The sun was winking over the horizon. Dew still covered the grass. A slight breeze rustled through Woodward park, and though it did little to cool the Caribbean heat, Broxton still shivered. If he was going to kill a prime minister, this would be the perfect spot. The park was in the center of the city, ringed on the north by the Red House, the colonial style buildings of Parliament, built by the British before independence-the south, by Fredrick Street, the main shopping street of Port of Spain, always teeming with people hustling in and out of the many department stores-the east, by the modern Department of Justice building, which stood in stark contrast to the old public library next door-and the west by the Gothic St. Ann’s Cathedral, a thousand and one places for a man with a rifle, a security man’s nightmare.
He sat on an empty bench and watched the workmen setting up the stage in the old gazebo. Others were connecting up the giant speakers that would pour out the calypso beat from noon to midnight. Twelve hours of live music, guaranteed to make the old, the infirm, and even the recent dead get up and dance.
A scrawny pigeon eyed Broxton from a safe distance, then took a few tentative steps in his direction. Broxton remained motionless, wondering how close the bird would come. It stopped about three paces away and waited, but Broxton had no food for it. One of the workmen started in his direction, stringing speaker wire, and the bird took flight.
“ You coming to the festival today?” Broxton asked.
“ Wish I could, but I gots ta work, got five kids, all boys,” the man smiled, proud, showing off a gold front tooth.
“ Gonna be a lot of people?”
“ More ‘an I can count.”
“ The park’s kind of small.”
“ You know it. Gonna be peoples here stuffed tighter ’an a maxi taxi at rush hour.”
“ Lots of people,” Broxton repeated as the man shuffled on, stringing his wire. He gazed around the park and tried to imagine how it would be after the festival started, the crowd struggling in the noonday heat to get closer to the bands on stage. The Gazebo was in the southeastern corner of the park, surrounded by shade trees. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about the crowd behind Ramsingh. The park was fenced and the high backed stage prevented anyone from moving in behind the bands.
“ Hey, mister, coffee?” The voice was deep and friendly. Broxton turned toward it. The man was standing behind a food cart, perched in front of the fountain in the center of the park. Broxton waved and ambled in his direction, taking his time, taking in the morning. Enjoying himself. Enjoying the polite way everybody deferred to him. Yesterday he was a tourist. Today he was in charge of the prime minister’s security.
He’d expected flack from the police when Ramsingh proposed it, but he’d received nothing but cooperation. Even Cliffard Rampersad, the police chief, was open and cooperative.
“ How you take it?” the vender said.
“ Black, and a bag of those honey roasted nuts.” Broxton reached into his pocket for some change.
“ No charge for the secret agent man,” the vender said.
“ I’m no secret agent man.”
“ Gots ta be, otherwise they never bring you out of nowhere and put you over Chief Rampersad. He a proud man an’ he can be a mean man.”
“ How’d you find out?”
“ Lord man, nothing happens in Trinidad don’t everybody know if they want.” The vender stretched his arm across the park toward the stage. “If someone gonna shoot at Mr. Ramsingh today you gonna have a hard time of it.”
“ How does word get out so fast?” Broxton asked.
“ My sister works for Republic Bank,” the smiling vender said.
“ So?”
“ So she works with a woman whose husband’s a big lawyer an’ he knows Mr. Rampersad. In Trinidad everybody knows somebody. Nothing stays quiet too long.”
“ So how would you do it if you were the shooter?”
“ Best if you forget about that and spend your efforts trying to make Mr. Ramsingh stay home today. Jus’ let the music play and save the politics for another time.”
Broxton thanked the man and made his way back to his bench and sat with his coffee and nuts. Some young people were already starting to filter into the park and the music wasn’t going to start for another six hours. They were laughing and talking. Having fun on a Saturday morning. He watched while they spread a blanket, five girls and four boys, about fifteen or sixteen years old. A few minutes later more youngsters came and the friendly banter started. If he’d had any illusions about the size of the crowd they were dispelled. The park was going to be packed.
He set the coffee by his side and opened the nuts. They were hot, sweet, and reminded him of Paris. He was fishing in the bag for a second bite when he noticed the scrawny pigeon walking toward him. The bird reminded him of Paris too, only the French birds were healthier, fatter, with feathers bright in the afternoon sun. They ate better. Paris was teaming with outdoor cafes and the French ate a lot of bread. When the birds couldn’t get their fill from friendly tourists they happily picked up the local’s crumbs. This bird seldom got a meal from a tourist and in Trinidad times were hard, even for the pigeons.
“ You’d like Paris, my friend,” he said, squeezing the nuts together in his hand, crushing them. Then he tossed them to the bird and watched while it gobbled them from the ground.
