 
The Hacker Who Becomes a Mafia Consultant in the Caribbean After a Diamond Coup in Bangkok

by Stieve I Adams

SMASHWORDS EDITION  
PUBLISHED BY:

Stieve I Adams on Smashwords

The Hacker Who Becomes a Mafia Consultant in the Caribbean After a Diamond Coup in Bangkok

Copyright © 2017 by Stieve I Adams

Thank you for downloading this free eBook. Although this is a free book, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoyed this book, then encourage your friends to download their own free copy.

Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

.* * * * *

(This is a machine translation from Swedish to English, I have used Google Translate. That can explain that some words and sentences have not become as the author has ever thought of.)

© Stieve I Adams, 2001. stieve.i.adams@gmail.com

The Hacker Who Becomes a Mafia Consultant in the Caribbean After a Diamond Coup in Bangkok

An Adventure Story by Stieve I Adams

An old-fashioned adventure novel filled with international villains, beautiful women and noble adventurers. The action takes place in exotic countries with rare inhabitants.

A cheeky diamond cupper in Thailand and a sinking in the Caribbean are the origins of a breathtaking story where a no-frightening computer salesman from Scotland will be in the centerpiece of the adventure.

With the help of, among other things, a very black woman from Antigua, a Swedish tugboat in Singapore and a suddenly rich Count from England, they chase around the world to find the treasure. It becomes complicated because the main character happens to be employed as a consultant at a Mexican mafia group. Nevertheless, he succeeds in selling computers to a Sheik in United Arab Emirates!

Prolog

The streets were packed with old cars and three-wheeled motorcycle taxi with tourists. Some tourists enjoyed the ride, others were determined not to fall off the vehicle. Buddhist monks in their red-brown caps seemed outside the temples. In the temples, Buddhist images were covered with gold leaf. In short, in Bangkok it was just as usual.

Tourists visit the gem districts on their tours. There they meet the incredible overflow of red, blue, green and uncolored gems - there are tons of sapphires, opals and diamonds. They are waiting for more or less wealthy people who want to invest in gems. At small workbenches, the diamond grinders are used to refine the raw diamonds that come from Thailand, South Africa and other well-known mines. The gems lie in big piles and make an overwhelming impression on the poor tourist who can only afford to spend a few dollars.

The surveillance is invisible but extensive. Nevertheless, an incredible bargain took place just in these neighborhoods. Some well-informed people managed to get into the safe vault, much indicating inside job. The swap was a number of packets of gemstones that were transported by lorry to the river and loaded on a number of these long-tailed boats with propelled jeep engines that are typical of Bangkok. It is believed that three such boats were needed to get the swap out on the river to the ship waiting. It was actually a "sailboat" if you can use such an insignificant expression. Here the track was lost in Bangkok, but later on, it was discovered that it was a around the world sailor who had taken the diamond load but then disappeared.

On board there were six experienced seamen who would sail the valuable load to the unknown client somewhere in Central America. The trip was entirely in line with the plans, rounded the Cape of God Hope and landed on Tenerife before heading west.

As they approached the Caribbean islands in November, they encountered the first and worst hurricanes of the season. The captain trusted his boat, but during the storm the mast was broken and the auxiliary engine stopped working and the boat was thrown helplessly against a deserted beach. The five in the crew on deck were flushed overboard. One of the crews, the chef who was under the deck at the time of the accident, managed to land and survived.

And in fact, the wreck of the sailboat drove to land and the chef worked hard a number of days to save the valuable load. He loaded it into a cave he discovered because of the storm. In normal weather, the entrance to the cave was well hidden by bushes, but in the storm the chef saw the opening when the bushes woke away from the mighty wind. The chef did not know where he was, but on the other side of the water there was another island. Despite the beautiful weather that came after the storm, the neighbor island's mountain top was always covered with clouds.

The whole story was covered up. From Bangkok there were no clues and for some reason, perhaps the gems were stolen, no official investigation was done. The sailboat that disappeared was not reported as missing. The owner / recipient probably did his own investigations.

1. Antigua

I had landed at V C Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (VC) Bird is Antigua's prime minister. Antigua is not green like many other islands in the Caribbean; it is dry and hot, on this island there is a lack of water.

In Antigua there are no American cars, at least not new. Here are the cars Japanese. I drove in my rented Nissan Bluebird on one of the larger streets of St Johns, the capital of Antigua. On the seat next to me I had a map of the city with the street names clearly stated. I soon found that the map was far better than the reality because in reality there were no street signs. I had recently located an open space that I thought was identified both on the map and in reality. Here it should be the Nelson Street and there should be the client's office.

Like all other former British possessions, the settlement is also "British", because the city consists of houses of up to two floors. The front image seemed to be the suburbs of London but here the quality of the houses was quite different. The building material was to a greater extent corrugated sheet and, to a lesser extent, brick and cement. I had not been to St John's before and was now quite lost. I stayed in a street crossing and tried to in vain locate a street noise.

It was nine o'clock in the morning but the air conditioning in the not too new car managed to only keep the heat on the outside. From one of the houses comes a well-urban ruddy woman.

"Good morning, sir! It's possible that you're getting lost. That's what everyone knows about the city. Where are you going?" she says, smiling with bright white teeth on me. I am made happy with the natural kindness and helpfulness.

The woman explains how to find the address but it seems that there are too many rights and left so the woman offers to go along and show the way. Said and done. She jumps into the passenger seat, and picks up on how easy it is to get lost in the city.

I will return to the hotel after the customer visit. I realize that it is not the same to try to sell computer equipment to customers in the Caribbean as at home in Scotland. To quench my thirst after a hot day, I visit the hotel bar, an airy building with a number of fans on the ceiling who vainly trying to cool the guests. And who do I meet if not the chattering woman from the morning.

"Hello there!" She says, and sticks close to me at the bar. "Can you use computers to solve riddles?" She asks carefully after a while.

"Sure," I say, "why then?"

"Take a moment if you are interested in such things," she says, winding her round arm around my waist. I have some thoughts on what she really wants but she seems nice and cute why she accompanies. My passport and wallet are anyway stored in the hotel's safe.

At home with her, Valerie tells about a "sailor" she met recently. He lived in residence with Valerie. The sailor disappeared but in a book there was a paper with letters and numbers that did not seem to have any meaning.

"You may be able to solve this with your computer," Valerie thinks. Sure, I say, "May I borrow the paper a few days, I'll leave the island in a week, maybe I've got something."

The evening continued at some smaller clubs with the sounding West Indian music. It sounded much more than the local steel bands those play every time a cruise ship comes to the dock. This was the local music that the beautiful round Valerie took me to. The evening was very late and I had many stifling Pina Colada before it was time for the bed of the hotel.

The next morning I had totally forgotten the cryptic paper I put in a plastic pocket in my calendar. Tired and sweaty I was awoken by an angry phone signal at eight o'clock - it was time for breakfast and today's customer visits. In the evening I had an interesting quote, The evening, I was devoted to an interesting quote, there are actually companies in the Caribbean who are now finally considering in the 1990s replacing their old Underwood typewriters with more modern IBM personal computers. Before bedtime, I fed in the codes from Valerie's paper on my little portable computer. Early next morning, it changed plans when I was supposed to complete a quote for the affiliate in St. Kitts. Therefore, I took the local flight to the neighboring island and was there after less than an hour.

2. St. Kitts

At the airport, I was, of course, met by a number of young people who more and less handled trying to help with my luggage and to ride a taxi. One of the taxi drivers was very determined and took me to his big old Dodge from the fifties. He took full speed against the city, that is, full speed according to the rate prevailing on St. Kitts. He was actually up for 50 km an hour on a couple of occasions. He was so courteous that he persuaded me to leave the car and buy a pair of sunglasses before continuing to the hotel.

I am very orderly of me and when I packed up I saw directly that someone had searched through my luggage. Nothing was gone so I did not take that seriously at all. Since the hotel did not have air conditioning I slept for the open window and the ceiling fan was spinning during the night. Suddenly, I woke up in the middle of the night, the fan that had blown me in the face did not work anymore. There was something or rather someone between me and the fan. This one was looking through my pockets. I sat up in bed and wondered what was going on. The black shadow warned this and rushed out onto the balcony and climbed weight down to the street level and disappeared.

I lifted the phone and alerted the front desk and a young man alerted the police after which my hotel room became the meeting place for the local police force the rest of the night. The policemen on this island are obviously large adults and should be able to scare the bows with their naked presence. I was also assured that on this little island there were no burglaries in hotel rooms. They assured me there had to be a temporary thief from another island. They advised me to shut the window and sleep, despite the heat.

Somewhat exhausted, I walked to my potential customer's branch. I felt persecuted but ignored this, who would be interested in shadowing me? In the middle of the street was a traffic police with big white gloves and an impressive uniform sleeve. In the crowd in front of the local traffic police who stood there in the middle of the street instead of traffic lights, I collided with a woman who apologized. I remembered this when I would make notes in my small notebook with the customer. It was gone. It was not stolen during the night but it was gone. Could it be a jerk like in the crowd in front of the traffic police who thought it was something valuable? Or were industrial spies from some American competing company?

3. Brimstone Hill

I wake up with a terrible headache, I'm having difficulty breathing because I feel a pressure on my chest. The neck feels like rough sandpaper and I open my eyes. It does not help dew, it's completely dark and surprisingly cold. I'm trying to remind myself that I'm actually in the Caribbean and in the Caribbean it's not cold, not even at night. I am lying on a floor, a cold floor, a cold stone floor, more specifically. When I try to move, I notice that the weight over me causes me to be stuck on the floor and I slowly start waking my muscles to do something about the situation. I'm on my back and something lies on top of me why I'm in a hurry to persuade my foolish limbs to do something about the situation.

I lift my arms to remove what lies on me and then feel that it is somewhat soft and quite fragrant that keeps me pressed against the floor. As I know, I find that there are human, indeed women, forms that lie there. Ever after I recognize both shapes and fragrances, memory begins to slowly return. Not that I have any idea where I am, but that I recall what has happened before. But how did I get on a cold floor in a dark room somewhere on a Caribbean island?

After finishing workday I had asked the hotel where I could eat a good pizza. In the recommendation of the hotel porter I walked around the corner, and a staircase overlooking the harbor was actually a pizzeria. The pizza maker was by no means Italian, but a tall black man with a broad Caribbean smile, with incredible elegance, fixed to a giant pizza.

In the middle of the pizza eating, I feel a hand on my shoulder and little nervous after the events of the day, but relax when the hand's female owner says

"Hi, what are you doing here?" To my surprise, it's Valerie from Antigua. With my mouth full of pizza I say I eat pizza and ask how she suddenly can be on this island.

"It's easy," said Valerie, "I've got a sister here in St. Kitts, whom I had today, and I was very surprised when I saw you here. I would just buy a couple of pizzas I would take home to my sister and eat there at home." She did not seem as happy and natural as last time I met her but did not think so much more about this. But I was not amazed when asked if I could not help bringing the pizzas to my sister.

I ate my pizza in the meantime as the happy pizza baker baked a couple of giant pizzas for Valerie. I took the pizzas in one hand and Valerie in the other and walked out to a waiting taxi, a well-groomed Chrysler who had a number of years on his neck. I walked into the dark car from one side and Valerie from the other. As I dropped down in the backside with the pizzas in my knees I ended up next to something or someone who was definitely not Valerie. I felt something hard in the kidney suit, and a sore voice illuminated that it was a gun and that I would shut the door and keep calm. Valerie sat on the other side of the man without saying a word.

The man with the fierce meeting said "Drive" to the driver and the car started at a speed that I did not think was possible on this island.

"What does this mean," I said, "you must have misguided someone." I am Hamilton Jones, computer salesman from Scotland. "

"Keep silent," said the voice.

"Valerie", I tried "what's happening ...?"

The woman from Antigua was silent, but the pressure on the kidneys increased dramatically, and the daring voice urged me very firmly and not a dope to shut up. Because I did not think I would start any meaningful conversation, I kept silent and tried to find out what really was going on.

The man next door was big and black but could not see much more in the dark back seat. The driver I saw a little more oblique from behind when we occasionally met other cars. The driver was big and wide and had a look like a black Areaway indian. The ride seemed to go north because I saw the sea on the left. After half an hour, the car rolled up against a large brick high that looked like a fortress from the 1700s. Without a word, we left the car and were brought down into the deep basement vaults of the old castle and three steps down I felt a smelly cheek that was pushed to my nose and suddenly I understood that I breathed in chloroform and whipped off.

Now, I lay in something that could be an old prison hole in an old castle. Three steps down seemed like I was locked safely. But who was lying on me, with smell and feeling, I realized that it was Valerie. Valerie began to wake up, had she been subjected to the same treatment?

I rolled the weight out of my body and when I felt over the curvy body getting to know what was up and down she was floating.

"Where am I, who are you, ugh how dark it is," she flushed.

"Calm," I said, "I'm Hamilton, you're in a prison hole in St. Kitts," I informed her about.

"Yes, yes, I remember, but why?"

"I thought you knew it was you who pulled me into this"

"No, I promise, it must be a mistake"

After knowing if the body worked, we investigated the cell to convince us that we were locked in. Undoubtedly it was. We started to freeze and did the best we could to heat each other. I'm used to moisture and cold from the British Isles, but poor Valerie soon started shaking terribly.

"I'm freezing to ice if we do not soon get out of here," she said. Then we heard a noise on the outside, the lock that kept the door opening and I got a steady roof in a brick that I found in the cell. I had tried to find something hiding and a brick was the only thing I could find in the dark.

A light rectangle appeared and the door opened and released the light from a flashlight. I quickly backed the door, lifted the brick and prepared me to make sure that the intruder would get something hard in his head. A stubby person walked gently through the door and I went to an attack. The person in question heard me and directed the flashlight against me and after spending the last few hours in the columns, I was completely dazzled and missed roughly when I tried to cover the little person who entered the door.

My attack was so violent that I stepped straight into the wall opposite and dropped down on the floor.

"Valerie," said a young voice "are you?"

"Ouii," whispered Valerie, "Boy, you're an angel. Where do you come from, what's happening," she warned nervously.

"Quiet," he said, called Boy. "We have to get out of here"

"Yes, please," I bumped from the floor level.

Under the guidance of Boy, the boy was actually called Boy, we followed prisons into the light. In the shadow of a tree stood a big Chrysler taxi, and next to the taxi stood a big black native that looked like an Arawak Indian. Before I think he was wondering whether the cooked pork was fried or not, Boy and Valerie rushed to him and because Valerie kept me in my hand I just had to come along.

"I put the car in the shade so it would not get so hot," says the Arawak Indian.

Big Bill, shouted Boy, "Drive us to Basseterre soon before the bad guys come back".

Big Bill is sitting in the pretty cool car and driving down the hill.

"Brimstone Hill" says Big Bill "was built over 200 years ago. A famous battle was fought in 1782 when only 600 Englishmen with 350 militants from the island held the fortress against 8000 French soldiers. Finally, the English lost."

"Big Bill is the nicest and most cozy taxi driver on the whole island," explains Boy. "He is well-liked by all charter boat tourists and can tell St. Kitts history and sights on their five fingers."

"I'm crazy about that," I say nervously, "can anyone explain what's going on?"

"Yes," replied Boy, "My name is Boy, living with my aunt Violet, she is a sister to Valerie." I and Valerie would buy pizza last night. "I met some friends outside the pizzeria and waited outside until Valerie and you came out. Big Bill came back to town this morning, I asked what was happening and he said you went down to the prison caves at Brimstone Hill. And you know the rest"

"Well, yes, but why ..."

"Now we pass Sir Thomas Warner's grave monument. It was he who colonized St. Kitts in the 17th century" informing us of Big Bill. To my surprise, I see the monument sponsored by Caribbean Eskimo Foods. But there may be a need for cold food in this hot part of the world. But I'm not a tourist, I'm a computer salesman that have come across something that I do not understand. I'm getting more and more annoyed, which is unusual for my part, and ready to cancel Big Bill in a very rude way. Valerie, who did not say a word all the time, seeks eye contact with me and she shakes her head. I interpret it as if I am not going to ask any more.

Everything is a big mystery to me. Certainly you can end up in strange situations when selling computers in foreign countries, but this is the strangest thing I've been to.

4. Jolly Beach

The West Indian islands have a lot of different history. You can actually look at the settlement, which colonial power had dominion over the respective island. St. John's in Antigua, as I previously told a typical English town in miniature, where most of the settlements consisted of houses and townhouses. Basseterre was built when the French at an epoch in the island's history had mastery. This city reminded me of a small town by the Mediterranean. Multi-storey houses, sidewalks and drainage systems in the form of small channels between the sidewalk and the street were typical of the French type of colonial cities. But the French had to leave and the island had been British until independence in the 60's.

But the British were not so popular, they were the last of the old colonial powers. Although Barkley's bank was in one of the most beautiful buildings, and one was British banks, it was Americans who ruled the economy on the old sugar island. I also noticed that if at my business visits I pointed out that I was a Scot, it facilitated the contacts to some extent.

This I philosophized when we, Valerie, Boy and myself with Big Bill as a taxi driver rolled into the capital. Of course, I wanted to go straight to the impressive police officers I met last night.

"Do not you want to be on Antigua today?" Says Valerie, "If you go to the police you will be detained on this island for several days. And do you have any good sense of the bad guys?"

In the end, I let myself be persuaded to take the morning flight to Antigua. I fetched bag and computer from the hotel room and continued with Big Bill's taxi to the airport. There was a Twin Otter from Liat, the largest local West Indian airline, waiting for the airport. To my surprise, Valerie and Boy joined the airplane.

"I promised Violet to take care of Boy for a couple of weeks," explains Valerie. We were out at the last minute but it did not bother the staff at the airport. We checked in and a ground hostess took us to the little plane that was completely empty when we arrived. The plane was half an hour delayed but there was still no pilot on board. Suddenly the pilot came. On his head he is wearing a pilot's hat but in addition white shirt and jeans. He was dark-haired, tanned and in fact white.

"Hello," he said unexpectedly when he boarded, "excuse the delay". He speaks English with Spanish break.

He sits fast at the driver's seat, starting and barely knocking out on the runway before we are in the air. No radio contact with the tower, he just starts.

"They are not careful with the flight procedures in the Caribbean," I say straight into the air. In the little Twin Otter you are close to the pilot, it's just a sloppy curtain that separates the passengers from the pilot.

The pilot seemed to be aerial, so I leaned back and slammed easily. Half an hour later we seemed to go for landing on Antigua. I looked out the window and did not see any landing track and hardly any building. The pilot had still not had any radio contact with anyone but was definitely about to land. I was a little worried about the ride behind the pilot. We were about to land but I still did not see a runway.

"What's going on," I shouted, "is something wrong?"

"Take it easy, Mr. Jones," says the pilot, picking up a gun as he points back to me, "tighten the seat belts and sit still, or else the landing can go to the barrel. No sudden movements for then we may be killed everyone. "

I sink into the chair closest to the pilot and think confused thoughts. The aircraft has apparently been hijacked and our pilot is probably not a regular Liat pilot despite the uniform hat. In any way, I understood that they were looking for me and that it must have something to do with Valerie.

Antigua was a flat island with a number of landing possibilities for a small plan. We passed one of the mills that had been extinguished in the countryside and remained since the island was one of the world's main suppliers of cane sugar. The plan landed a bit violently, bounced up in the air a couple of times before deciding to stop flying. The ground was not very even and when the plane crossed something against the ground, I had loosened the seat belt and threw more or less against my will against the pilot.

The pilot did not wear the seat belt, he wanted full mobility because he had to control his passengers. Therefore, when the plane crossed, he was thrown with my weight hard against the wheel and became unconscious. I was careful to pick up the gun and put it in my pants pocket. A quick look at my fellow travellers shows that they are well kept. With united forces we manage to get the door up and rise into the burning sunshine.

"Good morning, Mr. Jones, welcome," I hear a sweet voice say. As it is clearly not the V C Bird International Airport, I am at least easily surprised. The language was English but the Spanish break could not be missed. The owner of the voice turned out to be a long dark beauty with long dress. She had no jewellery in addition to a big black gun in her right hand. "It was nice to come and see you. I understand that the pilot was knocked out by the hard landing. Go slowly and quietly to the car parked over there. Mr. Jones is sitting at the wheel, little miss beside you and you young You're next to me in the backseat. It's no idea you'll find any stupidities, then the young man next to me in the backseat will be very seriously injured. "

From bad to worse. I did of course the beautiful woman said. She directed me to drive a few miles west to a hotel. I had to drive to the kitchen entrance, we were ordered to the goods elevator and up to the top floor. I was smuggled into a room and Valerie and Boy in another.

"It's no good idea to bring noise," said the beautiful woman. "There are no guests on this floor and the windows cannot be opened. We'll have a little chat when the boss arrives."

It started to feel ridiculous. That I, Hamilton Jones, computer salesman from Scotland, would be hunted around the Caribbean by gun-fired shady mites. Now locked in a tourist hotel that apparently was called the Jolly Beach Hotel. She was right, a door that could not be opened from inside, windows that could not be opened either. And here I would wait for the boss, who it could be. Apparently, I managed to get away from him at Brimstone Hill. But now it's time to confront The Big Boss.

5. English Harbour

The hotel room had nice air conditioning which was not disturbed by any thoughtless hotel guest who could open a window. I considered the possibility of throwing the TV through the window to draw attention but rejected the idea when I thought the bad guys probably had control of the hotel. Otherwise, it would probably not have been so successful to lock us in a hotel room.

It was just as good to wait in The Big Boss to get it all explained. Then a cracking hand was heard at the door and after a couple of tremendous depressions of the door handle, the door was opened and Boy carefully stabbed his head. When he saw me, he broke up in a wide laugh and said

"Hello, Mr. Jones, follow me now, we're leaving from here."

"Never in life," I said. "I want to stay here and figure this out with the boss when he comes"

"They are deadly". Valerie interfered in the conversation. She looked really worried. "The Mexican syndicate will throw us to the sharks as soon as they know what they want."

"And what do they want then?"

"Hurry up, there's somebody," whispers Boy, leaving the corridor.

"But how are we going to get out of this hotel," I ask troubled. "Can't we go out through the lobby?"

The elevator approached clearly, and we quickly threw away elsewhere. It was in a hurry. The elevator doors were opened and we penetrated us through an unlocked door that turned out to be the cleaning scrub.

"Now you've set it up, Boy. I'm going out explaining how it's when the boss comes ..."

"You're not," Valerie says sharply. "Instead, open the roof door above us"

Valerie had a strong persuasiveness. I could do nothing but what this cute woman told me. I stood on the steps that were in the cleaning scrub, and the roof door was opened. I was looking over the roof of the hotel. On one side a flat landscape, on the other side a sunny sea with beautiful dunes. I would have given quite a bit to go down to the beach as a regular tourist, buy a Pina Colada in the bar and sink into a sun lounger. Preferably in the shadow, it was terribly hot. The plate was hot so you could cook eggs on it.

"What do you see?" was asked from the bottom of the scrub. I told them. "Do you see any fire path?". Indeed, at the back of the house there was something that could be the top of a ladder. I helped the others on the roof and we sneaked to the fire ladder. Carefully we looked over the edge and saw that the steps went down to the parking lot at the back of the hotel. I walked gently down the steps. It creaked worryingly and I suspected that there would be guards bothered to see what was going on.

If the people in the elevator were on our way to our room where we should be locked up, the alarm should have gone. But everything was quiet, only the noise of the sea was heard and a dull mumbling from the kitchen area. The kitchen was right underneath us with the window open, it would be tricky to get past that window on the steps. I looked up to warn the others. I looked up and found myself looking under the Valery skirts. Silky smooth round well-shaped legs that disappeared into a minimal reddish panty.

I now had the same colour on my face as the panty. Did it feel like. It must be the heat. I had stayed but Valerie did not notice and suddenly my head was very close to the red panty before she knew where I was. If you were not on the run ...

I sneaked on the kitchen window and saw two chefs' steak fish while discussing the last cricket match. I looked up again and now Valerie had moved on her dress so that I could draw those above me to be silent. They nodded nervously. It was actually happening to get past the chefs; they had no reason to look just as we slipped past the steps. The steps did not go down to the ground, there were two and a half to three meters missing to the ground. I jumped into the gravel. It was a long way, I thought. I whispered upward: "Jump, I receive". Valerie jumped and I received.

"We must be away from here, and soon. What are we doing?" Meanwhile, Boy had jumped down from the steps and sneaked to the parking lot. A handy boy, Boy. At me it seemed like he was a professional burglar. Apparently he had managed to open the hotel doors and let us out. Now he waved us from a Jaguar with American number plates. And, of course, he had a fierce Jaguar and invited me to take a seat at the wheel.

"Where are we going?" did I ask.

"To English Harbour," Valerie answered.

"Why then?"

"We're going to sail to St Lucia"

"And why that if I can ask?"

"We cannot stay here, they are too dangerous"

"Who..."

Boy interrupted us as usual and prompted me to quickly leave the hotel behind us. So far I kept up with it completely.

"I have to get back to the plane and get my bag and my computer"

"Never in life," did Valerie say completely unexpectedly. "What should be good for?"

"My job. I have all the customers in the computer. I have put your puzzle in the computer. I have ..."

Valerie's eyes sparkled, and she agreed to go back to the plane right away.

The plan was left but the question was how it was with the pilot. The plan was empty, the Mexicans had obviously found him, or maybe he had spied so much that he could go from there for his own machine. Anyway, I jumped into the plane. My bag was gone but the computer was still under the chair. I found nothing else useful so I went out of the plane. Long away I saw a dust cloud approaching, either they had discovered our escape or someone was on track to find out about the aircraft. One of Liat's plans could not be left anyway, it must be sought after all over the world at this time.

I jumped into the car and Valerie showed way to English Harbour.

"Why in the whole world are we going to English Harbour?" I ask

"Can you sail?"

"I've sailed optimist at home in Scotland," I said proudly

"It's not really the same as sailing a big boat."

"Shall we sail and if so then?"

"It's the best way to leave the island and find something safer. I know people who can help us. But we have to leave Antigua."

She had a certain persuasiveness, dear Valerie. Because I did not know either, I let myself get into new difficulties.

6. Nelson's Dock Yard

"We have to wait until it gets dark," says Valerie. We drove off the road and hid the Jaguar in a tree trunk and covered it with twigs so that it would not appear at a distance. I wonder when I can afford a Jaguar. It was nice to drive even though we had driven it on bad roads and even in the terrain it behaved exemplarily. But now it was time to change to boat as a means of procurement.

We lay in the grass above Nelson's Dock Yard at English Harbour. Lord Nelson was powerful famous here. He had apparently been active in the Caribbean during a less famous period of his life. We were at the height above the harbour and saw about fifty big sailboats in the well-protected harbour. We lay there and saw the boats that were inhabited and those who currently seemed unmanned. We also saw a couple of cars that quickly drove down the harbour and apparently in an upset way asked about something. They might be looking for us. I shake my mind. Everything else seemed as peaceful as seen from above.

Suddenly the dark fell but we had to wait a few hours before the activity in the port ended. The restaurant closed and eventually the harbour was almost fateful. But there was of course at least one guard. Valuable sailboats could not be left completely unattended.

We drove down after one beach and followed it until we were in front of one of the outermost boats. We undressed everything except the underpants. I screwed the computer, wrapped up in a plastic bag, and my clothes, in another plastic bag, on a board. Then we slowly dropped into the lukewarm water and dragged the board to the big white sailboat. When we arrived, I noticed that this boat was big and I did not look forward to sailing such a big craft.

First, it was about boarding which was not the easiest. Suddenly I came to think that there might be sharks in these waters why I asked a little carefully

"Are there sharks here?"

"Do not bother you" I was answered. Valerie had apparently become more and more family after hand. In any case, I got new powers so that I could take on board with the help of anchors and then help the others. It was actually a nice swim, so this evening it was 25 degrees in the air and 28 in the water.

I recognized to see what was on board. A small auxiliary engine is understood, the sail ready to hoist and a wind that actually fainted towards the harbour entrance. It should therefore be possible to slowly drive out to the sea with a minimum sail. We started to slowly pick up the two anchors and the boat began to drift. But not against the harbour entrance but towards the other beach. It's not only windy to take into account there were currents as well. And there was ebb and river and a crab that I had not counted on at all.

In any case, we managed to get a sail so that the wind helped us to get in front of the inlet. But we were still driving at anxious speed against another boat. I fought in vain to get more wind in the sail. I had, as I said, sailed optimist sledge on Loch Ness, this should not be more difficult, just a little bigger and heavier. This is a collision and a big failure, I thought, but then we drove past the other boat by less than a meter's margin, and slowly we went to sea. We had the tide on our side, it could not be better if we had figured it out in advance.

We were out on the big ocean without being discovered. But there was still an even more difficult thing to navigate where we were going. And where would we go?

"St Lucia" said Valerie

"You're not wise" was my intelligent comment "Why?"

"There is a living volcano."

As if there were any explanation.

We actually managed to hoist a sail and the sailboat took good speed away from the island. There was a smooth breeze from the southeast. It always blows a steady breeze from the southeast in these waters so that it's all that well. With the help of the compass I steered towards the southwest and the sailboat slid calmly and smoothly in the water. Soon we saw some dolphins who apparently thought it was fun to keep company.

I found a number of charts and found that the island we were aiming for was the French Guadeloupe. It was nice with land in sight, I thought. Against the darkness, I became nervous and said we had stop somewhere. We had a big island dressed with jungle on our left side so we approached carefully and released an anchor about 100 meters from the land. There we were safe for the night.

Valerie had opened a few canned cans and we got some sausages with white beans. It tasted great after a long day's run. I was considering trying to go to land, but it looked so unexpected that I was able to stay. The boat was well stocked with food and drinks so we opened a couple of cans of beer and relaxed in the salon, Valerie and I. Boy had dumped into a cabin somewhere in the bow. I was about to wait until Valerie exclaimed

"Puzzle! Have you found out something?"

"No," I said tired "who have time with a puzzle when you have to chase around the world in air, car and boat. Now it's time to get into a nice bin."

I was at sea so I could cost myself a little seagull jargon.

"Please Hamilton," praised Valerie

"My friends actually call me Ham."

"Please Ham, you can use the computer on board the boat?"

"Yes, I can. The computer's battery lasts a while, so there are batteries on board. You can safely connect my battery to 12 volts anywhere."

The computer was untouched and as far as I could see, nobody had fingered it. I had already entered what was on the paper earlier. Just pick up the image on the screen and try to think further. Apart from single letters (W and N), there were a lot of numbers in groups of five. It looked like some kind of encrypted text.

I took the puzzle into my word processor and assumed that the numbers were in place of letters so I drove a bit searching and changed, I replaced the number one with A and so on. There was no point at all. I tried other combinations but no luck so far.

I heard a splash and hurried I rushed on the deck. There in the water next to the boat, only a naked Valerie swam and I drew a relief sigh. I had for a moment thought that our Mexican enemies had found us.

"Guess if it's nice in the water," Valerie cried. "Help me up in the boat, are you nice?"

I did it and there she was completely naked on the deck, the water drops glittered on her side skin and glitter was propagated to her eyes. She might be a bit too round about the bust and the buttocks to seat as a fashion model. But there was nothing wrong with the curves, here was a sign with warning for dangerous curves. I suddenly had breathing problems and palpitations and it was not because I jumped on the deck too fast. I approached the woman to caress the round shapes, the tough breasts they ...

"Puzzle first dear friend," she twittered.

She drew on a side morning rock that did not blame much of the shapes. There were plenty of clothes on board actually. Valerie took me in my hand and led me down to the computer that stood there and sore. She slams down beside me and called on me to resume the puzzling country. I was both excited and distracted now and had a little trouble with the concentration.

"Can you count on this word processor," said Valerie

"Sure," I said "you just do this. First, select these five numbers and press this button and you'll see the total amount of 17. Then you'll do the same to the next group and next group."

Somehow, I thought the numbers seemed familiar, but they could not figure out what it was. I wrote down the sums of my calculations in the computer including a W and a N.

After trying other things too and a couple of hours later I came to it. Had not Valerie so keenly encouraged me with all her crazy body I had given up a long time ago. And every time I tried to brush on her instead of the computer she said

"Puzzle first, Ham little!"

"Now I know," I suddenly shouted, "get a chart!"

With open bathrobe, Valerie left and returned with a chart.

