The Hunt for the Tree of Life (Book One 1)

by Zulu, Arthur

  This provoked the Russian ambassador who said Israeli cover agents had faked passports of Canada, New Zealand, and European nations for nefarious purposes. The ambassador warned Israel to keep her pyromania in the Middle East or prepare to dance Russian roulette.

  Brickbats were thrown at one another. The arguments went on and on and the Secretary General had a hard time controlling the session.

  When it came for vote, Russia and China defeated it. So there was no condemnation, not even sanctions against the three-fingered nations.

  America however gave an ultimatum for the unconditional release of the professor by the three nations. If they fail, the U.S. will declare a unilateral three-frontal war on North Korea, Iran, and Cuba.

  That was how the meeting ended. The UN’s perennial malaise of finger pointing, suspicion, accusation and counter-accusation—not to add inaction—were all visible in the session.

  But the U.S. is not known for inaction and can do anything to save a citizen. So after the ultimatum, it rained bombs on the three suspected countries.

  Chapter 9

  The United States ambassador to China, Mr. Sam Albright, was beside himself. He kept shrugging his shoulders in disbelief and exclaiming as he and his unannounced visitor discussed over dinner in his diplomatic residence in Beijing. No, he must call Washington at once and break the big news to the Secretary of State. He stopped eating momentarily and made a phone call.

  “Yes, Mr. Ambassador. Have the Chinese broken human rights again?” asked Madam Victoria Pennington, the U.S. Secretary of State.

  “No, Madam Secretary. This is not about human rights violation.”

  “So what is it about this time?”

  “It’s delightful news, madam,”

  “Then don’t put me in suspense. You seem happy as if there is some great trade news from China.”

  “You won’t be able to guess, Madam Secretary. It’s Professor Muse. We are having dinner together right now in my residence in Beijing,” the ambassador said.

  “That’s the first wonder of the new millennium! How did you get him?” the surprised secretary asked.

  “The Chinese foreign minister accompanied by two women drove him to the embassy this afternoon, apologized, and handed him over to me. I couldn’t believe it.”

  “So the Chinese agents abducted him?”

  “Yes, madam. The professor has been telling me everything about it. He said he was drugged and locked up in a box perhaps together with a doctor attending to him, and flown to China. He was in the plane that crashed in Yangtze River.”

  “Oh, Eagle-Eye!” exclaimed the secretary.

  “I don’t mean Not-A-Fly, Madam Secretary. I mean Professor Muse. He was inside . . .”

  “Sorry, I was thinking of something else, Mr. Ambassador. Professor Muse survived the plane crash you said. Is he looking well?”

  “He is excellent, madam. He said the Chinese officials spoilt him.”

  “But was he a good American? You understand me: Did he live up to the Pledge of Allegiance?”

  “Yes, you can count on the professor’s patriotism,” the ambassador said.

  “Very good then. That’s really great news. I will brief the president. Put the professor on a chartered flight back to Washington tomorrow. I have a call on my other line.”

  “All right, Madam Secretary.”

  The ambassador now resumed his dinner and discussion with Professor Muse. He had delighted Washington.

  Professor Muse did not know that he was going to be freed on that day. The Chinese heard what the United States had done to North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. These innocent countries were being punished for China’s crime. Perhaps, the worst was yet to come to these nations.

  The three countries took their case to the United Nations. What would be China’s position as a member of the UN Security Council? They were playing a double role and it was time they did the right thing – release the American professor. After all, he had interpreted the Methuselah poem to them. Besides, they were going to hunt for the tree of life in the Pacific. They had to let the professor go.

  So, Mr. Bo Yong and the two ladies went to the residence of Professor Muse and told him to prepare to leave. After the surprised professor was ready, they gave him a CD as a gift and took him to the Chinese foreign affairs minister, who finally drove him to the United States ambassador with the two women agents.

  “You said that those two ladies who brought you with the minister also facilitated your kidnap?” the ambassador asked Muse.

  “Right, and as you may have noticed, they are belles—some Chinese goddesses, I suppose. I was captivated, Mr. Ambassador.”

  “I am not surprised. Beauty contest winners are always used in covert operations,” remarked the ambassador.

  “Do American intelligence agencies use beauty queens, too?”

  “As you know, Prof., there are many Marilyn Monroes parading the streets of America,” the ambassador punted. “Did they tell you their names?”

  “Yes, very clever women: Huizhong and Qiaohui. Their names mean wise and skillful.”

  They both laughed.

  “I didn’t realize how wise and skillful they were until I found myself on the airplane to China.”

  There was more laughter.

  “Those may not be their real names. They are their undercover pseudonyms. We didn’t find such names in the diplomatic passports that they left at Citizens after your kidnap,” said the ambassador.

  Professor Muse stopped eating for a moment in consternation.

  “They left diplomatic passports?” he asked.

  “Yes, twenty; belonging to North Koreans, Iranians, and Cubans.”

  “These folks must be ingenious. Do our American spies do such things, too?” asked the professor.

  The ambassador laughed.

  “That’s diplomatic laugh, Mr. Ambassador.”

  He only laughed the more.

