Eye of the Cobra (10 page)

Bruce relaxed. Perhaps Phelps had relented on the other matter.

‘Bruce, we’re on the same side,’ Phelps said quietly, but with a distinct edge in his voice. ‘Let’s get one thing straight, buster. Without my sponsorship, you’re dead.’

At that moment Bruce wanted to smash his fist into Jack’s nose. The trouble was that Phelps could break him.

Bruce breathed in deeply and looked down at his hands - cracked and dirty, though he hadn’t worked on a car for years. He thought about how he’d fought to get where he was. He thought of the vineyard, of the sun setting over the mountains and his father irate because he’d spent his weekend racing cars and not supervising the pruning of the vines. There was a time for losing one’s rag and a time for holding on to it.

‘All right, man. What do you want?’

‘That’s better, Bruce. I knew you’d come round to my way of thinking. Now, I can’t have you talking to Zenith about tyres . . .’

Phelps turned away from him and stared down the long straight. There was something in his attitude that told Bruce that the full punch was still to be delivered.

‘I own Carvalho tyres,’ Phelps said. ‘I want them on our cars, and Aito agrees with me.’

Bruce didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ve done my research. Zenith are the only choice with Mickey’s chassis - if you want to win.’

‘Carvalho have the best technical people in the world. I employed them.’

‘Last year. They haven’t had a chance to develop any new tyres yet. What will you say when we don’t win because of the tyres?’

‘Cool it, Bruce. You’ve got a chance here to develop your own tyres in complete secrecy. Almost everyone who raced last year used Zeniths, and this year it’s going to be the same. Don’t you see the advantages of what I’ve arranged? You’re Carvalho’s only customer.’

Bruce dug his hands into his pockets, desperately trying to control his temper.

‘The tyres come direct to you,’ Phelps went on. ‘As many as you like for each race, not a set amount.’

He had to agree with what Phelps was saying. He just didn’t like being dictated to.

‘All right, we’ll use Carvalho tyres. But I want to do extensive pre-testing. And if they’re not good enough, we’ll have to look for an alternative.’

Phelps pursed his lips, then relaxed. He scratched behind his right earlobe and avoided Bruce’s eyes. ‘Now let’s talk drivers,’ he said.

Phelps was going through every area of the operation. Of course, he had a right to, it was just very, very irritating.

They walked over to the pits. Bruce pulled himself up onto the concrete side-wall and sat upright, staring down at Phelps.

‘Drivers?’

Phelps nodded, pulled out a cigar and trimmed it with a silver cutter. He lit up, blowing smoke in Bruce’s direction.

‘Sartori is going to stay,’ Bruce said.

‘That’s very generous of him, for twenty million dollars.’

‘He was your choice, Jack. You can’t bargain with a man like Sartori. He’s an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. He knows we need him more than he needs us.’

Phelps contemplated the glowing end of his cigar. ‘And your number two driver?’

‘Johan Claus.’

‘He finished fourth in this year’s season?’

‘Correct. An excellent driver, precise and controlled. The ideal second man.’

‘Hardly a glamour-boy.’

‘And just what’s that supposed to mean?’

Bruce was losing his cool again, and he knew that this was a mistake. If he allowed Phelps to get to him now, it would affect him for the whole season.

‘Listen,’ Phelps said. ‘I buy Sartori. But Claus! Come off it. That’d give us two egoists. You know Sartori’s attitude to commercial appearances; he’s an old-style driver, and that means he does as little work as possible off the track. He’s not into the promotional side - he doesn’t understand its importance. Now, you may think I’m being difficult but let me again emphasise that what we’re talking about here is sponsorship. Everything is paid for here because two people, myself and Aito Shensu, believe that this little effort can substantially enrich us.’

‘Winning will put you on all the front pages.’

‘Yes, but don’t you understand, Bruce? People don’t just want to see machines coming in first, they want to see the men who are doing the driving. Personalities. Claus comes across with as much pizzazz as a Nazi storm-trooper. The public want a man they can relate to, like Jackie Stewart. Now Shensu has the final say on the second driver and he doesn’t want Claus. He’s actually thinking of someone the Japanese people can relate to.’

Bruce got down from the concrete side-wall where he’d been sitting. The American was nearly a foot taller than he was - and he’d got him by the balls. He couldn’t argue, not after he’d accepted the Sartori deal. And he was still worried about the design of the Shadow, she might just be pushing a little too far against the regulations.

‘Claus is one hell of a driver,’ Bruce said, ‘even if his personality isn’t to everyone’s liking.’

‘Listen, people were actually jeering last year when he led the field at Monaco for the first three laps. That guy isn’t going to sell Shensu cars or my cigarettes - if anything, he’s going to put people off them. From what I hear Johan hates product endorsements.’

Bruce breathed in deeply a few times. ‘So I’ve got a problem. Drivers don’t just fall out of trees. Money can bring them in, but only a certain amount of the way. Everybody’s signed up for 1991, and to get another top-rated driver is going to be a bastard. Once the announcement gets out about Sartori, everyone’s going to be watching us. To be honest, Claus is about the only choice I have.’

‘Shensu is no fool. He wants to win as much as you do, if not more. But he doesn’t need a big-name driver, he just wants a potential champion.’

Bruce wondered if he was hearing straight. It was almost unheard of for a driver to stand a chance in the championship if he didn’t have a track record.

‘So I suppose you told Shensu to make his choice from the top Formula 3000 drivers?’

‘No, Shensu will make his own choice. I want you to think some more about it. We need someone who’s showing promise.’

Bruce squared up to face Phelps. If he gave in on this he’d be on a losing ticket for the rest of the season.