"Look here," I said, "there are coordinates on the chart. If you look here at the edge of the chart, there are 18, 20 and so on and here on the bottom are 62, 64 and so on. If we take the numbers as We got out of the puzzle and we see that the lines cross each other so this is this "

"Hurray, we have found the treasure," exclaims Valerie "now I want to ..."

She takes my hand and together we jump in the nearest cage, she wears my clothes and around me I have round arms and legs and breasts and ... and ... She caresses me everywhere, her mouths are very moist and she receives me with everything she has. Soft and nice everywhere but muscles, she is in the right places so she turns me off with a power that I did not think was available. It does not take many minutes before we both explode into a cool orgasm that never seems to want to end.

"What a treasure," I think, tired before I get tired of falling asleep.

6. Dominica

I wake up very slowly. I am completely naked and relaxed and sweaty and feel completely exhausted. I gently touch my tired limbs but sparkle of the coffee smell that slowly reaches my nostrils. With some effort, I open my eyes stuck to a chubby woman in an unbuttoned silk robe. I rush and make a shave to shed my naked body with something, but refrain when I remember the night's exercises.

"Good morning," Valerie twittered, "here's coffee in bed."

And in fact here came the wonderful woman and served hot coffee with bread on the bunk. The thought business returns slowly, although I do the best to forget that we are heading for a stolen sailboat to an island I barely heard of and we are hunted by Mexican bandits. I do not really know why. I know or think they are Mexican but I do not know why I ended up in this situation. Best to take a match at a time I think and try to enjoy what's available. To start with coffee on the bunk with accessories.

Eventually, I have to leave the beautiful courtyard and review the boat before we have to move on. The boat is filled with clothes and canned food, bottles of beer, but no fresh water. Brushing your teeth in salt water or beer does not feel very refreshing.

In Dominica, there are still unexplored areas in the interior that are probably never trampled by a human foot. The inland pine forests are located in an almost incompetent terrain, filled with gorges, rocks and narrow ridges that protrude in sharp, high mountain ridges. Countless streams and small rivers flow out between them, dangerous to the hiker as they can easily be filled with the ever-repeated rainy rains of higher regions.

The field is slippery and hilly of multifaceted leaves and has networks of winding roots. Everything is covered by overwhelming and almost impenetrable vegetation in the form of armpits of armpits, interlaced leaf masses, air spots' sparse curtains, grass cutting like razors, giant buns and wild palms. From this, huge tribes arise through the greenery, full-fledged and gripping of spirals twisted wreaths. The higher you get the closer the rainforest becomes. A mysterious half-thunder prevails, rarely does the sun have the opportunity to send its light down to the rain-damp atmosphere.

When violent rain descends through this timeless deciduous forest, it further darkens. The trees are sighing and cracking in the wind, the lianas twitching at the movements. Large leaves sail down from the crowns like injured bats. From the dark, sometimes a lobster-like, waxy red helicon blossoms, whose water-filled limbs contain small dead insects. The sound of water is constantly heard, as the rocks go down to the rocks. From within the depths of the forest are dull, humid flutes from wild pigeons mixed with a sweet butterfly's sweet drill.

From the Atlantic Ocean, Dominica has a stately and impressive landscape with a character of wild and romantic beauty. Blue-black clouds can be heavily pressed over the mountain jungles while giving the green a deep gloomy tone. Gray rain clouds stand here and crossed over valleys and mountain slopes. Towards the coast's reddish and black rocks, the rocks hammer white-blistering, while huge waves roll over the sandy beaches all the way up to the roots of the coconut palms. Light green lights the banana crops up in the landscape, and a mature red roof of a city church is regarded as a necessary contrast to the overwhelming tropical vegetation. Captivating sun sometimes gets lukewarm to inland as a signal that people also live here.

From the Caribbean side, however, Dominica shows a more open and brighter ankle. The sea on that side is usually shiny with smooth dyes next to the coast. The clouds can be light and airy over the high jungle mountains. If you come to an island early in the morning, the highest mountain of the Windward Islands, Morna Diablotin (1450 meters), may be cloudless, which is rare later in the day. The sun is pouring over the warmth of the tropical landscape.

No other island in the Caribbean can show off untouched rain forests and jungles of birds and plants in a similar urbane. Here, botanically interested can get into jungles as difficult as in the Amazon and still make new discoveries in the wild flora.

So, that is how Dominica looks like in the tourist brochures, I did not know much about this at the time, but would soon experience Dominica closer.

The beach is quite unwelcoming but a bit away it sounds like a brook or smaller river that flows into the sea, that is, the Caribbean Sea. The island is, therefore, Dominica, one of the wildest and most unwelcome ones in this part of the world. But we pick up a number of plastic bottles, jump in the water, and swim to the place where the stream flows into the ocean. No dinghy was available when we borrowed the boat, it was probably landed with regular owners. The beach is here around the stream's outflow and consists of black lava sand.

We take our plastic bottles and wade up the stream to get fresh water. Then we hear voices from the water and we see a big white motor cruiser approaching. I am about to make us feel when I look closer to what it is for people who apparently intend to board our sailboat. There are many people in the bow and they are armed. One of them shoots a warning shot that echoes over the water and hoists something against the sailboat. They obviously want to have the sailboat crew on deck, but we are landing to get water.

They cannot see us, we are well protected in the shadow of the dense undergrowth. It must be the Mexicans who have found us. Nevertheless, even at this distance, I see that they look more like Filipinos or Malaysians or something like that. And it's definitely not the local coastguard, they cannot possibly look like that and cannot possibly come in such a boat.

Valerie and Boy also see what's happening and stands silent next to me. We see the Asians aboard our "sailboat" and after a while they come to the deck and gesture and point towards land. They are getting ready to land and look for us, it seems clear.

"We must go, we have to hide," says Boy.

He does not need to say that twice. We wade up the shallow brook until we reach a high waterfall. We go landing and climbing into the jungle as soon as we can. Near the brook there are almost impermeable bushes and it is getting humid in the air. After penetrating further into the woods, we dare to stay and listen if we have any persecutors. We hear from distant loud little upset voices. Suddenly I see Boy disappearing into the woods. I dare not shout, the Asians can hear me.

We are as mentioned in Dominica. What I see from this unwelcome island is dense rainforest. It's damp in the air and it starts to shine a light rain. The rain is hot, but we get uncomfortably wet all the way to the body. We have bathing boots, t-shirts and sandals on us. The t-shirts stick to the body, in a less frustrating situation, I would have a glance at Valerie. I fiddled until I read the words on her t-shirt on Valerie's litters. It was an advertising shirt for the Pizzeria Vulcano, and what volcanoes were written off.

Boy returned silently to us.

"Where have you been," I relieved nervously

"Recognized to see what the enemy is doing"

"And what are they doing?"

"Gives a jungle expedition to chase us"

"Are you sure?"

"Yep, they are gearing up five men who are soon on our way. What should we do now?"

"We have to move on and hide until they get tired," Valerie said undoubtedly.

"I could go and ask what they want," I tried. The eyes I received from Valerie and Boy made me feel depressed in the boot. If I had only boots in this jungle, everything would feel much better.

We had landed on a very deserted part of Dominica. It was not that difficult. Most of the island is very unavailable, and it is 80,000 people living on the island, although it is the largest of the so-called Windward Islands. In the tourist brochures, it is sometimes called the Garden of Eden. Here we were now three odd people, a lost scout, a puzzling woman and a boy who apparently was a burglar. At least. There could be many miles to the nearest human beings. The north-western part of the island seemed to be completely uninhabited, that was the part we were at.

It was clear that we had to move away from our pursuers, it was also clear that we should not leave the coast. From the boat we had seen high mountains and the island was a volcanic island like everyone else in these areas. Here in the rainforest it was semi-foamy and there was no possibility of orientation. Only on occasional occasions one could see a glimpse of the sun. Once we left the brook there was a lot of undergrowth, the tall dense chandeliers made it impossible for ordinary trees and shrubs to grow here. However, there were mosses and slippery stones that made it difficult to get along. And the ground ended steeply down to the left.

One thought might be to try to regain our boat. To begin with, you should find out what happened to it. We had now gone for an hour and when we listened back we could not hear our pursuers. It was just going downhill and we would come to the sea. Even though we were high above sea level, we had no view at all because of the dense vegetation. After half an hour we could hear the burns and it took us another quarter to penetrate the string nest. We saw our boat and we saw our persecutors boat.

But there ended the joy. Both boats were heading north. The question was whether we had any persecutors on shore or if they had returned on board. We received the answer quite promptly. Fortunately, the pursuers were not very silent. They had calculated that we were going to follow the coast to the north and there was a group on shore who were looking and three people in the luxury cruiser's dinghy who slowly approached us from the south.

Just moving on, starting with land, that is, and climbing upwards in the slippery ground. If we were wrong, they would see our traces. Our Boy had thought about the same thing and when we returned the same way we came down, Boy last went and dragged his wet t-shirt into the track. It looked good, at least I did not see our own tracks anymore. When we met on the next stream we went to the brook a couple of hundred meters to further out any traces.

7. Indians or paleids

It started to be evening and we did not hear any persecutors. We did not have to be thirsty, fresh water was good. But we did not have food and the hunger started to happen. We arrived at a wide river of rapids that we could not possibly pass over. We followed the rugged beach uphill. I had thought that the Caribbean would consist of sunny islands, sugar cane and some room mills. This was something completely different. Wet rainforest wet, everything was wet and sticky, the feet began to be full of blisters, and Valerie and Boy had long left the sandals and walked barefoot.

This reminder of South American jungles that I read about. Here maybe there were snakes and crocodiles. Or did not it? I had a slight idea that there were no poisonous snakes on the West Indies except a few. And for my life, I could not remember if Dominica was an island with or without poisonous snakes. That's why I kept the sandals on.

My companions seemed to take it all as a Sunday outing while I became increasingly discouraged. Soon it would be evening and who knew what creeps would come out then. Suddenly we came to a glance in the woods. Here there had been people for not long time ago. There were leftovers of a fire and there was a windscreen with a roof of palm leaf sealed with clay. Imagine if you could light a fire, I thought, sinking under the roof of the windshield.

Boy was looking around and judging my surprise when it immediately burned a fire.

"How did you fix that?"

"Below was a plastic bag with matches and a little dry," the answer was

It was clear that there was a resting place for someone who was used to the climate and put up a reserve of dry matches and dry wood. It was just thanking and receiving. We took off our soaked clothes and hung them on dry. I could not help laughing, here we were a nude shot, an equally naked black woman and an equally naked black boy on an island sometimes called the Garden of Eden. Now only the food that was taken was found it possibly a stock of canned preserves too? It did not.

On the other hand, there was reef and fishhook. Actually. Now I had to show me on the straight line. I was looking for worms, it was not hard in the wet, I put the worm on the hook and thrown into the river. It got a nap straight away! This was better than home in Scotland! I erase five fishes in five minutes. Grilled fresh fish tasted very good. Salt was not available, but it could be overlooked.

It was at the last minute we found this place. When we had eaten it was dark. As always near the equator, it's almost no dusk. One minute it's bright, the second minute the sun has fallen straight down below the horizon and it's black night. Our clothes were dry, we dressed what we had and we fell asleep all three the same moment we lied down.

I woke up suddenly, the sun was shining and it felt really comfortable. At least for a second or so, when I heard a completely unknown language, I was choked and then I opened my eyes and stared into two black holes. I changed the focus and behind the two black holes stared two black eyes on me. When I picked up my first shock, I realized that it was a strange individual who directed a double-barrelled blaster blunderbuss against me. I did not move out of the spot while I began to remember where I was.

My first thought was that now the Mexicans or Asians had found us. As I looked closer at the one who was behind the blunderbuss, I saw that this was something else. It was a white man, at least almost. At the same time he looked like an Indian. A white Indian, what was this now? I looked around carefully and saw Valerie and Boy sitting with other blunderbuss subjects aimed at themselves.

"Hi," I said, "Sorry if we borrowed your resting place, but we were hungry and tired and needed rest so we took the liberty of staying here overnight."

"How did you come here?" Then says the indian.

"If you want to be nice and back down with that gun. And be careful, maybe it may break off."

The Indians kicked back and I sat carefully next to Valerie and Boy.

"Have they been here for a long time," I asked them.

"Do not know," muttered Valerie, "they just woke me up"

There were three incredible individuals standing there and threatening us. They were equipped with long jungle knives in addition to each of their double-sided hail bushes, they were dressed like some kind of hippies with leather vests and cut jeans.

"Now I know" I recalled something "You are Island Caribs. You are some of the last natives." I also recalled that the Island Carib people were one bloodthirsty rack of their time, human gauges, among other things. There was a rush through me. Maybe it was because I was crazy. "Right?"

The cruellest of the three cruel things that seemed to be a joking answer.

"You were the bravest warriors of your time. You were dreaded of both white and black and red. Maybe you're still the Caribbean's brave warrior?"

They stared at me for at least three minutes without touching a muscle. Then, like a given sign, all three fell in a grinning laugh and they had a lot of fun.

"The little yellow men, are they chasing?" asked the Indians.

We briefly stated that it was. The Indians had seen "the little yellow men" get through the rainforest and bring a lot of noise.

"They are coming here now," said the Indians.

"Then we have to go. We have to cross the river, can you come across the river here somewhere?"

"Follow us," said the Indians, and we did. "There is a bridge upstream," they said.

Nice, I thought. Somehow, the Indians had taken our party to the Oriental. And maybe that was not that strange.

"Here's the bridge," said the Indians suddenly.

I did not see any bridge, but there were two powerful ropes from one side of the river to the other.

"And that's what you call bridge?"

One of the Indians hurried easily to the other side.

"Ladies first", I said to Valerie.

"You are an angel," she thought, went out to the "bridge" and with good balance she was soon over on the other side. Boy immediately followed and he was almost as skilled as the Indian. It looked easy, but across the front I looked down into the swirls and slipped off the lower lane. I still had the sandals on my feet and it was easy and slippery to walk on a lane over a slope.

I held the grip with my hands over the upper lane, and for a moment I felt the water against my feet and my feet were pulled out of the stream. I managed to lift my feet out of the foaming racket and get the foot on the lane again. Very cautiously, I managed to get to the other beach where Valerie helped me to land.

One minute later, the other two Indians were over on our side and we saw a number of Asians on the other side of the river. For further reflection it was strange that they did not come earlier. They could easily figure out we had to follow the river in one way or another. We hid on our side of the river and saw that they saw we crossed the river on the River Bridge. And they prepared to follow. They were in a hurry, so they crossed a few meters to get over as quickly as possible.

It did not mean that we were left on the other beach. I pushed one of the Indians' hailstones, looked for it was loaded, rushed to the bottom of the lower lane and four of both pipes. The lane held! The Orientals saw me pulling their guns and trying to shoot a few shots. With the background they stood on, the bullets near me did not disappear high up among the trees. Then the lily burst and two of the orients fell directly into the water, the rest remained. I pulled another rifle from another Indian and aimed at those who were hanging out. They saw it, and more likely, than to shoot, they thought enough and let go.

8. At sea

All the Asians disappeared into the rapids and also disappeared as they followed the stream. It was doubtful if they would survive but I just thought it was nice they were gone. Right now I was not interested in whether they would survive or not.

After collecting the nerves, it was time to move. When we looked around to thank the Indians for help, there was not an Indian in sight. They were gone, swallowed up by the rainforest. It was just to continue as before on your own. The rain had ceased but the air was so moist that there was no big difference. I sweated, had pain in my feet and hands, but it was just to continue as well as it went. Even I went barefoot, often there was a soft moss on the ground that felt comfortable against my sore feet.

The simple plan we followed was to follow the coast, thus finding a building or some kind of boat so that we could reach civilization. After many hours, we heard the sea and we headed down to the beach to see what it looked like.

Out there was the motor cruiser anchored and the crew was heading to land in a dinghy. They had landed in a bay half a mile north. It seemed as if they were going to camp on the beach.

Suddenly the tropical darkness fell over us. Again. We were hungry and tired but it was not a thought to get any food this evening. If we continue, we must go in a large circle around the camps of the Orientals. It was only possible to make it comfortable and sleep.

"We swim out and steal the boat," says Valerie.

"How easy," Boy agrees, "There's only one old man on board"

After further advice, I agreed that it was the least unpleasant option. Certainly, it would be a heavenly boat to go instead of an uncertain riotous journey through the jungle. We waited a couple of hours. Everything was quiet on the almost completely dark boat and on land the company seemed nice to have dinner and drink.

We slipped into the water and swam against the dark silhouette of the motor cruiser. We started to have some habits at these escapades nowadays. Quietly, we approached the boat. It was easy to board, there was a swim ladder so it was just to sneak up. Then a splash of water is heard next to the boat. The guard sitting and smoking on the deck rises and leans over the rail. In the water he sees Boy. The guard lifts the gun and says

"What are you doing here, boy? Get away from here!"

Meanwhile I sneaked on the deck, silent like an Indian. Next to the chair where the guard was sitting there was a bottle. I grabbed the bottle and took two steps to the guard and dropped the bottle in the back of him as hard as I could. With a gurgling he tumbled over the rails and into the water and disappeared.

I helped Valerie and Boy on board.

"You are my hero," says Valerie, giving me both kisses and hugs. Boy smiled on the boat and came back and talked about the fact that there was a figure on board.

"Here you have a gun," said Boy. "There's a guy sleeping in a bunk down here."

I held the gun hard and we sneaked down to the quay, gently opening the door. But not carefully enough. I did not see anyone in the bunk and suddenly hit the door against me so I lost both the breath and the gun. He kicked at me and hit the side so that it felt like a lot of ribs went off. Then he rushed past me and on the deck and screamed for the guard. No guard seemed of course, and then he gasped full lungs to land to attract attention.

Meanwhile I had grabbed the gun and crawled up the stairs to the deck. When the Asian saw me, he threw himself to intrepidly on the rails in the water and swam in full speed against land. The party onshore heard and of course saw both the man who threw himself into the water and, of course, us. Now it was in a hurry to get from here.

"Valerie, take my gun and shoot if you have to. Boy, pick up the anchor as fast as you can!"

I myself rushed into the wheelhouse to try and get the engine running. Luxurious motor boats also look like a regular motorboat in the wheelhouse. As I watched, I saw that we were driving fast to land. The tide was not on our side this time. I heard shots from land and I heard a couple of "bumps" indicating that the boat was hit. The dinghy was on his way from land to the boat and the distance shrunk rapidly.

I find the self-start the engines start with a whistle, but the rudder is so that we steer towards land and straight towards the dinghy. I see one of them climbing his bloody shoulder. At the last moment, I manage to steer clear towards the ocean. But the dinghy is sinking and Orientals swim around in the water. In no time, we're out of range and I turn off the gas and look around. Boy rays like a sun in the moonlight and Valerie comes with a smoking gun and says

"I had at least two yellowies!"

"Did you shoot any human?" I said shocked.

"Yes, yes, they first shot. And there were at least two of those who were very bloody."

The violence was stepped up. We had drowned or shot many people today. Without knowing who and why. One might say that there was war between us and the others.

"Boy, you can take over and control for a while. Stay far from land and steer out between the islands to the east."

The silhouette of Dominica seemed clear in the moonlight so there would probably not be a problem.

I wanted to take a closer look at the boat to see what people who chased us. I found some interesting things, including my computer and my credit cards and a number of other passports. Exhibited on people from Bangkok. Bangkok is located in Thailand, largely on the other side of the globe. There were also some papers that showed that they had some kind of contact with the gemstone industry in Bangkok.

I shared Valerie with my discoveries and the reaction was both unexpected and violent

"Hurray, hurray!" She shouted, "Then that's the truth! There's a treasure. There's a treasure ..."

If you do not tell me what you know, I will go to the nearest port and surrender to the nearest police. May I stole boats must be small potatoes compared to what happens if Thai or Mexican get hold of me."

"Keep in mind that we killed innocent people."

"Hm, of course. But tell me what you know or I'll whip it out of you."

"Yes, thank you, would you please do that?"

9. Black Rocks

North of Dominica is Guadeloupe, a French island. The French people have been so fancy that they claim that the islands of, for example, the Caribbean are part of France. That is, they are not French possessions, not part of the French Commonwealth (if there is such a thing) but part of France. This applies to the same laws, social benefits, etc. as in France.

During the night we had gently tough into the port of Pointe-a-Pitre, the capital of the French island of Guadeloupe. Pointe-a-Pitre was a town with French style and modern buildings, and the cars here were small Peugeot and Citroën, just like in France. On the right side before the entrance, the tourist hotel was situated, including a twelve-storey hotel with a large satellite dish on the roof. Slept well during the night we had done and now we walked around the square in the sunshine. The square shop was lively, round matrons invited fruit and root vegetables of varying appearance that I did not recognize at all. Live chickens were also for sale of course.

Here I also discovered that my English was no longer working. All people spoke French on this island, and French was not my strong side. If I were to sell computers in the French Caribbean, maybe I would take some evening classes in French before I went here next time, I thought. None of us actually did French. To resupply in the square went well. Valerie acted as a native, even though she could not speak French, and spun and talked and we got together various food and vegetables.

"What you seem nervous," says Valerie, taking each cup of French coffee on a sidewalk.

The fact was that I had always looked around to see if I was persecuted by Mexicans or Thai or someone else.

"This is my nerve," I said annoyed, "it's not every day I'm pushing people in the water and stealing boats. Certainly we're on a French island and nobody can suspect we're heading right here. You never know, it's too close to Dominica and Antigua and St. Kitts. We have to plan what we're going to do now. "

"Easy, my dear Ham," Valerie claims, "we will go and dig up the treasure."

"How then, if I can ask?"

"We get a few spades and go there and dig. Now we know where the treasure is."

It began to resemble some sort of pirate novel from the 18th century when a pirate named Morgan raided among the islands. Indeed, in West India's brutal history, there is a time when a large part of the population lived on pirate wars. There were plenty of ships at the time sailing between Europe and South America, sometimes with gold loads. The pirates could sometimes have an English captain's letter so that they captured French and Spanish ships. Soon you got a shipwreck on a desert island like Robinson Crusoe. It is said that there was somewhere in these hooks as he was shipwrecked.

"But we have to equip some kind of expedition," I feel desperate. I felt like I was in an impossible situation that I did not master and could not pull me out.

"It's not just us who are looking," I said. "And the boat is not ours, it can be felt by the gang from Bangkok. The first thing we have to do is take us to St. Kitts and get rid of the boat in any way."

"Here's what we do," says Valerie, "we take the boat to a place I know, where we can change the boat a little, paint it and give it a new name. It would be a shame on such a nice boat about it was destroyed. "

"First of all, I'm going to get a rubber boat, and we cannot swim out to the boat, it would seem awful. You saw what people looked at us when we swam in. There's a ship's shop over there. Let's go there and see what they have. "

Oh yes. Certainly there were inflatable's. And actually my credit card worked here. It was just taking it under my arm, which was not so easy with an inflated rubber boat, launch it and paddle out to our boat. Emeralda, it was actually called. It seemed like it was owned by any diamond king. Home harbour was Nassau, Bahamas, like many other convenience-flagged boats both here and in the rest of the world.

Even though I was nervously searching for fuzzy types that persecuted us, I could not find any traces for them. If so, the first "peaceful" since I arrived in the Caribbean. But Valerie and I paddled to our boat and there was always a joyous boy who helped us aboard. Except that there was a stolen boat where we are quite well-stocked with food and drink and rubber boat. The sun was high in the sky and we started our journey towards the next destination.

It was a wonderful journey. We rounded Guadeloupe and passed Antigua far on the right hand. I did not want to show me near that island considering what had happened there a few days ago. Soon we had Nevis in the field of vision. Nevis always has a cloud on the top of the island. That is, you never see the top of the mountain because there is always a cloud there. We continue on to the north, and while the trip is a little bumpy in the rising wind, we are comfortable. I have little trouble controlling because I have Valerie sitting in my knee every now and then. I had put on some clothes like protection against the sun, but Valerie and Boy were used to it.

We were going to the north-eastern part of the island, Valerie claimed, to a place called Golden Lemon. There we could go landing and even hide the boat, she claimed. As usual, south-eastern wind, however, blew slightly healthier than usual. In good march speed, 10 to 12 knots, we approached the target when dusk began to fall. Or rather, the sun fell suddenly into the ocean. At about the same time, one engine stopped and soon the other engine started to cough and stopped it too. After a glance at the fuel gauge, I realized that the gasoline was over. The fuel meter I had totally forgotten to check which was not so strange considering the other jobs I had behind the wheel.

It was blown like said from the southeast so it was only to let the boat drift ashore.

"But we're heading for Black Rocks," suddenly said Boy staring out in the darkness towards the country.

"Yes," I say, half uninterested. But I soon hear burns in our direction of travel, and in the dim light, I perceive black rocks that stand out of the water and the sea that breaks against the black rocks so that the sea is shining white.

"Sure lucky we have the rubber boat," I say hopefully. "Boy, download the most necessary thing in a plastic bag. Now. Then we'll try to get landed by the rubber boat."

The black rocks came closer and our boat slid closer. Now I saw clearly how whitening swirls surrounded the carbon black cliffs. There were black rock rocks that got out of the sea, they were many and hot and no boat had a chance to get through to the land. Nobody was so stupid that he tried. We were probably not the first to blow land here, there were certainly wastes from other boats over the centuries.

Now, at least we had life vests on us, the rubber boat lay on deck ready to use and we approached the first threatening stone pit with good speed. We went closer and we were armed with boat shackles and actually managed to keep us from the first cliff and the other cliff. We encountered the third with a broke, but went free for a moment until it sounded like someone tearing a piece of cloth, but multiply higher. The boat was thrown into the bottom of a submarine cliff and began to sink like a rock.

With united forces we heaved the rubber boat into the water and in the backwater in front of the boat we managed to crawl on board, I took the paddle and tried to pair the rocks as we crossed to land. Suddenly we were thrown up on a rocky beach and dragged both ourselves and the rubber boat up on land. We took both hands and knees on the sharp lava roasts and my half-cut ribs did not feel good at this treatment. After all, we were all three quite alive and basically dry. The waves tumbled over us every now and then, but otherwise we rested on the rough ground. Our nice boat was obviously broken against the rocks at this time. It was hard to see anything at all in the dark.

"Come on now, time to bump away to the nearest city," says Boy, who seems to be rude.

10. Big Bill

Now we sat in a big well-groomed American taxi heading south. Valerie and I in the backseat and Boy in the front seat next to a giant black Arawak. Well, it was our acquaintance since last, Big Bill. I suspected him to have some harmony with our Mexican villains, with Boy assuring that he knew Bill in his entire life and he could not possibly imagine anything but driving a taxi.

When we got up from the rocks at Black Rock, we soon got up the road. When we followed it for a while, we came to a town with a telephone booth and Boy had called Big Bill's friend who picked us up in his taxi.

"I think we share", I said carefully, "but I do not want to go into the hotel in Basseterre. You never know what a foolish Mexican can be there."

" Yep," agreed Valerie, "We're going home to the Acid, and Big Bill drives you to Frigate Bay, where you're closer to the treasure." We're coming to you early tomorrow morning. "

Big Bill left Valerie and Boy in Basseterre and continued with me south.

"Do you want to stay at Sun-in-Sand or Island Paradise," asks Big Bill.

"Drive me to paradise, which sounds nice".

Big Bill shows where the front desk is when we arrive. It turns out that Alyson, who manages the plant, is American and that Island Paradise consists of condominiums owned by Americans. In any case, there is an apartment available, a room and a kitchen at the bottom. No air conditioning but with the fans on the high speed it will be quite pleasant.

Because I am hungry I ask if there is any dinner and is recommended a pizzeria just a few hundred meters from there. The only clothes I had were t-shirts and shorts, but they had dried now so that was good. Then I walked to the pizzeria.

The pizza I ordered turned out to be a giant pizza, American size. And it's clear with an American holiday town on the knots, it's good for the businesses to Americanize the offer. But I took the place where I came, began to stuff me a thick and good pizza and rinse it down with two Coca-Cola.

The only ones that were at the restaurant were me and two American ladies. Nice ladies, but very American. They became interested in my accent and began to speak Europe. I had just met blacks and Indians and Thai and Mexicans lately, so I thought it was fun talking to a couple of nice American girls as a change. Before I had passed through half my pizza said one of them was tired and had a headache and wanted to go home.

"Go home you, I stay and make him company for a while," said Cheryl, the other American. The coolest and narrowest of them. She turned out to work with computer programs for a US company but was here on vacation. Since she also lived in Island Paradise, we of course made our company there.

"Unfortunately, I do not have a nightcap to invite, I just came and have not even bumped up yet," I said.

"We'll fix it easily, the shop over there is still open, we go there and fix a bottle of rum."

It is clear that we will get to know the local supply. Do not mind, even though I'm more prepared for Scottish produce in the usual cases. I felt I needed a strong drink and a quiet night to get back into shape. We bought a bottle of some local brand and because I had already invited her to a nightcap I could not get back now.

We walked in to me and dropped into each of his basket stools after putting a lot of ice in each glass and stuffed with the contents of the bottle. I felt really sleepy while enjoying Cheryl's ten-year long arms that disappeared into a sleeveless undressed thing that looked exciting. She had left the teens about those ten years ago, but it made it more appealing to me. I had left the teens myself several years ago.

"What you look like," she says, "have you crawled here on all four or what?" she says

Dirty and broken t-shirt, unshaved, and bad hands, I had, though I had washed myself as good as I could before I went to the pizzeria. She was right. I stumbled on the fact that I had fallen down for a sled in the dark and that the luggage had been lost on my way here.

"My father was a naprapath," says Cheryl, "take off your shirt I'll see how you look.

"Yuk," she says, "you're all blown everywhere. I'm kidding and picking up some liniment, and I'll take care of you."

I lay on my bed with just the shorts on and after two minutes she comes back with a jar of smelly strong lubricating lubrication.

"Lie still," she says, lubricating my body with liniment and kneeling my muscles with habit. She knows what she can and that's nice. At first she kneels her back and then the front. She is close and her fragrances penetrate the sharp lineage smell. Her long hair is tickled and my lusts start to wake up to life.

"Tomorrow we are going to Nevis, are you coming? It's Nick, he who is married to Alyson, who has a catamaran and has a trip to Nevis tomorrow."

Sure, why not. It may be a great opportunity to inspect the south coast, I think.

"Relax," she calls me, "it's better with relaxed muscles".

It is easier said than done, some muscles can be controlled, others act more for themselves and are increasingly excited by the treatment. Cheryl pretty much notice what effect she has on me, she pushes her round soft hills to my chest, wobbles her long arms around my neck and gives me a minute's super kiss.

Then the treatment stops in a row.

"At six o'clock tomorrow we will go. Sleep well!"

And she's gone. I quit the bedside lamp, all my muscles relax and I fall asleep as a stock within a minute.

11. Banana Bay

I wake up and think I'm stifling. It's in the middle of the night, I think it's dark, or maybe it's because I forgot to open my eyes. I fight something and get something soft and naked and can suddenly breathe.

"Goood Moorningg", I hear, "up and jump", on broad American. "It's morning and you should go to Nevis!"

I gather thoughts and slowly begin to understand that I forgot to lock the door last night. And that I was woken by a wet good morning by my female friend since last night. Cheryl and her friend are screaming at my embarrassment. I feel no special desire to go to Nevis this unchristian hour of the day. But shame on the one who gives up, a quick toothbrush and we walk out to the jeep where Nick is sitting at the wheel and was waiting for us.

We will arrive soon at Basseterre Harbour. The Pelicans sail around and look for fish they can catch. In the middle of the harbour lies a large rusty wreck that has been there since the fifties. Or maybe from World War II. On the other hand, there was probably no war in these areas so it is surely someone who left the wreck in the harbour. It is strange that it is so rugged outdoors everywhere on these islands. Old wrecks, Coca-Cola cans, bottles and all-round junk are everywhere and nobody seems to care. In clear contrast, everyone seems to clean and dress in freshly washed clothes.

At any rate, we quickly fly aboard the Nicks Catamaran and sail south to the island where the mountain peak always lies in clouds. As we travel south of St. Kitts, I'm looking forward to a beach looking fateful. But there seems to be some kind of settlement after all. I borrow a binocular from a Swedish tourist and see something similar to a tourist hotel. The Swede, who read the map, states that it is Banana Bay, an isolated hotel on the south coast of Kitts. There is no way to the south of the island, but all traffic must be done by boat.

I'm looking at the coast through the binocular as far as it goes, it looks pretty odd. Should you go to the south coast, you must either cross a 300 meter high mountain or walk along a rugged beach.

