Informant (40 page)

Hulin went pale. No one had expected Bingaman to lash out, or could understand how the two lawyers had miscommunicated so badly. A few perfunctory words were uttered, if only to put distance between Bingaman’s sharp statements and the end of the call.

“Thank you all very much for your time,’’ Hulin said as the conversation closed. She pushed a button on the speakerphone and closed her notebook.

“Well,’’ she said to the assembled group, “I guess we’re out of this.’’

•   •   •

After the conference call, the Chicago antitrust lawyers telephoned Spratling, the division deputy. Everyone was elated at Bingaman’ s performance.

“God, she’s good,’’ Spratling said. “When she wants to do something like that, she’s fantastic.’’

The Chicago lawyers—Mann, Mutchnik, Griffin, Booker, and Marvin Price—felt happy and wrung out. After work, they headed to a bar at the John Hancock Center. There, they laughed and toasted with margaritas, ready to tranquilize their frayed nerves following the fervent, victorious fight.

The departure of Hulin’s office from the case left Shepard and Herndon reeling. Not only were Heaton and Hartzler out of the picture, but now the prosecutors who
were
on the case seemed to believe that the agents had tried an end run around them. They felt like the children of a bad divorce.

Almost two weeks passed without a call from the antitrust lawyers. After years of almost daily contact, the change sent a strong message. Each morning, the agents discussed the strain. When were the lawyers going to call? Was today the day?

Finally, they decided to make the first move. Shepard and Herndon picked up extensions in the Decatur office and dialed Jim Mutchnik. He seemed approachable, and, unlike Mann, had not dedicated years of his life to ADM. Mutchnik, they figured, might give them the benefit of the doubt. Besides, they couldn’t keep working the case without talking to
somebody
.

“Jim Mutchnik.’’

“Hey, it’s Brian and Bob,’’ Herndon said.

“Hi, guys,’’ Mutchnik said. His tone was professional, maybe a bit wary.

The three men spoke. Gradually, the ice between them seemed like it was beginning to thaw.

For two weeks, the agents called Mutchnik every day, transforming him into their lifeline to the Chicago office. But the problems between them had never been faced head-on; the conversations at times were stilted and laced with an undertone of suspicion.

One day, the agents were speaking with Mutchnik when a click sounded on the line. The agents paused.

“Are you recording this?’’ Herndon asked.

The question had been sarcastic. But it was the wrong time to be joking.

“I can’t believe you would ask me that question!’’ Mutchnik snapped. “I wouldn’t do that to you. We’ve been talking for two weeks and you still don’t trust me!’’

Herndon backpedaled. “Jim, you’re overreacting. I was joking, making light of this tension between us.’’

“You weren’t joking.’’

“Yes, I was.’’

Mutchnik took a breath. In his mind, the agents had learned nothing. The conversations over the past two weeks had simply been their attempt to pump him for information.

“Fine,’’ Mutchnik said. “Let’s just finish up what we need to do.’’

The call ended uncomfortably. Soon, Herndon called back.

“Listen,’’ he said. “I just want to apologize.’’

“I want you to understand something, Bob,’’ Mutchnik said. “I’m not your inside guy. I’m not your cooperating witness. I don’t want that role. I won’t record you, but I won’t be your inside guy here. If you want to understand what we do, great. But don’t treat me the way you treat an enemy.’’

The blowout served its purpose. All of the emotions and anger were finally on the table. From there, their relationship had nowhere to go but up.

Later that month, Mann and Mutchnik traveled to Washington to brief Spratling and other top antitrust officials. Jim Griffin and Marvin Price, his deputy, both came along.

They met in Spratling’s office in the Justice Department building. Spratling, a large man with an eager, friendly face, was waiting for them. He called in a few associates before the briefing began.

Robin Mann took the lead. She had brought along a copy of the greatest-hits tape, and loaded it into Spratling’s video player. For more than an hour, Mann narrated the events on the screen. She seemed comfortable and confident.

His hand covering his mouth, Spratling shook his head, awed by what he saw.

“My God, I can’t believe that,’’ he said while watching Mick Andreas at Irvine. “This is amazing.’’

The video ended, and Mann wrapped up. She glowed as the assembled lawyers praised the case.