Five hours later he was again reminded of Paris as the first of the bands was setting up under the Gazebo. Tammy Drake was opening the show with a few words and a song. He’d seen her perform when she opened for Bob Dylan there in 1980. He’d been nineteen, on vacation and captivated by the young Trinidadian performer. She’d done a mixture of country, rock, and blues that had the audience standing, dancing, stomping and clapping.
The songs were different when he saw her last week, but the timeless appeal of that seventeen-year-old sensation he’d seen in Paris hadn’t diminished. She’d held him enthralled in the Normandy’s ballroom with the soft bluesy ballads, like she did in Paris when she was belting out her numbers to an audience of thousands. Today she was going to perform Calypso, still a different kind of music. Tammy Drake had been Calypso Queen in the Caribbean for the last five years running, and Broxton wondered if she would scorch his soul with the calypso beat. He was looking forward to finding out.
Then she was on the stage and the crowd went wild with applause. All of Trinidad was in love with Tammy Drake. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a pair of faded jeans. Her pale skin and China blue eyes were framed by a mane of dazzling black hair.
“ Hey, hey, hey,” she said, holding the mike in her left hand. “Today we dance to the beat,” and then she launched into a raucous calypso song that was unlike anything he’d ever heard. This was not like the calypso he’d heard when he was a child. Maryann was not down by the seashore sifting any sand. Tammy Drake’s voice was still beautiful, she was still mesmerizing, she still entertained, but the rhyme scheme was repetitious, the band was loud and the lyrics seemed to incite. She was both singing about and raging against the government at the same time, and the audience was shouting its approval. Broxton shuddered. Ramsingh was not a popular man.
And in five hours he was going to appear before them. It was a crazy idea and the man earlier had been right. Ram should stay away, but Broxton knew he wouldn’t.
“ That’s all for now,” Tammy Drake said from the stage, “but I’ll be back before sundown and I promise you a super long set. We’ll do all the favorites, and as an extra added attraction I’ll have Prime Minister Ramsingh on stage with me to help us launch the evening portion of the festival.”
Her words were met with a chorus of applause and boos. Broxton was sure the applause was for her and the hisses for Ram. It was a crazy situation and there was nothing he could do about it except scan the crowd, and even that was useless. Who could he watch? Who could he single out? Everybody looked like a possible threat the way they were jeering Ram.
Five hours and five minutes later the Sons of Trinidad were finishing their set. In a few minutes Tammy Drake and Ramsingh were going to take the stage. Broxton felt a tight sensation in the pit of his stomach. There was electricity in the air, both from the threatening storm and from the crowd anticipation. He felt the pulse of the crowd as he moved among it. The crowd moved as a single being, swaying, singing, and dancing with the beat, but somewhere among it danger lurked. He tasted it on the evening breeze.
He pushed through the throng till he was at its fringe. The band finished, took their bows, then left the stage. The crowd quieted, gray clouds covered the sky. A cool breeze blew through the park, evaporating sweat, chilling a thousand souls, and chilling his, too. The hair on the back of his neck tingled. His spine quivered. A current ran through him, electric and cold.
He stepped through the north gate and out of the park. He checked his watch. Five to five. Ram was never late. Police surrounded the stage. There was nothing he could do there. Plain clothes police wormed and worked their way through the crowd. That too, was out of his hands. He turned away from the stage and faced the Red House. So many windows.
Then he saw her and his heart jumped. He smiled before he thought. He started to call her name, but checked himself. What was she doing here? She was supposed to be sailing up the islands. Movement caught his eye and he turned to see a pigeon land on the wrought iron fence not far from where he stood. For a brief instant he wondered if it was the same bird he’d fed earlier and again he thought of Paris. Dani was in Paris when Aaron Gamaliel was shot. Why did he think of that? She was in Zambia when President Jomo Seko was shot, too. Coincidence? Why was she here? Then he knew why the assassins in Venezuela were told to spare him.
She started to turn toward him, almost as if she knew she was being watched, and he stepped back through the gate. He could see her through the iron bars, but she wouldn’t be able to make him out. She studied the street, raised an arm and gave proof to his thoughts when she greeted the man he’d seen from the water in Venezuela. The big man with the Texas accent. The man who had tried to kill Ram.
He shuddered. A terrifying thought rippled through him. The plane, the hotel. She hadn’t used a rifle. She had no rifle now. She was standing just outside the park with the Texan, not to shoot but to watch. To watch the blast. It was going to be another bomb.
He turned toward the gazebo on the other side of the crowded park. In a few minutes Ramsingh would take the stage. He wondered if it was set on a timer or if she was here to detonate it via remote control. He looked toward Dani again. She had a clear view of the stage from where she was standing, safely outside the park. She’d be outside the panicked throng. She could just walk away while the crowd fought to get out the gates.
