Eye of the Cobra (3 page)

Her hands jammed hard into the crack and she yanked herself forwards, her body shaking with fear and pain. He started to pull the rope in.

‘Please, more . . .’

The rope stopped moving in when she hesitated. So she fought on, every muscle in her body screaming as she moved along the crack, inching her way towards him.

The pain had reached a level almost beyond enduring when she felt his hand grab hers and yank her across him. She smelt the animal smell of his body. He clipped her into the belay at the edge of the overhang and climbed up the last easy section to the summit.

She regained her strength and followed. He said nothing as she pulled up onto the rock slab. She staggered up and onto her feet, and raised her hand to slap him across the face.

‘You bastard.’

He gripped her hand before it struck, and pulled her towards him. She struggled, excitement rising. Then her lips found his and she clung to him as he peeled the climbing-skin off her.

She lay back against the cold rock and felt him rise up inside her and screamed out with the sheer ecstasy of it. At last. At last a man who would dominate her and possess her. At last a man who would make her feel like a woman.

He held her against him as the last rays of sunshine covered the rock face.

Enough. Enough.

He would not need to climb again, he knew that. He would sink himself into the discipline that karate demanded. He would train long and hard, punishing his body, driving the agony from his mind.

But this German girl. She was different, he needed her for this moment. He drank in the cool night air and looked down into the valley in the moonlight.

He was in love with danger - only when he took risks did the guilt go away and Estelle’s voice stop echoing round his head.

He turned away from the broken rock of the summit, and they dressed quickly, then began to work their way down into the valley. He felt the tiredness in his limbs, but most of all he felt the elation that came from knowing where he had to go and what he had to do.

1991

January

Amersham, Buckinghamshire and London

Danny Chase pulled himself up in the bed and leaned back on the pillows. Next to him, on a flexible arm, was a personal computer, and on the screen was the latest Reuters financial report. He punched in a few commands, studied the figures on the screen and groaned. Yet another investment that wasn’t working out - why couldn’t he get it right for once?

His body was in good shape, he’d made sure of that. At fifty-five, he took satisfaction in knowing that he had the physique of a man half his age.

She came in with a tray laden with toast, tea, orange juice and scrambled eggs. She had nothing on beneath the thin cotton dressing-gown, and this wiped the earlier thoughts from his head.

‘Good morning, darling.’

She sat down beside him, rested the tray on the edge of the double bed and poured him a cup of tea. He took it from her gratefully, sipped it slowly, staring at her breasts. They were small and firm, the way he liked them best.

She sensed his mood and let the dressing-gown fall from her shoulders, glancing at herself in the mirror that ran the length of the opposite wall. They’d met in the gymnasium, gone out for a few weeks, and then she’d invited him back to her house.

Already he could sense she was losing interest. It was always the bloody same: he couldn’t hold them. The problem, he guessed, was that women saw through him, saw the weakness. He ended up wanting them more than they wanted him, and the moment they sensed his desperation he was finished.

He stared at his own reflection. His hairless upper body, topped by an elegant head, looked like a statue of Julius
Caesar. His dark curly hair, tinged with grey, clung to his scalp. The face had many lines, especially around the eyes. He could see the bitterness there - and the weakness.

She bent down and began to caress him with her lips. It felt very good. He was hard now, and he grabbed her hair. She let out a moan, and he pushed her face into the pillow and raised himself up, above her pear-shaped buttocks.

‘Please, Danny . . .’

The buttocks rose provocatively and he penetrated her smoothly, cupping her breasts in his hands. It was good. He watched himself in the mirror, shafting her, while the perspir
ation dripped from her face. Then the dullness came - the thing he feared most. He let out a sigh of passion. She must never know.

He lifted himself up and turned her over, sinking his face into the moistness of her crotch. Her scream of release taunted him, reminding him that he had not come.

Later they relaxed in the steam-room, and he watched the moisture on her body as she dozed beside him. The control he had over this beautiful creature gave him immense pleasure - but she would start drifting away from him, he was certain of that. If only he could hold a woman, as James had held Estelle.

When James died, he’d taken Estelle and Wyatt under his wing, tried to help them. But Wyatt had gone off to Japan and Estelle had met Carlos. The family had disintegrated. He’d managed Chase Racing alone for the last ten years, knowing that eventually Wyatt would come back. And he had, last year, and Danny had given Wyatt the number two drive in the team, hoping it would bring them closer together. But they’d argued, because Wyatt had dared to criticise Danny’s manage
ment skills.