  “Secret agents are secret agents. So what’s this secret language that the Chinese needed you for to interpret the poem?” he asked, parrying the question.

  “Oh, Harvardspeak. Every Harvard scholar knows it. They wanted to know the oracular of the prosody and I told them it is in omega.”

  “You have succeeded in confusing me,” the ambassador said.

  “Yes, I know. Even their Cambridge University literature doctor didn’t know it. They wanted to know the meaning of the poem and I told them that it is in the last line. However, the last line is the first.”

  “So you fooled the Chinese?”

  “Yes, I nabaled the yellow sun. That is the Harvardspeak for it. Nabal is the foolish man in the Bible, while the yellow circular sun stands for the yellow round faces of the Chinese.”

  “That’s brilliant. You fellows must be very creative in Harvard. I went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We are practical people.”

  “MIT? But you are an ambassador, and diplomats are chameleons.”

  “Diplomats are diplomats,” was all the ambassador could say, laughing. “Do you suspect anyone in your abduction,” he asked, always trying to dodge sensitive topics.

  “Yes. It’s my old Harvard friend, Professor Bright Cramwell. He is a walking Bible and I called him to give me Hebrew writing hints. The Chinese undercover agents have all the details of our discussion. He told them.”

  “That’s treacherous. Hand him over to the police when you get back home.”

  “Definitely, I will.”

  “Now come, let me show you your room. You will need to sleep well before you depart tomorrow for America.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.”

  And they left.

  Professor Muse was sitting on the bed in his room. What a beautiful place to sleep! He felt the mattress and looked around the room. This was a temporary place for him to pass the night before departure.

  Yet, it all looked as good as a living place. He should have been a diplomat. These ambassadors must be living on the hog. The ambass
ador had just shown him the place and left.

  He started to undress and his hand felt something hard in his pant pocket. Then he remembered the CD gift. He pulled it out, looked at it, wondering what the Chinese gift was. He would play it.

  He stood up, slotted it into the CD player, pressed Play, and waited. What he heard was stupefying. He stood listening:

  “You called my number, and it is my habit to return calls. I am Professor Bright Cramwell of Harvard. May I know you?”

  “Professor Muse, speaking.”

  “Muse, our laureate! Where have you been? Everyone’s looking for you.”

  “I am in Washington D.C., Cramwell.”

  “Oh, at American Beauty Rose? We know you will get there. Are you now the official poet of the White House?”

  “Not exactly, Cramwell. I am trying to solve a problem, that’s all.”

  “That must be a literary puzzle only fit for academic giants like you.”

  “But I need your assistance, Cramwell.”

  “I will be so humbled to help, Muse. What do you want? Can I recite Matthew or Malachi?”

  “You haven’t changed a bit, Cramwell.”

  “We are old birds now. We never change.”

  “Thanks, but this surpasses Bible recitations. I have my copy on my table now. Can we use Harvardspeak?”

  “Oh, that’s serious then. Go on!”

  “In Hebrew prosody, is oracular in alpha or omega?”

  “Oracular is in omega.”

  “Quote Inquisition Nemesis.”

  “Mother Muse 1:2.”

  “Any more questions?”

  “No, two is enough.”

  “Ask me more, our Nobel laureate.”

  “I have solved the big problem with those two answers. Glad to have people like you, Cramwell. I will invite you over to Washington for a Champagne Summit.”

  “That will be fantastic. But won’t be long there, else I change. So where and when will we meet?”

  “Saturday, 9 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. At Citizens Restaurant, America’s Main Street.”

  “I will find my way there, Muse. Thanks for the favor.”

  “Cramwell calling to confirm Saturday.”

  “Sure, unless I’m kidnapped. Keep yourself company with two women for us if you arrive first.”

  That was the end of the recorded telephone conversation between him and Cramwell.

  That was his gift!

  The Chinese bugged the line and heard everything. Yet, he was suspecting Cramwell for his woes and had even decided to report him to the police in America.

  He would have shot himself if he had a gun. He did himself in. Cramwell is a trusted friend and deserves an apology.

  The see-yourself CD started replaying. Chinese gift is like a Trojan horse. Angrily, he switched if off, dropped into the bed, and wept to sleep.

  Chapter 10

  President Wing Wang was hosting the Pacific-bound contingent with Chinese delicacies and wines. It was a happy company of detectives and scientists, including pharmacists and botanists.

  The team leader was Xin Cheung. He was going to try his good luck of a name in the Pacific.

  The president was now addressing them:

  “My fellow compatriots and dignified scientists. We are happy we now know the way to go. The great People’s Republic of China is grateful to you all.

  “The time has now come for you to finish the noble work that you began and shame America. It has been the dream of our forefathers to achieve longevity. That is why we are today the world’s leader in alternative medicine.

  “You are now going to the Pacific to cap the dream by discovering this omnipotent tree of life and conquer death forever.”

  There was a loud applause.

  “We know you can make it happen. You, therefore, do China proud and let the chief capitalist of the world know that communism is the answer to the world’s problems.”

  There was another ovation.

  “Let them say what they like about our country. After you get the fruit of the tree of life and our pharmacists develop the death-dealing drug, we will know who-is-who in the world.”

