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The party of drivers, finding they had little to do until the next Rally stage, had congregated in the popular tavern, Der Wilkommen Fraulein, and rather rashly decided a party was in order. The prospect of racing the next day seemed to have been considered but, in the face of such a fine selection of liquors, ignored. Plus, there was the astonishing news of the impending royal wedding between The Baroness and Lady Lavinia’s scapegrace brother Gabriel — whom everyone agreed was a nice young man but utterly barking for wanting to jump off the dock with the ‘Baroness of Bones.’ There was much speculation — which increased as the sobriety diminished — as to the reason behind it. Some thought it political, others believed it was a ‘dodge’ to assist him in the race, Lavinia’s habit for marking her cards being well known. As for Gabriel — well, he had left England under a cloud, hadn’t he? Seamus settled on the stool and stared blearily at Harry Swigger of the Ballarat Bruisers while his fingers searched for the most solid of the six dancing glances of Firedrake schnapps in front of him. Finding the real one, he held it up in a mocking toast to his opponent, then tipped (most of) it into his slack mouth. A cheer went up from his supporters, fists of banknotes flourished, and bets ramped up. The glass was crashed down on the table top . . . shortly followed by McLaughlin’s forehead. This time, Swigger’s opponents cheered but before the money could be divvied up, the Irishman’s hairy hands pressed the table top and he levered himself upright again. "Nivver!" he bawled. "Oi nivver wuz bate! Oi nivver will be bate! Yorrrrr turn, Misser Swigger!" Harry Swigger snatched at his glass with numbed fingers
and, more by habit than dexterity, secured the tumbler in
his grasp. "Mud in yer eye, sport!" He slurred,
tossed back the fiery brew, and tumbled over backwards into
a heap of his own chums, snoring before he hit the floor.
Much back-slapping, cheering, and catcalls ensured, and notes
changed hands with varying degrees of grumpiness and triumphalism.
The same names or faces kept cropping up in the reports
she heard: a well-spoken aristocrat in evening dress partnered
with the notorious Ms Pitstop — her face was well-enough
known for there to be no doubt; the Chinese gangster Fan
Song and her yellow brood; plus one or two others who had
been seen in the vicinity. She consulted her notes: possibly
the English Count Backwards . . . was he the aristocrat or
could it have been the brother of Lady Lavinia? She tapped
the page with her pencil; she couldn’t be sure on this
point. Chip adored the way this buxom blonde Austrian chewed through
her W’s and her go-get-‘em attitude. He liked
them with plenty of ‘sass.’ Just like that brunette
who floored him with the softball pitch all those years ago.
Whatever happened to her, he wondered . . .
Having his own ‘cake issues’ was Gabriel. The
Baroness would insist on little al fresco tea parties in
the gardens of the castle or light snacks in the day room
or picnics down by the river — and she would always
insist that Gabriel try the new confections she had caused
to be created for him because ‘she knew how much he
liked them.’ Her bright, almost childlike smile was
far more fetching than the sulky pout if he refused them,
but gradually the penny was beginning to drop down the deep
foggy well of his intellect. From occasional resorts to his
Turkish ovals, Gabriel had finally placed the strange musky
flavour he had detected in the icing. Fortunately, there
was normally a Pekinese or two scampering about the place,
all too willing to accept a tidbit when Buffy wasn’t
looking. It did make them more affectionate and dopey than
usual, but who notices that in a lapdog? Gabriel thought
of how she must see him — he scowled.
Also absent was Count Backwards: He had ditched the stolen flivver and was without a ride at present, but since it was the entrant who was registered rather than the vehicle and membership had its privileges, he felt he could find another one. Somewhere. Perhaps he could tap Lucius DeVere for assistance? Kitten had effectively been taken out of the Race on the road to Klagenfurt, but the Claw had assured her he would get her back in once the field thinned out. He needed her in the Race. No one knew where Pitstop was, except the Chinese contingent
lead by Fan Song. And if they thought they knew, they were
wrong . . .
‘Chip’ was indeed ogling Ms Wolfsteiner, revving
his engine to attract her attention. Was that a smile? Was
it? Yeah . . . she likes me. Oh yeah . . . Woodward smirked
and checked his instruments — and so missed Dragana
rolling her eyes and shaking her head.
