Spiced To Death Part 2

"Yes," said Appleton. "We didn't know until the aircraft had taken off from Bangkok."

All of them were to handle the formalities for all three shipments but there would be no delays, Appleton a.s.sured us. He excused himself to answer a call on his belt phone, which seemed to concern a flight arriving in the afternoon from Taiwan.

Karl Eberhard went for a stroll and seemed to be surveying the bare walls. I couldn't see anything to look at but maybe that was the way security people did it. Simpson wandered off to talk to the Chicago Museum people and I took the opportunity to study the bay we were in.

Briefcases, papers, folders, a metal file box and a phone were on the desks, but it was the benches on either side of the stainless steel sink and drainboard that caught my attention. All kinds of laboratory equipment were on them and I looked at Don.

"Did you arrange for all this?"

"Yes. I told Cartwright what we wanted and he rented it for a couple of days. We checked it all out yesterday."

Appleton's phone buzzed again.

"That's flight 227," he said, snapping the instrument back into place. "Airport radar has picked it up. It's being cleared for landing."

"Flight 227 is ours," Willard Cartwright said. He looked tense enough to start chewing his fingernails.

Appleton walked to the next bay to give them the news and it effectively broke up the card game. Voices were raised over who owed how much. Eberhard came back, then walked off again. I moved to Sam Rong's side. It was a good chance to find out more about the Celestial Spice.

"I'm curious about the Ko Feng crop," I said.

He smiled, apparently pleased at my curiosity. "Ah, yes."

"I wondered how much of the crop you harvested?"

"Almost all," said Rong, still smiling.

"Will there be another crop next year?" His smile broadened. "Must wait and see next year."

"You mean there may not be another crop?" I said, surprised.

"Don't think so. Must remember we know nothing of this crop. We think it is weeds."

"How long has it been growing? After all, it was supposed to be extinct centuries ago."

"Maybe grow a long time. We think it is weeds, pay no attention."

"Hadn't you noticed the haze?"

For the first time, his smile ebbed. "Please?"

"Marvell saw a glow over the field ..."

"Ah, yes-glow. No one else sees this."

"But you did when Marvell pointed it out."

Sam Rong shook his head firmly. "No. No one else sees it."

"What processing have you carried out so far?"

"We follow Mr. Marvell's instructions. Pull stamens out of flowers." He paused and repeated the word, proud of knowing it. "Stamen-is like a stalk. End produces pollen. This work can be done only in early morning when flower opens to greet new day." His wide grin came back.

"Very poetic," I complimented, then wondered if he understood me.

"Poetic," he said. "Poetic, yes." I still wasn't sure.

"Need thirty thousand stamens-make one ounce Ko Feng," Sam Rong went on. "Foundation in San Francisco say so."

Don came back from talking to Arthur Appleton, and Willard Cartwright asked Sam Rong something about doc.u.ments.

"Learning all about Ko Feng?" Don asked me.

"I learned that it takes thirty thousand stamens to yield an ounce of it," I said. "I hate to ask how long it takes to collect them."

"Now you know why it's already the most expensive spice in the world," Don said. "How about a cup of coffee?"

Two large vacuum jugs stood on the table and as we sipped, I noticed that Karl Eberhard was still patrolling. Michael Simpson returned from the Chicago Museum bay and went to talk briefly with the Sushimoto Electronics people. All was in order apparently and he came back to us and struck up a conversation with Don and me about London.

A phone buzzed again. Arthur Appleton unhooked his and answered. When he put it back, he came over to us.

"Two-twenty-seven's been cleared for landing. Want to watch her come in? She'll be on runway 31."

He walked off to give the same information to the men in the other two bays. We all went outside. An Air India freighter was just lifting off the ground and the shattering noise drowned any conversation. The sky was still gray but cloud cover was high enough that we could see the lights twinkling on a distant aircraft. On an adjacent runway, a four-engine plane with a high tail was taxiing for takeoff. I couldn't make out what it was but Arthur Appleton waited until the Air India freighter was dwindling out of sight and said, "Tupolev-Russian-we call it the Vodka Express."

A breeze blew across the field, augmented by jet engine slipstreams and dust and papers billowed. The lights on the incoming aircraft grew stronger and we stood in scattered groups, watching.

The 747 came in trailing streamers of vapor. The motors thumped rhythmically in the humid air. The plane loomed larger, then it was touching down with spurts of burning rubber. The thrust reversers cut in and the motors snarled mutinously. The plane came rolling down the runway, slower and slower until it turned off and came toward us, stopping about fifty yards away.

Our eager cl.u.s.ters of onlookers stood there as the underbelly of the huge craft hinged down and a slide emerged. The motors were down to an idling whisper. I heard Karl Eberhard behind me saying, "Our three shipments will be unloaded here. The aircraft will go on then for normal unloading."

