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

by Robert B. Lowe

  Schwartz offered them drinks. Sendaki accepted a Scotch, Sarah had a 7-up and Schwartz was working on a glass of red wine.

  “Mister Schwartz…” began Sarah.

  “Please, call me Sam.”

  “All right. Sam. As you probably gather, Arthur and I are not on the best of terms with AgriGenics at the moment.”

  Schwartz laughed.

  “Join the club,” he said.

  “Without going into lots of detail that you may not even want to know about, we believe the company is after us because it thinks we know something about a secret research project.

  “Sam, I don’t know how much you knew about the government work we were doing,” added Sendaki. “It was very hush-hush. We weren’t allowed to report it as it normally should have been reported.”

  “Oh, I knew something was going on,” said Schwartz. “You can’t just dump $12 million into a research miscellaneous account every quarter and let it go. And then there were the payments from all those small companies. The invoices just said ‘For Research’.”

  “Yes. I guess I wasn’t very creative in devising the paperwork,” said Sendaki.

  “And Brian isn’t any better.”

  “How has Brian Graylock accounted for it?” said Sarah.

  “Pretty much the same way, now that they’ve started again,” said Schwartz. “After Arthur left, the payments stopped. Then, they started again two years ago in a big way. I mean almost double. Last year, the amount that came in without explanation was more than $80 million. And the payments are irregular now and come in through overseas banks from places like Bermuda and Grand Cayman.”

  “The payments aren’t explained at all?” asked Sarah. “The company must account for them somehow.”

  “Sure. Well, they’re tied to invoices but the invoices are very general. For example, an invoice might only say ‘research’ or ‘miscellaneous goods.’ And, they’re coded so instead of the name of a customer, all you see is a number. The number doesn’t mean anything to you unless you’re Brian Graylock.”

  “Is there any way to quantify the suspicious payments and to determine the exact dates?” said Sarah.

  “Sure. It should all be there in the banking records. The company has an electronic link to the bank so that whatever appears on the bank’s records also shows up on the screen at the company, too.”

  “Boy, I’d love to get a look at that,” said Sarah.

  “If you have a half hour, I’ll show it to you.”

  “Sam,” said Sendaki. “I thought…I mean you told me that Brian had …”

  “Given me the ax?” said Schwartz. “He hasn’t pulled the trigger yet but I’m sure he means to. He’s brought in my replacement and I’m training her already. For now, he still needs me to generate the last quarter and year-end financials. Once those are in, I don’t expect to be around much longer. But, for now Brian still needs me. So, I have access to all the financial records.”

  Sarah talked Sendaki into staying at Sam Schwartz’ home. The chance was simply too great that someone would recognize him as the missing, mentally ill company founder and call the police or, worse, AgriGenics’ security force.

  A 15-minute drive brought them to the sweeping drive that led to the AgriGenics’ new headquarters that Sarah recognized from the description Lee had given her earlier.

  Sam Schwartz and Sarah went in through a rear entrance. He had to wave a white plastic card in front of an electronic sensor to gain entry. Then, the elevator required Schwartz to input a five-digit code before it took them to his office on the third floor. They could hear some commotion off in one of the conference rooms. They carefully avoided being seen by anyone there. When they got to Schwartz’ office, they shut the door.

  “All right,” said Schwartz. He was starting to sweat and he rocked back and forth in his desk chair nervously. “Here we go.”

  Sarah stood behind him, watching over Schwartz’ shoulder as the comptroller manipulated the keyboard of his computer. She saw column after column of numbers appear and then disappear. Finally, Schwartz stopped on one screen and just stared at it.

  “Whew,” he said, shaking his head. “This is truly amazing.”

  “What? What?” Sarah leaned closer to the screen to see what was fascinating Schwartz. He pointed toward the middle of a column of numbers.

  “See that. It looks like $30 million each from three different banks. One in Switzerland. Two in Grand Cayman. That was when? More than a week ago. I’ve never seen amounts of this size. What did we sell them, a hydrogen bomb?”

