Visa für Ocantros (1974)

On Ocantros, a British colony granted independence two years earlier, an attempt is made on Prime Minister Henry Kulaman’s life during a church service. Kulaman is wounded by machine-gun fire but survives. The attacker escapes unidentified. Technician Martin Katrup flies to Ocantros from East Germany. On the plane, he meets Jagoda, a Polish journalist who wants to write a report on Ocantros. Jagoda tells Katrup that the island has no mineral resources and that its inhabitants live by fishing and farming. They form a peaceful, multiethnic and multireligious society. The government is trying to remain neutral between the power blocs of the Cold War, while also planning social reforms to overcome the backwardness inherited from the colonial era. These include expanding the school system and providing adequate medical care. Katrup’s task is to speed up completion of the only printing works on Ocantros so that schoolbooks can finally be produced in the country. The project is supported by East Germany. After landing on Ocantros, Katrup and Jagoda are put up at the Windsor Hotel in Port Albert, Ocantros’s port. Förster, an employee of the East German embassy in the capital, Ocantros City, tells Katrup that his two work colleagues, Harry Tempel and Heinz Ahlert, have been missing for days. Katrup’s contact at the printing works is Maha, an Ocantrosian foreman whom he already knows from Maha’s training period in East Germany. Förster asks Katrup not to take matters into his own hands regarding Tempel and Ahlert’s disappearance, since they are only guests in the country and diplomatic complications must be avoided at all costs. When East German crates containing printing rollers are unloaded in Port Albert, an incident occurs. Unknown people set the crates on fire. When dockworkers spot them and give chase, an unknown person shoots the arsonists dead with a submachine gun, leaving it unclear who was behind the attack. The killer escapes. The two missing men’s Wartburg car has also disappeared. Katrup finds an initial lead to the car through the Soviet pediatrician Dr. Ostschenko, who found an emblem from the car on a child he had treated. The trail leads Katrup and Maha to the garage of Ben Shakim, who denies knowing anything about the Wartburg. But one of Shakim’s mechanics secretly gets a message to Katrup. He wants to meet him at the Yellow Dragon, apparently to tell him about the missing Wartburg. Katrup and Maha therefore go to the Yellow Dragon, a restaurant with dancing. Shortly beforehand, Katrup’s hotel room had been searched despite his being there. Since Katrup was in the shower, he did not notice the intruder stealing his pocketknife and glasses. At the Yellow Dragon, Katrup is horrified to discover that his contact has been murdered without the other patrons or the staff noticing; Katrup’s pocketknife is stuck in the man’s back. Katrup and Maha manage to leave the restaurant without the body being discovered for the time being. They break into Shakim’s garage, where they find the Wartburg’s engine. While Maha goes to get the police, a guard knocks Katrup unconscious. Maha and the officers arrive in time to prevent Katrup from being murdered. During a thorough police search of the garage, stolen printing rollers are also found. Shakim is arrested but insists he is innocent. Katrup is arrested for the murder of the mechanic at the Yellow Dragon and locked in a cell. There he meets Saphir, a terminally ill beggar. After Katrup helps Saphir during a spell of weakness, the beggar confides in him and says that the two missing men went to a dangerous place, but ignored his warnings. The criminal investigation establishes that Shakim’s mechanic was killed not with a pocketknife but with a stiletto, and that the pocketknife was merely placed in the wound to frame Katrup. Katrup is therefore released from custody. Branco, an Ocantrosian security police officer, tells Katrup that a large-scale conspiracy against Kulaman’s government is under way. The two missing East German colleagues, Tempel and Ahlert, have allegedly called their wives in East Germany from South Africa and said they had fled Ocantros—in other words, that they had defected. Katrup considers this impossible, since, among other things, the two men proved on August 13, 1961, that they were reliable comrades who would never defect to South Africa’s racist system. Meanwhile, Pamela, the CIA’s resident agent, who officially works on Ocantros as an animal dealer, is preparing a coup against Kulaman’s government together with Peers, an employee of the BAMC (British American Mining Company). The conspirators are also responsible for the attempt on the prime minister’s life, the disappearance of the two East German mechanics, the arson attack on the crates in Port Albert, and the murder of the arsonists. The submachine-gun shooter is a hired killer named Matthews, whom they recruited. The military coup is to be carried out by Air Force Colonel Skindara, a former Royal Air Force major. Skindara’s new government is to grant mining rights to the mining company. While in custody with Saphir, Katrup learns a name from the beggar: Tiki Laman. Jagoda and Katrup visit the shop of that name, but find only Ben Shakim, who has since been released for lack of evidence. Shakim is a co-owner of the shop, which sells all kinds of goods. Katrup puts pressure on Shakim: wall hooks have been found in the wreck of the now-recovered Wartburg, and the same kind are sold at Tiki Laman’s shop. Shakim admits that Tempel and Ahlert intended to use the hooks to visit a sacred site, the Seven Gates of Death. Katrup’s search for the missing men is obstructed by the military coup. Together with Jagoda and Dr. Ostschenko, Katrup sets out for the Seven Gates. Tempel and Ahlert are trapped in a cave there and have survived only with great difficulty. Eventually, they accidentally find pitchblende, revealing why the CIA and the company conspired against Kulaman’s government: Ocantros has uranium that the company wants to mine. This can happen only under a government that leans politically toward the West. The British authorities had not known about the uranium discovery. During the coup, soldiers murder Branco. Branco’s secretary turns out to be an employee of Pamela’s, which is how Pamela had been kept informed firsthand of every move by the security police. But the coup fails because the “mob” has sided with Kulaman and the coup-plotting air force troops are isolated. Pamela’s associate Rabin kills both Saphir and Ben Shakim. He is eventually killed in revenge by Saphir’s sister, Sheila. As the coup collapses, Katrup, with the help of Jagoda, Dr. Ostschenko, Maha and the workers from the printing works, manages to free the missing men. Matthews had blown up the cave on Pamela’s orders. Matthews was also responsible for the two mechanics’ disappearance: to conceal the uranium discovery, he loosened the ropes the two cave explorers used to descend, leaving them helplessly trapped in the cave. While the workers free the missing men from the cave, Maha pursues Matthews through the jungle. Despite Maha’s attempts to save him, Matthews falls into a river from a broken vine; his fate remains unclear. Pamela’s residence permit for Ocantros is revoked, and she has to leave the country. The printing works is inaugurated. Its first product is the inaugural issue of the new newspaper, Ocantros News. The most important item is the announcement of the founding of a state mining company.