Authors: Matthew Reilly
In the pits, Sally looked over at Oliver Koch - the
Speed Razor
‘s Mech Chief was looking at his race computer and speaking into his radio-mike.
‘Oliver’s taking the bait, Jason,’ she reported.
‘
He should be taking the bait,
‘ Jason said. ‘
It was this kind of attention to detail that won him Mech Chief of the Year
.
Now it’s gonna lose him this race.
’
Lap 29 - and the lead extended another 0.2 of a second.
Sally took a deep breath. ‘I hope you’re right about this, Jason,’ she whispered.
And with that the last lap began.
At the start of the final lap, Xavier’s lead over Jason was a full 2.2 seconds.
Even if Jason hauled him in amid the city S-bends near the home straight, he’d only gain a second.
Xavier was out of reach.
But then a strange thing happened.
As soon as the last lap began, Jason started gaining on Xavier - just slowly, in a measured way, over the course of the entire lap.
They hit JFK and the lead was 2.0 seconds.
Up through Queens and it was 1.7 seconds.
Then over the East River and down through the Bronx and the lead was down to 1.5 seconds.
The Bug said something.
‘I know! I know!’ Jason said. ‘If I’m right, this one’s gonna go right down to the wire. That’s what I’m banking on! The home straight
on the last lap
is the only place I can get him!’
Then the two cars swept around Yankee Stadium and headed south, into the confetti-filled canyons of the city for the last time.
And here Jason made his move.
As he’d done the entire race, he gained on Xavier amid the right-angled turns of the city.
The gap between them narrowed:
1.2 seconds…
1.1 seconds…
1.0 second…
As he banked and swerved through the buildings of the Upper West Side, Jason saw the
Speed Razor
through the
veil of falling confetti - saw it getting nearer and nearer. Hopefully Xavier was expecting this, having seen it the
whole race.
And that was the key, Jason thought. This was all about what Xavier expected.
Then the two leaders shot across Central Park at the 79th St Transverse - and when they blasted out of Central
Park on the Fifth Avenue side, the lead was less than a second.
Now there were only about twenty seconds of racing left. They came down through the Upper East Side, through the confetti snow, Xavier taking turns perfectly - impossible to pass - Jason edging closer.
And then the final turn onto Fifth Avenue came into view.
‘Here we go…’ Jason said.
The
Speed Razor
and the
Argonaut
hit the left-hander almost together.
As they did so, Jason swung in low, lower than usual, diving through the confetti, looking like he was going to go under the
Speed Razor
.
But he wasn’t going under it - he was just aiming for its blind spot, and with all the confetti floating around, Xavier’s navigator was more blind than usual.
The two cars hit the straight.
And then Xavier did it.
Just as Jason had hoped.
Three hundred metres short of the Finish Line, he punched his fist into the air in triumph.
Just as he had done in each of his victories at the Sponsors’ Tournament.
And at the Italian Run.
And whenever he’d won a race at Race School. Xavier, as Jason had noticed during their study sessions, had a habit of celebrating prematurely. As so, at that moment, Jason jammed every thruster forward.
* * *
It made for an astonishing sight.
Xavier in the
Speed Razor
, roaring down Fifth Avenue to the cheers of the crowds, blasting through the confetti rain, with his fist thrown into the air in triumph…
…before suddenly, there was the
Argonaut,
zipping alongside him from out of nowhere!
And as the two cars came to the crumpled piles of broken cars on either side of the home straight, Jason darted ahead of Xavier and whip-weaved quickly in front of him!
The crowd gasped at the audacity of it.
Xavier’s eyes boggled.
And the
Argonaut
roared through the narrow gap between the two piles of smashed-up hover cars and shot like a rocket across the Finish Line.
In.
First.
Place.
It was the photo that had done it.
The photo from Jason’s only victory over Xavier Xonora - his photo-finish win in Race 25.
Gazing closely at the photo the evening before the Challenger Race, Jason had seen something very peculiar.
Whereas before he had only ever seen the nose of the
Argonaut
sneaking across the Finish Line inches ahead of
the
Speed Razor
, on this occasion, he had seen something else entirely.
