"The other 48 or 54 or whatever, we can manufacture ourselves," I interjected to let her know that I was not a complete Neanderthal.
"They are linked together in a chain. If one of the essentials is missing, no protein is produced. Similarly if one of the terminator genes has been spliced into a different chain, the plant will produce only sterile seeds or will not produce some essential ingredient, in this case the stuff that gives cocaine its pizzazz. The beetle secretion works similarly but we aren't certain just how."
"Eventually, it dies and there is no replacement or you have very expensive icing sugar. By the way, how long do the bushes produce?"
"About eighteen to twenty years, as far as we can ascertain. There's not quite as much literature on coca as there is on say walnuts or apples," Clarissa said dryly. "The leaves can be harvested every ninety days, if there has been sufficient rain and a little longer over a dry spell."
"I take it, the whole business could go either way."
"Yep."
"Are both of your ideas in the end stage or are you still trying to make it happen?"
"The sterile seed scenario is complete. We have been successful in putting that together. But I don't like it because it's too obvious."
My brain was whirling. "The second scenario would be a lot more satisfying because it would catch the cartels off guard."
"They wouldn't suspect a thing until deadly complaints began to come in."
"It works like this. Chemically Cocaine, for those who lack scientific training, is composed of a complex string of molecules. Cocaine is an alkaloid but then so is caffeine, strychnine, curare and yoppo. The list goes on and one. The action of this beetle alters the properties of the alkaloid so that it becomes as mild as the caffeine found in your average cup of breakfast coffee. The pleasure processor in your brain is mildly amused but not overly excited. Alkaloids range in their effect on the human nervous system from the deadliest of poisons to the caffeine found in Chinese tea, mild in the extreme. Although, the effects are wide ranging, the chemical properties are not really that far apart."
"The drug buyers will not be amused."
"We're counting on it."
"How did the beetle idea surface?"
"I was studying passalids in Panama a couple of years ago and I discovered that the chambers in which the larvae develop stay mold free for months after the passalids vacate the place. I never did figure out exactly how they accomplished this feat but I kept the info locked away for a rainy day.
"Or a snowy one."
"I investigated a myriad number of beetle species and finally concluded that this beetle, that I am working with now, whose scientific name I will spare you, is eminently suited to the task. Its proclivity for the coca bush is sacrosanct. It will be a reliable agent."
"Reliable agents are hard to come by," I said. "Let it snow."
"Let it snow," Clarissa repeated.
We remained silent for a minute or two; it was a comfortable silence.
"If what you say is true and if it can be done, it will wreak as much havoc on the campesinos of the far reaches of Peru and Bolivia as cocaine now does in the United States. In Peru there could very well be a revolution. Have you given thought to that?"
"I agree with you. Illicit drug production has been described, not entirely in jest, as the best means ever devised for exporting the capitalist ethic to potentially revolutionary Third World peasants."
"An eradication process would derive men of the means to feed their families, families that now live a knife-edged existence."
"The only segment of the population that would be in favour of the proposal is El Sendero Luminoso. They would exploit this final act of yanqui conquistadore terrorism in order to further their ambitions, if it ever came to light."
"There is another reason, a more compelling reason that social breakdown would occur in Peru. The coca leaf has been woven into the fabric of the indigenous culture. You might as well take away the sacramental wine of the Catholic."
"That is not really too bad," Clarissa Woo said quietly.
I was right about my summation of her during dinner at Dinah's. She is made of steel. "The moral obligation of the campesino is to earn the best possible living for his family. If he cannot at least feed his family there will be revolution."
"We understand the possible social consequences of whatever actions, we take but I don't think that the Indians will revolt."
"It doesn't bother you that you could replace one evil with a worse one?"