In the Triangle by Judy Mitchell

Inside the Forcing Sheds at the side of the Volga, the crop of crimson and red stalks with their yellow, tightly wrinkled heads, failed to appear. The growers silently watched and waited. They tested the soil and the air but there was no explanation -except the unthinkable. Sabotage. Not one of the stern-faced experts dared to voice their suspicions but as the days and nights passed, it became the only explanation.  Some foreign force had invaded the Sheds of the Motherland and committed an act of cold, calculated, international, agro-warfare.

Across the city, a man was being briefed on this latest act of aggression. Rhubarb was a vegetable he had adored since childhood. Its laxative properties had often been called upon to work their relieving magic on the most stubborn days. There were moments when he allowed himself to remember growing up, the days of rhubarb crumble, sticky-fingered rhubarb and ginger jam spread thickly on homemade black bread. Only those in his very innermost circle knew he was vegetarian. A fact kept from public view as he felt that such an image might hint at some lack of manliness for a former soldier and officer.

Within days, hidden in the crowds of tourists journeying to the area known as England’s Rhubarb Triangle, a stranger mingled with the crowds of revellers. His face was uninteresting, bland, the sort of person you would never find from a wanted poster. On his back, a rucksack contained the most potent chemical for his mission. Isocyanorhuberide. He watched the growers rubbing their raw, red, English hands, in capitalistic glee, as they eagerly anticipated the profits from a bumper crop.

He struck on the last day of February as the Festival celebrated the new crop of luscious pink stems. He had slipped inside the Sheds as the wind whipped and whistled around the dark, red buildings and as the temperature had started to fall.  The snow drifted against these prize growing sanctuaries where the forced roots planted indoors in November had sprouted, row after row of ugly stalks thrust upwards, lit by candles to stop photosynthesis.

When the growers’ attention returned from the Festival to their crops, there was a collective gasp heard across the English Forcing Fields. Candles stuttered as the doors slammed on the disaster scene. All that was left were acres of slimy, black, stringy puree. The smell was overpowering. Growers and their loyal employees wept and moaned in a mass outpouring of grief.

His mission was accomplished. He had not lost his touch and he made ready to return. But, in an unguarded moment he agreed to join some of the men at the Rhu-bar in the centre of Wakefield.

The last thing he saw were the expressionless faces of three Special Forces men.  He felt a sharp stab and then, within seconds, a hot bubbling feeling running through his organs as the Isocyanorhuberide coursed through his body. When they lifted the short bundle of flesh into the Calder, he was already quite dead.