Tree of Life

by J. F. Penn

  Camara nodded. “Yes, we leave tomorrow. Why do you ask?”

  Sebastian pulled out a letter with the seal of the Senegalese Republic. “I’m researching the Wagadou, the ancient empire of Ghana, and you’re going near the area I need to visit. Do you have room for one more?” He opened his jacket, indicating a fat wallet of West African francs. “I’m willing to pay and I have generous backers.”

  His money and his smile had been more than enough to convince Camara. She’d sourced a second vehicle with his cash, so they had more than enough room for her extra equipment, and she expanded her team to include another research assistant and driver. Sebastian joined them the next morning, a military pack on his back with his own gear, and they set off into the Sahel.

  It was a magical time. Camara and her assistants gathered samples by day, working to understand the unique biogeographic realm and how plants survived in such a variable climate. Sebastian headed off every morning to photograph remote buried villages and catalogue stories from tribal elders.

  In the evenings, they sat together by the fire, talking of their various discoveries. One night, after the others retired to their tents, Sebastian beckoned Camara to join him on the top of the Land Rover. The stars were bright diamonds in the velvet sky above, and he named the constellations in English while she told him the French words and some African tribal expressions.

  When she shivered with the cold, he opened his jacket and with only a moment’s hesitation, Camara moved into his arms. Their fingers entwined, their lips met, and as the stars of the southern hemisphere shone above, they both found something that transcended culture and history.

  During that precious time in the Sahel, Camara was truly happy. They made the most of every moment, exploring the landscape by day and each other by night. She wished that time would stand still and they could stay far away from the city forever, but life moved on regardless and the research trip was soon over.

  On the day they arrived back in Dakar, Sebastian went back to his lodgings, promising to visit her in the evening. When he returned far later than expected, he was distant and a little cold, his gaze fixed beyond her on the horizon. Then he kissed her and all was forgotten as she melted in his arms once more.

  The next morning, Camara woke with the dawn and turned over, a lazy smile on her face, expecting to see Sebastian asleep beside her.

  But he was gone.

  She lay there for a while expecting him to walk back in the door with his aristocratic smile, a pot of fresh coffee in his hand. But when he did not return, Camara began to worry. There were many things that could befall an Englishman known to have money in the capital of Senegal.

  By the time she made it to his lodgings, the sun was high overhead. The guesthouse manager looked at her with pity. Sebastian had left for the airport earlier, his final bill paid in full. There had been a letter from England waiting for him — perhaps that had been the catalyst for his departure.

  Camara walked the streets of Dakar that day, exhausting herself as she tried to forget the way his laugh made her smile, how his blue eyes lit up at the sight of her, and how they had lain together under the moonlight.

  How could she have ever thought it would last? He was a British aristocrat, heir to a fortune, and she was a poor Senegalese botanist. Their skin color was only a tiny part of their difference. One they didn’t consider important — but others certainly did.

  As the weeks went by, Camara hoped for a letter of explanation, but Sebastian never contacted her again. She channeled her anger into research, rapidly excelling in her field. She applied for every position that would enable her to leave Senegal and her old life behind, finally winning a place at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel to study paleo-botany. It was a junior role, but it was her way out and eventually, Camara made it to Paris, her dream even as a child.

  She had searched for Sebastian later in life and discovered that his father had died while they were out in the Sahel. He had returned to take over custodianship of the John Soane Museum in London. Camara considered Sebastian’s love of freedom, his passion for exploration, and she couldn’t imagine that man tied down to some crumbling old institution — but she also knew he deeply respected his father and the duties of family.

  As her career progressed, there had been men in her life, and much love and happiness, but Camara had never forgotten those nights in the Sahel and the English aristocrat who made her feel like an African queen.

  As the plane jolted beneath her, she thought of Sebastian as he now was, a fragile old man, and hoped that she would have a chance to see him once more.

  Recife, Brazil

  As Morgan phoned and left a message for Aurelia at the headquarters of the mining empire, Jake paced up and down on the edge of the busy plaza. The sound of samba drums and the cavaquinho guitar filled the air and a group of locals danced on the shore, laughing with the joy of movement amongst friends, bottles of cold Bohemia Weiss beer in their hands.

  But Jake didn’t feel like celebrating.

  He stared out across the water to the reef beyond, where modern sculptures stood like sentinels against the wild ocean on the other side. The next stop east was Angola, Africa, once a Portuguese colony with one of the biggest slave ports. Only tiny Ascension Island lay in the thousands of miles between the continents, a British Overseas Territory maintained for strategic reasons in the middle of the Atlantic.

  Jake found his thoughts as turbulent as the sea, tumbling with memory and regret. As much as he knew it made sense to try to make a deal with Aurelia dos Santos Fidalgo, he dreaded the thought of seeing Frik again and it seemed impossible to think that the pair of them could put their differences aside and work together to find Eden.

