Iron to Iron (Wolf by Wolf) (2 page)

Cigarettes before breakfast. Luka stood on the courtyard cobblestones of the Prague checkpoint, under a predawn sky, where the stars were only beginning to haze away.

Late to bed, early to rise. His had been a restless sleep. The road jitters never completely vanished—despite a fourth and fifth smoke over his discussion with Kurt and Dirk. The pair had welcomed Luka to their table without much ceremony, asking his advice about the next leg and discussing how to protect their places in the lineup, which, to be frank, weren’t all that great at sixth and eighth. They were, Luka decided, an unimaginative coalition. Teaming up with them could be more pain than gain.

At the end of the huddle, he’d considered approaching Felix again, but the boy had already bunked up, spinning off a bunch of
ZZZZZ
s under his black jacket when Luka poked his head into the dormitory. He was probably still snoring. Most sane people weren’t up this early unless they had to be. Even the racing officials were asleep. It was just Luka with his cigarette ashes and the prickle under his skin that wouldn’t go away.

He was stamping out his cigarette on the cobblestones when the checkpoint door opened. It swung slowly—as if whoever was behind it wanted to keep the hinge squeaks to a minimum. Luka stood motionless on his side of the courtyard, watching as a shadow slipped down the line of Zündapps, all the way to the one at the very end. Georg Rust’s bike.

It was bold of Katsuo—trying something under the racing officials’ sleeping noses. Sabotage was a traditional, if unsanctioned, part of the race, but it was almost always carried out on the road when witnesses were scarce.

The shadow halted, bending over the front tire. Not Katsuo, but Takeo. His favorite blade was in his hand, doing a delicate dance over the Zündapp’s tire. There was no violent
hiss
of air or
woosh
ing tire pressure. Luka wasn’t even sure the knifepoint had pushed through the tread at all. But Watabe Takeo seemed satisfied. He stepped away from Georg Rust’s motorcycle and turned for the door, stopping short when he saw Luka in the courtyard corner.

“If you tell…” Takeo said in German. The boy’s Higonokami folding blade was still open; he gripped its brass hilt meaningfully.

Luka shrugged. “I’m all for thinning the field. Though you should know I’m going to make a habit of checking my tire pressure before we leave every checkpoint.”

Watabe Takeo flipped his knife shut and disappeared back inside.

Luka stared up at the lightening sky and lit another cigarette.

Georg Rust’s front tire looked fine at the starting line. The racer flashed a million-Reichsmark grin at the Reichssender camera as he cranked his engine. Luka started his own motorcycle and braced for the road ahead.

If speed was the name of the game from Germania to Prague, then the leg from Prague to Rome was the first test of endurance. This portion was almost four times as long as the first—1,308 kilometers along a road that ran through countryside that swelled into foothills, jagged into the Alps, and then petered off into vineyards and medieval hill towns. Rome was at least an eleven-hour ride at top speeds. Longer still if you wanted to eat more than the odd protein bar crammed into your maw during the necessary stops to refuel.

It started out smooth enough. They zoomed through Prague’s morning streets, past a Gothic cathedral that looked as if it had been ripped from the pages of a fairy-tale book, and quaint gas-lamp alleyways plastered with a decade’s worth of Goebbels’s propaganda posters.

Katsuo didn’t try to pass Georg in these charmed city corridors. It was too dangerous. Narrow pavement had been made even narrower by the civilians who lined the road, cheering the racers forward.

“Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!”

Luka remained a steady third, never straying far from Katsuo’s fender. They were three hours in—well into the Bavarian countryside—when Georg’s front tire became noticeably tired. Its sides sagged, dark rubber puddling into darker pavement, until the racer could no longer ignore it. He was forced to pull to the side of the road and wait for a supply van.

First to last. Just like that.

Sabotage was in the air. The racers drove as close together as their times, and the thought that a few bullets might be enough to claim first was too tempting for Max Kammler. The fifteen-year-old was now running sixth, caught between Kurt Baer and Dirk Hermann. Felix Wolfe was doing an admirable job keeping these racers at bay, holding fourth place with iron-fisted technique.

They were between villages, well out of the range of the Reichssender cameras, when Luka heard the first gunshot. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the racing formation had become a panicked mess: wheels and wide eyes and Herr Kammler, waving his Walther P38 like he was a
verdammt
cowboy. The boy seemed to be aiming for tires, but even an expert marksman would find such targets impossible. There was too much movement, too many variables, for his shots to be sure. One flinted off Kurt Baer’s Zündapp. Another bit the asphalt by Felix Wolfe’s boot. It was only a matter of time before one of the bullets found flesh.

