The Doomsday Key

Senator Gorman looked aghast, knowing the role he had played.

But Painter noted the odd bit of emphasis. "What do you mean by one means?"

"That was just one project. I had others."

5:31 A.M.

Monk had been following the conversation with growing alarm.

"Let me guess," he said. "Something to do with bees."

He pictured the giant hives hidden under the research facility.

Karlsen glanced over at Monk. "Yes. Viatus researched Colony Collapse Disorder. It's a global crisis that I'm sure you're aware of. In Europe and the United States, over one-third of all honeybees have vanished, abandoning colonies and never returning. Some areas have lost over eighty percent of their bees."

"And bees pollinate fruit trees," Monk said, beginning to understand.

"Not just fruit trees," Creed interjected, next to him on the sofa. "Nuts, avocados, cucumbers, soybeans, squash. In fact, one-third of all food grown in the United States requires pollination. Lose the bees, you lose much more than just fruit."

Monk understood Karlsen's interest in Colony Collapse Disorder. Control the bees, and you control another large segment of the food supply.

"Are you saying you caused the bees to die off?"

"No. But I know what did, and that's what Viatus wanted to exploit."

"Wait a second." Monk scooted closer. "You say you know what killed the bees?"

"It's no great mystery, Mr. Kokkalis. The media sensationalize the theories-mites, global warming, air pollution, even aliens. But it's much simpler-and proved. Only the media chooses to ignore it in favor of sensation."

"So what caused it?"

"An insecticide called imidacloprid, or IMD."

Monk remembered the codes stamped on the giant hives. They'd all had those same three letters: IMD.

"Many studies have already incriminated the chemical as the cause, along with an analog called fipronil. In 2005 France banned both chemicals, and over the course of the next years, their bees returned while the rest of the world's hives continued to collapse." Karlsen glanced around the cabin. "But did any of you hear about that?"

No one had.

"It's not newsworthy enough," Karlsen explained. "Imidacloprid, fipronil. Not as colorful as aliens. The media still hasn't reported on the success in France. Which is fine by me. IMD has its uses."

Monk frowned. "Less bees, less food."

"Eventually even the media will wise up, so Viatus continued its own research into the compounds-to incorporate IMD into our corn."

"Just like Monsanto engineered its herbicide Roundup into its GM seeds," Creed added.

"If IMD is ever banned," Monk realized, "you'll still be able to control the bee populations."

Karlsen nodded. "And in turn, the food supply."

Monk sat back. The man was a monster-but a brilliant one.

5:40 A.M.

Painter needed to fill in more blanks. He went at Karlsen from another direction. "But Viatus was doing more than just engineering insecticides into its crops."

"Like I said, we had many projects."

"Then tell me about the peat mummies-the fungus found in those bodies."

Karlsen's steady gaze grew less sure. "As a biotech company, we test thousands of new chemicals every year, drawn from the four corners of the world. But this ancient fungus..." His voice took on an edge of wonder. "It was amazing. Its chemical nature and genetic structure suited my goals perfectly."

Painter let the man talk to see what he'd reveal on his own.

"From the desiccated bodies, we harvested fungal spores that were still viable."

"After so long?" Monk asked.

Karlsen shrugged. "The mummies were only a thousand years old. In Israel, botanists grew a date palm from a seed that was over two thousand years old. And peat was a perfect preservative. So yes, we were able to grow the spores, to learn more about the fungus. Examination of the remains also showed how the fungus got into the bodies to begin with."

"How was that?"

"It was ingested. Our forensic pathologist determined that the mummified people had starved to death, yet their bellies were full of rye, barley, and wheat. The fungus was in all of it. It's a very aggressive crop mold, like ergot in cereal crops. The fungus is capable of infecting any vegetation. All for one purpose."

"What's that?"

"To starve any animal that eats the infected plant." Karlsen acknowledged the shocked looks on all their faces. "Crops infected by the fungus turn indigestible. Additionally, the fungus will invade the animal's gut, further reducing food absorption. It's the perfect killing machine. It starves the host to death with the very stuff that is meant to sustain it."

"So you eat and eat, yet still starve to death." Painter shook his head. "What advantage is that to the fungus?"

Monk answered. "Fungi are one of the main reasons dead things decompose. Dead trees, dead bodies. Doesn't matter. By killing the host, the fungus was creating its own fertilizer, its own growth medium."

Painter pictured the mushrooms growing in the bellies of the mummies. But he also remembered Monk's description of the discovery in the lab, of the sporulating pods that matured out of those same mushrooms. That was how it spread, casting out airborne spores that would infect more fields and start the whole process over again.

Karlsen drew back his attention. "The goal of our research was only to extract the chemical that made those grains indigestible. If we could engineer it into the corn, we'd be able to decrease its digestibility. With less digestible corn, you'd have to eat more to have the same caloric benefit."

"So once again," Painter said, "you'd be restricting the food supply."

"And in a way that gave us total control. By manipulating this gene, we could turn a grain's digestibility up or down like twisting a dial. That's all we intended. And it's not as if we were the first to seek such genetic control."

Painter focused on those last words. "What do you mean?"

"In 2001 a biotech company called Epicyte announced they'd developed a corn seed engineered with a contraceptive agent. Consumption of the seed lessened fertility. It was proposed as a solution to the overpopulation problem. All this blatant announcement got them was a huge amount of bad press, and the corn seed vanished. As I said, addressing this issue openly only welcomes retribution. It has to be kept underground, out of the public eye. That was the lesson. And I learned it."