Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series)

by Robert B. Lowe

  They said their goodbyes to Master Chu and left him in the temple while they walked back down to the street and into the sunlight.

  “It’s a Daoist temple,” said Lee.

  “It was fascinating,” said Sarah.

  “There are Daoist and Buddhist temples all over Chinatown in places you wouldn’t expect them, over restaurants, above stores. Some are very formal. Others feel like someone’s living room.”

  They walked the half dozen blocks to the Jade Cafe, a small restaurant on Broadway. Inside, there was a glass case filled with pastries and custards. Next to it, in the window, were large, round steaming trays stacked six high and filled with the dim sum offerings of the day.

  Lee noticed three men wearing dirty, white aprons had a production line going on a large table at the back of the restaurant, past the handful of tables for customers.

  At one end, a man was picking up small lumps of rice batter and flattening each one by pressing the batter with a cleaver against the table top in a quick twisting motion. The result was a stack of round flat noodles of uniform thickness that was passed down the table.

  The other two men stuffed each flat noodle with a concoction of ground meat and pinched the edges of the noodle together, forming a tiny purse with fluted sides. These were piled onto a metal tray that was removed periodically and the dim sum delivered to the kitchen in the back of the restaurant.

  From a woman working behind the food-filled case, Lee ordered rice wrapped in a large lotus leaf and cooked with sausage and ground meat in the middle until the rice was moist and sticky and permeated with the flavor of the leaf. He added an order of shu mai, seasoned ground pork steamed while encased in thick rice noodle, and another order of har gow, shrimp steamed inside the rice-noodle envelope.

  Their food was handed across the counter on two plates sitting on an orange plastic tray. They sat at the only empty table.

  They had finished the shu mai and were working on the har gow when a man about Lee’s age walked in. His head was shaved. He had a thin mustache and goatee, and he carried a white Emporium bag with string handles. He sat across from Lee and Sarah.

  “Hi, Enzo,” he said.

  “Hello, Ben. This is Sarah. Sarah, meet Ben Hom. Ben is my…what are we, Ben? Second cousins?”

  “Something like that.”

  “How is the store?”

  “It’s all right, Enzo. ‘Got a special this week on damsels and lion fish.”

  Lee shook his head.

  “Not me. My cat will never have a restful night’s sleep.”

  Ben Hom looked inquiringly at Sarah.

  “Nope,” she said. “I’m death to goldfish and turtles. I don’t want to add to the list.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” said Ben Hom. “They’re clean, you know. Don’t need to let them out at night, worry about the rugs. And they’re safe. Won’t bite the kids unless you get piranha.”

  “Nothing’s safe,” said Lee, shaking his head.

  After Ben Hom had left them, Lee and Sarah walked back on to Broadway which was bustling with lunch hour traffic. Lee carried the white Emporium bag as they walked up Broadway toward Grant Avenue. They turned left onto Grant. They stopped at a luggage store where Lee bought a blue day pack. Then they went into a discount camera and electronics store and bought a pair of Bushnell binoculars and a set of cheap walkie talkies.

  It was just a few blocks back to the car in the underground garage. Lee popped the trunk and they loaded their bags into it. The white Emporium bag hit with a thunk.

  “What, exactly, is in there?” asked Sarah.

  Lee said nothing until after he got into the car and started the engine.

  “It’s a gun,” he finally said.

  “I thought so. Do you now how to use it?” said Sarah.

  “Yeah. Benny’s a gun nut. He’s taken me to the range a couple of times.”

  “Do you think it’s wise?”

  “Look, Sarah. I’m not planning to have a shootout with anyone. But, if a situation arises where I wish I had it, I don’t want to be without. Until then, it stays in the trunk, okay?”

  Sarah turned and looked Lee in the eyes.

  “I understand but I don’t have to like it, do I?” she said.

  Lee didn’t reply as he hit the accelerator and began the series of tight turns that would take them back to the daylight.

