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giant operation. They were ADM’s proprietary biological secret that had allowed the company to break Japan’s control of the business.
    Fujiwara and Brehant asked questions and jotted down notes. The group left the lab, walking past the control room and into the main area of the plant.
    The Ajinomoto executives hesitated, awed. In front of them was a plant unlike any they had ever seen, a vast acreage of fermenters. Dozens of them were spread across the plant, stainless-steel giants rising ninety feet toward the ceiling.
    The group headed out onto the plant floor, then down a metal staircase. Fujiwara and Brehant walked near the plant manager as he described the operations. Whitacre and Ikeda were a few steps back.
    Mimoto, already behind the rest of the group, slowed his pace. He waited until he felt sure that no one was looking. Quickly, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag, removing the moist handkerchief inside. He placed the handkerchief on the staircase banister, rubbing it as he walked down the steps. Before anyone noticed, he slipped the handkerchief back into the bag, sealed it, and casually placed it back in his pocket.
    Mimoto knew that the multimillion-dollar bacteria used by ADM to produce its lysine was growing everywhere in this plant, even places where it could not be seen. He could only hope that, with the handkerchief, he had successfully stolen a sample of it for Ajinomoto.
    Weeks later, Whitacre was at his desk when the intercom buzzed. It was Liz Taylor, his secretary who sat just a few feet outside his office.
    “Yeah, Liz, what’s up?’’
    “Somebody’s on the phone for you, but I can’t pronounce his name. But he sounds Asian.’’
    Whitacre picked up the telephone.
    “Mark Whitacre.’’
    “Hello, Mr. Whitacre?’’ Liz was right. The caller’s Asian accent was thick.
    “Yes?’’
    “I do not know if you remember me,’’ the caller began.
    At about six-thirty in the morning, Whitacre stepped off the staircase that brought him up from ADM’s basement garage. He walked past the trading floor, straight for Mick Andreas’s office. Mick was at his desk when Whitacre walked in, looking flustered.
    “Mick, you’re not going to believe what the hell’s happened,’’ he said. “I think I know the reason why we’ve been having all these problems in the plant.’’
    Andreas leaned back in his chair. “Well, I’ve only been asking you to come up with one for eight weeks,’’ he said. “I’m all ears.’’
    Whitacre was jumpy and breathless. He clearly thought he had latched onto something explosive, and told the story to his boss in a rush of words. The recent contaminations in the plant, he said, were not the result of mistakes. Instead, he had just learned that they had been caused by a competitor. Ajinomoto in Tokyo had engineered an incredible plot of corporate espionage. The Japanese were behind the viruses plaguing the ADM plant.
    Andreas listened silently. He wanted to hear everything before asking questions.
    Pacing as he spoke, Whitacre explained that he had received a call at his office the previous day from an Ajinomoto executive named Fujiwara, one of the group who had toured the plant a few weeks before. During the call, Fujiwara had asked for Whitacre’s home number. The request had seemed innocuous, he said; because of the time difference from Tokyo to Decatur, it made sense that Fujiwara might need the number.
    “So last night, the guy called me at home just after eight o’clock,” Whitacre said. “And Mick, he knew everything. Almost first thing, he said to me, ‘Do you remember the total nightmare during May, June, July, and August that you had in your plant?’ And when I asked him what he meant, he said, ‘Those months when ADM was losing about seven million dollars a month in the lysine business.’ ”
    The statement had taken him by surprise, Whitacre said, and faster than he could respond, Fujiwara began listing ADM’s lysine