Eye of the Cobra (15 page)

Susanna had been working on a drawing in her bedroom, but immediately switched off her light. She heard his feet falling heavily on the floor, and waited to hear the noise of the mattress springs in the next room as he collapsed into a drunken stupor.

Instead she heard the handle of the door to her room being turned, then the light was switched on. Her father closed the door behind him and locked it. She pretended to be asleep, and smelt the schnapps on his breath.

‘Hallo, Susanna.’

He shook her so that she had to open her eyes. He was staring at her fondly.

‘Kiss your father goodnight.’

She rose up and kissed him. He held her, and pushed his tongue into her mouth. He kept on kissing her and enveloped her in his arms. Obviously, she thought, he felt guilty about the way he had been treating her.

She felt his hand come up between her legs and start stroking her pubic hair. She shivered involuntarily.

‘You’re almost a grown woman now . . .’

‘Please, father. I want to go to sleep.’

‘I must teach you how to please a man.’

He pulled her hands down behind her back and with his other hand unzipped his trousers. There was a masculine smell now, and she stared down to see his erection.

She tried to struggle free, and he became angry. He ripped off her nightdress and began to fondle her breasts. He put his mouth to them and licked them. Desperately she tried to kick out with her legs, but he leant on her with his full weight so that she was powerless.

‘You’re not going to lose it gracefully, are you?’

She screamed as he forced her legs apart. He laughed. She closed her eyes as he penetrated her. It was worse than any nightmare. All she could do was cry.

It was the beginning of a bizarre relationship that had lasted over a year. She felt she couldn’t talk to anyone about it, especially not her mother. Susanna was torn between the guilt and the longing.

Then one night, when she was lying in her father’s arms, there was banging on her door. She heard her mother’s voice.

‘Ludwig, what are you doing with her?’

The banging intensified, and he got up from the bed, his face red with rage.

‘Shut up, you bitch!’

He unlocked the door and her mother burst into the room. She stared at Susanna, naked on the bed.

‘What have you done?’

He hit her hard, and Susanna screamed out again as her mother collapsed on the floor.

Her father climbed back on the bed and forced her legs apart again. ‘Come on. Show your mother what we do together.’

She closed her eyes tight and heard the sound of breaking glass. Her father collapsed on top of her, bits of glass falling everywhere.

When she opened her eyes she saw her mother holding the neck of a broken bottle. Her father’s body rolled off her and fell heavily onto the floor, and her mother gathered her in her arms, sobbing.

‘You must get away from here!’

She had stared silently at her mother, hardly compre
hending.

‘Come,’ her mother said, ‘I have some money saved for you.’

Her mother watched as Susanna dressed quietly, then packed her few clothes into a small suitcase.

‘Don’t come back, Susanna. Don’t write. Just get away from here . . .’

The rain was drumming hard against the windows of the car, a truck was coming straight for her. Suzie pulled the wheel over hard, breaking out into a cold sweat. How long had she been driving like that, thinking of the past?

She composed herself. She wished she could wipe that time from her mind, but it would never go away. There had been men in her life but never love. Sex was merely a physical act, a momentary pleasure.

She concentrated on the road ahead. She was going to make a success of the Calibre-Shensu sponsorship. She was determined to succeed at it, as she had at everything she had ever done - except at love.

And she liked the idea of calling herself Suzie. It was one step further away from the past.

Wyatt jogged slowly round the test circuit in the early morning light. Today he would drive the Shensu Shadow for the first time. He knew the circuit intimately - the exact nuance of every curve, and the straights where he could coax the car to go a little faster, a little more smoothly.

It was vital for him to be fit. He needed to keep his weight as low as possible and his reaction times razor-sharp. He alternated between slow jogging and fast sprinting. He liked the silence of the track in the early morning, the dew on the grass, the freshness of the air.

He sprinted down the straight and then relaxed into a jog as he approached the esses. In the distance he caught sight of someone in a black tracksuit and immediately upped his pace. Perhaps it was someone snooping around. Other teams were always anxious to catch up on the opposition’s secrets.

The figure drew closer. Very athletic, the man was a natural runner. The proportions seemed almost feminine, though; perhaps the backside was a little too curved.

It was only as he drew level with the runner that he realised it was a woman, a very attractive woman. He gestured for her to stop. Instead, she increased her pace. He knew he could outrun her, it was just a question of wearing her down, so he kept level with her until she finally stopped sprinting at the next curve.

‘Leave me alone,’ she said in a German accent that seemed vaguely familiar.