“You have just done a great job,’’ Spratling said, shaking Mann’s hand. “I can’t say enough.’’

With the meeting over, Mann and Mutchnik headed downstairs for lunch, feeling pretty good. Promising to catch up with them, Griffin and Price stayed behind to discuss a few personnel issues. When they finished, Spratling asked to speak with Griffin privately.

“Jim, this a great case,’’ Spratling said. “And you’ve had a lot of experience in twenty years.’’

Griffin listened, already knowing where Spratling was headed.

Mann and Mutchnik returned from lunch with the sense that something was up. Griffin had never joined them in the cafeteria. Spratling asked the two lawyers into his office, inviting them to take a seat.

“You have done a wonderful job on a very important case,’’ Spratling told them. “Now that this is getting ready to move to the next stage, I tried to write down all the best trial lawyers in the division. I asked Joe Widmar to do the same thing. And we both had Jim Griffin at the top of our list.’’

Realization struck Mann and Mutchnik. They didn’t even need to hear Spratling say the words.

“Jim’s going to be your new lead attorney,’’ Spratling said.

The two lawyers didn’t know what to say. Mann felt crushed, but said little. Neither knew it, but Griffin had said he would step aside if Mann and Mutchnik handled the news badly. But both kept their own feelings buried as best they could.

Griffin came in and assured Mann and Mutchnik that their roles would still be significant on the newly constituted team. Mann and Mutchnik nodded and asked questions.

When the meeting was over, Mann, Mutchnik, and Price headed downstairs and flagged down a cab. They rode in silent anger for several minutes. Finally, as the cab approached L’Enfant Plaza, one of them gave voice to their shared suspicion. Appointing Griffin as lead counsel was not some new idea that had occurred to Spratling today. This whole meeting had been a setup, one that had been put in place a long time ago.

Griffin moved quickly to smooth over the raw feelings between the Chicago antitrust office and the FBI. He set up a meeting in Springfield, planning to introduce himself to the FBI supervisors. But first, on the evening of March 20, he arranged for a dinner between the lawyers and the agents.

The group gathered at the restaurant in the Holiday Inn South in Springfield, just past six-thirty. Sitting around a large circular table, the discomfort was palpable. Shepard, who usually opened meetings with a few comments, said little. The agents studied the new lawyer; his voice was soft and his demeanor charming. It was hard to imagine him playing hardball.

Griffin guided the conversation, talking amiably about how Chicago’s cold weather was playing havoc with his running schedule; already, a ski mask had frozen to his face during a jog. Attempting to ease the tension at the table, Herndon and Shepard joined in, comparing their workouts with Griffin’s.

There was a pause. Griffin shifted to the matter at hand.

“We’re all in agreement on where we need to go from here,’’ Griffin said. “Let’s get this thing going, get this train on the track. We’re going to get these guys, and we’re going to do it soon. You’ve done a great job getting the evidence. My job now is to take all your hard work and not disappoint you.’’

Herndon and Shepard nodded, relief sweeping over them. Griffin was speaking their language.

On April 8, Kanji Mimoto picked up the phone in his Paris hotel room. He had just received an unusual urgent message to call Whitacre and had few doubts about what was on the ADM executive’s mind.

In recent months, Ajinomoto had finally concluded that ADM’s Bioproducts Division was indeed using one of the Japanese company’s proprietary microorganisms. Since 1992—when Mimoto had failed in his attempt to steal ADM’s lysine bug during a plant tour—Ajinomoto had continued developing proof for its suspicions. Evidence had finally turned up with another ADM microbe, used to produce an amino acid called threonine. Two days before, Ajinomoto had filed a federal lawsuit accusing ADM of illegally using the Japanese company’s patented microbe. As Mimoto dialed the number, he could imagine Whitacre’s fevered reaction to the litigation.

He didn’t have to imagine for long.

“Kanji, I can’t believe you guys would file a lawsuit without warning us first,’’ Whitacre sputtered. “Mick Andreas is really angry about it.’’

Mimoto explained that Ajinomoto had to protect its interests, but Whitacre didn’t want to hear it. ADM’s bug had nothing to do with Ajinomoto, he protested; it had been purchased from a Swedish company called ABP. And this suit was going to cause plenty of problems that Ajinomoto hadn’t planned for.

