The Tree of Knowledge by Daniel Miller (room on the broom read aloud .txt) 📕

Ying searched Albert’s eyes. “I trust you.”

“Good. Now here’s the plan . . .”

***

On the other side of the firing range, Eva was quietly stalking her prey with Beel trailing. Her black boots gauged the soft ground with every step. She observed Albert and his assistant, and envisioned a game tree in her mind. What’s the goal of the game? To stop Puddles and his assistant. My first move? To approach him with weapon visible. His response? To run? To attack? She shook her head. Lack of information. This is just like that security guard. I don’t have enough information. Does he have a weapon? What are his exit options?

Before Eva could finish her thought, Albert hurdled over the hay bale and sprinted directly at her. What is he doing? This is suicide. She raised her pistol and put him in her sight. He looked stronger and broader than the last time she saw him. As she prepared to take a shot, she observed that Puddles seemed to be jogging with an awkward stride. Was he hurt? Had the FBI already hit him?

A shot cracked throughout the firing range, followed by a metallic clang and the spice of gunpowder. Eva ducked and spun to see smoke billowing from Beel’s gun.

“What the hell are you doing?” she screamed.

“What? I had the shot.”

Eva’s eyes darted back to the firing range, expecting to see the prostrate body of Albert on the field. To her shock, he kept coming. How is that possible? Did Beel miss? Something isn’t right.

As Puddles crossed the field, moonlight struck his outline, and she knew what was wrong.

“He’s carrying a police shield,” shouted Eva.

As she looked at Beel to make sure he’d heard, another shot boomed through the night silence, and the agent screamed as his neck burst, spraying dark liquid. “I’m hit,” moaned Beel, falling to the ground.

Eva pivoted back to Albert, who was three-quarters of the way across the field but now sprinting at a diagonal toward an abandoned shed. He doesn’t have a gun? Where did that shot come from? The woman in black couldn’t believe what she saw next. Hanging upside down from the academic’s shoulders by her legs was his assistant. She had a gun in hand and a mischievous smile on her face. The assistant raised her gun with furious determination and aimed directly at her.

Eva dove behind a hay bale as projectiles slammed the hay bale. Beel groaned, and Eva moved to examine him. His face and neck were covered with a dark, thick liquid, and Eva placed her hand on his neck to find the wound, hoping to stanch the bleeding. As her fingers touched the liquid, Eva noticed that the blood felt wrong. It was cool, and the consistency was off. There didn’t seem to be an entry wound. Then the familiar smell hit her.

“This isn’t blood! This is paint. Get up, you moron.”

Eight cylinders roared in the distance, and Eva looked up to see Puddles’s assistant diving into a minivan. Albert had not yet entered the van, and the woman in black raised her gun for one last shot, bringing his moppy brown hair into her sight. As if he could feel her, Albert turned and looked back, face fully in the pistol’s sight . . .

And then he was gone.

Eva stared, frozen, as the freckle-faced man dove into the van and his square-jawed associate methodically leaned out the window and with four distinct shots crippled every tire on her SUV.

“What the fuck? Why didn’t you take the shot?” yelled Beel, now recovered from his imaginary injury.

The woman in black simply stood and stared, mouth agape, uttering not a word.

Chapter 4

The eyes of General Isaac Moloch squinted before the bright lights of the Pentagon press room. The general flashed an eerie smile and surveyed the abnormally full room of overweight, underslept reporters through snakelike eyes. Deep lines sprang out across his face like river tributaries. A patchwork wall of medals dangled from his deep-green uniform. Normally, he loathed his interactions with the media, the way they typed on their keyboards, the way they smelled, like their bodies had never known fresh air.

But today was different. Today, he was officially resigning as the general in charge of the United States Central Command, the military unit with responsibility for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as all of Central Asia, and all the press had come out to watch him ride off into the sunset.

Typical of the media. Host a press briefing on progress on the war or casualties, and you get a half-empty room, but a four-star general retires, and everyone’s here, thought Moloch.

A mousy-looking reporter raised his hand. With one look, the general sensed that this man could be intimidated. He had seen men like this in war. They were usually the first to die.

“Yes, you,” said Moloch in his trademark dry rasp.

The reporter rose from his seat and faced the general.

“General, earlier this week, to the great dismay of many of the powers that be in Washington, you announced your retirement as head of the United States Central Command, ending a career of over thirty-five years in the military. My first question is: When you look back over your career, who were the men or women that inspired you the most?”

Good. A softball.

The general’s tongue slithered across his thread-thin lips as he considered the question. “The first man that comes to mind would be General Douglas MacArthur. One of the things that has been completely overlooked in our history is what General MacArthur did in Japan after the war. When the US defeated Japan, the country was in chaos. No one knew who was in charge, and nothing could get done. Fortunately, President Roosevelt had the foresight to understand that the only way that something was going to get done was for us to put our democratic instincts on hold and let General MacArthur take charge. As you may recall,