Quick (26 page)

Bam.
They connect and Billy feels the impact through the soles of his feet. It’s a gigantic hit, the biggest he’s seen during a lifetime watching Formula One. A cloud of carbon fibre fragments spray into the air and now one of the cars is upside down and both are on fire.

Smoke envelops the track.

A moments passes.

No one seems to be doing anything about the burning cars.

Where are the fire marshals?

If Billy knows one thing it’s that the faster the flames are extinguished the better the chance the driver has of surviving. Through the smoke he glimpses a driver drag another from a burning wreck. But still no one is helping the driver of the third car. It burns directly in front of the Iron Rhino garage.

Where in hell are the bloody fire marshals
?

‘Come on.’ Billy says it to the Frenchman then turns and sprints across the garage, yanks a fire extinguisher off the wall, grabs a pit crew safety helmet and pulls it on as he runs to the pit wall. He leaps up, grabs hold of the thick chain-link debris fence that divides the pit lane from the pit straight and climbs. He realises the Frenchman is not with him as he reaches the top and looks down at the track.

Christalmigthty.

Surely this is what the gates of hell look like. The car burns but he can’t see it clearly through the towering wall of fire and smoke that bisects the track.

Then he can.

It’s an Evergreen.

Christ, is it Franka’s car?

No one is putting out the fire.

I have to do something.

He vaults over the top of the chain-link fence and hits the track hard, sprints towards the wall of fire, aims the extinguisher and lets it rip.

Kuuushh.
A blast of white powder slams into the flames and tamps them down. They immediately spring back up.

Kuuushh.
He swats them flat with another blast and surges forward, searches for the car within the thick, acrid smoke. Flames leap again.

Kuuushh.
‘Fuck off.’ They’re flattened momentarily and he pushes forward once more.

There.
He can see the outline of the car through the smoke. The rear half is ablaze.

Kuuushh.
A blast from the extinguisher subdues the fire for a moment. The heat is unrelenting but he moves closer, can smell the singed hair on his arms above the pungent odour of burning oil and petrol.

Who is the driver?

Please-not-Franka-please-not-Franka
—

It’s Franka.

She’s slumped in her seat, head lolled to one side.

‘Franka!’ He shouts it up but there’s no response. His right hand instinctively moves to the side of her neck and searches for a pulse. He can’t find one—then he can.

Thank God.

Connected to the chassis by a twisted suspension rod, the left front wheel lies across the front of the cockpit and it’s on fire. Did it flick back and hit her helmet? If it did, that would be bad. A head impact from a ten-kilogram tyre during a three-hundred kilometre an hour shunt would be enough to kill a bull elephant.

He pushes it from his mind, needs to concentrate on putting out these flames so she can be extracted from the vehicle by medical professionals. If she has any kind of spinal or neck injury he can’t just yank her out and carry her away because that could make it worse —

Jeeze!
Flames shoot out of the car’s air intake and fill his world. He ducks his head but he’s too slow, feels pain as the fire roasts the right side of his neck. The flames envelop the rear of the cockpit and torch the top of Franka’s helmet.

Kuuushh.
‘Get back muthafucka!’ He blasts the air intake, then the rear of the vehicle with a long burst of white powder from the extinguisher. It subdues the flames but only for a moment. They leap up again.

Kuuushh.
Once more he douses them with the white powder. Again they die down, then roar back to life.

Kuusss.
Another blast—and the extinguisher coughs.

‘Come on!’ He triggers it again. No joy. Empty.

He looks at Franka. The flames from the air intake are even larger than before and continue to burn the top of her helmet. It’s fireproof but only for so long. He has to get her out of there now, in spite of what her injures might be. He drops the extinguisher, kicks the blazing tyre off the car and dives his hand into the cockpit to unlock her safety harness —

Sssssssstt.
His hands burn. Molten tyre rubber has dripped onto Franka’s race suit and covered the buckle. ‘Shit!’ It hurts like, well molten fucking rubber —

Fzzzzzzzz.
A high-pitched whistle from inside the car’s flaming engine bay cuts across the soundscape.

