Ocean Mile Hotel
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Cape Town, South Africa
The next morning after breakfast at the Ocean Mile Hotel I was on my way to Cape Town’s central business district. The place seemed like it had seen better days—there were several large abandoned buildings and some smaller shops that appeared to be shut down or closed for renovations.
I’d spent more than a day in Johannesburg, so it was only natural that I wanted to check out this city, too. If anything, Cape Town had far more history—it was where Europeans first landed when they arrived in Africa, so there were many places with historic significance. It would probably make sense to stay here longer if time permitted. But as it turned out…
“What an unexpected surprise…”
“…Hm?” I asked myself as I approached my destination.
There were a number of soldiers milling about in front of the building where our hotel was located. They all wore black military uniforms and carried rifles; the look gave me an eerie feeling.
It couldn’t have been more obvious what they were doing. It made no difference whether I was walking by with a woman on one arm or not. There simply wasn’t anyone else around who looked like me.
In other words…
This is what happened when I arrived here yesterday… What are those guys doing?
I thought back to last night’s events and remembered hearing gunshots from inside the hotel. So that must mean something… That said, I could also remember being told that the gunfire came from inside a building… So did these guys just show up here because they heard a shooting…?
I was confused, but before long, the answer to my question was revealed—and I felt somewhat relieved to find that it was indeed a simple misunderstanding. The people inside the building hadn’t shot at each other…they’d actually been fired upon! And while that might not sound very exciting, it was still a fairly rare occurrence for me—I wasn’t used to encountering gun battles on a daily basis.
“So, what happened?” I asked one of the men standing by, and he replied with a quick shake of his head: “We don’t know.”
He sounded like he knew, though…
Then again, I didn’t exactly care much about why it was happening. The real issue was how I was going to get into the building, which had clearly become off-limits…
And that’s when I saw one of the men pointing at me and saying “That guy!”
My mind went blank.
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You’re the ‘guy’ everyone’s talking about. You’re the guy who got himself kidnapped!”
“Huh?! Me?!” I exclaimed as the truth finally hit home.
“They say you escaped the police this morning, then took a taxi right outside our hotel.”
A taxi?
Well, it made sense—the last thing I had done was take a cab. Still, that was the extent of my recollection—I didn’t realize I was such a big deal.
But apparently, it seemed like others knew. That meant there would surely be rumors spreading through the city like wildfire once word spread that I’d survived and returned. Which would likely mean that the hotel was going to be swarmed with reporters and journalists asking questions about yesterday’s incident and why I escaped.
“Ahhh…” I sighed in defeat. Then I realized something else: “Why am I even here?”
The reason I was in Cape Town was that I needed to contact Captain Lawrence. As long as they hadn’t found him yet, I should’ve stayed in Johannesburg, waiting for him to call me.
Instead, I’d traveled all the way to Cape Town without thinking twice—but now all that work was going to go to waste. All of a sudden, I felt very foolish.
And I couldn’t let myself feel that way anymore. If I did, I’d just give up on everything—and that wouldn’t help me in any way.
“Right,” I said out loud as I began walking away. “Let’s try contacting Lawrence and see where we can go from there.”
As I started walking again, I suddenly recalled the conversation I had with the man from before.
He had pointed at me and said “That guy”—meaning my presence in Cape Town had been a topic of discussion amongst the locals, and it would inevitably lead to the news getting out. But if that was true, there was no doubt that they would start to ask questions as well, and there was no way they weren’t going to discover the identity of my kidnappers and rescue team.
I was sure of it.
Which meant that there was an extremely strong possibility that the police were already onto me. In that case, if I wanted to stay out of their hands, I would need to leave Cape Town ASAP.
That thought alone made me want to cry…
After that, I decided I needed to contact Captain Lawrence immediately. But since the phone lines were down, that was going to prove difficult.
Fortunately, it would only require a small amount of money to purchase a train ticket back to Johannesburg; I could probably afford it.
But that wasn’t quite enough.
If the phone lines were still down, I would have to send a message via telegraph, and as soon as possible—otherwise the message would arrive too late.
But I couldn’t afford to spend more than the price of a single train ticket sending a single telegram…and it wouldn’t be worth it if I was going to buy one tomorrow anyway.
In that case, I could always use one of those prepaid cards from the post office! I bought several of them on my way over—I just needed a little bit of cash for the cost of the card.
