Milkshake (17 page)

“Why do I need my bag just to check us in?”

“Because we’re not going back to the bus, Dave, Hone is
taking it across on a later sailing and we’re getting the Fast Cat.
We need to travel across the Cook Strait undetected.”

Ed paid cash for two foot passenger tickets for the next
sailing, due to depart in twenty minutes' time. He handed a ticket
to David. “You board now. I’ll be up in about five minutes. Walk on
with a family or a group. That way you’ll be harder to spot when
they look back at the CCTV in a few days when they realise you
weren’t on the bus. I’ll meet you in the café.”

David made his way towards the gently sloping tunnel and
latched onto a group of eight other passengers. Only then did he
realise that they were Japanese, half his height and age, and were
chattering and pointing at him, laughing as he so blatantly invaded
their communal space. If anything was calculated to highlight his
presence to a bored security guard reviewing hours of video
footage, this was probably it.

He smiled back, trying to look as if the animated laughter and
talking was mutual and he was just engaging in friendly
conversation. He pushed his way into the middle of the group and
handed his ticket to a crew member who didn’t even acknowledge
him.

Stepping through the small doorway, he was surprised to find
himself in a small shopping mall. There was no indication he was
now afloat, compared to the tiny vessel he had found himself in the
previous evening. Following the sign to the café, he positioned
himself next to the window. Only then did the sight of open sea
beyond the harbour give any clue to the journey to come.

He thought of Katherine, took his mobile phone from his bag,
switched it on, and composed a text message. Ed sat opposite,
placing a tray of coffee and sandwiches on the table between them.
He shuffled a heavy-looking pack from his back and placed it on the
empty seat next to him. “Texting the missus?”

“Yes.”

“Make it quick and make it general - no times or places. When
it’s intercepted, it needs to have been transmitted from one of the
beacons on top of one of those tower blocks in the city, not from
the transponder onboard. That way at least they won’t realise you
are actually afloat already.”

All OK & on track

The sound of the engines could now be heard above the piped
music and excited chatter of tourists, instilling David with a
sense of urgency as the catamaran moved sideways, away from the
dockside.

Spk to u soon luv u xx

He clicked send, cursing himself for not saying how he really
felt, thinking of Katherine’s reaction to such a bland, meaningless
message having been suddenly torn apart from each other only the
day before.

Ed sat, coffee in one hand, the other on the keyboard of his
laptop perched on a dangerous slant on his knees. Katherine must
have been waiting for any contact. Before he could put the phone
down, David received a reply.

Luv u 2 xx

“Better turn that off now,” Ed said, without looking up, “We
are just going past dock head. Any more messages going through that
phone will be transmitted from the aerial on the roof of this
thing.”

David turned the phone off and sat aimlessly eating and
drinking, focussing on the back of the laptop as Ed stared intently
at it from the other side. Suddenly he sat back, closing the
screen, the look on his face a mixture of triumph and concern.
“This is it! This is bloody IT!”

“What is?”

He leant across and pushed his back pack from the seat next to
him and onto the floor. “Come over here and have a look at this.”
David moved next to him. Ed lifted the screen again and angled it
towards him as if looking at it would somehow help David understand
what he was about to be told.

“Ok, Dave, I’ll try and explain in simple terms. The Ministry
has taken a sample from a single cow from each of the herds on
Waiheke that have been injected with the enzyme supplied by Cowood.
The data has been emailed to three labs around the country for
analysis and interpretation. Now, if my reading of it is correct,
it’s showing the milk these cows are producing contains at least
five thousand times the level of gamma casein that is found in
regular milk.”

“Which means what?”

“When it’s processed using the method that Cowood is trying
to perfect, the by-product is a particularly pure form of
ethanol.”

David looked confused. Katherine was the science teacher. This
was beyond him. Ed noted his blank expression. “Processing milk
down into its component parts produces, amongst other things, whey
which can then be refined into low grade ethanol, the kind used in
perfumes, ink, that kind of thing. By introducing a mutated form of
the normally present beta casein, the overall casein level is
increased. The whey retains a greater proportion of the casein
which is usually lost in the distillation process and that means
the whey is able to yield a much purer form of ethanol relative to
the original volume of milk.”

“Which means?” David was already lost on mutated beta
casein.

“This confirms that Cowood is aiming to distil commercial
quantities of fuel grade ethanol from milk.”

David nodded slowly, still barely comprehending.

“Ok, here’s the science. Up until now only about 4% of the
lactose could be harvested from the whey, the rest is lost in the
form of lactic acid. From this remaining lactose, only 20% of the
raw solids can be distilled into ethanol, but with the mutated
casein present in the milk, there is virtually no lactic acid
conversion. 95% of the solids are usable and the resultant ethanol
is perfectly viable as liquid fuel with very little, if any,
further refining needed.”

Ed sat back, running his fingers through his thick grey hair,
shaking his head. “It looks like this is the breakthrough they‘ve
been working towards and, if it’s true, nothing can stop them now.
This is big, I mean really big.”

David was still confused. He appreciated the marvel of being
able to mass–produce fuel from milk, but he still couldn’t
understand why it was a bad thing.

“There are a couple of really negative issues here, Dave.
Firstly, fuel from milk means we need vast quantities of the stuff
to make it commercially viable. Imagine for a moment barrels of
oil. The United States alone consumes about twenty million barrels
a day, or nearly a million litres a minute, twenty-four / seven.
New Zealand milk production currently amounts to about fifteen
billion litres a year, which works out roughly three times as much
oil as milk. But, for every litre of milk, still only 5% can be
distilled into ethanol which means a colossal increase in dairy
capacity will be needed to satisfy the demand.”

