was something, and if he couldn’t believe in God or a guiding hand, well then Uncle Dick would do fine. He mentally thanked the unknown Richard McPartland for keeping him safe on his watch.
“ Would you like some coffee?” Ramsingh asked from below.
“ Yes,” Broxton answered, and in a few minutes the pungent aroma drifted up and mingled with the dark morning air.
“ How do you drink it?”
“ Black is fine,” Broxton said.
“ Black it is.” Ramsingh said, coming on deck with two mugs of steaming coffee.
“ There’s a light up ahead,” Broxton said, accepting one of the mugs.
“ That would be Puerto Santos. It’s a small fishing village. It’s a nice place for us to hide the day away,” Ramsingh said.
“ I thought you’d want to get back to Trinidad as soon as possible.”
“ I do, but we’re sailing a stolen boat. That’s piracy.”
“ But we had good cause, and you’re the Prime Minister of Trinidad.”
“ Do you think that matters to the owner?”
“ I hadn’t thought about that,” Broxton said.
“ And think about this,” Ramsingh said. “It probably matters less to the Venezuelan Coast Guard. They’re likely to shoot first and ask questions later, just like in your American old west. Remember, I was in Venezuela because their coast guard shot up a Trinidadian fishing boat.”
“ Couldn’t we just call for help on the radio and explain ourselves?”
“ We could, but I’d prefer to get to the bottom of this with as little publicity as possible. I’m not too popular with the press as it is. The last thing I want is to give them any more ammunition to use against me.”
“ Someone tried to kill you. They should be outraged.”
“ They’d probably criticize his failure,” Ramsingh said.
“ It’s that bad?”
“ A lot of jobs were lost when I started shutting down the money laundering operations.”
“ Honest jobs?” Broxton asked.
“ Sure, Billie’s Burgers closed down. Six fast food restaurants, twenty jobs each. Coastal Furniture closed down. Two stores, over a hundred jobs each. Four retail stores in the West Mall, six in the Long Circular Mall, all closed down. Two new car dealerships, a bank with four branches and over a hundred jobs. A little here, a little there.”
“ But they were laundering drug money and calling it profit.”
“ Tell it to the man who lost his job. Tell it to his wife and kids. Tell it to his neighbors. Tell it to the newspapers.”
“ I see what you mean. That could put a dent in your popularity.”
“ Enough that someone might want me dead?”
“ We told you we think it’s drug related,” Broxton said.
“ You must be right, because we’re not talking lone assassin, are we?”
“ No,” Broxton said, “we’re not.”
“ I never thought it would come to this,” Ramsingh said.
“ Who profits most from your death?”
“ Nobody, really.”
“ Think about it,” Broxton said.
“ I have been. You know I have been.”
“ Who becomes prime minister?”
“ The party would caucus and choose someone.”
“ Who?”
“ Why the most popular man in the party, the most popular man in Trinidad, the old cricket star.”
“ Who’s that?” Broxton asked.
“ George Chandee, the attorney general.”
“ Why am I not surprised? No, don’t say anything,” Broxton said, holding up his hand. “I’m going below and get some sleep. Just think about it.” And Broxton slipped through the companionway and in a few seconds he was asleep. Ramsingh woke him after they were securely anchored in a secluded bay and they had a breakfast of cheese and tomato sandwiches. Not what Broxton would have chosen, but they had to make due with what was available. Then he went back to sleep and slept straight through the day.
They spent the next night motoring eastward along Venezuela’s north coast toward Trinidad. They stood two hour watches and Broxton found himself enjoying the night solitude. Ramsingh had the boat on autopilot, and like the previous night when the self-steering gear handled the boat under sail, the only thing Broxton had to do was watch to make sure they didn’t hit anything.
The sun came up during his watch, so he was the first to see it. “Big boat, behind us,” he said, reaching for the binoculars. “It’s a navel vessel of some kind. They’ve got guns.”
“ Let me see,” Ramsingh said, coming up through the companion way and Broxton handed over the far away glasses. “Venezuelan Coast Guard.”
“ They be here before we’re out of their waters?” Broxton asked.
“ Oh, I think so,” Ramsingh said.
“ Can you fake a heart attack?”
“ If I have to.”
“ How do you work this thing?” Broxton asked, picking up the radio mike.
“ Push this button and talk,” Ramsingh said.
Broxton picked up the mike and thumbed the push-to-talk button. “Mayday, mayday, mayday. Can you hear me? My father’s having a heart attack. I need help. Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
“ They’ll think I’m on death’s door,” Ramsingh said, after Broxton released the button.
“ This is the Venezuelan Coast Guard Cutter Cuatro de Mayo to the vessel calling mayday.” The man was speaking English with a thick Venezuelan accent.
Broxton clicked the button again. “Are you the big gray boat behind me?”
“ We are.”
“ Do you have a doctor on board?”
“ Negative.”
“ I need to get him to a hospital as quickly as possible and I can’t sail the boat. Can you help me?”
“ You can’t sail?” the voice was skeptical.
“ That’s right, it’s my father’s boat. I’m on vacation. I don’t know the first thing about sailing. You have to help me.”
“ Captain Sanchez, Venezuelan Coast Guard, the burly man said, as he boarded. “You have the boat papers?”
“ I don’t know.”
“ Why not?” Sanchez asked, twirling a bushy mustache.
“ I just came down to spend a couple of weeks with my father. I don’t know anything about the boat or its papers. Shit, they could have been stolen during the robbery,” Broxton said, improvising.
“ What robbery?” the captain asked.
“ Last night, while we were ashore in Puerto Santos, someone broke in and stole some money. They came in through there,” Broxton said, pointing to the broken hatch.
“ That’s unfortunate. Some of our people think the yachties are all rich. They don’t realize that if they keep breaking in to their boats that they’ll stop coming. If that happens everybody loses.”
“ I imagine it’s the same wherever people are poor,” Broxton said, wanting to change the subject.
“ I imagine so,” the captain said. Then Ramsingh let out a yell that sounded like his insides were being ripped out.
“ Can you leave someone with the boat and take us to the nearest hospital?” Broxton said.
“ Yes, sir,” Captain Sanchez said and in minutes they had Ramsingh in a stretcher and were aboard the
