Wild Country

Sorel considered it. The fat man might not want to broadcast details any more than Sorel did, and he wasn't suggesting a hotel room where Sorel could be ambushed. And Felix Sorel did not fear a man like Maazel in public, so: 'Excellent. Enjoy yourselves,' Sore) said to them all, sliding from the booth.

Maazel needed the help of little Azeri to exit his cramped seat, but moments later the athlete strode out into autumn sunshine with Maazel and that attache case.

They ambled downhill, speaking guardedly as they passed shoppers. Maazel trudged with the splay-footed gait of a man with poor balance, taking his time, explaining in general terms how agriculture was monitored from satellites.

Certain produce, said Maazel, was of such compelling interest to many governments that orbiting spy-eyes could identify many crops and trip automatic alarms. 'A matter of broad-spectrum photography, local temperatures, rainfall — and of tradition,' Maazel said with a fruity chuckle. 'The French keep what they believe to be a close tally on one crop, for example. It is grown widely in Kampuchea, and in Turkey.' He paused as a well-dressed couple passed, then continued softly, 'Also, a bit of it is grown in Oregon Territory. Oh, yes, the American authorities learned long ago that this crop could be grown near a town called Grants Pass and even within the city limits of Seattle.

'But what if a much more common and perfectly harmless crop could be imitated by the, ah, Turkish flower?' Now they walked through the grassy verge of a park where strollers admired a showy little waterfall. Maazel indicated a stone bench near the water, nodded, and steered Sorel to the bench.

A constant splash of water was among the best barriers against a listening device and implied that the fat man did not take his security for granted. Sorel replied, 'I suppose authorities would be alerted by the crew that slashes the poppy pods.'

Maazel's broad face, now gleaming with sweat, registered delight as he lowered himself to the bench. 'Correct! Exactly so,' he said as if Sorel were a student in some innocent seminar. He fished a set of livesnaps from a vest pocket, studied the labels on their backs, and offered one to Sorel.

In a way, the livesnaps were a test. The little liquid crystal movie cards were still a high-tech curiosity, the images programmed into memory chips so that each flexible card could provide a moving holographic image in full color. Sorel passed his technology test by pressing the dot in the lower-right-hand corner, deforming a tiny crystal to provide piezoelectric energy for a brief moving sequence of images. The blank flexible card instantly became a moving, three-dimensional snapshot.

Sorel watched the livesnap without understanding. He saw a slender plant with long sparse leaves and an elongated pod, waving in a slight breeze. Clinging to the pod, he saw, was a tiny winged insect that moved from a spot on the pod to an unspotted area. After fifteen seconds, the card went blank. 'This is a poppy?' he asked doubtfully.

'Yes, but study this enlargement,' Maazel urged, offering a second card. 'The Papaver somniferum, opium poppy, has been mutated to the appearance of an edible plant called salsify. It was a European plant originally but now grows wild in Oregon Territory. It became a food crop here during the last war when food was in short supply. We recognized that the pod-slashing crew would raise suspicion, because salsify is harvested like other shallow-root crops. That is why we applied genetic engineering to this fruit wasp,' he said with pride.

The enlargement sent a shiver down Sorel's spine. The tiny wasp busily chewed a hole through the pod surface, inserted a body extension, then moved to another site perhaps a millimeter away and resumed chewing before the livesnap went blank. Sorel pressed the dot again, watched the sequence again. 'It seems to be depositing eggs,' he said.

'Sterile eggs,' Maazel said with a wink. 'But the pod soon begins to ooze raw opium through each hole. The female wasp continues to visit pods until she dies — long after she has exhausted her egg supply.'

Now Sorel saw the connection. 'Your wasp does the job of a field worker,' he said.

Nodding, Maazel took the livesnaps and replaced them in his pocket. 'And standard machinery separates the pods while it harvests the plant, in a single pass. A crew of three can harvest a square kilometer of Papaver in a weekend, with no one else the wiser. How does it look to you?'

It looked damned efficient. It looked like the end of the French connection, that long trail of illegal processing from Turkey through Marseilles to Mexico and then, thanks to Sorel, into Reconstruction America. It also looked like the end of Sorel's usefulness as a middleman. To give himself time for furious thought, Sorel asked, 'Where does one obtain the seeds and the wasps?'

'The seeds are free.' Maazel smiled. 'The wasps, all guaranteed sterile females, will be shipped to the user as eggs — roughly a million in each batch, guaranteed to hatch and grow into adults with eighty-five percent viability. The wasp soon dies, and in any case it will not migrate from the field of choice. In a region with hidden valleys like this, it will be years before some entomologist discovers a specimen. More years before he learns its, ah, very special use.'

Sorel made appropriate grunts, unable to figure why the Israelis had approached him, of all people. When all else failed, he was willing to ask directions. He said, 'And what would you say is my very special use in all this?'

'We know your outlook on Americans, and your means of taking revenge on them,' said the fat man without implying any value judgment.

'But why would you care about that?'

'We do not. We care very much that our ally, Turkey, is becoming difficult as she becomes less dependent on us — and more dependent on her major illegal crop.'

'That seems a very risky thing to tell me.'

'Not so risky,' Maazel wheezed, his eyes slitting above puffy cheeks as he grinned. 'The Turks know it, and we know it, and so on. We simply choose this way to, um, manipulate the price of their product.'

Sorel sought the missing piece in the puzzle. 'But if the seeds are free, surely it is because the grower can harvest the seeds himself for the next crop.'

'Correct again.'

'Then you will not merely manipulate the price of the Turkish product; you will utterly destroy their market when its price is undercut by processing here.'

'Your first error,' Maazel said, erecting a finger like a Vienna sausage. 'We are the only source of the wasps, Senor Sorel. It is not difficult to predict a precise yield from the number of wasp eggs we ship. We do not intend to destroy the Turkish market. We merely allow a measured amount of competition by someone dedicated to producing all he can for American addicts — someone like yourself.'

'You would also be controlling my end of the business,' Sorel reminded him.

'Of course; but on a scale far greater than you have ever known before.' He saw Sorel nod agreement and added, 'Is it not elegant?'

It was more than elegant; it was regal. While marveling at this scheme, Sorel realized with a shock that these Israelis had made a really incredible mistake. They assumed that Sorel cared more for revenge against Americans than he cared for the lifestyle he led. These orbiting Ellfive nabobs expected him to become a farmer in a region where a price hung over his head, instead of a — very well, he would admit it: a player leading a double life in the world's most exciting game.

Maazel's smile said that he expected Felix Sore! to leap at this chance, regardless of its effect on his lifegames. And no matter how long he pondered the Israeli offer, Sorel knew that he absolutely would not, could not, accept it.

Which left Sorel holding a satellite-sized tiger by the tail. If he refused the offer, he might not see Mexico again. Even if he did. he would be a prime target for every hit team New Israel controlled. That meant Sorel could never move in shuttle-set circles again; it was one thing to be on an American shitlist. and quite another to find yourself on a Mossad hit list. Americans made you a celebrity. Israelis made you dead.

If only some shrewd Turk had whacked Maazel and his cronies on their way to this damned meeting! The Israelis would have pulled back, analyzed the problem, delayed their plan — perhaps indefinitely. And Sorel would not have been placed with one foot in the frying pan and the other in the fire.

Suddenly, with the clarity of a digital readout. Felix Sorel saw what he must do to remove the heat. 'I assume you can advise me on the land I must purchase in Oregon Territory,' he said, and with his handshake Sorel