The Quandary — Part III
“A secret CIA plan to coordinate civilian factions in supporting the overthrowing of a communist government through mathematical codes written on a pair of notebooks. I could not believe it. It was either a morbid joke the military was playing on an American traveler like myself or that the military was so desperate in finding a last piece to the puzzle they were putting together that they were seeing figures in clouds. As you now know, it turned out to be the latter.
After the elegant man finished explaining his far out theory, I begged for him to allow me to speak. He just stared at me with his pitch black eyes, not moving a single muscle. It makes sense for him to play his game if he really thinks I’m a CIA operative, which again I am not, and he plays it so well. Every moment with that man gives me more confirmation to my thoughts that this man is highly trained and experienced in managing actual foreign government agents.
Still staring at me, he reached down his coat’s inner pocket and took out a cigarette, which he lighted with a match. He took his time to say no to my request, smoking his cigarette and not removing his eyes from me. After taking a good drag from his cigarette he continued, “your notebooks are invaluable Sir, you cannot imagine how hard I have been personally working to uncover the whole plan. I thought of every other possibility except this one. We took control of the railroad thinking it was being used for coordination and transportation of rebels, we are monitoring all transportation, products and workers of the Unit Fruit Company, and we have blocked all outside communication as I previously mentioned. However this is genius.”
I didn’t know what to do anymore, I wanted to shout to get some sense into him, but I decided to stay quite. “Your mathematical codes are easy to disguise in public schools and with local teachers around the country. Very clever. Slowly but effectively coordinating your groups across the country. I must say that if it weren’t for the captain here finding you on the road like that we might not had been able to completely diffuse your operation.”
He continue smoking as he spoke, “our best scholars are gathered at this very moment deciphering your codes so we can finally pin point all the civilian factions you have been coordinating and diffuse the last open ends of your operation. They are great mathematicians who confidently will decipher your codes. Hence, I will not even bother in asking or forcing you to reveal the ciphers. We just need to make an example out of you, for both our countrymen and yours. We need the world to know, from the source itself, that we have prevailed, and that any other democratic government facing the same circumstances as we have can prevail as well. We need you to voluntarily confess to being a covert CIA agent behind this operation.”
This time I lost it. I yelled back at both men, telling them it was crazy and that there was no operation. My notes are nothing more than notes! Scribbles and dabbles! No combination of words, tone or volume got my message across. I tried to stand up but the grayhair captain took me by the shoulder in a two step maneuver from the door and sat me back down.
The elegant man continued keeping his calm, not even flinching to my sudden movements. With the grayhair captain still holding me down, I took a deep breath to calm down, closed my eyes and asked the elegant man very softly if he could please contact the American embassy or my alma matter as either would surely clarify the misunderstanding. He reached down again into his left coat pocket and took another cigarette out. He lighted the new cigarette with the last burn from the old one before throwing it to the ground. Again he took his time in burning through his new cigarette before blowing smoke out of his nose like a bull and said, “No.”
After a brief silence he lifted his right arm and pointed at me with his cigarette. “You have pointed us in the right direction. Pointed us to look for the rest of you covert agents in schools,” he continued. A cloud of gray dense smoke started forming in the room, and through this cloud he said, “Sir, we have apprehended another one of you.” He let these words fall strongly on me, not saying anything at all and waiting for my reaction. I reacted as you can imagine, my face changing between angry red and terrified white.
“We brought him to this prison, he is being held here as well. We arrested him this morning at a school in the city masquerading as a schoolteacher.” He took out a series of photograph from his coat pocket and placed them on my hands. The photographs were different shots of a school blackboards with some algebra written with white chalk. I flipped through them quickly and set them on the table, looking up at him and telling him I had no idea what they were.
That’s when he took one last photograph from his coat and placed in on the table in front of me. The last photograph is the one portraying you in handcuffs.”
