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

by Zulu, Arthur

  “None, sir. A young Chinese man recently bought the only one.”

  “Then you should have said you sold the only one, not the last one,” Eagle-Eye corrected her.

  “Pardon my grammar, sir. I don’t know many English. I sold the only one.”

  She did not want to get into trouble with this man. She must dance according to his tune.

  Eagle-Eye shook his head in dismay. Chinese do not understand English. He could see that clearly from her faulty grammatical construction: “I don’t know many English.” He wondered how they got along in this Uncle Sam’s country.

  “What sea did you get the flower?” asked Eagle-Eye forgiving her.

  “I do not know, sir. We bought it from a man who said he found it at sea. But I didn’t ask him which.”

  “What! So you don’t know you should ask those questions? You should have asked him: Is it the White Sea of the Russian Federation? Or is it the Black Sea between Europe and Asia? Or is it the Red Sea separating North Africa from the Arabian Peninsula? Or is it the Yellow Sea dividing China and Korea? So many seas . . . name them by their colors. It could as well have come from the strange sea of Okhotsk where cows fall from the sky. Those are questions that you should have asked—right questions, okay?”

  Eagle-Eye was moving restlessly.

  “I will ask that next time, sir. I do not know many things. Never knew cows fall from the sky.”

  Eagle-Eye pitied the woman’s ignorance.

  “I don’t tell stories. Go, find out. Stranger things have happened in your part of the world. You should be telling me.”

  “Sorry, sir, but I don’t come from Siberia.”

  Eagle-Eye felt more pity for her. She clearly has no formal education. Doesn’t even know basic geography.

  “You are Chinese—from Guangdong province, according to my investigation,” he said. “Chinese and Russians are Asians—and Siberia is in Russia. That makes you Asian.”

  “Yes, sir, I am.” She became really fearful. How did he know her roots? Or had Shing told him? This man is a real spy.

  “Good, that’s what I meant,” said Eagle-Eye.

  At least she went to primary school.

  “I don’t tell stories like the ones you are telling me right now. Because that flower came from the sea. Could as well be your East China Sea. Do you harvest seaweeds over there and sell them as flowers here in America and make your dollars?”

  ‘No, sir. It might as well be a river,” replied Meiying.

  “No, don’t give me that channel! We have evidence to the contrary. It was either found in the sea, a salt lake, or an ocean,” corrected Eagle-Eye.

  “I apologize, sir.”

  She was wondering what other evidence this man might have found.

  “Okay. Who sold you the flower?”

  “I don’t know his name, sir. But he is a New Yorker.”

  “What did you say? You don’t know this seller’s name?” shouted Eagle-Eye. “What name did you write on the check?”

  “I paid him in cash, sir. Dollar bills.”

  “You mean you keep all that money in your shop?”

  What would she answer now?

  “I went to the bank on that day to make cash withdrawals for some purchases, sir,” she said.

  “Good, you have a bank account in America, not offshore. Not in some Chinese bank. I mark you Good on that. Now, is this John Doe or Richard Roe from Twenty-seventh East or Twenty-seventh West? Thirteen Street or Thirtieth Street? Is he from upstate or downstate New York?”

  “I’m sorry I don’t know either.”

  “You mean you didn’t have an informal talk with this man regarding where he came from before buying the flower?”

  “I can’t remember, sir.”

  She wished she had not bought it. She was not grilled like this at the United States embassy in Beijing before obtaining her visa.

  “You have short memory—memory lapse. Could be telltale signs of an ailment. Try, see a doctor, okay?”

  “I will, sir.”

  “Good. Does this New Yorker look like a sailor or a pirate?”

  “I wouldn’t know, sir. But I think he is a gentleman.”

  She was getting tired of answering questions.

  “All right then, can I have a photo of this your gentleman?”

  Now, this was too much.

  “I didn’t take his picture, sir.”

  “No, I mean your CCTV images. Can I come over to look at this man?”