  Schwartz turned back to the computer, made the screen disappear, and began fiddling with the keys again. More columns came and went. Then he stopped again and pointed at the screen.

  “See that’s more like it. An $8 million payment from a bank in Bermuda in March of this year. Here’s another for $5 million in April from a bank in the Caymans again.”

  Sarah studied the screen for a minute.

  “Sam, if these payments corresponded with a shipment of some type, say some drums of chemicals, could we determine that?” she asked.

  “We can try. If it can be done at all, we can do it sitting here. One thing Brian Graylock doesn’t skimp on is computer equipment and software. We’ve got the latest in document storage and retrieval software. Every piece of paper that goes through this place is stored electronically. It’s wonderful, just wonderful.”

  Schwartz returned to the keyboard and began punching the keys again. Sarah found another chair and rolled it over so she could sit and watch. Sam was shaking his head.

  “I tried to pull up any shipping records tied to the same invoices as the payments. But nothing shows.”

  “What if they sent it out using a totally different invoice number, or didn’t bother to use any invoice number?” asked Sarah.

  “Hmmm. Good idea. Let’s see if we can do it by date alone.” Schwartz fiddled with the keys some more.

  “Bingo. Here it is. At least this looks like it. Six 55-gallon drums to Argentina on the same date that $8 million hit. The customer isn’t even coded. It’s listed as Myllar Produce Company. And…yeah…here’s another one. Four drums to Germany when the $5 million arrived. The company on this one is Zimmernacht, Inc. This what you want?”

  “I think it’s a good start,” said Sarah. “Is there any way to save all this and put it on paper?”

  “Sure. I’ll save it on disk and we can print it out when we’re finished.”

  Over the next 20 minutes, they found another eight multimillion dollar payments made to AgriGenics from overseas banks and matched the payments to shipments overseas made on the same date. Almost as an afterthought, Sarah asked Schwartz to check the three $30 million payments.

  “That’s strange,” he said. “No overseas shipments appear on that date. Let me check before and after. No. Nothing through today. And…nothing back through two weeks ago. A definite change in the pattern, I’d say.”

  “Hmmm. Okay,” said Sarah. “Well, let’s make sure and get a copy of the statement showing the three $30 million payments. They must be important.”

  “Okay,” said Schwartz, hitting a series of keys. “You…have…got it. Now, the only problem is that this computer prints out on a laser printer used by several people. It’s out by the secretary’s station in the hallway. You stay here. I’ll make sure the coast is clear.”

  Schwartz disappeared for a minute and then returned. His face was etched with worry when he returned.

  “I think Graylock is here,” he said. “They’re wrestling about something in the conference room but no one is near the printer. I’ll get it started and we’ll catch the copies as they come out, just to be safe. Then, let’s get the hell out!”

  It was a high speed printer so it took less than two minutes for the pages to be printed. They went directly to the elevator, took it down to the ground floor and went out to Schwartz’ car.

  In their haste to leave, Sarah and Schwartz failed to notice one particul
ar blinking light on the laser printer. It indicated the machine had run out of paper with pages still stored in the electronic buffer waiting to be printed.

  Chapter 32

  LEE SANK TO his knees while he watched the driver with the Bowie knife still in his hand walk back to the house. Without the blindfold, he could see that it was a simple bungalow set alone with no other houses in sight. In front of the house was a bare dirt area where a white Oldsmobile was parked.

  He realized he was sweating like a fiend. He felt like turning around and hightailing it toward the highway in the distance. At the same time, Lee was curious about the rice paddies in the desert. As his heart stopped pounding, the urge to run lessened. The fact that he had miraculously avoided becoming buzzard bait didn’t change the fact that Lee still had to find out what AgriGenics was up to. Spending the night hitchhiking to Phoenix wasn’t going to advance the ball at all.