He went over to the tow truck and started it up. Arthur Appleton was on the phone again, this time to the crew chief in the aircraft. Someone from the Chicago Museum asked him a question and he nodded. "We do it this way with high-security shipments. Minimize the number of persons involved."

Two crewmen emerged from the aircraft and the slide was positioned. Down it came a wooden case, a teak chest and an aluminum case bound with reinforcing strips. Eberhard revved up the tow truck and came slowly back toward us. Over a dozen pairs of anxious eyes watched as the truck came nearer.

Michael Simpson pushed a b.u.t.ton to open the vertical sliding door and Eberhard drove in. We all followed. Eberhard went first to the Sushimoto bay where two of their people lifted down their wooden crate. Simpson and Appleton joined them. Eberhard drove on to ours where Cartwright and Sam Rong took off the teak chest and then he went on to deliver the Chicago Museum's aluminum case full of ivory carvings.

But those of us in our small group had already lost interest in the vehicle for our attention was fully on the chest before us. The teak seemed strangely out-of-date compared with the smart wooden crate and the aluminum case carrying the other two shipments. Cartwright and Rong set the chest by the back of the gray truck. Sam Rong came forward, smiling still. He had a small briefcase and took from it a bunch of keys. He selected one and unlocked the padlock. Cartwright lifted the lid and we crowded closer.

Cartwright pulled out a sack of gray coa.r.s.ely woven canvas and Don brought a two-wheeled trolley from inside our bay. The sack didn't look heavy but Cartwright put it on the trolley and brought it in to stand it by a bench.

"Go ahead," Don told him.

Cartwright opened the sack, which was tied at the neck with thin rope. Inside was another sack of the same material. He opened that too.

The fabled Ko Feng didn't look like much. Stringy pieces of blackish gray stuff with a dull texture that wouldn't merit a second glance ordinarily. The aroma though-ah, that was a different matter entirely. It came as a fragrance like cloves at first, then it seemed to be more like cinnamon but no, more like cardamom. A mustard odor lurked behind it but that was too harsh a judgment-it was closer to the licorice component of fennel.

"Anise," said Don huskily. "Chervil too but then there are hints of orange and a fragrant tobacco-but then ..."

We became aware that Cartwright and Rong had stepped back. Don and I probably sounded to them as if we were running through the gamut of smells and would soon be arriving at kerosene and week-old tennis socks.

Sam Rong smiled, noting our return to reality after moments of rapture-but maybe that was just another version of his perpetual smile. I thought not though-I believed he genuinely understood how we had been temporarily carried away.

"Is wonderful aroma. Not like any other."

We agreed with him. Willard Cartwright pushed forward.

"Aroma," he said. "You're satisfied, then?"

"I know I've said this before" said Don, "but if this is Ko Feng, it has been lost for centuries. We have no standards to judge it by. We don't know what it did smell like and we can't-"

"I know," Cartwright said brusquely. "I know all that. But you're happy with the aroma?"

Don looked at me. I nodded.

"We see no reason to doubt but we've only just-"

"Okay," said Cartwright. "What next?"

Don went to one of the benches and brought back a pair of tweezers and a gla.s.s flask. He took a few stamens and carefully dropped them into the flask. He took the flask over to the bench and poured in some alcohol. He shook it and held it up to one of the fluorescent lights.

From the next bay came the sounds of splintering wood-presumably they were removing the lid of the wooden crate to examine the circuit boards. Don shook the flask and held it up again. Cartwright started to say something but Don shushed him with an angry wave of his hand. He turned to get a better light behind it and motioned for me to take a look.

Arthur Appleton walked in. "All clear with Sushimoto," he announced breezily. "The merchandise is as advertised and conforms to the doc.u.mentation. How are you doing in here?"

Cartwright glowered at him, and Don gave a look of annoyance at being interrupted. Sam Rong's smile had been reduced to its minimum dimension. I tried to look neutral.

"We're doing some sensitive testing," I told Appleton, hoping he'd read me. He didn't.

"Looks a lot more fascinating than those dreary circuit boards," he said. He peered into the open sack. "So that's the fabled lost spice, is it? Paperwork okay?"

We had all been so excited that we hadn't given it a thought. Sam Rong walked out of the bay and pulled away the plastic folder fastened to the outside of the crate. He brought it back in and Appleton gave us an amused smile but said nothing. He took the papers and spread them out on the bench. Don shook the flask and stared intently at it again.

"Well?" asked Cartwright impatiently.

"We could probably do this better if you didn't keep interrupting," said Don in what I thought was a tolerant tone of voice.

"I want to know what's happening," Cartwright said, and his voice grated.

"Every minute?"

