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

by Robert B. Lowe

  “What about your own country, Brian?” It was Sendaki. He was standing in the center of the room. He had removed his wig and set down his camera equipment. The audience parted and moved away from him, creating an island of space. A murmur began as the crowd realized who he was.

  “Can you deny that you have turned this poison against the United States and accepted substantial sums to do so?” said Sendaki.

  “Why are you secretly growing tons of special strains of wheat, corn, rice and oats?” asked Lee. “What is it for?”

  Graylock looked from Sendaki, to Lee, to Lorraine, and back to Sendaki again. This was all wrong. How the hell had these people gotten in here? Why hadn’t his people found them? What were they doing here? Didn’t they see what he had been trying to do? Didn’t they understand? And to have Sendaki of all people accuse him. He had saved Sendaki’s company and made Sendaki a rich man in the process. Now, Sendaki was trying to destroy him! He was behind all of this!

  Graylock pointed his finger at Sendaki.

  “How dare you talk of loyalty?” he said. “You have betrayed all of us. You have betrayed your own company. The great visionary. The great scientist. You’re a failure.”

  “Brian, what have you done?” said Sendaki calmly. “Have you lost sight of what we set out to do? We set out to nourish the world, and you are poisoning it.”

  “What have I done, Arthur?” said Graylock, walking to the very edge of the platform. “I will tell you what I have done. I have created an IBM, a General Motors. I have created the company that will dominate agriculture in this country, even the world. It is already happening. It is too late to stop it.”

  Graylock suddenly laughed. He looked up from Sendaki and spoke to the entire crowd.

  “Listen to what is happening on our farms,” he said. “We are growing the seeds of tomorrow. Literally, the only seeds that can grow and flourish after the plagues that are afflicting the agricultural industry. Only with genetic engineering can we respond this quickly.

  “This means patent rights to most of the grain grown in this country,” continued Graylock. “That means ownership. And that means profits. Every farmer who tills the soil, every maker of bread, everyone who buys a box of cereal will pay us, gratefully, for their salvation.”

  “No, Brian,” said Sendaki. “What you are attempting is insane. It won’t work. I won’t let it happen. I will find ways to stop it. The people you used to create these horrors will work even harder to help me stop them. You know I can stop it. It is you who are destroying the company by involving it in this insane scheme. You can’t deny your involvement. We have the evidence. It’s indisputable.”

  “No! You’re crazy! You’ve betrayed the company! You are the traitor!” Graylock waved at his security guards. But, they stood along the sides of the room, confused, looking at each other and not sure what to do.

  His guards were in turmoil. They were trained to obey Graylock’s orders, even to kill if directed. But, not here, not in a place like this. Not with television cameras running. Not in a place filled with stunned investment bankers and financial managers.

  “Get him! Get him!” yelled Graylock. “He’s crazy! He’s dangerous!”

  Two of the guards began wading uncertainly into the assembled group to grab Sendaki. The people in the room turned to face them and an angry murmur started.

  “No way, you son of a bitch,” somebody said. “Stop it, Brian,” chimed in someone else.

  The two guards stopped and looked back, unsure of what to do. It was apparent that the assembled group, including AgriGenics’ own shareholders, would not allow Arthur Sendaki to be manhandled into silence.

  Brian Graylock stood for a moment, looking over the room. Then he walked rapidly to the edge of the platform and descended a short set of stairs. As he strode quickly out a side door, the room echoed with the clamor of shareholders eager to vote into office a new set of directors and install Arthur Sendaki as the new chief executive officer of AgriGenics.

  Chapter 40

  COLONEL RODNEY HOBART sat in his office with the door closed. Over the past few days, he had spent much of his time here in his sealed office, watching the media’s feeding frenzy over AgriGenics growing as relentlessly as his own sense of panic. Although Graylock was meeting with AgriGenics’ shareholders at that very moment, Hobart could feel the whole thing turning to shit. Worst of all, Sendaki was still out there someplace. He was the key for Hobart, the one who could link him to Project Moses.

