Chapter 174
17th October 1941
Discovery Bay, Jamaica
The run-down warehouse was actually a bit outside of town, but only just outside of direct view, mainly thanks to the low wall that surrounded it. It had once been a United Fruit storage house back when the resources of South America had still been exploited by the Americans instead of wandering into the coffins of the local corrupt leaders, but now it was officially empty. According to the clerk in Kingston where he had spent most of yesterday tracking down the return address from what little information he found. The letters had been posted in Discovery bay, but on Jamaica all mail first went into a sorting centre in Kingston, and from there to the recipients all over the Island and beyond. As a result, the censor's office was there, and Ian had spent seven hours going trying to track someone down who had previously censored letters that were going through only to find that only three letters had been sent to the Marine before the ones Ian had found, and of those only the first had contained a sender address: The warehouse he was standing in front of now. Before getting out of the car he re-checked the heavy revolver he had been given and then walked up to the warehouse. The ground was littered with leaves and refuse if all sorts, and Ian was happy he was no longer wearing his tropical uniform and instead civilian suit. The wall around the warehouse was broken only by a small gate and when Ian walked up to it, he could see that the lock closing it had recently been opened by force. He leaned down and picked up the remnants of a lock that had been opened with something that had a 9mm calibre and most likely a silencer. When he saw the cartridges lying on the read near the gate he drew his own gun and walked through the gate. Evidence was piling up that something was going on here. Ian wished he wasn't alone, but he was the only one here now, and if his hunch was right, then there was no time to be lost. When he walked inside the walls of the premesis, he saw that the warehouse was missing most of it's glass and plants were growing all around it, threatening to swallow it whole. Ian slowly walked through the waist-high grass around the warehouse, not finding anything special, before approaching the main gate that led inside. When he placed his hand on the door handle of the smaller door that was worked into the bigger gate, his instincts told him that he was walking into a trap.
He paused for a minute and thought about going back to town for reinforcements from the local police force, but it would take at least half an hour, and by then whoever was inside would be long gone. There was not a moment to loose. He pulled the handle down and opened the door. He had the revolver in his right hand and held the gun inside first to cover his approach. The next thing he felt was someone slamming down on his arm so that he let the gun fall to the ground. He screamed in pain and as someone grabbed his arm again and dragged him inside, there was nothing he could do, nothing to prevent from being knocked on the head with a piece of wood and passing out.
When he came to again he was tied to a chair in a basement of some sort. The smell and the constantly dropping water indicated that he was underground, and the light that came seeping in through a grill of some sort over his head indicated that not much time had passed, so he was most likely still in the warehouse, only in a cellar of some sort.
“Ah, we are awake.” a voice said. Ian tried to focus as the voice went on. “Now, who are you? Your possessions are wonderfully usual, saying nothing at all. A packet of cigarettes, a petrol lighter, pen and paper with nothing on it. The only thing that tells me you are up to something that I won't like is the fact that you are armed and that you were here, clearly knowing that there is something to look for. And now to satisfy my curiosity, who are you working for?” Then Ian could finally see clearly again and look in the direction the voice was coming from and he quickly appraised his captor. It was an unremarkable Caucasian male of medium height, dressed in the normal civilian clothing of the British part of the Jamaican population. Before he could appraise him any more, the man rose and hit Ian in the face with the but of the gun he was holding. “Who.are.you.working.for.” he was asked again. Ian spat the blood from his mouth to the ground and said: “I should ask you the same. After all, you clearly have something to hide or we wouldn't be talking.”
“ A tough one, are you? You are clearly not with the local police, that much is certain. These idiots would talk at the first opportunity.” The man walked around Ian's chair and continued to talk. “No, you are different. You are someone who is in the same line of work as I am, I am convinced of that.”
“And what line of work might that be?” Ian asked with contempt in his voice. “Let me see. The gun you are holding is, or rather once was known to you as a Smith&Wesson Military and Police Revolver, and since no one is producing these outside America and the gun seems to be new, I should think that you are get paid by someone from up north. Don't bother to deny.”
