Apples and Serpents in Paradise

Victor Thrayer

Of the ten or so men they had captured in the compound most of them sang like canaries. They told how Victor and Adam were behind the whole operation. American gangsters that came here because they thought the islanders would be an easy mark. They were until Shawn Needham was replaced by Zach and Harry.

A search of Victor's office revealed all of the communications between Victor and his American CIA handler in Hong Kong. Victor had forgotten to burn the papers when he left. Considering that his main priority was saving his own skin it wasn't surprising that Victor had left behind such evidence.

Those papers were coded, only Charlie King knew what they were. King knew, because he knew all of the codes of the American Intelligence Agencies. He gathered the papers and tucked them away until he could translate them for Teuilla. What no one knew was that King had a agenda that went beyond mere politics. A organization loyal to the United States, but unlike other intelligence agencies, not influenced by the political agendas of certain powerful individuals in the United States.

The crude passage let out not far from the clinic. Vic and Adam weren't taking any chances. They broke in the back door of the old clinic where Tony and Eddie were doing their work on radioactivity on the island. They came armed with Tommy guns. He had kept them in the office along with a couple of extra drums of ammunition.

Vic had Adam wake both Tony and Eddie and bring them to the laboratory on the first floor where Vic waited. "It appears we were found out."

"We?" Eddie said. "As in all of us?"

"I had to leave before disposing of certain papers from the CIA contact I have." Vic didn't mention that this contact wasn't listed as CIA. For all the raiding party knew, it was some crime boss back in Hong Kong. Vic didn't know that Charlie King did know who the man was behind the letters.

"All of the letters are coded Vic. Our pseudonyms are used in the letter. Neither Tony or I are implicated." Eddie knew how the CIA worked and that all of the correspondence was coded.

"They will know if they catch me." Vic said. "I need one of you to drive me over to the other side of the island. I have a boat ready to take me off the island."

"What about me?" Adam Kresler suddenly turned his tommy gun in Vic's direction.

"We don't know that they know you are part of this." Vic needed someone to remain on the island and start the process all over again.

"They know." Adam figured that if they knew about the base, they had guessed the rest of it. "If someone should stay, it's you Vic. Nobody even knew you were on the island, might as well that you were running the whole thing."

"The islanders know who I am." Vic had been sure that his name was feared over the entire island. So feared that no one dared mention who he was.

"They know my name too." Adam had made sure no one tried to report him to the authorities either. "Just like Needham knows who I am. If they have Needham they know the entire operation."

"We don't even know that they have any evidence against Needham." Vic said.

"They suspected him. Amio killed that cop who followed him."

"I heard that they arrested Needham just before they raided you." Eddie was nervous to have the two armed men pointing machine guns around.

Adam swung his weapon around to point it at Eddie. "Why didn't you two let us know they were on to us."

"We didn't know until this morning. After the raid. Or we would have contacted you." Eddie didn't like having a gun pointed at him.

"Both of us are going." Adam insisted. "You are going to take us both to the other side of the island."

"My boat doesn't have enough supplies to carry us both." Vic kept his gun lowered so as not to appear the greater threat to the two doctors.

"We'll manage or neither of us are going." Adam pointed the gun back at Vic.

"Okay, we'll work it out." Eddie took advantage of that moment. He grabbed a beaker on the table and flung it at Adam.

Adam screamed. The acid in the beaker spread all over his hands and he dropped the tommy gun. Vic leveled his weapon at Adam and shot once. Adam fell over dead. Vic turned his gun to Eddie. Who held up his hands and backed away. Tony who had been standing there the whole time trying to look invisible did the same thing.

Tony reached into his pocket. "Take the Jeep." Tony tossed Vic the keys.

"We'll say that Adam broke in here with one of his henchmen. They had a fight, then the henchman took the keys. We won't even mention your name." Eddie assured Vic.

Vic considered killing the men for a moment. He decided that they were still fellow government agents and the CIA wouldn't appreciate losing their only other agents on this island. He took the keys and left the scientists to explain Adam Kresler's body in their lab.

Adam Kresler was not the boss, as Zach Nathon had thought. From the information he had received from Teuila, Nash, and even Charlie who was usually accurate, Zach had expected the henchmen to rat Kresler out as their leader.

Zach knew the name. Victor Thrayer. He had been a bootlegger back in the late twenties. Like many bootleggers, Thrayer was involved in murder, rape, prostitution, assault, and a number of other offenses. Thrayer had literally disappeared during the war.

All during the thirties, Thrayer had been a minor crime boss, until the war started. How Thrayer had escaped the building, Zach didn't know. There had to have been another way out of the complex that Zach didn't know about. Not on the original plans or possibly built after the plans were drawn up.

"He will head for the coast." Charlie informed Zach. "The only way off the island is by one of the coastal fishing communities or the docks in the town. I think it will be the docks, he must have contacts there and people who will help him out of fear of what he will do to them if they don't."

"That is completely on the other side of the island." Nash said. "If we are wrong, we'll never catch the man."

"What is the nearest village to the complex?" Zach asked.

"Fish and Chips." Nash was happy to supply something to this effort. It seemed that Charlie had all the answers.

"Really?" Zach laughed at the name.

"The island was controlled by the British for a hundred and fifty years. They had a strange sense of humor where names on the island are concerned." Most of the villages had gone unnamed until the war, when locations on the island were important. So, the British named them, and the Americans kept the names.

The village consisted of thirty or so people who were mainly fishermen. Those who didn't fish were either family members or some sort of island official. It didn't take Zach long to determine that there had been no strangers or anyone who had tried to steal a boat in the village.

Wishing that he had listened to King to begin with, Zach went on to the docks in Kingston. Timothy Lagi had Shawn Needham in a jail cell. Tim had deputized two other islanders, older men, who had participated in the war fifteen years ago. Despite their age, they were good men and knew how to use a gun.

Being a native islander, Tim was trusted. Now that he had arrested Needham, the islanders were willing to talk. Independently, Tim had learned the location of the complex that the raiding party had found, but Tim had already been told of that location. He didn't know that Adam Kresler was a lacky of Victor Thrayer. He didn't even know that Thrayer was on the island before this.