"What you seem interested in Banana Bay," says Cheryl. I'm hoping for a little guilty and instead targeting binoculars against Nevis as we approach well. It looks like we're approaching an old-fashioned sugar plantation. Or at least one manor house with large palm trees, well-cut lawns and a serving. Given that I still have not received any breakfast, the dining seems at least appealing to me.

The Americans are a welcome companions, easily spoken like most Americans. The catamaran drives up on the beach and I walk up to the serving and order a nice breakfast. An hour later, the coffee comes and another half an hour later, the rest of the breakfast comes. Even because I start to get used to the pace of the Caribbean, but to wait for breakfast until it's time for lunch is a little cool, I think. My female American company has gone to the mansion and been on a tour.

The wings of history are reminded everywhere on these islands. When I'm sitting at Nisbet Plantation, I'm reminded that Fanny Nisbet, who was married to the famous Lord Nelson, came from this plantation. After lunch at breakfast I took a bath and dried in the shade of a palm on the beach. When I peered at the sea, I saw a similar motor cruiser that we quarrelled to Black Rocks yesterday. I walked to the Swedish people and borrowed his binoculars again. On board I found myself now seeing figures that could be our "friends" from Bangkok.

I became nervous and began to think they were looking for me why I hid in the shadow of a palm. I feel that there is something behind the palm, turning around and staring into a pair of black eyes. The eyes sat in a beautiful face surrounded by long black hair that I followed my eyes down to the bust that was inside a long colourful dress in red and white.

"Gee ", slim it out of me "excuse me ..."

I now recognize her from my last visit to Antigua. Then she had a big black gun in her hand, now she had no big black gun in any hand and inside that dress she could not hide the smallest weapon without it being visible. I was relieved so far, there was no imminent danger. If there was no black-minded broad-haired individual in the background. I looked around, but everything looked so peaceful.

"We know you know," she said.

"Oh well," I said in awaiting.

"We have an offer ..."

"Who we?"

"The owners of what you know. We have an offer that you should not refuse. We offer one hundred thousand dollars for the right information."

"American or Caribbean dollars?" I ask the most for thinking about it.

She had a figure that could suit the model or maybe she had been miss Mexico or Miss Acapulco. She definitely belonged to the Mexican falcon who was looking for something in these waters. In further reflection, she could not have missed Mexico, not with the eyes of black diamonds drilling in my poor thinking.

"Yes, I do not have anything with me. How do I know, by the way, that you are not gangsters trying to steal what it is?", I say

"As I just said," said the good Mexican, "we offer a good amount of money for something that you have. Then we advise you to forget our existence, you leave the Caribbean, travel home to Scotland if you want to forget that you have met us at all times. "

Could it be so easy to get rid of this soup?

"Hello, Ham!" Two American young ladies come hottest and wave over the beach. "Come on, we'll go on!"

Saved by the gong-boy you could say. The Mexican pulled away and I thanked my lucky star that Cheryl and her friend arrived so timely.

"Did she try to attract you to the island's brothel?" Asks Cheryl half playfully. "She was not your type. Now we will look at the bed room where Lord Nelson spent many beautiful moments." Actually, I would have to think about the situation in peace and quiet. Should I get out of my mind if I took the bid from the Mexican. But the guys from Bangkok then, they would not stop chasing me. And how did Valerie and Boy come into the picture, I could not let them down. On the Thai, the boat I saw I had totally forgotten. A quick look at the sea shows that it had disappeared.

12. Mosquito Bay

Upon returning to Island Paradise, Valerie and Boy waited in my room. Fortunately, the Americans went home immediately but promised to come over soon so we could have dinner together. Say what you want about the Caribbean, you do not have to be alone. I would not mind having a little calmer, there were actually some people as complicated existence, if you say so.

"We have to equip an expedition," says Valerie. "We've got backpacks and supplies and early tomorrow we'll get rid of."

"Well, Oh yes!" I say stupidly, "where then?"

"You know exactly where," she says, "you are the one who has talked about it. It was you who found the coordinates!"

"Yes, of course, but ..." I could not do anything but right now so I quieted.

"Come, Boy, we have to go back to Basseterre. We'll be back early tomorrow," Valerie announces and removes. I can not be wise at her. I remember her as a soft and good friend from our common adventure, but now she is strictly business-like, almost like an official. She actually has some persuasiveness. Not so small either, I do not feel commanded, but I feel that I'm doing what I want, even though it's actually she who has decided everything ever since we met by chance a few days ago.

If it is an expedition that applies then it is only to accept and to exert yourself for this. At least I will get real clothes. Those I have are not very neat and I feel that I exposed my poor body to too much sun. I'm kidding off to the area's grocery store and getting me a pair of jeans, t-shirts and sweaters that promote St. Kitts and a wild-west straw hat. I also find a backpack. Now I'm ready for the expedition!

At home, the Americans are waiting for me. They bring a jug and fix to a baked potatoes roast and American black coffee that does not taste as black as it looks. After the food, I drop down on the couch while the girls manage the dishes. Thirty seconds later I sleep like a stock. I wake up half past half as the Americans lead me to bed, get rid of me, stop me and say

"Poor Ham, very well-behaved, he can not tolerate our American pace."

They just wanted to know my experiences before I met them yesterday, then maybe they would understand that more than they thought was needed to make a shot go out. I thought foolishly before falling asleep. Or am I getting old when not even two adorable young women could keep me awake.

It was still dark when I woke up because someone was in the room. Now I was awake, the skin tickled, even though it was hot. The fan was spinning, but I heard or rather felt something in the room. Suddenly a flashlight flashes in the middle of my face and I am stuck under the bed sheet and prepare me for the worst.

"Hello, Hamilton," says a familiar voice, and I relax. "I have to look if you were alone in bed," says Valerie. But I think she enjoyed I being scared.

"Up slowpoke," she continues, "now is the time for the expedition to start."

Just dress the newly purchased clothes and get away. In any case, it is a few kilometres above the probably untidy terrain before we reach our destination.

"Here you have our means of delivery," points out Valerie. Just outside the gate are three horses of indefinite breed. Saddled and stuffed saddlebags. There are also spades, water bottles and lots of practical things.

"You are incredible," I say surprised. "I really appreciate this and I thought we would go on foot all the way."

We are heading south to the south and are a few hours later heading for a lake. It looks cool and beautiful at the water so we sit down and take a short break. I'm going to cool in the water, but it does not look so inviting when I arrive. I wash my face but notice that it is salty water. Very salty water, although the lake is quite large. In fact, it is the Great Salt Pond, I know. We drop into the shade of some bushes, drink water, eat a light lunch and take a short siesta.

As I lie there, peers against the eastern hill, I see a reflex from something.

"Included binoculars in the equipment?" I ask Boy, who is closest to the gasket.

"Sure," he says, picking up a big and handsome binocular. I take shelter behind a bush and direct the binoculars against the sun cat I thought I saw. And finally I see that there are some people who are on the slope opposite. Just like us, they shave in the shade of some trees.

"What are we supposed to think about them?" I ask straight into the air.

"Get see!", Valerie cries up and look in the binoculars. But it's too far away to see if it's Thai or Mexican or something more or less peaceful company. " We ignore them," Valerie believes "there are probably only some tourists".

We continue towards our goal. I'm sincerely grateful for sitting on a horse. If I compare with the promenade on Dominica, this is a pure relaxation, although the sun is steeped in from the above. Throughout the trip we check all directions to see if we were persecuted. But we do not see any traces of any other people so we relax and find that there are only a few tourists in any case.

Eventually, we reach our predetermined position. But the position indication is not as accurate as we would like. In itself, the statement is accurate but the absence of additional decimals makes it most likely only approximate. We have a good map and can determine the small hill that is our theoretical goal. The hill is three hundred meters from the beach at Mosquito Bay. And in fact the insects are troublesome here, I have previously not noticed any insects on this island at all. But here the flies are troublesome.

"On this hill, nobody has been buried for the last hundred years," I stuck. "We must organize the search in any way." We start by wandering around in small indefinite circles to get some idea of the surroundings. We can not see that someone has been there for the most recent years. Opposite us, we see Neighbour Nevis with its eternal clouds at the top. Outside the beach there are burns that make it likely that it would be difficult to come by boat here. Far out is a small island, it may just be a cut.

When the darkness surprises us, we have not come closer to the riddle's solution. We have picked up a tent, heat a jar of ham and white beans, just like in the Wild West, I think. I have definitely got a little sleep lately, so I fall asleep and sleep almost dreamlessly until the next morning.

I get the binoculars and check the surroundings but see nothing suspicious. But despite that, I'm not completely satisfied, I feel nervous and feel observant. I walk away to a higher hill a bit away and once again review the surroundings through the strong binoculars. And now I see that the tourists we saw on the highway still keep us under surveillance. In other words they are not tourists. It is probably one of the other companies chasing the lost treasure.

I share the happy news with the others in my company. Boy then points out that at sea there is a big white motor cruiser he saw several times yesterday and once today. Is it that both companies pursuing the treasure now changed tactics and keep us under surveillance until we have done the rough job? It does not look better.

"We can not defend ourselves against them," Valerie points out with sad voice. "We have to find something else."

Boy suggests that we sneak on the gang on land and shoot them at dawn. Valerie wishes a submarine to lower the engine cruiser. Eventually, we agree that the only straight is divergent manoeuvres. We start moving our business one mile west as if we were looking for a wrong place. Maybe we did, who knows.

We continued with that tactic for two days and had searched a large part of the coast. Third night we did the next move in our plan. During the night we left tents and equipment and in the black tropical night we quietly led our horses to the west in the shelter of dense low forests that adorned the slopes of the southern part of the island.

Our goal was the hotel at Banana Bay. There are no roads, the tourists shipping there and from there by boat. I do not see banana crops here, but Banana Bay has to be fun for tourists from North America and Europe. We had of course not booked a room in advance but we managed to get two small rooms, one for me and one that Valerie and Boy had to share. It was two o'clock at night but with the help of my credit card both we and the horses got roof over their heads.

Imagine what money can do. We had a vague explanation that we were out on a ride and got lost when we were surprised by the darkness. And because the hotel had its own horses for its guests, it was no problem to get our ridden animals well cared for.

Just happy, I crawl down between clean sheets and wait for the dawn. Long before dawn, I feel surrounded by soft arms and even softer barks. At least a bosom with two soft breasts.

"Uumm, Valerie ..." I mumble in the dark. I begin to wake up with the cries, the body has apparently begun to react before I wake up because I feel ready, very ready. I smacked a tall narrow female body with a small round tail and little round beautiful breasts and long hair. I was stunned to notice that there was something that did not match. This woman body I did not recognize again and I solidified to what the foreign body of women knew of course.

I tried to think intensively, but did not succeed. I reached the lamp where I thought it was but was mildly hindered by long, soft, female limbs.

"You have come in the wrong bed", I tried to say.

"No, then, sign Jones," replies the female body with unmistakable Spanish accent.

The one of my limbs that just been so ready relaxes very quickly. However, I tried to speed up my mind to try to understand what really happened.

"Take it easy, sign Jones", I'm kindly requested, but definitely. "I have a proposal that you can not say no."

"Do not be too sure," I try.

"That's the way," continues my female companion. "We have taken care of your native friends. Nothing will happen if you cooperate with us."

"And who are you?". I try to win time to think.

"We are the rightful owners of what you are looking for," she explains. "It was our boat that lost somewhere in this area and we're just trying to find out what's ours"

"Why not help the local authorities?" I try.

"Tax problem", answers the Spanish beauty. "If we let go of a fortune with the help of the authorities, it would immediately be confiscated and we would be required for tax. You would only know what inventiveness the local authorities would get up if they knew what's on the island."

I do not doubt this. I did not really think of it at all when I volunteered more or less in the treasure hunt. Talk about double taxation, here the authorities would require tax on the lost treasure.

"I want to know if my companions are undamaged," I say.

"No problem, call room 232 and talk to them."

I spoke to Valerie on the phone and she confirmed that there were a few Mexican gorillas in the room but that they were otherwise unharmed.

"Okay, what do you want me to do?" I have to try to keep my good in bad games until I could figure out how I would do.

"Dress up and follow", I'm ordered.

"Can I turn on the light?" I ask gentle.

"Sure, by all means e!"

I lit the light, quickly pulled on the underwear. Suddenly I had become shy. My dames fellowship had slipped into her long, colourful dress. As I assumed, the woman was the same as previously locked us in at the hotel in Antigua.

It all felt unreal, it seemed to be very civilized and I have to think twice to convince myself that my comrades were kidnapped by the Mexican mafia. Not because I knew if they were Mexicans and neither were they from the mafia, but that was how it felt.

"From now on, I will not turn away from you," Maria announced. "Call me Maria," she had said, and although it was not her real name at all, it was good.

"We're going to take us off on an expedition," she said smoothly.

14. Booby Island

"We have your company as a hostage and we expect you to cooperate with us. Can we trust you are not trying stupidly but try to help find what we are looking for?"

I am now in a meeting room in the ground floor at Banana Bay Hotel. The clock is no more than six in the morning and the speaker is wearing a dark suit, white shirt and tie. The jacket hangs on the back of the chair and the speaker is sitting on the short side of the meeting table and seems to be chairman of the congregation. In addition to Maria there are three more people, all in white shirt, tie and with the jackets on the back of the chair.

It could be the board of a company. In fact, maybe it is. I feel at home in the environment, it's not the first time I attend a board meeting, at home in Scotland, it looks the same in the boardroom of the company I'm a partner in. I have also been rapporteur in several boardrooms as a consultant at data investments. In other words, I'm not a deaf nervous but feeling like on the streets of mothers.

"My first problem is," I say, "that I constantly have to have information that the hostage is good. Otherwise, I'm as curious as everyone else to find the so-called treasure."

"No problem," says the chairman, "you will talk to your friends every day". The chairman is gray-haired, in his sixties, speaks perfect English with American accents. He has no resemblance to any kind of mafia boss. How happy I want the company to look like villains, they look like ordinary businessmen.

"My other problem," I continue, "is that I'm missing out on a number of businesses, I'm actually here to sell computer systems.

"You get regular consultancy fees, one thousand dollars a day tax-free"

"You mean American dollars, not Caribbean?"

"Obvious!"

"Plus part of the profit, of course?" It is well reasonable with the payroll, right? "Five percent of the value of the treasure?" Trying to work out, I think.

"One percent", the chairman offers.

"My third problem," I continue, "is my own safety. How can I be sure I'm from this adventure of life in my life? I do not have a clue about who you are. If you are a Mafia boss from In the United States, I may come to the feet of a cement lump somewhere at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. "

I was actually concerned about my own safety. It might be unwise to address the topic, but because the atmosphere in the conference room was completely businesslike, I felt in the atmosphere that it would be possible to discuss my security in a commercial manner. But what did I really choose? My knowledge of the treasure was equal to zero, except for a position I received from a foamy paper. The deal I was going into did not seem as harmless as a regular consultancy task.

Who really betrayed me if I cooperated with this company. Valerie did not really tell me what it was about. Perhaps these gentlemen were the rightful owners and the Thai were the bad guys? And what would happen to Valerie and Boy if I tried to put myself on the cross. By the way, I was convinced that Valerie and Boy would somehow get rid of their guard. With the experience I received from them in the last few days, it was only a matter of time before they alerted the cavalry and organized a rescue expedition.

This was what quickly flown through my brain and further enhanced my self-esteem. At the same time, I heard a muted joint laugh from gentlemen around the table.

"You have, mafia, ha, ha. As you understand, we have our business in another part of the world. If you do not know who we are, then we have no reason to eliminate you either. To the authorities in St. Kitts and tell you that you helped dig up a treasure. But then we are far from here and your position with the local authorities would seem very strange. In particular, you should pay tax on your consultancy fee and as If you do not have a work permit here you would probably have a month's imprisonment in a dirty prison hole. Ha, Ha, as I said. "

The chairman was very convincing in his argument and I had no objection.

"Okay," I said, "what are we doing now?"

"We want a complete presentation of you about everything that can help find the treasure. Here's a map of Mosquito Bay with surrounding areas." We've understood that's where we're going to search. "

Actually, I wanted more background, but I understood that for me it would not be good to know the story. In addition, I was assumed to know what it was the question of if they had known how little I really knew could my consultant fee quickly freeze. Therefore, I decided to focus the discussion on possible places of treasure evasion.

"So, that's the way," I started, "in a complicated way using advanced computing ..." It does not hurt to confuse the "board" with a little snapshot, I thought. "With the help of a special program in my computer, I have thus obtained an approximate position indication for something I do not know what it is. The expedition I participated in so far has had limited financial resources and we have therefore been referring to a preliminary examination on land."

I went to the overhead projector that showed the detailed map of the south-eastern part of the island and continued:

"According to my estimates, the position indication shows that this area is interesting." I drew a big red ring around Mosquito Bay and the ocean beyond. At first, I noticed that on the outskirts of my red ring there was a small, small island southeast of Mosquito Bay. It gave me an idea why I continued.

"According to the chart, the sea is filled with grains. The treasure can be as well on land but most likely in a wreck on the seabed. Or even on Booby Island," I said, drawing a big blue arrow pointing to the small island outside in the sea. Actually, I did not have a clue about Mosquito Bay or Booby Island or the seabed was the likely place for the treasure. But I thought, at least, let them do the hard work. They seemed to have resources.

"I propose so," I continued in the same tone as if I would propose a relatively large data investment to the Board of Directors of Glasgow Rangers, "that with the help of a suitable vessel we will take us to Booby Island and explore the island. We should positively examine the bottom from Booby Island to the shore with the help of echo sounder. Probably there is some wreckage on the bottom that we have to investigate with the help of groves and divers. "

I looked around in the congregation and actually looked like the "board" seemed positive to the proposal. None of the other people around the table had said anything all the time, maybe they were only bodyguards. But I was mistaken. The younger lazy comrade opposite me took the floor.

"As technologically responsible for this expedition," he said, "I think the proposal is good. We actually have a motor cruiser here at the bridge with equipment for such an excursion. Therefore, I propose that we move to the practical as soon as possible Implementation of the proposal. "

The rest of the table agreed with a little different motivation. The chairman concluded by pointing out that he counted on my full cooperation and that Maria was fully responsible for my safety. What he could mean by that. I thought she would watch me so that I didn't mess, and maybe that was what he meant.

So we boarded a big motor cruiser who was moored at the hotel's pier. My luggage including my laptop was already on board and I got my own cabin. It felt like going on a luxury cruise, except that the door of the cabin could not be opened from within.

"Lift the handset," said the technical manager of the expedition, "and Maria will take care of all your wishes."

I was a little confused with no comment. The cabin was below the water line so I could not see where we were going. The boat was at sea, at least, and we felt like we were heading for Mosquito Bay or Booby Island.

I lay on the couch to relax, but after a short while, Maria got in and urged me to go to the deck because now was the time to go to Booby Island.

Booby Island was not an island in real terms, but more a windshield cut with some single bushes that managed to cling to the crevices. The boat we were on was now going very slowly and carefully closer to the island. The captain of the Command Bridge read the echoes and pointed out that the entire bay between the small island and St. Kitts was due. I thought of the rocks at Black Rocks. If the bottom looked like it was a stiff job to investigate the bottom without this nice boat getting the hull cut out of sharp underwater cliffs.

Like almost all islands in this area, St. Kitts and neighbours are Nevis's volcanic islands. The seabed consisted of lava blocks thrown around from the time the volcano was active. Looking down into the clear water, you saw the breeze every now and then, it looked like giant mushrooms with colourful tropical fishes, which no harm swam around in their shoals.

The technical manager, he was called Orlando, plus some from the crew went landing on the island to investigate it properly. A few hours later they came back empty handed with the exception of some wreckages. With the motor cruiser we slowly went around the island to help with the help of the echo sounder if there was something interesting on the bottom. It was not easy, the bottom was very uneven and the fish timber constantly disturbed the echoes.

In the afternoon it was time to investigate an echo that could be a wreck that lay just outside the small island. I suffered from insomnia why I asked if I had to go down and look at the wreck. Orlando shrugged his shoulders and told Maria to fix dive equipment. She tricked out air ducts, breathing nozzles, fins and Cyclops to both me and her. She would not have to fold from my side so it was natural that she followed me in depth. But it was not very deep, so it just needed simple standard equipment. Maria brought a knife, I had no one.

We swam down to the wreck but it turned out to be overgrown with coral and thus not recently lost. That's why I swam to the small island, surrounded by striped and chickened and spotted fish. I felt like an algae, an aquarium fish that does not really fit into the surroundings. The rock formations here at ten meters depth were impressive. I continued and followed the beach with a glance at the bottom to look for interesting trails.

Thus I swam under a protruding rock and followed the stream towards land, apparently it was ebb and now it was about to be flood. I continued quietly and had the attention downward, not forward. Then I felt it stopped, I felt a snare around my throat and one arm was stuck. Giant octopus, I thought and panicked in panic to get lost. I would not have done that.

I had read too many adventure novels, there was no giant octopus. I do not think they are in these peaceful waters. When I calmed down, I noticed that I was stuck in a net. Rough mesh fishing net and when I panicked, I'd messed up properly. I was stuck in the net as sure as a three kilo pike would have sat in my net in Loch Ness.

But I was no fish, so just try to get out again. But it was easier said than done. I looked around to get help from Maria. But she who would not fold from my side was not there. Maria had a knife, I did not have it. Now I felt like the air was going to end. I had been down for 15 minutes and I had air with me for 15 minutes, Orlando pointed out.

How in the whole world I had managed to trample me into the net in this way. I tried to bring the net to the surface by swimming to the surface. I came up a meter or two, but I was still at least seven meters below the surface. The surface that became red of the falling sun and when the tropics night fell, it became as dark as if someone had pulled down a roller blind.

Now, I tried to methodically work out the net in the same way as I was prying the pike from the net at Loch Ness. Now I had one hand loose and soon the other. The next step was to try to detach the head. Or rather, get rid of the net from the head. Was I stuck in a shark net or what was it? The air started to push and my thoughts became blurred and blurred. Is it flashing in the head of oxygen deficiency or is it headlight?

A shark is coming to me, a slim well shark and I see a slight cut against me but miss, but now I have one foot free and the other foot free and my head free and we push the surface, the mouthpiece gets out of my mouth and I breathe Fresh salt-saturated sea air and Maria keep me above the water surface. With her shiny knife she had saved me at the last moment from the horrible shark net.

15. Bottom Survey

Maria apparently had a course of rescue, at least she saved my life. She took a steady life rescue around my chin and dragged me back to the boat. I was helped on board and with Maria's support I staggered to my cabin. I probably had a lot of sea water, but by the way I felt the forces started returning.

In any case, I let Maria undress me, stop me in bed and serve me something hot and hot, it seemed to be Jamaican coffee, the local variation of Irish Coffee, that is, coffee spun with rum. Although it was about 27 degrees hot in the water, I now froze as a freshly cut poodle in Finnish Lapland. Maria massaged all my limbs and I fully enjoyed it.

Maria was a mystery. I tried to interview her about her position in the organization. She was very real Mexican but did not want to tell where the headquarters were. However, everything indicated somewhere in South or Central America. There are many shady countries, Colombia's drugstore is well-known. Maria was almost as tall as me, that is, one and eighty least. She looked like a well-trained athletic woman, she had actually been in the Mexican national team in diving.

Now she was employed by the security department in this company, as she did not talk about what it was called. She was a graduate of economics and educated in California, where she also practiced diving. She came from a family that could pay the education, it was clear. Even though she had rescued me in a crisis situation, she had not been stressed a dew, not what I could see anyway.

To be a businesswoman, she was surprisingly reassuring, perhaps I appealed to her motherly feelings. I was no longer surprised that I had a female bodyguard that was probably effective. She created with her naked presence a relaxed and confidence-inspiring atmosphere. I began to understand that it was partly her influence on me that made me almost positive to being kidnapped.

As said, Maria was tall and slender with long black hair. She had a wide sudden smile, that was what made the surroundings relaxed. Her dark eyes sought eye contact and somehow managed to suck my eyes as soon as she wanted me something. But the look was not soothing, it was a stubborn and effective look, I thought.

Orlando greeted me in my cabin, pointing out that it was inappropriate for me to swim on my own. I tried to point out that Maria would not turn away from me but he did not listen to that argument. Orlando's English was an American variant with some little Spanish break, I thought I was noticing. He was in his thirty-five, well-trained. He had not been a diver. But he had some geological knowledge from his work on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

He seemed efficient and reliable, but behind his calm facade with half-closed eyelids, one could feel an extremely explosive mood. I was not sure if I was kidding with him, he had no humour.

"We will have our morning meeting at six in the morning," said Orlando. "Make sure you're cool and awake then."

I was not used to meetings before ten o'clock in the morning. But it was just dying and trying to sleep his beauty sleep. I was thinking about calling Maria to get better bed heat but fell asleep before I could decide to lift the phone.

The alarm clock was incredible.

"In the shower," ordered Maria, "in five minutes it's morning meeting."

The morning meeting was short, it was decided that with the help of the sonar, the bottom between Booby Island and Mosquito Bay. The two lifeboats would also be equipped with sonar to streamline the search. In addition, I received a dive ban for some reason. At the same time, the breakfast was served. Effective in truth.

The weather was good, but the constant south-eastern wind caused the Atlantic's dune to roll in towards Mosquito Bay, and as there were currents at the same time due to tide, it seemed not easy to operate. Here and there the waves were broken because of the reason that could be soured underwater. The captain seemed to know what he did.

Command bridges on modern boats are a subtlety of technology. When I first got up on the pier, I was surprised that there was still a big old-fashioned rudder, a big knob of hardwood like the ships one hundred years ago. But I soon understood that it was not used, it might be a reserve if the hydraulics would break. No, when the captain manoeuvred with millimetre precision, he used a small joystick, just as if he was playing a computer game. Vessel computers are not my specialty, but I still thought that a computer that received the impulses from the joystick.

It was also clear that there was a propeller in the bow, otherwise it would not be possible to manoeuvre in the way it was done. The captain was fully employed with the navigation, so I could see me on the bridge. I was curious at home harbour and anything else that could help to identify the company I was working for. Knowledge of this was two-fold, but it could be good to know as much as possible if they did not know that I knew, to express it easily.

The boat was registered in Nassau, Bahamas, which did not say anything at all. A convenience flag and the shipping company were probably as bland. But the more I thought of it, the more curious I became. The morning went by without any sensations and after lunch I suggested siesta and Maria left me locked in my cabin.

I went through the cabin to begin with, partly to see if I could find any clue from the one who stayed in the cabin earlier, but also to see if there was a chance to get out. The door did not seem so difficult to get up with any kind of tool or wax it was not very difficult to get it up. Valves, that is, what we call crabs call windows, as said, were not. However, I devoted some interest to the valves that existed for ventilation and air conditioning. When I thought about it, the cabin was remarkably cool and cold air was pissed into the cabin all the time.

When I knocked on the ceiling, I realized that it was a ceiling that consisted of loose soundproofing tiles. It seemed as if there were a number of ventilation trunks above the ceiling, considering the roaring and rustling I could perceive. It was easy to lift a roof top and when I stacked my head, there was really a space half a meter high where there were electrical wires, pipes and air drums. Probably, these cabins had been built below the water line afterwards and then built pipes and wires in this way. But it was dark up here so I could not see how it looked farther away.

I found an envelope in the middle of a closet, it was a curious person, the postmark was unclear at first sight, but it might be possible to show good light and magnifying glass. But now I heard someone was heading to the cabin so I threw myself down on the bunk and looked as relaxed as I could when the door opened.

"Supply", announced a crew member and brought a tray of food. No common dinner today apparently. I ate good appetite and then continued the exploration of the space above the ceiling. With some caution it was possible to crawl around, a couple of times I was close to putting a knee through the porous plates, but with the support of the supporting structure I managed to get up several meters. After a while, I heard voices from what could be the conference room.

It seemed at a board meeting without my involvement. Because Spanish was spoken, I did not understand much of what was said. But my name was mentioned and they also talked about Valerie and Boy. I realized that Valerie and Boy were infected in some way, but that could be something else. As mentioned, my Spanish was not good at all. But it was so interesting that I decided to try to check this out, they had actually promised me daily contact with the hostage.

I crept back to my cabin and lifted the phone to contact Maria.

"Hello Captivator," I began, "You promised to contact my former custody company."

"Yes, yes," she responded readily, "I'll try to fix that."

A while later she comes into my cabin.

"We have known a problem with communication," she said, "tomorrow, it should be done," said the captain. "

This might confirm my guess that they were infected, but I would in any case wait for the morning before I might be able to make new demands. Or maybe I would try to infect my trip, after all, my heart was in this treasure hunt primarily with Valerie. And Boy.

Maria did not want to let me out on the deck, she pointed out that it was getting late. On the other hand, she stayed in my cabin and entertained me. We did not play puppies without noughts and crosses, she was a hardener on l noughts and crosses and we won every other second for several hours.

Then suddenly a dull dun heard suddenly and the boat curled. We heard upset voices and the boat started on the side and seemed to be sinking.

"Fast, open the door," I cry.

"Can not, I have no key," Maria replies, throwing herself over the phone for help from outside. "The line is dead!"

"We will be soon too if you can not get the door," I say.

16. Cave people

Maria puts off an entire battery of Spanish curses mixed with "dynamite", "Bangkok" and "Thailand". She apparently believes that it is the competing treasure seekers who have come with an explosive charge. She may believe what she wants, but I think the first priority is to get out of the closed cabin. We knock and listen and try to get the door up and even though Maria, with a voice like a siren, tries to attract attention, nothing happens.

When the water begins to flow under the door and the tilt is in the same direction as the door, panic begins to spread in my hard-nosed nerves.

"Thank you," I suddenly think. "Maria, come here, we may be able to save us through the ceiling. There must be a way out this way."

Now you do not have to be afraid to hurt the roof, it's only to try and get up and running as fast as possible. As soon as Maria took the gallop, she took the wire and piloted us so that we reached a vertical shaft. With some effort and with the help of the cable ladder we take up a floor in the boat. The boat drops very fast and we hear how the crew using lifeboats try to save what can be saved.

We manage to get out on the deck and throw ourselves in the ocean while the boat drops below us. We swim away from the wreck while a powerful wave throws us against a cliff with Maria closest to the cliff. She takes the shock, strikes her head and loses consciousness. She has not left my side this time, and despite the darkness, I perceive what's happening and hold her over the water, as we float on land.

There are lifeboats close by, but I prefer trying to get to land on my own. But it's not that easy, it's blowing properly and I'm working hard to stay above the surface. I scratch in a couple of underwater cliffs and lose more and more of my powers. In the end when I feel I can not feel more, I feel the bottom and draw both myself and Maria up on the beach.

For a while later, others seem to be heading for our way so I get up to a few bushes that I'm going to hide behind. Carefully I go behind the bushes into the darkness. Hope it's a cave. I drag Maria into the cave, make sure she is alive, she does not seem to be injured in addition to a bump in her head.

I dare not light any light, by the way, I do not have enough on me that might burn. I think of the trails that lead here and after tied Maria with my belt, I crawl out to try to sweep the tracks in the sand again.

As I crawled into the cave and felt like Maria, I heard her staring weak. I notice she was joking and I begin to explain the situation to her.

"One-one," I explain, "you saved my life yesterday, today I have saved you. In addition, I have you tied up in a cave If life is your love, you're completely silent, otherwise ... "

Because I could not get a good continuation of the sentence, it was hanging in the air. In my education as a computer seller, I did not like to shut up people so I do not know what I would have done if she would start screaming like a siren again. She was quiet at all, she thought I was as tough as I was.

"I do not think anyone survived from the boat," I lied. What was happening with my Scottish honesty by the way. It was not in my usual honest attitude to lie to people in my face. Even though it was dark. But I already began to regret my sudden decision to hide. How would I do in the future. Certainly I had Maria, but was she worthy of hostages?

"How are you going to get out of here then?" Maria asks. She is not stupid, she has also found my dilemma. "Can you unfasten the belt that you tied me up with?"

"Unfortunately, I can not be so nice," I say. "You'd run away from me and report to your headquarters right away."

"We must come to an agreement," she claims, "you can not lock me in or tie me up in this cave without losing me in five minutes. You can not take me to Banana Bay or Basseterre against my will. , What are you going to do? "

She could not express my problem more clearly.

"What are you suggesting?" I ask nervously.

"Are you the one you're giving up to be?" She asks.

"Why?"

