Eye of the Cobra

by Christopher Sherlock

  ‘I’ll make sure Suzie’s disappearance gets full coverage in the media,’ Vanessa said. ‘They’ll have to mount a search after that.’

  Wyatt grimaced. Suzie must be in big trouble. She must have seen something at the circuit. But what?

  The taxi-driver turned off the busy street and took a side-road. Immediately another car drew up alongside them. Wyatt caught sight of a flash of metal and dragged Vanessa down to the floor.

  ‘Jesus, Wyatt!’

  At that moment the windows of the taxi exploded around them and the driver leapt out. Wyatt, forcing his way between the front seats, slipped the taxi into gear and pressed the accelerator. The taxi shot forward, bullets ricocheting all over the place. He heard Vanessa moaning, and eased himself into the front seat, weaving the car backwards and forwards now, praying that the bullets wouldn’t find their mark. He swerved into another alley, and the gunfire stopped.

  The sweat dripped from his face as he gunned the car on, desperately staring into the rear-view mirror. A car appeared behind within seconds, and more shots slammed into the back of the taxi. Wyatt swung to the right and followed another street that led upwards, towards the wealthier suburbs surrounding the Sugar Loaf.

  Vanessa sat up to look out of the window.

  ‘Get down!’ Wyatt screamed as more bullets slammed into the boot. He turned again, and found himself on a road that clung to the side of the mountain, with a precipitous drop on one side.

  He looked back again, and sure enough, the pursuing car swung into view.

  All right, you fuckers, he thought. Now let’s see what you’re made of.

  He gunned the taxi hard into the next corner, the wheels squealing as the machine reached the limits of its adhesion. He looked back - and saw the pursuing car fall away.

  Vanessa saw a cold smile creep across Wyatt’s face. He drew up the handbrake and the taxi screamed round, the cliff edge coming into view as they spun in a round-the-clock turn.

  ‘No!’ Vanessa cried as Wyatt accelerated downhill at a suicidal pace.

  The attacking car was coming towards them. Wyatt slammed the taxi into second gear and drove at it head on. In the last millisecond before impact he wrenched the steering-wheel to one side and then back again, and slammed the taxi hard into the side of the attacking car. The car rocketed over the side of the cliff and into space.

  Wyatt floored the brakes and twisted the steering-wheel again, and the taxi screamed to a halt, teetering on the edge of the cliff. Vanessa was sobbing. He dragged her out and they watched the other car smash into the rocks below.

  The circuit felt different. No spectators. There was litter everywhere, and the only people in evidence were the crews from the various teams packing up their gear for the air journey home. Bruce and Wyatt headed for the garage where Max Senda had last seen Suzie. Calibre-Shensu’s equipment had been packed away and the place was almost empty.

  ‘What was kept here?’ Wyatt asked.

  ‘Spare tyres - Carvalho over-supplied us.’

  ‘Just the other day you were scared they weren’t going to supply enough.’ Jack Phelps’s voice echoed around the empty garage.

  Wyatt turned round to look at Jack. He thought of saying something, then decided against it. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt that the less Jack Phelps knew about this, the better.

  ‘Are you still looking for Suzie?’ Phelps growled out.

  Bruce looked up.

  ‘We are. This is the last place she was seen.’

  Phelps leaned against a work-bench and folded his arms.

  ‘God knows what she was doing here . . . Personally, I think you should forget about her and concentrate on preparing for your next race.’

  Wyatt felt the hair lifting on the back of his neck. He didn’t like being ordered around.

  ‘I’ll do what I bloody well want to,’ he said.

  Phelps turned to Bruce.

  ‘It seems our only driver is going to miss a few testing sessions.’

  De Villiers smoothed back his hair and stared across at Wyatt.

  ‘Jack’s right. We should leave this to the police.’

  Wyatt noticed a quiver about Phelps’s right eyebrow.

  ‘You’ve contacted the police?’

  ‘Well, of course we’ve contacted the bloody police!’ Bruce yelled. ‘Suzie’s missing!’

  ‘Have they been here?’

  ‘No. They seem to think she ran off with a man, bloody idiots.’

  ‘Quite probable.’

