when he was ready he walked down the hail from his office to the private door to the garage and went inside.
The odour was an aphrodisiac to Marza. It wasn’t the smell of gasoline and alcohol and engine oil, it was what they represented, and he stood in the dark for a minute or two, his mind gliding back in time. There had been a lot of great days in his life and he savoured the fact that today would definitely be another one. Finally he turned the lights on.
The car sat alone in the middle of the garage. It was spotless, waxed like a mirror, and absolutely stunning, a low-slung sedan that was a masterpiece of styling, an aerodynamic marvel, its hood tapered and louvered, the top swept back, to avoid what Di Fiere called the aspetto di carro funebre, the look of the hearse, and the lines rolling gently back from the front fenders to the Ferrari-type rear deck. Di Fiere bad not tried to improve on that, ‘One does not improve on perfection, one accepts it,’ he said.
The instrument panel was filled literally from door to door with electronic gadgets. That would be Di Fiere’s job, operating the various control buttons which would give the observation tower’s mirror computer an instant readout of the car’s performance, one which would be printed simultaneously on a paper tape.
It gleamed like a jewel, even under the fluorescent lights, its jet-black coat disturbed only by the two thin bright-red racing stripes down either side because those were Marza’s colours and this car would be his someday and because ultimately he would be the one who would say, ‘It is ready,’ and they would go to the market and find out just how good they were.
Marza walked slowly around the car and swept his hand lightly over the roof, patted it affectionately and whispered, Va bene, signora, siamo soli —lei io e il Professore. Facciamogli vedere qualche cosa? Okay, lady, it’s just you and me and the Professor going to be out there, let’s show them something!
Then he went out into the brisk, clear, cold morning. There was just a breath of wind and that pleased Marza. In an hour or so, there would be none at all. Conditions were perfect. He rubbed his hands together and then started what had become a ritual. He walked the track, just as he had walked Le Mans and Raintree and Monza before every race, looking for cracks in the pavement, slick spots, picking up pebbles and branches and throwing them over the inside wall The ten-kilometre walk usually took him about an hour. Marza didn’t like surprises.
Signora Forti, Falmouth’s temporary landlady, awakened him at seven o’clock with coffee and a roll, the least she could do for what he was paying.
Grazie. Scusi, non sono vestito,’ he said, apologizing for not being dressed, and holding the door just wide enough to take the tray.
He put on pants and a T-shirt and then took the telescope and rifle out of the closet, setting them up on the tape marks he had laid out on the dormer sill. He put a tablet of graph paper and a small pocket calculator beside the scope. He had already calculated and programmed the distance between two marks on the back stretch of the track going into the far turn. By simply punching the calculator when the car passed the first mark, and then hitting it when it passed the second mark, he’d get the calculator to read out the exact speed. If the car topped 90 and nothing happened, he would have to do the shot. He took a sip of coffee and casually loosened the set screw on the rifle tripod and sighted through it.
He switched to the scope and zoomed up to full power, saw the familiar black jump suit with the splash of red on the sleeve. He could even read the word under the Aquila patch: ‘UNO.’
And the face — that dark, intense face with the granite-hard jaw and the unruly shock of black hair — Marza!
According to latest information, Marza would be in Monte Carlo with his wife until after the New Year. The first few tests were to be done by the relief drivers. Falmouth’s hand began to tremble slightly as he realized that h was about to kill Marza
— the idol of every woman, the hero of every daydreaming schoolboy, the fantasy of every man in Italy. Marza was a national hero — no, he was an international hero. Someday there would be statues of him in town squares. Everywhere he went, crowds gathered to see him, touch him, to chant: ‘Marza, Uno
Marza, Uno...’
This wasn’t part of the deal. This was definitely not part of the deal.
What was it Jack Hawkins kept saying in Bridge on the River Kwai? ‘There’s always the unexpected.’
Jesus, was that a parable! After twenty years in the business he should have known it was going too well. Anyway, the car was programmed for destruction, and that was bloody goddamn well that. But if the C-4 failed, if he had to take the shot, that was different. It was a tough enough shot, and with Marza behind the wheel...
He lit a cigarette and watched the racing king walk briskly all the way around the long track. And when Marza was through and had gone back into the factory, Falmouth dismounted the rifle. That was it. If the bombs failed, Marza would walk away from it.
Hell, Marza was one of his heroes, for God’s sake. He was not about to kill him with a gun. In fact, after twenty years in the business, he was hoping that, for once, for just this once, he would fail.
IV
Giuseppe di Fiere, who had so masterfully designed the Aquila 333 and the Milena, arrived at seven-fifty, his white hair tangled from the wind. Di Fiere was seventy-one years old and he drove his modified Aquila Formula One with the top down, rain, shine or snow, every day, the eighteen miles from his casa di campagna to the factory.
He had never been a driver. It was a failed dream, and it had died hard. He had started racing motorbikes when he was fourteen. By the time he was sixteen he was already making a name for himself. Then one Sunday afternoon on a dirt track at Vincenzion, coming out of the esses, he lost it. He could feel the bike going out from under him and he was down before he could react, his right leg trapped under the rear wheel, the bike, its engine still growling as it skittered crazily along the hard-packed track, dragging him along for fifty yards, grinding the leg into a formless, boneless mass before it began tumbling over and disintegrating insanely around him.
The doctors in the field tent took off the leg just below the knee, what there was left of it.
It had cost him his leg and his taste for driving, but not his love of racing, that was a part of his psyche, a blood
