Informant

by Kurt Eichenwald

The conversation proceeded for a few more minutes, with Yamamoto congratulating Whitacre on his recent promotion. Finally, it came to a close.

  “Anyway, congratulations, and see you soon,’’ Yamamoto said.

  “Okay, Massy.’’

  “Bye-bye.’’

  Whitacre pulled the microphone away and hung up the receiver before turning to Shepard. He couldn’t wait to let him know everything Yamamoto had said.

  Around six-forty-five, Shepard and Whitacre came out of the hotel, walking to the parking lot. Whitacre had placed several more calls but only reached Ikeda and Mimoto from Ajinomoto. Ikeda confirmed the upcoming meetings; Mimoto hadn’t said much, and the tape ran out near the beginning of the call. Still, Whitacre felt happy.

  The two men climbed into Shepard’s car and for a few minutes, Whitacre described the calls.

  “Mark, this is exactly what we needed,’’ Shepard said. “It really verifies what you’ve said.’’

  Whitacre smiled.

  There were still more forms required for the tape. Shepard filled out an FD-504b, indicating the date and time he had taken custody of the tape. When the paperwork was done, Shepard asked if anything else had happened recently. Whitacre recounted his day.

  There was another issue, Whitacre said.

  Shepard looked up from his notes. “What is it?’’

  “Well,’’ Whitacre continued, “it’s somewhat common knowledge among the executives at ADM that Mark Cheviron is responsible for secretly recording customers when they’re staying at the Decatur Club.’’

  “What do you mean?’’

  “ADM has a place at the Decatur Club, and out-of-town customers stay there. I’ve heard we have taping equipment hidden there. So when we negotiate some deal, we hear what the other side really thinks.’’

  “How have you heard about this?’’ Shepard asked.

  “Well, it’s been the talk around ADM. And my secretary, Liz, used to work for Cheviron, and she told me one of her jobs was transcribing the recordings.’’

  Shepard reviewed his notes. If ADM was conducting secret surveillance, that could result in another investigation. After a few follow-ups, he was done.

  “Thanks for your time,’’ Shepard said. “I’ll go over this tape in more detail and be back in touch.’’

  Whitacre hopped out and hurried across the lot. In no time, he was in his car. As he veered left toward Route 51 South, he ran the evening’s events through his mind. Now the FBI knew that he was telling the truth about price-fixing. He felt confident Shepard had everything he needed to crack open this case.

  He smiled. This would be over soon. The FBI would be done with him, and he could get back to his job.

  Probably, he thought, in a few days the FBI wouldn’t even need his help anymore.

  As he headed down Pershing Road, Shepard was excited. Everything had worked out well. Now, they had strong evidence to prove that price-fixing was occurring. Still, the investigation had a long way to go. To make a criminal case, Whitacre would have to help develop more evidence, more tapes.

  The FBI, Shepard knew, was probably going to need Whitacre’s help for some time to come.

  CHAPTER 4

  Acres of farmland stretched across flat Illinois plains, disappearing into darkness. A nighttime wind sent raindrops sideways, providing a last burst of energy before they splashed the windshield of Dean Paisley’s car. The wipers, on low, did little to improve visibility. Moderate rain had fallen throughout the day, and now a patchy fog hung over the highway. Usually, few drivers could resist exceeding the sixty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit on the monotonous drive from Decatur to Springfield on Interstate 72. But this night, the treacherous weather commanded patience. Paisley slowed to fifty-five.

  It was shortly before eleven on November 9, 1992. More than three hours had passed since Shepard had taken custody of Whitacre’s recording. Now it was inside Paisley’s briefcase on the front seat of his car. Shepard had contacted Paisley almost immediately after the evening’s success, and the supervisor had driven to Decatur for an update. Shepard’s briefing dispelled most of Paisley’s doubts about the price-fixing conspiracy. And now, Whitacre had tipped them to another potential criminal scheme: the taping at the Decatur Club.

  Paisley drove past the Macon County border. Normally, by this point in such a long drive, he would have switched on the radio to hear some of the late-night talk shows he enjoyed. But on this evening, he drove in silence, lost in his thoughts.