  With that parting shot, Jack walked outside - and baulked at he saw two police cars draw up. A short man with slicked-back black hair stepped out of the front car, pulling on a light- coloured sports jacket. He walked past Phelps with his hand outstretched and greeted Wyatt warmly.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you again, Mr Chase. It was a great race and you are a worthy champion. I am Detective Inspector Farina, as I think you know.’

  Farina stared at de Villiers and Phelps, and Wyatt introduced them. Phelps looked distinctly uncomfortable.

  ‘Is there anything the matter, Inspector Farina?’

  ‘Two men dead after their car went over a cliff. An attempted suicide, and a dead cameraman. And the disappearance of a wealthy and beautiful woman. Yes, I’d say there’s something the matter,’ Farina muttered cynically, lighting a cigarette.

  Wyatt smiled bleakly. Farina had clearly changed his tune since they last met.

  ‘Well, I hope you find Miss von Falkenhyn quickly, otherwise you can expect a rough ride from the American Embassy, as well as the German one.’

  Farina blew smoke in Phelps’s face.

  ‘I do not respond kindly to threats,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Then get on with your job and you won’t have to worry about them,’ replied Phelps, walking off smartly towards the helipad.

  When Phelps was out of earshot, Farina raised his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘That’s one angry man.’

  Bruce drummed his fingers on the side of the police car.

  ‘Mr Phelps is our biggest sponsor. He pays the bills and he doesn’t like bad publicity, inspector. With Sartori suspended and the disappearance of Miss von Falkenhyn, he’s got major problems.’

  ‘You stick to racing, Mr de Villiers, I’ll find Miss von Falkenhyn. Now, a few questions . . .’

  Suzie had lost all sense of time and space. Her world was filled with one simple desire - relief from the tension that racked her body. Sunlight drifted in through the plate-glass window, and below her steam rose from the dense greenery of the jungle.

  The second experience had been better than the first, but once it wore off she had felt curiously deflated. Now that depression had been replaced by a growing anxiety. Her hands and arms were free but she felt no desire to escape. The door at the corner of the room opened and she leapt to her feet. Jules Ortega came in rubbing his hands.

  ‘Ah, Suzie, you are pleased to see me?’

  She nodded quickly, almost in spite of herself.

  ‘I want some more,’ she said as warmly as she could.

  ‘Ah. You like it? I thought you would.’ His voice was very soft, almost a caress.

  ‘Today I’m going to teach you how to do the injections yourself. Then whenever you want another one, it will be very easy.’

  He took the syringe from his pocket and removed the cover from the needle with his mangled right hand. She was shaking with excitement. He showed her how to bind up her arm correctly, and then how to draw the fluid from the vial into the needle.

  ‘You must be careful not to take too much.’

  Having shown her a number of times how to prepare the needle, he let her inject herself in the arm. Immediately she began to feel better. The feeling of freedom was incredible: there were no worries about money or the need to produce more designs - she felt she could cope with anything.

  ‘Now, when you want some more, just ask me.’

  She loved his voice now.

  ‘There are peopl
e looking for you,’ he said. ‘They want you to go home with them. But of course, then there will be no more injections. You don’t want to go home, do you?’

  ‘No. I never want to go back.’

  She spoke earnestly, looking into his dark eyes and stroking his arm gently.

  Jules Ortega felt very good. Just by holding back the supply he could get anything he wanted out of this German woman. But he also knew he must be careful - he didn’t want her to die.

  The cellular phone bleeped and he picked it up.

  ‘Yes, Rod . . . Ah . . . No, I have not heard anything. But of course, should anything come to light I’ll let you know. The Brazilian police? Yes, a few payments and it will all be sorted out. Yes, the next shipment will be ready on time. Yes, she will still be around when you return.’

  They’d been up the coast, following a lead of Vanessa’s. They’d talked to some migrant labourers who were working on a new hotel complex. Yes, the workers had said, a man had been there two weeks before, looking for men who were prepared to take risks for a good salary. But no, none of them had accepted and they couldn’t give a decent description of the man who’d done the hiring.

  Now they were driving back to Rio and it was terribly hot. They decided to pull off and go for a swim on the first deserted beach they could find.

