later, that friend is more determined than ever to solve the mystery and find Lewis.Senior Gazette reporter Neil Roberts investigates.

Mystery phone calls to Bermuda from a suspected Irish terrorist. A British soldier's threats to blow the lid off what really happened on Bloody Sunday.

And the 20-year mission to find the long-lost Paratrooper by his best friend in Bermuda.

The Royal Gazette today seeks answers to the intriguing question: "Whatever happened to Byron Duncan Nelson Lewis?'' The search is now on for the soldier and former Bermuda Policeman who strangely vanished after one puzzling phone call.

It was made to Lewis's best friend from their time together in Bermuda in the mid-1970s.

And the caller was a soft-spoken man with a southern Irish accent, who wanted information about where he could contact the former Parachute Regiment soldier.

The man who received the call, still living in Bermuda, was as close to Lewis as a brother, a fellow Briton and another former soldier who also served in Northern Ireland.

Now he has turned to the newspaper to start a worldwide search for his pal, who he believes may even have been killed to stop him talking about the 1972 Londonderry uprising.

Lewis, who would now be 47, claimed he was a radio operator for the Paras during the Bloody Sunday killings when British troops shot dead 13 Catholic protesters.

He arrived in Bermuda as a new Police recruit in 1975, staying on the Island for two years before heading home to England.

His war tales became legendary among his closest pals, who heard how he had been a key witness at the Widgery Inquiry -- the tribunal which investigated the Bloody Sunday nightmare.

Lewis claimed he knew the truth about what happened, accusing the British Government of a cover-up.

And he told his best friend, the man who received the mystery phone call, that he was writing a book exposing the awful truth.

The pair stayed in regular touch for almost two years after Lewis left Bermuda.

They met up in New York and arranged to speak again when Lewis was back in England.

But then came the mystery phone call to Bermuda -- and Lewis never got back in touch with the man who considered him a brother.

"He was and still is a very good friend of mine,'' said the secret source, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

"We were almost like brothers. But my gut feeling is that somebody's done away with him and it could be the British Government, not the IRA.

"He thought that what happened on Bloody Sunday was a big cover-up. He said the tribunal was a fake and he was going to write a book about his experiences.'' After leaving Bermuda, Lewis became a London ambulance driver and later had jobs on a farm in Calgary, Canada, and teaching tourists how to water-ski in Spain.

"But he would always let me know what he was doing and where he was going,'' said his friend.

"Up until about 1979 he would keep in contact with me on a regular basis, every two or three months.'' The source said he met up with Lewis in New York in 1978, when his friend told him he was moving onto a new job in England.

"Not long afterwards, he phoned and said he was going back to England because something had come up,'' said the friend.

"I left it at that, waiting for him to contact me, but he never did. He never contacted me ever again.'' Three months later, the phone rang at six in the morning.

"It was a guy with a southern Irish accent looking for Byron Lewis,'' he said. "He said he had already phoned Police headquarters and I'm not sure how he would have got my number.

"But I was getting very suspicious. I said I had his number or his address but it was at my work and if he gave me a name and telephone number I'd call him back that afternoon or the next day.'' Lewis's friend was so suspicious that he immediately typed out a report for the Special Branch anti-terrorist police.

He added: "I gave details of the time the call came in and who this person said he was -- a reporter from the Dublin Times.

"He said Byron had some information he was interested in. Three days later, Special Branch got back to me and said the Dublin Times didn't have a reporter by that name and the number he gave me was fictitious. "I know that Byron would have contacted me at least once in the last 20 years. The Bloody Sunday inquiry is being reopened now and I wonder if it is anything to do with Byron, or if he has resurfaced again. I really want to get hold of him.

"But now I'm beginning to ask myself questions. Did he give evidence to the tribunal? Was he really the radio operator? Was he legitimate? Was he telling me the truth?'' The source said Lewis's father had an address in Northumberland, north east England, but he is believed to have moved on and there is no listed telephone number.

The Royal Gazette also began searching for Lewis three months ago, with a written request for information from the Public Records Office in London.

A British Army spokesman had said: "Tracing people is always very difficult.

There are so many avenues to search down and there will be no central record of whether Mr. Lewis is still alive.

"The only people who may know are the Public Record Office or the Parachute Regiment Association.'' A spokesman for the Royal British Legion said there was no B.D.N. Lewis listed as a former Parachute Regiment soldier.

And the Paras Association said it could not help without a definite address or service record for Mr. Lewis, as information was covered by the Data Protection Act.

A spokesman for the Public Records Office said a search had begun for Lewis's details but researchers were still drawing blanks weeks after our original request for information.

And Jean Ward, a spokeswoman in the British Government's Northern Ireland Office, said information about Lewis may even be locked away in a civil service vault somewhere.

"The findings of the Widgery Report were contained in a public document but the side of it that was made public did not name individuals who were giving evidence,'' she said.

"If Mr. Lewis did give evidence, that information and that record would be locked away in a vault somewhere, as would all papers pertaining to him. They are certainly not accessible.'' She confirmed that the Widgery Inquiry, straight after the Bloody Sunday shootings, had now been reopened.

And the spokeswoman suggested a final effort to contact Mr. Lewis could be made through the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Northern Ireland Police Force.

But an RUC spokesman said: "It's certainly a mysterious story but unfortunately, if Mr. Lewis was a soldier then we wouldn't have any record.

"It seems there may not be any way of getting in touch with him.'' Anyone with information about Mr. Lewis's whereabouts is asked to call The Royal Gazette on 295-5881 ext. 256.

BYRON LEWIS -- Threatened to blow the lid off what really happened on Bloody Sunday.