  Chapter 27

  IT WAS 4:30 P.M. when they reached the soccer field beside the tavern called Lucy’s on Resnick Road in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. They drove past slowly, continuing up the road another mile or so. Then, they turned around and rode by in the other direction, before finally pulling into the Lucy’s parking lot.

  Lucy’s and the soccer field were at the bottom of a narrow valley beside a stream bed that now carried only a muddy trickle. Across the two-lane road was a sizable hill that bulged out at the soccer field. As a result, the soccer field was located on the outer edge of the bend in the road. Past the soccer field, the road continued its steep upward climb.

  Sarah put the binoculars, one of the walkie talkies, a sweatshirt and a quart-size bottle of mineral water in the blue day pack. Then she crossed the road and began climbing up the hillside.

  She was wearing running shoes and the tall grass in the lower portion of the hill made her footing slippery. She fell to her knees several times on the way up, but kept moving steadily up the slope. Clumps of trees, mostly small live oak, began about two hundred feet up the hillside, merging together further up until they became a solid mass near the crest of the hill.

  Sarah rested for a few minutes after she reached the first trees. Her second push ended when she was well into the heavy cover. She took off the day pack and settled into a level spot behind one of the larger trees. By carefully positioning herself, the tree trunk blocked any view that someone at Lucy’s or the soccer field would have of her. As it was, she was far enough into the trees and shadows that she was nearly invisible from below anyway.

  She checked her watch. When it was 5 p.m., she switched on the walkie talkie. It hissed and popped with static. She pressed the button on the side.

  “Enzo. Enzo. Can you hear me?”

  The reply was broken by interference and weak, but she could hear it.

  “Yes..you’re…faint but I can hear you. Where…you? What can you see?”

  “I’m pretty far up in the trees,” said Sarah. “I have a good view of the soccer field and Lucy’s parking lot. I can see down the road about three hundred yards. My view is cut off going up.”

  “Okay. I’m where we decided I…wait. We…save the batteries…I’ll…six o’clock.”

  She knew Lee had parked the car in a turnout in the hillside around the bend and up about a half mile from the soccer field. He would keep watch for cars and people coming down the road. She would watch for anything going up the road and keep an eye on the soccer field where the 7:30 PM meeting with Sendaki was scheduled to take place. If either of them spotted any sign that the meeting was a setup, they would call it off and meet back at the Millbrae motel.

  Sarah switched off the walkie talkie, pulled out the bottle of water and took a long drink. She set it against the tree trunk in front of her. She also took out the binoculars and set them down on top of the pack to keep them out of the dirt.

  It was hot but the shade kept the temperature at a comfortable level. Sarah waved away a couple of flies playing tag around her head. On a different day, it would have been a good place to lean back, use her sweatshirt for a pillow and let the warmth work its drowsy magic. As it was, she was too keyed up to think about sleeping. All of her senses seemed to be heightened. She heard every chirp and each rustle in the tall grass in front of her.

  At 7 p.m., the sun was down. The earth was giving up the last of the day’s heat, losing the battle against the cool evening air. Long shadows filled much of the scene that lay below Sarah now. The grass in the middle of the soccer field was still illuminated by the bright sky, but aroun
d the edges where full-sized oaks stood close together, it was becoming difficult to see anything.

  The radio static was constant now. They had agreed to leave the walkie talkies on for the remainder of the wait, trusting that their periodic checks had left enough juice in the batteries to last another thirty minutes. Neither of them had seen anything out of the ordinary. So, it was simply a matter of waiting. But, Sarah was finding the final minutes nerve wracking. She just wanted it to be over.

  At 7:15, Lee checked in again.

  “No. Nothing,” she said. “A few people going in and out of Lucy’s but nothing unusual.”

  She knew Lee would be even more anxious than she was. At least she had a view of the field. If this was a setup, she would witness it all. At the same time, she didn’t believe she could have missed the personnel being put in place to guarantee their capture if that were the plan. It was getting too late for that.

  Lee called again at 7:20, then at 7:25. She could feel in his voice the tension of waiting in the increasing darkness. When, at 7:28, he called again there was a different urgency in his voice.

  “Do you…anybody? Do you see him?” he asked.