  Meiying shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t have a CCTV in my shop, sir.”

  She would not even have had him as visitor if she had one. Eagle-Eye was flustered.

  “You mean you’ve been in business for seven years without a CCTV in your shop?”

  “It’s a small business, sir. We are not making a lot of money,” she answered defensively.

  “Don’t tell me that. You are making tons of cash. Now, tell me. How much did you sell the flower?”

  “Fifteen thousand dollars, sir,” Meiying answered without thinking.

  “Okay. Is that not so much money for just a flower? The amount on your receipt is fifteen thousand dollars but the price tag on the flower is ten thousand dollars. Can you explain the difference?” Eagle Eye asked.

  She had forgotten that.

  “Charges, sir,” she replied cautiously.

  “What costs? It’s too much. Don’t fleece your customers, okay?”

  “All right, sir.”

  This woman really needs help, thought Eagle-Eye. She had not learnt a thing in seven years!

  “Now, I will let you go. Ask questions, keep records, write checks, get a CCTV, don’t charge too much, and yes, continue to bank in America! Do you understand me?”

  “I do, sir. Thank you very much for the advice.”

  Meiying dropped into her seat, exhausted. Thank God, he did not ask her how much she bought the flower. He would have sent detectives to seal up her shop. She pitied Shing, who she imagined must have been going through a crucible at the airport.

  Eagle-Eye looked toward the counter. Shing and his officers were still waiting. Yes, let them wait. He was not done yet. Even if it meant the traveler missing his flight, he would not give a damn. He had to get to the bottom of this flower. The full story had not yet been told.

  His instinct told him that there was something unexplained about the flower. He got those hunches from time to time. Some call it clairvoyance.

  Security operatives needed it in addition to their training and experience. Hunches had led to major breakthroughs.

  That was how he suspected that there were people in the Chinese diplomatic crate. It was too large and weighed too much.

  Now, he would call Washington about this unusual flower. Who would permit him to impound it? He wouldn’t break rules this time.

  The coffee girl offered him another cup of coffee. He took it and called.

  “The Chinese are at it again, sir.”

  The Secretary of the Department of Transport was wondering what the JFK director was talking about.

  “Yes, Maj. Eagle-Eye. What’s up their sleeves now?” he asked.

  “A Chinese man—no, boy, twenty-one years—is found with an unknown flower.”

  “Then it’s not the Chinese people. Just a boy . . . ”

  “Yes, you know, Mr. Secretary that they like to work in group. This might be the abridged version of an odyssey,” Eagle-Eye said, interrupting.

  “Very well then. What is this rare flower you are talking about?”

  “Adam’s flower, sir.”

  The secretary laughed.

  “There is no flower like that in all the earth. Think seriously, director. Have you heard of any? Where did he buy the flower?”

  “A shop at Chinatown in Lower Manhattan.”

  “That’s it! Don’t you know what goes on in Chinatowns across the United States? You can buy a clay tablet for a color TV in Chinatown. They sold him a mythical flower.”

  “Co
uld it not be an endangered specie to be seized, Mr. Secretary?”

  “No, there is no flower like that on earth. It is not an endangered specie.”

  “Okay, sir, let me write that.” He brought out his diary and wrote: ‘No, there is no flower like that on earth. It is not an endangered specie.’

  “But it could have been stolen, sir.”

  “Do you have any evidence to that effect?” asked the secretary.

  “No, sir. You know what happens in Chinatowns. They buy and sell stolen goods.”

  The Secretary of Transport knew he would not give up easily.

  “There is no evidence, director. You know the law does not operate in a vacuum. It is not space science. But even in astronomy, scientists guess by known laws of nature,” he said, giving him some layman lecture in astrophysics.

  “You are right, sir. I am guessing through what we know about the Chinese. Remember Professor Muse.”

  “Yes, I do. But let’s work on facts.”

  Maj. Eagle-Eye was disappointed. Why did the secretary not know that one can guess the facts?

