The Tree of Knowledge, Daniel Miller [unputdownable books txt] 📗

“No, it’s not that. It’s just . . . well . . . I just can’t accept that she’d be involved in something like this. There has to be a reason.” As he said this, Albert paced back and forth, kicking pebbles from the Desert Motel’s landscaping.

Ying paced right with him. “Yeah, there is a reason. You heard Ariel. She’s caught up in this ‘Society’ and wants power.”

Albert shook his head and continued to kick the pebbles at his feet. “I know what Ariel said, but that just doesn’t fit. I know Eva. She’s not like that. She’s more rational, more thoughtful than that. There has to be something more to it.” Albert paused and once again looked out at the horizon bathed in dull orange light. “I don’t know . . . maybe it has something to do with her mother?”

Ying slapped Albert’s chest with the back of her sunburnt hand, nearly spilling his coffee all over him. “Albert, I don’t understand why you keep defending her. I mean, wake up. In the less than a month, she’s framed you and shot at you. What more do you need? Her mother may be a good woman, but Eva isn’t.”

Albert snorted and stopped his pacing. “Oh really? What about you? You seem to think that Cristina Culebra is some type of saint, when everything else points to her involvement with whatever it is Eva’s doing.”

“What are you talking about?” said Ying, now reversing course and pacing away from Albert.

Albert stammered, his face reddening. “You really believe that Eva is engaged in a manhunt across the country, and her very smart, very powerful mother knows absolutely nothing about it? C’mon.”

Ying wagged her head back and forth in defiance and began to blurt out a rebuttal, but stopped herself. She pursed her lips and walked toward him. She stared into Albert’s eyes.

“You’re right. Maybe I’m wrong about Cristina Culebra. But you have to understand, when my parents were growing up in Singapore, they had nothing. My grandparents were killed in the Japanese occupation, and my parents had no family. They weren’t educated and didn’t have any money. The country was poor, and there were no opportunities for people like them. Then a man named Lee Kuan Yew came to power and everything changed for them. His government provided free housing and adult education programs. My dad was able to get a scholarship. And my mom got a loan to start her own clothing business. Lee cleaned up the government, so they didn’t have to pay bribes. None of that would have been possible without him. It was because of Lee Kuan Yew that I was able to come to America.”

Ying resumed kicking the dirt. The light was fading, and Albert could barely see her face, but her voice was clear. “When I look at Cristina Culebra, I think I see the same thing that my parents saw in Lee Kuan Yew. Or that you see in Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. Someone who can really make the world better. When I see how rich this country is, and then I walk around the city and see all of the homeless people, or drive on roads that feel like they’re going to break at the seams, I’m embarrassed.”

Albert was struck by the intensity of her feeling. He opened his mouth to speak, but his voice was drowned out by Brick Travis’s harsh bark.

“Puddles! Stop wandering around kicking pebbles with your girlfriend and get in here. We need to go over the game plan,” he shouted from inside motel room eight.

Albert turned red and said, “She’s not my girlf—” but Brick had already slammed the door and headed inside.

Chapter 6

Eva stood at attention next to her mother and marveled at the army she had built. Over seventy-five thousand people gathered at the Rose Bowl to watch the latest graduating class of the Red Army march in perfect order along the sun-soaked field. Row after row of straight-backed men and women goose-stepped onto the field, snaking their way to the podium where their leader would finally address them as full members in the Red Army. The silver buttons and bayonets shimmered in the sunlight, and the thud of soldiers’ boots shook the ground around them. Eva recalled the first class of the Red Army that she had trained. Just ten men graduated that year as she struggled to teach the most basic principles of the Tree of Knowledge. In many ways, today was her graduation day as well, for her mother’s army was now complete. Over fifty thousand men and women stood ready to serve the woman they simply called “Cristina.”

The master of ceremonies took the podium. Clad head to toe in a uniform that brilliantly covered the extra pounds that crept along his beltline in old age, he addressed the breathless crowd and stoic cadets. His eyes shone with pride as he spoke of the virtues of their leader while Cristina and Eva looked on from behind.

“You’ve done well, Evalita, my girl,” said Cristina Culebra as she watched the troops file in front of her. She wore a rich-charcoal suit with a simple red scarf around her neck. It was Cristina’s tradition to wear red at her biggest events. It reminded Eva of how sharks perked up when blood was in the water.

“Thank you, Mother, but we still haven’t located Turner’s army.”

Cristina smiled smugly and placed her delicate yet powerful hand on Eva’s shoulder. “Ahhhh, but we have. Those mice have been flushed from their holes, and now all we must do is set the cheese in the trap.” As she said this, her other hand closed into a crushing fist.

Eva scowled and pulled the hair off her forehead. “Wait, if we’re setting a trap, why did you send me across the country to find them?”

Cristina shook her head and began to fuss over Eva’s outfit, a mother’s old habit. She picked lint off the shoulder of Eva’s jacket, straightened