  “No. Nobody.”

  Then, 7:30 passed. Then, 7:32…7:35. Nothing. Just increasing darkness until she was staring through the binoculars at the soccer field and having trouble discerning the goals. At 7:40, Lee called again.

  “I’m…down there. I need to see…going on.”

  “Okay, Enzo. Be careful.”

  She saw the T-bird come around the bend into her view with the lights off. It pulled off the side of the road by the soccer field and stopped. Lee shut the motor off. After a couple of minutes, he opened the driver’s door. In the stillness, she could hear the sound of the door being carefully closed as if it were 10 feet away.

  Lee walked slowly by the small set of bleachers along the side of the field. He moved toward the goal on the right side of the field, away from Lucy’s. He made a slow, meandering circle, peering into the shadows of the trees around the end of the field. He was about 150 yards away from her.

  The sound of shoes on gravel caught Sarah’s attention and caused her to divert her binoculars toward Lucy’s. She would just barely see a man walking from the entrance of Lucy’s through the parking lot toward the soccer field. He was moving at a normal pace, not in a manner that indicated he was trying to be quiet.

  She kept expecting the shadowy figure to stop at one of the several cars in the gravel lot. Then, he was past the lot, and the sound of his footsteps disappeared as he hit the grass. He moved to the far side of the field, and, even with the binoculars, she lost sight of him as he entered the shadows of the trees that lined the creek, running parallel to the soccer field.

  Sarah picked up the walkie talkie and pushed the button.

  “Enzo. Enzo.”

  There was no reply.

  “Enzo. Enzo. Can you hear me?” She said it louder.

  “Enzo. I can’t hear you. If you can hear me, someone is walking down the field along the far side.”

  She waited. She held the binoculars to her eyes with her left hand and the walkie talkie in her right. She could still make out Lee and he was looking back toward her, probably watching the road. She caught a glimpse of the man on the far side as he passed through a break in the tree line. He was still walking steadily in Lee’s direction.

  She tried the walkie talkie again.

  “Enzo. Enzo.” Damn this thing. Why had they relied on something little better than a toy? By now, the man would be getting close to the end of the field. The walkie talkie continued its irritating buzz. She squeezed the button hard.

  “Enzo. En-zo!” She could still see Lee looking her way.

  Then the man stepped out of the shadows. He was directly behind Lee and walking toward him with the same steady, purposeful stride. He was no more than 30 yards away and heading straight for Lee.

  Sarah stood up, dropped the walkie talkie and moved away from the tree trunk.

  “En-zo! Behind you!” she yelled as loud as she could.

  She saw Lee wheel and face the man behind him. She saw the man stop when she yelled, and look up toward her. He looked startled, and she thought for a minute that he might run. They held their positions. She could hear voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  The man started walking again toward Lee. Lee backed up, half turning and taking a few steps toward the car. When the man was upon him, Sarah saw Lee extend his hand and they shook. Then they both walked quickly toward the car.

  Chapter 28

  IT TOOK SARAH 15 minutes to climb and slide down the hillside to the road below. She knew Lee would be waiting for her at the turnout around the bend as they had agreed. She hiked up the road to the T-bird and climbed into the rear seat.

  “Sarah, this is Arthur Sendaki,” said Lee.

  “I know. We’ve met.”

  “Yes, we have,” said Sendaki. “It’s nice to see you again Miss Armstrong.”

  Sendaki was a small, thick man with a prominent nose, and a drooping mustache. He was in his mid-50s. The top of his head was bald surrounded by a fringe of thick hair originally black but turning gray. He had an almost aristocratic bearing. Sitting in the passenger seat, he held his head high, his nose tilted slightly skyward.

  They drove in silence except for Sendaki’s spare instructions. They continued driving up Resnick Road until they were high in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Then they turned north and drove further along smaller, more deserted roads. As they drove, Sarah noticed the Emporium bag sitting crushed beside her on the floor of the car.

  Finally, Sendaki instructed Lee to turn into the driveway that led about 50 yards off the road to an old ranch style house, not quite ramshackle, with a covered wooden porch in front. Sendaki told Lee to park the T-bird behind the house.