  On his desk, next to Hobart’s computer terminal, sat a copy of the previous day’s San Francisco News. It carried a front page advance story in anticipation of Graylock’s last-ditch meeting. The byline on the story belonged to some reporter named Lorraine Carr.

  Hobart had dialed into the News’ computer system. He got into the News’ computer by using the password for outside callers. He then logged on by using the personal password for the managing editor of the News. The CIA’s team of hackers had given him both passwords about three weeks earlier and taught him how to use them.

  At first, he had reviewed everything written by Enzo Lee at least twice a day. However, when the reporter left San Francisco there didn’t seem to be any point to rummaging around in the News’ data banks. But, it finally had dawned on Hobart that the Carr woman must be in contact with Lee. Had he known that, he would have had her bugged and been reading her goddamn files the whole time.

  The managing editor’s password gave him access to all of the reporters’ computerized files. He called up Lorraine Carr’s directory. The display told him when each file had last been stored. Starting with the most recent files, he started skimming. It took him ten minutes to find the reference to the Morris Hotel in New York and the name “James Wright.” It took Hobart twenty seconds to get Spreckel on the line.

  • • •

  AGENT JIM MOBLEY had gone out on some errand. Spreckel didn’t know where the hell he was. So, he left Mobley a note telling him to hurry and get his ass over to the Morris Hotel. Spreckel left the car for Mobley and took a cab. It would be faster anyway.

  Spreckel gave the cabbie a $10 bill and didn’t wait for change. He could sense that this was it. It was about time. Spreckel had been humiliated by Lee’s earlier escape. He could hardly believe that three nonprofessionals - a reporter, a lawyer and a scientist - had managed to elude him. Hobart had been kicking him in the balls for days. It was payback time.

  He banged the bell on the marble counter repeatedly until the hotel clerk came out of the back office with an irritated expression on his face.

  “There’s no need for that,” said the clerk.

  “Listen, Bud. See this?” Spreckel flipped an impressive law enforcement credential at the clerk. “Get me James Wright’s room number. Now, goddamn it!”

  Spreckel pounded his fist on a notebook sitting on the counter. The clerk jumped, and hurriedly thumbed through his records.

  “Uhh. He’s in room 518. He’s also paying for 516.”

  “Who’s in that one, 516?”

  “A Charles Murphy.”

  “Okay. Where’s a pass key?”

  “Well…Uhhh…I don’t know if I can just give it to you. I mean, I haven’t done this before and…”

  Spreckel pulled out his 9 mm semiautomatic Beretta and laid it gently on the counter.

  “Listen. This is important. Life or death. Give me the goddamn key! Now!”

  The clerk reached into a drawer and pulled out a pass key.

  On the way up the elevator, Spreckel thought about the next move. Lee would probably be in the James Wright room. That would put Sendaki in the Murphy room, 516. He would go for that one first. He’d have a better chance to take care of Sendaki that way. Hobart had left no question about Sendaki’s importance. He was the priority.

  Spreckel walked down the hall from the elevator past 518 to 516. He moved fast for a big man, but quietly. He had his gun drawn. He was ready for it. Spreckel held the pass key poised for a moment in his left
hand, just barely touching the lock. Then he plunged it in. It went in smoothly. He turned the key, felt a click and kicked the door inward.

  The door banged off the wall. Spreckel ran in low, the gun in front of him. He stayed in a shooting crouch as he moved forward into the room. He kicked open the bathroom door. No one. He kicked the sliding door on the closet. It rolled open with a crash. Nothing.

  “Goddamn it,” Spreckel said. His adrenaline was peaking. He was sweating like mad. He was ready to ice the fucking bastard and he was gone again.

  It was almost an afterthought when Spreckel remembered the other room. He went back to the corridor, grabbing the passkey out of the lock. He inserted it into the lock of room 518. It stuck. He worked it a couple of seconds until it clicked open. Then, Spreckel shoved open the door and went in.

  There was no one in the outer room. He walked quickly to the bedroom door. It was closed. He twisted the handle and shoved it open. It flew open as he stepped inside.