“So why not just raise the capacity by producing the milk
around the world?”

“Cowood will need to raise production to meet the demand but
it means turning over vast tracts of otherwise productive land to
grazing. Every field and paddock on both islands that isn’t already
given over to forestry, which is of course the other prime source
of ethanol we haven’t even touched on yet, will be given over to
dairy farming. The reason the milk can only be produced here is
simple; it’s to do with the Gamma Casein that the herds will carry
in order to produce the right kind of milk. Beta Casein, the
regular kind, which occurs naturally in milk, has been
scientifically linked to diabetes, autism and heart disease. Gamma
casein is five thousand times more potent. It’s more powerful and
more harmful in every respect to humans than the Beta variety. If
this modified milk is allowed to enter the human food chain, the
results will be catastrophic. Just half a litre, even as an
ingredient in some other food, will be enough to put huge numbers
of people at risk, especially those with an inherent susceptibility
to things like heart disease. In some cases it could kill someone
outright. Apart from raw milk, cheese and butter, any food product
containing dairy derivatives originating from New Zealand would be
instantly banned worldwide. The dairy industry in this country, at
least as we know it, would simply wither and die overnight as soon
as the first modified herd becomes public knowledge. The export
market will literally dry up. Those remaining farmers will plead
with Cowood to be allowed to produce the modified milk in order to
stay in business or, one-by-one, they would be bought out until
there is a single national dairy herd, isolated from the rest of
the world, geographically and genetically. This ‘super herd’ will
be owned and controlled solely by Cowood. They own the patent; they
have the sole rights to the Gamma Casein and therefore the monopoly
on the grade and quality of the bovine ethanol. They will have
complete control over its distribution via the Trans-Pacific
pipeline, and ultimately be able to dictate the price to the rest
of the world. America will finally be in the position it has
coveted from the Arab states since the nineteen
seventies.”

David was still not convinced by Ed’s apocalyptic vision. “So
remind me again why the government can’t just stop them right
now?”

“What Cowood are doing at the moment,
controlled and monitored research, is perfectly within the law.
There is no legal justification for shutting them down. Commercial
sensitivity protects them from having to reveal their results and
hence the true nature of the research remains secret. Of course
there are elements of the Government who have been made aware of
the negative potential of the outcome of this research. That’s why
we saw the foot and mouth cover story yesterday. Unfortunately, as
I said the other day, the environmentalists are being heavily
lobbied in all this. Their political wing has already been
infiltrated to the point where their official line is that bovine
ethanol is good for the environment and for the economy. They are
not concerned with the chemistry involved. They have absolutely no
idea of the potential massive human cost of all this. All the time
the process is being developed and refined, the Ecological
Political Assembly is gradually being been bought and paid for by
Cowood, and their leader, Pat O’Sullivan, could potentially be our
next Prime Minister.”

The catamaran was clear of Wellington Harbour, and in open
water, heading across the Cook Strait towards Picton Harbour, and
the South Island. David had read this was one of the most
treacherous ferry crossings in the world. The southern Pacific
Ocean in the east, and its accompanying winds, try to squeeze
through the narrow space between the two separated halves of the
country, whilst the Tasman Sea fights to do the same from the
west.

Today they were lucky. The waves were slight and the vessel
seemed ideally suited to slicing through the small crests that
undulated across the water’s surface. Unfortunately, the design
meant it was a giant floating box, with no thought given to the
idea of an external deck from which to admire the spectacular views
as they entered the Marlborough Sounds, a complicated series of
twisting channels through which the captain had to slowly navigate
to reach Picton which, looking at the map on the café wall,
appeared to be several miles inland.

Chapter 11

The Cat slowed to a sedate cruising speed as it entered The
Sounds. Through the salt–spray encrusted windows, David saw green
mountains rising from an emerald sea, now glassy smooth. It was as
if the water had flooded a primeval jungle and only the tallest
peaks had escaped the surge.

Ed’s comments preyed on his mind. The modified milk was
poisonous. It could kill people. The most powerful country in the
world was intent on producing the stuff in huge quantities. As far
as he knew, none of this was public information. He was one of only
a handful of people in the entire world who knew about any of this,
and as far as he was concerned that made him vulnerable. A man had
died at Heathrow because of this and Cowood seemed prepared to risk
the lives of millions of people.

What had started as an intriguing diversion to the start of
their new life had developed into a life-threatening predicament.
David no longer wanted to be part of it. He wanted to escape, not
just from Ed and whatever it was he was planning, but also from the
whole situation. For now, he was stuck on a boat.

The vessel negotiated the winding channel. The mountains
seemed to close in behind it, sealing it in, forcing it to sail
onward. After an hour of meandering, the catamaran rounded the
final bend. In the distance David could see colours other than
green and blue. He could make out a small town resting in a valley
between two of the hills. In another half an hour they would be
alongside in Picton and he could start looking for his
opportunity.

Ed stood up, checking his mobile phone. He nodded, before
replacing it back in his pocket. “Good, they’re waiting for us.”
David moved to stand up in preparation for disembarkation. Ed
touched his arm. “Wait here. I need to check everything is ok
first. Make sure you’re one of the last off. I’ll meet you over by
the car hire place. If I’m not there in ten minutes, book yourself
straight back on the return crossing. Understand?”

Ed’s dominant tone took David by surprise. He sensed it was
compensating for some nervousness in Ed about whatever was about to
happen next.