  “Sir, the fact is that he bought the flower for an astronomical sum: fifteen thousand dollars!” He stressed the amount.

  “Well, that’s prohibitive, but the Chinese are smart in business. The buyer was ripped off. He probably didn’t know he should bargain in a Chinatown.”

  The secretary was stressed.

  “That’s the point, sir. He should have known, he is Chinese,” said Eagle-Eye. He would not stop.

  “The boy probably has money to throw away. Or he must have bought it for a beloved one. Did you ask him?”

  “Yes, Mr. Secretary. He bought it for his fiancée.”

  He was defeated now.

  “That’s it. He is new in America. Bought a non- existent flower for a lover. He is love mad. He will find out in China. Anything else, Maj. Eagle-Eye?”

  “No, sir. Except that these foreigners should be heavily taxed for ripping off customers. They employ illegal people, pay them a pittance, and make millions of dollars in America. It’s probable the shop owner hired undocumented immigrants.”

  “All right, our Presidential Citizens Medalist. That’s a matter for the tax office. The traveler committed no offence. Let him go!”

  “I want to write that, sir.”

  He wrote: ‘All right, our Presidential Citizens Medalist. That’s a matter for the tax office. The traveler committed no offence. Let him go!’

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary.”

  “Have a nice day, Maj. Eagle-Eye.”

  The secretary was relieved. Thank goodness he had called him, not the president, on such a trivial matter like a flower. He must have thought he would permit him to impound a non-existent flower. That was madness.

  Eagle-Eye was moody. He was disconsolate that he did not seize the flower yet happy to hear the Secretary of the Department of Transport address him as Our Presidential Citizens Medalist. It made his day.

  He would let the traveler depart with his mythical flower. It seemed that he was always calling the wrong people in D.C. when it mattered.

  He walked back to the checking counter. His lady secretary brought a file to him and opened a document. He read it meticulously, signed, and handed it back to her.

  “Can he go?” One of the officers asked Eagle-Eye.

  As his custom in such circumstances, he did not answer. He was still looking for faults in the traveler.

  “Can I call your fiancée in China to find out if she needs a flower?” he asked Shing.

  “No, I am keeping it secret,” he replied, irritated. He should not have departed through JFK.

  “Can we check him in, sir,” the junior officer asked again.

  He did not answer but was reading from his diary: “‘No, there is no flower like that on earth. It is not an endangered specie.’ That was what the Secretary for the Department of Transport said.”

  The security officers were confused.

  “Sir, did you say, no?” the checking officer asked.

  “Let me read you the sweetest part: ‘All right, our Presidential Citizens Medalist. That’s a matter for the tax office. The traveler committed no offence. Let him go!’ That was what the secretary said written in black and white in my diary,” Eagle-Eye said, distancing himself from the order.

  “We have started checking his departure papers, sir,” said the officer.

  Eagle-Eye nodded.

  Shing breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  The coffee girl stretched out the tray to her boss. He took a burger and began eating it, quietly watching proceedings . . .

  Chapter 14

  Mr. Bo Yong was holding a crucial meeting in his office with Chinese intelligence officers. It seemed that Dr. Know-Little had something interesting to tell them.

  “As I was saying, the arrangement of the Methuselah poem isn’t right,” said Dr. Know-Little. “This should be the correct order of the poem.”

  The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden.

  Yet, the tree and the Garden remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’.

  “But this is different from what we have,” said Mr. Yong.

  “Yes, this is our version,” Dr. Know-Little replied.

  Yet, the tree and the Garden remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’.

  The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden.

  “What I am saying is that it seems there are two versions of the same poem. We were given the wrong version,” said Dr. Know-Little.

  “Is this not what you found in the professor’s pocket and sent to us from Washington, Mr. Cheung?” Mr. Yong asked.