Her blue eyes flashed angrily, and her features were thrown into relief by her blonde hair swept back in a long pony-tail.

‘This is private property,’ he said.

‘I know. I like to run on my own. Privately.’

‘Who are you?’

The face was so perfect, he was almost driven to kiss it. She frowned, facing him squarely, and he admired the athletic stance of her body, the firm breasts pushing hard against the thin material of her tracksuit.

‘My name is Susanna von Falkenhyn,’ she said.

‘Haven’t we met somewhere before?’

Her face coloured at the memory. She crossed her arms, holding her shoulders with her hands, but he took the hands and gently pulled her arms apart, drawing her close to him.

‘You bastard,’ she murmured.

He kissed her, and her body softened. Her arms wrapped round his back and he felt himself swimming in the warmth of her sensuality.

‘Last time,’ she said, ‘I think I made it a little too easy for you. This time I want to get to know you better.’

He relaxed his arms around her. She sighed, her breath turning to vapour.

He felt scared. He never lost control like that. It went against all his training.

‘I only started work today,’ she said. ‘What do you do here?’

She started to run again and he kept pace with her, still talking. ‘I’m Wyatt Chase.’

She stopped and stared at him. ‘We’re going to be working together,’ she said.

‘You own Zen?’ He felt his perspective changing. He had read about this woman, was fascinated by her interest in Eastern culture. ‘You’ll be handling all our promotional work?’

‘Everything will be a statement. Your clothes, the colours and logos on the Shensu Shadow, all the publicity material and the way we present ourselves to the public.’

Wyatt’s eyes widened. ‘Bruce agreed to this?’

She nodded.

‘But whose idea was it?’

‘Mine and Jack Phelps’s.’

At seven o’clock a big motorcycle roared up in front of the Calibre-Shensu headquarters. It was a unique machine, modified for higher performance and handling. Mickey Dunstal rode without a helmet, his long blond hair in a neatly plaited pony-tail. The infectious grin behind the curling beard indicated that he was as excited as the rest of the team.

He spent a few minutes discussing some details with Bruce, then turned to Wyatt.

‘Ready?’

Wyatt nodded.

The sun was up now, casting a pale, warm light across the vegetation around the track. There was a freshness in the air, and the horizon was bright blue, with a few distant clouds.

Wyatt followed Bruce and Mickey into the workshop bay in the pits. The Shensu Shadow
was hidden under a white dust-cloth, standing in the middle of the big room, the rays of early morning sunlight falling down on her.

Even covered up, she had the air of a predator. She was his weapon for the year, Wyatt thought; with her he’d fight it out with the other drivers and machines in a dangerous war of attrition and nerves.

Wyatt changed into his racing gear, pulling on the layer of Nomex fire-proof clothing and balaclava helmet that would protect him from the immediate effects of burning if the car crashed or blew up.

With one energetic tug Mickey pulled off the dust-cloth. Wyatt stared at the Shensu Shadow in rapt surprise. Her body was an ominous black, and she was flatter and wider than the Formula One car he’d driven over the past year. He could tell he’d easily fit into the cockpit, instea
d of being cramped. Formula One cars were generally designed for much smaller men than him.

He stared at the steering-wheel and the selector switch that actuated the gears on the electronically controlled gearbox. He walked around her, and had to admit he was taken aback. Somehow Dunstal had managed to overcome the FISA dic
tates of shape and produce a car that was truly and originally forbidding. The front - the wide shark-like nose - was the best part of all. The anhedral wings were neatly sculpted in beneath the nose, and at the back the pods that would add to the downforce looked like giant extraction-pipes.

‘She’s beautiful - like a jaguar,’ Wyatt said quietly.

Mickey was close to her now, examining the engine placement.

‘I’m pleased with her line, but it’s her performance that’ll really knock yer down.’

He lifted the light cowelling to reveal the Shensu V12 engine, a mass of injection-pipes, coolers and electrical equipment. ‘Five valves per cylinder, each actuated by compressed air,’ Mickey continued reverently.

Wyatt eased himself into the cockpit as the pit crew took the tyres from the warmers and the wheel-on men attached them onto the car with pneumatic spanners. The pneumatic starter was pushed into the air-hole at the back of the engine and it roared into life with a deafening wail. Wyatt felt the excitement coursing through his body as he dabbed the throttle, listening to the engine respond with a feline growl. One of the pit crew rolled up the garage doors that led onto the pit-lane.

As Wyatt was slipping on his helmet, Mickey leant over the cockpit.

