Forte checked a meter to see if there was an electrical field. He gave a thumbs-up signal. One of the Russians flung a thick cotton mat over the top, barbed strands. One by one they climbed over swiftly and made themselves small on the ground until the last man was inside the compound.
The Russians with the party had studied the satellite pictures of the plant and offered the opinion that the factory’s work schedule was probably no more than two shifts. Except for guards, if any, they’d have the plant to themselves until 0700. The stillness that pervaded the factory site confirmed their estimate.
The plant was protected by only three or four sentries, lethargically walking post outside the plant. In the darkness, Forte and his men easily evaded them, picked the lock on a side door, and entered.
By the dim glow of the flashlights, they followed the wheat-processing operation from the beginning. One end of the low building was little more than a huge hopper in which wheat was stockpiled. By means of a screw-feed mechanism, the process seemed to be automatic and continuous. The grain was first soaked in vats containing a noxious-smelling chemical, then passed through crushing rollers and subjected to another chemical bath. The wheat mash was then centrifuged, kiln dried, and pressed into blocks of what seemed to be cattle feed. The liquid in which the grain was soaked after crushing passed through a dozen stages of distillation and separation, the final product being collected in a ten-liter glass receptacle, which was only two-thirds full.
At each stage of the process, Forte and his men collected minute samples in stoppered glass vials. Of the clear liquid that seemed to be the end result of the refining process, Forte drew off two samples, and gave one to Chief Smit in case his own was broken. A small office yielded papers and instruction manuals, which were photographed before being replaced.
From the time the five-man team landed until they got back again to the beach, suiting up for return to the underwater rendezvous, less than three hours had elapsed. They set off no alarms, saw no sign of hostile forces. This fact did not surprise them, for the processing plant they entered, according to satellite reconnaissance, was but one of more than two hundred like it located in wheat-growing areas of the Soviet Union. All seemed to be automated.
As they slipped into the water to reenter the sea sled, Forte glanced back at the placid countryside through which they passed with such ease. With sound intelligence and planning, he reflected, almost any operation would be a success.
16. BETA-3
12 JULY 2009
“Take a look at this, Rip,” said Dr. Roger Nucho, pressing the button on SD-l’s magnetic resonance synthesizer, which projected its image onto the big screen.
The molecule meant nothing to Ripley Forte. It looked like a conical bedspring, with a couple of branching hydroxyl radicals. The formula shown below was as long as a loser’s alibi, and composed of the elements oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, and, unexpectedly, cobalt. Chemistry had ever been a mystery to Forte, and the structure of the molecule did nothing to temper his ignorance.
“That was the only anomaly in the liquid sample we took from Sevastopol?”
“No. Actually it is the sample you got from Sevastopol. Pure stuff. Chemically, its name begins with beta-3 and as you see, goes on and on. We call it simply beta-3.”
“A deadly poison, of course.”
Nucho smiled. “Only in the sense that a lover’s kiss, a $20,000 raise, or Dallas beating the Redskins by eighty-three to zero is poison.”
“Come again?”
“Beta-3 is euphoria, happiness, bliss. But I’d better start back a way. A graduate researcher at the University of Texas, a young woman by the name of Livia dps Santos, isolated beta-3 from samples of cereals grown in Russia’s podzolitic soil. Dos Santos-until her recent disappearance-was on her way to becoming a major authority on the biochemistry of cereals. At the time of her disappearance, she was studying derivatives that can be extracted from the grains on which man mainly subsists-adhesives, Pharmaceuticals, fibrous materials for strengthening cement, and so on, as well as unsuspected vulnerabilities of various grain strains to disease. We at Gwillam and Ripley International Traders were of course vitally interested in her work, and in fact funded her researches at UT.”
“Back up, Roger. Way back. What’s ‘podzolitic’?”
“Podzol-from the Russian. It refers to soil characteristic of coniferous forest areas, which is grayish white in its upper, leached layers.”