“Quite right, Mister. Now since I personally made it I can recognize the plan I found in your pocket, and I also remember who I gave it to, so I wonder how you got your hands on it. Did you buy him over? Did you kill him?” Ian laughed angrily. “Not at all. That stupid fucking idiot killed himself when he saw he couldn't get away, set himself and the car he stole on fire before I could beat it out of him. The fucker shot at my boss.” The other man snorted sarcastically. “So you are either the personal pet of someone or a military Officer. Only one of this sort would subscribe to such old-fashioned models of authority without questioning it. Tell me, what have they promised you? A land grant somewhere in the African colonies?” Ian laughed again. “Now it's for sure you're an American, or at the very least working for them.” Ian was struggling to free himself from the ropes that bound him. At closer inspection he had found that the chair he was sitting on was made of wood, but one of the nails stuck out a bit, just enough for him to start working on his bindings. All he really needed was time, and to get said time, he was on his best way to start a pointless political discussion with his captor who seemed believing enough for the moment. “What makes you say that, oh dear lord?” Ian smirked. “See, that's exactly what I mean. It's a wonder no one has discovered you before them considering how you sprout red propaganda wherever you go.” “And what about you? How many times have you and your Empire tread on the rights of your colonial subjects?” Ian was inwardly jubilant. His opponent had taken the bait and now it was time to reel in the fish. “We may have done that in the past, I admit, but you of all people should value the possibility of change.” The other man didn't realize he was running full force into Ian's trap. “Like hell. You! You are the definition of Imperialism! You can never change. And one day we will tell them....”
Ian felt the ropes that tied his hands together snap and then went in for the kill.
“Oh please. What are you going to say? 'The evil British are oppressing you by giving you the vote!'? You are even more gullible and afar from reality than I thought. Congratulations, you just affirmed every stupid cliché about your lot.” The man ran at Ian and punched him in the stomach.
“SILENCE!” Ian looked up at him, grinned, and moved his arm forward and rammed his elbow into the face of his enemy. The man was totally surprised by this show of resistance and stumbled backwards. Ian jumped to his feet and ran over to the other man and held him down with the weight of his body. Ian hit him again, again and again, and finally the man went limp. Ian stepped back and decided to bind the man with some additional ropes and in a way with which he would not be able to free himself. Ian walked over to the table and gathered up his belongings. He placed his own gun in the band of his trousers and began to explore the cellar. There was a door that led upstairs, but when he opened it, he was staring at a brick wall. With a frown on his face he turned around and sat down to think. There had to be an exit somewhere, as he had gotten down here too. What had that man said? Plan? He pulled the drawn plan from his pocket and unfolded the paper. The light wasn't the best, but he could see enough and realized that this was a plan of this cellar, and according to this there was an exit after all. Knowing that he was in no near-term danger of starving, he decided that he had to search through this little hideout. He needed information. For one, the man bleeding onto the floor from his face had been warned, and secondly he had still no idea who had betrayed the conference he had been here to partake in. The table had a second level and when he looked, he found a book. He pulled it out and to his surprise found that it was the same as the Marine back at the villa had used.
“Of course! A bloody book code!” he exclaimed. He quickly went through the book, and found that certain letters were underlined, and decided to take it with him. When he passed the man he was about to wake up, and Ian punched him again for good measure. He followed the marked path through the maze under the warehouse and at last found another door. Much to his surprise it was unlocked and when he opened it, he saw a wide staircase that led upwards. After climbing the stairs he found himself at the surface, drinking in the sunlight. He looked around and found himself to stand at the opposite side of the warehouse's outer wall, an area where he could overlook the Caribbean Sea slapping against the shores of Jamaica.
Several hours, a shower and a hearty meal later he was going through the letters with both copies of the book at his side. After examining the book of the Marine much closer, he had discovered that the copy had tiny needle-marks below the letters that the spy, now sweating away in a cell, had underlined in his own book. Using this as a reference he was currently trying out every permutation and likely way to spend weeks on it... He suddenly had an idea.
“I got it!” He quickly de-coded the letters and then went over to the Admiral's room.
“Sir, I know who the traitor is and why they did it.
[Notes: Short, but I felt that there was the best spot to end this particular chapter.]