Now what?

It sounds like a boiling kettle that’s about to go ballistic. It could be the battery for the ERS (Energy Recovery System), which is Formula One’s fancy way of describing the car’s Prius-like hybrid system, or it could be the fuel tank. Neither of them play well with fire. Worse, as soon as one explodes the other will follow and they’ll make the grenades he encountered earlier this week seem like a pair of Beroccas. Either way, he needs to get Franka out of this car right now. He grits his teeth and pushes his hands into the cockpit.

Ssssssstt.
His hands burn on the hot rubber as he unlocks the buckle and pulls the straps aside. His fingers sting like Gordon Sumner but he ignores the pain, grabs Franka under the arms and lifts her out of the cockpit, as fast and gently as he can. She’s a bantamweight so it’s not difficult.

Fzzzzzzzz.
The high-pitched whistle rises an octave.

Where are those fuckin’ marshals?

Same place as the Frenchman, on the other side of the pit wall. The fire is too big and the chance of a fuel tank or an ERS battery explosion too high so they’ve decided to sit this one out.

Time to go.

Billy bends his knees, grabs the extinguisher with his left hand, knows if he leaves it the pressurised cylinder will overheat and detonate too, then turns towards the pit wall.

Christ.

A curtain of fire rises before him, the heat so intense he can’t breathe.

He’s trapped.

~ * ~

16

Fzzzzzzzz.
The high-pitched whistle rises another octave.

There’s no choice but to get moving.

Billy grits his teeth, puts his head down and sprints into the flames, runs as fast as possible, cradles Franka’s body as best he can, the heat terrible. It seems to take an age—then he’s through the fire and the worst of the smoke.

That wasn’t so bad
—

Kaboom.
It feels like a nuclear weapon detonated. The ground moves but Billy manages to stay upright. Franka’s car just exploded —

Whomp.
The blast wave slams into Billy, knocks him sideways. He staggers, tries to keep his feet under him, doesn’t want to fall with Franka in his arms —

Kaboom.
Another explosion. Even bigger than the last.

Thwump.
Something hits him hard on the right shoulder, spins him around. He overbalances and falls to his knees, cushions Franka with his arms so she doesn’t hit the ground.

What the hell was that
?

A magnet from the ERS system, from the look of the flaming chunk of metal beside him. He gently lays Franka on the tarmac, flips up her helmet visor to check her eyes and see if she’s come around. She hasn’t.

Billy hears footfalls. He looks up as a helmeted figure sprints through the smoke towards him.

Finally a safety marshall.

The figure flicks up the helmet’s visor. It’s not a safety marshall. It’s Claude.

‘Nice of you to drop by. Didn’t keep you from the hors d’oeuvres, did we?’

Claude doesn’t answer, just points to Billy’s right. The Australian turns to see what he’s indicating and realises his shoulder is alight. That flaming chunk of metal has set him on fire.

‘Oh jeezus.’ Instantly Billy feels the heat through his shirt —

Kuuushh.
White powder blasts into the Australian. It’s cool and refreshing and immediately douses the flames. The white cloud clears and Billy sees the Frenchman holding a fire extinguisher in his hand. ‘Thanks.’ Billy turns back to the unconscious Franka, feels for her pulse again, finds it. It’s faint but it’s there.

Screeech.
A silver Mercedes AMG medical vehicle slides to a halt five metres way. Two doctors, a young woman and an older guy, swing out of the vehicle and sprint to Franka. Billy immediately stands and steps away to give them room. ‘There’s a pulse. She was unconscious and unresponsive when I found her.’ The doctors nod and go to work. Billy watches, concerned.

‘And who may this be?’ Billy hears the Frenchman and looks to where he is pointing.