"It's not that you work for any intelligence or police organization from the United States or England?"

"Lord, no!" Now shame on dry land, could you take me for a secret agent or a police officer. "Never in life," I admitted very much.

"No, our investigations have not found such suspicion," she says. "But I do."

"What, you do what?"

"I work for the Mexican drug police."

"Yes," I say stupidly.

"In my capacity, I'm employed by this organization that kidnapped you and your assistants. But I'm also an information officer for the Mexican police because they suspect there are shady shops behind the facade of this company."

"You lie to let me go free," I say uncertainly. "Prove it!"

"What do you know about Mexico?"

"Not a dive other than that, it's Americans who sell computers there."

"You can call and check."

"Do you have a cell phone in your trousers?" I ask.

"No, but as soon as we get to a phone, you can call a call. The recipient pays. Until then you can let me go free."

"I'm so stupid, at least. Now we crawl into the cave." We're too close to the opening. "

"We ran into the cave. There were no bats to scare us, but I crept straight into an ashtray and something that felt like a campsite. There was also a thick root from any tree that grew outside here.

"Now I tie you to this root. For safety, I'll tie your feet together with your panties." If you're nice and quiet tonight, I'll think about what you said. Now I'm going to sleep for a couple of hours. That I sleep very easily and wake up if you try to infect. "

I wonder if she believed in the last. As she crept down into my bed in Banana Bay, I slept like a stock, just as I usually do. I was very impressed with myself and I start to lie like a professional lier. No, it was wrong, it's not a bustle that lies, they are ...

I woke up with a jolt. "Breakfast", says a friendly voice. It's bright outdoors and into the cave looking for a pale day. At the campsite, Maria and smile smoothly.

"Is it good with cold beans?"

She was not tied anymore, instead she held a jar of white beans.

"I found some canned cans here," she says. "Better than nothing anyway."

I sighed and found that, after all, I was probably an amateur in these circuits.

"I'll get my belt back," I say sourly. "I must go on the mug."

The cave is quite big in here, but the small opening lies down slightly with light. I walk behind the nearest corner and start digging a pit to dig down what I was going to let go of. There is something that shines slightly in the sand so I pick it up and stop in my pocket to look at it later.

"Do you believe me now?" Maria asks.

"I do not know what to believe," I still answer badly. "You stay here, I'll reconnaissance."

"As you wish."

I see some crew men a few hundred yards away, they may be looking for several survivors.

"We'll stay for a while," I announce on returning to Maria.

"You do not trust me," she and her smile glitters through the storm. I feel incredibly stupid.

"We're waiting for the coast to finish," I say, "then we'll get to the nearest phone so I can check your identity. If you're green, I agree to cooperate in some way."

I think of Valerie and Boy and the little expedition we were on.

"What a mess," I think high on wide Scottish.

"What?"

"No, I just thought high"

Maria's wide smile illuminates the cave, and although I'm unsure of everything, I feel certain that Maria may be on my side. However, the question remains, whose side I'm really on.

17. The Escape

From Maria's behaviour, I thought basically that she was what she said. At the same time I was unsure and did not want to take any unnecessary risks. Anyway, I thought to be as careful as I could. After another three cans of white beans during the day, I did not envy the cowboys in the Wild West who, according to the films, lived on white beans. We did not have to starve anyway.

In the twilight I did a reconnaissance in the cave opening and thought I could find out that there were no enemies in sight. The tide now went right into the cave so there was no risk that there would be any traces.

"Now comes the exciting game blindfold," I announce Maria. "Now you must be blind and we shall sneak out of here."

"You're stupid," she claims.

"No protests", I say, "I actually found a knife in here and if I get on you with something that makes me suspicious, I will use it. Remember that I'm used to hunting big game and I will consider you as Big game from now on. Now we tie your eyelids, I bind your hands and then we crawl out in the open. "

For some reason, I thought that the cave's location should be my trump card, and so I did as I did. We ran out and I led Maria up for the nearest hill, the underbrush made it very difficult especially for Maria who was backbone. As soon as we had left the coast and the sea was out of sight, I unloaded the belts and eyelashes of Maria.

"If you're nice girl now, we'll have to walk north to find a phone booth," I announced.

Maria is incredible. She laughs calmly and takes me in my hand and says:

"Sure, sign Jones, let's go hand in hand to the nearest phone."

The next few hours became rippled over the top. Certainly I had known about the terrain since riding in these areas along with Valerie and Boy, but it would be hopeless to get out into the dark, I would not have thought so. But at the same time I wanted as far as possible from the beach before it became bright. After a couple of hours I would have had enough.

"Now we are raging," I decided.

"As you like, sign Jones," says Maria with a broad smile, "would you like to tie me for the night?"

"Be calm, creep up under that bush and sleep well."

Actually she could get the net she wanted. That she did not want to infect seemed to be a good sign. I was a little worried under another bush and tried to keep me awake.

The nights are hot on these islands. Even though it would be raining during the night, it would be quite pleasant after all. An overnight stay in the Highlands would not be as fun.

The next morning we were at the phone booth at Island Paradise and I got a phone number and a name in Mexico City that would verify that Maria was the one she now turned out to be. But, instead, I called the headquarters at home in Scotland and asked one of our employees to check their name and phone.

"Do you want to check with one of your friends at Scotland Yard that there are actually real cops on this issue," I asked my co-worker. For some reason, he had been employed at Scotland Yard earlier. Of course, the headquarters wanted to know where I had been, why I wanted to check the Mexican police and more and more, but I referred to myself as a big customer.

After a much needed shower, we walked out to the telephone booth after a couple of hours and I called the headquarters and confirmed that the name I received was a department head of the Mexican police.

"OK, Maria," I confirmed call your boss, but I also want to talk to him."

Maria is calling and launches her latest adventure in fast Spanish. The person on the other side of the thread does not seem to be completely satisfied with the development, they have a keen discussion about something that I do not perceive. It seems that Maria wants to join me in the continuing treasure hunt but apparently not her boss. Maria will eventually catch me the handset.

"Do you want to help us to continue looking for the treasure?" Asks the phone voice.

"No," I say "I've had too much trouble already, I have to go back to selling computers or we will soon be bankrupt."

"Good," says the voice of voice, "it's usually just a problem with amateurs involved in police affairs. I would be grateful if you spoke of what you know for us, then Maria can return to her role in the suspicious organization."

"Oh, do you mean you're going to send her back to the goat farm again?" He claimed that they could not have any suspicion that Maria was anyone else than she was.

For further reflection, maybe it was that way. She could get in touch with the organization, displaying some credible story about her rescue. Of course, she would not tell me I was saved. For a further reflection, I might have disappeared from the Caribbean for a while, I was tired of being chased in one and it was probably not good for the shops either.

On returning to Island Paradise, there was Valerie and Boy in my room. The look was smooth, but Valerie and Boy looked at Maria almost as if she were a shave worm. Fully understandable, the last time they met when we were locked in a hotel in Antigua.

I told of my involvement on the boat and how we saved each other so that we landed from the sinking boat. I did not mention that Maria was a Mexican police, I considered it as a business secret for now. I was involved in so many shady shops now that I told you as little as possible for as few as possible.

"I have received a letter," said Valerie, "from my resident sailor who disappeared. He asks me to send the book he forgot to the place he is now."

"Hope," I exclaimed, "we are good and greet him." Suddenly, I'm grabbing the treasure hunt, an hour ago, I was prepared to shut up and devote myself to computers instead.

Valerie suddenly becomes silent and looks mean at Maria. I then tell you that Maria is a Mexican police, which Valerie does not believe a dew until I've told me how I checked the authenticity.

"Okay then," she says," he's in Singapore."

"It was the worst ..." I sigh, "It was a bit away if you want to greet him. And it's not cheap either to go to Singapore," I add as the real Scot I am.

Maria disappears and comes back a quarter later.

"I have a suggestion to do," she says, "I've just talked to my boss and he wants to hire Signor Jones and signora Valerie temporarily to look for the Singapore seaman. We pay the trip, overheads plus 150 US dollars a day "Valerie is the only one who knows him and you've worked together with success we've seen before."

"Am I?" Exclaimed Boy.

"Not a chance," says Maria, "we can not engage minors."

Given that the pleasant climate of the West Indies became uncomfortable to me, I called home to the headquarters and suggested that I change my district for a while. Since I was planning to switch to Singapore, there were some questions and discussion before it was decided. I actually called my colleague in Singapore and he thought it would be fun to get to cooler latitudes, as he expressed.

18. Singapore

The trip to the other side of the globe went via Antigua and London. I became more and more surprised by Valerie. She seemed rescued and world-renowned in a way I did not expect. From the outset, I had regarded her as a sort of clerk who barely been outside of Leeward Islands, that is, the Caribbean islands on the "league side". The wind is almost always blowing from the southeast, and St. Kitts lies among the islands in the northwest.

Thirty-six hour flight gave an opportunity to hear about Valerie's background. Certainly, she worked in some kind of office in the state administration in St. Kitts, but she had an academic degree from a Florida university, perhaps explaining that she was a world renowned. She behaved in a different way than before, she was purely business-like and not as kiddie and protective as before.

Eventually, she realized that she was jealous of Maria, while at the same time feeling like she was using other means of cooperation. But she seemed to trust me completely.

Although it is relatively spacious in the first class of a jumbo jet, it is stressful to spend one and a half days at airports and in airplanes.

Singapore was a surprise. I have never seen such a clean and well-kept city. The Caribbean is junk, nobody cares about finding old coca cola or car wrecks. There was not a lot like a cola paper that was rubbish. It turned out to be a big deal of fine if you threw the smallest junk on the street. Skyscrapers and business centers resolved each other. In Scotland, you are building indoor halls for a warmer shopping climate, where you build indoors to cool. Despite the heat, it was surprisingly fresh in the air, it should mean that there was quite low humidity, right now anyway.

Raffels, the famous hotel from the British colonial era, was fully booked so we entered Dynasty Hotel, the hotel with the strange roof. After breakfast in the hotel's dining room it was time to start looking for our sailor.

He had not provided an address, but the letter would be sent to a post office in a business center in central Singapore. We started by trying to get information about our sailor, a Swedish named Björn Andersson, at the post office. But the post office was apparently chosen carefully, there was no one who could remember that person among thousands of visitors every day.

We then did two things to track our Swedish sailor. Valerie wrote a letter to him where she wanted him to meet a friend at a Japanese restaurant that we found close to our hotel. We had put the letter in a big red envelope so we could see it when it was retrieved. In addition, we tried to monitor the post office all day from morning to evening. Valerie had to be there most of the time, but with the help of description plus the red envelope, I should also have a chance when Valerie needed to be away for eating or other natural needs.

On the third day, when Valerie accomplished some of her other natural needs, I saw the red envelope on my way out of the post office. It was extremely close that I missed it because there was no Scandinavian sailor who picked it up but a Chinese in white shirt. I followed him in the crowd, which was not easy, everybody in the streets was a Chinese in white shirt. Despite its British affection, most of the people in Singapore are Chinese, and there are quite a few Malays and a few Europeans.

I managed to follow the red envelope and saw that it disappeared on a bus. Before I got there, the bus started, I rushed out into the street and managed to get a taxi.

"Follow that bus," I hunted.

The taxi driver turned around and looked at me. He shrugged his shoulders and I thought he was mumbling about crazy English, but I could have heard a mistake. I felt like a crazy scot anyway. Apparently we came further away from the business streets, the houses became lower and soon we were in the Chinese Quarter. The houses were lower and the commerce was in full swing on the sidewalks. That is, here everything was sold from old clothes, cheap jewellery and various dishes most outside the shops. Maybe other things were sold, too, but this was what I saw from the back seat of the taxi.

My friend with the envelope suddenly jumped off the bus and disappeared into a house. I did the same thing, that is, I paid the taxi and tried to follow the envelope into the house. In central Singapore, I was a businessman in the crowd, here in the Chinese Quarter I deviate from the amount in a significant way. It also seemed to the surroundings, I was taken care of by the surroundings, especially as I was hoping to get into a house.

The businessmen did not think I would rush into the house in that way, a few big strong Chinese one hundred kilos giants quickly arrived at me and showed very much that they did not think I would enter the house after the red envelope. I tried to move them aside, but I could as well try to move two elephants.

I then tried to tell the powerful boys that I was a friend of Björn Andersson and that I thought he was living in this house. They shook their heads and did not seem to understand my English at all. Soon one of the businessmen came up and asked politely what I wanted. I was convinced that I wanted to meet Björn Andersson but without success.

"But if you see him, you can give him a message. I want to invite him for dinner - eight o'clock tonight."

The Chinese bowed easily and said he would do this if he probably would appear. It seemed to him as if it was as incredible as to come to the moon tonight. But maybe that was just his way that confused me, what do I know.

One of the "elephants" was kindness and managed in 10 seconds to make a taxi. The whistle was no whistle but reminded more of the trumpet of an elephant. He not only resembled an elephant, he sounded like one too. In any case, he politely opened the door to the taxi so I gave the taxi driver the address of the hotel and let me be pushed there.

When the evening came we went to have dinner at the Japanese restaurant. Something similar to the restaurant route, I have not seen before. I had expected to order a regular sukiyaki in a moral manner. But here we had to sit on some kind of high chairs on some kind of plate. The chef came to us and it turned out that the front of the counter was a hob so when we ordered the food, it was fried in front of our nose. But it was good. At least the appetizer.

In the middle of the main course, a Chinese came in and went straight to me. It was the same Chinese who took the envelope to Björn Andersson. He had a message that in short, if we wanted to meet Björn, we would soon go to the Singapore Crocodilarium, a crocodile farm outside the city. Five to ten the same night we would be there, the crocodile would close at ten o'clock.

The polite waiter and the chefs at the restaurant were crushed for us to leave soon. We assured that the food was fine but we had to go out in a hurry. I got the bill and wrote a lot of drinks. It was the Mexican state that paid the overheads.

With the taxi we went out to the crocodile farm and were there in good time. Here, you raised the crocodiles and turned them into bags and shoes. The living crocodiles to the left, the dead crocodile skin in the shoe to the right. With the attitude that existed in Europe when it came to extinction-threatened crocodiles, I suspected that the market for genuine crocodile skin spikes should be limited. Maybe it was different here in Asia.

We arrived in the middle of an appearance. A person who looked quite clenched was wrestled with one of the smaller crocodiles. He managed to make it stand on two legs. The main issue was that with his hands he opened his jaws on one of the larger crocodiles and put his head in his own head into the gap on the crocodile. The fact that it was not harmless to hang out with crocodiles proved a powerful bandage around one thigh on the crocodile dam.

Next to Valerie there was suddenly a powerful person with dark full beard with gray elements. With the same hair and dark glasses you did not see much of the face.

"Hello, honey," he says to Valerie.

Valerie, in turn, leads to a foul and throws himself in the arms of the new member. In his description, he is similar to Björn Andersson, and with the conduct of Valerie's behavior, it is certainly Bjorn Andersson. I look at them, enviously and perhaps jealousy. And I might imagine that it was only me who got a part of Valerie's round hugs.

"Why did not you come to the restaurant?" Asks Valerie, "we had begun such a good dinner."

Björn pulled us further into the crocodiles. There were low cement walls in the chest height, a few meters further down there were water and artificial islands and plenty of crocodiles. We leaned against such a cement wall and Valerie babbled about the weather in St. Kitts as if there were anything to talk about. It was also the same with the exception that the rain showers sometimes lasted ten minutes, sometimes a quarter. Now, most of the lights are out, the clock is ten and visitors leave the area. Here in which there is apparently a breeding of crocodiles, it is now almost completely dark.

I tried to cancel but it was not easy. Suddenly I feel that something raises me over the barrier and I end up splashing in the water among the crocodiles. I hear a scream, Valerie's scream, and another splash next to me.

"Are you there Valerie?" I say to the shadow next to me.

"Usch yes," she says.

It splashes around us and we are among the crocodiles. On their own, they should have been quite saturated by now, they just had the evening meal when we arrived. I'm not dared to touch a fiddle, I thought it would be good not to draw my attention to me. My knowledge of crocodiles is limited, I have not even seen Nessie, the beast in Loch Ness.

It actually seems as if our splash in the water scared the crocodiles, unbelievably, they seem to turn away from the other side. The light is not good, but I can appreciate the silhouettes of both crocodiles and Valerie. The water reaches our knees and it is two and a half meters up to the edge of the pit, a steep cement wall.

"Shit too," says Valerie, "they've taken Björn." She continues and spices the meaning of a number of words that I only partially recognize. I was apparently not familiar with all shades of the West Indian power language.

"We must think about getting up from here," I suggest nervously, while the leader crocodile begins to approach. He has certainly picked up from the shock as we splashed into his pool. "More food", he seems to think.

Valerie gets hold of a tree trunk that is in the pit. It seems like the crocodiles should have something to sharpen their teeth on. The crocodile is located three meters away and cleverly cleans. Valerie throws the wood piece in the middle of the gap on the crocodile and the crocodile closes the jaws with a bang.

"Hurry, help me up", Valerie hoops and jumps on my shoulders, and I shoot and she's over the cement edge.

"Hurry up, this is not so deep." She seems quite calm while I'm standing at my knees in water with a crocodile two feet away, the crocodile is doing the best to spit out the woodpiece and directs the next bite to me. She does not have to say it twice, despite rattling knees and hacking teeth, I rush away, I reach Valerie's hands and, with the help of some unevenness in the wall, I manage to get up so that I can grab the edge of the wall. Underneath me I hear how the crocodiles approach, it sounds like freshly caught crayfish in a plate tank, but higher and more dangerous.

19. The jungle of Singapore

I hurry to pull my feet up because I hear how the crocodile jaws hit again just inches under my feet. I kick and hit one of the odors on the nose and then wake up above the wall and in safety. Unbelievable what an adrenaline shock can give unnecessary powers.

At the end, we hear Björn protest and fight against the two who drag him out. At last they get worried and drop something in his head, he sacks and gets stuck in a black Mercedes.

Valerie pushes me in my hand and we run towards the exit. I try to get a taxi, but here in the suburb there is no taxi in sight. I try to take a car but all parked cars are locked. But a Vespa stands unlocked, the owner is probably shopping in the kiosk next door. This is a real Vespa, a scooter that was so popular in the sixties. Small wheels and the engine, a two stroke of about five horsepower, were mounted on one side of the rear wheel. As a counterweight on the other side of the rear wheel there was only one tool box. Otherwise, it acted like a motorcycle, that is, you shifted your left foot and brake right. I kick the scooter up, it starts nicely, Valerie jumps heavily on the bench and I'm driving after the fleeing Mercedes.

It does not seem as if they see that we are following because they are moving quietly and do not violate speed limits. My knowledge of Singapore is unimportant, but it is clear that we leave the city center, the road is getting worse and the street lights stop. The black tropical night is really black, only small stars are visible if we look straight up. The wild-wood seems to come all the way closer and I'm having trouble driving the scooter.

The light on the scooter was not turned on and I neither could or would turn on the headlight, so soon the missed car would notice that it was being pursued. Vespan's small wheels and bad balance were not at all suitable for this hilly and wet road. We bounced and jumped, every now and then the water spat as we drove through the waterbuses. As long as we had the rear lights from Mercedes to follow, it went pretty well, I could see where the road was heading and I also saw the car having trouble with the pitfalls in the road.

The road seemed to be all narrower and the car in front of us also drove more slowly. Suddenly there was something in front of us, and the tail lights disappeared behind a curve. When we got around the curve we were dangerously close to the car, which had stayed. I tweeted that I dropped into the ditch and got a car break. Good luck, otherwise we would have been discovered.

We were at a river, where someone was waiting for a motorboat. The car was parked and Björn was dragged down to a long open boat and the boat disappeared at good speed upstream. Valerie and I lay shattered, torn by branches but quiet in the ditch and saw what happened. The Mercedes turned and drove back, dangerously close to where we lay. But the bushes around the road were dense and we were not discovered.

Now good advice expensive, would we follow the car back or would we try to follow the boat. The answer gave itself, The vespa refused to start so that it was impossible to follow the car. I rolled the scooter back into the ditch again and we went down to the little bridge, where there were also some huts where there were some families. We kindly knocked on and asked to rent a boat. There were some more long-tailed boats at the bridge, so we could try to pursue Björn and his company.

We had some money on us and we showed some genuine US dollar bills. In English they could not, only a few words. They could count the words and dollars and pounds so it was possible to do business. Finally, an older person with striped white beard followed us to the harbour. Renting the boat was not talk able, but he could drive us with his boat.

We tried to make him understand that we would follow the boat that just left the bridge. But it was more difficult to explain "follow that boat" than to say to the taxi driver "follow that bus". In any case, we got into the boat, uncle Wu started the engine and with a rushing boat rushed upstream. It was full speed right, there seemed to be no connection or gas, just full gas or full stop. With this speed we would soon be on the other boat, if it still remained on the river.

It did not make it, but after a quarter of full speed we arrived at another village and there we saw Björn be landed by two powerful people. The village seemed to be bigger than the one we came from. As we swung past, still at full speed, we saw Björn with company disappearing into a house near the beach. As we passed the next bend on the river, uncle Wu left to stop the boat and land us, except from the village. We pointed out to the boat driver that he only received a small advance on the fee, if he waited until we came back would have got a lot more.

Uncle Wu nodded and logged with his black teeth and we just had to hope for the best. In order to merge into the environment, we borrowed a pair of hats of uncle Wu and splashed land. Snack about rainforest and forests, here the forest was incredibly dense, getting up without jungle knives seemed completely impossible. Luckily there was a trail near the river bank, we could follow downstream, slowly and carefully. It was dark, almost black, and I would have lost Valerie if I did not hold her.

With distress, we could follow the ladder, sometimes we stumbled on bad roots, but we approached the village closer. The only light source we had was Valerie's cigarette lighter, of course we did not have any weapons. We did not have a thought of smuggling our weapons on the plane and we had not visited any local gun dealers.

But despite that, we were about to try to free a Swedish sailor from someone who had kidnapped him. They were certainly well-armed and knew in all probability how to guard their hostages. The forest ended and we were on the outskirts of the village and had our goal in sight two hundred meters further. The villagers were indoors, so we decided to simply walk across the open space as if we were living there.

If we meet someone, it would be cut, both Valerie and I, each in their own way, differing significantly from the appearance of some from the village. It went well until we were in the middle of the open space when a cruel dog came barking and rushed to us. But Valerie sat down and spoke calmly to the dog, after which the little dog slipped Valerie as if they had known each other for their whole life.

A person from the village came out and looked intensely at us, but when the dog calmed down, the bonnet became calm and he went back to his seat. As said, it was dark and the silhouette he could see meant that he saw our shadows, including the broad-hats.

"Puh," I said whispering, "Are you animal hunters too." Another new page from my companion from St. Kitts. Even though we were on the Malacka Peninsula somewhere outside of Singapore, she seemed to have some control over the situation.

"If you only knew ..." she whispers meaning.

Strengthened by the success we continued to get behind the house as our goal. We looked through the windows but saw nothing and heard nothing. I had hoped to be able to locate Björn in some way, but trying to find out in a quiet and dark house seemed to him difficult. We walked slowly around the house but without success. But there was actually a basement under the house with small windows.

"Can I borrow your cigarette lighter," I ask Valerie, and then I put my hand through one of the windows, light the cigarette lighter and see a food store. As I glow in the next window, I find various junk, old bicycle wheels, among other things. I proceed to the next source window and erupt:

"Bingo, here lies Björn on the ground floor, locked!"

It was fine so far, but how should we get him out? Because I quickly quit the cigarette lighter, he does not know we're here. We do not know if he is sleeping or is in any way slandered. Can we dig him out or should we try to get him from within somehow.

I cautiously go to something that can be a tool shed and find hacks and spades and spits. Swallow and spit, can there be any faith? I drag the tools to the source window. Meanwhile, Valerie has gotten in touch with Björn, which is relatively spicy inside the window. The foundation of the house is dried mud, hard but not as hard as cement.

"Keep the spit like this," I instruct Valerie, "I'll use the beard on the spit."

To dampen the sound, I put the hat between the beard and the spit, yet there is a clear dunk that sounds like it could wake the whole village for my ears. But nothing is heard in addition to frogs and crickets and other strange night sounds. In the jungle it's never quiet.

I continue to process the dirt and the wall but with clear results. Certainly there are brands in the clay soil, but not at all to the extent that I thought. After an hour, we seem to be able to enter some of the basement wall. Then I miss the muffling hat, the beaten beats with a loud "Klnng", it will wake someone who's safe.

We drop the tools and rush behind the tool shelf to hide. And very well, someone in the house wakes up and comes around the house with weapons in his hand. We are quiet and push in our hideaway. The armed guard looks around and continues around the house. Suddenly he stumbles on the spit and breaks out in a swear in a foreign language.

He picks up the spit but does not put it in connection with the basement wall, he thinks that any villager forgot. He walks further around the house and we hear him report, or at least speak to someone inside. That they locked in Björn in this way indicate that they are waiting for someone to come there and deal with him later.

After half an hour we sneak up to the house again. The sled remains and I'm going to bet on a card, bear or burst. I'm talking about my plans for Björn and Valerie, soon it's bright, and we have to get out Björn before dawn.

I take the goat and hit as hard as I can against the wall we used to work with the spit. Once, twice, the third time a large piece of wall falls in. I release the beast, we manage to pull out bear and rush to the forest. Of course, there is a resurrection in the house, two people rush out. The villagers wake up, dogs bark and run cross and cross.

This is all happiness for us, the guards rush out and do not know what happened. However, one of them checks if their prisoner is locked, which he does not. The prisoners are also not friends with the villagers so they get no help that way.

Meanwhile we sneak off along the river downstream. We could not go upstream across the open space. And our boat is upstream. Soon the guards will find our likely escape route and it will be cold. It can not be helped, we can take the country road back to our Vespa. How we three strong will take us to Singapore on a scooter who refuses to start, it may be a later problem.

20. The river

We hear a boat on the river and take us to the beach and see that it is uncle Wu and our boat as we left upstream of the village. He has obviously given up and is no longer waiting for us. We rush to the beach and wave, scream earns nothing to his engine to rob everything else.

We wave like insane, but he looks straight and does not see us. A hundred yards away, the river makes a turn and just before he disappears behind the curve he sees us. He turns the boat on a femur without turning off the gas and driving towards us. In front of the beach, he stops the engine and with some effort we can take us on board without overturning it.

Then we see another boat in good coming down the river.

"There are the bad guys," says Björn.

We are still standing by the beach among the mangroves, the branches hanging down and obscuring us from the river. But our boat is painted with blue and red pattern. They could have driven on without discovering us, but we do not have that trip.

"Full speed", I say to uncle Wu "double payment if you shake off those bad guys."

The "villains" boat seems to be equivalent to ours and we can not drive them away. In addition, they start shooting us, we do not hear the shots but we see what's happening in the other boat.

"Down at the bottom of the boat," I scream.

But uncle Wu does not belong, he is sitting straight in the back and steering the boat. And then he is also hit and the boat makes a cool gear that makes it almost cant and the pursuit comes closer. Björn rushes back and seizes the joystick. The other boat is far too close and their firearms will soon make the process short with us. But Björn now has control of our boat and tries to go away from the other boat.

"Ram them!" I scream, "ram them!"

Björn immediately perceives what I mean and give back and steer to the wide side of the other boat. Before the others take what we have in mind, we drive straight into the side of it. It is understood immediately and our boat continues at unmatched speed down the river.

As we hit the other boat, the bow went straight, the other boat rolled, but our boat slipped sideways with the crooked boat and seemed quite unscathed by the collision. At least initially, but soon it starts to be alarming. Valerie takes care of uncle Wu and I begin to ship the boat for all I'm worth.

But it's not enough, the boat takes in more water than I can toss and the speed drops as it drops deeper into the water. Suddenly the engine stops with a gurgling noise, the engine, an old world war warrior engine, dragging down the wooden boat so that both the engine and the boat disappear underneath us. Swimming in hot water is by no means a problem. Even though the river looks like floating clay, it's always possible to swim without problems.

I was worried about a few things, uncle Wu and crocodiles. As far as uncle Wu was concerned, everything seemed to be under control, Valerie towed him against the beach as if she were a professional lifeguard. Given my experience in the crocodile farm, I was very worried. There should be crocodiles in the river, if the wild crocodiles were not extinct. I decided to believe in the latter option.

We swam purposefully, towards the beach, the beach where we had our Vespa parked. Björn also seemed to be a good swimmer, so the situation seemed to be under control. Upstream we heard shouting and screaming, our kidnappers seemed to be nice and vital, but lay in the water and splashed just like us. We also heard a boat launch, it could be friends of the kidnappers,

"Hurry up, soon will the bad guys come!" I listen.

We hurried, we landed without seeing crocodiles or water buffalo. We landed just a few hundred meters from our Vespa. I took uncle Wu, he did not weigh much, and jogged down to the village. I carried uncle Wu into his hut, put him on the nearest bed. I gave the old woman who was in the cabin a lot of dollars and talked that I needed to borrow a bike while I regretted that the boat had disappeared.

I do not know if she understood any of what I said, she seemed to be destroyed by uncle Wu being fainted, bleak and bloody. We did not have time to stay so I took the bike that was outside the hut and kicked the Vespan.

"Can you drive a Vespa?" I ask Björn.

"No problem," he says. "If you ride a bike, then Valerie and I will go to Vespa." When you get tired we will change vehicles. "

Quickly, that Swede. The Vespa started now and I took full speed on the bumpy bike. On this bad road, it was almost as fast as riding a Vespa. But just before we reached the main road, The Vespa stopped. I shook the scooter to hear if there was fuel in the tank. It did not, we had run out of the gasoline.

There is usually a reserve tank on such vehicles, but when we saw the cigarette lighter, the crane found the reserv tank already on "R". careless boy, Vespa owner, he had forgotten to change the crane so now the tank was completely empty.

"We take the bus," says Björn. "Here on the main road there are buses every quarter, I think."

"Do you know Singapore?" I ask.

"Yes, pretty well. I usually live here when I'm not at sea."

Without further problems we came to our hotel, the bus had a stop right outside the hotel, actually.

"You're up to my room," I say to Björn. "You Valerie looks up a little and then we have a meeting in my room to chart the situation."

Up in my room, I switch to dry clothes, Bjorn can borrow a pair of jeans and a shirt of me. Unfortunately, he does not get the jeans at the waist so he adheres to the hotel's robes.

"You want to have a jaw?" I ask Björn and call and order dinner with beer and wine for three people to the room. Good hotel in Singapore, no one touches mine when we get in wet and torn and dinner at three o'clock in the morning.

"I'll probably have only mineral water," says Björn doubtfully.

"Drink beer like a man," I say obliviously.

Up comes the food, let's taste well, especially Björn who poures two beers in no time.

"More beer for the people," says Björn, taking the phone and ordering more beer. When I came back from a visit to the toilet he had ordered additional beer, a domestic brand equivalent to the Danish elephant beer. Björn claimed that after two beers, tinned up and was very talkative and very drunk. The man did not tolerate alcohol for five penny, it was clear.

21. Sentosa: Singapore's Discovery Island

We got Bjorn in bed eventually. After a lot of discussion, he went out of bed in the extra bed in my room. I even went out as effectively after another 30 seconds.

When it was morning, or rather forenoon, I was awakened by a delicious coffee soft as well as the smell of bacon and eggs. Together with the breakfast, a nice and well-liked Valerie also appeared. After a while, I asked for Björn, where Valerie exclaimed:

"I thought he was on the musty or something. You've been in control of him, he was sleeping in your room? "

The breakfast, the good English, had a tendency to get stuck in the throat. We quickly found that Björn was missing. After all this job to find him and to save him from the shady individuals who kidnapped him, it felt a bit hopeless and snooped.

"OK, Valerie," I said, "you know him better than me. Do you have any idea of where he made the way? "

We eventually agreed that we should search him in the Chinese neighbourhood where he probably lived. Quick on all clothes, ie a cool shirt and a pair of thin pants. Valerie's light floral dress liked the climate, we were close to the equator and yesterday I felt that Scottish wool was not the right material for clothes in this city.

And very well, the humid heat struck us as soon as we left the air-conditioned hotel. With the help of a taxi driver we succeeded in locating the place where we thought Björn lived after some problems. I talked to the businessman I met last time I was there. This time he was very accommodating and spoke gladly and willingly that Björn had been there in the morning. He also pointed out that he had not worked very well, he seemed to be a little hopeless and embarrassing.

