Free Informant by Kurt Eichenwald Page A

four days after that. But I think he’s getting suspicious, since he hasn’t gotten a positive response from us yet. I’ve dragged this out as long as I can. If we don’t get back to him soon, he may back out.’’
    Whitacre said he expected to receive the next Fujiwara call that very evening. He mentioned two ADM executives who previously worked for Ajinomoto; perhaps they were the saboteurs. Shepard said he needed a phone directory for the Bioproducts Division so that he could obtain numbers for those executives. As the meeting wrapped up, Shepard said an agent would be coming by Whitacre’s house with a recording device to tape the next Fujiwara call. But first, Shepard said, he needed approvals. It might take another day.
    Sometime after eight-thirty, more than three hours after it began, the meeting broke up. Whitacre and Shepard shook hands again before stepping out of the room.
    Whitacre seemed delighted to be going home.
    “Now my family’s being threatened! I can’t put up with this!’’
    Whitacre was rambling, nearly hysterical. He had called Cheviron at home, shortly after leaving Shafter’s office. From the instant Cheviron heard his voice, he knew something strange must have happened.
    “Mark, what are you talking about?’’ Cheviron asked. “Calm down.’’
    “They’re threatening my daughter! I don’t want to talk to Fujiwara anymore. This thing is affecting my family. It’s not right.’’
    Cheviron pushed Whitacre to explain what had happened. The story came rushing out.
    As soon as he had arrived home, Whitacre said, he had heard horrible news. His fifteen-year-old daughter, Tanya, had received a call at her boarding school in Indiana. An Asian-sounding man was on the line, telling her to write down a message. The man had told her that Fujiwara would no longer wait. He wanted a deal now; he wanted his multimillion-dollar payment. If that didn’t happen, the man had told her,
she
would be in trouble.
    Whitacre was wild as he told the story. “I’m not going to be involved in this anymore! I don’t want anything to do with it.’’
    In an even tone, Cheviron tried to calm Whitacre. Eventually, they agreed to talk again the next day.
    The ADM security chief hung up, bewildered. The problems stemming from this Fujiwara situation were escalating. But this time Whitacre’s story was illogical. Why would anybody threaten his daughter? How would the Japanese even know to call her? It was an improbable, amateurish move, coming at a time when Whitacre desperately wanted this investigation to end.
    Cheviron thought Mark Whitacre was lying.
    The next morning, November 5, Cheviron left his house early, driving in the gray half-light of dawn toward the belching smokestacks at ADM. This was going to be a busy day. After Whitacre’s call the night before, Cheviron had kept working. Mick Andreas had heard from Whitacre about the call to his daughter, and then phoned his security chief. Mick had said he wanted Cheviron to brief him and his father first thing that morning on everything Whitacre was saying.
    Not long after arriving at the office, Cheviron was called to a meeting with Mick and Dwayne. He told them about his doubts, and the men decided that ADM’s top lawyer, Rick Reising, needed to be involved. For the rest of the morning, the senior management of the company shuttled from meeting to meeting.
    The strangest was between Reising, Cheviron, and Whitacre. Gently, Whitacre was pressed to run through the story of the phone call to his daughter. It sounded less believable the second time around. Cheviron made it clear he thought it was all a lie, pushing Whitacre with questions. How did they find his daughter? Why go to the trouble? If they wanted to threaten Whitacre, why not call him directly?
    Finally, Whitacre broke down.
    “All right, I’m sorry,’’ he said. “I made it up.’’
    Reising and Cheviron stared at Whitacre as he explained his lie. He was scared of the FBI, he said.