  There was more applause.

  “They will come to us with their tails between their legs because the much-maligned China will be the giver and taker of life. China will play God!”

  A bigger applause followed.

  “So you go and put us on the world map as the new superpower.

  “Thank you!”

  The applause following was deafening.

  Mr. Xin Cheung stood to reply the president.

  “We are humbled, Mr. President, to be entrusted with this search for the tree of life. There can be no better scientists in the world than the members of my team. And I promise we will reach this tree.”

  There was a loud ovation.

  “You can count on us, sir, that we will live up to the dreams of our great emperors and find an elixir for life. We have taken risks before to reach where we are today. Be assured that we are willing to take more risks to make China proud.”

  A deafening applause followed.

  “We thank you for the support you have given us, Mr. President. We will live up to expectation. We are coming back home with the fruit to justify your support. China will have the patent to the panacea and decide the fate of the rest of the world.

  “Thank you again, Mr. President!”

  The hall quaked with applause.

  After that, the group was entertained by Chinese traditional female dancers. It was a wonderful occasion.

  The next day, the team was airborne traveling as Medecins Sans Frontieres-- Doctors Without Borders.

  The American game plan was to put the Chinese team on slow motion. The Chinese would have to pay for kidnapping Professor Muse. The American team in Turkey had to gain momentum.

  Meanwhile, officials of the CIA were working secretly inside China.

  They were looking for something: the name of the Chinese plane taking off to hunt the tree of life and the time of departure. That was all. The information would be relayed to an American spy satellite for the master stroke!

  The much-awaited information was obtained a few days prior to China’s departure to the Pacific. America was now watching to know the fate of the Chinese aircraft.

  The Pacific is the world’s largest ocean with 181,300,000 square kilometers. The ocean covers about one-third of the surface of the earth.

  There are some 25,000 islands in the ocean, more than the total number of islands in the other oceans of the world. So looking for Eden in a particular island was like searching for a pebble in the ocean.

  However, the Chinese were not scanning every island in the Pacific. They were headed to French Polynesia, a French overseas territory, situated in the South Pacific.

  The journey had been smooth, but half-way into the Pacific, there was a problem. The airplane’s navigational instruments began to malfunction. How could this be explained?

  The Chinese pilot was using the VHF Omni-directional Range, which had been in touch with VOR transmitters in vicinity stations—helping him to determine his position in the flight, but not anymore. Something was interfering with the compass!

  He could not hear the Morse code identifier from stations to know his “radial,” and the Omni Bearing Selector knob was not working. All he was seeing was a red flag indication, meaning lost.

  Now, this was weird because there was a thorough check thirty days prior to departure. What would the pilot and his co-pilot do?

  Of course pilots know from their flight schools that there are different ways to fly without a compass. So he tried the tricks.

  First, he used the pilotage method by observing landmarks and geographical features. It was proving difficult for him to visually identify the thousands of islands in the Pacific even with the help of charts as they fled past.

  Then he tried the dead reckoning system by using maps to calculate location and distances. However, he was not
getting result since he could not figure out wind direction and speed.

  Last, he used sun direction. The flight took off in the morning. The sun was in the East at the time, it is still in the East. He applied elementary geography: When you face the sun in the morning, your face is toward the East, your back is to the West, and your left is to the North, while your right is to the South. That was clear enough. He was flying south but just which place in the South, was what he did not know.

  They were in the Devil’s Triangle, thought the pilot—that part of the North Atlantic Ocean, reputed for the mysterious disappearances of ships and aircrafts—famously called the Bermuda Triangle. In fact, the pilot began to doubt the authenticity of the sun direction. They might as well be in the North Atlantic!

  He just kept flying, looking for land to land the aircraft.

  The passengers in the airplane were unaware of the pilot’s ordeal. That was pilot’s life—bear what you see in the sky. Every occupation has its hazard.

  What the travelers knew was that they were flying to French Polynesia, but the flight seemed to be taking long. The weather was getting very cold too. These French islands must be cold and far places, they thought.

  But that was not the case anyway. Because the pilot was seeing vast frozen land ahead of them. So they were in the Antarctic Circle? Unbelievable!

  Yes, this was not French Polynesia.

  They were lost in the frozen continent of Antarctica.

  Antarctica, which means “opposite to the north,” is the earth’s most southern continent and fifth largest with an area of 12,950,000 square kilometers. It is 98% ice, 1.6 kilometers thick, a desert continent without human habitation. Only researchers and daring tourists visit Antarctica.

  The frozen continent holds some 90% of the total ice in the world, which if melted would pump up sea level by probably 60 meters and submerge much of the earth. This is against the ominous sign that global warming has created a gigantic ozone hole over Antarctica and the continent is warming up.

  Antarctica is habitat to animals and birds, marine creatures and microorganisms that have adapted to living in the harsh terrain. It is also home to meteorites that had fallen from asteroids and the planets, shedding light to the study of the solar system.

  The continent is a neutral territory though certain countries have made claims to some regions. They include the United States and Russia, Spain and South Africa, Brazil and Peru, among others. The neutrality of Antarctica is symbolized by an official white flag, the shape of the continent.