Chapter 19
Police Headquarters
San Juan
Puerto Rico
Sergeant Trevor Bolt put down the phone and pushed back in his chair. Something was definitely wrong across at the Blue Emerald Bay Resort, the most exclusive five star resort on the island.
That was not Winston on the phone, and the answer the man had given to his question had provided no assurance whatsoever. On the contrary, it had confirmed that something strange was happening.
Only five minutes ago he had received a phone call from a staff member.
Apparently she had heard what sounded like shots being fired within the grounds of the resort. It may be nothing, but until they had better intel, Sergeant Bolt thought it better to be safe than sorry.
The Blue Emerald Bay often had important residents staying there, which sometimes included U.S. politicians and film stars. True, the Blue Emerald had its own security force, but Sergeant Bolt had always worried that they were not up to standard. At least, not his standards.
The sun had just risen, and normally this was one of the quietest times of the day: the drunk tourists were either all back in their beds in their hotels, or were locked up in the cells: the drug dealers were getting too lazy to stay up this late, and the gangs didn't fight each other so early on in the week.
The only problem was that since it was a slack time, they were under resourced: the night shift was just about to go home, and the next shift wouldn't be fully operational for another forty minutes. In addition, a lot of men who had been on emergency standby for the past few days, or had been working overtime trying to keep the public safe during the high winds they had experienced from the edge of Hurricane Josephine, had now all taken some time off.
Retirement was coming soon. He only had another year to go before he could buy that fishing boat, and spend the rest of his days fishing in the deep blue waters off the coast of Puerto Rico, his favorite country in the whole world. Sergeant Bolt had led an exemplary career so far, and he knew he couldn't afford to ruin it now by making the wrong call.
He made his decision. As soon as he had made it, he knew it was the right thing to do.
Picking up the phone, he called the Rapid Response Helicopter and instructed them to take off and fly over the Blue Emerald Bay. It would only take five minutes for the helicopter to get there, and as soon as it was overhead, Trevor would get a live feed of the area from the helicopter camera.
Just in case, he would also contact the police station nearest to the Blue Emerald Bay and tell one of their cars to do a drive by, and stop and talk to the main gate, before they finished their shift.
They wouldn't like it. The guys up there were a lazy bunch. Nothing ever happened there, and that's the way they liked it, and they would probably already be changing out of their uniform to go home.
If nothing was wrong, Trevor knew the boys would give him a hard time about it tomorrow night.
Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. He only had a year to go...
--------------------
Suite 217
The Blue Emerald Bay Resort
Puerto Rico
Sally-Anne Davis stepped out of the shower, and toweled herself down. She liked to have a long shower in the mornings, before she headed down to breakfast and started the day.
At twenty-nine, Sally became the youngest manager that the Nicolson Hotel Chain had ever appointed. She knew she had the eyes of the board on her, and the responsibility of running the third largest resort complex in the Caribbean was something that she did not take lightly.
She had worked twice as hard as any other Hotel Manager she knew, and for the past three years, hotel profits had risen by an average of thirty percent each year.
Now thirty-four, she was determined to up the game and increase profits in the next year by forty percent. That would herald unprecedented growth and assure her promotion to the manager's role at the new Blue Emerald Bay Resort in Dubai, that was due to be open in eighteen months time and was widely predicted to be the most exclusive hotel resort in the world.
When she had been chosen for the job at the Blue Emerald in Puerto Rico, she had been under no illusions that it was purely down to her management skills. As a former Miss World contestant, and a Vogue cover girl, she had once been called 'the most beautiful businesswoman in the world'. The Nicolson team had considered her a catch, and maximized the free publicity it provided by allowing Time, Vogue and Business Week, amongst others, to each do interviews and full cover spreads of her and the resort. There had been numerous appearances on TV and radio, and by the time the publicity had run its course, bookings were up twenty percent.
Sally had been given two gifts when she was born: her looks and her brains, and she used both of them to their full effect to achieve what she wanted.
Yesterday had been a long day, and last night had been a late night for her.
During the day she had overseen the clean-up of the hotel resort. Luckily the hurricanes that had threatened to devastate the Caribbean Islands if they had continued further west had mysteriously petered out, and effectively disappeared.
Still, they had experienced the edge of Hurricane Josephine, with high-winds and rain causing a lot of mess, but thankfully not much damage. And in case the worst had happened, the hotel had been in lock-down for the past three days. Everything mobile had been cleared away, and large windows had been covered over. Yesterday they had spent a whole day uncovering everything which they had just covered over, and putting back everything they had put away.
Then in the evening, she had been playing catch-up until 2 a.m., working on details and plans to decorate the newly built extra wing at the hotel, and had not fallen asleep until 3 a.m. Exhausted. She knew she would be tired today, but that was not an excuse not to be present to check the executive breakfast bar in the main restaurant before they opened at 6.30 a.m. as she did every day before she started her duties.
When the first phone had rung in her room, she was just getting into the shower. She had missed that call, as she had the second and third. To be fair, in the three years she had run the hotel, she had only been disturbed once between the hours of 3 a.m. and 6 a.m., and that was due to the death of a very famous actor who had overdosed on cocaine, and Sally had been called to deal with the situation before the news got out.
In the end, his death had been reported as a heart attack taken whilst making love to his wife. She had been flown in just in time to speak to the cameras.
Sally was sitting at her breakfast bar, just finishing her muesli, orange juice and toast when the phone rang for the fourth time.
Within two minutes she was out of the door, and within four she was approaching the entrance to the main restaurant.
By the time five minutes had passed, she was sitting in a circle on the floor in the center of the hall, a pistol and cutlass persuading her to keep quiet.
This was not going to be a good day.