  “Why?” asked Lee.

  “For the next twenty-four hours they will be all over the area. They may know what kind of car you drive. We’ll have to take the chance they won’t spot it from the air. At least we can keep it out of view from the road.”

  “Who are ‘they?’” asked Lee.

  Sendaki sighed.

  “Even I’m not completely sure of that. Let’s go inside. I’ll explain what I can.”

  Lee had Sarah sit in the driver’s seat with the T-bird running while he accompanied Sendaki into the deserted-looking house. When he was satisfied they were alone, he signaled Sarah to drive the car around and park it on the grass behind the house.

  The doorway on the porch opened onto a large living room with a wood burning stove, a sofa and several overstuffed chairs. The floor was hardwood, stained a reddish brown, with an oval-shaped rag rug in the middle. Off the living room was a massive kitchen with a commercial stove and a big, well worn table in the middle that was capable of seating more than a dozen people. Bedrooms were off the end of the living room and another set ran back from the kitchen. It looked as if the house had been added to more than once and could sleep as many as it could feed.

  Sendaki explained that the house belonged to an old friend, a Stanford biologist, who was spending the semester in England and had left him the key.

  He started a fire in the wood-burning stove that was just beginning to take hold. Sendaki had found some whiskey in the kitchen and set it by the stove with three glass tumblers.

  The convivial setting touched a raw nerve in Sarah. Here was Sendaki expecting them to sip Scotch and sit with him around the stove. Why wasn’t Aunt Miriam here to enjoy this moment, or Orson Adams, or Brent Donsen, or Bob Weiskauf?

  “I don’t believe this,” she said.

  Sendaki, squatting by the stove, looked puzzled.

  “This is all very quaint,” Sarah said. “But, we’re not here to huddle around the fire with you and knock back whiskey. We need some answers about AgriGenics and whatever it is that is being covered up.”

  Sendaki remained squatting. He ran a forefinger along his mustache, first one side and
then the other.

  “You have the right to those answers, Miss Armstrong,” he said. “But you owe it to me to hear the whole story, or what I know of it.”

  Sendaki stood up and faced the stove, his hands held palms down toward the warming stove top, as if he could see the flames through the metal. He spoke quickly and passionately.

  “When I founded AgriGenics, it was an amazing time that I cannot begin to describe to you. It had become clear to me what doors genetic manipulation could open. The ability to cure diseases. The ability, if we chose, to make mankind smarter, stronger, even increase longevity. I saw the power to increase the yield of wheat, corn or rice by many times, reduce waste and spoilage to a fraction of traditional levels and increase the nutritional values.

  “The pure science was dazzling in itself. But, the power, the power to play God, if you will, was the true aphrodisiac. I thought of our mission in biblical terms, of receiving manna from Heaven or feeding the masses from a single loaf of bread. I accepted that the reason I was put on earth, was to be a part of this miracle.

  “In the middle of all this, putting the people and the pieces together to realize this dream, I was approached one day by a gentleman after a symposium. It was in Chicago, in 1986. I still don’t know his name, but he told me he represented the government. We went to his room and talked for half the night. By the time I left, I had agreed to help them.”

  “To help them build biological weapons,” interjected Sarah.

  Sendaki looked up at her with an intense stare.

  “No. To fix weapons they already had,” he said. “To turn antiquated blunt weapons that would have plagued the earth for generations into precise, limited instruments. That was what they wanted. They already had biological weapons against agricultural crops. It was a product of the Cold War mentality - cripple your opponents by damaging their economy. They said they didn’t need us for that, at least at first.

  “No, they wanted us to figure out how to stop the destruction,” Sendaki went on. “To build genetic switches that would disable the weapons over time or limit the area they would affect. Make them susceptible to heat so they wouldn’t survive the summer season. Produce strains that wouldn’t thrive outside of certain elevations or humidity levels. Create a mutation scenario so that a virus grows progressively less virulent with each generation until it eventually becomes harmless.”