Summary
Highlights
The opium harvest has been completed, and the processed opium is gone from the field. Barrows and his team discover a camel driver who, despite being searched, is suspected of transporting the narcotics internally within his camels. They track the caravan into French Lebanon to a slaughterhouse owned by a man named Aazis. From there, the opium, disguised in bales of camel hair, is distributed to Athens, Marseilles, and Havana, revealing the international reach of the 'Gene Hawks' ring.
Barrows follows the lead to Havana, where he meets Cuban Narcotics Commissioner Barata. The destination of the Havana bale is 'N. Grant Vanstad,' an artist supplies manufacturer. Barrows deduces the opium will be refined and then shipped to New York. He secures a cabin on the SS Cardo, the same ship carrying Branstad, Anne Grant, Shupan, and Chen Su, Shupan's supposed uncle.
Onboard the Cardo, Barrows discovers Branstad's latest method of smuggling: concealing the narcotics within cartons of butter, destined for the ship's refrigerator. He suspects a crew member is assisting Branstad. A staged grease fire in the galley creates a diversion for the crew to remove the narcotics. Barrows realizes that Anne Grant is more deeply involved than he thought, and Shupan's 'uncle' is part of the ring. He discovers Shupan is 'Gene Hawks' herself. The narcotics, anchored to chemically treated ropes, are thrown overboard to be retrieved later. Barrows and the Coast Guard intervene, recovering the drugs and apprehending the 'Gene Hawks' ring members.
Michael Barrows of the US Treasury's narcotics division introduces the global fight against opium, initiated by Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger in 1935. The delegates from around the world gather to sign a treaty against this 'little flower,' the poppy, whose processed liquid becomes deadly opium, used as a weapon to enslave citizens and divide the world.
Barrows' story begins in 1935 San Francisco, where he learns of an unmarked freighter, the Kira Maru, transporting slaves and potentially narcotics. After a chase and witnessing the disposal of bodies, Barrows travels to Shanghai to investigate, encountering thinly veiled Japanese resistance and a perplexing judicial system that hands down a lenient sentence for the ship's captain.
In Shanghai, Barrows is contacted by Chinese Commissioner Lamchi Chowo, who shares a recording of a dying slave from the Kira Maru. The slave reveals the ship carried 200 slaves to Egypt to plant a poppy field and mentions a mysterious 'Gene Hawks' code. This suggests a sophisticated international drug operation.
Barrows, operating undercover as 'Tom Brent' a rug dealer, infiltrates Nicholas Sim's rickshaw garage, suspected of harboring the Kira Maru's captain. He joins a world tour led by 'Shannon,' attempting to identify those involved. During the tour, he meets Anne Grant and her adopted child Shupan, who lost her family to the Japanese.
Barrows confronts Shannon, discovering he is a narcotics smuggler. After a struggle that results in Shannon's death, Barrows and Commissioner Chowo realize Sim's deeper involvement. Sim, feigning disinterest in drug refining, attempts to mislead Barrows. The discovery of Sim's refining equipment and his subsequent death by suicide confirm his connection to the 'Gene Hawks' ring, an organization backed by the Japanese government to spread drugs and weaken resistance.
Sim's death reveals the 'Gene Hawks' are now aware of the investigation, leading to a shift in their plans. With a narrow window for action, Barrows heads to Cairo to investigate the suspected poppy fields in Egypt, carrying Sim's papers. He learns Anne Grant had lived in Egypt for a year and a half before coming to China, raising suspicions about her involvement with the organization.
In Cairo, Barrows, with Egyptian and British narcotics commissioners, races against time to locate the poppy fields. Clues from Sim's papers, including a letter written on French paper by 'William Adams,' lead them to Lebanese estates in area S. Barrows' knowledge of roses and a hunch about an engineer named Grant, formerly Anne's husband, lead him to a specific estate where poppy stems are found hidden under rose bushes.