The Driver

by Alexander Roy

  “Then keep a close eye on me. If I’m about to make a mistake, start yelling.”

  “Just punch it, Chewy.”

  “In that case, 170 it is.”

  AUTOBAHN A6 EASTBOUND

  APPROACHING SCHWANDORF, GERMANY

  170 MILES FROM PRAGUE CHECKPOINT

  EARLY MORNING

  Ross’s headlights flashed twice in my mirror. I pulled to the right as his Bentley passed at 185 mph, its 6-liter, twin-turbocharged, 12-cylinder engine emitting a high-pitched whine similar to a 747 at takeoff.

  “I really don’t give a shit about high-end hardware, Aliray, but that does sound pretty cool.”

  “Me neither, but yeah, it does. Ross is probably the only Bentley owner on the planet who actually runs his car the way they’re supposed to. Everyone else is going to dinner—”

  “Hang on. Schtaven reports…He says we’re in the lead, cane it, order him an extra steak when we get to Prague, and overnight it to him.”

  Nothing could stop us—

  “Nine, what’s that in the road?”

  —unless I made a mistake.

  The Bentley’s rooster tails obscured our view of whatever had caused him to brake. Hard. Construction cones appeared out of the mist just ahead of him—the left lane suddenly closed—and he squeezed past a civilian jalopy just as the road narrowed to one lane. Water burst up from beneath the Bentley and civilian as they ran over a piece of debris I barely avoided by jinking left.

  “Nice one!” Nine yelled. “What was that?”

  “Some moron hit a cone and left it there.”

  We pulled over behind Ross, just past the construction zone.

  “Nine, we’ve gotta get that debris off the road before fifteen Gumballers get killed.” There were at least seven medium-size pieces, but each required a separate near-suicidal sprint in front of thickening civilian traffic.

  “Back to Ross,” Nine huffed as we ran back. “I’ll start calling everyone we know. Where the fuck are we?”

  “Just past the B85 turnoff. Use my phone. Call Jodie Kidd, Muss, and Ant and Pete. Between them, it’ll get to almost everybody.”

  By the time we reached the white-shirted Ross, he was already prone in the mud under the Bentley. “Tire puncture,” he said calmly. “Be so kind as to bring my jack and spare, and we can sort this right away. I brought a full-size for just this eventuality.”

  “Of course he did,” Nine said as we unpacked the spare. “This guy’s like James Bond.”

  “We brought one, too.”

  “Yeah, but you’re more Austin Powers.”

  We had no more than five minutes to fix it were we to maintain our lead. Within three, a loud crunch to our rear announced the arrival of a previously unseen Aston Martin DB9. They pulled over and took a cursory glance under their car before getting back in. Even from 20 feet away it was clear they were leaking oil. Nine ran to warn them, but they left seemingly unconcerned.

  “Brand-new DB9”—he shook his head—“and these guys don’t care. I’ll bet you Taco Bell they don’t make Prague.”

  “Only someone with Ford stock would take that bet. I can’t wait to see them stopped with a dead engine. That’s gotta cost twenty grand.”

  We were about to mount the spare when Ross spoke up from under the car. “We have a problem. Fluid leak, not oil, but potentially serious. Pass me the duct tape, then we’ll mount the tire and be off.”

  By minute four, multiple high-pitched engines flared behind us, a blue Lamborghini, a silver Porsche, a black Ferrari, and Loretta all stopping to help. I was little surprised and greatly delighted to see Jodie Kidd, her copilot and boyfriend Aidan Butler, Muss, Seamus, and two Gumballers I didn’t know gathered around us on the shoulder. The black SLR kept going, as did another five cars. They were correct in assuming nothing more could be done.

  Our unheralded, superhuman, nearly 700-mile run halfway across Europe had been for naught. I’d known enough disappointment in the past to remain quiet over my anguish. With the privilege of convoying with Ross came responsibility. Every car that passed while I stood by was another brick in the foundation of Ross’s trust. This was the Gumball spirit for which I’d received the trophy in 2003. I had to live up to it.

  We taped the leak and mounted the tire, thankfully urged our reluctant friends back on the road, and then Ross turned to me. “A quick pace won’t be possible for the remainder of this stage, alas. Mr. Goodrich has volunteered to ride with me in case anything goes wrong. We hope you will safely deliver Lady Emma to Prague.”

