Eye of the Cobra (40 page)

He guided Aito into Bruce’s car, and the rest of the Shensu team bundled into the Shensu luxury bus parked behind it. Inside the comfortable confines of Bruce’s Aston-Martin,
Aito braced himself for the attack that he knew was coming. Bruce was red-faced and angry.

‘What’s this about Ibuka? Why wasn’t I bloody consulted? You and Phelps had no fucking right to make that decision. Just like the time you didn’t fucking listen when I said we were coasting a thin line with FISA on the design of the Shadow!’

‘Bruce, please relax. Jack told me that you haven’t been looking for a second driver.’

Bruce breathed in deeply. He was far too emotional about the whole business.

‘All right, Aito, that’s true. I’ve been more concerned about FISA’s ruling on the Shadow.’

‘You must realise that, for me, it is not the money in this venture that is my big concern. I want to build an image for Shensu.’

His voice became tighter.

‘The image of the team so far is not at all what I had desired. Wyatt’s behaviour at Monaco might have won us the race, but it’s done nothing for our image. And we have to have two drivers competing to win the constructor’s trophy.’

Bruce was still trying to decide how he felt about Wyatt’s behaviour at Monaco. At the time he’d been overcome with joy at a second victory, but having seen the video footage of the accident and Wyatt driving past it, he’d had his doubts. But he’d kept those doubts to himself.

‘Wyatt has been our saving grace,’ he said now. ‘Ibuka’s an unknown. For all I know, he could be right at the back for the whole season.’

‘That’s why he must drive in Belgium. The Shadow has to be ready. Then we’ll know how competitive he is.’

‘Doesn’t my opinion count any longer?’

Aito was silent. He waited for Bruce to calm down before he spoke again.

‘I want to win. Winning is the only way I know to live. That is why I didn’t listen to you when you said we were risking it with FISA by pushing the design of the car too far.’

Bruce looked across at Aito, then back at the road. He didn’t say anything for a while.

‘Look, Aito,’ he began at last, ‘there are still a lot of problems facing us. We’ve had some bad luck - and there’s still no news of Suzie. You know that she and Wyatt were close?’

‘No, I didn’t know. Who’s looking for her? What action has been taken?’

Bruce felt guilty. Since Monaco, he’d hardly given Suzie a thought - there had been just too much on his mind.

‘To tell you the truth, in the last few days I haven’t been able to contact the Brazilian police to see if there have been any developments. Wyatt is furious. He thinks they’re covering something up. I mean, with the reward money he and Jack have put up, something should have come to light.’

‘These things concern me. It is as if Calibre-Shensu is, as you would say, jinxed.’

Bruce stared out of the window at the cars on the motorway.

‘I’m not a superstitious man myself - there has to be an explanation.’

Aito pulled a folder from his briefcase.

‘I know your concerns about Ibuka. But I’d like you to study this.’

Bruce looked across at the document.

‘You’ve just got to accept the guy’s going to be on a learning curve,’ he said. ‘It’s almost unheard-of for a driver to perform well in his first season.’

‘You voiced the same concerns over Wyatt.’

Bruce thought about what he’d heard of Ibuka. The man certainly was determined. Maybe, just maybe, he was the right one for the job. Right now, he didn’t have an awful lot of choice.

Wyatt sat behind Mickey Dunstal, watching the Irishman punch information into the Cray Supercomputer at a daunting rate. With every new command, subtle revisions to the Shadow design appeared on the screen. On the table next to them was FISA’s document identifying the areas where the Shadow was out of line with the complex regulations.

‘The problem is one of mental attitude, Wyatt. I can’t let the fockers get to me. If Shadow Two is better than Shadow
One, you’ll find the other teams will stop trying to criticise the design.’

Mickey was quiet for a long time. Then he started tapping the computer keys again.

As he worked, he was thinking about Wyatt. How could Wyatt have driven past the accident? It disturbed him. He admired Hoexter for pulling off - but then Wyatt had won the race. Perhaps FISA’s disqualification of the Shadow had more to do with Wyatt’s behaviour than the actual design.

After forty-five minutes he sat back.

‘That’s it. With the team Aito’s brought in today, we’ll get the modifications done. Quite quickly, too - but it’ll cost a bloody fortune. And it’ll be a better car.’

Wyatt studied the revised design. He was impressed by how simply Mickey seemed to have solved the problems. Now it was just a question of rebuilding the Shadow.

He had no real regrets about his behaviour at Monaco. He wouldn’t have expected the lead driver to pull over for him. You had to accept the fact that you might die; that was the price you paid when you sought victory.

Wyatt had been training ha
rd since Monaco, breaking pain-barriers as he pushed his body to the peak of physical fitness. However, the real pain came from within, from worrying about what had happened to Suzie. He sensed she was still alive - but where was she?

Manuel sat in the rickety wooden hut, shaking. It was over thirty-five degrees centigrade outside, and the humidity was intense. There was mould on the inside of the hut, on the chair he sat in and on his bed. The black-and-white television set buzzed angrily in the corner like a trapped bee. He glanced nervously at the flickering images on the screen and pulled his leather jacket a little tighter around him. Why did he feel so cold when it was so hot?

The advert had just appeared again - a flash of images of the woman, and then the offer of a fortune for a clue as to what had happened to her.

He knew.

The hut was one of many in a big clearing - a new, hastily built township for the men who were building the motorway that would eventually cut across the greenness of the Amazon basin like a thin silver line. The men who worked on the road were unskilled labourers. When the job was finished, they would be unemployed again. They made good money, but they had little to spend it on because they were working in the middle of nowhere. So they spent their spare time watching television.

