by Stieve Adams
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 a fool of. 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 Barcley'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 pilots 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 Ottern 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 a relationship 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 snuggled 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 can not 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 not 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