THE INFORMANT!
My name is Mark Whitacre, 33, and I was driving in the middle of an endless cornfield in Southern Illinois.
- You know the orange juice you have every morning? You know what's in that? ... Corn. And you know what's in the maple syrup you put on your pancakes? You know what makes it taste so good? ... Corn. And when you're good and help with the trash, know what makes the big, green bags biodegradable? - this is what I was asking to my young son, Alexander, 6, driving my Porsche 911 to his school.
- Do you? - I repeated.
- Uh-huh. Corn, - he guessed.
- Corn starch. But Daddy's company didn't come up with that one- DuPont did.
God didn't make creatures any happier than me that day, while Alexander was sipping his half-pint carton of orange juice.
Before us we could see huge industrial machines work the ruler to straight rows of crops.
After the school I went where I worked, the ADM headquarters in Decatur, IL. I pulled up to the security gate. The ARCHER DANIELS MIDLAND is a sprawling industrial facility that makes most of what America eats on any given day. And the rest of the world. Grain elevators, cooling towers, processing plants, loading docks and a six story concrete bunker of an office building.
ADM. Most people have never heard of us. But chances are, they've never had a meal we're not part of. Just read the side of the package... That's us. Then ADM was taking the dextrose from the corn and turning it into an amino acid called lysine. It was all very scientific. But if you're a stockholder, all that matters is that corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.
We had got the largest lysine plant in the world. And I was going there.
I spotted Kirk Schmidt from accounting. - Kirk, when are we gonna get out there and hit some balls? - We shook hands and moved on.
What did they pay Kirk? What did a guy like that get? He was just going to sit behind a desk and ride into the future.
It was, I remember, the October of 1992.
My secretary, Liz Taylor, 35, entered my office. Her earrings were little golden ears of corn.
- Morning Mark. They have lysine results. - She handed me a folder.
I opened it and scanned the data. A column of red numbers and negative signs. Positive.
- Great, - I said.
Few minutes later I was inside the lysine plant. I walked among the giant fermenters where I was joined by a the foreman. We checked various gauges and dials.
He said: - We adjusted the dextrose again, but the virus keeps showing up. Thought we had it surrounded this time. We're starting a new set of cultures.
- We'll get it. We just have to stay after it. The things eat sugar and that's what we're giving them - a warm place filled with sugar.
Later I had a meeting with Mick Andreas, Vice Chairman, 45, and Terry Wilson, 55, President. An overhead projector displayed the
desultory performance of my division.
Andreas said: - The fucking thing is supposed to produce 113 thousand tons annually. We're not gonna get anywhere near that. We got 150 million dollars in costs over there guys.
Did the Japanese have these kind of problems with lysine? - Wilson asked.
Then Andreas shouted to me: - I don't give a shit about the Japanese. You just gotta get the Goddamn lysine bugs to eat the dextrose and shit us out some money.
- We're still having problems with this virus, - I mumbled.
- I don't want to hear about the virus anymore. Terry, how much are we losing a month?
- We are down like seven million per, - Wilson answered.
- That's not gonna fly much longer. You want to go in there next month and tell my father we're sucking hind tit on this? I sure don't. We're number 44 on the Fortune 500 list, Mark. I don't want this turning us into number 45. - Andreas gave me a we're-done-fucking-around glare. - Fix it.
That evening warm light radiated from my home with its tall white columns.
Inside, on the mantle, there was a portrait of my family, my wife and ours three children.
You feed a chicken a diet of corn and it gets sick - like what happened to the first settlers. Pellagra disease. Niacin deficiency - gave them all sorts of problems - dermatitis, ataxia and even dementia.
In the dining room I stared at the ear of corn on my plate. My wife, Ginger, 33, sliced up Alexander's dinner - a chicken breast. I was lost in thought. My focus shifting from corn to chicken and back again. But you feed a chicken corn and lysine and it goes from egg to supermarket fryer to in six months instead of eight.
Ginger stared at me. I smiled away in my head.
- Mark? Where are you?
- You look great, - I said.
- They got the first wall of the stables up today. You see that?