  He had made mistakes in his life, of course he had. No one lived without some form of regret, but Jake had tried to make up for the lives lost and damaged in the mining accident that scarred Frik. He had thought the balance tipped in his favor over the years by the massacres prevented, catastrophes averted, and destruction halted in his missions with ARKANE — and in truth, he hadn’t thought of the mine in years. But Frik’s fury gave him pause.

  It was the butterfly effect in action. A tiny mis-judgment made, an angry word spoken instead of withheld, a decision taken in a moment of rage that led to a man pursuing a path of violence. Ripples spread out from each blow of a fist and slash of a blade until it was impossible to know how many lives had been impacted by his spur-of-the-moment decision long ago.

  A shout rang out from one of the excited crowd and Jake turned to see the young people laughing together as they danced, couples holding hands, smiling and flirting. Their skin tones varied from light European descent, through the darker shades of those with indigenous ancestors to the black skin of those who could trace their blood to Africa. This country was the very definition of mixed race, the butterfly effect of hundreds of brutal decisions, the death and transplantation of millions — and yet, this cultural richness was the result and these young people were the hope of a positive future.

  Jake couldn’t change his past, just as Europeans could not wipe out the impact of historical colonization and slavery on the world. He could only move forward and try to make amends. Perhaps he and Frik could overcome their broken past and work together after all.

  Morgan’s phone buzzed with a message, and Jake hurried over to read the details with her.

  Aurelia was willing to meet. They were going to Rio.

  16

  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  The helicopter swooped over the city toward the mountain topped by the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer, his outstretched arms welcoming all who visited.

  Morgan gazed out the window at the packed streets below, the districts that led to the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon and the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. She imagined diving beneath the cool water, letting the waves wash away thoughts of the mission and her worries about the missing professor, as well as S
ebastian, still in recovery after the poisoning. She did not want another unnecessary death on her conscience.

  They landed near the crest of the mountain, named Temptation Peak by the Portuguese when they arrived in the 1500s but now known as Corcovado for its resemblance to a hunchback. The wind picked up as Morgan and Jake emerged from the helicopter, a stiff breeze blowing in the scent of salt from the ocean and cedar wood from the Tijuca National Park below, the largest urban forest in the world.

  A winding path took them up to the main viewing area, a series of concrete platforms around the towering statue of the Redeemer. A stunning view lay beyond in every direction — to the city, the beaches and the forest below.

  It was still early, so there were only a few tourists around with no sign of Aurelia or her bodyguard. Morgan had some doubt as to whether they would even show up, and she and Jake were alert to the possibility that they might try to take the remaining piece by force. But time was running out, and this seemed like the only practical way forward.

  Morgan walked to the railing and looked out across the Bay of Guanabara. Its hilly green islands sparkled in the morning sun, a light mist blowing across the peninsula like a veil over a mystical land.

  “It’s beautiful,” she sighed. “I wish we had more time to…”

  Her words trailed off as she turned back toward Jake. Behind him, only meters away, Aurelia dos Santos Fidalgo, the fine-boned heiress, stood with Frik Versfeld, his muscular frame seemingly even larger next to her diminutive size.

  Jake spun around and Morgan put a hand on his arm to hold him back. She could sense his barely restrained desire to finish what Frik had started with Ines’s death, and if she was honest, Morgan would be happy to help. But they needed those fragments, and she was willing to put aside their differences to achieve the greater goal. The living were more important than the dead.

  Frik stared at Jake with a murderous gaze, his scarred neck flushed as he tamped down the rage that threatened to explode. But Aurelia smiled as she walked down the plaza steps, a look of serenity on her face as she approached, her bodyguard close by but clearly under orders to stay quiet.

  “Welcome to my beautiful country.” She opened her arms, echoing the Redeemer’s pose high above her. Morgan considered that the heiress might well think of herself as some kind of saint, protecting Nature with her actions. Perhaps a modern day Francis of Assisi, who gave up his wealthy life to serve God, eventually becoming patron saint of animals and the natural environment.

  “I’m glad you called,” Aurelia said. “It seems our interests are aligned.”

  She walked to the edge of the viewing platform and stood within Morgan’s reach. Frik stretched out a hand to stop the heiress from moving too close, but she held up one palm in a quick gesture, a clear direction to leave her alone. He remained alert a little further back, eyes flicking back and forth between Morgan and Jake, ready for any sudden movement.

  Jake edged away from Morgan, splitting the bodyguard’s attention even further. Aurelia continued, unaware of the unspoken power play between the three professionals around her.

  “I’ve formally requested the fragment from the synagogue in Recife. The mayor was a dear friend of my late father and he is expediting the request. It will be here later today.” She turned to Morgan. “So, I’d really like the piece of the map you found in Jamaica to complete my collection.”

  Aurelia exuded the entitlement of the ultra-rich, so used to people giving her what she wanted that she assumed no opposition to her goal. But Morgan had known many like her, especially in her years at the University of Oxford, and she would not be intimidated. She gave a half-smile. “What do you expect the map to give you that you don’t already have?”

  Aurelia pointed down at the forest below.

  “These trees began their journey around three hundred million years ago, but humanity takes them for granted. Each leaf is a miracle of creation, and yet for all our architectural accomplishments, we still don’t know how to construct something as perfect. We only know how to destroy them.”

