Informant (18 page)

Nearby, Whitacre watched the ADM president. It was January 6, 1993, a Wednesday. Whitacre had been traveling with Randall for two days, as part of an effort to start a business in a new product called methionine—an amino acid, like lysine, that promotes animal growth. For much of the trip, they had been accompanied by Chris Jones, a former Whitacre colleague from Degussa who was now consulting with ADM on the project. The ADM plane had just dropped off Jones in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Randall and Whitacre were finally alone.

For a few minutes, the two executives chatted. Whitacre mentioned an executive he had met the other day from American Cyanamid, a company with dealings in the bacitracin business. Whitacre watched as Randall leaned his head back, seeming to rest.

Whitacre slid his hand into his inside left breast pocket. Looking in, he saw the indicator light on the top of the FBI’s microcassette recorder. He flicked the switch. The indicator light glowed red.

Whitacre leaned toward Randall.

“You know, one thing the Cyanamid guy asked me,’’ Whitacre said, “he asked me, ‘Where did you guys get your technology?’ ”

Days later, Shepard slid a copy of tape number 1B13 into the TASCAM playback device on his desk. Slipping a set of puffy earphones over his head, he glanced at the paperwork for the tape.

Shepard cued the tape. Instantly, he heard the sound of a jet engine. Already, he could tell this would be a troublesome recording; there was too much background noise. He heard Whitacre’s voice, saying something about a guy at Cyanamid asking where ADM obtained its technology.

“I said, well, we got it from Korea,’’ Shepard heard Whitacre say. “The bacitracin technology.’’

Vaguely, Shepard could hear Randall say something. The engine drowned out the words.

“Huh?’’ Whitacre asked. Apparently, it was hard to hear on the plane, too.

“Got it from where?’’ Randall was speaking up.

“Korea,’’ Whitacre said, “which is the standard lie we’ve always been sayin’ when we’re asked. You know, we don’t get asked that much.’’

“Yeah,’’ Randall replied.

Shepard played the section back. Randall hadn’t jumped up, asking why Whitacre was lying about how ADM obtained the bug. That might mean something. Shepard turned on the tape again. Whitacre was talking.

“And he goes, well, ah, the IMC guys felt that you got it from this, from a guy that left their company named Mike Frein, that Mike Frein stole the bug,” Whitacre said. “That’s what he said.’’

“Yeah,’’ Randall replied.

An indifferent statement. No shock. Interesting.

The conversation meandered. Randall mentioned a man named Scott who had done business with ADM.

“He used to be friends with Mike Frein,’’ Whitacre said.

“Oh, yeah, he was.’’

“Is that how you got Mike Frein? From him, wasn’t it?”

“Right.’’

“Did Frein come to us looking for a job?’’ Whitacre asked. “Or Scott told you about him?’’

“I don’t know, I can’t remember exactly how . . ’’ Randall’s words dipped, drowned out by the jet engine.

A second later they were clear again.

“I paid him fifty thousand dollars per bug.’’

“Cheapest bug we ever got,’’ Whitacre responded, as both men laughed.

The middle section of Randall’s statement had been unintelligible. Try as he might, Shepard could not understand those few words. But the words after that were clear as a bell.

I paid him fifty thousand dollars per bug.

Soon, Whitacre sent the conversation in another direction.

“It’s a shame we got Frein, ah, the bacitracin bug,’’ he said. “What we need is Ajinomoto’s lysine bug.’’

“Do you think it’s better than ours?’’

Shepard listened closely. This had come up several times. That first night Whitacre spoke in the car, he had said that ADM hired women to hang around near the American offices of an Asian competitor in search of employees willing to sell a bug or answer questions. There was a chance that topic would come up.

Randall and Whitacre discussed the technical differences between the two bugs. Suddenly, Whitacre brought up the women.

“Cheviron never did have any luck with girls and stuff?’’ he asked.

“No, we pulled him out,’’ Randall replied, “because then we were starting to deal with the Japanese.’’ They had been getting friendly with their competitors, he said. New strategies were necessary.

Shepard stopped the tape and rewound it.

Cheviron never did have any luck with girls and stuff?

No, we pulled him out
.

Unbelievable.

Shepard listened to the rest of the tape; its quality was terrible. But by the time he finished, Shepard was beginning to suspect that Whitacre’s stories about ADM’s industrial espionage might well be true.

