“ Yes, sir,” Broxton said, and Ramsingh eased his supporting hand away and he began treading water on his own.
“ There’s a ship out there. Not far, without any lights.”
“ Not the closest?” Broxton said.
“ No, not the closest, but we can stop and rest along the way.”
“ How do you know?” Broxton asked.
“ I’ve already been out there,” he said. Then he started swimming slowly out toward the anchored boats with the easy, graceful strokes of a professional swimmer and Broxton followed. While he swam he thought about what Ramsingh had done. He’d been safely away, yet he’d abandoned that safety and come back for him, saved him from a cold, silent and dark death.
Lightning flashed overhead and the heavens opened as those clouds finally covered the moon. The ocean was turned into a psychedelic supermarket as water pelted the sea, splashing all around him. Visibility was reduced to almost zero and he added a renewed vigor to his strokes, determined not to lose sight of the prime minister.
Then he saw Ramsingh grab onto a dinghy that was tied off the back of a small sailboat and relief swept through him when he saw the prime minister’s outstretched arm. He grasped it in a Viking grip and in seconds he was holding onto the dinghy. He started to speak, but Ramsingh held an index finger to his lips and pointed to the boat. Broxton got the message, someone was home.
Ramsingh put his lips to Broxton’s ear. “We have to wait for the rain to stop.” Then he pulled himself up into the dinghy and Broxton flopped in after him. Both men huddled forward against the pelting rain and just as it seemed like it was going to let up, a brisk wind blew out of the west bringing even more rain.
Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The squall had blown through, leaving a star studded sky in its wake. Ramsingh, able to see now, pointed to another boat, bigger, dark with no dinghy tied up to it. Broxton got the message and he stole a few quick breaths as Ramsingh slipped over the side, back into the water, and started swimming toward the dark boat. Broxton was tired, his arms felt like they were weighed down with lead, his legs were spaghetti and his chest was about to explode, the rest had helped, but it wasn’t enough. Still the prime minister was an old man recently out of heart surgery, and if Ramsingh could make it, then he bloody well could too.
He let go of the rubber boat and took long, slow, even strokes toward the black ship. At first he grabbed air every other time his right arm dug into the water, but before long he was operating on sheer will and forcing his heavy arms up and out of the water was harder with every stroke. His body demanded more oxygen, so every time the right arm came out of the cold he sucked in air until even that wasn’t enough and he had to stop and rest.
The cold no longer bothered him as he flopped over onto his back. He sucked in needed air as the salt water stung his eyes. He wondered if he’d have the strength of mind and body to roll over and continue on his way. What would happen if he stayed on his back forever? Would he drift out to sea, or would the tide take him into shore and into the grip of a killer’s hands?
“ You’re there, Broxton,” Ramsingh said. “You’ve made it.” Broxton forced his eyes open. Ramsingh was hanging onto some kind of pipe structure attached to the rear of the boat and once again he was holding out his arm.
“ I thought it was all over.” Broxton rolled off his back and grabbed onto Ramsingh’s arm with another Viking grip.
“ Nonsense, you did very well,” Ramsingh said.
“ You came back for me out there. You were safe and you came back.”
“ Of course, you’re my bodyguard.” Ramsingh pulled him toward him, and Broxton studied the bar that the prime minister was hanging onto. It was part of a structure that curved around the stern of the boat, two thick bars, one at the bottom of the stern, another by the top.
“ What is it?” he asked.
“ Self-steering gear,” Ramsingh said.
“ What’s it do?’’
“ Uses the wind to steer the boat, and we’re going to use it to get out of the water.”
“ How?”
“ Think you can hang onto it and support my weight for a few seconds?”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ I’m heavy.”
“ I’ll manage,” Broxton said and he wrapped both hands around the bottom bar, letting his body hang in the water, arms stretched like he was dangling from a gymnast’s high bar. “I’m ready,” he said, and Ramsingh moved behind him, also hanging onto to the bar. Broxton grit his teeth as the prime minister planted a foot on his back, then another on his shoulder, but he didn’t scream out when the sudden shock of Ramsingh’s weight pushing down on him stretched his arms like a medieval rack.
“ Hurry,” Broxton grunted, as Ramsingh struggled out of the sea, using Broxton’s back and shoulders as a foot hold. Then he was up and the weight was gone.
“ Are you okay?” Ramsingh asked.
“ Yeah, now how do I get up?”
“ Hang on.”
“ Very funny,” Broxton said.
“ There’s a swim ladder, I’ll lower it.” Although it only took seconds for Ramsingh to get the ladder down, it seemed like forever to Broxton, and under ordinary circumstances climbing the four or five rungs from the sea to the safety of the boat would have been as easy as falling out of bed. Now it took all of his remaining strength to get on board.
“ We made it,” Ramsingh said as Broxton lowered himself onto his back in the cockpit. He closed his eyes, sucking sweet air deep into his belly as he let the evening breeze wash over his chilled body. He was wet and cold and he didn’t care, because his body craved rest more than warmth.
“ Can’t sleep yet, Broxton,” Ramsingh said.
“ Five minutes.”
“ No, we have to get inside and get out of these clothes.”
“ We can’t break in.” Broxton said, realizing how hollow it sounded as soon as the words came out. Apparently Ramsingh did too, because he picked up something that looked like a hammer that had been in a plastic holder under the winches, and with a few hard strokes he broke open a hard plastic deck hatch.
“ Winch handle, very handy,” Ramsingh said, sliding it back into its holster. “You want to do the honors?” he said.
“ You’re doing fine so far,” Broxton said.
“ I might have a little too much around the middle to slide through that hatch. It’d be better if you did it.”
“ Then what?” Broxton leaned forward on the cockpit seat.
“ Find the tool box. There should be a hacksaw blade in it.”
“ And.”
“ You hand it up to me. I cut off this lock,” he said, touching the lock that secured the companion way cover. “Then we go to Trinidad.”
“ You’re not talking about stealing the boat?”
“ No,” Ramsingh said. “We’re just going to borrow it. Sort of like you did with that Mercedes.”
“ Can you sail it?”
“ My wife and I wandered the world in a sailboat for fifteen years before our money ran out and I had to come back and take up the law. We’d always meant to go back, but we had kids, and bills, and then politics got in the way.”
“ You can really handle this?”
“ Son, if it sails I can make it dance. You just get me that hacksaw blade and we’ll be on our way.”
Moonlight showed through the hatch, offering Broxton a glimpse of a small salon below. It’s like a motorhome, he thought, as he shifted his position and slipped his legs through the hatch. He dropped onto a settee that reminded him of a sofa in a small living room. “So far, so good,” he said, and then he went looking. It didn’t take him long to locate a tool box in a cabinet by the engine room. “Found the tools,” he said up to Ramsingh and