In moments of honesty, like now, Danny had to admit to himself that he couldn’t run the team like James. He hadn’t got James’s ability to motivate people, and he constantly failed to get the team working together. True, Reg Tillson had hung in with him, but Reg wasn’t enough to carry the team, and now his number one driver, Ricardo Sartori, was threatening to ditch Chase Racing in favour of a more successful Formula
One team. And Ricardo held their major sponsor, Carvalho tyres, in the palm of his hand: it was Ricardo they were backing, not Chase Racing.

Danny felt moisture on his palms. He was in deep financial trouble already, and Ricardo’s departure, taking Carvalho with him, would break him.

He knew Wyatt had the talent to win. He’d tried to help his nephew, but everything had gone wrong that season.

Julia got up, kissed him on the cheek and went out, and Danny sank back against the wall and thought back to James winning the Monaco Grand Prix ten years before. He remem
bered the crowd cheering James as he stepped on the podium, and the kinship he had felt with his brother. James had always been there for him; whenever there was a problem, James had known what to do. Now, nothing went right. Last season Wyatt hadn’t even qualified for a place on the grid at Monaco - the engine and the chassis had given constant trouble.

Perhaps, just perhaps, in the coming season he could give his nephew the machine he needed to win.

He stepped out of the steam-room and towelled himself dry. Then he flipped through the paper, turning as usual to the business pages. He studied the analysis of the previous day’s activity on the stock exchange, then looked at the rest of the paper. On the second page from the back a headline caught his eye.

‘Chase Quits Chase.’ He muttered the words slowly to himself, hating the trite phraseology. He stared at the picture accompanying the story, reread the article carefully and then folded up the paper.

‘Julia. Please, get me the phone!’

Danny waited in the oak-panelled boardroom of Chase Racing, scarcely able to contain his despair. He breathed in deeply and looked proudly at the pictures of himself and James in the early seventies. James had been a brilliant driver, and Danny knew Wyatt could be the same. Just one more season together and they could do it. And he needed Wyatt, not just as a driver, but as support. He’d given his nephew a tremendous break - letting him drive in Formula One even though he hadn’t worked his way up the ranks - and now Wyatt had kicked him in the teeth. Wyatt had to see reason.

He looked at the framed portrait of James on the wall and decided he would appeal to Wyatt’s loyalty. Wyatt couldn’t desert Chase Racing, it was a family business; Danny owned half the equity and Estelle and Wyatt a quarter each. But he had never told Wyatt or Estelle about his financial difficulties; how, raising money against his share in the company, he had speculated in supermarkets and property - and done very badly.

He had been elated when Wyatt returned from his ten-year sojourn in Japan, eager to begin racing again. He’d certainly proved his ability - winning the Spanish Grand Prix the previous season - and Danny had reasoned that with Wyatt he could pull more sponsors. But the people he approached had been sceptical about the twenty-seven-year-old with no track record. They preferred to back young drivers who’d proved themselves in Formula 3000, they said. They argued that Wyatt’s Spanish victory had been a matter of luck and not skill.

Danny was surprised Wyatt hadn’t burned himself out - it had been a frustrating season for him. But instead it seemed he had more energy for racing than ever before. Dany knew that part of the problem with Wyatt was that he’d had to let Ricardo Sartori, the Formula One veteran and former world champion, drive the better of the cars. But that, and the ludicrously high fee he was paid, was the only reason Sartori stayed with the team. It was some sort of miracle that he was driving for them at all. Danny guessed that in his late thirties, money was more important to Ricardo than anything else.

Of course Danny had wanted Wyatt to win. Thank God the car had lasted at least one race to give him a first place. But he couldn’t give Wyatt the best engines or the best chassis - those were kept exclusively for Ricardo. Wyatt’s machine was basically two years out of date and constantly breaking down . . .

The door to the boardroom opened and closed softly, and his nephew was standing in front of him. Danny shifted back in his chair, avoiding Wyatt’s dark eyes. Wyatt was taller and leaner than he was.

‘Sit down, Wyatt, I want to talk.’

Wyatt slid easily into one of the chairs at the far end of the table. Every movement was precise yet subtle, reminding Danny of James. He looked across at Wyatt’s enormous, calloused hands and thought, not for the first time, how much dedication it must have taken for his nephew to become the youngest Westerner ever to receive the Seventh Dan.

He could sense from Wyatt’s stern expression that he wasn’t going to be easily swayed from his decision. The dark hair was as unruly as the man, and his eyebrows were knotted in concentration. He was wearing his customary black windcheater and jeans.