•   •   •

After two days of rain in Decatur, the sun broke through the clouds on January 9. With the weather on his side, Shepard made good time to the Holiday Inn parking lot. Tonight, he would not be going inside.

A short time later, Whitacre pulled alongside. Shepard climbed out of his car; in a second, he was sitting in Whitacre’s passenger seat.

“You have that agreement?’’ Shepard asked.

“Yeah, right here,’’ Whitacre replied.

In a call that day, Whitacre had said that he was ready to sign the cooperation agreement. Shepard wanted it as soon as possible, so Whitacre agreed to meet. He wouldn’t be around much of the next week; he had business to take care of in the Cayman Islands.

Whitacre handed the agreement to Shepard, who looked it over. Everything appeared to be in order. The two had a short conversation, and Whitacre decided to add one item to the agreement. He brought a pen out of his pocket and flipped to the last page.

“Furthermore,’’ he wrote, “I promise to take a ‘polygraph test’ at any time.’’

Dwayne Andreas worked on the sixth floor of ADM’s corporate headquarters, in a large corner office next to the boardroom. In a company that prized its secrecy, Andreas’s office was the inner sanctum. Few went there uninvited; rarely did anyone stand by listening while Andreas worked the telephones, networking with political and industrial leaders.

In that office, the final rulings were made on any tough issue for ADM. Dwayne would take input, but in making his decision he stood alone, unchallenged. Such was the prerogative of the chairman. But the decision this day was particularly tough.

Should Mark Whitacre be fired?

The entire Fujiwara episode had been a disaster. After a while, no one believed that there was a saboteur. Whitacre, they figured, had made the whole thing up to buy time so he could get the plant running. But what about this lie involving threats to his daughter? What was going on with him?

Whitacre had finally been confronted by Reising and danced around the question of whether the original call from Fujiwara ever took place. He still insisted a saboteur had been in the plant but was less clear about whether he had proof.

The whole situation was too strange. Thankfully, the FBI didn’t seem to be taking the investigation seriously. Shepard checked in occasionally, but with no new Fujiwara phone calls, the whole thing appeared to have faded away. Dwayne didn’t want to reveal ADM’s conclusion to the government. He didn’t like airing the company’s dirty laundry.

Dwayne figured that Whitacre should go. He called Randall and asked him to his office. The ADM president worked closest with Whitacre. He should have a say.

Randall was stunned when he heard the news. “Dwayne, you can’t be serious. We need this guy. He’s the best there is.’’

Sure, Randall said, Whitacre was odd, and this whole Fujiwara episode had been bizarre. But Whitacre had panicked; he was immature. Besides, the bottom line should be the bottom line, and Whitacre’s division was finally showing profits.

“The margins are bigger than any other business line,’’ Randall said. “We can’t do it without him.’’

Randall kept up the lobbying, promising he would personally keep an eye on Whitacre. Dwayne finally decided to let the young lysine executive keep his job. Whitacre, he was convinced, played too important a role in the company’s business.

A sense of fantasy permeated Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile,” the famed shopping district dotted with posh shops, mock-Gothic newspaper headquarters, and world-class hotels. On January 22, white Christmas lights twinkled in the trees along Michigan Avenue, as if the city was desperately clinging to the faded holiday season. The decorations were a concession to a Hollywood studio filming a movie, but the city embraced the illusion. Remnants of holiday cheer were a helpful tonic as Chicago struggled through another cold, blustery winter.

In the heart of the shopping district, two Asian executives headed into a hotel, the forty-six-floor Chicago Marriott Downtown. The men wore elegant suits and muted ties. They looked like nothing more than the visiting businessmen that they were. But Kanji Mimoto and Hirokazu Ikeda of Ajinomoto were in town to commit a crime. They wanted to see if the illegal price-fixing conspiracy among lysine manufacturers could get back on track.

As part of that effort, a meeting had been arranged with a senior executive of ADM, the newest competitor in the business. They weren’t looking forward to the encounter; they viewed ADM management as reckless and ill-mannered. The Americans had rushed into the lysine business like cowboys, upending a cooperative price-fixing agreement that had existed for years among Asian competitors. The comfortable, familiar way of doing business was gone.