The desperately seedy-looking Harry Swigger, representing the Ballarat Bruisers, crawled his Fairlane Ford Super-T up to the starting line beside the Russian — who stared at him. Surely the Australian could not be allowed to race in such a condition? Kozhakhmetova suddenly started to worry more about not being run off the road than about any revenge on his American rival. The second wave of racers would be released five minutes later: Father Scarletti; Mendigo Malo Hernandez; the redoubtable (and drunk) Seamus McLaughlin, and Randolph Thompson-Vickers in his Nifty-Fifty. The flag went down, and with an explosion of fumes and gravel, the race stage had begun! *** The whole bakery shook as several hundred horsepower thundered
past. Kitten, unaware that Count Backwards had shirked his
duties and was in fact standing with his hands in his pockets
watching the spectacle, was leaning rather too far to finish
the last curlicue of pink sugar.
*** This is damn tricky . . . thought Chip, throwing his jalopy
around yet another hairpin while trying to keep the racing
line. He was locked in a third-place tussle with the Toyota.
Takamori was a damn-fine driver, the American conceded grudgingly.
It was not that he took risks so much as that he calculated
everything with superb judgment, and so they jockeyed for
third as they rocketed around the mountain. The road was
metaled but covered in loose rock from numerous falls and
barely wide enough to allow overtaking. Takamori swung in
front, and Chip was obliged to brake hard as they entered
another switchback. The Japanese driver was able to outbrake
him, but Chip, sportingly, never thought to ram him.
In her rearview mirror, Dragana Wolfsteiner had been keeping watch on her pursuer. Her eyes widened in surprise and concern as she saw the bottom section of the Hispano Suiza’s radiator grille flip down and two menacing steel rods shoot forth. They seemed to extend harpoon-like four feet beyond the bumper and were tipped with barbed points. Wolfsteiner swore and wrenched the wheel around, swerving perilously close to the road's edge as the Spaniard lunged forward, intent on impaling her rear bumper. He missed and slipped back a few yards. Wolfsteiner now had to concentrate not only on the vertiginous road conditions but also on the psychotic Spaniard behind her. She floored the accelerator. The road was climbing, becoming steeper, and Wolfsteiner knew what would come up around the next few curves. She had done her homework on this stage: after a few more switchbacks, they would suddenly come upon the twin hazards of the Höllenmund and the Brücke von vielen Unfällen. The first was a long, sweeping curve through a tunnel; the second a narrow bridge over a deep cleft in the mountain side — the photos in her folder had caused Dragana to swallow nervously. She hoped the bridge was currently in better repair than shown. She’d know soon enough . . . *** Both Takamori and Woodward were already rocketing through
the tunnel. The curve was constant, wide, and sweeping and
had the disconcerting effect of luring drivers to accelerate,
increasing both their speed and the centrifugal forces exerted
on their vehicle: Chip was fighting his Chevrolet to keep
from slamming into the wall — but he wasn’t the
only one. Takamori was ice-cold and steely-nerved, but he
was fighting all the way, and Chip was on his offside rear
wheel. He knew soon the tunnel would hurl them both out into
blinding daylight — and then onto the bridge — so
he lowered the tinted lenses over his goggles. Suddenly,
in place of the enclosing walls, they were out into dazzling
light and the clear air of high altitude. Takamori was prepared
and kept his wheels true to the road, and he thundered over
the heavy timbers of the 50-metre bridge.
