‘Shit.’ They were going to wait until the last lap of the race but that strategy has now been blown. Thorne draws a small walkie-talkie from his pocket, triggers it and speaks: ‘Change of plans, we go now.’
~ * ~
Through the trees to the right Franka watches the giant video screen, stunned and thrilled to see Billy is alive and well. She does her best not to let it show.
Kurt isn’t so happy and does let it show. He triggers his walkie-talkie and answers Thorne. ‘Copy that.’
~ * ~
Billy hears a low, deep rumble.
He pivots to the left and takes in a stand of trees and bushes on the high ground to the west, overlooking the hairpin. He looks up into it but can’t see anything through the dark foliage.
The rumble gets louder.
He jumps down from his car and turns to Vettel. ‘Can you hear that?’
The German looks at him, confused. ‘Hear what?’
Billy holds up a finger. ‘That.’
Vettel listens for a moment—then realises he can. ‘Yes.’
Billy turns and stares into the trees again. ‘Me too.’
The rumble gets louder still and is joined by another sound, sharp and high-pitched, like the crackle of a fire—no, like the cracking of branches.
Vettel hears that too. ‘What is that?’
The tree leaves shake and shudder like there’s a T-Rex charging towards them.
‘I don’t know but it can’t be good —’
Smash. A gigantic Kenworth truck crashes through the tree line. It mows down the catch fence and thunders towards Billy and Vettel.
‘Oh shit!’ The vehicle is upon them in a flash. Billy pulls Vettel clear as the truck sweeps past with a foot to spare. It slices past Billy’s Iron Rhino car—and drives straight over Vettel’s Red Bull, crushes it into a pile of carbon fibre, then continues around the right-hander and disappears from view.
Vettel looks at Billy, stunned. ‘Thanks man.’
‘Sorry about your car.’ Billy takes one, two, three steps and leaps into his car.
The German watches him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Don’t let anyone into the tunnel. Get the spectators as far from the track as possible. He points at the Fairmont. ‘And out of that hotel.’
Vettel takes it in with a nod. ‘Okay. Why?’
‘I think there’s a bomb on that truck.’
‘Oh scheiβe.’
‘Exactly.’ Billy stamps on the gas and peels off.
~ * ~
Claude strides up the hill as quickly as his gimpy knee will let him. He wants to get back to his hotel, packed and out of here as soon as possible. He rounds a corner and sees a matte-black eight hundred thousand dollar Lamborghini Aventador Roadster convertible parked on the street. All crazy, low-slung angles, the hulking machine looks like the unholy love child of a cruise missile and Darth Vader’s helmet. The Frenchman drinks it in for a moment, then continues up the hill then turns to look back at it one last time and catches sight of a giant video screen in the distance.
‘Christalmighty.’ It shows a replay of Billy standing on his car talking to a camera and telling everyone, Claude is sure, to leave the circuit. The image then cuts to a giant semi-trailer truck as it crashes onto the circuit, narrowly misses Billy and some other guy, crushes a Formula One car, then carries on around the track, after which Billy jumps into his car and chases after it.
Claude turns, sees a crowd of people rush up the roadway away from the track. It’s happening now. The attack is under way and that Aussie is attempting to stop it, single-handedly, while Claude skulks back to his hotel room because he’s ‘too old for this merde’.
The Frenchman looks back at the giant screen as Billy’s Iron Rhino speeds along the track, then glances down at the black Lamborghini, then back up at the screen where the racing car plunges into the tunnel beneath the Fairmont Hotel.
What do I do?
~ * ~
Billy accelerates along the gloomy tunnel. It’s a half kilometre long and curves gently to the right, lit by muted fluorescent tubes in the right-hand corner of the ceiling, above the shiny white-tiled wall. To the left is a low catch fence and a walkway.
The Australian can’t see the truck directly but he can see the glow of its brake lights reflected off the white tiles as it slows to a stop. He pulls the Iron Rhino to a halt and leaves it idling. He doesn’t want whoever’s in the truck’s cabin to see him or the car so he needs to travel the rest of the way on foot.
Okay, now what?
Simple. He takes control of the truck and drives it out of this tunnel. He realises that if these people are suicide bombers the weapon could detonate at any moment and he’ll be toast. Unsurprisingly, he’s not feeling the same concern about dying as he did at Ski Dubai when he thought he had something to lose with Franka. That relationship is, well, complicated, to say the least, so he’s back to his old fearless, happy-to-stare-death-in-the-eye self.
He climbs out of the car, draws the nine-millimetre pistol from his pocket, sprints to the left side of the track, vaults the safety fence and drops to the walkway. He stays low and runs fifty metres towards the truck, the fence providing him with enough cover. He can just make out the vehicle through its narrow horizontal slots.
The truck’s engine shuts down. He needs to deal with whoever’s in the cabin, but before that he needs to confirm there’s actually a weapon on board and the truck doesn’t belong to some fool delivering fruit who took a wrong turn on the way to market. And before he does that he needs to get up and over this fence without whoever’s in the cabin seeing him.