Making it worse was their suspicion that ADM was a corporate thief. Ajinomoto knew how long it took to develop the microorganisms required for the business. Yet ADM had become a big player almost overnight. There was only one way that the company could have moved so quickly, the Japanese executives were convinced: ADM must have stolen Ajinomoto’s bug and used it as their own.

The September meeting in Decatur, when Ikeda and Mimoto had toured ADM’s plant with two Ajinomoto engineers, had provided the perfect cover to prove their suspicion. During the visit, Mimoto had attempted to steal one of ADM’s microbes by wiping a damp handkerchief along a staircase. The handkerchief had been taken to a lab, where it was searched for the bugs used by ADM. Ajinomoto had hoped to examine the bacteria for the telltale genetic markers embedded in its own proprietary microorganisms. That way, Ajinomoto would have proof that ADM had stolen them.

But no success. If the handkerchief had ever held any bugs, they had died before arriving at the lab. Ajinomoto’s hopes of quickly pushing ADM out of the business with a patent-infringement suit were put on hold. Cooperation was the only option. For now.

Ikeda and Mimoto walked through the Marriott lobby to the elevators. They rode upstairs, wandering the hall in search of the conference room where they were supposed to meet the ADM executive.

Finally, they found the room. The ADM executive was there, sitting alone at a table. He stood as the Japanese executives walked in.

“Mr. Whitacre,’’ Ikeda said. “Good to see you.’’

Whitacre grinned, shaking Ikeda’s hand eagerly.

“Good to see you again, too.’’

The men sat. They talked amiably as they enjoyed a catered meal. The Ajinomoto executives hammered their position—regardless of any agreements, their company would have to remain the market leader. Whitacre turned that aside, saying that they needed to meet Mick Andreas and negotiate a lysine-production agreement. Otherwise, the scheme would never work.

Nothing seemed extraordinary to the Japanese executives. The talks involved the same issues, with the same hard-nosed positions from the past.

But the meeting itself was unusual. For this time Ikeda and Mimoto were discussing their plans with a cooperating witness for the government, a man who had signed an agreement to inform his FBI handlers of every illegal act. That way, such meetings could be taped and agents could surreptitiously observe them.

None of that, however, was taking place. Whitacre was not taping. No agents were present.

In fact, no one from the government knew what Whitacre was doing in Chicago. He had told the FBI nothing about this price-fixing meeting.

Whitacre felt sure he could keep it secret.

Rusty Williams set down his yard tools when he saw Whitacre walking toward him. Williams had been the Whitacres’ groundskeeper for about six months and already liked his new employer. Whitacre, in fact, had rapidly become more of a friend than a boss. When Whitacre had heard that Williams owed seven thousand dollars in debts, he had handed over the money as a gift. Rather than ignoring Williams or talking down to him, Whitacre often discussed his work and daily life, like any other friend.

Whitacre stepped over the grass, toward the white fence where Williams was standing.

“Hey, bud,’’ Whitacre said.

“Hey, how’s it going?’’

The two men talked about the yard. As always, Whitacre was concerned about keeping the driveway clear. After a few minutes, Whitacre changed the subject to his work at ADM. Williams had heard earlier from Whitacre that he was the top man in charge of ADM’s lysine production. He had been impressed.

On this day, Whitacre said he had dreams for his job, a way to become very rich.

“I’ve got plans, bud, I’ve got plans,’’ he said.

“What kind of plans?’’ Williams asked.

“I’ll tell you, if I could control gas prices, I would be a millionaire.’’

“Yeah?’’

Whitacre nodded knowingly.

“But if I could control the price of lysine and other products at ADM,’’ Whitacre continued, “I’d be a billionaire by age fifty.’’

Six weeks passed.

The criminal investigations of ADM were going nowhere. Shepard had officially notified the company that the FBI was dropping the Fujiwara inquiry. With no new calls, he explained, there was nothing to investigate. The company seemed relieved.

Whitacre was proving to be a disappointing witness, despite the cooperation agreement. The agents had spoken with him only about a half dozen times since late January but he was always empty-handed, with no new information about price-fixing. One of the topics he wanted to talk about was Wayne Brasser. It was obvious Whitacre was hoping that Brasser would become their witness. They had made an attempt, interviewing Brasser as part of the Fujiwara investigation and asking at the end if he had other issues to discuss. Brasser didn’t take the bait, and the agents weren’t going to push. The more people who knew of their interest in price-fixing, the greater the risk that ADM might get tipped off.