"Yes," said Cartwright, "every minute."

"Tempers become warm when big decisions hang in balance," Sam Rong said. It sounded like a line from a Charlie Chan B movie. He went on, sensibly enough, "Perhaps Mr. Renshaw could tell us briefly what is purpose of each test and what is result. This way, not necessary to ask questions."

He smiled urbanely at Cartwright, who glared back. Arthur Appleton had momentarily shifted his interest from the papers before him to the minicrisis here and he tried his hand at smoothing the waters.

"I'm only a bystander at this stage, I know, but I'd be interested too in knowing-in layman's terms-what you're doing. After all, each of us is involved in this to some degree."

"I think we can do that, can't we, Don." I put it as a statement rather than a question.

He shrugged. "Sure. Want to tell them what we just did?" He sounded slightly irritated but the unique nature of the moment was bound to be raising tensions and his irritation was exceeded only by Cartwright's impatience.

"Don put the Ko Feng into alcohol because it will dissolve any adulterants or coloring agents that might have been added," I explained. "No color is visible in the alcohol."

Don was already busy with the next test.

"He's now soaking a stamen in distilled water-" I caught a puzzled look from Appleton. "Stamen is a common term with botanists-it's the male reproductive organ of a plant where pollination takes place. Now he's rolling it between two sheets of absorbent paper. Any water-soluble contaminants will show up at this stage ... No, there aren't any."

The commentary seemed to be working. Cartwright looked marginally more composed but I realized how great a strain he must be under. Simpson was walking by. He called in cheerily, "Making progress with the ivory. Be with you in a while." He went on to the Sushimoto bay.

Don was now switching on the microscope. He gave me a nod to say he would take over. I nodded back, glad his humor was restored.

"I'm looking at the stamen at a hundred magnifications..." He waved to us to approach and we crowded round to look at the screen. "Now I'm zooming to five hundred ... looks normal ... this is a thousand."

There was a silence while the watchers wondered exactly what they were looking at. Don went on, "It looks just like a plant stamen. Of course, we have no way of knowing what a Ko Feng stamen looks like. All I can say is there is no reason to suppose that this is not Ko Feng."

He looked at me. The others followed suit. "I agree," I said.

Don took one more of the stamens with tweezers and laid it on a plastic board.

"He's cutting a cross-section so as to look at the internal structure of the stem. It might be possible to breed a hybrid which would look different from any plant we know and thus it might be pa.s.sed off as Ko Feng ..." The significance of what I was saying suddenly occurred to me and I turned to give Sam Rong an apologetic grin. He interpreted it with impeccable intuition and widened his smile in understanding.

"... but a cross-section reveals the botanical structure and would be almost impossible to change."

Don was unrolling a chart showing graphic ill.u.s.trations of sections of various plants. He ran through them, frequently stopping to compare with the image on the screen. Finally, he nodded.

"Looks good."

A few exhalations of breath might have been sighs of relief all around. Arthur Appleton excused himself. "Better go check on the ivory carvings. More exciting here, though." He walked off and his voice could be heard echoing as he hailed the museum people.

Karl Eberhard came in. I had forgotten him. He looked curiously at the microscope screen but said nothing. He seemed to have temporarily concluded his security patrols and he stood and waited to see what was happening next.

Don now took a ceramic crucible and dropped a couple of stamens into it. He placed the crucible into an infrared heating coil and turned the switch. The digital readout flickered, numbers climbing. Don adjusted the switch to slow the heating rate and we both sniffed, then sniffed again.

"No obvious aromas that shouldn't be present," I reported.

Don pulled over another piece of equipment. A hood mounted on a pedestal fitted over the crucible and a duct led to a square black box. Several dials on the front of the box showed zero. Don turned switches and a red light glowed.

"This is a smoke-a.n.a.lyzing probe," I explained. "It's being used here first, to look for const.i.tuents that shouldn't be here, and second, to see what const.i.tuents are present that would indicate a specific botanical family or group."

"Looks good," Don said again. He activated an adjoining device which clattered and then spat out a sheet of paper. "A readout for the records."

Even Cartwright looked more relaxed now and Don continued with the testing. Occasionally, he explained what he was doing and when he didn't, I took over. Eberhard walked off briskly, as if he were going somewhere vital but it was probably another of his patrols. Simpson came back and stood watching. At a lull in the proceedings, he said apologetically, "None of my business but some of the special goods that come through customs have to be accompanied by an a.n.a.lysis. They use a piece of equipment called a quantometer which does it real fast. I was wondering-"

"No," Don said. "You can't a.n.a.lyze plants that way. They contain mostly the same elements and in the same approximate percentages. An a.n.a.lysis would tell us nothing."

"Sorry," murmured Simpson. "Just a thought ..."