There in the photo, frozen forever in that moment in time, Jason had seen Xavier’s fist punching the air. Xavier, thinking he had won when in fact he had not, had prematurely pumped his fist into the sky.
And so Jason had formulated his plan - he would use Xavier’s perfect pit crew against him, allow them to feed
Xavier information about his increasing lead,
and then on the last lap Jason would pounce
. He would gain on Xavier over the course of the final lap and then overtake him
on the home straight
, the one place Xavier dropped his guard, the one place on a race course where he was vulnerable.
The New York crowds roared with both delight and disbelief at such a daring strategy.
Jason had caught everyone by surprise.
By the time he swung into the pits, every television crew in the city was camped outside his pit bay.
After a well-earned team hug with Sally and the Bug behind the closed doors of their garage, he came out to face the media.
‘Jason! Jason! Did you plan it from the start?’
‘Jason! How did you know Xavier would make such a rookie mistake?’
‘Jason! How does it feel to know that you just qualified for the New York Masters?’
It was the last question that caught Jason short.
‘It feels…great,’ he said. ‘Only I…I don’t have a licensed team to sponsor me. And without a team, I can’t race.’
‘You can race under my name anytime, my young friend!’ a familiar voice boomed from somewhere nearby.
Umberto Lombardi stood behind the assembled media throng, grinning from ear to ear. He spread his arms wide.
‘I used to have a second car, but some young driver destroyed it in Italy earlier this year! If you’re prepared to race in your own car, young Jason, you can race under my licence in the Masters Series!’
The media swung their microphones to Jason.
But just as Jason was about to answer, another voice rose above the throng.
‘I have another suggestion,’ the voice said.
Everyone turned - to see a very well-dressed man in a suit standing beside Lombardi. He was younger than Lombardi, mid40s, American, with perfectly groomed hair, and he wore a suit that screamed money.
He was one of the most well-known figures in racing.
He was Antony Nelson, head of the Lockheed-Martin Factory Team.
‘For I
do
have a spare car,’ Nelson said imperiously. ‘My team was ready to run a third car in the Masters, but sadly, our first-choice racer here’ - he glanced across at Xavier’s pit bay - ‘didn’t make the grade in the Challenger. You did, Mr Chaser. As such, the Lockheed-Martin Racing Team would be honoured if you would race for us in the New York Masters Series.’
The offer hung in the air.
The media people froze, their eyes locked on Jason.
Alone on the stage, Jason gazed out over the crowd of reporters and photographers - saw their eager hungry faces, hungry for the story.
Then he looked at Nelson and Lombardi - and found a study in contrasts. One small and slick, the other broad and loud. One had a top-tier car waiting for him, the other had nothing but an International Racing Federation Licence.
And one had eaten greasy chicken burgers with Jason…and the other, quite obviously, hadn’t eaten a chicken burger in years.
Jason took a deep breath.
‘I think I’ll race with Team Lombardi.’
The media scrum erupted - with shouted questions and flash photos, but Jason was done.
He just stepped back into his pit bay, ignoring them, ending the press conference. He looked at his team: the diminutive Bug, the smiling Sally McDuff, and the serious Scott Syracuse.
‘Well, people,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I believe it yet myself. But in two days’ time, we’re gonna be racing in the New York Masters.’
Thirty minutes later, the media throng had departed, having got their story, and Jason found himself standing in his pit bay, alone, tidying up after the race.
But then, across the way from him, he saw Xavier, also alone, also packing up his gear.
For some reason that he didn’t understand, Jason went over to him.
‘Good race today, Xavier,’ he said.
Xavier didn’t even acknowledge Jason’s presence, just kept packing.
‘Okay, then…’ Jason turned to go.
‘By any reckoning, I’m a better racer than you are,’ Xavier’s voice said from behind him.
Jason turned back.
Xavier was glaring at him now, his eyes icy. ‘All year it’s been apparent. My speed tolerances are better. My cornering. My passing. My crew. In every facet of racing,
I am better than you are
. Which is why I cannot understand how on earth you beat me today. I should be racing in the Masters.’