  “I am surprised Dr. Know-Little is saying this. He was part of the team that went to America. That was exactly what we found in the professor’s pocket. It was handwritten, I suppose, by the professor. I destroyed the paper for security reasons after typing and sending the message,” Mr. Cheung answered in defense.

  The office receptionist opened the door and walked up to Mr Yong.

  “Jia, your niece, has been waiting in the reception, sir. She is eager to see you,” the receptionist said to Yong.

  “Oh, she has to wait. This is a crucial meeting. I will see her after the meeting,” replied Yong.

  The receptionist left.

  “Then she would really learn to sit. Because this promises to be a long meeting,” said Cheung.

  “I fear she has to. The problem is that she can’t find me at home because of these frequent meetings. She has been trying unsuccessfully to show me a gift that her fiancé—the son of one of our late billionaires—bought her from America. That’s lover’s story. Let’s talk about serious matters, not love stories.”

  They laughed.

  “There is no love in the ocean. That was what the commodore of the pirates said before throwing Adam’s flower into the sea,” said Cheung.

  “Oh, is that? What a commodore! That plant is gone forever. And satellite images reveal the seven dried Adam trees in Tahiti. Sorry for the interruption. What point were you trying to make, Dr. Know-Little? How did you know there are two versions of the poem?” asked Yong.

  “You see, in English, the word Yet can be used as a conjunctive adverb to connect a second statement. If you replace Yet with words like Still or Nevertheless, you can understand what I mean. These words are not used to begin a story. It is awkward even in our official Mandarin Chinese, or the Shanghai, Canton, Fukien, and Hakka dialects. Think about it. My discovery is through grammatical usage.”

  “I understand you, Dr. Know-Little. But I don’t think grammar will help us. We didn’t need grammar to find the tree of life in Tahiti,” said Yong.

  “Nor did we need it to grow the lost plant in the Pacific Ocean,” added Cheung.

  They laughed again.

  The receptionist re-entered and walked to Mr. Yong.

  “She says she wants to leave the flower with you and go, sir,” said the receptionist.

  “Oh, i
s it a flower? Okay, let her come in,” said Yong.

  The receptionist left again.

  “Sorry again officers. Let us see this special American flower that won my cousin’s heart. It might win our hearts too!”

  They all broke into another laughter.

  Jia proudly walked in holding a flower, presented it to Yong, and sat on his laps, smiling.

  Everyone peeped and exclaimed, “Adam’s flower!”

  “Yes, that’s the name as you can all see,” said Jia. “My fiancé bought it for me from a Chinese shop in America. A sailor brought it to the shop. There is no other flower like it in the world. I have agreed to marry him, uncle. You seem speechless.”

  Yong was thinking of the right words. But right words fail at right moments.

  “You can see Jia that we are all happy for you. Let me tell you something, darling. The president is desperately looking for this flower. And if you let him keep it, you will have a state-sponsored wedding,” Yong said, kissing her.

  She thought, shook her head, snatched it from Yong, and pressed it on her bosom with both hands.

  “No, my fiancé bought it for me for a lot of dollars. I have kept him waiting because of this. Why does the president want my flower? How does he know about it? Or is the flower missing?”

  “Ask not too many questions, sweetheart. And do not think about the cost of the flower. The president will give you the best wedding in China and fly you and your husband for a paid honeymoon to the Pacific.”

  Her eyes widened. Yong was encouraged.

  “You will be distinguished a couple, can walk into government house, dine with the first couple and win favors,” Yong continued.

  She smiled widely.

  “And you are getting all these for some hundred-dollar flower, my dear.”

  “No, uncle. He bought it for fifteen thousand dollars.”

  “Okay. Let’s say so. Do you know how much the government will spend for your wedding?” asked Yong.

  She shook her head.

  “Billions of yuan,” said Cheung.

  “All right, uncle. Let the president have it. I love China!” she said, and released it to Yong.

  There was a loud applause followed by the spontaneous singing and dancing of a victory song.

  President Wing Wang kissed the plant several times. He could not believe it. This was the mother of miracles!