Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series) (20 page)

Citing national security concerns, Technology and the government will not reveal the precise nature and purpose of the research performed by Genetics for the government. The plaintiffs and defendants have stipulated that such information will not be introduced at trial aside from the government’s representation that the work is ‘vital to the national interest.’

--submitted by Arthur Sendaki

The final document in the file was a one-paragraph memo to the file from Donsen dated a month earlier. It said simply that he suspected AgriGenics, Inc. was supplying the biological weapons. Scrawled across the memo was a handwritten note. Pamela Donsen had identified the writing as her husband’s. The note read:

Ordered to turn file over to Spreckel and cease further work. National security.

“What do you think?” asked Lee after they had finished reading through the documents yet another time.

“It’s frightening, isn’t it?” said Sarah.

“Well, it looks pretty chilling,” said Lee. “But, I’m not sure what it all means. At least it tells us something about Donsen’s thinking. We have to assume all of these documents are in the official file, too.”

“Do you think the official file reached AgriGenics and that started this entire nightmare?” asked Sarah.

“Maybe,” said Lee. “Or, it could have just been the nature of Donsen’s investigation, the questions he was asking that made someone panic.”

“Let’s start at the beginning and think about how all this unfolded,” he said.

“Okay,” said Sarah. “Donsen gets the initial investigative report. It’s almost too much to believe, particularly coming from a source who is unreliable. He is intrigued but probably mentally puts it into his ‘unconfirmed rumor’ file.”

“The next thing that happens is that Donsen starts seeing the news articles about strange diseases affecting the places identified by the informant,” said Lee. “Maybe the first one or two he chalks up to coincidence. But, when it becomes three, the red flag goes up. And then he remembers the moot court hypo.”

“Deja vu,” said Sarah.

“Exactly,” said Lee. “It makes everything he’s finding seem familiar, like he’s seen it before, particularly the sheep infected with hoof-and-mouth disease. It’s right out of the moot court problem. It must have seemed eerie.”

“So Donsen calls his friend, Bob Weiskauf, to discuss all this,” said Sarah. “And Weiskauf has saved the original moot court hypo and sends it to Donsen who puts it in the file.”

“With your names plastered all over it,” said Lee. “Anyone seeing it might assume you all are talking, particularly if they know Donsen and Weiskauf are exchanging phone calls.”

“Then, Donsen, and perhaps Weiskauf, begin making inquiries of their own,” said Sarah. “Somehow, they established a connection with AgriGenics. They start trying to reach people like Arthur Sendaki.”

“Donsen is doing things that are getting back to AgriGenics,” Lee said. “And then, suddenly the big kibosh is put on it. Orders come from somewhere to stop everything. It’s a matter of national security.”

“And then people begin to die.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lee. “And then people begin to die, starting with Donsen, at least as far as we know at this point. And if the hypo is real, it suggests that it isn’t just AgriGenics with something to hide. If the government is involved in a secret program involving germ warfare, or whatever, they don’t want our enemies to find out. Plus, the Cold War is over. This kind of thing probably isn’t legal.”

“So, is this it?” said Sarah. “Is this why this is happening?”

“Well, there are still some big holes,” said Lee. “Why was your aunt killed when her name doesn’t appear in these documents? We also don’t know how Donsen made the connection with AgriGenics. We just have to assume there is one.”

“Enzo, isn’t this enough?” asked Sarah. “Why can’t we just turn this file over to someone and let them investigate?”

“It’s still circumstantial, Sarah,” he said. “I mean the important evidence is from an unreliable informant, newspaper clippings and a six-year-old moot court problem. This is a good tale but that’s about it.”

“I wouldn’t believe it if someone dropped this on my desk,” Lee went on. “And, that doesn’t take into consideration that people in and out of the government will try to cover this up and discredit us. We’ve got to find more. If we’re lucky, maybe Sendaki will give us what we need.”

What Lee didn’t say was that he feared the meeting with Sendaki that they were headed for was a setup. After all, Brent Donsen’s death had coincided with his attempts to reach the AgriGenics’ founder. Lee’s instinct was to take the chance, but to try not to imperil Sarah. The way he saw it was that Donsen had been killed because he was getting close to the truth. Since they were hunting for the same answers, they had no choice but to follow in Donsen’s footsteps.

Lee was also counting on the bad blood between Sendaki and Graylock. One guy had screwed the other out of the control of his company. Lee was hoping that the desire for revenge was still alive. Besides, Donsen hadn’t known what he was up against until it was too late. If he and Sarah didn’t make any stupid mistakes, they could buy themselves some time. Lee just hoped it would be enough.

Chapter 25

DENNIS PEACHTRIE SMOOTHED his tie once again, checked his watch and smiled at the matronly receptionist.

“He’s
always
late,” said Elizabeth Walters, smiling slyly. “But, I’m sure he’ll be here any minute now.”

Peachtrie had spotted the AgriGenics ad posted in one of the laboratories at Stanford. He figured it was custom made for him. The listing was for a Ph.d in molecular biology who also had a background in botany. Peachtrie had a freshly minted doctorate degree. He also had studied botany as an undergraduate at Princeton. At 27, he was excited about the prospects of working outside the halls of academia for the first time in his life.

The door behind Elizabeth Walters opened suddenly. The man who shot through it was wearing a white lab coat, brown corduroy pants and tennis shoes. He was of medium height and a bit on the heavy side. Peachtrie guessed he was in his early 40s. His brown hair was curly and uncombed. He had blue eyes and when he focused them on Peachtrie, they twinkled and stayed open without blinking.

“Are you Peachtrie?” the man said, flashing a demonic grin. “I’m Fish.”

“Hello, Mister Fish,” said Peachtrie. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Call me G. W.,” said Fish. “Everybody does. C’mon through and I’ll show you the lab.”