We had some understanding, we did not feel well either. At least, the cash was that Björn obviously picked up a bag and disappeared in the direction of the harbour. We thanked for the information and let our taxi take us to the harbour. Because Björn was the captain of a tugboat, it might be so easy that he was going to work in the morning and did not want to wake us up. We tried to locate which boat it was and whether it was in the port.

It was not nearby and the port office was only able to inform it that it had no mission this morning.

"That cable car up there, what is it?" I asked the harbour people.

Well, there was a cable car with baskets floating high above the river and taking tourists and others to the island of Sentosa, where there were a number of attractions, such as an 18 hole golf course. From the cable car there was a magnificent view of the harbour and its immediate surroundings. After finding out that the tug boat was called Sitting Bull, we quickly took a taxi to the World Trade Center, paid some Singapore Dollars, boarded one of the cable car gondolas and set us up for a nice ride over the water.

Over the water suddenly the cable car stopped with a jerk. We became somewhat nervous because we had some memories from the previous night that could indicate that someone might want to hurt us. But when we sat there for good rest, we used my binoculars to search for Sitting Bull. And actually, on our way from the harbour and straight to our gondola we were able to identify the tugboat with a bearded figure at the helm. The tugboat was of an older model painted in red and black and with car tires hanging over the rail as fenders.

We tried to make us hear there 50 meters above the water, but it was judged to fail.

"I'm jumping," I said bravely.

"50 meters above the water. You're crazy". It was not the first time that Valerie had the opinion of my ideas. I tried to open a window in the gondola. It did not work very well. The tourist authorities in this city did not want people to jump into the ocean. That's probably because the windows in the gondola could only be opened a decimetre. The glass or plastic was too strong to break it with your hands or shoes.

"Write a letter," Valerie thought.

"Write yourself," I thought. Valerie wrote and I was looking for a Coca-Cola bottle as a weight for throwing letters on Björn. About the missed boat it became a bottle post. The letter in the bottle, a t-shirt as a shock absorber and with a well-rolled throw I would meet the boat as it passed below us. Because I was a good player in cricket, that would not be a problem.

I threw and the bottle bounced a couple of times on the boat and seemed to remain. But the rudder, who should be called Björn, noticed nothing but continued with surprisingly high speed to the west. The next anthem appeared to be the Malacka Peninsula or Sumatra. And here we sat in a basket heading to Singapore's holiday island and Björn, as we went around half the globe to meet, were disappearing.

"What do you write in the letter?" I asked.

"Just a few kind words," said Valerie and looked clever.

"Yes?"

"Well, there were seven West Indian swords and that he would turn around because we wanted to meet him. Finished with kiss ... "

As we looked back, we saw some people who were involved in a fierce discussion at the cable car departure station. On the streets it seemed as though someone tried to get the mechanic to back the cable car. Probably it did not go backwards, why we continued on to the island after a while.

We saw that there was a boat harbour on the island why we thought we could rent or borrow a boat to search for Björn. We have to pay entry and take the local little railroad to get to the boat harbour. Once there we try to find a boat renter, but that was not available. By praising some Singapore dollar, we succeed in getting some good tips from the local portman after some trouble.

At the furthest end of the pier was a large white yacht with dual engines as well as a Union Jack fluttering in the stern. We ran out of the pier and started our persuasion campaign. The owner of the yacht was a typical British gentleman wearing khaki as well as a ginger-colored escaping mustache. I presented my case calmly and concisely.

"Follow that boat," I whipped, "It's in a hurry."

"Excuse me my lord from the highlands and my lady from the colonies," said the gentleman politely, "but I do not really understand what that is the matter about. Firstly, this is not a taxi boat; secondly, that response does not work at sea. "

"Excuse yourself," Valerie contrasted, "but St. Christopher is independent since many years ago and definitely not a British colony."

"But the little island yesterday well in the British Commonwealth and has several prominent cricket players what I understand. In my opinion, it is a colony, "said the Englishman.

"Stop fussing", I whipped, "It's about life or death, we have to get around that tugboat that disappears there with a speed of at least 15 knots. But if this junk does not go so quickly, let's find someone else. "

"What does not go fast, this yacht makes 40 knots on idle. Jump in, you'll feel the speed of the caliph. "

The Englishman suddenly became straightforward and less oxford school, he was probably a new financial knight and not an English Count. But what did he do? He assumed the challenge without asking if we wanted to pay for the trip. The suggestion that the yacht was not fast enough apparently made the impact.

"Throw away", he invited us. "Here's going to sail." Two 70-horse Mercury engines roared in so that we, with distress and crap, boarded.

"What are we going to drive?"

"The tugboat that is in that direction. It does not look right now but it is behind that big tanker over there. "

"OK. What causes you to pursue a domestic tugboat, if I can ask."

I explained that it was a distant relative we had to meet because we would leave Singapore during the day. It was not very true, but it got tough. The English gentleman did not seem to believe a word of this but apparently ignored this, only he was allowed to air his yacht.

After rounding the tank on the tanker, we saw Sitting Bull stopping at full speed away from us. Even though our British friend was eager to do a lot of gasoline it took about an hour before we came to Sitting Bull. Björn stood at the helm and seemed to enjoy his life. The cocoa bottle was still in my t-shirt a few meters from Björn, he had not seen it or did not bother.

When he saw us coming up on starboard, he waved off and continued to keep both speed and course.

"Take a long side and I'll jump to the other boat," I instruct.

"You're not wise," says our British friend.

"You're not wise," Valerie cries.

"Shit the same, do as I say."

The rear of the tugboat is quite low in the water. I climb the higher part of our yacht hunt and jump easily to the tugboat when the boats come close enough to each other.

I pick up the bottle post and put on my t-shirt, despite the heat, it's a bit windy out here at sea. I go to Björn as calm outbreaks:

"What's up in the glow you're doing here?"

I explain with loud voice, such a tugboat for a lot of noise, that we have actually travelled over half the globe, at least, to meet him.

"Why?" Wondering Björn eloquently. We had not even talked to Björn at all since we met him. Even though we were together for several hours, it was then under hectic conditions.

"You left some interesting numbers in the Caribbean."

The British lust hunted us close to the port and I was amazed at Valerie. But suddenly it broke down and obviously got problems of some kind.

"No gas", says Björn.

"You must turn around and help them then", I listen.

"Don't have time."

"You have to help people in the sea. You are the sailor damn it."

"No problem. You see, there is already someone else going to help them. I have to go to Sumatra and back before I have booked the next tow. "

"And why in the world do you have to Sumatra when we want to talk to you?"

"To help you, of course," says Björn surprisingly.

Björn patiently stated that it is not actually he who is in the secret of the treasure. The book, where the mysterious coordinates were found, belonged to a colleague to Björn. The colleague, who was named Jens, had loaned the book to Björn when they sailed on the same ship. The day before their boat was to depart from St. John in Antigua, they had celebrated a little evening before.

As we know, Björn is a bit easily influenced by alcohol, so that Björn became stubborn. When he then rented another ship, the book was left with Valerie. He was forgetful too, dear Björn. However, this guy was a countryman to Björn and they actually met in Singapore.

Jens worked as a cook both on land and at sea. But now he had met a nice girl from Sumatra and decided to go to that country and live a safe family life. He felt that he should keep himself away from various people who wanted to talk with him. That's why he moved home to the Sumatra Girl's home island. The only one who knew where he was was Björn, he claimed.

Because Björn refused to turn to pick up Valerie, just keep my good and keep going. It was difficult to operate, it was an archipelago with many islands outside of Sumatra. I tried to get Björn to tell me more about what he knew about the treasure in the Caribbean. But he claimed that Jens was terrified as soon as he mentioned something about it and did not even say a word about it. The only thing Björn knew was that he had been a cook on a boat that was in some way involved.

Björn described Jens as a nervous type, short and quite round. With a chef's head on his head, he looked like an herb type for a chef, said Björn. Or maybe even more like the world's most famous Swedish, that is, the chef in the TV series All these Muppet. Every now and then he made his home country specialties, which were not always appreciated in this continent. At Sumatra, however, there were a lot of Dutch who liked European food.

In the afternoon we came to a river mouth, the river called Kampar. The jungle was dense on both sides of the river, and there were plenty of snakes and crocodiles. Although there were 60 million inhabitants of Sumatra, they clearly did not live here. If you were to hide from the outside world, this seems to be a great place.

Here, at least, there was an open space on the banks of the river where the villagers daily battle with the surrounding jungle about the rule of the ruler. Apart from a house, which seemed to be built by Dutchman, there were only a few plate shells and various primitive buildings.

"No big place to run a restaurant," I say.

"It's time to come to tourists on adventure safaris. In the manor house there are both the kitchen and the dining room, actually," says Björn. The Manor was probably built a hundred years ago and was a monument to a bygone colonial era.

"I can not go to the dock with this boat, but as you can see, there's a canoe and pick up."

The canoe in question was a large trenched wooden house with two smaller wooden trunks as a trigger. It recalled the canoes in the South Sea but was apparently not unknown here, even though we usually saw more modern craft.

Björn spoke to the people in the canoe in a language that sounded like Swedish or Dutch. The two languages are quite similar to one who can not do any of them. Probably it was Dutch because the missionaries had done a good job of teaching the natives both Christianity and Dutch. At least I did not understand what they were talking about.

"They say that Jens is not in the village right now," explains Björn. " But you can go ashore. I'll be back in two days and pick you up. Now, unfortunately, I have to return to Singapore and take care of my job. So long! "

There was not much to choose from. This morning, I had not meant to end up in a small town in the middle of the jungle. But because I wanted to complete my assignment, I followed on shore while Björn's boat quickly removed.

I tried to talk with my new friends in the canoe, but they did not seem to understand English. There are actually areas on earth where English is not working. Jens girlfriend should be able to speak English, I assumed.

But neither was the girlfriend in the village. The nice people came to me in a hut in the middle of the village, not far from the well. When I tried to ask myself if there was someone who could speak English, they only shook their heads.

A helicopter approached the river and stopped above the place where Björn's tugboat should be at the moment. It then continued up the river and approached our village.

22. Elephants in the jungle

The experiences of recent days had made me a little suspicious. A helicopter in this fortified village did not seem fully normal. The villagers also seemed a little upset. One of the villagers who had rotten me ashore hurried to talk about something that I did not understand. He pointed to the forest and I understood that it might be best if I disappeared from the village into the woods.

When the helicopter approached I walked in the trees, they might see me from the helicopter, maybe not. I entered the moisture-draining jungle and it was extremely difficult to get along. There were also no point's right there. The trees were high so I went back in my own tracks until I found a lush tropical tree to climb in. I climbed for a while and tried to get an overview of the village.

From the ground I was completely invisible and I actually managed to find a small titular hole where I could peek down towards the central part of the village. An intensive discussion went down there. My pursuers were of Asian origin, perhaps our opponents were from the previous day. As I sat there for good, I saw that one of the branches almost wandered. I'm not very afraid of snakes, but this great python-like thing seemed worrying about me.

I was terrified at the same time as I called myself to sit still and not reveal myself to the snake. And not for my persecutors either for that matter. The descendants approached the woods and seemed to look for me. One of them was looking for fresh trails in the woods and apparently found the tracks for my Scottish sandals. They disappeared from my field while I heard they approached the tree I was in.

My attention was somewhat broken because my next neighbour worm slid around in the vicinity and with the worm head one meter from my head, I wondered if I'd even chase down the tree to my pursuers. You never know, they might be more friendly than the snake. I had nothing to defend myself with, no knife and no firearm. The monkeys brought a terrible noise around us. They also seemed to be worried when the snake was moving. Mosquitoes and flies and other nasty insects flew and crept around. Even though the monkeys were thrown, I did not feel very touched.

The worm that seemed to be several meters long fixes me with his eyes. I struggle between a number of different possibilities. First, I was paralyzed by the snake's eyes so I was hard to move at all. Partly, I should get back from the snake as soon as possible without him, or if she were, worried. Partly, I should keep calm so that the perpetrators would not find me.

Suddenly the worm chops but misses me. I drop the roof but fall only a meter, but with some noise. The worm missed, I think I'm relieved. But it had not missed, it was aiming and meeting a strange bird who had sat on the branch beneath me. I thought such worms hugged their prey, but it took the bird in the mouth and began to swallow it all. The bird sprang but for no use, it quickly disappeared in the stomach of the hungry worm.

The watch under me had heard me and gathered under the tree. Now I sat still and hoped for better times. Someone starts climbing upwards and I climb my way up in a wide arc around the snake. These trees are really tall and I rose ten meters before the branches began to shine and became weaker. I would have appreciated a liana so that I could swing to the next tree. But I was not Tarzan and the lianas shone with their absence.

Meanwhile, my persecutor became attacked by my new friend, the worm. What I heard became a struggle for life and death, but because the worm's new byte had firearms, a wild shot took ten meters below me. The sequel screamed and shot several shots, a couple of bullets came alarmingly near me. Something fell down in the tree crown under wild cry and something that sounded like horrible swearing.

From the village was the noise and trumpet heard. It seemed as if wild elephants invaded the village. My persecutors became apparently worried and hurried to the helicopter. I climb down to my titular hole and really look a couple of elephants like trumpets and worry about walking in the village. The villagers were most afraid of their vegetable crops and attempted to dodge the elephants as the manoeuvre came dangerously close to the helicopter.

The helicopter pilot shot off his way but wild elephants usually do not take into account any other object or animal so the helicopter could get a thorn if it would be bad. The pilot sat quickly in the helicopter and lifted even faster to 20 meters. My pursuers ran to the helicopter that quickly took them aboard and then headed for the ocean. I breathed out and pulled me out of the tree past a dead worm. The shots had almost divided it into two parts, but still there were death threats there. Luckily, I could climb a good bit alongside the jerky worm. Well down the field there was now a well-trampled trail as I followed back to the village. There were a number of happy individuals who complained about the elephants who now seemed more tame than wild.

"Elephant Training Center," said one of them a few times. I then understood that the elephants were undergoing training and that maybe there were some of the villagers who trained them.

Wild elephants at Sumatra resorted to the cultivation of rice and vegetables, so that the villagers in the various villages had long been trying to eradicate the elephants. The authorities then started elephant training and made the elephants tame. Which, in turn, meant that tame elephants did not grow up. A problem that was not quite easy to solve.

One of the newly born natives was able to speak English and explained that tomorrow we should go by elephant and find Jens. It made confidence so after an evening meal that consisted mostly of rice it was time to dare into my simple bed. Luckily, as a stranger, I had a virtual mosquito net. It could be necessary, here you could easily get both malaria and yellow fever.

Early in the morning I had to climb an elephant. We were going somewhere to meet Jens. Elephant is a very excellent means of procurement in these areas. A jeep would have been stuck and did not reach more than 500 meters. It was found that the elephant training center was located within an hour's elephant walk. The ride was quite enjoyable, you had to watch out for low branches and it was not the luxurious chair that you can watch old movies. Here I rode on some kind of simple saddle with a sturdy handle to help stay on the elephant back.

Here I might meet Jens, but I did not. Jens was on a 29 day safari with a larger tour group from Japan. He helped the guides with cooking and various jobs. Here there was a road, or at least wheel tracks, so I could go by car or preferably jeep to repossess him somewhere along the way. If I could get a vehicle of course.

Strange what Jens was suddenly wanted, you said here. Full of evil ideas, I was told that a couple of Thai people had just the same information I had just received a few hours ago. They had got there in a rental car, a small Toyota Jeep, a black four-wheel RAV-4. No real jeep but convenient for these roads, as sometimes there were some extra driving wheels needed to get out.

The training center consisted of elephants and some people who took care of the elephants. For the administration there was an office without walls. On the other hand, there was a heavy roof, the rain was sometimes violent. The moisture made all paper wrinkled, the inkjet did not seem to be a good printer here. At the office there were some nice people who took care of tourists and managed the contact with the outside world.

I suddenly came to mind that my profession was selling computers and computer programs. A couple of computers and a smaller network would probably be a helpful booking program for the administration here. But on closer reflection, I decided to instead try to interest the people in the office for my problem finding Jens.

There was phone here so I called Valerie at the hotel in Singapore but without success. With the help of my English pound, I tried to rent a jeep. But there was no one to rent why I continued to discuss different possibilities for further travel. Elephant transport was not to be considered because the ones here would be used by a tourist group that was in the process of being involved.

Here good advice was expensive. So expensive that I was very generous to show my money notes. A young man came to the office to say hello, he would be available for a few days. I could go with him to the nearest city, they liked the friendly office people. Sure, it went very well.

We sat in an old DAF, a relic from the 60's. It was actually one of the old belt-driven models that were manufactured in Holland at the time. There was no gearbox but instead an automatic gear shift. Pretty smart in its way, but technology fell short of forgetfulness and replaced by standard gearbox on later models.

The belt drive had some peculiarities that meant that the gear was not always the one you would have chosen with a standard gearbox. At the slightest throttle came a chute from the engine. The noise attenuator was also not quite full, because we sounded like a small jet plane when we reached the odd road with 30 kilometres per hour.

The positive was that Andi, that's the name of the driver and owner of the Daf, had maps and could tell me where the tourist caravan with Jens was on his way. The terrain there was accessible by minibuses so a regular car would work if you followed the regular road.

But Andi advised me that I could take a shortcut through the jungle and could take a ferry over the next river to reach the main road between Pakanbaru and Dumai. It would be great if I could get a real jeep. And Andi actually had a relative who had one.

Andi did business and I was not worse than I thought it was a good suggestion. When we got to the village a discussion of the local language sprang out where Andi eventually convinced his relative that I would rent the jeep. It was a little Suzuki, quite modern with V6 engine, four-wheel drive and low gear. Spring and comfort were not in luxury class but this Suzuki suited me perfectly. A well-made rent and an even more deposited deposit meant that I got rid of a lot of pounds. But I had a well-expended expense account.

Then I tried to hire Andi to accompany the trip. I was not entirely satisfied with the thought of going through one of the world's worst jungles, even though Andi did his best to convince me that it was not very dangerous. The Sumatra was rare, the elephants did not attack people very often, and most were actually tame. The variety of rhinoceros found on the island was rare, but it could trample anything if it was retarded. The gibbons were nice, but it was safest not to let them steal loose stuff.

But Andi was busy waking up his girlfriend, they had more eager things to do than to be a guide to me. But he gave me encouragement, a map and a firearm. A long-lasting rifle from the last century. But he claimed it was fully functional and very accurate, even though it was not equipped with such modernity's as telescopic sight. Aside from shooting elephants and rhinoceros, this gun would be very useful.

23. With Suzuki through the jungle

I thought of some jeep dunks, loaded a Coca-Cola back, a pair of loaves, fruit, mosquito nets and some other practical stuff that Andi claimed I needed in the jungle. Two spare wheels were also included in the equipment. It was only ten miles until I met the highway, but it might take two days, Andi said.

Now is the time to go. Towards the jungle. The first part of the trip went public, I have to keep an eye on the road meter to know when to turn off the famous shortcut. Shortcuts are late roads called home in Scotland, I hope this is not right here.

The road sign to be found here is also here. The road, or rather cattle track, goes right into the forest. There are plenty of trails for various animals, including elephants. The wheel tracks, on the other hand, shine with their absence. I long for the nice elephant I rode this morning. Leaves and branches are hanging down and I always have to duck to not get away from the jeep. The Suzuki has windshield but no roof. It will be wet inside the car when the rain comes, the thing is done.

At low gear with a speed not exceeding 15 kilometres per hour, it is quite good to get here anyway. With that speed, I will, with a good margin, re-launch Jens's companionship. Well, it goes well, until there is a giant tree across the so-called road. The animals had taken their way around the tree trunk but driving the jeep the same way seemed to be difficult. With the jungle knife in your hand, the equipment in the jeep was rich enough, I hit a slightly broader path. Until I was told the ground shook and something that looked like a gray steam train was steaming me.

I was at the autostrada of the animal, and it was an elephant family who was travelling in good speed. Elephants are not dangerous, had you told me? But I certainly took it safe for the insecure and crawled under the tree trunk in order not to accidentally get in the way of the elephants. The jeep was in the middle of the road, and the elephant son was a little curious and stopped to take an extra look at this strange thing.

It smelled food, more specifically fruit. With a graceful move with the snake, the elephant empties the fruit from the bag to the ground, and the elephant family is gluing my supply. It went the same way with the bread, at least Coca-Cola kept. I did not dare to show me, I was not particularly used to the animals on this island. Certainly I had ridden on such a colossal recently, it felt in the buttocks. But by the way, I did not know how these wild specimens would react if I tried to spook them away.

Before I think so much more, the elephants continued to feed and endure and I could continue to chop jungle. Because I was terrified to drive, I was extremely careful when I walked around the tree. But it worked.

In the past, I had not thought so much about the fact that this was actually a busy road. And now that the dusk came, traffic became more dense. When the rhino climbed half an hour later, I was afraid that he should go straight ahead, whether there was a little jeep in the road or not. That's why I turned off the road a bit quickly. There happened to be a ditch here but I had to go out of the way. Even though I thought the speed was low, I drove on a stump and the Jeep rolled with man and everything.

There I lay and jumped a few meters from the jeep, in the middle of an anthill but otherwise well kept. The jeep lay on the side and some equipment lay on the ground as I did. Good night, I think, time to call the salvage corps. Unfortunately, I can neither call nor get salvation in this god-given jungle. Wrong expression maybe, this is the original nature that takes over. The monkeys and the colorful birds seemed to have fun for me. Only now I hear the eagerness of noise that exists in a living jungle. Is this what the World Nature Foundation wants to remain?

Even if I agree with the World Nature Foundation, it would not hurt with a bit more civilization here actually. A tame elephant, for example, who can act as a van will not be completely wrong. Is there any human traffic on this road?

The dark falls fast and in the absence of supper I can comfort myself with a few Coca-Cola. I decide to stay here and rip up the mosquito net and lay next to the lying jeep. I then lie in the car's car and do not notice from the road. Since I had an exhausting day, I think it's time to sip. With the jungle sounds everywhere, it's easier said than done.

I lie for hours, counting Scottish black and white sheep without falling asleep. Then there's something that's on the road that I do not see, but nobody cares about me either.

When I'm in bed, I sleep asleep. I must have done it because I wake up with a jerk and some wild people aim at me with a gun and look generally dangerous.

The heart attack approaches, the experiences of the last week have not been kind to my poor heart.

"How did you stand alone in this ditch?" Asks someone in broken English.

"Traffic accident", I stammer.

I calm down when I see that there are three girls on the horse who wake me up. I can explain that I'm really Scottish traveler on computers that really should be in Singapore right now. I am confident enough to pull the jeep on the right with the help of the horses.

"Do you have some breakfast for a stranded shot," I ask hopefully. "The elephants have picked up all the food I had with me."

They seem to cuddle and spell out both tea and sausages. After a while, they ride in one direction, I speed up my little Suzuki and it is good to get in the opposite direction. The jungle is dense but the road is so busy, most of the big animals apparently that I roll on for 20-30 kilometres per hour.

The road opens into a village and I can see the sun. Previously, the jungle was so dense that it was dusk even in the middle of the day. But here I'm dazzled by the light but also see that through the village goes quite a big way. A paved road with many pits. This may be the way I'm on my way to, now it's up to trying to find out if Jens has passed or not. According to the timetable I should have arrived.

The villagers are moderately interested but I find a gas station. Rather, a red gas pump pumped from the 40's with a drainage sign where it once had the Gulf. In fact, the gas station manager could tell that there was no safari in the next week.

I bought some loaves and ate bread and Coca-Cola for lunch. Strengthened of this I go to meet the safari people. It went a lot easier than I thought, after a couple of hours I meet the safari and meet Jens. The man sitting in with all the secrets of hidden treasures in the Caribbean. We think.

It is now trying to get rid of Jens from the safaris and bring him more civilized practices. Jens was not drawn to my attention but I managed to convince him that I had found him thanks to Björn. Unfortunately, this had probably caused others to get him on track. It was later that made him decide to look for safer places as soon as possible.

"Here I've managed to hide in a small town far away in Asia, yet I'm traced so easily," Jens complains.

However, we wave goodbye to the safari buses and speed up the coast. I have foggy concepts about how to take us to Singapore. One way is to go back the same way, it would be the right way to leave the jeep. On the other hand, I'm not really excited to meet elephants and rhinos on the forest road once more. If we will continue even when it's dark, it's only straight to take full speed towards the nearest coastal city.

As we get to the avenue of the jungle road, I arrived earlier, driving into a side street to get gas and food. The car is not visible from the doorway, and luckily, because I suddenly see a Toyota RAV-4 with good speed driving through the village and further on to the coast. Undoubtedly it was on my hair that I got Jens minutes before the Thais came in with safari.

Now the RAV-4 was between us and the coast, it decided the choice of road. I did not really feel like returning to the jungle road, but just focus on new strains. Jens, on the other hand, thought it seemed interesting so we had a good momentum for new interesting meetings with elephants and rhinoceros.

Everything went well and when the dusk came, we searched for a place where we could drive off the road a bit to stay overnight. It would be calmer to be a bit off the beaten track, I thought, show off the experience of the previous night. The sleep became relatively good and at dawn we were awoken by a bull of monkeys who curiously tried to steal our gadgets.

We also heard a car that got on the road. A careful look at the jungle road shows that the fears are detected. An RAV-4 approaches. And not enough, it stops when it sees our wheel lines leaving the road. Two guys leave the jeep and approach us. And they are armed.

Because they are four against us two and I'm armed with the gun from the late 1800's, it does not seem very good.

"Do you have any weapons," I ask Jens.

"Yapp" will be the answer and he will pick up a powerful gun. "A World War I Parabellum," he said proudly.

Here, then, we are with arms that were modern hundreds of years ago, there remains a list to solve this problem.

"How are we doing now?" Jens asks. He obviously trusts that I am experienced in such situations. Oh, he's wrong.

"Load the weapons!" I confidently assure everything while I'm wearing my gun with thorny fingers.

"Better to occur than occurs", is my next call.

I lay down, like on the shooting range at home in Scotland, attacking the perpetrators and shooting a warning shot over the Thais heads.

It worked a lot better than I dared to hope, they quickly retired to their own jeep for deliberations. I followed and got the jeep in a shotgun.

I see, or rather, hear that a pair of the perpetrators make a circumference movement to surprise us from behind.

"Come here with your jeep", I call Jens.

Time to try the accuracy with this bunch, I think. The distance to their car was an estimated 150 meters, it should be fine with this gun. The distance for their guns, on the other hand, was too long for them to get some accuracy against me.

With support for a tree trunk, I'm looking carefully first that it's not a worm, I aim at the RAV-4 to harm the jeep. The gun is good, my first shot hits the bonnet and bounces on with an angry buzz. I shoot at the cooler and the deck and think I'll meet. The RAV-4 fastens quickly to get away from my shot.

At the same time I hear shooting behind me, Jens is shooting at the jungle and it is also driven from the jungle against Jens. He has taken off our Suzuki and I jump into the backseat and listen:

"Run just hell!".

He does not answer but drives down the road. I'll see the RAV-4 again and keep shooting at it. Less sure now because the road is not even.

"Cool!" Exclaims Jens eloquently.

At best we have hurt the pursuing jeep, but we will not stop to find out. It's almost a day trip before we get out of the jungle. All the time, we look worried back. Everything goes very well, no rhinos or elephants in the road, as we suddenly get puncture.

Curses echoes, but we have spare wheels and hopefully jack power.

"You change wheels," I say to Jens, "I bring a gas tank and go back," I say. I have got one of my brilliant ideas, I think. "Tip when you're done!"

300 meters away, I put the fuel tank in the middle of the road and go back to the car, but with the petrol bin in sight. The dunk was full of gasoline, but we should do well with the dunks we had left.

"How are you?" I listen to Jens.

"Fixed in two minutes!", Will be the answer.

Nice, I think and prepare to continue the journey when I hear a strained car engine approaching. Never make you happy, now the bad guys are approaching. They have well made their puncture of course.

I take protection quickly, charge the rifle and wait for the persecuting jeep to appear. It does. When they are 10 meters from the petrol tank, I shoot a shot on it and, of course, I expect it to explode. It works in all TV movies but apparently not in reality. But in any case, the jeep can be trampled and passengers take protection.

I shoot again against the fuel tank, and now it will be a magnificent explosion that causes the RAV-4 to be thrown out of the way and ending on the side a bit into the jungle. The petrol jar is burning and I'm worried if I'm in a forest fire. For further reflection, I find that the forest is a rainforest and that the fire hardly gets any attachment in all the moisture.

"Done!", Jens cried and started our jeep. I quickly jump to the Suzuki jumping into the backseat and taking cover. The villains shoot wild, but we're out of shoot, it seems like.

We move on so fast that the little jeep jumps and pits between pits and rocks on the primitive road. We'll drive for a while until we suddenly meet an unusually large rock bump. One rear wheel rolls in one direction and the jeep rolls into the jungle in another direction. Jens and I roll out of our dear Suzuki but fall pretty soft in the undergrowth. The Jeep, on the other hand, looks demolished. The whole front is impressed with a tree, the cooler is leaking and the car does not seem to be driving.

A quick inspection under the bonnet shows that it does not help to put on a new wheel, the car can not be driven without extensive workshop visits. The toolbox that is available is barely enough for this. Suzuki is not equipped for this, the only thing that is available is jack and field cross.

When I see which wheel it's released, I'm getting a little bit of Jens and outbursts:

"How do you scratch the wheel really?"

"We were in a hurry," exclaimed Jens.

Now good advice is expensive. We do not know how far it is for civilization. We know that there are elephants, rhinos and wild snakes in the jungle. We also know that there are some illiterate individuals behind us.

"With the packing we go!" I suggest. You have been a scout.

"It was not fun," protests Jens. He looks pretty confident. Dirty and sweaty after our time in the jungle. Wet and miserable is he. When I'm thinking, I'll probably look in the same sad way.

However, we bring some rain clothes, a couple of sandwiches and a couple of bottles of Coca-Cola. It is strange that the drink is found all over the world. We make the most of the situation and give us a quick walk. As the road is so bad, the stroll will be less fast.

We are becoming increasingly exhausted. The big animals are clearly waiting for dusk before they begin to drive the road, but small flying flies, beetles and various mosquitoes are very nerving. The hours pass, the Coca-Cola is over, the sandwiches are moist and inedible and we get tired and tighter and smoother and more legitimate.

Jens is grieving about crazy Scots who take away innocent cooks into the jungle. I think he should stay home when I came to greet. As we fall forward and the darkness drops quickly, we hear a car behind us. We throw ourselves off the road and hide. We dare not stay on the road before we know if there are friends or enemies.

There are enemies. Judge our surprise when we see a RAV-4a in good speed. It may not be the one we blasted in the air, this has to be a reinforcement that has come the same way. The jeep is always moving well, and we eventually get up the road.

The continuing promenade becomes extremely careful in the increasingly dense darkness. We comfort us that we have to hear any animals and, above all, see hostile jeeps far away. The darkness makes us stumble and falls often. The moon that has risen above the trees allows us to know where the road is heading. Therefore, we can move on slowly. None of us suggest that we camp for the night. Here it is going to go and hope that we will soon get out of this nasty and scary jungle.

Suddenly the forest ends and we are on the road side of a real road. We could jump and hurry because we came out of the woods. But we do not do it, but instead get stuck and lightened, it's the fatigue that goes on.

"Where is the nearest bed," mutters Jens.

"Quiet," I realize. I see something that looks like a big firefly. There is probably a cigarette that glows in the darkness. First of all, of course, our persecutors in the RAV-4 are waiting for us. On the other hand, they might have to be more careful if they really watched us.

The smoker seems to have given up the waiting, he extinguishes the cigarette and goes into a car apparently parked at the roadside. The car starts with a whining, a broken silencer makes the jungle's nightly noise overrun.

We sigh easily, there is no RAV-4, and we can keep calm. The ease makes me not respond immediately. It's actually something that attracts attention, something I recognize.

The car makes a taxi ride and comes against us. Suddenly I remember a bumpy car with broken noise attenuator, a Daf I went on a long time ago. Actually, it was quite recent, but the adventure in the jungle seemed to have lasted for a minority.

I rush up the road, waving frenetic to stop the car. But the Daf continues. I'm saddened at the roadside. Then suddenly the Daf stops with trembling brakes and slowly turns back and examines us in its headlight.

"Hi crazy scot!", I hear. Well, that's Andi, my excellent friend from the Elephant Training Center.