  Lee got to his feet and headed back to the house. He climbed the stairs cautiously and pulled open the wood and screen door. A single table lamp lit the living room. The driver sat in a short upholstered chair near the lamp.

  In the light, Lee could see he had close cropped blond hair and was well muscled. He was wearing jeans, hiking boots and a University of New Mexico T-shirt. He looked like the All American young man.

  The other two looked like they also were in their middle to late 20s. They sat on a gold colored sofa against the far wall. A stocky guy with acne and curly black hair, wearing khaki pants, deck shoes and a polo shirt, held a cloth to his nose filled with what looked like ice. The third man had a medium build and a mop of unruly blond curls. He wore jeans and a work shirt and had a ludicrous grin on his face.

  Lee saw an overstuffed chair on the wall next to the doorway he was standing in. He sat in it while the three watched.

  “You know who I am. Who are you?” began Lee.

  “I’m Bob,” said the driver. “The guy whose nose you broke is Chris. And that’s Rick.”

  Lee nodded toward Chris.

  “‘Sorry about the nose,” he said.

  “Not half as sorry as you would be if I had my way,” snarled Chris. The other two said nothing. Apparently he was rehashing an issue that had already been settled.

  “You all work for AgriGenics.” Lee said it as a statement, not a question. “Are you involved in the genetics work?”

  Bob shook his head.

  “We have ag backgrounds. We take what the genetics people produce and grow it. You know, start with the test plots and work up to large scale cultivation to develop seed stock.”

  “And, that’s what you’re doing here?”

  Bob nodded.

  “Why here?” said Lee. “I mean, why are you growing rice here? Why not California or Texas?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Bob. “You saw the paddies. All that water comes from wells. The cost of growing rice here is incredible.”

  “Yeah,” said Rick, still grinning. “The electric bill is just insane, not to mention what is happening to the water table.”

  “We’re pretty sure it’s because of the spraying,” said Bob.

  “The spraying?” said Lee.

  “Hey,” interrupted Chris, leaning forward on the sofa, moving the ice from one hand to the other. “Why are we telling him this? Why don’t we just turn him over to security and let them deal with him?”

  Bob held out a hand to silence him.

  “We’ve talked about this,” he said to Chris. “We decided we wouldn’t do that.”

  Then, Bob directed his attention to Lee.

  “They have security guys running around here who are real goons. They’ve got guns and dogs. They spy on us. We’re pretty sure they bug the phones. They told us you might be snooping around. It sounded like they wanted to feed you to the coyotes.

  “I don’t want to be responsible for that,” Bob continued, shaking his head. “I can’t believe I’m actually talking about people being killed. I didn’t sign on for this kind of thing.”

  Rick was nodding his head. Chris held his nose in silence.

  “This rice that we’re growing is made of up many different varieties,” said Bob. “They’re all supposedly modified to be resistant to a certain type of fungus. They’ve been created for that specific purpose. In addition to growing it for seed purposes, we’re spraying the plants, trying to infect it with this fungus to make sure it really is resistant.

  “And that’s why we’re out here, we think,” continued Bob. “We think they wanted us to run the test where there would be no chance of infecting any other rice. The spores would have to travel 500 miles to the next rice plant, maybe more. It’s a long way.”

  “Okay,” said Lee. “That makes sense, I guess. So, what is it that’s bothering you? Obviously, there’s something about this that doesn’t seem right to you.”

  “Yeah,” said Bob, glancing at the other two on the sofa for affirmation. “Well, they told us that the fungus was genetically engineered. They told us what to look for in case the fungus takes hold. We’ve researched the literature. This is different than anything in the literature. Worse.

  “Another thing is that we’ve seen the projections for growing more seed rice,” he continued. “They’ll take stuff from here and contract with farmers to grow more, a lot more. I mean, the projections call for thousands of tons. There would be enough to replace the seed supplies all over the world and then some.

  “Finally,” said Bob. “The different varieties we’re growing include types from all around the world. But, some of them are only grown in the United States.

