Chapter One
What a poem! Yet, the professor, after six weeks, is yet to interpret it. And very early at 8 A.M. he has already taken half a dozen energy drinks. He is at the seventh now. He adjusts himself on his seat and reads the first line for the one hundredth time:
The Flood came and swept the tree of life away, even Eden.
Well, that was pretty simple. The Hebrews are gifted poets. And sometimes their poems can be simple to a fault. But not that simple when you read the second and last line of the poem:
Yet, the tree and the garden remain, as God decreed at the beginnin’.
There is no straight-forward answer here. Yet, that is the message the secret service agents want to give the director of the Department of Homeland Security to the United States President. What will he tell them when they arrive at midday?
Is the tree of life still in Eden?
The professor now puts the two lines together trying again to understand the contradictory lines.
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’.
Intriguing, he thought, rising and looking out of the window into the misty Washington morning.
The White House has given him this lavishly furnished office with living rooms, a catering staff, a library of poetry books, and a handsome life salary for the sole purpose of cracking the poem.
Who else could it have been? After ten years at the University of California at Los Angeles, and fifteen years at Emory and Harvard universities, and a Nobel Prize in literature, Professor Muse Letterman was considered most suited to explain the ancient poem, and say the location of Eden and the tree of life. Only a few remember that his first name is Jones. He earned the moniker, Muse, after interpreting a sonnet that had baffled his colleagues at Harvard by just reading the first and last fourteenth lines. Now, the muse seem to be failing him.
Where-is-the-tree-of-life?
The answer lies in knowing where Eden is. He looked at the film of the photograph of the Hebrew text, trying to determine if some lines that could provide a clue to the meaning are missing. None. The Hebrew-to-English translation was done by a team of professors at Stanford University. So no faulting the English rendering. Hebrew must be the language of equivocators.
Now, where was the original garden of bliss?
As the professor stood contemplating, a car with two secret service operatives drives in. He quickly moves and sits, waiting …
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The two agents were visibly angry as they left the professor’s office. How long will it take the Nobel laureate to explain the poem? Time was an important factor in this quest. Who knows if China had not found a clue after the sea skirmish?
“Did he think we came to listen to a lecture?” one asked the other as they drove back.
“All those talk about comparative literature and Hebrew semantics were irritating.”
“True, like teacher and student.”
“So what do we report to the director?” the other asked again.
“What the professor said,” replied his colleague with a frown.
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If interpreting the poem is Herculean, its discovery was no less. It heightened in the naval skirmish between the United States and Chinese navies, which had made the news headlines. CNN and the BBC television stations even beamed the encounter live. The reporters and viewers understood it to be a fight for naval supremacy. If so, it surprised everyone that China could be squaring up to America militarily.
China’s economy has been on the rise and there has been talk about China overtaking America. Yet, it hasn’t been dreamt that China would test America’s naval might. And of all places—the Aegean Sea! What are they looking for there?
The United States Navy was first to spot the object of interest – a large slab – deep in the sea. The slab, it was thought, had broken away from around Eden and rolled down into the Aegean Sea during the Deluge.
However, what was of interest was not the slab itself but what, according to Hebrew tradition, Methuselah had written on it. Getting those lines was worth eternity.
The American naval fleet had cordoned off the area soon after the discovery. The excitement was palpable on the faces of the naval officers. And felt in Washington. But the poem was not visible yet. It sure must have been inscribed on the reverse side of the slab facing the sea bed. Turning it upside down was not a feat. But doing so as not to damage the poem was. There were delicate matters that mistakes should not be made. And this was one of them …
Chapter Two
There had been intense activity at the Chinese intelligence headquarters at Beijing. The secretly launched surveillance satellite had been zeroing in at the intense American naval activities in the Aegean Sea. It peered under the sea. A large slab was seen. The mission controller was sure of what the Americans had found. Quickly, he sent a coded message to Shing, the China security chief. Moments later the security czar was sitting with the Chinese premier, Wang.
“We got them, Chairman Premier,” said Shing placing a report on the premier’s desk.
“Americans think they are the smartest people on earth,” said the premier after reading the report. “Race down the naval ships, Mr. Cheung. I like this fight. And remember this: we either get it or nobody. Got the message?” he had said, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.
The security chief had nodded and dashed out. Back in his office, he sent out the premier’s orders. Moments later, naval ships began cruising to the Aegean Sea.
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NATO had been doing joint military exercise down the Mediterranean Sea. The exercise was covered by CNN and BBC. Such maneuvers are regular features. There has recently been a rise in piracy and terrorist activities in the region. Especially in North Africa. So it was meet that the NATO joint exercise at the Mediterranean would scare the life out of the pirates and terrorists.
The commander of the NATO military fleet, General Lookout, had just exchanged signals with the American and Chinese military intelligence. So, they are around the region as observers, he said to himself. He seemed satisfied with the answers.
Observer status is allowed in such maneuvers. He knew. He only called them up to be sure that all was well. But both American and Chinese intelligence had sold the general a dummy. For he knew not of any slab in the sea bed with the Methuselah poem. And that was their quest.