James Allen, the foremost English-speaking Formula One journalist on the planet, who spends race weekends trawling the paddock tracking news stories for his website, runs towards them from the exit of the pit lane with a camera in hand. He’s fifty metres away and closes in fast.

Billy is momentarily starstruck, then realises he cannot speak to this man because it will blow his cover. He’s meant to be keeping a low profile and yet he just ran onto the track in the middle of a Formula One race and dragged a driver out of a burning car in front of the world’s media—a media that will want to know who the hell he is. ‘He can’t know who we are.’

Claude nods. ‘I got this.’ He strides down the track towards the oncoming journalist.

Kusssshhh.
He blasts the fire extinguisher long and hard. The giant plume of white powder billows and obscures them from Allen. ‘Let’s move.’

Through the drifting cloud of fire retardant Claude and Billy sprint to the pit wall. They scale it as a fire-engine finally pulls up beside Franka’s car, then they drop to the pit lane, cut through the Marussia garage, pass a number of surprised team members, then exit onto pit road and head for the Iron Rhino HQ.

Billy keeps pace beside Claude. ‘Why didn’t you help me pull her out of the car?’

‘Because we had no business being out there.’

‘What? We’re police officers. It’s our job to help.’

‘It’s not our job to save someone who chooses to partake in the most dangerous sport on the planet. You could have died and what would have been the point of that?’

‘I was fine.’

‘Sure, right up until the part when your
shoulder was on fire.’

They enter the Iron Rhino HQ through the side door, make their way down the walkway then slip into their office. The Frenchman turns to the Australian. ‘Look, if you choose to put yourself in danger, fine. Go ahead and kill yourself. But I’m not required to do it as well. And I won’t. I’ve told you before, the reason I’m alive is because I don’t do the crazy stuff and I’m certainly not going to start doing it for someone with a death wish who I’ve been partnered with for two weeks.’

Billy studies him. ‘What happened?’

Claude’s confused. ‘About what?’

‘To make you like this.’

‘To not take stupid risks and die? I thinks that’s just common sense —’

‘No no, don’t change the subject. What happened?’

The Frenchman regards him for a long moment. ‘This happened.’ He pulls up his left trouser leg and shows Billy a fat, keloid scar from his knee to his ankle. ‘And this.’ He drops the trouser leg and pulls up his right shirt sleeve to show a wide scar that circumnavigates his forearm. ‘And this.’ He pulls up his shirt to reveal a large scar on his abdomen which could only be a bullet wound.

Billy takes them in, shocked. ‘They didn’t all happen on the same day, did they?’

Claude grins at the thought. ‘No no, different days. Different years, but they all made me cautious.’ He studies the bullet wound for a moment. ‘Especially this one. Being dead for four minutes will do that to you.’

‘Jeeze.’

‘And I’ve been driving a desk for five years because of it.’ He looks up at the Australian. ‘That’s why I’m so rusty, if you’re wondering.’ It’s clearly difficult for the Frenchman to say.

‘You just saved
my
burning arse so you’re not
that
rusty.’

‘I don’t know about that. Anyway, the thing is, when you start out you’re young and full of piss and vinegar and you think nothing can hurt you, then you reach a point where you have wives and responsibilities and they’re just more important than the job. And as much good as you think you’re doing you realise it’s not worth dying for.’

Billy nods, remembers that he felt something similar about Franka when he was being chased down the stairs by that grenade in the Mall of the Emirates.

Self-conscious, the Frenchman changes the subject, glances at the Australian’s hands. ‘Looks like you’re going to have a few scars of your own.’

Billy studies them. Large white blisters have already begun to form on his fingers. ‘They’ll be fine in a few days.’ He gingerly strips off his shirt, moves into the bathroom and looks at his right shoulder in the mirror. It’s red and tender from the flames, like a severe case of oops-I-totally-forgot-to-apply-the-sunscreen-before-I-fell-asleep-on-the-beach sunburn, but again, it’s not that serious. Somehow he’s managed to get out of that inferno with relatively minor injuries.