Love Thy Neighbor

by Mark Gilleo

  Clark read the description and plowed roughshod over the Latin pronunciation of the word. Jerry watched as Clark continued to read and when Clark’s eyes opened a little, Jerry knew he had reached the good part.

  “Holy shit.”

  “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “How much of this did you find?”

  Clark reached into his pocket and pulled out two more beans. “There were a few, hundreds maybe, scattered on the ground. I took three of them.”

  “Where in Virginia?”

  “Nelson County. South of Charlottesville.”

  “That’s odd.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well, Ricinus Communis likes slightly warmer climates as a rule, but it could grow quite well there.”

  “Grapes like warmer climates and there are a lot of vineyards in central Virginia,” Clark added.

  “Yes there are a few vineyards. And you’re right, the growing conditions for grapes and our friend here are not that dissimilar. But I don’t think these were grown in the winter. It’s just too cold.”

  “Ricin,” Clark said aloud, as if his mind was on delay.

  “The name Ricinus, and hence ricin, comes from the Latin word for ‘tick,’ which obviously someone thought these seeds resembled. Our friend here is more commonly known as the castor bean, though it is technically a seed.”

  “If they were grown during the summer, could they be stored?”

  “Sure, sure. Hell, these plants grow wild in some states here in the U.S. They are classified as a weed in Florida, if I remember correctly.”

  “Classified as a weed? You mean it isn’t illegal to grow?”

  “Not at all. Illegal to process, not illegal to grow.”

  Clark read the passage in the book again. “Well, that doesn’t sound like a good idea, just allowing anyone to grow them.”

  “The castor plant has been around for hundred of years. Maybe thousands. They use it in paints and varnishes. It’s water resistant and is used as a coating for insulation and guns. And it’s used as a medicine. Also as a motor oil.”

  “Medicine?

  “Castor oil. What did you think that was?”

  “I never thought about it.”

  “I remember reading there are over 200 metric tons of semi-processed ricin produced every year. If someone with ill intentions really wanted to get their hands on a lot of ricin, all they would have to do is park outside a castor production plant.”

  “Where is the nearest castor production facility?” Clark asked.

  “India, probably.”

  “Maybe it would just be easier to grow it.”

  “Maybe. Either way, stolen or grown, gram for gram, it is a hundred times more deadly than most conventional poisons, man-made or natural.”

  “Pretty nasty stuff.”

  “The meanest bean on the planet. You say you only found a few hundred?”

  “It was hard to say. They were on the ground, in the grass, on the driveway. I didn’t find a mountain of them if that is what you are getting at.”

  “Well that’s good news. In order to get ricin from the bean it needs to be processed, and you would need more than a hundred to make it worth your while.”

  “Worth your while?”

  “Yeah, economically it would be cheaper to get a gun than to get the machinery necessary to process a handful of castor beans.”

  Clark laughed nervously. “You know what they say — it’s not guns that kill people. It’s the people pulling the trigger on the guns who kill people.”

  “Have you ever been shot?” Jerry asked.

  “Not yet,” Clark answered.

  “Well, I haven’t either, but I don’t think a person with a bullet in their ass really cares if it was the gun or the person behind the gun.”

  “Probably not.”

  Jerry looked at one of the beans under the magnifying glass for another minute. “You know, you should probably call the authorities.”

  “It was on my mind.”

  “After 9/11 the florist industry received communication from the FBI warning us to keep an eye out for large orders of potentially hazardous plants.”

  “Like what?”

  “There are more than you can imagine. Hemlock, a Shakespeare assassin, looks like a big carrot and is quite deadly. Mistletoe berries will drop you like a ton of bricks. Yew, jasmine berries, the leaves from rhubarb. God didn’t skimp when it came to giving plants and animals the ability to evolve with a little kick-ass of their own.”

  “Don’t worry about contacting the authorities. As it happens, I’m on a first name basis with an FBI agent. We had lunch last week.”

  “Give him a call, just to be safe.”

  “I will. Thanks for letting me pick your brain.”

  “No problem,” Jerry answered. Before Clark reached the door, Jerry offered parting advice. “Do us all a favor and throw those away, just to be on the safe side. We don’t need someone trying to grow them around here. You would feel awful if someone ended up digesting the by-product from those.”

  Chapter 38

  The windowless side-room stretched the width of the garage, fifteen feet wide and sixty feet deep. The lone working entrance, a set of double doors, was near the back of the warehouse, two steps from the unused one stall bathroom with a sink and shower, and ten paces from the door to the small office in the main warehouse floor.

  Each of the three machines resided in a third of the room. The roller was at the far end, the farthest from the double-doors that led to the warehouse. The crusher was next, taking up the middle position on the side-room floor. The pulverizer was nearest the exit.

  Each machine weighed over a ton, heavy enough to crack most floors but not nearly heavy enough to cause the thick concrete beneath the warehouse to protest. The warehouse had originally been designed to withstand a couple of cars, the odd truck, and the four-ton wrecker that brought the injured autos to the shop.