It was the sloppy tactic of an eager middleman—all aggression, no preservation—but that made it all the more dangerous. Luka’s attention was torn down the center, half on the road ahead, half on the drama unfolding behind him. Dirk and Kurt were worse than unimaginative; they were at a complete loss at how to stop Herr Kammler, despite their perfect positions to execute a pincer movement. The pair dropped back instead, allowing Max to bully his way into fifth place.

Felix Wolfe was not so easily cowed. The boy’s face was firmer than ever under the zinc oxide as he jerked his motorcycle in front of the oncoming troublemaker. Herr Kammler’s reflex was to swerve away. The action required two hasty hands, and as a result, his pistol tumbled into the road and his motorcycle veered off it—causing the German rider to brake as the rest of the Axis Tour competitors rushed past.

Kudos to the Wolfe boy.
And one more reason to keep an eye on him… though most of Luka’s concentration shifted back to the road at hand. Katsuo tore ahead, and Luka stayed on his tail, always second, never passing. Never letting the fender pull more than a few beats ahead—a goal that became more challenging as the road climbed into the Alps.

They were well past the mountains and countless vineyards when evening stretched into darkness. Instead of chasing a spot of sunlight, Luka focused on the red flare of Katsuo’s taillight.
Keep up. Keep up if you can!
The hours Luka had chain-smoked instead of sleeping gathered on his eyelids. His stomach felt like an alley-cat brawl—shriek and claw. The screams were even louder in his bladder and throat. How was it possible to be so
verdammt
thirsty and need to pee buckets at the same time? At least one of these problems could be relieved on the road, provided you were willing to sacrifice your dignity for several seconds of race time. Luka was willing to sacrifice much more than that.

(Hail a pissed-pants victory!)

Riding gear and urine did not mix. There was… chafing in rather unfortunate areas. When Luka reached the villa that served as Rome’s Axis Tour checkpoint, the washroom was the first thing on his mind. But when he parked his bike and peeled off his helmet, he found himself besieged by a Reichssender reporter and accompanying camera.

“Tell us about today’s leg.… How do you feel about your time?… What happened to Georg Rust?… Do you have anything to say to your fans?”

If there was a medal for sitting on a motorcycle in a puddle of your own piss while offering tedious answers to equally tedious questions—Luka would’ve earned it. The interview couldn’t have been more than five minutes, but by the end his legs were itching. Forget food and sleep! A clean pair of pants, a wash, and a smoke were all he really wanted.

Once filming wrapped, Luka paused only to scan the scoreboard.

The sixteen spots below were blank; the racers that would fill them were still out on the road, peeing into ditches and downing rations. This was when the gap between the top of the pack and the others became minutes instead of seconds.

Rome—kilometer 1,654—was when the race got interesting.

The washroom door was shut. Luka rushed toward it without much thought—driven solely by the itch, itch of his pants and the need to get out of them. When he found it jammed, he pushed harder. It opened to the sound of running water, the sight of a back—svelte and bare. Luka stopped in his tracks. The back turned and became…

Breasts!

Luka dropped the clean clothes he was carrying, too busy staring to pick them up. Breasts. In all their curvy, magnetic, entrancing glor—

SNAP!

Pain shot across Luka’s sunburnt face, sharp enough to make him swear out loud. He clutched his cheek and realized that the girl he’d stumbled in on was holding a towel. Instead of using it to cover up her bare chest, she’d wrung it tight and snapped it at his face.

Her face, Luka realized, belonged to the Wolfe boy. Well, not
boy
.

(Obviously.)

“Stop staring!!” she snarled, readying the towel again.

SNAP!!

This time Luka dodged; the towel’s end cracked the air by his ear.

“
Scheisse!
S-Sorry! I surrender!” He threw up his hands and shut his eyes, mind spinning.

Felix Wolfe was a girl. A girl with breasts. A girl who was most definitely not allowed to be competing in the Axis Tour.

“Don’t they knock on doors in Hamburg?” Her question was soaked with sarcasm.

“It’s a communal washroom!” Luka pointed out. “And you… you’re not supposed to be here!”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” the fräulein snarled.

“It’s not me; it’s the rules of the race.” Luka stood still, waiting for the towel to snap again. He heard the click of a door handle.