We wander into the old car, where there are both Andi and his girlfriend. They were worried because I did not come back and combined the quest for me with a romantic outing.

24. The Battle at Kampar

It seems that we escaped our pursuers. I actually think I've done this quite well so far. I'm not used to adventures in this way but it seems to be very stimulating. I have to remind myself that I am a computer vendor and I have to devote myself to visiting customer visits instead of jeep adventure in the jungle.

More about this, we will stay well in the city of Andi and eventually leave a Suzuki, which is also reasonably well-kept. With the help of one of Andi's friends we made some minor repairs in place in the jungle. A pair of ball holes and a few buckles make the car look like other cars here.

After a good night's sleep, we can return to the village on the Kampar River where I landed a few days ago. Although it seems to be longer than that, considering all that happened, see recent days.

Jens lived in an old manor house, built by the Dutch at least 100 years ago. Two floors, basement and wind. The style of construction was characterized by balconies and frills, but it had been surprisingly good at the time. The climate near the equator is stressful for wooden houses and the jungle grows fast and recovers what it lost in a few years.

"I've worked hard to clean up and repair," says Jens. Painting and shrubs are going on here. Some villagers under the direction of Jens delightful wife work in the damp heat. "I'll check if there's any jaw at home."

"Hello, sweetheart," I hear a familiar voice behind me. It's Valerie's nice sexy voice I hear. "Welcome to civilization!" She quits.

"Hi, myself," I answer the fostering officer. I had totally forgotten her and had some bad conscience for this. Actually, it was not surprisingly that she was here.

"I came here yesterday. Sir Randolph was very nice and drove me here."

"Sir Randolph ???" I break out and the many question marks are heard clearly.

"You know the English gentleman who got out of the gasoline when he was so comfortable that he let you jump on Sitting Bull, the tug you know." The voice was honey bellow but it was clear that she did not like being left when I continued with Björn.

"You could have been waiting for me, sweetheart. Here comes Randolph by the way."

Therefore, I did not need to go into further defence. But for some reason I blasphemed something badly on the Englishman. It was a surprising feeling that arose.

"Good evening my friend from the highlands. Hope that the stay here has been pleasant."

"I think we are guarded," says Valerie. "It's a modern motorboat that sits in the river and pretends to fish. But they do not seem to get any fish but are always in sight. They may be waiting for something."

"Are they Mexican or Siamese?"

"At least they are not from America. They are absolutely Asians. I do not see any difference in these yellows. Thank you, I know black. Then I can talk about the lineage straight away. "

"Come in and eat," cries Jens."I found some leftovers in the fridge."

Remnants and residues. Jens served a delicious dish from some small game with lobster sauce and currant jelly. He is a cook, it is noticeable.

"Does not your wife have access to the kitchen," I ask.

"No, she manages house and garden, provides craftsmen and manages the economy. I cook food and travel with tourists. Can not feel better. A perfect marriage."

Josephine, Jens wife from Sumatra, was a beautifully beautiful creation. Under the eastern brittle surface there seemed to be a lot of energy. Her gingerbread eyes had a hypnotic impact on the environment.

We discussed the watchful motorboat and agreed that we should plan some kind of defence if any even people would like to talk with us. If they found out that Jens was here, there was some risk of kidnapping, we judged.

Thus, we decided on certain watches in order not to be surprised at night. Josephine, Jens wife, showed us the house. In the wind there were windows with views for all the winds, including the small harbour. The darkness had fallen quickly and there were some bright spots in the village, electricity was not found here. Jens had gasoline for lamps and refrigerators.

Just after midnight, I was woken up by Valerie. It was time to take our guard. Because the wind was large, we decided to be two on each guard pass to better look at two directions at the same time.

"Look here," Valerie whispered.

I stood behind her to see what was interested in her. There were some indefinite shadows and we felt how the tension rose.

She smelled feminine myth and did not have many clothes on her. She pushed her soft back to me and it made my manoeuvre hard night instantly. She touched the round tail slowly and rhythmically and I slowly slowed down. With one hand she slowly approached the gullet and slowly pulled down the zipper. After a certain trembling in the underpants, the residing inhabitants sprinkled out of captivity.

"Well then," muttered Valerie.

I had every effort not to upset me loudly. I did not want to disturb either the inhabitants of the house or the shadows outdoors.

I raised the dress on Valerie and smacked the round soft ham.

"You have no panties," I muttered.

"No bra either."

As I approached the woods between Valery's thighs, I felt the damp heat. When my fingers were looking in, it was not only moist but noisy.

"Oh, sorry, it was very wet there ..." she whispers.

She lifts one foot on a chair, making it easier to fumble in the bush cake. Her little bud is not that small anymore and reacts as if it were an electric shock every time I poked it.

"You're not really wise," she complains. Valerie's favorite replica.

She takes a nice roof about my pulsating stake and lets it slide in wherever it wants to be. I really feel how it is sucked into the wet cave as she reluctantly leans forward. I let my hands slide underneath the dress and take a tight hold of the round breasts with the small, stiff nipples.

We moan and frustrate very at tenuously because we will nevertheless remember that we should be quiet.

"Now they are coming," says Valerie.

"I feel it", I stumble back.

"Idiot, the shadows are creeping. The enemies are here. We must alarm the others. Fast!"

Talk about timing. But unlinked I quickly put the slimming limb into my pants and rush down to wake the others.

Then it rings on the door! The noise is an angry buzz from the battery-powered doorbell. Jens then really installed all the sophistication of civilization here beyond all glory and honesty. Many thoughts shine through my shocked brain before the ringtone tones into silence.

It is good that the residents of the house wake up quickly and efficiently.

"I'm opening," Jens sucks.

"Never in life", is my quick answer. "If it's the scum, it's you they're looking for!"

"Yes, yes," agrees Jens.

We decide that it is best for Josephine to talk to the caller at the door. She asks who it is and gets a quick answer to the local language.

She quickly releases an uncle who comes from the village. He speaks very fast and Josephine is obviously informed about the situation.

A number of Thai people have gathered and are apparently about to surround the house. Our plans for our continued business were still somewhat unclear. I would have thought of returning to Singapore and starting from the next stage. But the first problem is to get wholly from this village.

Valerie stood as a lookout and reported hostile movements around the house.

"Can we run out of the way?" Was my first question.

"Too late, there seem to be people around the house."

"We're gonna arm us", was my suggestion.

Josephine and the father-in-law from the village were still in a proper exchange of views that resulted in a discussion of Dutch with Jens. Frustrating not to understand the languages when the situation is critical.

Sir Randolph was sitting in the best armchair while throwing his monocle. Clearly, he had nothing to fear from the fools.

"In such a house is there a secret outcome?" Sir Randolph asks suddenly.

"That is what we are currently discussing," says Josephine. "The question is whether we will try to accommodate everyone or if someone will stay. How many people can you take in the boat mister Randolph? "Beautiful Josephine seems to have taken control of the operation.

"No problem, a dozen passenger's can I transport without any major complications."

We quickly take our refuge to the cellar. Here it is moist and cool. Roots from the trees outside have penetrated here and there grow moss and mould both here and there. The entrance to the secret exit is in the furthest and is well camouflaged behind some sort of plant.

With big effort and a pair of brackets we can at least get the door to a long narrow tunnel. It will lead us to the coast, it is said.

Josephine takes the lead after some protests from me and Sir Randolph. She merges and talks that it is she who knows this outcome.

"Did you know about this tunnel," I ask Jens.

No, his strength was not secret walks.

After 50 meters we did not get anymore. Roots and plants had penetrated the tunnel and Josephine began using the knife to move on.

" This requires a saw" I judged. "Do you have any such, Jens?"

Well, in the basement there were some tools. I crawled back in time because it was me who was in the aftermath. When I got to the basement I heard a lot of upset voices upstairs. They seemed to be on their way down, so I had to pick up a pair of foxtail saws.

I tried to camouflage the entrance to the cave and thus earn time. The old cave was low, sometimes the earth was hard as stone, sometimes it was mostly glaring as it was stuck everywhere. On the body, in the hair and not least on the feet that were like clay lumps.

I'm coming to Josephine and the others. My two saws are sent forward in the lead, and Josephine and Jens are furthest in the desperation. I think I hear voices behind us so I'm worried about them to hurry up.

It only takes a few minutes and we can crawl.

"Look here," says Valerie, crawling right in front of me, "soon the tunnel hurts."

It gives me an idea. I take one of the rooted roots that I brought and processed the tunnel roof. Meanwhile, the others continue. Now I'm sure others follow us in the tunnel. Voice is heard and a flashlight glitters. With new powers, I continue to work, large larch lumps loosen from ceilings and walls. Now I even see the perpetrators.

I work stubbornly further but prepare to fight to let the others go free.

"Ham!" Calls Valerie before me. "Hurry up!"

She is heading back to see what happened. Suddenly the ceiling rises and I am half buried under clay and soil. I am stuck.

"Come here and go," I hear.

"Comes!"

Valerie helps pull. She takes hold of her arms and I try to bump my legs and dig me with my hands to get lost. Above us loose clay lumps and water sip in. It looks as if the entire tunnel is being erected. With a heavy jerk I'm loosened and several meters of the roof float in.

With a distress we are able to crawl further, but the tunnel has ripped and our pursuers cannot follow us through the tunnel anyway. Now, at least, they know where we are heading so there is a risk that they will alert others who can figure out where the tunnel mining is.

Josephine has arrived at the end of the tunnel which ends in a bush cake on the river sledge. We drop the footstep on the slope and roll down the water at the beach.

"Lovely times", Sir Randolph exclaims, "almost like in the war."

"You have not been in any war?"

"No, of course. But since my first Biggles book I've wanted to be a true adventure."

"Well, wish fulfilled. What are you going to do now?"

"Simply my friend from the highlands. I swim away and pick up my boat. In the meanwhile you push here in the water."

"OK, drive hard", we agree.

Of the well-dressed gentleman we met in Singapore, a yellow-colored mustache remains on a muddy form with striped hair hanging down in the face. We all looked so much about that way and therefore were camouflaged. Against the river, we liked the most big larch lumps.

"Will be nice with a bath," says Sir Randolph. "Off with shirt and pants and down in plumage. You can distract the crocodiles in the meantime."

I was unsure if there were crocodiles in the river. My experience with Indonesian rivers is somewhat limited. I'm starting to clean the weapons that we got after all. A glance at the river shows that Sir Randolph silently slides away from his yacht 50 meters from the land and 200 meters away.

Worried is that the Thai boat is not far away. Suddenly, I will remember that the Thais may have embarked on Randolph's boat.

"Take care of the weapons," I say to Valerie, "I'm following Randolph".

I'm quietly following Randolph in the water. This is not clear West Indian water, this is a yellow-green mud that comes floating. But it cannot be helped, here is a swim or disappear. I'm 50 meters left when Randolph arrives at the boat. He may have been struck by the same thought that there is someone on board, because he takes it very carefully as he approaches the boat.

As he climbs, a shadow pops up and drives a gun to wake Randolph's life and asks what he's doing there.

"It's my boat, my good man," I hear Randolph with an indignant voice. A voice that drips of English upper class which can make anyone unsure.

"And why are you not in the jungle?" The shadow asks for a short thought break. The natural thing is not to swim out among the crocodiles to get to the boat. In fact, it should be more natural to take the little jungle that lays at the dock to board.

Randolph has meanwhile moved something towards the boat so that the shadow stands with my back against the ladder I'm going to climb on board. Very, very carefully, I get up on the steps. Randolph tramples back and forth and in swearing words he begins to homework the intruder.

It makes the Thai distracted so I get so high that I can grab his shirt collar and try to tear him down in the water. It's close to succeeding, he drops the gun but grabs the steps to stay.

"Ha," says Randolph and clings to him on his fingers. The Thai drops and I get him under me when we fall into the water. I have a good takeover and manage to keep him under the surface of the water even though he is desperate. When he stops fighting, I pull him up over the water surface and drag him onboard with some help from Randolph.

"We tie him up and put him in the ass," Randolph suggests. With ropes around his hands and feet and a powerful mouthwash, he begins to whistle.

"Glad that he lives anyway," I think.

Randolph gently starts the boat and lays it on idling to not attract too much attention. We slide closer to land and wave towards our friends to hurry to enter our boat. It succeeds in expectation and soon everyone is on board except Josephine.

Jens becomes worried and starts shouting to get her to safety too.

"We must stand now," says Randolph. And everyone agrees.

"I cannot leave Josephine ..."

"If anyone is going to get here, it's Josephine," we think.

The reality is solving the issue for us. A bunch of Thais have come to our attention, so Randolph is boosting the yacht, now with full noise on the two 70-horse Mercury Motors.

But there was more noise in the little harbour. The Thai boat seemed to be of the same calibre and it was about to take us back as we headed for the sea. The estuary was wide but seemed to be too narrow for two fast boats.

After all, the Thai boat was understaffed. We only saw a person who ruled. But on the other hand, he was armed with some kind of automatic weapon. However, he was hampered by wanting to have Jens living. His shot was therefore scarecrow in front of the bow on our boat or they were badly targeted.

Nevertheless, we should try to stop his progress. How it should be. Randolph had crawled a bit too much with his boat, the Thai actually seemed faster and was in a hurry to penetrate the mangrove nuts on the other side of the river.

"Time of coarse artillery," I announced. We had brought a shotgun from Jens house. I charge both pipes and aim high with the first shot. As expected, our friend dives in the Thai boat, why the next shot hits the windshield. Now it seems we mean seriously, but the opponent begins to peep our hull with automatic gear. He is aiming for the engines and sooner or later we can expect that we are experiencing engine problems.

And, really, one of the engines starts to go unclean and we lose momentum.

"Take cover behind that boat," I hear. The boat was a tugboat that suddenly appeared behind a cape. The tugboat was of an older model painted in red and black and with car tires hanging over the rail as fenders. The tugboat targets our enemy as he tries to frame. And almost succeeds, the Thai boat weighs in the last second but no better than it's capsizes.

"Welcome on board," Björn says, it was actually Björn and his Sitting Bull who look up and save us with the bare fear.

25. Planning

Now it remained to convince Jens to be mediocre and help us to fulfil our mission, that is, tell us where the treasure was. Of course, he would not hear much about that ear. Nor did Björn seem interested in participating. I was not sure how to act. My commissioner was actually the Mexican drug station.

Jens admitted that he had been on a sailboat crossing the Atlantic. Was it possible that it was a well-known way of moving theft gods and cranes from Southeast Asia to Central America? Jens did not know that he had been acquired at the last moment, as he claimed.

Was it theft less? Probably, says Jens. Could he describe more what it was about. No, he does not want it right now. Valerie also sought further information from Jens or Björn. The latter was silent, apparently he did not want to get in. Maybe he had his own agreement with Jens.

I therefore had problems. I have to report to the Mexicans while their interest in the treasure was only of secondary significance. They were looking for the bosses in an organization, we were interested in diamonds or whatever was hidden in St. Kitts. If at all there, the track might lead someone else. Or Jens or someone else had lurked the treasure hunt.

"We should be careful when we come to Singapore," Valerie murmured.

"Yes," is my comment.

"Our friends from Bangkok are probably able to mess up with it properly. They know that we are coming with Sitting Bull and that we have Jens with us." With our limited strength, we must choose to sneak away in some way."

We have Randolph's injured boat on trailer and Randolph itself tries to speed up the engines. Not very easy when Sitting Bull is approaching its home port at a good speed. After a consultation with Björn, we slide into a quiet bay to see if we can speed up the yacht. Björn drops the anchor and starts helping Randolph with the repair.

There turns out to be a couple of broken fuel lines so the boat should be ready for use with a roll of insulation tape. A few ball holes near the water line are sealed with Plastic Padding.

Now, the question remains whether Björn can return to Singapore. And if we were to try to get to the Caribbean, how could we do that? Björn asserts that there is no danger to him now, the Thai's goal is Jens and Björn can truthfully say that he let him go to sea and did not know where he was going to go.

Jens definitely does not want to abandon Josephine on Sumatra.

"OK," I say. "Why not take the flight from Sumatra to the Caribbean. We may not be able to return to Singapore actually."

"Can we take the boat to Medan located on the northeast coast?" Asks Jens. "On the way there maybe we can pick up Josephine."

We agree if the idea is good. Björn brings out a pair of cans of red colour and suggests painting the yacht a little bit. We are starting to be a really good team and I try to convince Björn that he will be ill at Singapore.

"No problem," he says. "I have some faithful friends in the Chinese Quarter. I call them and ask them to meet me when I arrive. Then someone can join Sitting Bull when I work." No problems at all."

Jens is obviously helping to keep the field together with us. He cannot return to his hideaway at Sumatra anyway.

Randolph's handsome white yacht will be leisurely reddish and will soon recall a progeny of Sitting Bull that has the same red colour. We also change the name to Josephine home in Nicosia, Cyprus.

"I also want to go to the Caribbean," says Randolph. "Instead of compensation for damaged boat, fuel and other."

Even though he is not insufficient in detail, he has assumed that we are going to give us adventure and treasureation. Jens says nothing, he just wants to accompany us to a new hideaway. I try to offer money instead, I have some plastic cards that I can use as soon as we get to a bank.

Randolph absolutely wants to follow and after a brief discussion with Valerie, we say he can hang on with forever. But we are not the one who decides, so he may have to leave the ship at a later time.

Björn deviates from Singapore, he has jobs waiting. We have checked that the yacht is OK and that there is plenty of fuel to take us back to Sumatra. The navigation will be a bit tricky, Randolph does not know the waters and has no detailed charts on the area. Jens has not seen much of the coast from the sea side but knows a number of resorts from land.

"It fixes," said Randolph optimistically and kicking off the coast of Sumatra. We take it easy, so we should attack a community near Josephine's town at dusk.

Everything works well and at the small fishing village where we land there are no authorities that can ask questions about the boat's identity, passports and other inconveniences. Jens walks to land and takes advantage of a local ability to reach Josephine's city by a local fishing boat.

"See you at dawn," he claims.

I try to persuade him to accompany me, but I'm sure I would not melt into the environment.

After a hard day it's time to drench. Most of us have some scratch marks and bruises, but Valerie has plagued us in a very excellent way. She has a certain degree of medical education as well. Although I have known her for a long time, she has not really told me so much about herself. Even though she talks a lot, I do not know much more about her now than when I met her.

"I take the first guard," said Randolph. He is the captain on the ship and has taken command, it seems like. No one can be happier than me. Five minutes later he wakes me brutally. It's actually not five minutes later, it just feels like that. It is five o'clock in the morning and Randolph has not slept all night, he says.

I stumble on the deck on stiff bones. It's calm, even birds and hippos are asleep. It is hot, sticky hot when there is also no refreshing breeze. Disgustingly hot. I go down the galleys and get ice and cold water. Good boat, this one. The mosques are less aggressive out here on the water. Have I eaten my malaria medicine?

With ice, cold water and knot shotgun I put myself on the dark deck and try to look into the dark blue darkness. We are located 100 meter from the beach and everything is quiet except some occasional praises in the trees on the beach.

Suddenly I hear leaping steps on the beach, someone throws himself in a canoe and walks frenetic to us. Despite the darkness, our silhouette may look towards the mouth of the river. I grab the shotgun but relax when I hear Jens.

"We have to go away fast as the attic, they discovered us but we managed to get through the woods." Josephine was also in the canoe and they quickly agreed. Randolph was not allowed to sleep for a long time, now it was time to go out to sea and take courses at Medan.

Our nerves were not really trimmed for such experiences. The engines went on the lowest lap and were then really quiet. No lanterns were lit until we were out on free water. We are following the coast to the north and hope to avoid grains and driftwood that could make it for us.

Everything goes according to the drawings and we land in the port of Medan. Here are authorities in the form of customs and passport control that we cannot overcome. We get a sense of insecurity, Thais may have mutate government officials here to keep an eye out.

We actually have our passports with us but Randolph gets unexpected worries when he tries to explain why he has an English flag in the stern of a boat from Cyprus. When we thought we were smart when we painted the yacht we did not think of such problems.

While Randolph invited the customs officer on strong and cold drinks on the boat we took things and paddled on shore. Josephine took the lead finding a taxi that could take us to the airport. That is, Josephine stopped to help Randolph while trying to leave the country as soon as possible.

Thanks to Josephine's fine preparation, we were able to take a seat in a scary Honda taxi and arrived at the airport without any hassles. There we quickly discover that the natural road to civilization goes with Sil Air via Changi Airport in Singapore where we would change plans to move on. We did not feel like changing plans in Singapore but instead choose to fly Boeing 737 to Kuala Lumpur. There we should be able to change without being caught. We also do not have to stop in Bangkok, another place we do not know.

26. Dubai

Each plan has its weaknesses. Reality often has the ability not to follow planning even if it is in itself an excellent planning. We come to Kuala Lumpur and land there without any major complications. Those who are now in KL with me are the main character, Jens, who knows where the treasure is buried, his wife Josephine and my excellent co-host Valerie.

We are now planning to return to St. Kitts to excavate the treasure. I feel pretty sure we fooled our pursuers. That is why we book on the nearest flight to the Caribbean, via Paris and Air France. However, there is a lack of space so we are waiting, flying with different planes I do not seem to be particularly practical. The airport in KL is big and messy like all major airports. We slide around to shop for new clothes, visit a hairdresser and some other things that make us feel like we were civilized again.

After a few hours, the departure of our plane to the west is approaching. Suddenly Valerie comes running with his breath in his throat:

"Jens has disappeard!, She hears.

It turns out that Valerie, of pure coincidence, saw Jens walk off to a street far from ours. Before she arrived, Jens was on his way into a plan destined for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

"Have you seen Josephine?" I ask of course. The answer was no, either she was in front of him aboard, or she had taken another stop.

"Follow that plan!" I exclaimed.

We will book us on the next Emirates Airline that will light a couple of hours later. This plan goes to Sharjah, another of the Emirates, which is half an hour's drive from Dubai. The Sheiks do not care so much about rationalizing the resources between themselves, if the Sharjah Sheikh wants a huge international airport, he builds an independent of whether or not it is necessary. On the other hand, the region is growing enormously. In 25 years, the oil has made the emirates and the other surrounding countries stormy wealthy. Here roads and houses are built at an unprecedented pace.

Earlier this was known as the pirate coast. The coastal inhabitants lived on pearl fishing and piracy. The British got some order here 100 years ago. In order to protect their shipping, they succeeded in establishing peace between the emirates, who then struck each other. British shipping got through peace in the area of protected ports and trading venues.

When the oil began to flow in the area, it was first American and British companies such as BP and Esso who handled exploration and production. The Arab states, however, wanted a larger portion of the cake and managed to nationalize oil production. They also wanted to raise the price properly. Production costs may be $ 5 a barrel, but they sell it at least $ 15-30 per barrel depending on what OPEC oil-producing cartel can agree.

This is the reason why Dubai is called the Middle East Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi, the largest of the Emirates, called Middle East New York. Thus, there is a modern building, world class skyscrapers and especially in Dubai, a center for free trade. For example, the Duty Free Dubai open is the name of the tennis tournament that is part of the ATP series.

But that was one thing we did not think of. This requires a visa to enter the country. Here no one is released that does not work right. Apart from tourists who can stay for two months, one must have a guaranteed job to get in. And you cannot change employers when you're here, but have to go home and get a new visa if you want to switch to a new job. But Britons do not need a visa. I came in but not Valerie! Even though we tried to get the duty to accept that we argued that St. Kitts was part of the British Commonwealth. St. Kitts participates in the Commonwealth Games in Cricket, for example.

Valerie had a beautiful stay on the other side of the wall and had to take another flight somewhere else. We agreed that she would go home to St. Kitts and monitor the events from there. Once upon a time she could easily obtain a visa and find out if she needed here in Dubai.

The night was late and I took a yellow taxi to Sharjah Hilton to sleep a couple of hours before I could start looking for Jens. The search began by trying to get Björn by telephone. He might know if Jens had any contacts here in the Emirates. I managed to easily get to the port office but they had not seen Björn in a couple of days. He had some private mission with the tugboat, it was said. If they got him through the radio they would hear.

The next step was to try to find out if Jens arrived in Dubai or maybe flown on. He did not have a visa? I'm not a detective to the profession, I'm selling computers on the international market. Since I did not have someone to contact, I asked at the front desk. Almost all staff at the hotels comes from India and Pakistan. Indians, like the Chinese, are spread all over the world and are good businessmen. The nice Indian girl at the front desk had contacts with a travel agency, maybe they could take a look at the flight bookings.

Clearly smarter than going to the airport. I therefore took a taxi to the travel agency to meet Indira. But she was not Gandhi. She had a friend who had access to the passenger lists and she really found Jens on the flight passenger list. Thus, it was not certain that he had entered the country.

Access to Passport Control's visa list was much more difficult. Passports are not Indians, they are usually Arabs and India's network of contacts did not extend so far. Instead, she offered to contact a colleague who had been and met a businessman on the flight. He drove a limousine and sometimes picked up people on the flight to drive them to conferences, businesses or hotels.

"You know someone who keeps a sign with your name and then takes care of the transport," explained Indira.

He was heading somewhere in his big car but we caught him by mobile phone. After some discussion, we found that someone who was probably Jens was picked up by someone from Al Bustan, a major hotel chain in the Emirates.

"How can he enter without a visa when others can not? He is Swedish, and they have no special privileges, right? "I wonder.

"If he called a few days in advance, the hotels usually make a visa," explains Indira.

"Well, yes, he had already planned to expire already on Sumatra," I conclude. The only time he could have done this since we met was when he fetched Josephine. I started to suspect he had contacts here and was not happy to share with us. I had failed to trust, and instead he had taken refuge with old friends.

Anyway, with India's help, we called around the Al Bustan hotels and got a nap at a hotel in Sharjah. The receptionist gladly informed us that Jens lived there but that he had travelled with a sheik to the racecourse. Not horse racing but camel racing.

I thanked for the help and left Indira to take me to the camels. The Taxi drove me past the World Trade Center and dropped me off in the sunshine outside the track. As a tourist I was referred to the left-hand stands, when I tried to walk onto the Arab side I became friendly but firmly rejected.

Outside the course there was an area where the camels rested before and after the race. The barnyard so to speak. Here there was no Jens in sight. I go to the tourist camp, and among German and Swedes I see a dust cloud and a lot of jeeps a few hundred yards away. And there will be a number of camels running and galloping in good speed against the goal. The audience begins to get enthusiastic, the speaker hoarses on Arab camels with their little riders approaching the target quickly. The riders are very small and ride like they were born on the camel back. They should be between ten and twelve years, it is said, but there are knots that seem less than that. It is often the coaches' sons who ride.

There is no gambling on the camels obviously not for us tourists, how do i go to the natives, I do not know anything about it. If I go closer to the Sheikh bleachers, I can see if Jens is there. Among the tourists, he is certainly not. It's no more than a hundred people I have a good overview of this stands.

Among the sheiks in their white footwear and faded scarves around the head, he would deviate like a dove among hawks. But after all, a red-faced face stands out of an Arabic dress! His friend, the Sheik, has apparently dressed him in his home country's wild clothes and brought him to the honorary champion.

It makes no sense to try to get in touch with him from here, I try to wait until he comes out. It will be a long wait. I want to surprise him so I'm taking a seat behind a pillar and trying to keep an eye on the shepherd fighter.

Every now and then there is a waiter with Coca-Cola and cakes, it is apparently the one who owns the winning camel who stands for the feast. And like so much else in the Emirates it's free, no entry then.

When the sun begins to throw long shadows, race runs are over, tourists have left the track after an hour's visit, I begin to feel alone behind the pillar. I have had a lot of cookies and coke and finally the sheiks also start and with them Jens leaves the plant.

I approach Jens at the end and in a few meters I make myself feel.

"Hello Jens," I say, "can we talk to ..."

Later I did not get before Jens told something to his friend the Sheik and he instructed the guards in turn. Nice young men in uniform grab me and stab me in a police jeep. With a police on each side, it's carried away. I do not have a chance to explain myself. I'm trying to say I'm a peaceful computer vendor from Scotland, but nobody answers. They can quite sure English, but they refuse to open mouth.

Many of the cars are powerful jeeps, Landrover, Nissan and Mitsubishi among others. Four-wheel drive and low gear range anywhere in the country. Regular cars drive on the roads while the jeeps easily reach the desert landscape. And that's what we did, then entered the desert. After an hour's drive, we arrive at a Bedouin camp. Heavy tents, real carpets, camels and several jeeps were found here. I was put into a tent, they left the entrance open and two soldiers sat outside and kept guard.

My imagination was about to end. How did I get into this resort with sudden Arab sheik involved? I just sat here and could not do anything. On my own, I received both food and drink and in the distance I heard Arabic music. Probably belly dance for tourists behind the next sand dune.

Because I was completely idle, I took a nap on a tall real carpet. I suddenly woke up, it was dark and there was a dark figure next to me, completely black-dressed with a white face. The sheiks were dressed in white so it could not be a sheik. The women in this country, on the other hand, were black-dressed, some even covered the face. The only thing one could imagine was the eyes. It was partly due to the religion that provided that the hair would be covered. In addition, it was due to family traditions to what extent the women could show their faces.

This style had my face free and I began to get a slight idea that the face was not completely unfamiliar. Still, I did not know if it was friend or enemy. But with his index finger over her mouth said his face

"Sssssch"

It seemed kind of friendly so I obeyed the call.

"Signor Ham", whispered his face, "would you like to come out of this Bedouin tent?"

"Yes, thank you," I whispered back. My friend from Mexico and St. Kitts had come to my rescue. "How then?"

We peered through a run in the tent opening and saw that a pair of white-washed men approached.

"Hide!" I call Maria. Obediently she creeps in behind a tall carpet at the far end of the tent.

One of the new arrivals presented themselves as Sheikh Mohammed bin Sheikh Ali Al Suwaidi plus a long title which indicated that he belonged to the leadership team in the Emirates. He was called Mohammed and was the son of Ali Al Suwaidi. He asked politely if I was fine if the food was good and so on.

"Sure everything is OK except I'm sitting here in a tent in the middle of the desert, instead of sleeping in my hotel room."

"I understand, but I have promised my good friend Jens from Sweden to neutralize you for a few days."

"Neutralize sounds dangerous, will you kill me?" I ask scared. At the same time, a few days did not make it so dangerous that I did not know what I would think.

"No, no, misunderstand me right."

The sheik expressed himself in finest oxford English, clearly more English English than my own, even though I was born on the island. It is up to education that all native speakers receive a good salary during the study period, and most also study at the universities in Cairo, Great Britain and the United States.

He apparently meant I'd put on ice so to speak. He would make sure Jens would get a head start before I could get an opportunity to pursue him.

The sheik did not know why but for old friendship she had promised to make Jens a will. No hair would bend on my head, it sounded satisfactory.

"What do you think about that?" Maria asks when the Sheikh had gone.

"It's no problem," I think, "a couple of days in the desert are probably just good for health ..."

"Idiot!" Erupts Maria and I have the opportunity to return the "Sssssch" that started our conversation.

"Do you really think they're going to let you go?"

I probably thought so. A nice and nice sheik in the desert in the Emirates had nothing to do with me. Jens had the lead already so what could more or less play a part for a couple of days.

"Now you're following me," merges Maria. "Do you think I risk living and laughing just because you're a frog cotta."

It was a new word, probably something Mexican directly translated into the English language.

"OK, do not bother, I'll follow if you're on a safe road."

"There are no safe roads, but behind the dune, I have a camel waiting to take you back to civilization. Do you see your clothes over there? Put on them so that you look like people! "

There were words and no visors. The clothes in question were a white sheet and a white headband and a black belt that would hold the head cloth in place.

"Do not they get mad if I bring their clothes," I wonderfully.

"Do not bother you," says Maria sore and begins to sneak into the bed sheet. In addition, she puts her headdress in place and notes with a broad smile that I am cute. So I have a white towel around my head and something that looks like a black snout that keeps it in place.

On the back there is an extra exit, which Maria had cut up to get into the tent. We smiled out and Maria orders me to go first. If someone sees us, we'll look like we are a sheikh with Mrs in the evening stroll. Here you do not go to arm with your wives without your mother coming obediently a few meters later. At least, Maria claims that this is the case.

Behind a sand dune is really a camel and an Arab who holds the camel in the drain.

"There is no camel, it's a dromedary. Camels have two puckles, this one has only one,"I say indignantly.

"This is called camel. Dromedaries are also camels. Dromedary is the first name and Camel is the surname. Here's just one black so you do not have to keep the concepts out of that way."