He looked around for a policeman. They were all in the park, surrounding the gazebo. For a second he thought about charging toward Dani, but Ram was going to take the stage shortly. Besides, the Texan could hold him off while she punched the remote. If she had a remote. If the bomb was on a timer there was nothing he could do. But if she was holding her finger over a button there was a chance.
And he took it. Turning away from Dani and the Texan, he charged into the crowd, yelling, “Move aside! Emergency! I’m a doctor! Please, step aside!”
The people at the edges of the crowd parted as he pushed and forced his way through in his mad dash for the stage.
“ Hey, watch it,” a giant of a man yelled when Broxton slammed into his back.
“ I’m a doctor, the prime minister is ill.”
“ I’ll get you there,” the big African Trini yelled back to Broxton. “Get out of the way! Mr. Ramsingh needs his doctor!” The man hurled himself into the crowd, shoulder forward, as if he was blocking for a quarterback.
Broxton kept his head down and his eyes on the broad back as the giant cleared the way, shoving people aside, shouting, “Doctor coming through! Step aside!” Then they were in the center of the crowd, people packed together. He smelled their sweat, felt their anticipation, touched their souls. The parting corridor the big man cut through the throng closed as soon as he’d pushed by. He was but a part of the pack, a single cell in the living, breathing, swaying and crushing crowd.
People started applauding. Something was happening. He couldn’t see.
“ Tammy, Tammy, Tammy,” the crowd chanted, excitement rising.
“ Out of the way,” the big man yelled louder, trying to be heard above the applause.
“ Tammy, Tammy, Tammy,” the crowd shouted as one.
“ Hurry,” Broxton pleaded.
“ Coming through,” the giant shouted, but the closer they got to the gazebo the slower the going. People were jammed together, back to front, shoulder to shoulder, but still the big man grunted, shoved and pushed. “Let the doctor pass,” he wailed, and to their credit, as tightly bunched as they were, people tried to get out of the big man’s way.
“ Ladies and gentlemen,” Tammy Drake’s amplified voice boomed through mammoth speakers, “it’s good to be back. It’s going to be a wonderful evening.” The crowd went wild, yelling, clapping and whooping, drowning out the giant’s voice.
People jumped, some swayed, some danced, some called out, they all clapped. Everybody in Trinidad loved Tammy Drake.
“ Doctor coming through!” The giant pushed into the mass of people, shoving his way to the stage.
“ It’s my great pleasure to bring Ramish Ramsingh up to the podium.”
The crowd was muffled, but there were no catcalls, they remained respectful. Ramsingh wasn’t popular, but the audience wasn’t going to let politics ruin this musical night.
Then they were at the stage.
“ You, stop!” Broxton heard a rough voice scream. The giant dropped his shoulder and Broxton saw four uniformed policemen guarding the steps up the gazebo, all holding truncheons in hand, all raising them to strike. The giant spread his arms and dove into them, grabbing the center two and taking them down. The two on the outside swung their clubs, but the nightsticks hit only air as the big man rolled safely through.
Broxton saw his opportunity and vaulted over the melee, landing on the stage as the prime minister took the podium. He felt a strong hand grab his arm, another wrapped around his neck.
“ Hold,” Ramsingh said.
The policemen relaxed their grips, but still held on to him.
“ It’s all right,” Ramsingh added. “It’s Broxton. He’s in charge of security, remember?”
” Sorry, sir,” one of them said, as they released him. “We didn’t recognize you.”
“ What’s going on?” Ramsingh said. The crowd, sensing something ominous, quieted, all eyes on the stage.
“ Your wife is ill,” Broxton lied. “We have to go.”
“ I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Please forgive me,” Ramsingh said. “I have to leave. I hope you understand.”
Broxton looked across the park as he put his arm around Ramsingh’s shoulder, and he locked onto Dani. She had her armed linked with the big Texan. She was too far for him to see into her eyes, but he knew she was boring into him. The Texan was holding something in his hand and Broxton didn’t think it was a Sony Walkman. He shivered, wondering if she would let him push the button.
“ Is she all right?” Ramsingh asked, breaking Broxton’s concentration.
“ We have to go,” Broxton said.
“ All right,” Ramsingh said as Broxton, turning, pulled the prime minister toward the back of the stage and down the back steps of the gazebo. Cool sweat dripped from under his arms and his neck hairs were prickling. Any second it could all be over. All she had to do was give the word and the podium, the stage, the gazebo, and several people would vaporize. He knew the truth of the thought as surely as he knew his own name.