  Whitacre mystified him. Paisley remained uneasy about the man’s blasé willingness to cooperate. If nothing else, Whitacre was sure to be a fragile witness. A time would come—probably soon—when he would decide the risks of cooperating were too much. Paisley knew that Shepard would have to watch for that.

  Paisley stared ahead, the white lines of the highway glowing in his headlights, as he considered Whitacre’s latest tip. The lead on the Decatur Club seemed shakier than the rest. Whitacre had no solid details, just rumors and second-hand information. If the FBI pursued that investigation now, ADM was sure to catch wind of it—and that would surely raise suspicions. The company might even call off the price-fixing if they suspected someone was talking.

  Let’s just let this one hang out there for a while, Paisley thought. Price-fixing was the bigger case. Plus, they still had Fujiwara, along with Whitacre’s allegations of ADM’s industrial espionage. Those investigations couldn’t all be pursued at the same time. Instead, Paisley figured they could pick up the Decatur Club investigation later; maybe Whitacre would even come up with some better information by then.

  Still, the investigation was too sprawling; no agent could handle it alone. If this case had originated in Chicago or New York, a half dozen agents would have already been assigned. Shepard needed help.

  By the time he crossed the Sangamon River outside Springfield, Paisley had made up his mind. Tomorrow, he would appeal for more manpower. If his supervisors turned him away, Paisley could shift around other agents who reported to him. One way or another, Shepard would have a co–case agent by the next night.

  But as he pulled off Route 72, Paisley was still struggling with a thought: Who should be the other agent?

  “Sales are doin’ pretty good. How ’bout yours?’’

  Whitacre’s taped voice hissed out of a playback device resting in the center of Don Stukey’s desk. It was early the next afternoon. The Springfield SAC was leaning back in his chair, while John Hoyt, the ASAC, stood beside the desk. Paisley sat in front of the desk, his eyes flitting from the tape recorder to his supervisors. This, he hoped, was all the proof he needed to show that the ADM case required more agents.

  After almost an hour, the tape ended. Stukey, who had been fiddling with a pen, sat up in his chair.

  “Well, it looks like there might be something to what the source has been telling us,’’ he said, looking at Paisley. “So what’s your plan?’’

  “Well,’’ Paisley said, “if this is what we think it is, we need Brian on this full-time, and we need someone with him. I’d recommend three people on it.’’

  Stukey looked uncomfortable. “Do we need three?’’

  If not, Paisley said, then at least there needed to be a backup. There would be days when Shepard was sick, on vacation, or testifying in some other case.

  Topping it off, the case was expanding again. Earlier that day, Kevin Corr had taped a call with Richard Reising, ADM’s general counsel, who had said that the order to stop cooperating with the Fujiwara investigation had come from Dwayne Andreas himself. It was no leap of logic that an obstruction case might lead to the top of the company.

  Hoyt joined in, agreeing with Paisley.

  “Well,’’ Stukey said, “why don’t we just go with one more right now, and see how things progress.’’

  Paisley nodded. It was a start.

  “So,’’ Stukey said, “who do you think should be working on this with Brian?’’

  Paisley had been pondering that question
all night and was ready with an answer.

  “Well, we have to pick somebody we think can do the best job, but it also has to be somebody who can work with Shepard,’’ he said. That meant they couldn’t pick a young agent or somebody new.

  “So who do you recommend?’’

  “Joe Weatherall,’’ Paisley answered. “He’s meticulous and he’s worked with Shepard before.’’

  Everyone in the room knew Weatherall, a no-nonsense, Joe Friday type. He was the senior resident agent in the Champaign office, which reported through Springfield. The office was more than forty miles from Decatur; while he had worked cases in Decatur, Weatherall probably would be unknown to ADM.

  The fifty-year-old agent had been with the FBI for decades—in fact, he was eligible for retirement, but seemed to have no intention of leaving anytime soon. A balding man with large, bushy eyebrows, Weatherall stood six feet three inches and weighed about 220 pounds. With the right glare or tone, he could be frightfully intimidating but usually came off more like a gentle giant. A West Point graduate and former member of the army, Weatherall was a man without pretense—his name in many ways reflected his character: he was never Joseph or Joey, just Joe. That, in fact, was the name listed on his birth certificate. Joe Albert Weatherall, Jr.