  Spreckel was surprised to see Sarah standing by the bed. She looked vaguely familiar to him. The contents of Lee’s duffle bag were lying on the bed where they had been emptied in a hurry. Sarah had a gun in her hands. It was aimed directly at Spreckel.

  Spreckel’s Beretta was hanging at his side. He had come in too fast without thinking or preparing. He realized he had done everything wrong. He raised the Beretta toward Sarah but before he could aim it at her, she fired. The shot hit him in the shoulder, throwing him against the door jamb. He lifted the Beretta again. Sarah’s second shot caught him square in the chest. But, Spreckel was squeezing off shots in her direction now, two…three. He lost count. Even as he slid down against the wall, he kept squeezing the trigger until no more shots rang out. Then he dropped his gun, wrapped his arms around his chest, and waited for someone to come.

  When Mobley reached room 518 five minutes later, Spreckel was conscious but unable to speak. He was pale from the loss of blood. It was too late for Mobley to do anything but call for the paramedics and watch his boss die.

  • • •

  AS SOON AS he closed the door on the cab outside the United Nations Headquarters, Lee felt exhaustion oozing out of every pore in his body. He felt too tired to lift a finger, much less respond to Lorraine’s excited chatter.

  “I loved it when Sendaki got up,” she said. “You could see the gears churning in Graylock’s head. You could see him starting to lose it. You could. I wonder how that looked on T.V. Hey, what stations were in there? Will it be on the twelve o’clock news? Shoot, we already missed it. You know, Enzo, I think you should do this type of story more often. This is much more exciting than reporting on the latest disk drive.”

  Lee just grinned. For the first time in nearly three weeks, he felt he could relax. Graylock had seen to that. The effort to save AgriGenics had backfired. Graylock had lost the support of his shareholders. Most important, the news coverage of the meeting would guaranty a blizzard of investigations. He and Sarah were the least of AgriGenics’ worries now.

  Sarah. The thought of being able to tell her what had happened gave him another reason to smile. He couldn’t wait to tell her that they were free, absolutely free to return to their normal, humdrum lives without fear of what lay waiting around the corner. He couldn’t wait to get back to churning out reams of thrilling, hard hitting, sizzling fluff.

  “Say,” he said, leaning forward to speak through a hole in the plexiglas partition to the cab driver. “It’s faster if you turn right at the light.”

  Lee’s euphoria lasted until he saw a flashing red and yellow light from the rearmost police cruiser parked in front of the Morris Hotel. By the time he could make out four blue and white patrol cars and two ambulances sitting in a row outside the hotel, he was scared.

  “No, no. Please,” he whispered. He had the door opened before the cab stopped. He walked slowly between two patrol cars heading toward the door, wanting to know what was going on but afraid to find out. There was yellow police tape across the hotel entrance. People were going in the door, ducking under the tape. Two of the uniformed officers stood by the door, talking to gawkers, keeping them from blocking the doorway.

  He looked back to the line of cars. There was an ambulance up the line. The back was opened. Several people stood near the back, some looked like medical people. A couple were uniformed officers. They were standing around, talking. He walked toward them.

  As he got closer, he saw there were two stretchers inside the ambulance stacked one on top of the other. White sheets reached over the torsos and covered the faces and heads of bodies lying on both of the stretchers. As Lee got even nearer, he saw an arm hanging down from the top stretcher, dangling outside the sheet. It was a woman’s arm. The shirt. God. He recognized the shirt.

  Lee lurched forward. He was trying to blink back the tears but they were running down his face. He needed to get to Sarah. He wasn’t paying any attention to the people now and blundered through them.

  “Hey. Hey, buddy,” one of them said to him. Two of them grabbed him by the arms.

  “Sarah. Sarah,” Lee called out to the form on the top stretcher. He still struggled forward, but they were holding him back. He tried to get out of their grasp.

  “It’s him,” said someone behind him. “Hold ’im.”

  Then there were more people around him, pulling him back, shoving him roughly against one of the patrol cars. They pulled his arms behind him. His face and chest were pressed into the top of the car. He felt the cuffs going around his wrists.

