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

the chair opposite her. What is she doing here? How did she know we were coming?

“It really is a pleasure to finally meet you,” exclaimed Cristina Culebra, unveiling a row of bright-white teeth.

Every aspect of Cristina Culebra made Albert feel inferior. Every insecurity he had buried under his logical exterior was exposed when he made eye contact with the great woman. Like a wave smashing against rock and splattering into a thousand droplets.

She squinted her eyes and said, “Not bad for a beginner.”

Albert thought he had misheard her. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

Cristina Culebra rose from her seat, grabbed a marker from her desk, and repeated, “I said, not bad for a beginner.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not following,” said Puddles, attempting to block out Cristina’s condescension.

“Well, let’s see if this rings a bell.” She uncapped the marker and began drawing a game tree on the whiteboard behind her. “Hmm, the objective of you and your partner in crime here is to obtain the book and clear your name.” She drew two branches of the tree.

“In order to clear your name, you must do one of two things: prove that, A, you could not have committed the crime, or B, someone else did. Since you have no ability to prove that you didn’t kill the security guard and attack the police station—in fact, quite the opposite, since you are the man on the video right before the attack—you must choose route B.”

She proceeded to cross out one branch of the tree.

“So, if you must prove that it was Eva who, in fact, committed the crime, you must find evidence, specifically the journal. You believe that evidence to be here at Fix Industries, and thus you must determine how to obtain it.” She drew additional branches on the tree. “You can obtain the evidence by force, by manipulation—i.e., blackmail or bribery—or you can obtain it by stealth. Presumably, you’ve considered that you are up against one of the most powerful women in America, who controls a defense company and her own private army, and, therefore, determined that force was unlikely to yield positive benefits.”

She crossed out the branch of the tree titled “force.”

“Likewise, you considered that I’m one of the richest and currently most popular women in the world, while you are poor and not particularly likeable, and therefore ruled out manipulation. That leads us to stealth. The question is how?”

She drew several branches illustrating different ways of finding evidence: daytime, nighttime, break-in, stakeout, etc.

“Of course, you can’t do anything in broad daylight, so it has to be at night. You won’t be able to get to me or Moloch in public. We’re too protected. So your best chance was to break into our offices at night. To make matters worse, thanks to my friends at the FBI, time is not on your side.”

Cristina began furiously crossing out the remaining branches of the tree. “So with that knowledge, I could say inevitably, indubitably, and irrefutably, I knew that you would end up here in my office.”

Albert and Ying sat in motionless silence, unable to move a limb or lip.

“As I said, not bad for a beginner. In chess, this attempt to distract and trap an opponent from a losing position would be known as a swindle. Am I right, Professor?”

Albert nodded.

“And swindles often work against inferior players. Unfortunately for you, I am not an inferior player. And because I am not an inferior player, I know that I am in a position of immense strength. As I look across the table at you, I feel as though I have a board full of chess pieces and you merely a king and a pawn. And so when you threaten my queen with your pawn, I know it is irrelevant because there are ten different ways for me to put you into checkmate.”

She steadily erased the whiteboard and began drawing an alternate game tree of her own. “I could kill you, but that would be messy and inelegant. I could counter your threat with a threat of my own. For example, Ms. Koh, I’m sure your parents would be interested to hear of your recent criminal activities. But this seems like an unnecessary amount of effort. Rather, I think it makes much more sense to pursue the route that I decided on a few days ago when I realized that you would eventually find your way into my office.”

She paused and transferred her gaze to Ying and then to Albert, letting the full impact of her foresight set in. “I’m going to simply reclaim any materials that you may have gathered tonight, and have you arrested and discredited so that no one cares what you have to say about me—or anything else, for that matter. And if you resist, then these gentlemen will dispose of you. The choice is yours.”

She pointed behind them to reveal two Red Army guards patiently waiting beside the exit from her office.

“You see, I play the game at a much more advanced level. It’s something to which you should both aspire.”

With that, the lion pushed a button behind her desk, and the massive whiteboards on each wall retracted down to reveal three additional whiteboards behind them. But unlike their predecessors, these whiteboards were covered in one massive, hyperactive game tree. Branches extended endlessly in every direction, creeping and crawling across the board like an insidious vine. Each branch carried an encoded text like the tree that Eva had left behind that night in the bank. But at its center were two words in plain English: “ABSOLUTE POWER.”

Albert and Ying stared, mouths agape. In minutes, Cristina Culebra had summarized and dismantled a plan that they had spent days preparing. She had revealed a previously unknown world, one for which Ying and Albert had been staggeringly unprepared.

Chapter 13

Angus Turner was prepared, and now, so, too, were his students.

The guards ushered Ying and Albert into the elevator. The two academics glanced at each other and nodded. This was