  As an agent, Weatherall was a stickler for detail. He would continually wring his hands over everything that might go wrong in an investigation. If a fellow agent failed to account for possible flaws in a plan, Weatherall would quietly upbraid the colleague. Failure to consider details was how soldiers got hurt in Vietnam, he would say. The tone of the simple statement, propelled by the force of Weatherall’s character, was withering.

  Stukey and Hoyt jumped at the suggestion. Paisley headed back to his office and called Weatherall.

  “Hey, Joe, how’s it going?’’ Paisley asked. “Listen, I’ve got something that I’d like for you to consider doing.’’

  Two days later, shortly before six P.M., Shepard and Weatherall walked silently down a fifth-floor hallway at the Holiday Inn in Decatur. Stopping at a door, Shepard took out the electronic key card he had picked up from the front desk. After he swiped the card through the lock, the agents stepped inside.

  Shepard headed for the telephone and dialed Whitacre’s voice mail. He listened for the tone.

  “Five-forty-seven,’’ he said.

  Then he hung up.

  Across town, Whitacre was pulling away from the ADM underground garage. Soon, he turned west onto Eldorado Street, heading out of town. A few minutes after six, he checked the clock. Following Shepard’s instructions from earlier in the day, Whitacre called his voice mail on his car phone. He went through his messages quickly, paying little attention. Finally, he heard someone say a number.

  Whitacre disconnected the call. Now he knew the hotel room where the FBI was waiting for him.

  Weatherall sat quietly at a small table in the back of the hotel room. Nearby, Shepard was having trouble sitting still. He was jumpier, more nervous than Weatherall, and it showed.

  There was a knock at the door. Whitacre ambled into the room as soon as Shepard answered.

  “Hey, bud,’’ Whitacre said. “Sorry, there were some people in the hallway. I had to walk back and forth a couple of times before I knocked. I didn’t want you opening the door with people seeing it.’’

  “That’s okay, Mark,’’ Shepard said. “Good thinking.’’

  Whitacre looked across the room and saw a hulking man. Shepard had told him a new agent would be at tonight’s meeting, but still the man’s presence was disquieting. There was something about him, something more than just his size. He carried himself with a precision and exactness that reminded Whitacre of his preconceptions of federal agents.

  “Mark,’’ Shepard said, “this is Special Agent Joe Weatherall. He’s from the Champaign office. He’s going to be working with me on this case.’’

  Whitacre smiled and took Weatherall’s hand.

  “Hey,’’ he said, “how’s it going?’’

  “Going fine. Good to meet you.’’

  Weatherall’s words were short and clipped. He was never much for small talk and not nearly as animated as Shepard. Still, he seemed friendly enough. Whitacre’s anxiety about the new agent eased up.

  Weatherall sat on the bed, and Whitacre took a seat at the table. Shepard sat across from him.

  For several minutes, Shepard and Whitacre chatted—about families, the rain, whatever. The pleasantries went on a little long for Weatherall’s taste; he wanted to get started. Still, he recognized that Shepard had his own style, and it seemed to work.

  Finally, Shepard got down to business. He asked Whitacre to reconstruct the portions of his conversation with Mimoto that had not been taped. Shepard listened, writing down Whitacre’s words. Finally, he flipped the page in his notebook.

  “Anything else we should know about?’’ he asked.

  Whitacre nodded.

  “ADM is real concerned about you guys,’’ he said. “Ever since you started talking to people at the company, they’ve been worried about it.’’

  Two days before, Whitacre had flown to Mexico with Jim Randall and a group of other ADM executives.

  “We were walking to the customs area,’’ Whitacre said, “and Randall told me that ADM was going to do things by the book from now on.’’

  Whitacre looked at the two agents. “He still said that he thought the company could beat the FBI. He told me, ‘We’re ADM, we’re a lot stronger than the FBI.’ He told me that Dwayne is more powerful than anybody could imagine.’’