Well, just climb up and try to keep my good. But Maria would not go with. As I clung to the frustrating camels when she got up, I began to understand why it called the desert ship. Here you should easily get seasick. I got directions from Maria and when I got to the main road, take the next bus to the Lou Loa Beach Resort Hotel in Sharjah.

"See you soon!" Promises Maria and waves goodbye.

The Bedouin who led the Camel to the main road stayed very right at the nearest bus stop when we got out of the way. He ordered the camellia kneeling forward, it was willing to go down on the knees and I had all the hassle of staying in the world. Suddenly the back part fell down and I was falling backwards. Camels have no understanding to make it comfortable for their riders. Unlike horses and dogs trying to be humans, the camels are very reluctant to fulfil their duty to humans. For example, say that a camel that leads a camel race can lay down and rest a few hundred meters from goal.

More about this, I took off my clothes, that is, bed linen, and put me waiting for the bus. It was still night but I realized that when the dawn came, there would probably be a bus. And very well, after a while a vehicle stopped, the door opened and I was invited to take a seat. There was an error on the vehicle, it was not the regular bus but a white air-conditioned jeep belonging to mine, or rather Jens, Arab friends.

"Sorry, Mister Jones," said my friend, Sheik Mohammed, "I must insist that you come along." It was not worth the trouble to try to deny, I take the most dutiful place in the back seat of the jeep.

"I have nothing wrong with you," continues the sheik, "but because I promised Jens to delay you for a few days, I will also do this. Since you have helped from outside, I'm going to take you to a safer place in Dubai."

In Bur Dubai, as one of the neighbourhoods is called, the souks lie as they call their bazaars, but also the sheik's divan. It sounds relaxing, but it is a castle-like building that is effectively locked away from the surroundings.

27. Sharjah

I spent two lazy days in Sheik's divan. The sheik was nice and, as I said, had nothing wrong with me. We started talking computers, he was childishly fond of technology, he knew as much about me about the latest developments.

We discussed PC, Mac, Network, Smart Phones and much more. I received an in-depth account of the needs of this sheik. He wanted an independent network for his department. After a few faxes with my headquarters, I presented a quote of several thousand pounds. It could be a lot more if we showed that we could deliver quickly and efficiently. My trump card was that I could promise installation and education. The hardware itself could probably buy cheaper directly from Japan or Taiwan.

I had some problems with the head office at home in Scotland. Having been stationed in the Caribbean, I had requested a transfer to Singapore where I had not done any business at all. Without warning, I start faxing from Dubai, only on the third day, The sheik let me talk on the phone with Scotland. My explanations for my escapades were quite long. To give them the story of the treasure in the Caribbean was not possible, I would not believe it if someone else told it.

On the third day, I had a good hope of a big deal with the sheik, and with that in my back I would probably get the forgiveness of the sins of the headquarters. On the third day, I was simply released from the divan and started walking into the souk in Bur Dubai to find a taxi that could take me to Sharjah.

I walked in the wrong direction, on these narrow streets and the alleys were no cars. I watched a pair of jeans and a watch before I came down to the creek that separates north and south of Dubai. The contrasts are great here in the oil's engaged country. Just 30 years ago there was pearl fishing and some trade of dates and tea that was the supply of the few thousand inhabitants. Even before, it was called the pirate coast. The Emirs hijacked ships who took shelter in Arabian Gulf, also known as the Persian Gulf if they were not Arab. The Emirates also did not agree, which meant that landing on this coast was an adventure.

The contrast between old and new eyes clearly has in the creek, here are the old-fashioned dhows that are used for coastal shipping and the small abra boats. An abra boat consists of a large diesel engine, a deck with seating and a roof like sun protection and acts like a bus on the water. I took a boat ride, paid 50 fils, and was a few minutes later on the Deira side near the Deira Tower. There were yellow taxis with taximeters, I sat in one and half past five at my hotel in Sharjah.

The porter was happy to see me, he claimed he was worried. If nothing else, he was worried if I would come back and pay the bill or not. He was somewhat calm because I was a wanted person. There were a lot of phone messages in my compartment. I brought my whole pile up and walked up in my room.

It turned out that Valerie had been there and met Maria, which made me calm. The search for Jens was in full swing. Maria had left a phone number, telling her that Valerie shaded Jens and that he lived at the Lou Loa Beach hotel. That's why Maria had said that I would get into that hotel.

The fact that Jens remained in the Emirates was a surprise, he should be in the Caribbean at this time and look for treasures. We decided to reconnaissance the situation at Lou Loa. It turned out to be a two-storey hotel by the beach. There were tourists from Scandinavia, Germany and Russia who sunbathed, ate and enjoyed themselves. Here, Jens could live without deviating from the crowd. The question was why?

However, I booked in and got a room facing the pool and the sea. Valerie was not here, she probably shaded Jens on some excursion. Maria and I connected with the evening buffet dinner served in the garden next to the pool and the sea. After soup, salad, three hot dishes and ten desserts I was quite satisfied.

"How did the cat get you into a Bedouin camp?" I asked the beautiful Maria. As usual, she dressed in a long colourful dress that exquisitely emphasizes her slim well-animated figure. Well, the thing was that even the Mexicans had some feelings among the sheiks. That Jens Sheikh friends had taken a white man to the Bedouin camp was widely known. But it was only Maria who had put together a and b and got it to three, that is, me. Therefore, she had done a rescue operation that almost succeeded. But she had been in a hurry, so she abandoned me in the desert along with a camel.

But they would not have been worried for my sake. I had disappeared for three days. Nevertheless, it was also widely known that I was picked up and put in a kind of house arrest by the friend Sheik Mohammed bin Sheikh Ali Al Suwaidi.

Right after the coffee, Valerie and the elite came in the tension after the famous treasure was collected.

"Hello dear Scot!" She exclaimed and threw herself on my throat. It was her usual way to greet her friends, I had come to terms with. At first I thought it was only me who was her love now I knew she had many darlings.

Of course, it would be easy for her to get a visa to UAE when she was home in Kitts. I had felt alone, it felt safe to have colleagues.

"And why is Maria here?" Valerie asked something frosty. It does not seem like girls are talking to each other, Maria from Mexico and Valerie from St. Kitts.

"Yes, a good question," I think.

"I'm here to guard my interests," says Maria

"Do you have a company here with someone from home?" Is my next question.

"Well, here are some Mexican boys too," is the answer. That's my acquaintances from the corporation and not the police.

"Oops, I have to hide them from them while I keep an eye on Jens," I feel worried.

"No, no danger," says Maria, "they go home tomorrow and let me take care of the local contacts. They are actually here in completely different business. Purchase of various sensitive goods from this free trade area. The deal has been completed and I'm just going to make sure everything is flap."

Apparently there were completely legal electronics gadgets they provided here. These Mexican businessmen not only acted with cricket and weapons, they did business with everything possible. However, they left a representative, Maria, indicating that they did not trust fully in the broker who handled the practical details. Now she could more or less devote herself to the mystery of Jens.

Valerie had a look at Jens, she did not think she was discovered, she was good at this, she said. We looked wondering at her but she continued to tell us that Jens had been in the local souk and traded. It was clear that Jens was waiting for something. And we waited for Jens to do something. We discussed whether we would contact him, but rejected the proposal because he clearly showed that he was not interested in our company. And why would he be?

We decided to keep watch, the question was how. The simple solution was to let the night porter take care of this. He would earn an extra penny if he woke us up when Jens appeared.

Maria and Valerie thoughtfully shared a room facing the street. I had almost looked forward to a nice night with Valerie, or possibly with Maria. But even though they did not like each other, they choked about everything possible and impossible. At midnight, the entertainment ended in the restaurant, two beautiful girls from the Philippines who sang beautiful evergreens. Then it was time to lie down.

For some reason, I wake up at dawn and look out over Arabian golf. It's a fun morning and I see several tankers, some low in the water and heading north with crude oil through the narrow Hormoz Strait to Europe and America. Others float like cork and are coming in to load.

But there are also smaller boats, including a pair of tugs and an Arabian boat. There is an Arab in its white screw at the front and there are also some gray-haired people who take care of the boat. The Arabian boat is picking up something out of the water, it does not look like fish but rather as a human being. It looks like Jens! And the boat hurts and seems to approach one of the tugs. Who looks suspiciously familiar? Really, is it not the tugboat from Singapore located in the Middle East?

I'm getting under my butt, wearing sneakers, shorts and a t-shirt at great speed. I cannot run the long road without opening the window, sliding down on the small tile roof that is on top of the balcony below, jumping down to the ground and running towards the water.

And do what? Swimming to them is not to mind, but when I see the hotel's watercraft I know what to do. I drag the scooter to the water, start it and speed up the sea.

Water scooters are quick stuffing horses and I'm taking in the Arab boat, but it has a strong head and Jens is on board before I arrive. But before the tugboat has gotten up, I'm there and can quickly get on board. I'm used to it, it's the second time I'm embracing this boat from the ocean. They can only welcome you on board. That's what I think.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Says Jens. "Björn, come here and throw this untouched scot overboard!". Björn is not late to help. I see that I do not have a chance, but in any case, I want to make an attempt to persuade.

"But please," I try, "I just want to help, I've found both Björn and Jens ...". I will not come sooner before the habit of wasting me overboard. The tugboat gets off and I take back to the watercraft and take me ashore.

But I go to the hotel for a long time and bark the porter to start with. It's no use right now, Jens had sneaked out. I continue to bleed and in a funny mood to the girls' rooms. I tap and soon Valerie will open.

"But Ham," she quits, "have you taken a bath already. Do not you have panties? Come and I'll warm you up. Poor little thing."

Maria lay in bed, quite naked. They had got a double bed that they shared. Rather they shared bed with each other than letting the other share bed with me. I felt sorry for myself and really appreciated that they also felt sorry for me. Although it was not for the same reason.

28. Muscat

A confused advice followed. In any case, we had come to realize that it was Björn as Jens was waiting for. Uncertainly we felt snooping, we had helped Björn to trace Jens in the middle of Sumatra's jungle. The tug boat was well owned by Björn who apparently left the quiet job in Singapore's port to assist Jens.

Jens, on his part, felt that there were so many interested parties who could guess where the treasure was, so he would now make it safe for the insecure and take care of the jewels. Bjorn was an old friend who could be helpful. Strange that Jens did not trust us. We just wanted to. But the more that would be the more uncertain, the whole expedition became more and more people would have a share of the cake.

How could we find out where they were going? It was unlikely they would take the tugboat over half the globe, it should have been enough adventurous to sail across the Indian Ocean from Indonesia to the Middle East. Certainly there was a Suez canal, but then the whole of the Atlantic? Certainly they might be able to do it, it would take a couple of weeks. And then they had a good boat to dive from, now the treasure was under water. We did not know anything about that.

We invented our feelings in the Emirates, who could help us with this? Maria had an agent who might have contacts with the shipping industry. I could ask my friend Sheik Mohammed in passing. However, I would contact him to match delivery plans with regard to the delivery of computers.

My friend the sheik was not impossible at all. His friendship with Jens was not deeper than promising to make contact with one of his many cousins who were port manager in Dubai. He returned after five minutes and announced that the tugboat was on his way to Muscat in Oman. Björn had sold the boat to someone in Oman and promised to deliver it to the customer in the port of Oman.

"Then we go there and try again," suggests Valerie. "If I can meet Björn, I can confidently convince him that we can join a corner. Think of all the good contacts I have on Kitts, "she continues assertively.

"Do you have your visa?" Maria asks practically.

"Visa to Oman?" I ask stupidly. "Are they so strict between these countries."

Maria had been there. Getting a visa was difficult, it would most likely happen before entering the Emirates. The border inspection was strict, all luggage were carefully examined. It took an hour for passengers in the regular bus to cross the border. Because we did not have a visa, just give up those thoughts.

"You who know the Bedouins," says Valerie to Maria, "you could rent a couple of camels so we cross the border somewhere else. The boundary is long, so it's only to pass over at any suitable place. "

"I would prefer Jeep," I say. My experience of using both modes meant that I would rather choose Jeep. "Then we do not need to mix any Arab. We rent a Jeep and provide a map of the desert, there should be no problem. "

"Do you know it's a mountain chain that is a couple of thousand meters high that we must cross before we get into Oman?" It is Maria who possesses the local skills. No I did not know that. Maria, who might have had contact with muddy individuals, might be able to get tips on where we would sneak over the border.

Maria disappeared for a few hours and came back with a white air-conditioned Mitsubishi Pajero 3000 with V6 engine. It was equipped for desert safaris, the main instrument, and the compass, sat in the roof above the driver. In addition, the GPS had the help of the satellite to determine exactly where it was located.

There was a kind of vehicle that was good in the emirate. If you wanted to take a shortcut outside the public road network, it was basically just to go through the desert. It was dusty and sometimes the sand was loose, but it was generally good to get that way. I had seen the desert rhyme Paris - Dakar at Eurosport, so I just knew what we were getting into.

The Pajero was smaller than the big Jeeps the Sheikhs preferred, but can win the Desert Line, so it's enough for us too. The Pajero was equipped for a long journey through the desert, there were jeep dunks with gasoline and piles of water. The equipment featured boilers, tents, sleeping bags and much more.

The equipment also belonged to Radja, a small Pakistani who had been a tourist guide in Muscat. He would show us the way across the border.

"You are good at you," I celebrated Maria.

"No cause," she answers with a big warm smile. Valerie looks mad at us.

"Then we will go to Oman!".

We take the usual road to Al Ain, the University City and the oasis in the middle of the desert on the border with Oman. Oman is spread in several places, besides Oman itself, there was a small enclave in Al Ain. Al Ain had previously been an oasis where everyone could easily rest. It lay in what is now Abu Dhabi, one of the emirates, but Oman did not want to let the oasis completely, they thought they also had certain ownership. In addition, the outermost horn to the Hormoz Strait belonged to Oman, but between them were parts of Sharjah and Fujarah.

The Oman enclave in Al Ain went inside and out without seeing any boundaries other than road signs. But to get into real Oman and Muscat, that was a completely different thing.

On the map we see that the road to Al Ain a longer distance goes fairly close and parallel to the border. Radja has nothing to spare for Oman residents, claiming that it is not difficult to cross the border if we follow his instructions. Omanians get work even if they are not qualified. A foreigner, like himself, may leave the country to give jobs to the natives. That's what happened, that's why Radja was angry and unhappy with Oman.

The leader of the Sultanate Oman called the Sultan, unlike the Emirates leaders who called Emirates. Saudi Arabia was ruled by a king. The old Sultan kept Oman closed and kept the old way of life. The new sultan, who has ruled a few years now, has opened up for oil extraction, modernization and industrialization.

A few miles before Al Ain, Radja tells us it's time to drive into the desert. He takes the steering wheel and steer east, initially over a sandy bush with little bushes here and there. As we approach the mountain range, we descend into a wadi, a flood without water, and follow it up through the mountains. The wadi becomes smaller and narrower, the terrain becomes steeper and increasingly impossible.

Radja says I'll take care of the wheel and he will go out and recognize on foot. Here it is easy to drive on a rock and destroy the car. But the low gear is loaded, we rise on both sides, the mountains rise several hundred meters. When we look up, we suddenly see some people interested in photographing and filming. Worrying, we ask what it may be.

"A tourist bus only," says Radja, "no danger."

The Jeep growls, however, moves on like a sloping hill in a staircase. I hold on to the wheel, the others hold on to other things all they can when the jeep thinks. I imagined that we would go around in big dunes, just like in the Dakar rally. But then it was not. When I commented on this to the girls, Maria said:

"Just wait for mountain sand."

Sadly I looked around but did not see anything that should worry me. Perhaps that made me even more nervous, being in a foreign country without a passport and visa, yet it seemed safe and inconvenient. It starts to go out and I can concentrate on slowing down and steering. Then the darkness drops quickly, the downward sun that I had in the rear-view mirror falls below the horizon, and Radja stops the jeep and explains that this is the overnight stay.

No problem, we have all the equipment with us, the weather is fine. The weather is always fine here, only a few times a year it rains. It sounds nice, I think and think of my own home tours. It may get a little cold at night, says Radja and recommend sleeping bags. The girls heat a cucumber dinner over a spirits and we all eat and drink and are in good mood. Although it is difficult to eat without blowing in the food. It can not help it to crush between the teeth, one gets out when we are in adventures in deserts and mountains.

Radja, our innovative tour guide, takes out a screwdriver and replaces our Dubai signs for Oman signs. I wonder if it's better to get stuck in a fake jeep than get stuck in an emirate jeep. Probably no difference, rather passeless than unresolved.

At dawn we are aroused that a number of goats do their best to link our supplies of fresh produce. After the goats, an uncle comes with a messy stick and starts treating the goats and on us. Radja trains back and the mouths in an unpleasant way.

"Take it easy, Radja," I say, "we do not want to pay any attention to us."

"He is threatening with the wrath of God and the police force. We will not be here at his best green work," he says.

Here there was almost no greenery at all, but if you are herded in Oman, you may not be so well-considered.

"You can give him some money," I suggest.

"We only have dirham, it is not good here in Oman. Here is the omani rial that applies."

"What do you think of English pounds?" I ask.

"Good! Do you have such? "

Surely I have it. The hostess gets in a great mood as soon as he understands what it was for money he received. He even explained how to advance to civilization, the Omani civilization says.

Aside from a pair of buckles on the screens we will shine on a small road. From there it was easy to get down to the main road to the coast. I had expected Oman to be old and rude. The coastal road was almost highway, new, straight and asphalted. On both sides there were planted trees, an alley of 300 km to Muscat. And to keep them alive, tankers drove with water and released a splash of every tree. Just like a dog that marks the reef.

In the middle of the road we see a smaller castle. It turns out to be a roundabout. Each roundabout was adorned with large buildings, flowers and mosaic artworks. It would be something for road builders in Europe to take care of, I think. On our way to Muscat, we stay at a large hotel on ten floors. We refresh ourselves in the coffee shop in the hotel and enjoy the harp play. In the golden reception with a crystal chandelier that looks like weighing a well-dressed gentleman, playing harp in the middle of the morning.

Radja explains that this hotel was previously one of the summer camps of the Sultan. Nowadays only the top floors were reserved for the Sultan, the rest of the building was used as a conference hotel.

When he built the summer resort there was a small fishing village here. The Sultan moved the village and the fisherman a few miles away because he liked the place. Indeed, the inhabitants of the old village were also happy, they received new and modern housing from the Sultan. Radja had been a tourist guide earlier, so he maintained his traditions and continued to guide.

In Muscat's port it became difficult to get information about when Björn and Jens could come. We had no contacts at all but we got a nice wait. Meanwhile we could admire the sultan's palace at a distance and also the sultan's two boats. They looked like a bigger and smaller cruiser and were both ready for sealing at short notice, it would be possible for the sultan to go out and go for a boat.

It went out on time and it started to be evening. We could not enter a hotel without a passport and visa and we should also have the port under surveillance. We therefore drove the jeep out of town where we had a view of the entrance to the harbour. We folded the back seat so we could lay the sleeping bags there and sleep, two at a time.

Radja had flirted with Valerie and offered to take her first guard with her. We take lighthouse guards, he suggested. Having said that, Maria and I took a seat on each sleeping bag and fell asleep without any problems. Crawling into the sleeping bag was not to be considered in this heat. Even though there was no idle ban, we could not let the engine go all night. And without air conditioning it became hot here.

We thought, of course, that we would be lonely up here all night. But hello what we deceived us. When the evening was later we got company with more cars that also seemed to admire the view. It turned out that it was here as some girls and boys took an excursion and took the opportunity to hang out at the moon.

Both Maria and I woke up because there were cars driving. Not only that, there was also a police car coming up. We were terrified about what the police might want, so we took the place where we came and started to hug and kiss when the police came closer. I enjoyed the game when I got in close combat with Maria. Radja was not worse but attacked Valerie, not without success. But the police knocked on anyway. Now the cooked pork is fried, I think pessimistically.

But Radja is able to speak, he is getting his Omani driver's license and generally looking forward to confidence. If he wants the registration papers on the car, it's driving, I think tired.

But everything is fine, Radja has talked out of the situation and the police go on.

At dawn a black and red tugboat comes slowly towards the harbour. Without doubt, Sitting Bull is the well-known tugboat from Singapore. We go down to the harbour and Valerie is beautiful. When Sitting Bull adds to the quayside, it is met by an individual dressed in the typical Oman headwear.

Valerie walks quickly to the tugboat and goes aboard. We stay out of sight but see how she threw herself on her throat, the persuasion has begun. Björn seems to be very minded. He tries to discuss with the Omani while keeping Valerie at arm's length. Jens is in the background and looks nervous.

Björn throws away and slides from the dock, Valerie is still on board. We get a little nervous, Valerie may have gone over to his old friend Björn and left us at the stake. But it turns out to be unjustified concern. Björn makes what has become a habit, he throws Valerie overboard and increases the speed from the port.

I recognize the situation, it was not long ago that I was thrown over board from the same boat. I flatter Valerie when we pick her up from the wet but hot water.

"Do not you welcome on board?" I wonder.

Valerie outbreaks in a number of West Indies swords who do not seem well-behaved.

"Operation persuasion ceases," she proclaims grumpy.

We put Valerie in the sun so she can dry, it does not take long before she's pretty dry so we can let her get into the jeep.

"Absolutely unsuccessful trip, apparently," agrees Maria.

"And we'll try to get us out of Oman?" Radja asks.

Undoubtedly it is. Again the same way we came. Everything goes well until we approach the border. Radja is careful and inspects the border crossing through binoculars before we reach the border. And luck is well. In the wadin we came through, there is now a Oman army. And not enough, we are discovered! Radja has not been careful, the Omanians are looking at us in his binoculars.

Radja runs back to our jeep and tells us to run out of just that.

"Sure," I agree, "but where?"

Radja knows the terrain and has an alternative route. I wonder what he has been doing beside the tourist guide. Smuggling, maybe. For example, smuggling whiskey into Oman could be a profitable but risky business.

The Omani jeep has raised the persecution and approaches even though I drive as a rally driver. Radja sits nervously alongside and gives directions on how to drive. He would rather take over the wheel but we do not have time to change. The short dusk approaches, maybe our rescue. Or our ruin. In dusk and darkness it becomes increasingly difficult to drive without ramming one of the countless rock blocks in the terrain.

We follow the mountain range along the border with the aim of another wadi that can take us out of the sultanate. Radja directs us into a ravine that he believes will lead us out of the country. But the army is still approaching. In light terrain, we can pull away by superior power, but as soon as it becomes more difficult, we lose ground. I dare not drive how tough, I'm trying not to quarrel our Pajero.

Omanians start shooting at us. Warning shot on both sides of our car. Now it's only the dark that can save us. This ravine is narrow and crooked, sometimes our follower disappears behind a bend. After another quarter, it's almost dark and I see the chance to fool the pursuers. I swing in behind a large rock block and stop the engine.

"Thank you for not having a white jeep," I breathe. Most vehicles in the desert, and even the human inhabitants, are predominantly clad in white.

The Oman jeep comes with a creepy motor around the curve - and continues past the next curve. We see the brake lights disappear, we have managed the first step to deceive the pursuers. We open the doors and listen when the other jeep disappears in the distance.

"Now I'm driving," says Radja.

Gladly, I have a cramp in the brake foot. Despite the help of servo steering and servo rigs, it is stressful to control such a vehicle in rugged terrain.

"Remember not to brake," I say, thinking that the brake lights look long in the dark. We have to sneak out completely without light and hope that the sound does not betray us. There is no danger as long as our pursuers are in their jeep. Then they will not hear anything, but if they return the same way, the light can betray us.

Then we get puncture! The reserve is on the back door so there is a disaster. We raise the jeep and start changing wheels when we hear a foreign jeep. With a light headlamp and a searchlight, the army jacket returns the same way. Hope they think we got away. We are completely behind our jeep and hope for the best.

They do not see us, but they stay behind the next hill. We screw the spare wheel as quietly as we can and wait for the Omani to drive on.

But they do not! They camp behind the hill and prepare the evening prayer and the evening meal. If we start the engine, they will hear us immediately. If someone walks in our way and does their needs, they will see us.

"We're giving up at dawn," Radja decides. "Then we can get a head start before they can wake up. And when it's bright, we can drive at full speed to the border."

Return to an overnight stay in the jeep. Again, we take care for four hours. It starts to feel like in the military. Those who have the guard may sit with a view to the other camp to see if something is alarming. The two in the car must keep silent and definitely not kick in the plate or do anything that can give a noise.

The night becomes stressful. The Omanians have a nice time at their campfire a few hundred yards away. We are terribly inconvenient behind the cliff. To sit or lie on the ground among bad stones is not nice. And we have to move very carefully, if we kick a stone they can hear it.

And, of course, I'm kicking a stone that rolls a good bit. One of the Omanians insures his rifle and seems ready to find out what caused the turmoil. The other two seem to calm him and he secures the rifle and gets ready to sleep.

When we see the first dawn to dawn, we hear that there are several cars on their way. Omanians have called for reinforcement, now it starts to become critical. When the reinforcement approaches the opposite, we carefully sneak away with our jeep. First, we carefully push it away in a small slope away from the Omanians. That's how we get another hundred yards away.

Down in the sink, we start the engine carefully and try to sneak away. Careful with the clutch, no rush of the engine and we'll get away a few hundred meters before the Omani finds us.

The girls, who keep an eye on the rear window, listen to and point out that now it's only the nail in the bottom that applies. We are discovered and persecuted by five army pairs, who prefer nothing but killing us with their jets.

Now Radja is driving, he runs wildly. We have safety belts on and hold us in straps and backrests. Fortunately, this ravine is crooked so there will be no free shooting range for our pursuers. It's just hoping there will be no puncture or the car rolls.

We spend half an hour when Radja suddenly proclaims:

"Now we are in the Emirates!"

"Do you know the Omani about it?" I am worried.

They still persecute us. "Do we dare out on the open plain?"

"We follow the mountains a bit until we find a good road leading Al Ain."

Way? I have rarely seen anything as wise as this landscape.

But Radja finds something that can be a camel or goat road. There is solid land and we are increasing our speed towards civilization. If now the Emirates are more civilized than Oman.

The Oman jeeps follow us for a while but we are faster on solid ground. And we're probably in the Emirates. Even though we could not see the border. Before we get up the road, Radja switches thoughtful signs so that we are emiratized again.

When Radja goes to the left, I ask if Dubai is not on the right.

"If anyone gets to research what we have done, I think it's better to have a good breakfast at Al Ain."

No stupid idea actually. We had lived in dry stores for the last two days. It was not far to Al Ain so we drove there, thought and ate breakfast at McDonald's. A big Big Mac, a big French fries and a big Coca-Cola, pie and coffee. No stupid breakfast, actually.

On our return to Dubai we were very well stopped by an emirate police escalator. Our jeep was alarming like the one who had driven out of Oman. The colleagues in Oman had been cleared of course. But we had only been to Al Ain during the night, we said we were not omanias and our jeep was registered in the Emirates. The Emirates Police soon thought we could go on.

29. Across the Atlantic

"I want to buy a plot on St. Kitts," I say to Valerie.

"We do not like brits buying land with us."

"I have to go home," says Maria.

"I also want to go home," says Valerie.

"I also want to go home, but I have to go to Singapore and sell computers," I say.

"You're still employed by us," says Maria. "I'm your employer and decide what to do!"

"Hope, I did not think so."

Some disclosure and paralysis had taken over the group. Our strife and failed results had made us out of control. We were back in Sharjah and tried to scratch my hotel room.

"I'm giving up the contract and kidding for the rest," I tell Maria.

"If you read the contract, then we decide when to stop." Maria is really angry. Valerie sores in a corner.

"I'm going to bed," she says.

"Do it, Him and I will read contracts". Maria is still angry.

Maria is beautiful when she's angry. Dark and slim in his colourful dress.

"Glad we are alone," she said with a secret voice. "Now is the time to look at the fine print."

Woman. Just angry like a bee. Now return the nice, sweet, beautiful Maria. She has arguments. Some creepy, some persuasive, some confusing. I do not know how it happened, but suddenly we lay in the same bathtub and soak in each other while the lukewarm cold water showers over our limbs. She has a long and well-groomed body with small buddy breasts and a big black bush cake.

When I get exhausted a few hours later I know that I fully agree with Maria about the interpretation of the contract. She has also talked about what to do tomorrow. When I try to reach the bush again, there is not there. She has gone into her room and Valerie and slept on.

Now we know that there are at least four different groups looking for the lost treasure. Secondly, it's our own group that contains just me, Maria and Valerie. Secondly, there has been a Mexican bunk and a Bangkok gang. The skate has been expanded with a constellation led by Jens and Björn. We thought they would strengthen our group. But, quite easily, they feel that we are in a hurry and are not involved.

I had yesterday declared that I wanted to jump off, but after being persuaded and after sleep, I think we should try to fool the others on the confection, so to speak.

Jens undoubtedly has a big advantage. It was he who hid the treasure, probably in St. Kitts. The fact that he did not get it depends on the fact that he was afraid of the gangs from Mexico and Bangkok. It would be fun to know how he resonates now, what reinforcements, in addition to Björn, he can count on.

We would also need reinforcements. Maria might be able to get support from her employer, the Mexican drug police. I was thinking about contacting my new friend, Sheikh Mohammed. Valerie might find some valuable supplements at St. Kitts.

We decide that each and every one of us will try to find technical solutions and financing of our project. Valerie takes British Airways and flies home via London, Maria is flying Emirates' own airline, Emirates to Mexico for deliberations with their managers. Then, in her capacity as a mull, she joins the foam mites from Mexico.

I undertake to try to get along with Sheikh Mohammed as a financier in the project. I booked a visit to the sheik the same day. The case I stated was that I wanted to check out the delivery of computers. The sheik greeted me like an old friend and the reasoning about computer delivery went well. But when I began to ask if the sheik, I might be interested in financing diamond exploration in the Caribbean, he became totally uninterested. Certainly, he seemed to recognize the project as such, but to somehow help us seemed out of order.

Sheik Mohammed probably was well informed by Jens. And that I came to the sheik in this case, I soon understood that it was a mistake on my part. In all sorts of negotiations, one has to pay attention to the counterparty's reactions, so I left the subject immediately. But it did not seem that it would affect our relationship with computers and such. We agreed if this delivery was OK and I would like to come back with suggestions for short-term updates.

Someday, I comforted myself with a big drink of freshly squeezed orange and a kebab on the beach to the creek in Sharjah. A Scottish whiskey was not to be considered in this country.

For the sake of simplicity, the sky is slightly cloudy. Creeks are easily gray-gray filled with dhow boats and abras. The vast majority of the cargo vessels are still dhows of the same construction that has been here for hundreds of years. They operate the ports of the East and move all types of goods between countries and cities. Most often, they are dark brown wooden boats with different attachments depending on use. Nowadays they are equipped with powerful engines to make good speed. Because they are relatively small, no major port facilities are needed to add.

The Dhows look well-behaved unlike many of the larger iron vessels. The climate and saltwater soon set traces in the form of rust. In the middle of the creek is a sports boat rushing with a white dress Arab at the wheel.

The smaller dhows are the creek's taxi that carries people back and forth across the water for half a dirham.

A little farther away lays the deep harbour with oil cisterns and tankers. What looks like big floats, with four Eiffel tower-like masts that pop up, platforms for oil drilling. The platforms are towed to a suitable location in the golf, the masts are sent down to the bottom and instead become legs pushed into the bottom and the platform itself elevates a number of meters above the sea surface to not be affected by the waves. By breaking the steel structure of the legs, it reduces resistance to waves and ocean currents. A simple and efficient form of oil drilling in shallow water. Outside Scotland in the deep North Sea, other types of platforms are required.

Even farther out, I see the big tankers of 500,000 tonnes or more to reach the oil harbours in Kuwait, Saudi and Iraq. When they come back, they are low in the water so that from the distance you only see the superstructure. Destination is often Rotterdam or some refinery in Western Europe, Japan or the United States.

The closest is usually a mixture of old and new buildings. Here it is never more than 500 meters to the nearest mosque, the prayer hours seem to come very often, and then the speakers shine into the speakers so that it echoes in the surroundings. A new blue and white mosque is newly built and decorated with mosaics. It almost disappears in the shadow of modern offices and apartment houses on 10 to 15 floors. Still there are old buildings here and there. Simple walled white houses with small windows with a lot of junk on the roof. Partly there are roof plants, you can see plastic shine, building materials, beds, real rugs, laundry and much more. Satellite dishes are of course on the roof and air conditioners stand out from the walls. I suspect that it can be very nice and neat inside there.

