The Cocoa Saga *Part II* Mink's Testimony

I followed Samuel Mink into his car. As I sat in the passenger side of the black Honda Civic, I turned to Samuel Mink.

“Mr. Mink, now tell me what is going on here.” Samuel put one hand on the wheel ahead of him and he turned his head to face me.

“Call me Samuel.”

“Okay, Samuel, what’s going on?” I was getting impatient. Samuel sensed my annoyance and began his case.

“I know it was asking a lot of you by Dr. Smith to just pick up a leave to Sri Lanka, however the recent events that have occurred there are highly uncommon. There has been some new plant life discovered there and it seems it is highly deadly if consumed or touched.” He had my attention. I shifted in my seat as he continued.

“Now new plant life is common to be found in the Amazon forest of South America, but Dr. Smith and some of his colleagues agreed that this new finding seemed peculiar in that the present location of it isn't a commonplace for new species to develop. In addition, this new plant life can be so deadly that an entire village was wiped out in a matter of days.”

“Wiped out!?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. What kind of plant could wipe out a village? “Why haven’t I heard this on the news or through other botanist channels?” I asked distressed by the revelation.

“Partly, because the government has asked not to inform the public at large, and partly, because once the public knows, the United States military will try to take over investigating. And we know that when the US military takes over, sometimes the hope of explaining natural causes is not possible.” Samuel gave me that knowing look seeming to say that I knew what he meant. The US involvement in past natural revelations had led to a prevention of allowing researchers to conduct studies. Sometimes, it led to obliteration of the natural occurrence at hand, also known as containment, if the results of testing were in any way not in favor of the US military findings.

“Listen, I know Dr. Smith said he needed you all summer, but this might take only a few days. At minimum I need your help in identifying and classifying this new plant life. The sooner we have a professional botanist on location, the sooner we can have safety measures in place. Please, can you join me?” Samuel seemed genuine in his request.

I sighed as I felt the botanist’s desire to discover new natural plant life burn inside me. I knew I could not say no to him.

That evening I was on a flight to Sri Lanka with Samuel Mink.

To be continued…