Chapter Three
When the Chinese naval ship arrived at the Aegean Sea, a dozen American naval ships were in a V-shape information about ten thousand nautical kilometers from Izmir, Turkey. The Chinese had figured out from the space map the exact location of the hunted slab. But the Americans were in control. The Chinese could go no further. Or else risk an outright confrontation. What next?
The Americans had already seen the advancing Chinese ships. Late corners. They would have turned the stone and taken photos of the poem before their arrival. Poor communists!
None but the Chinese gets this stone, the premier had warned. The Chinese went out for the only option. The controller in Beijing was alerted . He shook his head sadly, pressed the button of a guided missile, and within minutes the precious slab was smashed to smithereens . . .
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The pandemonium caused by the missile explosion and the resultant tsunami could better be imagined than described. Ships sank. People panicked. And sea creatures fled. The reverberation was felt from North Africa to Europe.
Commander Lookout and his officers were initially shocked. But later came the moment of truth.
“To the rescue!” he immediately ordered his officers. And NATO airplanes and ships went to action. CNN and BBC crew followed. It went down as the greatest NATO military rescue in peace time. Air force planes flew floating naval officers suspended on ropes to NATO ships, while other sailors swam into small rescue boats from where they climbed into the ships.
The media went into frenzy with sensational headlines: “Meteor Sink War ships.” “Unknown IBM Destroys Naval ships.” “US and Chinese Navies do Battle.” “Blood Flows in the Med. Sea.” Et’s Declare War.”
Only CNN and BBC television viewers could tell the true story. Because it was telecast live. And the viewers saw no dead bodies. Save for brave sailors catching loose ropes or climbing into boats. Like a movie.
Chapter Four
The meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York was over. Everyone was surprised. Because the main issue –America/China clash –was not discussed. Neither was it on the agenda. Only the activities of rogue states were on the table. Like North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan. And Somalia.
Mr. Peace, the UN scribe, was most worried. Why did America and China not bring up the matter? he asked himself. Well, they are both permanent members of the world body and they would do what is right at the right time, he surmised.
The Chinese and American heads of state were surprisingly shaking hands and smiling into the cameras. They seem to be saying to each other; I got you! Members wondered if this was a new kind of diplomacy.
So, they accepted the official line: accident. No one knew that there was more to it than meets the eye and that each party had a cause for celebration.
“Did you say you photographed the poem before the missile strike?” the Unites States President Hope had asked Mr. Catcher, Director of Homeland Security.
“Yes Mr. President,” he had replied. “The camera was in the captain’s cabin before the ship sank.”
“All’s well,” the president had said. “The task now is to recover the camera and the film.”
Pentagon had secretly deployed a surveillance satellite soon after the American/China clash to comb the seas for USN 13 – the sunken American naval ship that had the camera and the film of the Methuselah poem. And they felt secure in their secrecy.
Yet China was watching.
“That is the American spy satellite trailing their damaged naval ship, sir,” said the Chinese controller at headquarters to Shing. He nodded. “And at the Atlantic Ocean are American naval ships monitoring and wanting to salvage the wreck.”
“Can you see anything special in the wrecked ship?” he asked.
“Nothing yet,” the controller replied.
And the security chief had left to update the premier.
The Chinese had turned their spy satellite to spy on the Americans spying the seas, moments after it was launched. They had resorted to this old communist game since the hunt began. And when it comes to espionage, like chess, no one can beat China!
Chapter Five
Admiral Fisher hasn’t had a job like this in all his years in United States Navy. Though an African American, he has come to be greatly admired by all Americans after his enviable record of service. He led the American naval fleet that chased Iraqis out of Kuwait. He was the commander of the fleet that went to Afghanistan to wipe out Al-Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11. And now the head of the naval quest for the tree of life. How he would have loved to make the dream of the first black president in America come true by finding this elusive poem that points to the eternal tree.
Yet, blacks are making history. It couldn’t be said that he has failed. His officers had photographed the poem several times before the Chinese missile strike. Now, finding the camera in the mangled ship in this vast sea is another feat. Like discovering the longitude. Or peering into a black hole.
But thanks to Pentagon, they could see the ship driven by current under the sea. He and his officers had hoped for fine weather to enable them seize and haul the ship aboard. Yet, the opportunity hasn’t come. So they merely followed the ship.
There is a sea current that flows westward at that time of the year. The wind had taken the wrecked ship under the sea through the many Greek islands to Crete. There, the admiral and his officers chased away a bunch of pirates. They continued to Sicily where they had a fierce gun battle with mafias, who were captured and handed over to the Sicilian authorities.
The westward journey continued North of Africa through the sea. It was now almost certain that the damaged ship was heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar between Spain and Morocco. That narrow strait, thought Admiral Fisher, is the best place to trap the rolling ship, if everything goes well. Because once the ship finds its way through the strait to the Atlantic, it becomes a wild goose chase.
So he led ten ships to block Gibraltar, while two were left following the spoilt ship from Sardinia. The Gibraltar blockage, frightened many human traffickers in their rickety boats which cross their cargo of African migrants daily through the strait from Morocco to Europe in search of the proverbial greener pastures. Many loaded boats making the desperate cross at night and drowning migrants in capsized boats were caught and turned back to Africa. Under the sea, USN 13 kept moving toward the straight. And Fisher and his officers kept waiting. . .