“Because you’re so concerned with the rules.” The girl’s hands dipped into the back of his waistband, yanked out the Luger hidden there. “‘No weapons are allowed on racers’ persons.’ That’s on page three of the Axis Tour rulebook. Rule Twelve, in case you were wondering.”

The fräulein had his gun.

Luka opened one eye, half-squinting. The girl had thrown on some clothes. The zinc oxide had been scrubbed off her cheeks, revealing three dark freckles. Her hair was cut like Luka’s… like all the other German boys: blond, curtained bangs slicked back, the hair by her temples and the nape of her neck shorn close. Features that had seemed so delicate the night before now looked sharp: cheekbones, nose, towering forehead. Whetted by the simple fact that they belonged to a girl.

“As Max Kammler made quite clear today, nobody follows Rule Twelve.” Luka opened the other eye. He kept his hands raised. She’d flicked the Luger’s safety off, but she wasn’t pointing the pistol at him.

Yet.

“‘Racers are only allowed to use riding gear that has been preapproved by Axis Tour racing officials.’ Rule Eighteen.” She nodded at his brown jacket.

“I got special permission to wear it,” Luka explained.

“Did you get special permission for those cigarettes, too?” the fräulein asked.

This could go on for a while.
Luka was tired. His pants were still stiff with pee, and the scratching cats in his stomach had grown ten sizes. The mirror behind the girl showed Luka the welt her towel had left. Nasty, puckered with blood, dangerously close to his eyeball. “Fine. Yes. I break the rules. But this… what you’re doing? It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” The fräulein’s lip curled to show teeth. “I’m the best racer in the Nürburgring circuit. I can handle a motorcycle, even with ovaries.”

“What do you think the Axis Tour officials are going to do when they find out you’re a girl? Hmm? Give you a chain of daisies and send you on your way?”

“They’re not going to find out.”

The Luger swung up. Luka found himself staring down the barrel of his own gun, then into the eyes of the fräulein who held it. They were as fine cut and heavy as a crystal candy dish, filled not with sweetness but grit. Hard, yes, but not a murderer’s eyes.

“You won’t kill me,” he said.

The girl shrugged and aimed the gun at his foot. “Maiming works just as effectively. Carrying a Luger around in your pants, where the safety can slip on your belt? You’re just asking to get detoed.”

She had oomph.

But he had her by the (metaphorical) balls.

“Don’t think I won’t tattle from my hospital bed. I’m not above petty revenge.” Luka dropped his hands. “Listen. I think there’s a way we can both come out ahead. You need me to keep your secret, and I need an ally to help me on the road. Zinc oxide, soup-guarding, all the things I told you last night.”

“You want to team up?”

“Not want,” he corrected her. “Need. You saw what happened to Herr Rust today?”

“The flat tire.”

“That wasn’t an accident. That was sabotage. Tsuda Katsuo can’t stand for anyone to pull ahead of him. If you steal the lead without a plan under your belt, he’ll take it back through less conventional means.”

Those first-frost eyes narrowed. “I assume you have a plan under your belt.”

“A few.” Luka nodded. “Depends on how the race goes. Most of the plans require a set of helping hands, and I’d rather not have to rely on Dirk Hermann and Kurt Baer. They’re slow. Unambitious.”

“If I help you edge out Katsuo, you’ll keep my secret?”

“I swear on my big toe, and all the little ones, too,” he added. “But if you double-cross me, I’ll have no problem letting Joseph Goebbels and every other Axis Tour official know what you’re hiding.”

“How do I know you won’t do it anyway?”

“Look, love, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to doubt my honor.”

Her eyes thinned even more. She jerked the pistol at him. “Call me
love
again, and see what happens.”

“What’s your name, then?” Luka asked. “It’s obviously not Felix.”

“Felix is my twin brother.” The girl hesitated a moment before lowering the Luger. “I’m Adele.”

“Adele.” The name rolled smoothly off his tongue. “Adele Wolfe. I like it.”

“Like it all you want,” she told him. “You just can’t say it where the others might hear.”

“Certainly not, Adele.” Luka held out an open palm. “My gun? If you please?”

Adele Wolfe switched the Luger’s safety back into place and returned his weapon. Luka wondered if he was making a mistake, not turning her in to the racing officials immediately. But he needed her to help oust Katsuo from the running, and really, how much damage could one fräulein do? Even if she did get ahead of Luka, he could always expose her secret.

Luka’s fingers closed over the gun. He tucked it back into his pants and smiled, ignoring the lightning stab in his cheek. “You and I are going to make an excellent team.”