  “I’m not a lady,” she quipped. “I mean I am, but not by title.”

  “As you wish,” Ross said to her, then shook my hand. “Go, Mr. Roy. We’ll make it up tomorrow.”

  “You needn’t worry, Mr. Ross, about either task.” I returned to the M5, started the engine, and made a mental note to ask Nine why he and I adopted—only when talking to Ross or Emma—a faux-English accent and cadence. With great sadness I watched the Bentley disappear in the rearview mirror. “Are you okay?” I cautiously asked my new copilot. We’d had drinks and dinner many times among friends, but this was my first time alone with the stunning girl pursued by so many. Her looks had been invisible to me since first noting Ross’s paternal concern, back when she began dating Maher in 2003. Now given the instruction to deliver her safely, I thought of nothing but.

  “Yes…yes.” She stared straight ahead. Even with the seat all the way back, her long legs barely fit under the glove box. Despite her composure and six feet, three inches, she was still a twenty-two-year-old girl who’d just survived her second accident on Gumball. I dared not ask her to perform any of Nine’s duties.

  “Alex…thank you for letting me have a quiet moment.”

  “You’ve got another hour or two of quiet, I think.”

  I proceeded, in an effort not to upset her, toward the border at 120. “Don’t slow down because of me, Alex. I’m over it.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Alex, you should see how Michael drives.”

  “As you wish!” I accelerated to 140 and soon caught up with Ant, Pete, and Jodie Kidd at the tail of at least fifty cars waiting at the Czech passport control. I looked at Emma, who immediately read my mind, and we slowly advanced to cut the line. I was about to instruct her as to location of the siren controls when she blurted, “Oh Christ!”

  “What? What?”

  “I left my passport in the Bentley!”

  “Emma, stay calm, okay…let me think…do you promise to do exactly as I say?”

  “If Jon trusts you—”

  “Emma, take my camera, get out of the car, and start snapping pictures of me, the car, the border police, and every Gumballer who passes by. Start by standing on the German side, then as I drive through, slowly start walking to the Czech side. There’s tons of fans. Look, even the police are taking pictures. No one will notice. Get out now.”

  “Are you sure? Smuggling is quite a bad offense, I think.”

  “You a law student?”

  “Well, I do intend to go to law school—”

  “Then study immigration. Emma, would you prefer for us to wait for Ross?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Then trust me. I impersonate cops for a living!”

  No one noticed our ruse, except the Czech border guard who demanded a picture with the girl whose terrified expression—two heads above his smile—would become apparent only when he developed the roll of film in his camera.

  We drove in silence toward Prague, where several thousand fans awaited our arrival in front of the Hotel Carlo IV finish line. A pair of young crew-cutted fans ran up to my window.

  “Alex Roy!”

  “Americans!? What are you doing here?”

  “Dude! Can we get your autograph? We just got back from Iraq and drove all the way here from Ramstein Air Base to meet you!”

  “That’s better than me coming to Iraq to meet you! Come by the bar for drinks in thirty! If anyone stops you,
tell them you’re my pit crew.”

  We rolled up to the checkpoint official. Amazingly, despite our ordeals, we were eighth in. Ross and Nine arrived several hours later, just in time for the lunch I ordered them.

  “Screwed up again, Mr. Polizei?”

  “Roy’s not that good, is he?”

  I wasn’t at all fazed by the passing insults from Gumballers I didn’t know. Team Polizei’s table in the hotel restaurant became the most efficiently organized command and control center outside of NASA Launch Control, with ours far more comfortable. While other problem-addled Gumballers stood on the hotel steps trying in vain to reach the local Ferrari or Porsche dealer on a Sunday afternoon, Ross’s call to Bentley London reactivated a mechanism of English logistical prowess unseen since the days of empire. By one o’clock the owner of Bentley Prague had canceled plans with his family to repair Ross’s transmission-fluid reservoir. A new clutch was already on a plane from the UK for Loretta, the black Lotus driven by Muss and Seamus. In order to improve the M5’s performance by saving weight, I shipped my dirty laundry home and my clean clothes to the subsequent checkpoints in a schedule perfectly synchronized with my proprietary knowledge, which Muss was about to expand.