Forte nodded for Nucho to continue.
“Podzolitic soil produces wheat that contains a minute fraction of beta-3, the stuff up there on the screen. Dos Santos tested beta-3 from Russian wheat samples in rhesus monkeys. The results were so dramatic that, with the secret consent of President Tom Traynor, it was tested on convicts awaiting execution.” He paused.
Forte reached into his pocket and extracted a ten-dollar bill. He handed it to Nucho solemnly. “So far, this is shaping up as good as any movie I’ve seen in the past few months. Okay, I’ve paid the price of admission- pray continue.”
“A good investment,” said Nucho, pocketing the bill, “because it gets better. Every man who took the beta-3 went to the electric chair with a pulse rate of seventy-five and a smile on his lips. In short, beta-3 produces instant and lasting euphoria. Anybody taking it doesn’t care whether school keeps, whether he’s out in the rain, whether he’s just lost his job, or whether his wife has switched from hooking rugs to hooking thugs. Those plants in southern Russia are processing beta-3 in significant quantities. And for the next chapter in this commie cliff-hanger, allow me to introduce Dr. George Ashkar, who has flown in from Washington, where he heads a think tank with such an awesome security clearance that its name is spoken only in whispers.”
Forte gripped the hand of a tall man with a wild moustache and a spade beard. “Whisper to me, George.”
“The way we figure it,” said Dr. Ashkar, who had a whisper like a hoarse bassoon, “we’ve stumbled onto a secret weapon that could annihilate the free world. It couldn’t do the United States or the Republic of Texas any good-the wheat they produce doesn’t contain beta-3. But it would be worth more than a whole nuclear arsenal to the Soviets.”
It didn’t take much imagination to guess why. If convicted murderers and rapists serenely marched to the gas chambers after taking a dose of beta-3, then the whole North American continent would with similar tranquillity welcome an invading Russian army, once the American army had been disarmed with beta-3. But that unpleasant prospect could now be dismissed: since the Americans had warning-just in time-they would be on guard against any adulteration of their food by beta-3 the Russians might have planned.
“Yes, but how about their water?” said Dr. Ashkar.
“Water?”
Ashkar unrolled a map of the United States and Texas. “This is a facsimile of a map found in the safe of the Yak-237 aircraft whose pilot defected to China in late June. The pilot, Shishlin, is in Washington being debriefed at this very moment. While he knows nothing of the map or the other goodies found in his aircraft’s safe, he does report that he routinely flew Brigadier General Evgeniy Tomskiy of the KGB, whom the CIA has identified as one of the Soviet Union’s sharpest brains in subversive warfare.”
Ripley Forte examined the map. It was marked with dozens of tiny spots that Ashkar told him represented key watershed areas where the great rivers of the United States were born. Beta-3 air-dropped in those areas would soon contaminate every drop of water supplying more than 95 percent of North Americans. “Bad, very bad,” Forte said after a moment’s reflection. “But not fatal. We could conceivably distill all drinking water. It would cost us dearly in energy, but it can be done.”
“True,” replied Ashkar. “But what of the food plants -the wheat, corn, rice, tomatoes, potatoes, celery, beets-that absorb the water? We have to eat as well as drink to survive, and it will take a long time-if we can at all-to devise a way to flush out the trace contamination.” He raised his hand as Forte opened his mouth to intervene. “Believe me, Mr. Forte, we’ve thought this through, and our conclusion is that the Soviets have us stymied at every turn.
“You see, it’s not only the water. It’s not only the food. It’s the very air we breathe.” He unrolled another Russian map. It was of the Pacific coast of the United States. “You see these dots in the Pacific in a band five hundred miles deep off the coast?”
Forte nodded.
“They are dump points for beta-3. Their submarine fleet will simultaneously dump quantities of beta-3 at each of these seventy-odd points. It will be quickly absorbed by the sea and-“