  Ariana opened the double doors and her three-man team eagerly stepped forward. When you are stuck in a warehouse, and a portion of it is off-limits, natural curiosity reaches unnatural proportions. Just ask James Beach.

  Ariana spoke. “It’s time to get to work.”

  “What are they?” Syed asked, stepping past Ariana from the rear. Karim followed Syed and moved for a better view.

  “This room is our processing facility. We’ll have to do some modification to the environment, but it should work.”

  “What are we processing?”

  “Ricin,” Ariana said. “From the seeds of the castor plant.”

  “Is that what’s in the truck?” Syed asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How deadly is it?” Abu asked. “James said he had enough material in his truck to kill ten thousand men.”

  “It’s possible. Ricin is five thousand times more poisonous than cyanide and ten thousand times more deadly than cobra venom. It only takes a very small amount to kill an average size man. But, I won’t know the final potential until the seeds are processed. Ricin is only part of the plant. We are not extracting it from the seeds. Meaning once we process the seeds, a percentage of the final product will be ricin. Maybe five percent by weight.”

  “How do we process it?” Abu asked, looking at the control panel on the crusher.

  “I’m going to show you. And, if you follow the rules I set up, only one of us will be in real danger.”

  “Only one of us?” Abu asked. “We are down to three.”

  Ariana ignored the second half of Abu’s statement. “Yes. Only one.”

  “Let me guess. It won’t be you,” Syed said.

  Ariana smiled and then pursed her lips. “No, it won’t be me.”

  “Was there ever a moment of doubt?” Abu added.

  Ariana moved on. “We have three machines. Production will begin at the far end of the room and will work its way towards this door. The first machine is a high-impact roller made by John Deere for the farming industr
y.”

  Ariana walked the men towards the red machine at the end. It was squat, four feet high and six feet square. A wide conveyor belt fed into a narrow opening on the machine. “It looks like a pizza oven,” Syed said. “One of those that run a conveyor belt through it.”

  “The roller is pretty basic. It crushes the seeds and removes the oil. The oil is harmless and will pool in a reservoir on the bottom that will need to be changed as it becomes full. We will store the oil in the metal barrels along the far wall. At this point in the process the crushed seeds will be relatively benign. As long as no one decides to eat one.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Syed said.

  “We may need to let the crushed seeds dry for a day or two. I will decide that once I see the output from the roller. I have manually processed a small number of seeds and I don’t think the oil will present us with any problems. It dries quickly with the proper treatment, and according to my calculations, based on the roller’s specs, ninety-eight percent of the oil will be removed.”

  “You have not tried these machines?” Karim asked.

  “I tested them to make sure they work.” Ariana paused. “And that will have to be enough experience.”

  Karim shrugged his shoulders in unenthusiastic support.

  “The next machine is a little more complicated.” Ariana stepped towards the oversized light blue piece of machinery. “This one is the JEX Paw Crusher. It can process ten pounds of material per minute. It weighs a little over three tons. The crushed seeds from the roller will go into the chute on the far side of the machine and will come out the vertical tube on the side. The output tube connects directly into the large bin on the floor next to the machine. This is where the hazard begins.

  “Once the seeds have entered the crusher, there is the potential for lethal dust in the air. But this crusher is top-of-the-line. It is designed so that dust is self-contained. It is gasket-sealed on all seams, and has a multiple chamber design with inward facing air vents. There should be very little collateral exposure. Unless there is a malfunction, or the machines need to be cleaned. I think we can avoid the latter. We only need to use these machines once.”

  The three men looked at the large semi-translucent bin at the end of the crusher. “How do we transfer the seeds from the crusher to this last machine?”

  “Well, the last machine, the pulverizer, will extract what is left of the seeds directly from the bin. The machines are designed to be used in tandem. But there still may be some collateral dust.”

  “How large will the seeds be when they exit the crusher?” Syed asked.

  “They won’t resemble seeds at all. At its maximum setting, the output should be approximately 150 mesh.”

  “How big is a mesh?” Syed asked.

  “It’s not measured that way. There is no such thing as ‘a mesh.’ A mesh is a unit of measure based upon material passing through a one-by-one inch square. 150 mesh means that there are 150 holes per square inch. The output should be small enough to fit through one square inch with 150 holes.”

  “That’s pretty small,” Karim said, now looking at the conveyor belt that fed the first machine.

  “By most human standards of measurement 150 mesh is very small. About 100 microns.”

  “Which is how big?” Syed asked.

  “Think along the lines of fine sand.” Ariana thought for a moment. “Or on the order of flour.”

  “I assume at 150 mesh the seeds would be dangerous,” Abu asked.

  Ariana looked at each man, each face waiting for a response to the question.

  “Yes. At 150 mesh, the seeds will be a very fine powder. They will be at least five percent ricin by weight. They will be very dangerous.”

  “How do we protect ourselves?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute,” Ariana answered.

  The men exchanged glances and the cool dampness of the room felt as if it dropped several degrees.

  Ariana continued. “The output bin to the crusher will hold about five hundred pounds of powder. The bin is built on a steel platform frame and it has wheels. As you can see, it can be rolled to the pulverizer.”