Here.
The curve of the tunnel is such that at the right spot the angle of the truck obscures both rear-view mirrors. And that’s where he stands right now. He vaults the safety fence and lands directly behind the rear door of the trailer, which is chained and padlocked shut.
The trailer’s sides and rear door are covered in white, heavy-duty plastic sheeting. He ejects the magazine from his pistol and stabs its sharp end into the plastic. The material is tough but the magazine slices through it. He yanks the magazine down and makes an inch-long cut. He replaces the magazine then pulls the cut open with his fingers and looks inside.
‘Yep.’ He pulls his eye from the hole. There is a giant fertiliser bomb inside, which they must have transferred from the van. He needs to get it out of here right now. If this thing goes off it will destroy the tunnel and the hotel above will collapse. There were at least a thousand people there. At least.
He crouches, looks beneath the rig. There’s no one there. He drops to the ground, crawls under the trailer towards the cab and quickly reaches the front axle. He hasn’t seen any feet climb down from the cab so whoever drove it in here is still up there. He could pump the contents of his pistol through the floor into whoever’s driving this truck and end it like that, but he won’t. He doesn’t know who’s in the cabin, doesn’t know if that person might detonate the weapon if they’re hit by a bullet and doesn’t know if one of those bullets might accidentally trigger the weapon on its own. That’s a whole lot of ‘doesn’t know’ so it’s not worth the risk.
He crawls forward to the front bumper, then out from beneath it and crouches by the giant front grill. He can feel heat radiate off the metal, can hear the tick-tick-tick as the engine cools. This should be relatively straightforward. He just needs to stand, point the gun at the cabin’s windshield and order the occupants to put their hands up. He takes a breath and loops his forefinger tight on the pistol’s trigger.
Okay, here goes.
He stands and raises the gun.
There’s nobody inside the cabin. ‘What the —?’ He hears shoes land on the bitumen, then footsteps. Billy searches for the source of the sound —
Vandelay rushes from the right side of the truck.
Vandelay’s part of it?
The injured Iron Rhino driver must have been ba
lanced on the cabin’s step, waiting for him.
They knew I was here all along.
Billy swings his weapon towards Vandelay as Vandelay swings his walking stick towards Billy —
Crunch. The heavy stick nails the Australian across the back, slams him into the truck’s grill. Man, it’s hot. He pushes off and aims the pistol at his assailant —
Thwaap. Vandelay swings the cane again and swats the gun out of Billy’s hand like he’s playing T-ball. The gun skitters across the roadway as Vandelay swings the stick once more —
Thwump. Billy catches it, twists it from his hand and kicks out his right foot —
Ooofff. He nails Vandelay in the breadbasket, knocks the air out of him. Gasping for breath, the guy staggers backwards, arms windmilling as he tries to find his balance. He fails and falls —
Clang. His head strikes the metal catch fence hard and he slumps to the ground like a wet noodle, unconscious.
Billy looks down at him with a pained smile. ‘Not so tough without your walking stick, are you mate?’ He then turns to pick up his gun —
Thwump. Billy’s kicked hard in the gut and now it’s his turn to stagger backwards. He trips, stumbles and thumps onto the roadway. He raises his head and looks at his assailant.
Juan-in-a-million.
The Spaniard points his pistol at the Australian.
Billy stares down the barrel.
I am screwed.
Juan steps forward. ‘Think of it like this, at least you got to start a Grand Prix.’
The only thing Billy can do is delay while he thinks of a way out of this. ‘Tell me, what is it about the Monaco royal family that pisses you off so much?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough—oh, no you won’t, because you’ll be dead.’ Juan grins. ‘Now I do believe you are attempting to delay the inevitable.’ He squeezes the trigger —
Billy notices something behind the Spaniard. ‘You expecting company?’
Juan glances back and takes in a low black shape twenty metres away. It slowly creeps towards him—then its exhaust barks, its engine howls, the rear end squats, its massive tyres bite the tarmac and the vehicle leaps forward.
It take less than half a second to reach the Spaniard. It’s so quick the curly-haired mofo doesn’t even get his gun pointed at it before the car’s sharply raked nose hits his legs with a violent crack—and propels him straight up. There’s another crack as he hits the ceiling above, this one duller than the first, then he drops to the tarmac ten metres away with a wet splat.
Billy rolls out of the vehicle’s way but he needn’t have bothered because the car’s giant carbon ceramic disc brakes pull it up a foot in front of him. Both stunned and relieved, the Australian looks up at its cabin.
Claude rises through the car’s open roof. ‘You’re welcome.’
Billy can’t believe his eyes. ‘See, you’re not too old for this merde after all.’
Claude’s happy to think it might be true. ‘Hope you’re right.’
The Australian nods at the car. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘A Lamborghini. I thought: If I’m going to thwart a terrorist attack I may as well do it with a little style.’
