Ян Флеминг (Ian Fleming)Doctor No
by Ian Fleming
(Adapted book. Intermediate level)
Chapter 1. Murder in Jamaica
It was six-fifteen on a peaceful afternoon in February. The sun was sinking low in the sky over Kingston - the capital city of the beautiful island of Jamaica.
It had been a hot day but the air was cooler now. Insects and frogs had started to call and sing. A man had just left a large white building with wide grass lawns and tall trees in front of it. This was a club where he met his British friends. He went to the club every afternoon to have a cool drink. Now he was going to his house, where he also had an office.
The man's name was Commander John Strangways and he was Regional Control Officer for the Caribbean. Strangways worked in Jamaica for the British government. But he was really an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service. He was a British spy who worked in Jamaica. Lots of people knew Strangways was a spy because he was not careful enough about his secret.
Every evening at 6.30, Strangways had to contact London and transmit his report to the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service on a radio transmitter. The time in Jamaica was five hours behind the time in London. If it was 6.30 p.m. in Kingston, in London it was 11.30 p.m. When Strangways had sent his report, he waited to receive his orders from the Secret Intelligence Service.
If Strangways couldn't make contact with the SIS in London at 6.30 p.m., he had to try again at 7.00 p.m. And if he couldn't send his message at this time, he would try again at 7.30 p.m. If London hadn't heard from him at that time, the SIS wouldn't try to contact him again. The headquarters would 'declare an emergency8'. They would immediately start an investigation. They would try to find out why Strangways had failed to make contact.
Strangways never changed his routine. He did the same things, at the same times, every afternoon. Every evening at 6.15, he left the club where he met his friends and he started his journey back to his office. And every evening he took the same route in his car - he drove along the same streets. Every evening at 6.25, John Strangways met his assistant, Mary Trueblood, at the office. By 6.25, Miss Trueblood had always prepared the radio transmitter, so that it was ready for Strangways to send his report to London immediately.