  Despite Randall’s hubris, Whitacre said, there was no doubt that ADM had decided to start playing straight.

  “This is a big policy switch,’’ Whitacre said. “Randall told me I was supposed to hear about it from Mick tomorrow. It’s supposed to be a big secret, so he told me to act surprised when I heard.’’

  Whitacre glanced over at Weatherall. The agent was watching, not saying a word.

  Around two o’clock that day, Whitacre said, he had called the office and spoke with Mick. “Mick started talking about how much ADM had invested in my division and how much I mean to the company. He spent a lot of time telling me about my potential to become president of ADM, because his father and Randall are getting old.’’

  Shepard wrote down the words.

  “After telling me all that, he said things were going to be different from now on,’’ Whitacre continued. “He said, ‘Mark, we’re going to start doing things your way. You’re not going to have to go to Japan in January. As a matter of fact, you’re not going to be calling these guys anymore.’ ”

  “What about the price-fixing?’’ Shepard asked.

  “It’s over,’’ Whitacre shrugged. “Mick told me, ‘We’re not going to be fixing prices anymore.’ ”

  Shepard asked more questions, while Weatherall sat silently on the bed. Finally, Shepard told Whitacre that he had brought a recording device and wanted to show him how it worked. It was a microcassette recorder and looked just like one from an office-supply store. Shepard showed Whitacre what buttons to push and how to tell if it was working.

  Shepard slid the device into Whitacre’s inside pocket of his suit jacket. Then, he clipped a tiny microphone to the top. No one would ever know a recorder was there unless they looked inside Whitacre’s jacket.

  “Now, Mark, be relaxed, be normal when you talk to people at the office,’’ Shepard said. “Don’t think about the recorder. But let’s talk about some scenarios, what you should do in certain situations.’’

  By the evening’s end, Whitacre felt somewhat comfortable with the device. He pulled his suit straight, and shook the agents’ hands. Shepard said he would be back in touch soon. Whitacre nodded and headed out into the hallway.

  After Whitacre was gone, Shepard pulled down the bedcovers; he didn’t want the maids wondering why the guest in this room never slept. For security, he and Weatherall decided to wait around a few minutes.


  Weatherall looked over at Shepard.

  “So,’’ he said, “how much of that story do you believe?’’

  The telephone rang at Shepard’s house the following Monday night at 9:10. On the line was Gene Flynn, a switchboard operator from the FBI office.

  “Brian,’’ Flynn said, “I have a call from Mark Whitacre, who says he’s working with you on a case.’’

  Shepard had left a page for Whitacre earlier in the day and never heard back. Probably this was the return call. He asked Flynn for the number. In a minute, he had Whitacre on the line.

  “Yeah, Mark, it’s Brian. What’s going on?’’

  Whitacre abandoned any pretense of civility. “Brian, what do you want now?’’ he snapped, holding his voice down. “When does this end?’’

  Shepard took a breath. Whitacre had been pulling away, starting with his claims that the price-fixing had come to an end. Obviously, he was reaching some sort of breaking point. Shepard murmured a few calming comments, but Whitacre would have none of it.

  “I’ve told you everything I know,’’ he said. “I’ve proved I was telling the truth. That tape proved it. I’ve done what you asked of me, and now I’ve got a job to do. I don’t know what else you want from me.’’

  “Mark, there’s a lot more that we have to do,’’ Shepard said. “Right now you’re our only witness. You’re the only person we have to talk to. You know this is important, and we still need your help.’’

  Whitacre sighed. He was standing at a pay telephone in the offices of Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado, where he had traveled that day to negotiate a possible business deal. He had enjoyed the day—it had been all business, not law enforcement. But then he had checked his messages and heard Shepard’s pager. The guy was like a dog with a bone.

  “Well, Brian, I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to help,’’ Whitacre said. “I’ve been talking with Ginger, and we’ve decided that I should try and get a transfer to Mexico. And if I don’t get the transfer, then I’m just going to quit the company.’’

  “Okay, Mark,’’ Shepard said. “But what does getting a transfer to Mexico accomplish?’’