Peachtrie was impressed with the facilities. Compared to the laboratories he had become accustomed to as a graduate student, they were spacious. He noted the row of centrifuges, sitting along one wall like a bank of clothes washers. A couple of them were in use.

They passed a machine that looked a bit like a fancy espresso maker with four brown bottles hanging down in front and a keypad on the right. Peachtrie recognized it as a DNA synthesizer. The bottles held Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine and Guanine, the four molecules that form the paired bases that hold together DNA’s double helix, like the steps of a ladder. One had only to punch in the desired order of molecules and the machine would do the rest.

Everywhere there were computers, microscopes, rows of clean beakers and test tubes. They passed several researchers working at their benches. Most had long, syringe-like tools that they were using to transfer fluids from one test tube or vial into another. Every other bench seemed to have an agitator in use, a small machine with a metal tray moving relentlessly in a circular motion sloshing around the liquid contents of several beakers.

Peachtrie saw two machines that looked like large metal boxes attached to a video tube. He knew these were sequencers. Provided with a piece of DNA, the sequencers could automatically determine its structure. A researcher could turn it on in the evening and come back in the morning to find a printout several pages long filled with the letter “A,” “T,” “C,” and “G” in whatever order the molecules appeared in the DNA.

Fish had dashed through the lab areas at a fast pace, gesturing left and right and talking over his shoulder so that Peachtrie only caught half of what he said. It didn’t matter. Peachtrie had spent the last three years in laboratories doing genetic research. He didn’t need a guided tour.

Finally, Fish stopped at a glass door that looked like the entrance to a walk-in refrigerator. He gestured for Peachtrie to go in first.

There was some type of sticky paper on the floor just inside the entrance. The room was actually warm, almost humid. Peachtrie saw that it was quite large, easily a hundred feet long by twenty feet wide. It was filled with metal racks and fluorescent lights. Petri dishes were everywhere. Some looked empty. Others had little spots on the bottom. Still others were filled with growth, either moldy looking or the beginnings of an identifiable plant.

Fish walked to the wall away from the door. There were two long plexiglass boxes with small plants growing out of square containers like you’d find at a nursery. The plexiglass boxes had filtered air holes.

“You probably know more about these plants than I do,” said Fish. “I’ve learned all the botany I know in the last two years. On the job training. Do you know what
Puccinia graminis
is?”

“Sure,” said Peachtrie. “It’s one of the basidiomycetes fungi. Isn’t that the one that causes stem rust on wheat and some of the other grains?”

Fish was nodding vigorously. “Very good. Yes.
Graminis
and the related rusts probably knock out ten percent of the world’s grain production every year. In bad years, the loss in the United States runs to hundreds of millions of tons of wheat.”

“See this box?” said Fish, putting his hand on a plexiglass box at knee level. “There are eight cultivars, or varieties, of wheat in here. Each strain is supposedly resistant to
graminis formae specialis
, the form of
graminis
that typically attacks wheat. You understand that even
specialis
comes in different strains that are evolving all the time?”

“Of course,” said Peachtrie. “That’s why farmers use multiple cultivars and change them from year to year. A disease might evolve and overcome one variety, but probably not the others. You avoid an epidemic, not to mention the financial loss of having your crop wiped out.”

“Correct,” said Fish. “It’s a game of science trying to outguess nature. A resistant variety is only good for a few years before the disease naturally mutates and overcomes the resistance. So, new varieties are always being developed. It takes several years to do the cross breeding and testing to get a new strain ready.

“Each of the plants in this box has been exposed to the garden variety of
specialis
,” Fish continued, tapping on the box.

Peachtrie looked at the plants inside the box. Most of them looked completely normal. He saw some small brown spots on the stems of two plants, evidence that the fungus had penetrated the plant tissue. But, the spots were small and isolated. Even the infected plants seemed to have contained the fungus by encircling the sites of entry with dead cells to cut the flow of nutrients that would nourish the parasitic growth.

“Now,” said Fish, moving his hand up to the upper box. “Look at the other box.”

Peachtrie inspected the upper box. Every plant inside showed the signs of severe infection, long elliptical blisters on the stem and leaves. Some of the blisters had little pockets of a reddish powdery substance. Most of the stems looked so weakened that they would never reach maturity.

Peachtrie knew that the red powder was actually the reproductive spores of the fungus. Eventually, they would spread the disease. He knew that under the right windy conditions, the spores could travel hundreds of miles until rain washed them out of the air to infect what lay beneath them. He recalled from his botany studies that one particular tobacco fungus originated under certain conditions in Virginia and the Carolinas and then routinely made its way to Canada in less than a month.

“Amazing,” said Peachtrie. “They’re completely blown away. Completely. What happened?”

Fish was beaming.

“It was actually a very simple procedure,” Fish explained. “We grew the basic
specialis
fungus and subjected it to radiation. Then we applied it to one of the resistant strains. Obviously, we were exposing the plant to millions of mutations of the fungus caused by the radiation. Some of the mutations took hold. Then we took the successful mutations, the ones that infected the plant and grew, and applied them to the next resistant strain. We just kept doing that. At the end, we had the one in a ten million mutations that knocked out all the resistant varieties of wheat.”

“So, you basically sped up nature,” said Peachtrie.

“Exactly,” said Fish, sounding like a teacher pleased with his clever student. “We created in minutes the number of mutations that would occur over a period of years. Then, we used the resistant host plants themselves to select out the successful mutations. The unsuccessful ones never took hold and didn’t reproduce. We used natural selection in all its glory.”

Peachtrie was impressed. It was an incredibly simple and ingenious procedure, one that didn’t really require sophisticated genetic engineering techniques. He was wondering why it had never occurred to him to try it. Then, the full implications of Fish’s accomplishment hit him.