  He was sobbing. He could barely speak.

  “I just want to hold her hand,” he pleaded to no one in particular. He tried to wipe his eyes on his shoulder so he could see, so he could talk to someone so they would understand.

  “I just want to hold her hand. Just for a minute,” he said as they shoved him into the backseat of the cruiser and drove away past the ambulance.

  Chapter 41

  COL. HOBART WAITED in the office of the Chief of Security at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. He fingered the old scar on his neck as he thought very carefully about how to handle the next ten minutes. He knew his entire future, perhaps even his life, depended upon it.

  He had met with the special actions chief of the CIA the previous day. The chief was a gaunt, humorless man whose name and position, as well as the projects he supervised, appeared only on documents that had the highest security classification.

  Graylock’s attempt to save AgriGenics had been a total disaster. Alone, the televised meeting had been enough to initiate the two Congressional investigations into AgriGenics. Spreckel’s killing of the Armstrong woman had just compounded the problem. The government now was reduced to a bare fig leaf of deniability. The only hopeful element was that Spreckel had been killed during the process. He could be portrayed as a rogue agent. Spreckel also had been a potential leak that Hobart no longer had to worry about now.

  Graylock’s death was a mixed bag. Hobart wished he’d taken a more quiet way out. Going off the Brooklyn Bridge was the kind of high-profile demise that whipped the media hounds into a frenzy. It wasn’t clear whether Graylock’s demise had been voluntary or not. Hobart suspected he had been tossed off the bridge by one of Graylock’s foreign customers who had concluded that Graylock had suddenly become an embarrassing liability. No matter. Graylock had gotten greedy. He was out of the picture forever.

  Sendaki was still the problem. And the chief had made it abundantly clear that if Sendaki had a sudden change of health, Hobart would be on his own. He would be thrown to the Congressional wolves like dead meat or worse. No more killing. No covert operations. Not even computer hacking. The lid was off on this one. It was time to scurry for cover. Everyone was hunkering down in their favorite out-of-the-way hole hoping this would all blow away without rooting them out.

  The chief had left Hobart with a single card, the one he was about to play. It was on this thin reed of hope that Hobart had stacked everything. If it failed, Hobart would be drawn into the
scandal. And if that happened, the best Hobart could hope for was prison time. It was more likely that he would become an easy mark for an agency assassin.

  The door to the office opened. Two airport security guards stood outside with Sendaki between them. He was wearing a rumpled business suit that fit his short frame poorly and carrying a briefcase. He looked mad.

  Sendaki stepped into the room.

  “It’s you,” he said. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Hobart nodded at the security guards. They shut the door. He could hear their footsteps as they walked away.

  “You obviously remember me,” said Hobart.

  “From the hotel in Chicago. Yes. Very well. What am I doing here? I have a connection to make.”

  “Yes. Yes. I know,” said Hobart. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you there. We’ll have the plane held if we need it.”

  It crossed Hobart’s mind that except for the chief, this meeting would have been totally different. If Sendaki did not agree to the deal he was about to present him, Hobart would simply have had him killed when he left the office. There were a hundred ways it could be done.

  “Dr. Sendaki,” began Hobart. “Sit down, please. I understand you have been appointed president of AgriGenics.”

  “Correct,” said Sendaki, sitting in the chair in front of the desk where Hobart sat.

  “AgriGenics currently faces billions of dollars in lawsuits filed by farmers all over the country whose crops have been wiped out by diseases created or reproduced by AgriGenics. Right?”

  “We will make resistant seed available to all of those growers free of charge,” said Sendaki, defensively. “We have figured out how to disarm the stem rust that was ruining the wheat crop. We are confident that we can control the damage to the other grains until we find their weaknesses.”

  “But, Dr. Sendaki,” continued Hobart. “Even if you stopped all of the diseases in their tracks today, the damage is already in the billions. Lawyers in the bread belt are as greedy as any place. You don’t think they’ll let AgriGenics off the hook, do you?”