  “You add it all up, and it seems to us like someone is gearing up for a disaster that hasn’t happened yet,” he went on. “We’ve been talking about this for a couple of weeks now. It’s not what we signed on to do. It’s not right. We just feel like we ought to tell somebody.”

  Rick, and even Chris, were nodding their heads in agreement.

  • • •

  IN THE THIRD floor conference room at the AgriGenics headquarters, Brian Graylock sat at one end of the table with his arms folded. He wore a dove gray suit with a yellow tie that had a perfect knot. At the other end, in shirt sleeves and with their ties loosened, were Gary Jacobs, AgriGenics vice president of production, and his chief assistant, Peter Silver.

  “Don’t tell me what can’t be done,” said Graylock. “Tell me what can be done.”

  “Brian,” said Jacobs. “What we’re saying is that we can meet the targets for rice and corn. But we’re six months behind on wheat and rye.”

  “Right,” said Silver. “We would be eight months behind, but we can use greenhouses with fluorescent lights for the initial stage. That should shave off some time. But, beyond that, we can’t make the plants grow any faster.”

  “You are telling me that we will miss an entire growing season,” said Graylock. “That is unacceptable. That will cost this company hundreds of millions, maybe billions.”

  “Brian,” said Jacobs. “If we had gotten the seed on time, we would be sitting pretty. You can only hurry nature so much. We’re still waiting for some seed even now.”

  “All right,” said Graylock. “What we’re really concerned about is the domestic market in the first year. It will take another year for the rest of the world to be affected. What happens if we scale back the targets to just the American market?”

  Jacobs and Silver exchanged glances.

  “Well, that’s something we can work with,” said Silver. He flipped up the screen on a laptop computer and began inserting numbers into a spreadsheet program.

  “I think we might be pretty close,” he said a few minutes later. “Here, let me print this out so we can look at the spreadsheet.”

  Silver popped a small disk out of the laptop and walked out of the conference room. When he returned four minutes later, he had copies of a spreadsheet that he slid across the table to Jacobs and Graylock.

  “And this came out of the printer after I put some paper in,�
�� Silver held up a single sheet of paper with a column of numbers on it. Graylock held out his hand and Silver flipped the page toward him like it was a Frisbee.

  It slid to a stop in front of Graylock. He let it sit on the table while he studied the numbers. Then, he picked it up slowly, still studying it as he stood up and began walking toward the door.

  “We’ll go the production problems tomorrow morning,” he said as he walked out of the conference room, still staring at the page.

  Graylock walked into his massive office. During the day, it had a fantastic view of the rolling foothills. His desk was huge and made of teak. The walls were bare except for six oil paintings by Dutch masters.

  Graylock picked up one of his three telephones. He dialed the number for the guard house at the entrance of the employees’ parking lot. The guard was surprised to get a call from Graylock himself.

  “Who else came here tonight?” asked Graylock. He was silent while the guard ran through the short list of names.

  • • •

  SAM SCHWARTZ HAD put the dirty glasses into the dishwasher and switched it on. He was in his pajamas. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a container of Ben and Jerry’s Oreole Cookie ice cream. It was his usual bedtime snack, an indulgence he justified by speed walking two miles almost every morning.

  He hummed to himself as he scooped the ice cream into a clear glass bowl. He was relieved that the evening visit to AgriGenics had gone without a hitch. It was great to see Arthur again. He and Arthur had been communicating electronically for some time and recently he had been funneling Sendaki selected internal records and electronic messages. But, taking the young woman into the company and sneaking out with sensitive records was another matter. Exhilarating, but nerve wracking, too. Brian Graylock terrified him. He was as ruthless as he was devious. Schwartz hoped that what he had help find would help bring Graylock down.

  When the front doorbell rang, Schwartz put away the container and left the bowl on the counter with a spoon stuck in the ice cream. He wondered if Sendaki and Sarah had returned to ask him more questions.