  “Now listen to me,” said Muss. “Tomorrow morning Seamus and I will park Loretta beside your M5. Ross, you park behind Alex. Seamus will call Jon and give you instructions out of the city.”

  Ross intuited why. Nine didn’t. “I thought you lived in Budapest. How do you know…holy shit! You didn’t—”

  “Alex,” said Muss, “you want to tell him?”

  “Nine, these two psychopaths called every hotel in every city until they figured out exactly where the checkpoints were. Seamus here was the one who recommended the midway checkpoint in Croatia. Two weeks ago they drove the entire route in real time as practice. They know the shortcuts into and out of every place we’re going.”

  Ross grinned more joyfully than I’d ever seen.

  “The only problem”—Muss looked at Ross—“is that you don’t have the highway toll stickers to stay with us. The cops are pretty strict about having them.”

  “Actually, I was lucky enough to procure several sets from my local sources, just in case a friend was in need.”

  “Fucking James Bond,” said Nine. “All you guys are out of your minds.”

  “Thank you so much,” said Muss, “and cheers to you, Michael.”

  “Mapping the shortcuts was a real military op,” said Seamus. “No one using GPS stands a chance. These CoPilots are crap except for the tracking function.”

  “It’s too bad,” I said, “the CoPilots would rock if set to Gumball speeds.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Seamus, “just make sure to turn yours off when we approach Vienna and Budapest. We don’t want anyone following us in via our shortcut.”

  This very strategy had lurked in my mind since the prior night. I couldn’t wait to put it to use. If only the Bentley was repaired in time. If only Loretta didn’t break down again. If only I didn’t make any navigational mistakes. If only everyone stuck to the plan.

  Gumballers were still arriving—more than 24 hours after departing London—as I awaited U.S. Army captain Jacob Wallace, an Apache helicopter pilot two weeks back from Iraq who was certainly braver than all of the Gumballers put together. Wallace greeted me as if I, too, had survived a hail of ground fire, and over my first alcoholic drink—a single beer—since my going-away party in New York, I outlined my highly unusual request. He thanked me for the honor and immediately set off to get some sleep.

  Ross returned from the Bentley dealer, optimistic all would be ready by dawn, to join Nine and me for dinner. Muss and Seamus had had to bribe the nearest garage owner to open (and stay open overnight) for their clutch replacement. Having been awake for nearly 37 hours, we all agreed to skip the official Gumball party and retire early. Half-drunk Gumballers orbited the bar island, stopping to lean on our table for support—some more than once—in the belief we knew where the unofficial party was later that night.

  Ross knew, of course, but he wasn’t telling anyone, not even me.

  MONDAY, MAY 16, 2005

  ROUTE E461 SOUTHBOUND

  APPROACHING AUSTRIAN BORDER

  51 MILES FROM VIENNA CHECKPOINT

  LATE MORNING

  “Aliray, I can’t believe those army guys got up at four A.M. to block anyone from parking in front of us.”

  “Nine, I can’t believe we left midpack and are now in the lead. God bless Muss.”

  “I can’t believe we passed five Czech police cars at 120 mph with our lights and sirens blaring and not one of them stopped us. And that cop actually standing in the highway? Did he really think we were gonna stop for a guy on foot?”

  “My BlackBerry’s vibrating Nine, see who it is.”

  “It’s another one of your exes with updates from CoPilot’s site. She says three cars approaching the Austrian border, in the lead. Gotta be us.”

  “Better be, here’s outbound passport control. If the Czechs are gonna arrest us, this is their last chance. Don’t say a word.” I slowed down to the speed limit for the first time since leaving London. We were 50 feet from safety, then 20, then two officers stepped out and blocked our path with hands raised. One approached my window, pausing when he saw our black Policia uniforms, our bright badges glinting in the sun.

  “Your license plate…you are from New York?”

  “Yessir!” I offered him our passports, which he ignored.

  “This is…police car from New York or…Španělsko?” “From…er…Spa-nels-ko. For a movie.”

  “Very cool, man! You may go!”

  I slowly pulled out. “That was…surreal, even by my standards.”

  “That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Reynolds.

  Nine giggled. “Spanelsko…nice one. So I guess we are first.”

