Ken Douglas: Scorpion

Broxton smiled. “You’re very observant.”

“ I’m married to a cop, it goes with the territory. You’ve been watching them. Sneaking peaks whenever you think you can get away with it. You’re not very good. If they were criminals they’d be on to you.” She had a slight Mexican accent that didn’t go with her pale skin and green eyes.

“ I’m supposed to see that nothing happens to them.” He turned and looked over his shoulder at the last two seats in the center of the first class section.

The prime minister’s face was ashen, and he was gripping his seat with an intense fervor. His gray skin and gray hair gave off a death-like pallor, only the beads of sweat dripping from his hair line and the weak rising and falling of his chest told Broxton that there was any life there.

By contrast, the attorney general, in the seat next to him, was taking long, slow breaths, sucking the life-giving oxygen deep into his lungs and exhaling in an almost leisurely fashion. He’s accepted his fate, Broxton thought, he knows it’s out of his hands. He’ll take whatever is dealt. He won’t show fear. He’s a strong man. The prime minister is not.

“ He’s a good man,” the stewardess said. “Tough too. You’d never know he’d had open heart surgery last year.”

“ I didn’t know that.” Broxton took another look at the prime minister’s face. He was grimacing, but it could be pain, not fear. Maybe he’d been too quick to judge.

“ Looks like he might be in some pain,” Broxton said.

“ I wouldn’t be surprised,” she said.

“ The attorney general looks pretty calm, though.”

“ He was an athlete. World famous.”

“ I’ve never heard of him.”

“ Actually neither had I, but the two Trini flight attendants are both gaga over him. He was a cricket player.”

“ That explains it. It’s a sport I don’t keep up on.”

“ They say he’s a real ladies man, Trinidad’s most eligible bachelor.”

“ He looks the part,” Broxton said, noticing the dark man’s expensive suit and salon haircut.

“ Are you some kind of bodyguard?” she asked. He turned back toward her and again she was looking deep into his eyes.

“ Kind of. I’m supposed to keep Prime Minister Ramsingh alive, only he’s not supposed to know it.”

“ I don’t understand,” she said. Her nostrils flared, just a little, and the wrinkles around her eyes scrunched together. Little crow’s feet. He guessed her to be in her mid-thirties, about his age.

“ Someone wants him dead. Attorney General Chandee doesn’t take the threat seriously. My boss does.” He couldn’t believe it. He was telling her about the job. That was forbidden, but he didn’t care. They were talking to take their minds off the horrible reality around them. They were whispering.

“ Who do you work for?”

“ The United States Government.”

“ Oh,” she said.

He turned to look over his shoulder again.

A well built man pushed through the curtain from second class. The sun shining in through the windows on the left side of the aircraft reflected off something shiny in the man’s hand. A knife?

Broxton flicked open the seatbelt and charged down the aisle. The man was leaning over the prime minister. Broxton pulled him off and slammed him across the laps of two priests sitting in the seats opposite. The man had a shocked look on his face. Broxton raised his hand to strike, then he saw the chrome flask in the man’s hand.

“ Sorry,” Broxton said, “I thought it was a knife.” He held his hand out to help the man up. The grip was strong and firm and a smile glinted out from his pale blue eyes, but it vanished quickly, turning to a cold stare. Not a man to take lightly.

“ Brandy,” the prime minister said. His mask was off and in his hand. “If I have to take the heart medication I like to enjoy it going down.” Broxton noticed the liver spots on the prime minister’s hands.

“ Bill Broxton,” he introduced himself. “Again, I’m awful sorry about the mistake. For some stupid reason I thought I saw a knife. I feel like an idiot.”

“ Kevin Underfield,” the man said. “I work for Minister Chandee.” Broxton had to think for a second, then he remembered that in Trinidad the cabinet members were also elected members of parliament.

Broxton turned back toward the prime minister, who continued talking as if nothing had happened. “I used to drink more than my share, enjoyed it. I liked the way it made me feel and usually I could handle it, but from time to time I’d make an ass out of myself. That was before I came into politics, but the press never lets one forget his indiscretions, so now the only time alcohol touches my lips is when I have to take the damn medicine. They still write about my drinking, but now it’s a plus because it’s the old Ramsingh they’re writing about and everybody knows it except them.”

“ So you turned your drinking and past indiscretions into an asset. It can’t be easy to live with.”

“ So you see the two-edged sword.”

“ I see it,” Broxton said. “As long as you don’t drink you can shrug off the past and any man that writes about it unwittingly reminds his readers how you overcame your problem to become prime minister, but if you ever get tanked up again it’ll all blow up in your face.”

“ Yes, they would see me as nothing more than a common drunk.”

“ A hard way to go,” Broxton said. Ramsingh looked up at him through gray eyes that danced around his smile. The man radiated honesty and Broxton couldn’t help liking him.

“ Are you a cop of some kind?” Underfield asked. He had a British accent and that puzzled Broxton.

“ DEA.”

“ I thought we made it clear to your government that we understand the threat and don’t desire any of your help.” The attorney general’s voice was muffled by the oxygen mask. Broxton was finding it hard to breathe, but not impossible.

“ I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Broxton said. “I thought the man had a knife. I recognized the Prime Minister of Trinidad. I made a mistake. I said I was sorry.”

“ If you’re not here to watch over the prime minister, why are you on this flight?” Chandee pointed an accusing finger at Broxton.

“ I’m going to Trinidad to get married,” Broxton said, adding, “if she’ll have me.”

“ And the lucky woman is?” Now Chandee had his mask off, too. He pulled his finger back and laced his hands in his lap. He was addressing Broxton as if he was on the witness stand, but it didn’t matter, Broxton had an answer for him.

“ Dani Street,” he said.

Chandee’s snarl shifted into a smirk that turned Broxton angry. He wanted to slap it off his face, but he held himself in check.

“ The ambassador’s daughter?” the prime minister said. “Maybe we’ve been too quick to judge Mr. Broxton, George. I’ve told you before, you have to watch that.” The prime minister looked at Chandee like a benevolent parent does a wayward child, and the man visibly withered under his stare. His fingers stiffened in his lap as he turned away from his boss and toward Broxton, offering him a thin- lipped smile.

“ I think I’ll just go back to my seat,” Broxton said.

“ That would be best,” Chandee said, his face tight.

“ The ambassador’s daughter?” Underfield said, almost laughing.

Broxton nodded, then the plane hit a patch of turbulence and he stumbled, but caught himself, gripping the back of the prime minister’s seat. Several of the passengers gasped, but nobody screamed. Most of them kept their masks on.

He looked at Chandee, met his eyes, smiled and said, “You know, George, you really should watch that temper. One of these days it’s going to land you in deep shit and the prime minister won’t be around to help you out.”