‘Hey,’ asked Vishnevsky the Kaiju-hunter, coming abreast of Dutch as she moved away from the ‘copter. He had to shout over the noise of the rotor blades. ‘Where are our cars?’
‘Coming in now.’ She pointed towards a huge Russian-built Mi-26 landing at that moment.
He touched the brim of his hat and grinned. ‘Good to know.’
He headed for the Russian cargo chopper at a brisk place and she followed in his wake. By the time they got there, Vishnevsky’s Oshkosh had already been brought down the ramp. Lucifer Black drove his own vehicle out into the sun, unseen as always behind his tinted windows. He revved his engine and span his ride through a couple of turns that kicked up sand and dirt before pulling up close by the starting line.
Elektron’s Peterbilt semi-truck came down next, and Dutch noted he’d mounted a pair of jet engines on its rear bed. The Padres had, like the Siberian long before them, picked a souped-up vintage US Army jeep for their ride—a wise choice, in Dutch’s experience, given such vehicles required little to no extra modifications to protect them from the effects of the derangement field.
Countess König, by contrast, had chosen a T-model Mercedes Benz—not the fastest car, but sturdy as hell and not given to breaking down in tight spots. General Hurley had picked a Toyota Hilux—fast, manoeuvrable, tough, able to deal with a variety of terrains, and hence popular with insurgents and terrorists everywhere.
She waited until they wheeled her Coupé down the ramp, then supervised as engineers fixed brackets to the hood and rear to support a pair of film cameras. Any footage they obtained—assuming they survived to deliver it—would be edited and broadcast, streamed and displayed around the globe on an endless loop. The boot and rear racks had been stocked mid-flight with the supplies she’d requested—bottled water, survival gear, a repair kit, spare ammo and rockets, enough protein bars to last a week and a spare tyre mounted on the boot.
Nat came over to find her. ‘Everything good?’
‘So far.’ Once the engineers were done, she pulled the Coupé’s door open and looked in the back, where space had been made for weapons racks. She nodded with approval, seeing rifles of different calibers, along with an assortment of handguns, numerous boxes of ammo, and a pair of shoulder-fired rocket launchers.
‘Not bad,’ she said, standing back up. ‘Now all we need to worry about apart from giant hungry monsters that want to eat us is a couple of dickbags out to kill me.’
‘Maybe they’re waiting to see if you survive the Run first,’ Nat suggested.
She gave him a pointed look. ‘Or maybe we could ask Elektron if Muto hired him to kill me.’
Nat shook his head. ‘No way he’s involved with Muto.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘I’ve been looking into Elektron—he’s received a lot of warnings from race officials over the past couple of years. Based on what I’ve been hearing, it’s far more likely he meant to sabotage the car to keep us out of the race.’
‘Then there’s something else I’ve been wondering,’ said Dutch. ‘How did the first guy Muto sent to kill me know I’d be in that hotel? Or Muto know I’d be arriving?’
‘Good question. If you find out, let me know.’
‘Before I went to the warehouse to get the Coupé I paid a visit to a guy called Hiro who does all of Muto’s computer hacking. He said Muto hired the ninja, but if she did, it would have to have been before we even landed in Japan. My guess is Hiro found some way to hack into Wu’s communications. There’s no other way she could have known.’
‘That would be worth looking into,’ Nat agreed, taking out his phone. ‘I’ll get his tech people onto it.’ He paused. ‘Maybe it’s worth checking the Coupé over again, a second time.’
‘There something worrying you?’
‘You said it yourself—there are two people out there who want to kill you. Elektron’s one thing, but there’s just one of him, and we can’t rule out any of the other contestants. Plus with all these engineers, mechanics, race support staff and the rest, there’s any number of opportunities for someone to try to sabotage or hurt us.’
‘Do we have the time?’ she asked skeptically. ‘We won the trials, so we’ll be the first over the starting line.’
A smile curled one corner of his mouth. ‘They decided to flip the order of departure this year and put the team with the worst time in pole-position.’
Dutch groaned. ‘You mean we’ll be the last to leave?’
‘Yeah, but think about it. It’ll give us a few extra hours to check the Coupé over.’
Dutch sighed and stripped off her jacket, throwing it on the roof of the Coupé before cracking open the boot and fetching the toolkit. ‘Then I guess now’s as good a time as any to get started.’
Nat started to take off his own jacket, and she gave him a look. ‘I think you’d know by now I work better on my own when I have a choice.’
He gave her a sharp look, then shrugged his jacket back on. ‘And there was me about to give you some advice on team-work.’
* * *
Dutch checked over the engine, chassis, drivetrain, ignition system and tyres for any signs of sabotage. She felt a sour sense of unease when she found something.
‘Someone cut the fuel line,’ she said a while later, handing Nat a rubber hose. A tiny incision had been cut in it. ‘It’s not enough to