  She sighed. “Did you know that we’ve cut down over fifty billion trees in the last ten years? We are literally killing the natural world that sustains us, and in the process, we’re killing ourselves. But Nature doesn’t need us. In fact, She would be better off without our species. The map will lead us to Eden, and I believe something there will tip the balance in Her favor. It’s time to end the Anthropocene, the age of humans.”

  Aurelia spoke emphatically with seemingly no sense that she described the annihilation of her own species in order that all others could live. While Morgan certainly understood the devastation that humans did on the face of the Earth, they also achieved wonderful things in conjunction with nature. Most people wanted a better world for their children, and the majority wanted to protect and sustain the environment. Morgan believed that the world tipped to the side of good at least 51% of the time — and that would be enough to solve the problems of the world.

  Of course, ARKANE played only a tiny part in the daily fight to keep the world in balance, and she and Jake had met some truly evil people during their missions, but it had never dented her belief that humanity was fundamentally good.

  Aurelia had a darker view of the world, and as Morgan glimpsed the fanatical side of the heiress, she wondered what might truly lie in Eden. Was the Garden a paradise for humans or a haven for nature without the polluters and destroyers that threatened the Earth?

  “How often do we even see plants?” Aurelia continued. “We live by their grace, and yet we wander the Earth with only an occasional glance in their direction. This world should be green and yet, we turn more of it grey every day with our endless urge to expand. Why should we endlessly procreate and expand our species at the expense of all others?” She clenched her fists. “Enough. It is time for a change.”

  Jake tuned out Aurelia’s tirade as he concentrated on Frik, his gaze fixed on the massive South African. Neither man looked away, both of them communicating wordless aggression. There was hate in Frik’s eyes, but more than that, anticipation. Jake was certain that this encounter would not end in a friendly truce where they all joined in harmony to search for Eden. The only question was how it would play out.

  He couldn’t help but look at the scars around Frik’s neck. Where once he might have felt a twinge of guilt at the part he played in the injuries, now he could only see the mutilation of Ines and imagine her death at the hands of this monster. Aurelia ranted of nature and its place in the world, while she allowed this abomination to roam free, torturing and killing.

  With each slow breath, Jake focused on Frik, waiting for the move that would inevitably come. There was too much unfinished business between them.

  A second later, Frik’s face reddened, his eyes blazing with the anger he could no longer restrain. He took a step forward, his right hand moving to the small of his back.

  As he pulled out his gun, Jake took two huge strides away from Morgan, diving and commando rolling behind the side of the statue’s plinth. He trusted that she would manage Aurelia while Frik couldn’t help but seek revenge on his old foe.

  Gunshots pinged against the stone.

  Frik was coming for him fast.

  Jake grinned, the manic smile of a warrior going into battle, relishing the adrenalin of action. Bring it on.

  He looked around for options. A maintenance door stood ajar just a few feet away in the statue's base with a sign permitting no entry to the public. Jake jumped up and ran, making it inside as another bullet pinged against the metal.

  Morgan dived for the ground in the opposite direction to Jake as the first gunshot pinged on the concrete plinth.

  Aurelia collapsed to the pavement beside her, curling up into a fetal position. Her bravado disappeared in the wake of actual violence, while her bodyguard left her behind to pursue his long-held revenge.

  As Frik chased Jake, Morgan rolled to her feet and stood over the cowering heiress, yanking her up e
asily. The woman was so frail that Morgan was a little worried she would break, but under the skin, she could feel wiry muscles. The heiress was clearly tougher than she looked.

  “Where are the other fragments?” Morgan demanded, trying to focus on the ultimate goal while she worried for Jake. If she went to help him, Aurelia would escape and she couldn’t let that happen. Her partner was on his own.

  Jake slammed the door shut behind him and rammed the lock home. It wouldn’t stop Frik for long. He ran up inside the statue, taking two narrow steps at a time, rounding a corner and startling a maintenance worker.

  The man put his hands up as if in surrender as Jake approached. “Por favor não me machuque.”

  Jake understood his gesture and nodded. “It’s OK, I’m not going to hurt you. But you need to hide.”

  He indicated a storage cupboard. “Stay in there. Wait until it’s quiet again.” He put a finger to his lips.

  The man understood his intention and shuffled over to the storage unit. He folded himself inside, eyes wide with fear as he pulled the door closed.

  The sound of metal rattling. A gunshot. The squeak of the door opening below.

  Footsteps up the staircase. Frik was inside.

  Jake ran up another level. The chamber opened out just under the shoulders of Christ, with a series of maintenance ladders leading up to trapdoors overhead, each emerging on a different part of the statue.

  He spun around, looking for anything that could help. The walls were plain concrete with fixed points to attach safety harnesses. But there was nothing he could use, and Frik had a gun. This tiny chamber would be a death trap against such a weapon.

  Jake looked up. There was only one option. He took a deep breath and climbed one ladder, quickly pushing open the trapdoor, even as the footsteps below grew closer.