“What problems?’’ Mimoto asked.

The next price-fixing meeting was coming up in Hong Kong on April 21, Whitacre said, and because of the suit, Mick Andreas was forbidding him to go.

Mimoto responded in soothing, reassuring tones, stressing the importance of their meetings. The price and volume agreements had been profitable for both companies; they shouldn’t stop now. By the end of the call, Whitacre promised to be in Hong Kong but continued prodding for ways to work out this lawsuit. Mimoto muttered some reassuring comments before saying good-bye.

In Decatur, Whitacre hung up. There was no recording device to shut off. Even though he had been discussing price-fixing meetings with Mimoto, he had decided not to tape this particular call. This was a conversation that he didn’t want the FBI to hear.

Bill Esposito, head of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, sat at his desk reviewing a communication about Harvest King. For weeks, he had been working to keep his promise to Don Stukey, making sure that bureaucratic snafus in Washington didn’t hinder the case.

But still, something about Harvest King bothered him. The cooperating witness, given his position and authority, was unlike any Esposito had ever seen, and he felt perplexed. Why would Whitacre risk so much?

Before this case went public, Esposito thought, somebody in the Bureau needed to take a closer look at Whitacre, to try and get a better understanding of his motivations. The case agents would never have the time for the assignment; this was a management problem.

Esposito called Springfield, suggesting that an agent needed to be assigned to investigate Whitacre’s background. The supervisors were cool to the idea. Esposito knew he would have to ride them a bit to make sure he got a full answer.

On the morning of April 19, a truck carrying a bomb made of fertilizer and fuel oil parked on the north side of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The driver, Timothy McVeigh, fled the vehicle. Within minutes, the bomb exploded, rupturing support columns and triggering a progressive collapse at the front of the building. By the time the rubble was cleared, 168 people would be dead.

Five days after the attack in Oklahoma, a mail bomb exploded in the offices of a timber industry lobbying group, killing one person. The device was quickly traced to the Unabomber, the then-anonymous architect of a two-decade campaign of terror.

The double-barreled terrorist assaults were unprecedented in American history and triggered a massive response from federal law enforcement. Hundreds of FBI agents from around the country were assigned. Louis Freeh and his division chiefs flocked to the command center on the Hoover Building’s fifth floor. Esposito was there for weeks, eighteen hours a day, until he was dispatched personally to Oklahoma.

With two high-priority cases demanding unparalleled resources and attention, other investigations of less urgency were placed on the back burner. Esposito in particular had little time for much else. His desire to investigate the cooperating witness in Harvest King was all but forgotten.

Shepard and Whitacre sat beside each other in a car parked in the lot of St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur. Whitacre had been to Hong Kong for the latest price-fixing meeting, and Shepard had collected notes and other evidence from him.

As they wrapped up, Shepard handed Whitacre some tapes and other material that he might need. He suggested that Whitacre put them in his briefcase.

“That’s okay, Brian,’’ Whitacre said. “My briefcase is kind of loaded with work anyway.’’

Shepard nodded and said good-bye, pushing open the door and heading to his own car. Whitacre pulled away, relieved. He was glad Shepard hadn’t forced him to open the briefcase. It would have been impossible to explain why it was stuffed with wads of cash totaling tens of thousands of dollars.

With Shepard assigned for more than two years to a single case, the daily work of the Decatur R.A. had fallen to another agent, John Bruch. Working at a nearby desk in the small office, Bruch was keenly aware of developments in the ADM investigation, but for the most part had little involvement. Instead, he handled other cases that were the lifeblood of the Bureau. The FBI couldn’t shut down in this part of Illinois simply because of one large investigation.

At 9:55 on the morning of April 27, Bruch was alone in his office when he heard the hello line ring. He knew it was probably Whitacre calling. He walked over and picked up the phone.

“Hello?’’ he said.

There was silence for an instant. “Is this a federal government location?’’ a voice asked.

Bruch didn’t hesitate. “You must have the wrong number,’’ he said.

The caller hung up.

Twenty-five minutes later, Bruch was back at his desk when the main line rang. He picked up the phone.