It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best option I had available at the moment.
As I walked towards the post office with a heavy heart, I suddenly noticed two police officers standing outside the building. They stood out from the other policemen because of their uniforms—they weren’t wearing the same ones as the others; rather, they had the white coats of the police station.
At first, I thought it was some kind of mistake or misunderstanding on the part of the local police, so I continued on my way as planned. But after a few moments, I heard someone yelling from inside the building:
“Stop him! He’s trying to run!”
Oh, damn it… It sounded like they knew I was coming.
With that, I turned around and headed back the other way…only to hear a gunshot.
What happened? Were they chasing after me?!
Then I realized what was going on: One of them must’ve shot his gun into the air. After all, he had no reason to shoot at me directly if they didn’t know who I was—they were simply signaling for me to stop running.
I stopped, turned around, and began to walk casually in their direction. The officer with the gun aimed at me looked like a young man in his twenties; judging by the way he carried himself, I guessed he was just a rookie cop.
“Hmph,” I said nonchalantly. “So, you’re looking for me?”
He nodded with a smile.
“Yes, sir.”
I could tell from the tone of his voice that he really wasn’t that confident in his abilities. But that only added to the intimidation factor; it was an incredibly effective tactic.
“I see…” I mused. “You do have quite a large force surrounding this area. I assume it’s because there are a lot of important people here?”
He shook his head. “No, sir. You don’t understand. There is one person here who is much more dangerous than you.”
Oh? That didn’t sound good…
“Who might that be?” I asked cautiously.
“The person we are most afraid of,” he answered cryptically.
Now it was my turn to nod. I understood exactly who he was talking about.
“That’s right.”
He smiled and pointed his gun straight at my chest. “We’ll kill you now.”
***
My captors were waiting for me inside the post office. They were wearing different uniforms from earlier, but otherwise, they were exactly the same—all three men, including the young police officer who shot at me. As expected, I could easily identify each and every one of them.
There were the two men in suits, both dressed in dark colors, looking like government officials—one was bald, while the other had long hair and a beard. On the opposite side of them was the third man, also a man in a suit. He looked younger than the two older men and wore a tie as well. His name was probably “Piet”, which was the Afrikaans word for “pepper”.
They all sat around a table in a corner of the room, drinking coffee.
“Welcome back,” the man in the middle said pleasantly, as he offered me a cup of coffee as well.
“Thanks…” I accepted gratefully as I took a sip.
It had been a while since I’d last had any real coffee, and it sure was delicious—especially with all that sugar and cream. I hadn’t even realized how much I missed it until then.
“Thank you, sir.” I smiled politely and bowed slightly. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I need to speak with Captain Lawrence immediately.”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Why?”
“Because he was the one who gave me the mission in the first place.”
“You’re not making much sense, Mr. Stuarts.”
“I apologize. Please let me continue. When we went through all of your paperwork earlier, we found that you’re actually a private citizen named John Stuart.”
He nodded. “Indeed. My given name is John Stuart.”
“But that’s not your family name or surname, is it?”
His face tensed up for an instant before relaxing again. “No, that is correct.”
I nodded to myself. “I thought so. You’re not related to him at all, are you?”
“Not in the slightest,” he replied quickly.
Ah, that makes sense. Now it was time to get down to business.
“I want to know everything about Captain Lawrence. Every little detail, no matter how trivial it might seem—and no lies either.”
“Everything?” He repeated, still sounding doubtful.
I smiled reassuringly. “Of course. We’ve never met, and yet I’m sure I can trust you completely.”
The two men in suits glanced at each other briefly. “What do you mean by ‘trust’?” One of them asked hesitantly.
“Well, let me put it this way: If you tell me the truth, I will be very grateful and give you anything you want. Even more importantly, I will help you out in return.” I paused for a moment to drink some more coffee. “If you lie, though, I will make you pay. Do you understand?”
Both of them gulped and exchanged looks again before finally nodding in agreement.
“We understand. Please proceed,” the bald man said nervously.
I continued. “Now, please start from the beginning. From day one—how did you meet Captain Lawrence, what happened during the incident, how you felt afterward, how you came to be involved in this whole mess… And anything else you think might be relevant.”
One of the men started to speak, but he suddenly stopped after glancing at the other. The other man looked back at him and smiled. Then the bald man resumed. “It all began on the night of April 15th, 1885…”
The End