- They're doing a new thing in hydroponics. They're now feeding lysine to jumbo shrimp. Can you imagine that? You're a jumbo shrimp
and one day some corn goes floating by. What do you think about that? Weird, right?
Alexander smiled.
- You know, there's an opening down in the plant in Mexico - they might need me to go down and set some stuff up. What do you think about Mexico?
- I thought we were getting horses.
Outside ADM grey smoke pumped into a grey sky.
Toro. That's what Spanish bullfighters say. But it's also what the Japanese call the high-end tuna sushi. Toro. Raw fish.
Inside the trading floor was bustling. Who went first on that? The guy without the grill. Soy and corn futures from around the world are displayed on a tote board. Numbers tick up and down. I've been to Tokyo. They sell little girl underwear in the vending machines right on the main drag - the Ginza, or whatever.
In my office I frowned as I poured over the lysine results - more red. Guys in suits buying used girl panties. How is that okay? That's not okay.
My secretary buzzed on the intercom. I picked up. - Yeah?
- There's a Mr. Nakawara calling from the Ajinomoto Corporation. He says you know him and he needs to speak with you.
- Put him through.
I picked up the phone and got to work.
After the phone call I went to Mick Andreas. He sat at his desk. I paced - very wound up.
- It's the Japanese. There's this guy, Nakawara. He works at Ajinomoto. He was here a couple weeks ago. You met him. Now I've been talking to him on the phone- sometimes at work, sometimes at home because of the time difference. Mick, this guy knew everything. Everything. He says to me, "You know the total nightmare you had during May, June, July?" Before I can ask him what he means he goes, "Those months when ADM was losing about seven million dollars a month in the lysine business?"
I stared at him in shock - no one outside the company should know that. Andreas was stone faced.
- Mick, I couldn't believe it. He goes on to tell me that one of our highest paid employees is actually an employee of Ajinomoto who is sabotaging the plant. They're injecting a virus into the dextrose and contaminating the whole deal. That's the problem. I'll tell you Mick, it's like Rising Sun, that Crichton novel, it's just like it. So I go, why are you talking to me about this and you know what he says...
- Yeah, I know what he says. How much does he want?
- Ten million dollars. Ten million. But that gives you the identity of the saboteur, the secret identity, and a new lysine bug that is immune to the virus. We have the plant up and running in three days.
Andreas paused, takes it all in, and then: - How well do you know this guy?
- I met him when he was here. We've spoken on the phone a half dozen times.
- So, not very well.
- Very well? No, I wouldn't say that.
Andreas pondered the situation. - Okay, if you hear from him again - talk him down on the price. I want you to find out the least amount of money he'd settle for. If we can get a bug that's resistant to the virus, this might be worth it. But, I want you to keep this secret, if there is a mole, we don't want him to know we're onto him.
- Absolutely, - I said.
At home, that evening, I remember I stood with a cocktail in the fading light, looking at the foundation for the new horse stables being built across the road from the main house. On all sides of the house - more cornfields. Not another home in sight. This would have been a great place for some outlet stores... People would have came from all over southern Illinois and probably Missouri, too. Famous name brand labels and appliances at savings of up to fifty per cent every day. Maybe a food court with a Mexican place.
Then, I looked at a swarm of insects around the lone street light. The birds eat the bugs, the cars eat the birds, the rust eats the cars and the new construction eats the rust... But Ginger interrupted my grand plan from across the street... - Corky, Alexander says there's a bat in his room.
When I spoke with Mick again I shook my head in disbelief. Pacing nervously. Stunned by the news. - The FBI! God, no.
Andreas and Mark Cheviron, then 38, told me of my upcoming FBI interview. Cheviron was a barrel chested, linebacker of a man. A former Decatur cop, who had become an ADM's version of a bouncer.
- I thought you wanted me to talk him down on the price. That's what you told me to do and I was doing it.
- We're not gonna sit back and let the Japanese fuck us sideways on this, - said Andreas.
I had a doubt about Cheviron. - I just don't understand - we weren't going to mention it and now he's in on it?
- Of course he's in on it. If it's a mole then it's a security issue.
- I'll be sitting in with the FBI, - said Cheviron with some defiance attitude.
- I already told you everything there is to tell. What is the point?
(to be continued...)