“ Don’t beg, Broxton.” She crossed the room and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re bleeding from that cut,” she said, then she added. “Give it a couple of months. If you still think you’re in love with me, give me a call. You’ll be able to reach me through Iberia in Madrid.”
There was a crowd around the reception desk. Broxton recognized the uniforms of an American Airlines flight crew mingled with a group of tourists, all smiling, talking and waiting to check in.
“ Excuse me,” he said, going to the front of the line and speaking to a young woman behind the counter. “I have an emergency situation and I need to use a phone.” The words emergency and phone, coupled with Broxton’s taped and swollen right arm, and the blood crusting on his left hand immediately quieted the crowd.
“ This way, please.” The girl was quick to recognize that he needed medical attention. She raised the counter and held it till he passed behind. “We have an emergency here,” she said as she opened a door to an office behind the reception area. She didn’t enter, but she left the door open. She was curious.
“ How can I help?” a young man in a white shirt and tie asked. His wide smile and close cropped hair reminded Broxton of himself when he was in high school.
“ I need a phone, it’s a life and death situation.”
“ Right there,” the man said, his smile gone.
Broxton saw the phone sitting on a wide desk next to a stack of computer print outs. He pulled out a chair and fell into it. There were two other young people in the office besides the man with the tie, both girls who couldn’t be much over twenty. The three youths and the girl at the door all regarded him with a mixture of excitement and fear. His shaved head, glazed eyes, bandaged arm and bloody hand, all added up to daring and danger, and they, along with the tourists and flight crew waiting to check in, were intrigued.
He scooped up the phone, and then he had to think. Who was he going to call? Ramsingh had given him his direct line, but the chances that he’d be there with less than an hour before his speech were slim. Still, anybody who answered would take him seriously. He picked up the phone and punched the buttons. He spent twenty rings drumming his fingers before he hung up.
“ How do you call the police?” he asked.
“ 999,” the young man said.
Broxton punched the numbers, more finger drumming and fifteen rings before someone answered. “Police Emergency, Officer Gopaul speaking.” The voice was male and he sounded bored.
“ My name is William Broxton. I have information about an assassination attempt against the prime minister.”
“ Yes, and when is this going to happen?” The boredom was stiff in the officer’s voice.
“ Tonight at five o’clock, during the dedication speech.”
“ I’ll make a note of it. Where are you calling from?”
“ The Hilton Hotel.”
“ That is unusual, usually you people don’t leave your address, but I suppose you could be making it up.”
“ What’s the matter with you?” Broxton said, his voice rising. “I’ve just told you that somebody is going to kill the prime minister and you’re accusing me of making it up. Don’t you think you ought to call Ram and warn him?”
“ So you’re on a first name basis with the prime minister?”
“ Yes,” Broxton said, and then he heard a loud click as Officer Gopaul hung up. “Shit,” he said. He punched the numbers again. This time he didn’t count the rings, but it took longer than the first call for Gopaul to answer.
“ Police Emergency.”
“ Just listen to me, Gopaul,” Broxton said. “I’m a American DEA officer working for the prime minister. In thirty minutes someone is going to put a bullet into Ramsingh’s head. Just get a hold of him and tell him Broxton says not to speak tonight.”
“ No, you listen. For the last couple of months we’ve been getting these kind of calls every day. We no longer take them seriously. The prime minister is unpopular right now, that is a fact, but he is safe tonight. He is dedicating the Police Services Statue and almost every policeman in Trinidad is on hand. Only an idiot would try anything against him there.
“ Just call him,” Broxton said.
“ I don’t know if you’re just another hateful citizen or if you’re for real, but if you are for real your information is wrong. Prime Minister Ramsingh is safe tonight, believe me.”
“ Call him, please.”
“ No. Now, if you have nothing further, I’m going to hang up again. Please don’t call back, this number is for real emergencies only.”
Stunned, Broxton replaced the phone in its cradle. “He doesn’t believe me,” he said to nobody in particular.
“ The police have been getting a lot of calls like that. It’s been on the news and in the papers,” the girl at the doorway said.
“ Would you like me to call you a doctor?” the young man with the tie said.
“ He didn’t believe me,” Broxton said again, and he looked up into the young man’s brown eyes and saw that he didn’t believe him either.
“ I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but we have a lot of work to do.”
Broxton looked at the two girls in the room. They were trying hard to smile, but he saw fear in their eyes, and it made him shudder. He spun his gaze to the girl at the door and to the crowd of people waiting to check in. They’d all heard him. They were all staring at him and most of them looked disgusted. To them he was no more than a beggar on the street who’d bullied his way to the front of the line and he was inconveniencing them all with his antics.
“ Doesn’t anyone believe me?” he said, and he realized the words were raspy in his throat. They probably thought he was drunk.
“ Is there a problem here?” Broxton looked up and saw a beefy security guard.
“ No, Jerry,” the man with the tie said. “This gentleman was just leaving.”
“ Do you want me to help him out?”
“ That’s all right, I can find my own way,” Broxton said. He moved away from the desk and started for the door. The guard stood aside, letting him pass. Outside of the office he ducked under the counter and started across the lobby toward the exit.
“ Sir?” the doorman said.
“ I need a taxi,” Broxton said.
“ One should be by just now.” The door man took in Broxton’s disheveled appearance and shook his head.
“ I’m in a hurry.”
“ Everybody’s in a hurry these days,” the doorman said.
“ I believe you, Broxton.” He turned. Maria was standing there, carry-bag on her shoulder. She looked like a crisp green-eyed angel. “I have a car. I can get you where you need to go.”
“ Thank you,” he said.
“ This way,” she said and she took off running. Broxton started off after her. She sprinted through the empty taxi rank and made a quick right into a parking lot. He saw her fish into her purse as she ran and by the time she reached a bright yellow Toyota she had her keys in hand. The doors were unlocked by the time Broxton made the car and she had the engine running by the time he slid into the passenger seat.
“ He’s speaking at the Brian Lara Promenade,” Broxton said.
“ I know the way.” She dropped the transmission into low and laid rubber as she spun out of the parking lot. She made a right onto the access road down the hill toward the Savannah without taking her foot off the gas. She drove like she knew what she was doing.
“ Is the time right?” he asked, looking at the dashboard clock.
“ Yes.”
“ Then we only have twenty minutes.”
“ We’ll make it,” she said, but Broxton saw the traffic ringing the Savannah and he wasn’t so sure.
