aerosol dispersal system so cunningly concealed within his trousers and walking boots. With an imperceptible hiss, millions of spores of the mutated Penicillium roquefortii created by Henry Hollilockes began to circulate in the air around him. A faint, abstracted smile on his lips, the Colonel moved slowly down the ranks of ripening cheeses, a tiny hissing noise accompanying him as he went.
“You do yourself well here,” observed Henry Hollilockes with even more of his usual bitterness as his eyes ran over the high-ceilinged salon with its stunning view of Green Park.
Colonel Christie shrugged indifferently. “They never stopped paying my salary, you know. Compounded over twenty years, it came to a surprisingly tidy little sum.”
“More than I ever made fabricating new and nastier mayonnaises.”
“I dare say. But that isn’t why I asked you to drop by. Come.” The Colonel led Hollilockes to a gleaming kitchen lined with Italian tile and marble. He opened a restaurant-sized refrigerator. “Look.” Hundreds of pieces of richly veined Roquefort filled the shelves. A loaf of bread and a scattering of fruits and vegetables occupied what little room was left. “I’ve been buying two or three pieces a day all over London for the last two months, ever since we calculated the first of the affected cheeses ought to be reaching the market.”
“Yes,” muttered the biochemist. “I still don’t understand why we haven’t heard anything yet. It ought—”
“Look. There and there and there.”
Henry Hollilockes bent forward to scrutinize a head of lettuce. “Ahhh,” he murmured with profound satisfaction, “so it’s begun at last.”
“You did design it so there’d be a delay, you know, to ensure they’d be distributed all over the world.”
“Yes.” A beatific smile suffused the biochemist’s pinched features. “It’s definitely on the lettuce.”
“And on the orange.”
“And on the grapes.”
“And on the loaf of bread. Where, I wonder,” mused Colonel Christie dreamily, “will it end?”
“Where will it end?” shouted the Prime Minister, his normally ruddy face now a dangerously mottled crimson.
Colonel Christie shrugged. “I see on the telly that it’s already spread across all of southern France and is beginning to work its way north up through the Rhone and Garonne valleys. Anywhere, in fact, where there’s something organic for it to grow on.”
“You mean the whole damned country is about to turn into a piece of bloody Roquefort cheese?”
“Not cheese actually, just a countryside covered with a remarkably nasty blue and green slime.”
“And it grows on everything?”
“Almost everything that’s organic. Though not on human beings, or inside their lungs, for instance. That would have been a trifle near the knuckle to inflict even on Froggies.” Colonel Christie smiled his wintry smile.
“Ah—so even Froggies are human beings: an interesting point of view.” The Prime Minister took a deep breath, as if trying to keep his emotions under control. “But you do realize, my dear fellow, that this… this Roquefort slime of yours has also been found in England!”
“Yes.”
“And in the United States. And South Africa. And Singapore. And Australia. And… and everywhere!”
“Yes. Roquefort has a peculiarly worldwide audience, it appears.” The Colonel pursed his lips austerely. “Never understood its appeal, myself. Always preferred a sound English cheddar.”
“But that’s just the point, you lunatic!” screamed the Prime Minister, unable to restrain himself any longer. “It’s already growing on every cheese in England, even the Cheddars! It is, not to put too fine a point upon it, growing on everything!”
“Yes,” agreed Colonel Christie. “That was the intention.”
“Your intention? To cover the entire world in green Roquefort mold?” The Prime Minister’s eyes bulged.
“Only temporarily, Prime Minister.” Colonel Christie cocked his head like an inquisitive bird. “You don’t think I’d destroy the entire planet just to gain retribution for whatever paltry slights might have been paid me in the past?”
The Prime Minister sank bonelessly into the embrace of a deep leather chair. “I don’t know,” he murmured helplessly, “I simply don’t know.”
“Of course not, man,” snapped the Colonel. “I’m not a monster, for heaven’s sake. I simply want what is my due.”
“And what is that?”
“A full pardon for any events that may have transpired twenty years ago, a baronetcy, and, of course, first and foremost, the restoration of our beloved England to her rightful place in the world. The restoration of British manhood to its finest flower, you might say.”
“Of course, of course. What could be easier?” The Prime Minister shook his head in exasperation, certain now that he was harboring a madman. His finger moved toward the button that would summon his guards.
“Exactly. What could be easier? Nothing.” Colonel Christie sighed. “Come, come, Prime Minister, I’m disappointed in you. Do you really think I’d come to waste your time unless I had a specific remedy?”
“A remedy?” The Prime Minister looked up, his mouth sagging. “You mean—”
“Certainly, Prime Minister. The mutated Penicillium roquefortii that is now running rampant around the world was only half out little bag of microbiological tricks. Already we see France reeling under the opprobrium of having released this genocidal mold upon the world. Soon it will be time for—”
“—The other half?” The Prime Minister allowed a desperate hope to take a tentative foothold.
“Exactly: the antidote. One that can easily be disseminated by aerial spraying. It takes effect almost immediately by breaking down the protein in the walls of the cells that constitute the mold. Within three days at the most, all that lovely green slime will dry up and wither away. And life will be back to normal.”
“But—”
Colonel Christie raised a knobby finger and his voice hardened. “Life will be back to normal, I say, for those countries wise enough to have purchased the formulation for the antidote from the world’s sole source.”
“You mean—”
“Exactly: Her Majesty’s government.” Colonel Christie’s eyes narrowed. “It will be interesting to see exactly what concessions you extract from Paris, Prime Minister, in return for preventing that miserable country across the Channel from turning into the world’s largest piece of penicillin mold.”
“The goal, I believe you said, was to strike a blow for British manhood?” The Permanent Secretary pursed his lips.