On September 7, 1978 a man named Georgi Markov stood on Waterloo Bridge, waiting not for Vivien Leigh, or even Mae Clarke for that matter, but for a bus. (Yeah, I know, a bridge seems an odd place for a bus stop, but then again the British eat blood pudding, so go figure.) Georgi Markov was a writer who had made his escape from communist Bulgaria to London where he got a job working for the BBC’s World Service. Markov was minding his own business when from out of nowhere he suffered a painful stabbing sensation in his thigh. The stab came from behind and when Markov jerked suddenly around to what was what, he found a man bending over to pick up an umbrella. The man apologized for the accident and took off in a taxi. Less than four days later Markov was dead.
Markov did not die from bleeding to death or anything physically related to the stab wound. The night following the mysterious “accident” had succeeded in putting Markov in bed with a temperature hovering around 104 degrees. He was also throwing up and had to be admitted to a hospital. Doctors were effectively stumped when Markov died on the morning of September 11, 1978, attributing the cause of his death to blood poisoning. During his delirium, Markov cried out things related to political assassination. Although very few put any stock into what the dying man was saying, Scotland Yard was brought it to investigate due to undeniably mystery surrounding the case. This investigation eventually uncovered a plot straight out of a John Le Carre novel or James Bond movie. The actual cause of Markov’s death was ricin poisoning.
Ricin is a poison that is obtained from, of all things, castor oil seeds. Ricin is right there with our good old friend botulinum when it comes to being a deadly threat to human beings. In fact, it makes botulinum look like a rank amateur as ricin is capable of taking down over 30,000 people with just one tiny little gram. Ricin could potentially be such a massively effective agent for chemical warfare that it has been on the top of list of possible toxins to be used in war since World War II. There have been a few unsubstantiated tricklings that the Bush administration has expressed an interest in stockpiling ricin for use against one of their fearful terrorists attacks. Of course, these potentially authentic possibilities have been overshadowed by the Bush administration’s own assertion that Islamic extremists in the north of Iraq had their own stockpiles of ricin.
As for the unfortunate case of Mr. Markov, it was never really proven who had him killed or who the man with the umbrella actually was. As a side note, an episode of Mythbusters on the Discover Channel confirmed that death by umbrella is possible.
