Deadly Seeds

James Orayo Fielding, a Denver industrialist told by his doctor that he has a form of anemia and about a year to fifteen months to live, publicly presents the ‘Oliver method’ as a rapid-growth grain process. Privately, he tells Oliver that he plans to kill a billion people. Fielding’s public-relations firm, Feldman, O’Connor and Jordan, markets the process as Wondergrain while a winter-wheat futures dump depresses prices and broker Oswald Willoughby is killed. Remo and Chiun are assigned to protect Willoughby but arrive after his murder. Remo follows the account through Pete to John Vincent Deussio and the PR firm. In Jordan’s account, the firm arranged killings to suppress threats to its plan; Remo kills Jordan and Al, while Vito shoots himself after Remo moves the target.

Maria Gonzales, an agricultural representative for Cuba, seeks the grain process and later reports a Denver warehouse exposure; Chiun identifies the blisters on her body as radiation blisters, but no medical cause-of-death finding is given. Deussio names an imagined counterforce ‘Force X’ and privately concludes, on high-probability computer analysis, that it is at Folcroft Sanitarium in Rye. At the Mojave unveiling, hired Ninja and snipers attack Remo; he and Chiun defeat them, and Remo kills Deussio. Remo finds a perforated plate under the sand and concludes the crop display was mechanical. Fielding then collapses and tells Remo that he caused the danger. Later, Chiun tells Fielding that salt can render the grain chemicals harmless and shows what appears to be a sprouting seed.

Remo later finds a plastic plant, leaving the demonstration’s truth unclear. Fielding publicly calls Wondergrain a hoax and orders ships carrying seed overseas to dump their cargo; the book does not say whether the order is carried out. India offers to take radioactive waste for possible military research.