Wyatt said nothing, forcing Danny to begin.

‘I read the paper,’ Danny said.

Wyatt arched his eyebrows.

‘You’re telling me you’re surprised I’m leaving?’ His rich, deep voice was heavy with sarcasm, his contempt for his uncle thinly veiled.

‘You could have talked to me first, instead of smearing it all over the national dailies. I tried, dammit. You could at least have talked to me!’

‘There’s nothing to talk about. You’ve let me down - again and again and again! I would have qualified at Monaco if the bloody suspension hadn’t collapsed.’

‘Don’t be a fool, Wyatt. I didn’t have the resources. I had to put more into Sartori’s machine - Carvalho insisted on it.’

‘I’m not interested in your bullshit. My car was a dog.’

Danny felt the hairs lifting on the back of his neck.

‘After all I’ve done for you . . . Look, I’ll ignore your insults. Let’s give it one more chance. It could be just like the old days with your father.’

‘That’s rich. He was the one who made the team a success. He carried you.’

Danny smashed his fist hard down on the table.

‘You bastard!’

Wyatt remained calm. ‘I don’t have to take your bullshit any longer. I want out. I’ve negotiated a deal to buy myself into a new French team.’

Danny went white. ‘You don’t mean you want to sell your share of Chase?’

‘Of course I want to bloody sell. The money’ll buy me a decent drive. I’m not putting up with your incompetence any longer.’

‘But Wyatt, your father and I built up the business . . .’

‘Danny, I want to sell.’

Danny went over to the wall-safe and fiddled with the combination. He swung back the door, nervously pulled out the document and handed it to Wyatt, who quickly ran his eyes over it.

‘Why didn’t you tell me my mother owned a quarter of the team?’

‘I thought you knew.’

Danny’s surprise wasn’t faked.

Wyatt smiled stiffly. ‘I thought I had fifty per cent of it. Anyway, just pay me out.’

‘It’ll take a month or so. I’ll have to call in the auditors to work out the precise value of your shares.’

He had to buy time, that was all there was to it. Danny leaned forward across his desk, trying to look relaxed. Perhaps he could still find another sponsor and then persuade Wyatt to reconsider his decision.

‘Look, if you should change your mind . . .’

‘Danny. I just want my money. And I want it fast.’

Wyatt got up, walked out and slammed the door behind him.

After days of anguish Danny felt the tide of events was finally turning in his favour.

When Jack Phelps first approached him, he’d thought it was for old time’s sake. Phelps had asked him how the business was doing, and Danny made out he had plenty of money and had only kept Chase Racing so that Wyatt could have a drive - though now, of course, Wyatt was leaving.

But Phelps had another agenda. He said he wanted to get involved in Formula One again, that he would sponsor the team. Danny had felt his spirits soar. He had always realised the strategic value of Chase Racing to anyone who wanted to get into Formula One in a hurry. James had built the company up out of love for the sport, but it had been very different in those days - not so much money and a far more select group of people involved. Now Formula One was an international business, ruthlessly competitive, with stiff rules and codes of conduct.

Danny knew Phelps had become incredibly wealthy. It was only logical that the American should want to resume his sponsorship of the team, a sponsorship that had lapsed after James’s death. Danny knew Phelps would pump in the funds, just as he had in the past. And Phelps wouldn’t monopolise the sponsorship - Danny had just negotiated a deal with Ricardo Sartori that included the Carvalho sponsorship. He knew that with a better car and big enough backing, Sartori could quite easily win the world championship again.

Danny had told no one of the possibility of Phelps becoming involved again. He wanted to keep it as a surprise, and anyway, he didn’t want any of the other Formula One teams to know that Phelps was interested in sponsoring a team.

His secretary’s discreet knock on the door told him that Phelps had arrived. He would hold the discussions in the boardroom. He fastened the inner button of his double- breasted jacket and walked smartly to the door. Now for some hard bargaining.

Jack Phelps leaned back and stretched his arms as Danny Chase finished his presentation. Good old Danny, the same weak-willed jerk James had carried all those years before.

Jack had done his homework - he knew Chase Racing was a disaster-story. But of course, the potential was there: Chase Racing had its own test circuit just outside London, and plenty of good equipment. Jack wanted to move in, strip out the weaker layers of management and take control. Chase Racing was exactly the way he’d hoped to find it - run down and deep in debt. Besides, he had sentimental reasons for screwing the Chases. He and James Chase had been good partners in the sixties . . . then James had got too clever for his own good . . . After James’s death Jack had lost interest in the team - his other businesses had taken all his energy.