Manuel had heard them joking about the woman, Suzie von Falkenhyn, as they came home from working on the road in the evening. The jokes were about what they would like to do to her if they found her. But of course, if they did find her, or a clue as to where she was, they would be onto the police immediately, anxious to collect the reward.

There was a knock on the door. Manuel shivered again and then moved slowly forward to open it.

‘Isabel.’

He recognised the woman and gave her an angry look. She had a dissipated look about her, with her long, greasy, black hair and heavily rouged face. She spoke in slurred Portuguese.

‘You want to fuck? I can make you very happy.’

He moved to close the door but she barged in, stronger than he had realised.

‘Don’t you need a woman?’ She stared at him incredulously, hiking up her skirt slightly.

‘I have no money!’ he screamed at her.

She laughed without mirth and then coughed for a long time, tears running from her eyes.

‘I heard you did a big job,’ she said, ‘but then I should have known it was all crap.’

‘I have spent all the money.’

‘Oh yes, Mister Big. You told me you had so much.’

Manuel thought about how he’d gambled the money away - enough to have lasted him for a year. But there was always the possibility of more. He had information, priceless information.

‘I can be a millionaire overnight.’

‘How?’

‘I know where the woman is, the one the police are looking for.’

Isabel spat in his face and laughed.

‘Mister Big. You’re all talk.’

She let herself out before he could strike her, and the door slammed in his face.

He lay in the chair for a long time, angry. His sister, Julia, had written him a letter. She had always had a big mouth. And there was no television where she worked, so she kept writing to him. Apparently the letters were smuggled out through one of the pilots. She told him about her fantastic new job, about the factory on a mountain in the Amazon basin and about this beautiful German woman the owner had as his concubine. She said the woman was a prisoner and that her boss had pumped her full of drugs.

Yes, when he had seen the ad on the television, he had looked again at the letter. He had sent a note back to Julia, asking her for a map of how to get to where she was working, and to find out if the woman’s name was Suzie von Falkenhyn.

The reply had come two weeks later, and he knew that soon he would be a wealthy man.

Isabel spat into the bin at the side of the room, then looked apprehensively at Raoul, the large, fat man behind the desk. Along the wall was a couch on which sat two other women of similar appearance to herself.

‘I do not believe you,’ Raoul growled. ‘Manuel must have money. He was away for over a week. He must think you are ugly. I will send another girl.’

Isabel looked at the other girls, seated on the couch. They looked better than she did - but then they did not have to look for work, the men came to them. She was scared. She did not want to be beaten, or worse, be kicked out and lose Raoul’s protection.

‘Why do you not believe me, Raoul?’

‘Because you’re a whore, Isabel, and all whores are liars.’

The other girls laughed nervously and he cut them a glance that shut them up, then looked again at Isabel.

‘You can try again this evening . . . Maybe Manuel will be drunk enough to want to fuck you by then.’

He looked up at the television mounted on a shelf on the wall. It was the entertainment he provided for his women before they went out to work in the evening. Today was Friday - pay-day - and the men who worked on the road got paid in cash. The trick was to wait till they’d had a couple of drinks and then move in with his girls. They could turn a trick every fifteen minutes - if they were working properly.

Isabel knew she hadn’t long to go. She’d lost her looks and even the most drunken of the men sometimes refused to sleep with her.

‘It’s her!’ she cried out, suddenly pointing to the television screen. Then she was silent just as quickly. Raoul looked at the flickering images, saw the woman’s picture and the reward. His attention was immediately caught.

‘What do you mean, Isabel?’

Now she trembled. ‘It’s the woman they want the ransom for,’ she answered a little too quickly.

‘I know that, bitch, but why did you say “it’s her”?’ Raoul’s voice was like a snake, slivering and worming its way towards its target.

He rose, and grabbing her by the hair, dragged her screaming out into the next room. Then he laid her across the dirty bed and took a rubber fan-belt that was hanging off a nail in the wall. She screamed, remembering the pain from the last time. He would not stop until he knew the truth.

He brought the fan-belt down heavily across her back.

‘The woman they’re offering the reward for - Manuel says he knows where she is,’ she screamed out.

Manuel got back after dark. It had not been easy to score - he was not as well-known in the north. However, after a few phone calls everything had been sorted out, and now he had crack to sell.

Something about the hut aroused his suspicions. He was sure he hadn’t left the outside window open. But then again, perhaps he was imagining things.

He stuffed the plastic packet deep into his jacket pocket.
He had grown up learning not to take chances, and nothing had changed. He pulled out the hunting-knife he always carried with him and proceeded cautiously towards the hut. It was so dark he could hardly see the front door.

A shot burst out as he moved towards it - he dived, but the bullet creased him on the shoulder. He rolled over to the side and waited patiently, like a cat.

A torch was shone in his face and another blow caught him unawares, so that he dropped the knife. The lights of a car came on and he saw Isabel standing next to a fat man.

‘Is that him?’ the fat man asked.

‘Yes, Raoul,’ Isabel trembled.

Manuel felt his arm being jerked further up behind his back. Raoul stepped forward and put his cigarette out in Manuel’s face. His cry of pain tore through the darkness.

‘Manuel, what’s this you tell Isabel about knowing where the German woman, Suzie von Falkenhyn, is being held?’ Raoul asked coldly.

‘I know nothing,’ Manuel groaned.

‘Then my men will give you something to know about, eh?’

He was dragged to the rear of the car. He struggled to get away, but his captors kicked him in the knee-caps, then pulled him down so that his face was beside the exhaust-pipe.