Jack hadn’t said very much on the telephone. She’d had enough dealings with MI6 to know that nobody says anything important on an unsecured line. So Alex quickly explained what had happened: the fight in the cemetery, Harry Bulman’s visit, the newspaper story he was intending to write.
He finished talking. Blunt reached out and wiped a speck of dust off the surface of the desk.
“That’s very interesting, Alex,” he said. “But I’m not sure there’s very much we can do.”
“What?” Alex was astonished. “Why not?”
“Well, as you’ve often reminded us, you don’t actually work for us. You’re not part of MI6.”
“That’s never stopped you from using me.”
“Perhaps not. But it’s not our business to interfere with the freedom of the press. If this man, Bulman, has found out about your activities over the past year, there’s not a great deal we can do. Are you asking us to arrange an accident?”
“No!” Alex was horrified. He wondered if Blunt was even being serious.
“Then what exactly do you have in mind?”
Alex drew a breath. Maybe Blunt was trying to confuse him deliberately. He wasn’t sure how to respond. “Do you really want him to go ahead and write this story?” he asked.
“I don’t see that it matters one way or another. We can always deny it.”
“What about me?”
“You can deny it too.”
He could. But it would make no difference. Once Bulman’s report came out, his life would still be in pieces. In fact, if MI6 denied the story, it would only make it worse. Alex would be left out in the cold.
Once again, he felt a rising sense of anger. It was Blunt who had put him in this situation in the first place. Was he really going to sit back and wash his hands of the whole affair?
But then Mrs. Jones came to his rescue. “Maybe we could have a word with this journalist,” she suggested. “It might be possible to make him see things from our point of view.”
“Talking to him would only compromise us,” Blunt insisted.
“I absolutely agree. But in view of what Alex has done for us in the past . . .” She hesitated. “And what he might do for us in the future . . .”
Blunt looked up, his eyes, behind the square gunmetal spectacles, locking into Alex’s for the first time.
“Would you ever consider coming back?” he asked.
It was as if the thought had only just occurred to him, but suddenly Alex understood. Everything in this room had been rehearsed. Mrs. Jones had known he had been to Scotland. They knew exactly what was going on at Brookland. They probably even got copies of his homework. And of course, they had steered this conversation exactly where they wanted. These two never left anything to chance.
“There’s something you want,” Alex said. His voice was heavy.
“Not at all.” Blunt drummed his fingers. Then he seemed to remember something. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a file that he laid in front of him. “Well, since you mention it, there is one thing. But it’s a very simple matter, Alex. Hardly even worthy of your talents.” Alex leaned forward. The file that Blunt had selected was stamped with the usual red letters—TOP
SECRET. But there was another word written underneath it in black ink. Alex read it upside down.
GREENFIELDS. It meant something. Where had he heard it before? Then he remembered and he reeled back. He almost wanted to laugh. How did they do it?
Greenfields was the name of the research center that he was about to visit with the rest of his class. His biology teacher, Mr. Gilbert, had been talking about it only the day before.
“What do you know about genetic engineering?” Blunt demanded.
“I’ve been doing a project on it,” Alex said. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“It’s an interesting subject,” Blunt continued in a tone of voice that suggested it was anything but.
“Genetic science can do incredible things. Grow tomatoes in the desert or oranges the size of melons.
There’s no question that companies like Greenfields could change the way we live. Of course . . .” He drew his fingers beneath his chin. “There are also certain dangers.”
“Whoever controls the food chain controls the world.” Alex remembered what Edward Pleasure had said when they were in Scotland.
“Exactly. Anything that puts too much power into the hands of one individual is of interest to us. And there is one individual working at Greenfields who is causing us particular concern.”
“His name is Leonard Straik,” Mrs. Jones said.
“Straik is the director and the chief science officer. Aged fifty-eight. Unmarried. He was a brilliant student, studying biology at Cambridge back in the seventies. He invented something called the Biolistic Particle Delivery System—also known as the gene gun. It uses helium pressure to fire new DNA into existing plant organisms . . . something like that, anyway. The long and the short of it is that thanks to Straik, it’s become much easier to mass-produce GM seeds.
“For twenty years, Straik ran his own company— Leonard Straik Diagnostics . . . or LSD, as it was called. It all went well for a time, but like many scientists, he was less brilliant when it came to business and the whole thing collapsed. Straik lost all his money and went freelance. Six years ago he was hired as the director of Greenfields, and he has been there ever since.”