‘The lower profile will make her devastatingly quick round the corners. Be careful - she’s different to anything you’ll have driven before. It’s up to you now, Wyatt.’

Wyatt was lying further back than usual, but he felt very comfortable. That was important. He was about the biggest driver in Formula One and it was hard to find any car that would accommodate him.

This was perhaps the most important moment of his life. If the car wasn’t up to his standard he would spent a season of frustration and heartbreak on the circuits.

His foot touched the accelerator pedal and the engine erupted with a deafening snarl - the tacho needle shot up to ten thousand. Impressive, on such a cold engine. The sound - strong and enveloping - was also extremely enervating.

He engaged first, shot out from the pits and onto the track. Glancing at the digital gauges, he saw oil and water tempera
tures were exactly right. In response, he raised his hand to indicate to the pit crew that everything was functioning perfectly.

He took her lazily down the main straight and into the esses. She responded well, bedding down nicely through the bends, feeling very positive.

As Wyatt continued his first test lap he could feel the excitement building inside him. He had never driven a machine that felt as positive as this. She demanded to be driven hard and fast. His heart was beating fast as the temperature gauges indicated that the engine was now ready to be opened up.

At first, he thought of taking it carefully, but then de Villiers’ words came back into his mind. He could hear them quite clearly, as if Bruce were next to him. ‘Don’t go easy on her. There are too many other good drivers. You must push her to the limit.’

He pressed down hard on the accelerator, the revs shot past 13000 and the engine screamed out a high-pitched wail. Wyatt was forced hard back into his seat as he passed 160 mph in under eight seconds.

Now he was living, the world passing him by in a vivid assembly of colours and images as he came to the end of the straight and pulled the car hard over to take the first corner in a perfect line. She was rock-solid - he couldn’t believe it.

Into the next curve, laying down the power and pushing her to the absolute limit. Just as he felt her breaking away, he backed off the power and thundered into the next bend.

She was a driver’s car, feeding him the information he needed through the fluctuations in the chassis. As he rounded the final corner back into the main straight, he realised he hadn’t explored the limits of the engine’s potential.

He rocketed down the straight and saw Dunstal with another figure next to him. Obviously they were timing him. Sartori held the lap record for the circuit with a time of 2.566 minutes, achieved in the previous season.

Wyatt pushed her hard throu
gh the corners, close to breaking-point, the engine screaming. He knew what he was up against - Sartori was one of the quickest drivers through the curves, and this circuit was all curves. But Wyatt knew the track better than Sartori ever would. This was the track his father had taught him to race on. Wyatt could almost drive around it with his eyes closed - he didn’t have to think, he just went on instinct.

The main straight came up again quickly, and he shot down it at over 150 mph. He had never approached the last bend as fast before.

He glanced up at the speedo and saw the needle lick over 200 mph as the bends came up again. He didn’t just like this car, he loved her. Though the thought of going eighty laps in her was faintly terrifying. She was so fast, so agile. She demanded to be driven hard.

At the end of the next lap he steered her into the pits. De Villiers would want to examine the car closely, to pick up any faults.

Mickey was up and shaking his hand. He pulled off his helmet and fire-protective balaclava. The air cooled the sweat off his face. He felt bruised and exhausted.

‘You did it, Wyatt!’

‘What?’

‘You broke the lap record by two seconds!’

He felt exhilarated. For the first time he was driving a Formula One car that was competitive.

‘You’re a genius, Mickey. She handles like a dream.’

Mickey ran his eyes over the Shadow. ‘Yer goin’ to have to keep pushing her, lap after lap as if yer were racin’. We have to prove that she can handle the strain of a race, especially the engine and the automatic box. The lads from Shensu want to strip her after she’s done a genuine eighty laps. Now tell me, how’re those focking tyres?’

Wyatt stared down at the tyres. He knew Mickey’s and

Bruce’s concerns, but as far as he was concerned the Carvalhos were good - they’d proved pretty sticky.

Dr Jorge da Silva, the head of Carvalho’s research and development team, stepped forward. A short, distinguished- looking man, he ignored Mickey.

‘We’ll change the tyres every ten laps. Each set has a slightly different compound - just tell us which gives you the best handling.’

Mickey was about to say something to Dr da Silva but Bruce punched him gently on the shoulder. ‘Easy, Mickey, Wyatt’s not unhappy with the tyres.’

The Irishman shrugged his shoulders and went over to Professor Katana to discuss some technical matters.

Bruce pumped Wyatt’s hand. ‘Keep that up, and you’ll be at the front of the grid for the whole season. We’ll continue testing this afternoon.’