  Wyatt drove the hire-car under the palms, which swayed in the light breeze from the sea. He looked out across the glistening sands and switched off the engine, then he helped Vanessa out of the passenger-seat.

  Once she was on the sand, she kicked off her sandals.

  ‘Welcome to paradise,’ she said gaily.

  Wyatt opened a couple of beers, then looked up to see Vanessa running down into the waves, the wind blowing back her raven hair. She moved with a natural grace; the neck-brace had been removed the day before and she was almost completely recovered.

  They’d ignored Inspector Farina’s warning to leave Rio immediately; Wyatt wanted to find out what had happened to Suzie, and he sensed that this British reporter could help him. Vanessa Tyson was not an easy woman to get close to, but what Wyatt liked about her was her free spirit - her determination to go her own way. Like now - as she slipped off her dress and underclothes and dived into the water. He watched the full breasts swing in the foam, and felt himself stiffen.

  He lay stretched out on the sand and she came up, water dripping from her, as if swimming naked on an isolated beach was the most natural thing in the world to do. He handed her a beer and they drank a silent toast, then continued to sip their beers while contemplating the waves that crashed against the shore.

  ‘You’re in love with Suzie?’

  Her question hung in the air, lingering. The only way to deal with Vanessa was to meet her directly - any back off or evasion would be taken as a show of weakness.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  She turned away, and watched the waves breaking on the sand.

  Later, driving back to the hotel, she was strangely quiet. Wyatt sensed that she was as troubled by Suzie’s disappearance as he was.

  Bruce sat in his office, looking out into the darkness. He’d got back to Heathrow some hours before and had driven over to the Calibre-Shensu headquarters. There was a fax from Ronnie Halliday, the head of FOCA, waiting for him. It advised him in the strongest possible terms not to try and fight for Ricardo’s reinstatement. The sport, Ronnie argued, could do without that sort of dissension. They wanted to keep Formula One squeaky-clean.

  The fax now lay in one corner of his office, squeezed into a ball. Bruce had made up his mind: he was going to fight them to get Ricardo readmitted. It was worth the risk, he reckoned. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If he could get Ricardo reinstated, even if the Italian missed the Monaco Grand Prix they would still have a very good chance of winning the constructor’s championship - he knew that, judging by the Shadow’s performance at Rio, Wyatt and Ricardo could be amongst the front-runners in every race.

  He picked up the phone and rang Don Morrison to get him to assemble a group of prominent motor journalists. Tomorrow he would give a press conference to get the ball rolling. There was nothing wrong, as far as Bruce could see, in getting public opinion on his side. Had he been present at a meeting in Paris that evening, he might have decided otherwise.

  The meeting in Paris was tense. Ronnie Halliday took off his glasses and peered at Alain Hugo, who with him, controlled Formula One racing - the two of them held its future in the palms of their hands. They were constantly fighting, Alain Hugo very much the older and more conservative of the two, always seeking to apply discipline. Ronnie Halliday was responsible for the huge growth of the sport, its enormous TV coverage and its international scope. Ronnie was always scared that the Frenchman would so over-regulate the sport that he would kill it.

  ‘Alain, let’s just leave it for the moment. Calibre-Shensu have had one big blow already - with Ricardo gone, they’ve effectively lost the constructor’s championship.’

  Hugo waved his hands dismissively, but Ronnie wasn’t giving up.

  ‘No one has complained about the design of the Shadow. If they do, then we’ll have to follow it up.’

  Halliday was persuasive, a natural businessman, known for his ability to get what he wanted.

  Alain heaved a sigh and raised his bushy eyebrows, then held his large nose between his thumb and forefinger before replying.

  ‘All right, Ronnie. I’ll accept that.’ He growled out his grudging acceptance of Halliday’s strategy. ‘But if there’s any trouble from de Villiers about Ricardo, then I’ll go ahead.’

  ‘Most certainly.’

  Wyatt didn’t feel any better now that he was back in London. There was still no news of Suzie - she’d vanished off the face of the earth.