"No, but hello old boy," I suddenly hear a familiar voice. I put the kebab in my throat and my old friend bites me helpfully in my back so I do not get a stork. Old and old by the way. It was only a week ago that I met him for the first time. Here he smiles down on the chair opposite, wearing khaki and ginger-colour moustache. Our friend from Singapore, Sir Randolph, had found me.

"Excuse old boy," I say surprised, "I'm really sorry that we left you in the hands of the police in Sumatra. We trusted you to understand, of course," I flattered.

"I was so very interested in your little adventure so I decided to help you in the future too. Nowadays, I live an event-poor life, unfortunately. Neither whiskey nor girls is as fun as before. Now I wore an adventure in the best Biggles style, and I do not want to miss for all butter in Scotland. Actually, old boy. Would you like to put myself into the prerequisites, so to speak. Well, I understand that it's secret, more or less. It looks like you need some financial backing from the stock market, so to speak."

"Yes," I stacked in as a short reply when Sir Randolph took his breath.

"Every expedition requires a fanatic leader, good planning and not least money. It seems like you're the good leader, I do not know anything about planning, but because you came out of Sheik Mohammed's palace with a mine like you sold the butter and lost the money, I understand that's where the shoe clings."

Count's conclusions were like striking his head, speaking in words just like Sir Randolph. It was good to find me in Dubai, actually. When I left Sumatra, I did not have a clue that I was there.

"I have to ask," I said, looking stupid, "how in the world could you find me here?"

"Simple, as my dear Watson as the old boy Sherlock Holmes should have said. I asked at the airports. I've actually been to St. Kitts and turned. It was easiest to follow your dark-tempered friend from the colonies. I could not get hold of her but followed her tight in the tracks here to the Emirates. And when you awoke to our common friend The sheik, I was close to your heels."

"Take a kebab and hit you down," I offered politely.

"Thank you, I'm already sitting and I would not mind licking a lot of bacilli from this boxing shop."

"I've been sick of a kebab bought at Picadilly Circus in London. Here it is as clean and hygienic as in Sweden." I say, thinking of Jens, the Swedish chef.

"It's really good, maybe you're going to take the bull at the horns and make a blow on the matter and ... I'm hungry!

"Hi there in the mood, here with a kebab and a pepsi." Sir Randolph licked his mouth and looked like he had missed the breakfast. He would probably have done that when he followed me this morning.

"You would be willing to bet any British pound project?" I ask carefully.

"Do you have any plan?" Is the request.

"Well ..."

"Do you want to hear mine?"

"Absolutely"

These short-lived sentences were not similar to Sir Randolph. But he had actually figured out something that could work.

"If we follow your plan, are you prepared to pay the costs?" I ask to make sure we understand each other.

"Just that old boy. But since I do not have all the information we need to fine tune it. As I perceived, you have in some way developed the coordinates of the diamond mine, so to speak. You have also recognized the site and should give you a good idea of our chances and the difficulties that can be expected. "

"Joyful, but despite that we failed last time. That's why we were looking for Björn and Jens, but it was obviously a fatal mistake. The best part is that we will quickly get it to the place in question. Where do you have the boat by the way? "

"I have replaced it. I met a crazy American in Singapore who was tired of the Caribbean. We changed a boat, he is somewhere on St. Croix waiting for us."

"What are we waiting for? If you book tickets then I'll just make a few calls, so we'll see you ... yes, where, Raffe? You will not be bad if I call you Raffe in the future, Sir Randolph is a little well-established now that we work together?"

"If you check out from your hotel, I do the same thing, see you at Duty Free at Dubai Airport in two hours."

Said and done. I rush down to the beach and jump on a bassoon to quickly get to the other side of the creek. During rush hour, it is much faster by boat than by car. Despite building roads for burning life, traffic is becoming increasingly denser and the car queues are getting farther in U A E.

I use the time to make a few calls, just as I suggested to Raffe. First of all, I speak with Valerie's answering machine and tell me I'm on my way with a new employee and new healthy money. Then I call my headquarters and get our best secretary to do some discreet investigations and Sir Randolph. You never know if he is the one he claims to be or if he is an adventurer who sees the chance to get rich in diamonds.

Maria, I cannot reach, I trust she will listen when she can.

Dubai Duty Free is one of the world's best treasure free shops. Low prices and well stocked. There we meet again, Raffe and I. He has made tickets with British Airways, of course, to New York. From there, it becomes Continental to St. Thomas, an island in the same area as St. Croix, the US Virgin Islands.

From there, there is a seaplane to St. Croix. We will land in the harbour right next to our nice boat, Sir Randolph claims proudly. There will be many hours in the air and at airports. Probably we will not see the glimpse of a bed the next day. It's lucky you can sleep on airplanes.

When I board the plane to London I breathe out for a while before I get worried again. At the moment, everything seems like going on a railing, but I'm looking at me around the plane to see if there are any shady types of Mexican or Thai looks. But everything seems calm, onboard there are only Arabs and typical British.

We change plans in a rugged New York and a hot San Juan and land on St. Thomas without any mischief. There we take a taxi from the airport to the port to board the small seaplane with the destination of St. Croix. We land very well in the harbour in Christiansted. A nice place, the capital of St. Croix. The second largest city is called Fredrikssted.

It was late in the evening so we walked the Kungs gade (King's street) to find a hotel. The gates of the Danish age are still there, although at least 75 years ago the Danes sold the islands to the United States. It was during the First World War that Denmark could have problems defending the Danish colony against the Germans. The islands of the Caribbean during the 19th century cleaned the gold mine and a few people became incredibly rich in sugar cane sugar.

Since slavery has ceased and Europeans learned to grow sugar beet, the West Indies have slummed in and become poor. On many islands it is the former slaves who have taken over, but the US Virgin Islands are part of the United States without being a state. The inhabitants of St. Croix are largely white and Spanish-speaking.

We were about to find a hotel and found Danish Manor. Although Denmark is on the other side of the Atlantic, the island is significantly influenced by the former colonial power. It is nice to walk on the narrow streets, many greetings with a cosy "Hello".

At Danish Manor we have a couple of rooms with a view of the harbour. Raffe would contact the port office to take possession of his new boat, but of course it was closed late this evening. Even though we were tired and broken after more than a day on our way, we take a look at the harbour. At the dock for the naval plane there is a cafe, where we sit with our beer and laze us in the cool evening.

When we sit there, enjoy the next flight from St. Thomas. I'm not surprised when a pair of costume-minded gentlemen who appear to be from Bangkok get off. When I look around, there's actually something that can be our Mexican friends at a table in the cafe. It apparently begins to contract. On the other hand, this island is quite Spanish influenced so it may be just imagination. What I do not really understand is if I'm still a hot savage and they think I'll lead them to the treasure. Jens and Björn would be much safer short from that point of view, at least I think. But they may have lost them somewhere.

Not much to do right now anyway, if they do not do any approaches, just sleep out overnight and arrive at the harbour office at seven o'clock in the morning. We managed to persuade the hotel to have breakfast at seven the next morning. We tasted the best of some roasted bread slices when a few dozen well-behaved men came to eat their breakfast too. They carried heavy bags and a number of automatic weapons. On the back of the jackets, the FBI was in big letters.

"They are not looking for us," says Sir Randolph, looking uncertain. There should be no reason why the FBI would be interested in us. But you never know.

We at least finished the breakfast, checked out and searched for the harbour captain, a powerful and sunburnt American with southern state accent. Randolph's new boat was at the hotel on the small bathing island just outside the harbour. Raffe signed a few documents and got keys to the boat which was a powerful double-ketted catamaran, which should make at least 40 knots in good weather, according to Raffe.

To make us accessible, I got a cell phone that worked on the American continent. My European that worked well also in Asia could not be used here. Americans have their own technology, both in terms of television and mobile telephony.

The harbour captain got my new phone number if someone would ask us, we said we were on our way to Florida, to possibly get one of the bad pursuers on red herring. I called Valery's answering machine and left my new phone number there too.

We returned to our boat, m/s Maxine with home harbour Nassau. A young guy looked curious at us. I was kidding him and he praised our boat. When we started unloading the tampons to get us away, the guy asks:

"Do not you wait for your friends?"

"What friends?"

"There were three guys here just asking you."

"And how did that look?"

"There were three little yellow guys who spoke strangely."

I thanked the guy and gave him 10 dollars. He became very happy and ran straight towards the glass booth.

"You heard what he said, Raffe?"

"We can examine the boat from top to toe, at least from keel to mast," suggests Sir Randolph.

"We start right now and lay behind the island before we start. They are sure to be under surveillance and in that case they may not suspect we suspect something."

Raffe manages the big boat to a bay a few distance minutes away. Then we are looking for bombs or radio transmitters or what they are likely to hide from us. At the same time, I think of what they want us, probably they do not want to lower us.

"Do you miss something?" Asks Raffe who thinks in other paths as well.

I miss something. I miss my computer. The one that contains my orders for computer exploitation, but also a word document where I at the beginning of this adventure drew conclusions about longitude and latitude from a paper that Bjorn forgotten at Valerie. That's the paper, so to say, initiated my involvement in this soup.

It was not good. Not because I needed the document, but it gave our friends from Bangkok the information they might need to come to the same conclusion as I did.

It probably meant that they did not leave anything on the boat, but we could calmly settle for St. Kitts.

Suddenly I hear a melody playing in my pants pocket. I first thought that someone put a pin box there but remember that it's my new cell phone that can play happy melodies instead of ringtones.

It is Valerie who belongs. We are corrected by the situation and she gets ridiculously happy when she hears that our greed has settled on us and that we are heading for a big nice boat.

We ask her to fix some equipment we may need to complete the expedition.

"We meet in Basseterre," said Valerie attracting.

30. It goes together

Valerie has booked a hotel room for us. That is, to me she has reserved a whole suite.

"This is the headquarters of the expedition," she explains. So we meet in my suite to plan. Now we have boats and equipment to go to Mosquito Bay where we suspect the diamonds are available.

Nobody has seen Jens or Björn. We also have no control over Thai or Mexican people. Although we have some firearms we cannot measure with other groups in the field of firepower.

"Here is the list and imagination that applies," as Raffe expresses.

"If we've got all the equipment on board, I think we're sneaking out of Basseterre at night," I suggest.

"Just my opinion," agrees both Raffe and Valerie immediately.

"I wonder what's been going on in Mosquito Bay meanwhile we've been away?"

"I may tell you that. There are two cruisers out there circling around Booby Island, but they seem to be waiting for something, otherwise they would be active in some way." Valerie is in control of the local coastguard.

We leave the harbour without any incidents at two o'clock at night. It's no moonlight so it's possible to get out of the harbour without anyone seeing us.

We add with our yacht at Banana Bay, where we launch two rubber boats. Instead of lurking gasoline engines, we have provided them with small electric motors, it's Minnkota engines from Minnesota, USA. They are powered by a regular car battery as fully charged, allowing the electric motor to run six hours at full speed. Well, the speed is not scary, a good rowing rudder hurts. It is intended for trolling fishing, that is, to glide over a calm sea with a lure hanging after the boat. Very nice employment in calm weather, I have pulled up numerous perch and pike in this way at home in Scotland.

With two car batteries in each boat we can ferry back and forth to Mosquito Bay, provided it does not blow too much headwinds. We stay close to the beach and the engines are just heard as a discreet mosquito bite. Outside the bay we see two motor cruisers lying anchor only about 500 meters apart. Strange, here are the owners of diamonds in a boat and in the other the likely thieves. If I were the robbery that way, I would feel like throwing bombs and grenades on the other boat.

The last time I was here I carefully took out one line to Booby Island and a point on Nevis which makes me feel pretty sure to find the cave, the one who was so hard to see in beautiful weather. I do not doubt the other groups found the cave, but they should have abandoned it after a thorough investigation.

We slide into the cave that is just above the waterfront at high tide. Everyone has dark clothes and soiled faces just like commando soldiers. Besides Valerie, of course, she already has the right camouflage colour. The soiled faces are one of Sir Randolph's contribution to the project, apparently he has a past from the British marines.

As quiet as possible, we take off the rubber boats. Raffe, the old marine, is commissioned to reconnaissance to ensure that the cave or surrounding areas are not obsessed with any of the others. One of the boats in the bay lights a strong headlight and directs it to land. It sweeps across the beach and we become dazzled and lose darkness.

"Down - lie still - face to the ground!" commands Sir Randolph. As good soldiers, we will be hearing immediately. Someone talks on board, but there are no upset voices. It may be just a normal measure for guard solutions.

After a couple of minutes the headlight goes off and after a while we start to touch. Raffe creeps very carefully up to the cave opening. After a while he gently eels back and announces whispering:

"There's somebody in there! Long into the cave, the glow of a fire is visible! I go in and harm them, if anyone comes out you'll take care of him! "

Raffe creeps in and I take place at the cave, prepared for the worst. Half an eternity later, that is, after about five minutes, I hear a subdued swear word and hear someone who crawls fast at the exit. It's a small figure, probably one of the Thai people, I'll think before I throw over the scrambling individual and push him to the ground at the best rugby manoeuvre. He also seems to be camouflage-targeted, but the curly hair seems familiar in some way.

"Hold him!" Raffe grinds out a few moments later.

"Drop him!" Valerie whispered immediately behind me.

"Well?" I burst out.

"That's Boy!" Explains Valerie.

"Oops"

When I think about it, I had actually missed Boy in preparation. Considering how intensively he participated in his previous visit, it was strange that he had not appeared in Basseterre. We had so much to do that I forgot to ask Valerie.

"What's the amateur trying to overcome?" Asks Boy, "he's like a razor."

"Quit everyone and into the cave!" I interrupt.

We drag in rubber boats, electric motors, heavy car batteries and all other equipment. When we get in behind the first bend in the cave we dare to light a shielded flashlight. The cave ends with water, there is a small underground lake in the middle. Only after that, after a lot of scratch and swearing in the dark, we hit camps.

"Now we are sleeping for a couple of hours until it gets bright outside," I insist. "I'm going to the cave and taking the first guard."

"How much have you been sleeping tonight?", Asks Boy. "I watch because I'm thoroughly rested. Sleep good uncles! I wake up at dawn."

I need to go for a course in leadership, my ordering does not seem to work.

Thankfully we sink into the sand and fall asleep. Boy pours us at dawn, in fact, we do not notice any difference because we are far into the cave, at the shore of a small lake as said. From the point of view of light, we had not had to wait for dawn, but a couple of hours of sleep did not feel completely wrong.

We would now use the dive equipment we left with to get into the lagoon. According to our theories, this were like Jens dumped the bags with diamonds. Both Sir Randolph and I are diver on amateur level so the exploration of this little lake would not be a big problem. When I tasted on the water, there was salt, not water from any source without sea water.

Raffe and I singled about who would jump in first. I won and rigged the equipment and followed the rock straight down ten meters, where there was the bottom. There were many interesting things on this bottom. Aside from an old bike there were old rifles, old swords and other little and good. There were a lot of old weapons, these came from the time when the pirates ravaged in the Caribbean. I swam in further circles and there were also skeletons that probably were from the same time as the weapons. It was so interesting that for a while I forgot my real matter.

The Spanish galleons sailed from South America to Europe with the gold demanded by the Spanish regents. In the waters around the Caribbean Islands there were opportunities for pirates and seafarers to hijack the Spanish ships. It was not just lawless pirates, most and greatest were sponsored by other countries' governments.

In the mid-17th century, it might be most famous by all pirates, Henry Morgan. In August 1670 he collected 36 ships and 2000 buccaneers to take Panama as one of Spain's braces. But then there had been peace between England and Spain why Morgan was imprisoned and brought to England. A couple of years later, relations between the countries deteriorated and Morgan was appointed governor of Jamaica.

There were also a few famous female pirates. Anne Bonny abandoned her true husband and joined the pirate Calico Jack. She dressed in men's clothes and fought like a man and participated among the first when the other ships were boarded.

In this case, Governor Rogers was in Jamaica, who ordered that Calico Jack be captured. Anne Bonny and another female pirate, Maria Read, were also captured and then their female sex was revealed. They were also treated especially since both were with children then.

When Calico Jack was to be hanged, he was given a special favor to meet Anne one last time. Anne then said she was sorry to see him there but if "he had been slain like a man he would not have to hang there like a dog".

Here, in the lagoon, there were weapons that could be from the time the pirates quarrelled in these waters. But no remains from modern times apart from the old bike. Even though there were many interesting things on that bottom, I was still extremely misguided.

It seemed so natural and obvious that it was down here that Jens hid the bags with diamonds. It could also explain why Jens had not retrieved the treasure earlier, of course, he needed help to bear it. Even though all the conclusions were correct, it was completely wrong. Not a single gem in sight.

The people on the surface had, of course, seen how I irradiated the headlamp and made their conclusions. When I eventually got to the surface, they were a little prepared for the problem.

"Drop down a professional, take a look at other buns," exclaims Sir Randolph indignantly. "You do not correct the sense of rubies and emeralds and such!"

Raffe goes down but returns unjustified. He took up a sword as we inspected more or less expertly. Sir Randolph had seen some similar weapons, claiming that they originated from the later part of the 18th century. He had at least discovered a tunnel that should be connected to the sea.

"I'm watching!" I immediately offered and jumped into the water. I follow Raffe's instructions, but I'm working hard against the power to move on. It was of course the tide that now changed from ebb to flood. In the end I come to the tunnel opening and see the daylight, turn off the headlight, go up to the surface and take a look at the surroundings.

Here I meet the next surprise. I arrived on the other side of the eastern outskirts of Mosquito Bay, except view from the yachts as anchored outside Booby Island. But judge of my surprise when I'm just 50 meters away sailing a tugboat, it actually resembles that used by Björn in Singapore. It was not the same boat I saw soon, but on the other hand, Björn is on board. And Jens. And Maria.

"What in the world?" I think the hell. I'm so excited that I'm lying and splashing without thinking what to do. Björn and Jens are wearing diving equipment and they know where to look. While I lie in the water, thinking of Björn's eyes on me. He scares something to Jens in an incomprehensible language for me. It makes me quickly dive to get back to my friends.

First, it takes a good while to find the entrance to the tunnel, I had driven a bit when I lay on the surface and philosophized. But when I get close, just follow the power and try to control between sharp rocks and rocks. St. Kitts is a volcanic island, consisting of old lava, stiffened in different formations.

I'm in a hurry, a protruding rock tip makes my air hose stuck, the mouthpiece is worn out of the mouth and the hose is punctured. I stuck for a moment but managed to get rid of me. The air bubbles out before the tailgate hits. I'm struggling with the nozzle, but I do not get that way. Instead, I get some air from the damaged air hose, but in this way I cannot get any longer stretches.

Meanwhile I float upwards and to my surprise there is a water surface and an air pocket between the water and the roof of the tunnel. So far all well. With the headlamp I shine around and here is actually a nice sandy beach a bit away. Because I cannot go underwater, I rise ashore. Maybe I can repair the equipment to continue later.

There are also leftovers from previous visits. Beer cans and plastic bags speak their clear language that visitors were from modern times. If there were visitors from our time this should mean there is an easier way to get into the cave. Thus there is a cave opening that ends on shore. I cannot fix the dive rushing because I dump it into the water and instead I crawl through the cave against the supposed opening.

As I carefully peer through the bushes, I see the tugboat and also see two divers in a rubber boat heading for me. Of course, if my diving equipment worked, I would have taken that way back. On a sunbathing beach with minimal bushes I have to try to hide from Jens and Björn and take me back to ours. They should have been worried at this time.

All I can do is of course that it's possible to sneak around the hill out of sight for everyone else. The last Mohican would be impressed by my creeping and creeping bushes and rocks. A bit up on the hill there is a crank where I squeeze down my tired body.

The dinghy with Jens and Björn lands just below the cave where I have just arrived. That's why we did not find one diamond in our cave, there was another cave and that was the one that Jens had used. Jens and Björn disappear with some effort into the cave and I get an idea.

"Against the tugboat!" I think and sneak down to the beach. That my friends would be worried because I had gone so far I did not think about it at the time.

I may be able to swim out to the boat and investigate things my mind is. It's hot in the water and just a hundred yards from the beach is Little John, the tugboat. On board, Maria, if I did not look wrong. Getting on board the tugboat is also no problem, it's low in the water and the truck tires that serve as fenders are excellent as a ladder. I'm on board but see no man. I now feel that I should have some weapons and therefore pick up a wrench that someone forgot on the deck. There may be people on board actually.

With the wrench in my hand I sneak at the wheelhouse where I hear a voice. In smattering Spanish, Maria has contact with the outside world via mobile phone. I do not understand what she is talking about but she seems upset. I let her talk well after which I am happy to say goodbye

"Hey hottie!"

For the first time since I met Maria she was actually afraid. I almost forgot how nice she was. She was dressed in an sleeveless, colourful linen and tight long pants. With locked eyes she stares at me for a second before her face breaks out in a wide smile.

"Hi, good looking," she replies. "No but Ham, what are you doing here?" Great fun to meet you. How are you these days?"

She picked up from the surprise extremely quickly and now she conversed as if we had a cocktail party. Interesting person, Maria.

"Hay," I interrupted, "why are you on board here? I have searched you by phone and thought you would be in our group. Do not we have the same employer, right? "I was angry that she was here. Any kind of jealousy felt like it was not really motivated. "And now I find you in enemy camp. How is your loyalty really? "

"That was the longest speech I heard from you. If you're mad you can jump into the sea again." Maria laughs wide and I'm ashamed of my outbreak. Maria is smart, like chameleon, she has starred at the Mexican knife mafia, with me and now with Jens and Björn. It makes me wonder if she's really looking for beautiful diamonds and focusing on the group she believes has the best prerequisites to succeed.

"How did you find Jens and Björn?" I ask.

"We have good resources," she replies cryptically. "I'm grateful if you're going onshore right away. Here you have nothing to do."

"Hey there, do you mean you've left us?"

"I must, I have my mission to think about," she says, pushing her well-torn body against my wetness. She gives me a long and deep kiss and plays with my tongue in my mouth so I get completely knee weak.

"You with me now," she urges and gives me a slight hug so I fall into the water. During the kiss she had manoeuvred me against the railing without noticing it so it just needed a light puff after the kiss.

"No, but Maria," I complain from the water, "we can talk through this," I appeal.

"In hell," was the answer. She is aiming at me with a hail to emphasize her call.

"Ok, OK, I'm catching the beacon. It's nice." I swim to land and consider whether I'm going to sabotage the rubber boat that should be inside the cave. I abstain because I have now received a bad conscience. My friends have to be worried because I disappeared.

I return to the tactics of the last Mohican and crawl for "our" cave opening. If you pay attention to the yachts outside here, they would easily be able to see me. But I'm happily coming into the dark cave and taking me carefully. Since I do not have a flashlight, I have trouble getting up. I feel with my hand against one cave wall and eventually glow light in the tunnel. But something is wrong, there are wrong voices I hear. I have found a sidewalk and hear upset voices.

"Get out of the sea, your blasted spy", hear a voice.

"If you shoot, I shoot before you can blink," says the next voice. The Swedish breakthrough makes me easily identify the voices of Björn and Jens. In the dark I had found a sidewalk that led to their cave instead of the cave with Valerie and Company.

I suspect it threatened to be Sir Randolph's friend. He had, of course, been worried and swims looking for me. Maybe he saw my equipment as I dumped and walked up to the surface. Or he may have seen the light from the Swede's headlights. In any case, I see the diver go ashore, take off the face mask and erase:

"Hello old boy, how are you?"

"Hope, it's Hamilton's buddy from Singapore", outrages one of the Swedes. "And what do you have for these hooks if you ask?"

"Sports diving, old boy, sports diving. Cave diving is great fun, try it sometime, old boy! "

"Do not chat, why in blue-green do you show up here?" Asks the other Swede.

"Interesting water, this. And a simple question, old boy, what are you doing here? "

Jens and Björn had no easy answer but became silent.

"And where did you have Hamilton, you co-operated the last time I met you?" Raffe asks innocently.

"He is well with you?" The Swedes were confused, it was noticed because they had a conversation in their own language, the language of the hero and heroes. Sir Randolph waits, but after a while he asks:

"Is there something I can help with? Are you looking for something or ... "

"No, oh no, we just sports dive, cave diving is really cool", was the answer.

"Then, then I can return to the wet option." Raffe turns to the water bridge and plans to go into the water. "

"No way!" You are going to be harmless. At least temporarily. Get rid of the dive rails we will tie you. We will let you go when we're done."

"Do what?" They did not answer the last question but went to speak Swedish. Sir Randolph was lashed somewhere outside my field of vision. Jens and Björn were prepared to dive. In fact, it was Jens who appeared and Björn stayed on land with a rope and was prepared to raise something.

After just a few minutes he gets up again, upset, he struggles with cycling. In his hand he has my dive suit that I threw in for an hour ago.

"Someone has been here!" He breaks out before he returns to Swedish language again. After a while, Jens jumps into the water again. They are in a hurry to pick up bags after bags. Björn picks up each bag and takes up a handful of shiny pebbles. The eyes glitter at Björn over the gray-eyed beard, he almost jumps out of excitement, occasionally afraid of Raffe who cannot comment on the course of events. It is reminiscent of the mood at the fish pond on the Christmas tree plunder.

They get more and more nervous as time passes. I have ideas about exonerating Sir Randolph, but I am going back to my friends for a closer look. How I could find them, maybe there were many irrationalities in these caves. I hit myself and it broke gravel and stones from the wall. Björn shouts "Who there?" And Raffe gets fun.

"There are monkeys on this island," he reminds Björn, "they steal like crusts and like little shiny stones. It is for sure a monkey who retrieves his friends. And they are many more than the people actually."

After a quarter and several scratch years, I find our camp. There is only Boy and a lonely photogenic lamp as a star.

"Where do you actually come from? Valerie thought you drowned, both you and Raffe, so now she gets help."

Now, how about first, how should we rid Raffe, how should we treat the guys who are currently taking care of the diamonds, how can we tell Valerie how the situation is and so on.

One match at a time, I think. Unless Raffe was in there we could close to the cave openings. I do not have weapons, so I cannot free Raffe with a force of arms. Or can I? I talk to Boy about my idea and he agrees we will try. If I blend Björn with our strongest headlight and shout "Up with your hands!" Boy can free Raffe.

"Perfect!", Agrees Boy.

Using the torches we easily find the tunnel that leads to Björn and Raffe.

31. Now it's banging

Just as planned, I focus the headlight right in the glory of Björn and urge him to let go of his hand and raise his hands. The expected effect remained. Instead, he swears swiftly in a foreign language, shooting a shot with shotgun in our way. He does not aim very well but hits the roof in the tunnel and some hail finds my right shoulder. I quit the headlight, make sure Boy is doing well and we're escaped back.

"Hot apes on this island," I hear Sir Randolph exclaim laughingly. I'm still looking forward to Björn, I hear his loud swearing.

We take the free air through our original entrance and almost forget to be careful. But the yachts that stayed there last time I was there were not left. As we climb the hill to see the next bay, we see two yachts and a tugboat located just 50 meters from each other.

"Those guys who are going to row out with the rubber boat full of diamonds will come and get heaven cool." Boy believes. Suddenly the darkness drops, almost without dusk, it becomes as usual in a quarter. It may be the only opportunity for Swedes to get away with the swap, to sneak by beach with the rubber boat. We did about the same thing yesterday night actually.

I'm thinking of sabotaging the rubber boat when I hear dragging and crashing sounds just below. It is Björn and Jens who drag heavy bags from the cave to the rubber boat. I see now that they have blown up several boats, it may be necessary to ship all sacks to the tugboat. Boy and I look interesting while loading is in progress. I feel helpless and not better because my shoulder bleeds and aches.

We do not see any real activities from the other boats, everyone is still and dark. They have no lanterns on. Therefore, there may be collisions if they do not look up because it's a dark night without moonlight.

Slowly, we can see that the line of rubber boats glides towards the tugboat.

"I'm getting Sir Randolph," announces Boy. Nice, I think. I had forgotten him.

Suddenly a headlamp lights on one of the yachts looking for the water surface. The other yacht follows the example and the rubber boats are bathing in light. But it does not last so long, the tugboat has a sniper that, in less than a minute, extinguished the big headlamps. Maria clearly has control of the situation and has chosen the side, the diamond side.

The tugboats are approached by the rubber boats while the yachts start the engines and with torches light on the water to find their targets. One of the yachts turns a light rake on and it's dazzling light for a little while. An additional boat is coming from the north from the north. It looks like the Coast Guard or one of the Navy's torpedo boats.

Scattered shooting is heard without the appearance of who is shooting at whom. The patrol boat turns on speakers and urges everyone to calm down. Again, seeming to listen, the guys in the rubber boats start an engine to get faster but jump into the water when the shooting off the yachts starts to get too close.

The engine on the first rubber boat continues to walk, but for some reason it backs into the boats on the trailer. The shooting continues, soon boats sink with diamonds and everything. The patrol boat tries to illuminate the situation with headlights. I see the silhouette of Maria aboard the tugboat throwing things on the rubber boats. Bombs and grenades. There are grenades that explode, gas tanks flying in the air as the worst fireworks in the rainbow's all colours. It sparkles incredibly fine when diamonds and sapphires and rubies are thrown into the air and fall into the ocean in the light of explosions and headlights.

"Better than New Year's fireworks," whispers Boy.

"Oh Boy, imagine what they can do in our colonies," sir Randolph sighs. "Have I missed something? Is it national day or something like this? "

"No, you're just coming to the exciting resolution," I tell him.

The tugboat seems to have got a blast. It speeds up and goes towards one of the yachts. The patrol boat calls for warnings in the speakers, the yacht tries to turn, but then controls the other yacht that detects the danger too late

There will be a triple collision where the yachts are crumbled by the tugboat as with several thousand horsepower and heavily and heavily pushed down the lighter boats as if they were ice in the North Arctic Ocean. The yachts begin to sink immediately while the tugboat continues.

The patrol boat calls it to stop and rescue those in the water. The tugboat continues with good speed and the patrol boat cannot follow, they must first save the survivors.

Epilogue

Despite eager applicants, both Jens and Björn and Maria disappeared. The tug boat was found on the other side of Neighbor Nevis, in one way or another they had gone out of the country. I guess they can be in the highest welfare somewhere on the other side of the globe. If they have been forgiven to stuff their pockets full of diamonds, they are not completely barred.

A number of Taiwanese and Mexicans were fished out of the water, questioned by the authorities and expelled immediately. I never knew if the police in Mexico managed to put someone there. I have sent an invoice for consultancy fees to Maria's boss, we'll see if I get paid.

The blood loss from the shot injury made me sick and dizzy, but a few days at St. Kitts hospital did the mood and with just a few minor scars, I can continue my career as a computer dealer.

Firstly, I have taken leave for six months. Together with Sir Randolph, I have committed myself to carrying the weapons I found when looking for diamonds. Raffe is a 17th-century swordsman. He has a large collection at his old castle and claims that he can prove he is the heir to the weapons of a certain seafarer, namely Anne Bonny, dumped in the cave. It may be as it should with that matter, in any case, instead of consulting fees, we have promised to get paid in hardware, so to speak, that is, we will get some of the weapons that we can sell in our turn. Sir Randolph says he wants to buy my share for the amount of one hundred thousand pounds.

Contact man and supervisor of our salvage operation is Valerie, who proved to be one of the heads of the Customs Service in St. Kitts. Her female list passed my mind, she was sent by the Customs Chief to find out what was going on.

St. Kitts has got a new tourist destination that flooded the island with treasure hunters in a month. In Mosquito Bay, there are small boats and amateur dudes like hooks and rakes and all imaginative tools are trying to bring up diamonds and rubies and emeralds. It is with the good memories of the authorities, because all they receive is the state, but with the lost pay in nature, that is, one and another diamond.

"Sure, it's good at St. Kitts," says Valerie, holding me in the hand when we are eating pizza at the pizzeria in central Basseterre.

***************************************************

This is a machine translation from Swedish to English, I have used Google Translate. That can explain that some words and sentences have not become as the author has ever thought of.

****************************************************

Obviously, this is a story that is devised from beginning to end. Every resemblance to real people is a pure coincidence. On the other hand, the geographical background is quite authentic, please go there, and then tourists will be happy. I myself have been to most of the places described, that's what they looked like in the late 1900's.

© Stieve I Adams, 2001

stieve.i.adams@gmail.com