*** On the lower slopes, Father Scarletti was wheel to wheel with Randolph Thompson-Vickers. The cleric cursed as only a Catholic cardinal can — the Englishman was strict C of E and could not be expected to yield his place to the Mother Church. Scarletti tried a little judicious hubcap shoving. The Nifty Fifty was temporarily dislodged, and Scarletti floored the accelerator. Suddenly, a six-foot length of timber rocketed down from on high to explode in oaken shrapnel in front of his car. The priest stood on his brakes and skidded to a jarring halt, avoiding the hazard but allowing Thompson-Vickers to shoot past. The Englishman touched the rim of his tweed driving cap in mock salute as his did so. Both McLaughlin and Swigger also passed before Scarletti could pick up the pace again. He was now last in the field and climbing into the narrow stage. He ground his teeth and shook his fist at the sky . . . *** Dragana Wolfsteiner had made it to the tunnel. So far, she had evaded her psychotic pursuer, but her success was making the Spaniard more and more reckless, seemingly fixated on taking her out of the race. Wolfsteiner accelerated into the darkness and the wide curve, hotly pursued. Hernandez turned his racing lamps on to full beam, attempting to dazzle his quarry. Wolfsteiner wrenched her rearview mirror aside and sped forward, faster than she should. She had read the file on this stage. This curve was a killer, but she had no choice. Insanely, Hernandez came after her, the harpoons on his racer edging dangerously close to her bumper. Wolfsteiner could not risk swerving on this curve, at this speed — her only hope was to out-accelerate him and hold her nerve. She knew her tyres were good . . . but were they good enough? She had checked her milometer upon entering the tunnel; she checked it again — another quarter mile and they’d be out and at the bridge . . . Hernandez gripped his wheel tightly. It was beginning to vibrate alarmingly, but he nearly had her. He coaxed as much power from his engine as he could: closer . . . closer . . . Wolfsteiner felt the shock of sudden impact as she was rammed, followed by the scream of torn metal as her rear bumper was wrenched away. She was forced to swerve and narrowly avoided being thrown into the tunnel wall, but she held to the road. Her tyres had escaped shredding — this time. The bridge was coming and she prepared herself. Hernandez came on again — he could catch her on this
last curve, just here. He turned his wheel toward her; his
harpoons rubbed the sidewall of her nearside rear wheel.
They left the tunnel together, emerging into the daylight.
Wolfsteiner tore at her wheel to escape the pursuing lunatic
and turned her car onto his, robbing Hernandez of road space.
Cursing, he found himself forced toward the bridge balustrade
. . . which wasn’t there! Unable to brake in time,
his car shot comet-like into the empty air of the ravine.
Wolfsteiner was suddenly aware that her antagonist had disappeared
from her mirrors and glimpsed his car hurtling towards the
opposite slope a hundred feet below. It disappeared with
a horrendous noise into a thick group of pines, dislodging
rock and timber. A cloud of dust and smoke arose from the
site, and a few pebbles and larger loose rocks began to roll
down the slope.
Seamus knew he wasn’t racing at his best. He could hold his drink and had been raised on the family's poteen, but whatever they drank in these parts was not doing him any good at all. He was steering more or less straight — in fact, the racers behind him found it impossible to pass because he was fishtailing so much — but his head was pounding, the sun was too bright, and it affected his vision. Even as he glanced up, it seemed the mountain side was moving, up near those pines beneath the bridge. A few stones bounced across the road and pinged off his bonnet and windscreen. Seamus shook his head to clear it and concentrated on the next curve. Behind him, Harry Swigger and Krysztof Kozhakhmetova were
jockeying for position, more intent on each other and what
was before them than on what was above. They slid around
the increasingly scree-littered roads. Neither could hold
off the other for long. One would advance, then the other:
an even match of speed and skill. The Russian gritted his
teeth: a strange new element was impinging on his senses — a
growing noise that was not mechanical. It was not his engine,
tuned to perfection in the glorious Soviet factories of downtown
Gorky, nor was it the Fairlane of the Australian. An odd,
grinding, tumbling, roaring suggestive of a mountain wave
of stone and — LENIN’S BEARD!!!!! Suddenly the
Fairlane on his left seemed to be lifted and thrown across
his bonnet, taking his racer with it. Something massively
heavy and inexorable slammed into the rear of his car, accelerating
him down the slope, following the tumbling Fairlane, smashing
through the scrubby growth on the slopes below as the avalanche
bore them both along.
*** Takamori was first on the scene. He had spotted the avalanche and raced to catch it. He pulled up across the road to halt the following traffic, then sprinted into the billowing clouds of dust and the two wrecked cars, half-buried within. Kozhakhmetova came to. He was on his back, and the cab of his car was gone, as though peeled by a giant with a tin opener. He was suddenly, shockingly aware of a pain in both legs; looking down, he saw a timber beam across his knees. His legs did not appear to be broken but he could not move . . . and then he smelt the petrol and knew the danger he was in. He began to shove desperately, trying to lift the spar, but his position and injuries had left him too weak and he was unable to do it. Then he heard running feet: he thought he saw Wolfsteiner, the Catholic priest, and Thompson-Vickers sprint past. The Russian tried to call out but choked on the dust. Then a shadow fell across him. "Do not move," said
a calm but authoritative voice. Placing a reassuring hand
carefully on the trapped man’s shoulder, Takamori studied
the situation carefully.
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