  Vanessa had proved as good as her word, and had stayed in Rio, encouraging the TV networks to keep showing Suzie’s picture together with the offer of a large reward for any information leading to her discovery. Wyatt had put up some of his own money, but it was Jack Phelps who had supplied most of the reward - $750 000.

  Unfortunately, another journalist had seen Vanessa leaving Wyatt’s hotel room in Rio late at night. The tabloids were now making a song and dance of it - ‘Chase Loses One, Only to Gain Another' read the headline.

  He looked through a list of that night’s TV programmes and saw that there was a motor-sport report about to begin. He switched on the set and sat back.

  ‘Right now,’ the commentator said, ‘everyone in Formula One is talking about the newly formed Calibre-Shensu team. Their number two driver, Wyatt Chase, took the victory honours at Rio. Chase is undoubtedly championship material, and if this performance was anything to go by, he could be this season’s front-runner. However, with that victory came defeat for Calibre-Shensu’s number one driver, former world champion Ricardo Sartori, who was suspended after striking German driver Johan Hoexter.’

  The camera pulled back to reveal Bruce de Villiers seated next to the presenter.

  ‘In the seat next to me I have Bruce de Villiers, formerly manager of McCabe Racing, now part-owner and manager of Calibre-Shensu. He’s the man people are calling the new force in Formula One. Bruce, how do you feel about Ronnie Halliday’s and Alain Hugo’s decision to suspend Ricardo Sartori?’

  The interviewer, Robin Cox, was a seasoned professional, and he and Bruce were old friends. Wyatt sat back on the sofa and waited for Bruce to start punching.

  ‘I think it’s unfair,’ Bruce said. ‘A temporary suspension for one race, yes, but the whole season . . .?’

  ‘So you’re objecting to the decision?’

  ‘Of course I am. It costs a great deal of money to put a driver on the circuit. Formula One’s not like soccer where you’ve a whole team, and one suspension doesn’t really have that much effect on your performance. We’ve just lost fifty per cent of our potential because the people who organise Formula One are afraid of bad publicity. What about all the good publicity Ricardo’s given them?
’

  ‘On that note, Bruce, let’s take a look at a documentary we’ve put together on Ricardo Sartori’s racing career.’

  It was an impressive film, both from an editing standpoint and from the overwhelming testimony it gave to Ricardo’s genius on the track. Wyatt felt uneasy. Ricardo’s behaviour had been unforgivable, and Bruce’s arguing against his suspension was pretty pointless - FISA had said that they weren’t going to back down on their decision. Anyway, the interview so far was totally one-sided. Wyatt suspected it might have unpleasant repercussions for the team.

  The camera cut to a close-up of Robin Cox.

  ‘But of course there are two sides to every story. Our second guest tonight, Vanessa Tyson, needs no introduction.’

  Wyatt sat up as the camera swung across to capture Vanessa walking into the studio and sit down opposite Bruce de Villiers.

  ‘Thank you, Robin,’ she said. ‘As my US viewers know, I conduct investigations on a regular basis into controversial matters. First, I’d like to show you a film I’ve put together over the past few weeks.’

  The title of the film came up on the screen: ‘The Way of Death: Cancer and Speed.’

  Wyatt’s blood froze as he watched: shots of people dying of lung cancer intercut with glamorous cigarette ads of Grand Prix racing, and then film of some of the gruesome accidents from the last twenty years of Formula One. It was all beautifully held together with a tight-lipped commentary from Vanessa. It was brilliantly done, but like Bruce’s previous argument for Ricardo’s reinstatement, it was totally one-sided. Wyatt felt for Bruce. Vanessa had nailed him on two counts, questionable sponsorship and the danger of the sport.

  The documentary drew to a close with a shot of Vanessa stepping onto the track at Rio. So that was what she’d been doing in Rio - she hadn’t given a damn about Suzie after all. She had used him.

  ‘Millions and millions of dollars,’ Vanessa was saying ‘are poured into motor-racing by the big cigarette companies, whose ruthless entrepreneurs - like Jack Phelps of Calibre - can no longer use conventional advertising. It is a dangerous sport funded by a dangerous habit. Can we continue to support an activity that encourages the man on the street to drive irresponsibly, and to take up a habit that can cut twenty years off his life?’