Dragon

“I don’t like waiting in the dark for something to happen.”

Giordino switched his attention from the cars to a girl walking past in a tight leather skirt and said vaguely, “What could possibly happen at a concours?”

They seemed an unlikely group, but there they were, seriously observant in their dark suits and attaché cases amid the casually dressed classic car owners and spectators. The four Japanese men gazed studiously at the cars, scribbling in notebooks and acting as though they were advance men for a Tokyo consortium of collector car buyers.

It was a good front. People noticed them, were bemused by their antics, and turned away, never suspecting they were a highly trained team of undercover operatives and their attaché cases were arsenals of gas grenades and assault weapons.

The Japanese team had not come to admire the automobiles, they came to abduct Loren Smith.

They combed the area around the concours, noting the exits and placement of armed security guards. Their leader, his dark face glistening in the midday sun, noted that Pitt’s Stutz was parked in the center of the field of classic automobiles, making it next to impossible to spirit Loren away without causing an outcry.

He ordered his three men to return to their stretch limousine that was parked by the track while he hung around keeping an eye on Loren’s movements. He also followed Pitt, Giordino, and Mancuso for a short distance, examining their clothing for any telltale bulge of a handgun. He saw nothing suspicious and assumed all three were unarmed.

Then he wandered about patiently, knowing the right moment would eventually arrive.

A race steward informed Pitt that he and the Stutz were due on the starting line. With his friends going along for the ride, he drove along the grass aisle between the rows of cars and through a gate onto the asphalt one-mile oval track.

Giordino raised the hood and gave a final check of the engine while Mancuso observed. Loren gave Pitt a long good-luck kiss and then jogged to the side of the track, where she sat on a low wall.

When the Hispano-Suiza pulled alongside, Pitt walked over and introduced himself as the driver stepped from behind the wheel to recheck his hood latches.

“I guess we’ll be competing against each other. My name is Dirk Pitt.”

The driver of the Hispano, a big man with graying hair, a white beard, and blue-green eyes, stuck out a hand. “Clive Cussler.”

Pitt looked at him strangely. “Do we know each other?”

“It’s possible,” replied Cussler, smiling. “Your name is familiar, but I can’t place your face.”

“Perhaps we met at a party or a car club meet.”

“Perhaps.”

“Good luck,” Pitt wished him graciously.

Cussler beamed back. “The same to you.”

As he settled behind the big steering wheel, Pitt’s eyes sca

Giordino’s attention was focused on the Stutz. Only Mancuso, who was standing several feet away, saw her nod to the man, a Japanese, and accompany him to the limousine.

Giordino lowered the hood and shouted over the windshield, “No oil or water leaks. Don’t push her too hard. We may have rebuilt the engine, but she’s over sixty years old. And you can’t buy spare Stutz parts at Pep Boys.”

“I’ll keep the rpm’s below the red,” Pitt promised him. Only then did he miss Loren and glance around. “What happened to Loren?”

Mancuso leaned over the door and pointed at the white stretch Lincoln. “A Japanese businessman over there in the limo wanted to talk to her. Probably some lobbyist.”

“Not like her to miss the race.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her,” said Mancuso.

Giordino reached in and gripped Pitt’s shoulder. “Don’t miss a shift.”

Then he and Mancuso stepped away to the side of the track as the starter positioned himself between the two cars and raised the green flag over his head.

Pitt eased down on the accelerator until the tachometer read 1,000 rpm’s. His timing was on the edge of perfect. He second-guessed the starter official and popped the clutch the same instant the flag began its descent. The turquoise Stutz got the jump and leaped a car length ahead of the red Hispano-Suiza.

The Stutz eight-cylinder engine featured twin overhead camshafts with four valves per cylinder. And though the horsepower was comparable, the Hispano’s six-cylinder displacement was eight liters against five for the Stutz. In chassis and body weight, the big town car gave away a 200-kilogram handicap to the cabriolet.

Both drivers had removed the cutout that allowed the exhaust to bypass their mufflers and thunder into the air just behind the manifolds. The resulting roar from the elderly engines as the cars accelerated from the starting line excited the crowd in the stands, and they shouted and applauded, urging on the beautiful but monstrous masterworks of mechanical art to higher speeds.

Pitt still led as they surged into the first turn in a haze of exhaust and a fury of sound. He shifted through the gears as smoothly as the old transmission let him. First gear was worn and gave off a banshee howl, with second coming much quieter. Given enough time and distance, both cars might have reached a speed of 160 kilometers (100 mph), but their accelerating velocity did not exactly snap necks.

Pitt kept a wary eye on the tach as he made his final shift with the Warner four-speed. Coming onto the backstretch, the Stutz was pushing a hundred kilometers, with the Hispano pressing hard and gaining in the turn.

Onto the straightaway, the Hispano moved up on the Stutz. Cussler was going all out. He pushed the big French car to the limit, the noisy valve train nearly drowning out the roar of the exhaust. The flying stork ornament that was mounted on the radiator crept even with the Stutz’s rear door handle.

There was nothing Pitt could do but keep the front wheels aimed straight, the accelerator pedal mashed to the floorboard, and hurtle down the track at full bore. The tach needle was quivering a millimeter below the red line. He dared not push the engine beyond its limits, not just yet. He backed off slightly as the Hispano drew alongside.

For a few moments they raced wheel to wheel. Then the superior torque of the Hispano began to tell, and it edged ahead. The exhaust from the big eight-liter engine sounded like a vulcan ca

When they sped into the final turn, Pitt slipped in behind the big red car, drafting for a few hundred meters before veering high in the curve. Then, as they came onto the homestretch, he used the few horses the Stutz had left to give and slingshotted down to the inside of the track.

With the extra power and momentum, he burst into the lead and held off the charging Hispano just long enough to cross the finish line with the Stutz sun-goddess radiator ornament less than half a meter in front of the Hispano stork.

It was a masterful touch, the kind of finish that excited the crowd. He threw back his head and laughed as he waved to them. He was supposed to continue and take a victory lap, but Giordino and Mancuso leaped from the pit area waving their hands for him to stop. He veered to the edge of the track and slowed.

Mancuso was frantically gesturing toward the white limousine that was speeding toward an exit. “The limousine,” he yelled on the run.