Dutch nodded. It sounded like the kind of thing Lucifer Black would do. ‘And the Siberian’s navigator? He get chewed up too?’
‘If he did, he wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.’
Dutch stared at Nat, who favoured her with a thin smile.
‘Wait a second—you’ve been in the Devil’s Run? How the hell did you survive that?’
He nodded. ‘I don’t remember any of it. All I remember is waking up in the wreckage hours later.’
‘And the Siberian?’
Nat shook his head. ‘No sign of him. Most likely he tried to make a run for it and Long Tall Sally got him. When I came to, the jeep had rolled over on top of me. I figure it kept me hidden from sight. By the time I crawled out from under the wreckage, both the Kaiju and the Siberian were long gone.’
Dutch regarded him with something approaching admiration. ‘You were one lucky son of a bitch, coming out of something like that alive.’
He nodded. ‘Very much so, yes. I had to hike to the coast and signal to one of the offshore ships.’
All this must have happened while she’d still been in jail, Dutch realised. ‘Then why weren’t you my navigator in the first place, rather than Harry?’
‘Harry’s more expendable. I run security for Wu’s operations all around the world—or I did, until you forced his hand. Now he’s got no choice but to put me in the race with you.’
Dutch pressed a hand against her head and let out a groan. ‘You know, if you’d been straight with me from the start, I never would have had to break that asshole’s finger.’
‘You were too hard on him. Everybody has to race for the first time.’
She scowled at him. ‘Doesn’t mean I should be the one to babysit them.’
Nat stood. ‘We’ve got a couple of hours before the time-trials start.’ He jabbed a finger at her. ‘Remember, we are not going to Teijouan to win the damn race. It’s a retrieval mission, nothing more.’
‘Either way, letting me use the Coupé is the smartest decision you’ve made.’
‘And I hope I don’t live to regret it.’ He glanced towards the door. ‘Get yourself more coffee if you need it. We’ll ‘copter you over to the Fuji Speedway in thirty minutes.’
‘No,’ said Dutch, standing. ‘We’ll drive there. In the Coupé.’
Deep frown-lines formed between Nat’s eyes. ‘We don’t have the time.’
‘I’ve been stuck inside a jail cell for five years. I need all the time behind the wheel I can get. Besides, you know how good I can drive.’
* * *
She drove them onto the Tomei expressway twenty minutes later, Dutch sliding the Coupé past long trains of driverless cars linked to one another by software. Once again, the vibrations from the twin V8’s worked their way up through the leather seating, drumming at her muscles and thighs like a thousand pin-sized Turkish masseurs working in tandem.
Few things, in Dutch’s experience, felt as good as being behind the wheel of a car. The wheels felt like they were glued to the tarmac; now and then she’d catch a glimpse of some round-mouthed face inside a hutch-like pod, there and gone in a blur. She wondered if any of them still remembered what it felt like to take control of your own vehicle—although in truth most had been happy enough to give that privilege up for the sake of zero traffic accidents and safe streets.
She glanced at Nat beside her. ‘Now tell me which you’d rather be in when we run into some pissed-off Spine-back that hasn’t had its breakfast. This, or one of those redneck Halloween specials with the armour-plating and the gun-turrets or whatever.’
‘Fine,’ he admitted with clear reluctance. ‘Maybe you’ve got a point.’
‘Now tell me why I’m racing with only a few days warning.’
‘This thing we’re looking for on Teijouan,’ said Nat, ‘we only discovered existed in the past few weeks. With so little time, we’ve had to think fast and on our feet.’
The traffic loosened up a little, becoming more sparse. She had a sudden flashback to her teenage years when she’d made a living hijacking self-drive pods and reprogramming them to act as automated drug mules for the Mob. ‘So are you going to tell me whatever the hell it is we’re looking for yet?’
‘As Wu already told you, that’s going to wait until after we land on Teijouan.’
She scowled at him. ‘Why the hell not tell me now? Are you saying you don’t trust me?’
‘To be honest, Dutch,’ he said, ‘you haven’t given me any reason why I should.’
* * *
They made it to the Fuji Speedway in even less time than Dutch expected, thanks to Muto’s traffic overrides. It had felt wonderful, but it also, Dutch had to admit, felt too much like cheating.
At Nat’s direction, she pulled up outside a military checkpoint where Nat spoke to a guard. They were waved through, and Dutch followed the signs for the West entrance. Despite her cynicism, she couldn’t help but experience a certain nostalgic glow at seeing the pit buildings after so many years, all in a line next to the racecourse.
She steered the Coupé past the rusting hulk of an anti-aircraft gun mounted on a plinth near the toll booths in memorial to the Battle of Shinjuku. More soldiers directed them onto a road that led to a cordoned-off plaza behind the pit buildings and the grandstand. Cameras flashed, and people came running towards them. She saw broadcast vans, and reporters speaking into cameras.
Dutch pulled over and turned the engine off. People were moving about with brisk purpose everywhere she looked, some in suits, some in overalls, some talking into phones or yelling instructions to each other.
‘Max!’ Nat waved to a young man in mechanic’s overalls as they got out, then patted the roof of the Coupé. ‘Take this to