‘Thank you.’
The Frenchman grins. ‘What are partners for?’
Billy smiles at this, finds his feet, retrieves his pistol and moves to the Spaniard’s crumpled body. The guy is bloodied and broken but still alive. Just. Billy kneels beside him, pats him down, doesn’t find what he’s looking for. ‘Where’s the detonator?’
Confused, Juan speaks haltingly: ‘What—detonator?’
‘For the explosives in the fucking truck!’
‘There’s no—detonator—it’s on a—timer.’ Juan holds up his arm, shows him the G-Shock digital watch on his wrist and smiles.
Billy sees the timer countdown: one minute fifty-two seconds, fifty-one seconds.
‘When it reaches zero—boom, you’re dead.’ The Spaniard grins, then his expression freezes, and his head slumps to the side. He’s dead.
‘Shit.’ Billy unbuckles the watch from Juan’s wrist then sprints to the truck’s cabin.
Claude watches him from the Lamborghini. ‘What?’
The Australian doesn’t answer, just pulls open the truck door and climbs inside.
The key is not in the ignition.
He frantically checks all the obvious spots, under the chair, behind the sun visor, in the glove box. No joy. ‘Fuck a duck!’
The Frenchman is confused. ‘“Fuck the duck”? What does this mean?’
‘“Fuck a duck!” And it means this thing is going to blow up in a minute and a half and I can’t find its bloody key!’
‘What? Well let’s get out of here.’
‘No.’
‘No? What do you mean no.’ Claude jabs a finger at the Lamborghini’s passenger seat. ‘Get in the car!’
‘If it explodes in here it’ll take out the hotel above. There’s a thousand people up there.’
The Frenchman understands. ‘So then what?’
Billy gets an idea. He turns to the Claude and points at the Lamborghini. ‘Back it up.’
~ * ~
Crunch.
The nose of the Lamborghini slams into the truck’s rear bumper bar. It’s steel so the Lamborghini’s carbon fibre bonnet cracks and splinters on impact. The truck shudders forward half a foot— then stops.
Claude mashes the accelerator to the carpet and the hand-built V12 thunders. He glances in the side-view mirror as the rear tyres brake traction and spin up in the world’s most expensive burnout. White smoke billows out of the wheel wells like a Pope just died but the truck doesn’t move. The Frenchman keeps his foot in. ‘Come on you bâtard!’
~ * ~
‘Come on you bastard!’ Hands wrapped around the steering wheel, transmission in neutral, park brake off, Billy sits in the cabin and wills the truck forward. He glances at the Spaniard’s watch which is now on his right wrist. Sixty-three seconds, sixty-two seconds until detonation.
The truck is not moving.
‘Come on!’ He looks through the windscreen. The glowing end of the tunnel is a long way away, a good hundred and fifty metres off, but the downhill slope starts in about thirty. He just needs to get this thing to that point and start it rolling. Then once the truck reaches the Nouvelle Chicane at the bottom of the hill he’ll steer it to the spot where he thinks—believes—hopes—the bomb will detonate safely.
The snarl of the Lamborghini engine reverberates off the tunnel’s walls. He looks back, sees the cloud of billowing rubber smoke envelop the car.
The truck is not moving.
I need to do something.
He swings the door open, leaps out and sprints to the Lamborghini. He ploughs through the smoke, passes the Frenchman who has an expression of steely determination on his face, and reaches the back of the car where the mid-mounted engine screams and orange-blue flames blast from its quad exhaust pipes.
Billy grabs the rear and pushes hard. He promised the Frenchman that if it didn’t happen with fifteen seconds to spare they’d pull the plug and get the hell out of Dodge. He glances at the Spaniard’s watch. Forty-seven seconds, forty-six seconds until detonation.
‘Come on.’ The Australian leans into it, gives it everything he’s got. The Lamborghini fishtails. He holds on to the swaying vehicle, pushes harder. Claude glances back at him. Billy can just make out his grave expression through the haze of tyre smoke as the Frenchman shouts over the thundering power plant: ‘How much longer?’
Billy looks again at the Spaniard’s watch —
The car lurches forward—and keeps moving at a walking pace, then faster, then faster still. Billy pushes hard, passes through the cloud of rubber smoke and looks up.
The truck is rolling.
It bloody worked!
The truck pulls away from the Lamborghini, picks up speed. It has reached the incline. Now all
Billy has to do is get on board the damn thing. He stops pushing the car and starts running after the truck.
He passes Claude, shouts into the open cockpit: ‘Get the hell out of here!’ The Lamborghini brakes hard and veers away as Billy sprints on, closes in on the truck’s cabin. He’s just three metres away from jumping on the driver’s step. He digs deep, pumps his arms, lifts his knees, visualises that 11.3-second hundred metres he ran in high school. Two metres away. His eyes lock on the grab handle behind the door. One metre away. It’s right here.
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