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Things Change

The young Japanese man stood staring out the second story window of his hotel room. The whitewash on the wall lightly rubbing off on his shirtsleeves as he braced himself in the windowsill. In his hands, a small set of field binoculars aimed out towards the horizon, observing at the mechanical forest that surrounded the town of Tampico Mexico. Oil derricks, as far as the eye could see was all there was to distract the eye from the scene of dust and poverty that filled the surrounding streets of this frontier oil patch town on the Gulf of Mexico. While the man was observing the actions of the men working on the oil derricks and the coming and going of tanker ships in the harbor, he himself was being secretly observed from just across the street, in another hotel, by two men he had never met.

Special Agents Harry Thompson and Dave Ahrens, field agents for the US Bureau of Investigation had been assigned to keep an eye on the young man who had taken such an interest in the Mexican oil industry. Their charge was a young Japanese man, in his middle 20’s, stocky, but not fat. He lived modestly, traveling from town to town in the Mexican oil patch, staying a few days, and then moving on.

“He’s at it again” said Harry from behind his own binoculars, hidden by the window screen.

“Hmmm, well then it must be getting close to time for him to head downstairs to the poker tables then” replied Dave as he stood to get dressed.