‘To take an unranked driver would mean that we’d only have one chance of winning, and that would be Sartori.’

‘Listen to me straight, Bruce. Shensu also wants someone who is acceptable to the Japanese people.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! A Japanese driver!’

‘I feel our conversation is at an end. Either you agree to work with me on this or you’re out.’

‘You can’t do this to me.’

Phelps moved in close to him, and Bruce smelt his expen
sive after-shave. ‘Without Shensu we’re going nowhere. Understand?’

‘
Ja
. I’ve got no fucking choice.’

‘You can always pull out. I’m going now. If I don’t hear from you . . . Well, I’ll know you’ve decided to co-operate.’

De Villiers watched Phelps’s back as the man walked calmly off the track. He wanted to run after him, wind him one in the

side of the jaw and then kick him in the balls. However, age had given him wisdom.

He walked back to his office and looked through the driver file.

Wyatt had been on the phone since early that morning. There was no way he was going to give up, but as each conversation turned out to be negative, he felt himself growing more and more despondent.

A season in Formula
3000? It wasn’t what he wanted at all. He had nothing to prove in that arena. He’d been in Formula One for only a year: that was where he had to prove himself.

Each year out of Formula One would be a year lost. It was a race against his age more than anything else. He knew that there were a lot of other contenders for a seat in a Formula One car, coming up through the ranks in Formula 3 and Formula 3000.

At eleven thirty he put the phone down, having called Ferrari headquarters and got yet another negative response. Almost as the phone hit the receiver it started to ring. He picked it up angrily.

‘Chase.’

‘Hallo, Wyatt.’

Then he recognised Bruce de Villiers’ voice with its flat South African vowels.

‘Yes?’

‘I suppose you think I’m about to give you some advice?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, you’re wrong. One of our sponsors would like to talk to you.’

He felt his spirits soar. ‘When and where?’

‘In Tokyo. He said you’d know where.’

The coldness began to creep over him. ‘Aito Shensu?’

‘That’s correct. You know him?’

He could not escape the past. He had to come to terms with it, just as he had to accept his part in his father’s death.

‘Is there a problem, Wyatt? The tickets are waiting for you at Heathrow. He said you’d know where to stay in Tokyo.’

‘I want to think about this . . .’

‘Wyatt, I told you that you only get one chance in Formula One. Now you’ve got a second one. Take it.’

The first-class cabin was almost empty, leaving him alone with his thoughts. He’d said he’d never come back, and now here he was returning. He remembered this same flight ten years before. Then he’d been at the back, crushed in amongst the tourists and lower-echelon businessmen. He had been as alone as he was now.

Then he’d been seventeen. He’d come back from Yosemite knowing what he had to do. It had been only a few weeks after the accident in Monaco, after his father’s death. He remembered that Estelle had refused to speak to him. She had blamed him for the accident - of which he could remember nothing. They’d both loved his father, each in their own different ways. And there was nothing to fill the void after he’d died.

Yes, those times, ten years ago, seemed as if they were yesterday.

It had been in the London
dojo,
in the karate class, that he lost himself in the controlled moves of the martial art. He had pushed himself hard, because it was during the class that he forgot about what had happened. And in that forgetting he found freedom.

At seventeen he already had his b
lack belt. In the free-fighting competitions six months before the Monaco accident, he had caught the attention of the
Shihan,
the chief instructor who was out on a tour from Japan. Wyatt had been invited to travel to Japan with six other
karate-ka,
the youngest six years older than himself. At the time he had turned the invitation down, but after the accident in Monaco he decided to give up driving and accept it. He had known even then that the experience would be an escape from the hell he was enduring. A week later he had been on a plane with the six others, bound for Tokyo.

Then he had been apprehensive, uncertain. He’d had no idea of what to expect or of how he would survive. He had felt apart from the group of six who travelled with him, both in age and experience.

So, ten years ago, the plane had landed at Narita airport on a grey, overcast day. They had milled around the arrivals hall, waiting to be met. But there had been no one there to meet them, so they had walked outside. A small van was standing next to the kerb and the driver hooted when he saw them. He gestured for them to climb into the back.

They were in a strange city, heading for an unknown destination. Eventually they had been dropped outside the
dojo,
and their driver disappeared without a word. Unsure of what was happening, they watched the last of the
karate-ka
leave. Then the
Shihan
stepped from the
dojo
and welcomed them inside. Wyatt remembered how rustic the place seemed, how primitive. Just a simple wooden building.

The place was virtually bare except for the
tatami
mats on the floor, and pairs of padded quilts - futons, but totally unlike what passed in England for futons. Here there was one for warmth, one to lie on.

Wyatt could sense the shock they all felt, but for him there was no disappointment. He enjoyed the harshness and the rigour of the
dojo -
it helped him to forget the past.

Japan. There he had come so far and been given so much. Why had he walked away from it all? That was a question that reverberated around his head now, as the Boeing 747 began its approach to Narita airport. The wheel had turned full circle, and now he was being drawn towards the culture he had tried to escape.

The plane landed smoothly, and he disembarked with his small kit-bag. Apart from that he had nothing. Outside the airport, the truck was waiting. He bounded into the back and relaxed, watching the lights flashing past in the darkness. They were all so familiar, the landmarks - the measured expanse of land around the Emperor’s Palace, the illuminated Tokyo Tower, as elegant as ever. He felt that Tokyo breathed the life back into him. He found the place intoxicating, fascinating, because it was so unlike his own country and yet felt like a place that had always been part of him. For Wyatt, it could not be compared to any other place in the world.