Jason just stared back at him, held his ground. ‘You know why I beat you today, Xavier?’
‘Why?’
‘Because of everything you just said. You
are
better than me. You have heaps more natural talent than I do.
But I work harder than you do
. That’s why I won. And that’s why you’ve been scared of me all year - that’s why you sent Dido to distract me, that’s why you sent her to get information on me. And that’s why, Prince Xavier, if we ever meet again on a racetrack,
I’ll beat you there too
. Have a nice life.’
And with that, Jason turned his back on Xavier and walked away.
NEW YORK CITY, USA (WEDNESDAY) PARADE DAY
The floats worked their way down Fifth Avenue, bearing on their backs the sixteen racers who would compete in the Masters.
All of New York had come out to see them. The streets of the city were lined with over 10 million people, waving and throwing streamers. Ticker-tape fell from the upper heights of the skyscrapers, mingling with the ever-present confetti snow.
Jason, Sally and the Bug stood atop a gigantic papiermache float - built in the shape and colours of the
Argonaut
- waving to the cheering crowds.
On the other floats, Jason saw some familiar faces. Alessandro Romba.
La Bomba Romba. The current world champion and, this year, the winner in Sydney, London and Italy: if he won the Masters this week, he’d become the first racer ever to win the Golden Grand Slam, all four Grand Slam races in a single calendar year.
And on another float: Fabian.
The nasty Frenchman whom Jason had humiliated in the exhibition race in Italy.
Etienne Trouveau - Fabian’s equally villainous teammate; the man who had taken out Jason’s tailfin so ruthlessly in Italy.
And the two US Air Force pilot-racers, Angus Carver and Dwayne Lewicki - the crowd gave them a huge cheer.
At one point during the parade, Jason made eye-contact with Fabian.
The Frenchman smiled at him, and then formed his fingers into a gun and - his smile vanishing - pulled the trigger.
While Jason and the others were out on Fifth Avenue, the
Argonaut
- the tough little
Argonaut
- sat in a Team Lombardi pit bay on Sixth Avenue being overhauled.
Umberto Lombardi may not have been able to give Jason a brand-new race-ready car to compete in the Masters, but he could give the
Argonaut
a bit of an upgrade: some brand-new compressed-air thrusters and a crate-load of the best magneto drives money could buy - a full set of Ferrari XP-7s.
No longer was the
Argonaut
a hodge-podge of wildly different parts - now, internally at least, it was the complete package.
Externally, however, Lombardi didn’t change a thing. The only thing he got his workmen to do on the outside of the car was give the
Argonaut
a complete repainting and polishing - not in the colours of Team Lombardi, but in its own original colours: blue, white and silver.
When it came out of the garage later that afternoon - when Jason and the others had returned from the parade - the
Argonaut
positively sparkled. It was ready to race.
Throughout the rest of the day, Jason and his team stayed away from all the formal race functions - dinners, sponsors’ events, drinks parties.
Having seen how vacuous those things were both in Italy and at Race School, Jason, Sally and the Bug just didn’t care for them.
They just stayed at the official practice track out on Long Island Sound - putting the new-and-improved
Argonaut
through its paces - before returning to Jason’s cousins’ house in New Jersey late in the afternoon.
That evening, the entire extended Chaser family, the McDuff clan, Ariel Piper and Scott Syracuse sat around the dinner table, discussing tactics.
‘The important thing is the elimination system,’ Syracuse said. ‘Over the course of the four races, a leaderboard is used. Like at Race School, you get 10 points for winning, down to 1 point for coming 10th - and a flat zero points if you DNF. At the end of each race, the last four racers on the leaderboard get eliminated. So: in Race 1, 16 racers compete; in Race 2, 12; in Race 3, 8, and in the final race, only 4.
‘As such, the first race is simple,’ he said. ‘If you come in one of the last four, you’re out. If you survive the first race, then elimination depends on where everyone finishes in the subsequent races.’
‘And don’t forget the Bradbury Principle,’ Henry Chaser, ever the armchair expert, said. His eyes twinkled as he said it.