  “You never know. Let’s not get cocky.” A few hundred feet away a crowd of uniformed officials stood at the Austrian passport control. My mother’s online scan of that day’s Austrian papers suggested they would be tougher than the Belgians. There was nothing to do but proceed at 20 mph. Several officers raised what appeared to be guns. “Holy shit,” said Nine, “are they pointing…wait…are they pointing—” All but the officer approaching my door were…taking pictures. I stopped as they clustered in front of the car, camera-toting fans running from beyond the booths to join them. I handed over our documents and with my first-ever I-know-we’re-gonna-make-it grin said, “Guten Abend, Herr Offizier!”

  He chuckled and handed them to his mustached commander, who pocketed his camera and waved me out of the car.

  “You are Alex Roy? From der Team Polizei!”

  “Ja?”

  “Bring your copilot friend! Ve must haf a picture altogether!”

  Fifty miles and sixteen successfully jammed police laser guns later, we arrived in Vienna. Thousands of cheering Viennese lined the streets leading toward the Hofburg Imperial Palace, where thousands more were held back by the local Polizei—they, too, waving approvingly—as we squeezed through the arch into Josefplatz Square. I reached for the PA handset and greeted them in the only Spanish I knew.

  “Hola de la Policía de Barcelona!”

  Then my heart stopped. Beyond the edge of the crowd swarming our car, alone on the far side of the square, sat a gleaming red Ferrari 360 Spyder I hadn’t seen since London. Nine and I ignored the microphones and cameras pointing at us and stared at each other. A Gumball checkpoint staffer emerged from the crowd.

  “Who the hell,” Nine asked him, “are those guys?”

  “They skipped Prague,” said the staffer, “which makes you first!”

  First. It was the proudest moment of my Gumball career, and yet gloating over what only a mere handful might recognize for its actual significance would have been in bad taste. “No one cares about first, though, right Aliray? Because it’s not a race—”

  “It’s a rally,” I said, “and
now we get a twenty-minute break, but we leave immediately if and when the tenth car arrives.”

  While Nine, Ross, Emma, Muss, and Seamus enjoyed the hot buffet and cash bar in the Hofburg’s colossal, high-ceilinged, quadruple-glass-chandeliered dining hall ringed with white columns and gold inlays, I stood by the windows—and listened for engines.

  “That’s ten!” I yelled. “Saddle up!”

  “Remember,” Muss said over predeparture handshakes, “the Hungarians won’t give a piss about us speeding, but no matter how fast you want to go, no one can navigate there faster than Seamus and I. Don’t lose us, you’ll regret it!”

  “Alex, listen, you wanna be first, be first, but if you wanna be a man, let Muss and Seamus take this one. It’s their town.” Nine was right.

  I let off the gas. Ross took our hint. We entered the track grounds, the din of thousands clapping upon hearing our engines rising even louder upon sighting the black Lotus in the lead. “Lo-ret-ta!” they cheered. “Lo-ret-ta!” more cheered as we arrived in central Budapest an hour later, parking in second place beside the Lotus from which Muss and Seamus emerged beaming.

  Team Polizei’s Gumball 2005 standings were now eleventh, eighth, first, second, and second. Three top-five finishes meant a strong but not insurmountable position. The Hungaroring-to-Budapest leg was only 12 miles—no veteran would consider that a major stage—but six major ones still remained. Everything was going according to plan.

  But it was not to be, for Ross broke down twice more in Croatia on the way to Dubrovnik, and wouldn’t be able to resolve his recurring rim and tire issues until after that night’s ferry delivered us to Bari the next morning.

  Late that night Ross and I stood freezing on the ferry’s bottle-strewn deck, the horde of Gumballers still awake having migrated to the shabby interior lounge behind us, their laughter audible even through the hatches sealed against the wind whipping through my Polizei traffic coat. Among the hundred-odd cars aboard—their sum total value probably greater than the vessel pitching in the Adriatic beneath us—Ross’s was one of at least a dozen with a major problem, but we were the only ones not passed out or too drunk to have borrowed every available cell phone in a last-ditch effort to reach a suitable Bentley mechanic in or near the port of Bari. One of the few operable slot machines inside began playing an annoying electronic melody. Cheers ensued. “Bar’s fucking closed?” someone yelled. “Bribe the captain!”