The Firemaker by Peter May Read Free Book Online Page A

outburst. ‘Well, hell! That’s not very hospitable!’
    Bob stood up and took one of his arms. ‘I think maybe you’ve had a little too much to drink, Dr McCord.’
    McCord pulled his arm free. ‘How the hell would you know how much I’ve had to drink?’
    Margaret tugged at Bob’s sleeve. ‘Who is he?’ she whispered.
    ‘I thought you knew,’ he said coldly. ‘He seems to know you.’
    She shook her head. ‘He tried to pick me up at the hotel.’
    ‘I’ll tell you who I am.’ McCord pushed his snout between them. ‘I’m the man that’s feeding this goddamn country.’
    Mr Cao shrugged helplessly towards Professor Jiang, who nodded and waved at him to sit down. Bob said, ‘Dr McCord was responsible for developing China’s super-rice. You’ve probably heard about it. They introduced it as a crop about three years ago. Since when production has increased by … what … fifty per cent?’
    ‘A hundred,’ McCord corrected him. ‘Indestructible, you see. Disease-resistant, herbicide-resistant, insect-resistant. You name it. I made it that way.’
    ‘And no doubt it tastes as good as it always did.’ Margaret couldn’t conceal her scepticism.
    ‘You tell me. You’re eating it.’ McCord grinned as Margaret took in the bowl of rice in front of her.
    ‘Perhaps you should have some of it yourself, then – to soak up the alcohol.’
    He laughed. ‘Never touch the stuff.’
    The waitress arrived with his whisky and Margaret’s beer. She watched him guzzle thirstily and, through her fatigue and a haze of alcohol, a vague and distant memory was beginning to surface, attached to other things she would rather forget. ‘McCord,’ she said. ‘Dr James McCord.’
    ‘That’s me.’
    ‘You got kicked out of … where was it … the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University? About six years ago?’
    McCord’s complexion darkened. ‘Those fucking people!’
    ‘Field-testing genetically engineered plants without a permit from the EPA. Something like that, wasn’t it?’
    McCord hammered a clenched fist on the table and everyone jumped. ‘Fucking regulations! They got our people so tied up in them they can’t move. Paperwork, bureaucracy, everything takes so goddamn long, by the time we get permission for a field test, the rest of the world’s growing the stuff.’ He grabbed a bowl of rice. ‘This. We could have been growing this. Or wheat. Or corn. Feeding the planet. Instead, it takes a third world country like China to have the vision.’
    Those Chinese around the table who understood English bristled at his description of their country as ‘third world’.
    ‘So it was the Chinese who financed your research?’ Margaret was curious.
    ‘Hell, no. They just facilitated it. It was my employers, Grogan Industries, put up the money. Good old-fashioned capitalist high-risk investment. They did the deal with China. Strange bedfellows, huh? But, boy, did they both hit the jackpot.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The Chinese got a quarter of the world’s population. And for the first time in their history they can feed themselves. Hell, they’re growing so much rice now they’re exporting the stuff.’
    ‘And Grogan Industries?’
    ‘They got the patent on all my work. They’re going to be launching my rice all over Asia and India next year.’
    Margaret had heard of Grogan, a multinational US-based biotech company with an unsavoury reputation for ruthlessly exploiting the pharmaceutical market in the third world.
    ‘And no doubt the poorest countries – those with the greatest need – will be the last to get it. Because I’ll bet your technology doesn’t come cheap, does it, Dr McCord?’
    ‘Hey!’ He threw his hands up in self-defence. ‘Don’t blame me. The sole purpose of the scientist is to work for the benefit of mankind.’ He grinned. ‘Or something. But it’s money that makes the world go round.’
    ‘Yeah, and it’s money and vested interests