  “The pulverizer? I like the name,” Abu added unprovoked.

  Ariana rolled her eyes slightly and stepped towards the odd looking machine. She highlighted the bells and whistles on the pulverizer like a model at a car show. “On the far end is the intake tube and on this end we have an elephant trunk-like output tube.”

  “This is an ultra-fine pulverizer and is designed to take anything from a small grain to a powder and pulverize it. The intake tube on the front will go into the bin of ricin powder, the output from the crusher. There will likely be some leakage, though it should be minimal. The pulverizer has an output between 500 and 700 mesh.”

  “Which is… ?” Karim asked.

  “Something a little smaller than an individual spore of plant pollen. A single red blood cell is about 1200 mesh. For those thinking in terms other than mesh, we are talking about thirty microns. The lower limit of visibility for the naked eye is in the neighborhood of forty microns.”

  “So it will be invisible?” Syed asked.

  “Yes, theoretically, a singular piece of processed seed will be invisible to the human eye. But, obviously, as a powder you would be looking at large quantities and it would be identifiable as a very fine powder. Probably more fine than anything any of us have ever touched or seen. Needless to say, when the final product comes out of the ultra-fine pulverizer, the powder will be the most deadly substance for a thousand miles in any direction.”

  “Fort Detrick is only fifty miles and that houses ebola, among others,” Karim added referring to the military installation that studies deadly virus and biological agents.

  “I know,” Ariana said. “And my statement stands.”

  A moment of silence, mixed with excitement, filled the air.

  “How long will it take to process the ricin in the truck?” Abu asked.

  “Twenty four-hours. Maybe forty-eight.”

  Abu went back to the key point of the conversation. “If this powder is so fine, how do we prevent from inhaling it? I assume there will be powder everywhere.”

  “If these machines operate as they should, and believe me they should for the price tag that came with them, then there most certainly will not be powder everywhere. But, in the interest of being thorough, I have a half-dozen gas masks that are military grade. Tough to come by.”

  “How did you get your hands on those?” Abu asked.

  “I don’t want to know,” Karim answered.

  Ariana was in the mood to talk. “All of us will wear gas masks for the duration of the process, but only one of us is in real danger. Timing will be important. If there is an accident, well, then, we will spend our last days taking out as many people as we can.”

  “Only one person will be in here?” Abu asked, looking around the room.

  “Yes. And that person will be fitted with a chemical suit.”

  “Where did you get a chemical suit?”

  “Fire department surplus.”

  “Why only one?”

  “They only had one,” Ariana said. “Under the chemical suit, the machine operator will wear a CamelBak.”

  “What’s a CamelBak?” Syed asked.

  “It’s a backpack filled with water. It has a tube that delivers the liquid to the wearer’s mouth. It’s popular among bikers and mountain climbers and for people who need their hands during physical exertion.”

  “I know what they are; I didn’t know they were called CamelBaks.”

  “Now you do. The person in charge of manufacturing will not be able to eat and will not be able to remove the chemical suit for the duration of the process. I have adult undergarments as well.”

  “That’s one way to make them work fast,” Karim said a matter-of-factly.

  Abu and Syed nodded in agreement.

  “The three of us not doing the processing will be in the
sleeping quarters on the far side of the warehouse. We will have gas masks on. The door will be sealed from the outside with towels and tape, by the machine operator, before he begins work.

  “The machine operator will be in the facility for the duration of the task. It will be him, the seeds, the machines, his suit, his CamelBak, and a garden hose attached to the bathroom sink. Primitive, but that is what we have to work with.

  “When the processor is finished, and the ricin is in the delivery mechanisms that I provide, the processor will hose down the room. There is a drain on the floor near the crusher. Just as there is on the floor of the main warehouse. When the person is finished, he will hose the room down again. Top to bottom. And then he will hose it down a third time. He will repeat this until he feels comfortable enough to take his chemical suit off.”

  “A good way to make sure the job is done right,” Syed noted.

  “Yes it is,” Ariana said. “But keep in mind, this room should not be dusty. There may be some collateral dust between the crusher and the pulverizer, and there may be some between pulverizer and the containers I will provide, but these machines have been chosen for their ability to process without contaminating their environment. The water is merely a way to prevent unintended contamination.

  “Once the ricin has been placed in delivery mechanisms, and the room has been hosed to satisfaction, the processor will cover the machines with plastic drop clothes which will be in the shower stall. Then he will shower with the chemical suit on. Using the body wash that is also in the stall.

  “The truck will be backed up to the double doors. The containers will be transferred into the truck. After the chemicals have been transferred, he will then shower again, take the chemical suit off, and put on a gas mask. Then the doors to the production room will be shut. At that point we are on the clock.”

  “How long before we start?” Syed asked.

  “I will know in a couple of days. I have to prepare the dispersion containers. And pray for good weather.”

  Karim spoke. “Then there is only one question left. Who is the lucky person?”

  Everyone looked at each other.

  “I’ll do it,” Abu said. “I do not fear death.”