High Octane

by Ashlinn Craven

  “Oh come on,” she pleaded, “use the goddamn phone.” At the very least he’d have to drain the transmission fluid—impossible on the side of the road with no tools. He continued poking as if she hadn’t spoken. As if she didn’t exist.

  Stranded on side of road. Only five miles from the airport. Nearly made it. That wasn’t a story that Mack was going to appreciate from his newest recruit.

  On the verge of giving up and walking back to the hotel just to show the stupid driver that his macho pride had forced this very last and potentially dangerous resort, she heard a car slowing down. A blessed car. At least someone in this country saw fit to help a fellow human being. She waved anxiously.

  The silver Audi screeched and came to an abrupt halt on the side of the road behind their taxi. A cloud of dust and sand particles billowed into the air. The driver stepped out. Shielding her eyes to get a better look, she stumbled backward in surprise.

  Adam Fontaine.

  Swamped with relief, she laughed out loud as he marched up to them. Same black T-shirt as at breakfast, same black jeans on taut, long legs. Her eyes trailed back up over the impeccable torso to his face. She couldn’t see what was going on beyond his mirrored, Police sunglasses, and the rest of his face gave nothing away.

  “Thanks for stopping; you’re very kind.” She gestured to the car. “I think it’s the—”

  Adam held up his palm, turned and strode over to the driver, which she found rather abrupt. Folding her arms, she observed how he signaled to the driver to step away from the engine. The taxi driver underwent a transformation, jabbering away in a stream of Arabic, his big yellow teeth flashing in a wide grin, sounding for all the world like he couldn’t believe his luck.

  Adam meanwhile fished a handkerchief out of his pocket to avoid scorching himself on the engine. She leaned against the side of the taxi, enjoying the sight of him bending over to check the oil levels. There were some advantages to sitting on the sidelines after all. He replaced the oil gauge and slid gracefully under the car. Whoa, it must be a furnace under there.

  After half a minute, Adam eased himself out from under the car and straightened up, shaking the sand from his hair. Color suffused his face. He tried to communicate in hand signals to the taxi driver, who just kept nodding and smiling.

  Finally he turned to her. “Need a ride?”

  “Yes, I’m going to Riyadh—”

  “Riyadh?” He whipped off his glasses and wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.

  “No, no, I mean to the airport to fly to Riyadh. That was the idea. Would you drive me there? To the airport? Please? I’m sorry, but my flight’s in … fifty minutes, boarding in ten, and I really, really have to get this—”

  “Come on.” He cocked his head toward the Audi. The glasses went on again, and he clapped the taxi driver on the back. Viv grabbed her bag from the taxi, still reeling from this good fortune. When she looked at them again, the taxi driver was holding a pen in his hand, thrusting a sheaf of paper under Adam’s nose.

  Adam scribbled something and made hand signals toward his Audi. The taxi driver held up his camera to take a photo. She shook her head in disbelief. Hopefully the surly Arab would get over himself and use the phone to call for help as well.

  She flung herself into the Audi, sinking back in relief against the cool leather seat.

  “Which terminal?” Adam asked as he started the engine.

  “No clue. Domestic flight.” She rummaged in her bag for the tickets so she could check. “Look—thanks a million. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciate this.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  She waited until they’d secured some distance from that hateful taxi before asking, “What about the driver? Should we have just left him there?”

  “He’ll be okay.”

  “You think so? He didn’t seem capable of anything, not even calling for help, and people around here don’t seem to want to stop.”

  “That’s because you were there.” Adam’s eyes never left the road.

  “Come again?”

  “Not too many drivers here will stop when they see a woman parading about on the side of the road, an abaya on upside down, and cropped, blond hair shining out like a beacon.”

  She sat in stunned silence.

  “No offense,” he added.

  Heat rose up along her already sweaty neck. She wanted to let off steam. “So I should’ve stayed inside the taxi, out of sight, is that what you’re saying?”

  “That might have been an option.”

  “Sitting quietly while this useless, misogynistic driver poked around at an engine like a complete Barbie doll?”

  “Would making a fuss have solved the issue?” He turned to her, and all she could see in his mirror glasses was the duplicate image of her flustered face.

  “Damn right it would,” she said. “I’m not such a bad mechanic—”

  He swerved between two cars, and her heart lurched. She gripped the side handle tighter. Ronan and Maddux used to drive like this, too. She’d never gotten used to it.

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “You were saying?”

  Viv forced her eyes away from the speedometer and exhaled as though nonchalantly smoking a cigarette. “I would’ve told him what was wrong if he’d only let me.”

  “Is that so?” Adam’s voice seemed to hold a challenge.

  “That is so.” She couldn’t resist mimicking his staccato accent.

  “All right. Tell me.” He pressed his back further into the seat as if settling to hear a great story.

  “Well, from what I could feel, it was a faulty transmission.”

  “Incorrect.”

  “It was torque convertor lockup caused by flushing with the wrong transmission fluid or the heat. I was talking about the effect, not the root cause. So, yes, the transmission.”

  He said nothing. She was tempted to add, “I’m right, aren’t I?” like she was sixteen again, trying to get one up on her smartass, younger brother.

  “What’s happening in Riyadh?” he asked. Unlike his driving, his method of changing the subject was clunky to say the least.

  “Interview with Al-Saeed. He’s pulling out.”

  “I know. And they’re sending you?”

  “So it would appear, yes.” Holy Mother, had all mankind turned misogynistic overnight?

  “Tough assignment.”

  “Thanks for the confidence vote.”

  “Look, nobody knows why he’s bailing, so he’s chosen to keep it secret. Sending a journalist over there—especially a female one—is hardly going to make him talk.”

  “I have ways and means.”

  “I bet you do.” His eyebrows lifted behind the glasses. She imagined she saw a tug on his cheek muscles, too.

  Then she felt the car decelerate as they entered the airport. How in the heck had they gotten there so fast? The car eased to a halt outside the terminal building.

  Inertia rooted her to the seat for a moment. She clasped her bag, her hijab and her abaya to her chest with one hand and opened the door with the other. “How can I repay you?”

  “What makes you think you have to?” He lifted the glasses above his chiseled hairline and scanned her face for a brief moment with his solemn, anthracite eyes.

  “Well then, thanks.” The purple hijab slipped off and onto the floor.

  He swooped down and placed it back on top of the abaya. “Do you know how to put this on?”

  She shrugged. What? Was he some kind of hijab-draping expert as well as everything else? “No, but I’ll get an air steward to help me.”

  “Good. Well, take care out there.”

  She nodded, and before she could entertain the unlikely fantasy of his fingers patting and tucking material around her newly shorn head, she dashed into the terminal building.

  As she fumbled with the boarding pass machine, the belated questions assailed her. Where was he going? What was he doing away from the circuit at all when they had pract
ice runs this morning and qualifiers this afternoon?

  What kind of journalist was she anyway if she couldn’t even do that right?

  Chapter 3

  Adam made it back to the Gatari garage just before eleven thirty. A blockade of taxis at the airport had slowed him down after dropping off Vivienne McCloud, making him seethe with frustration. He’d hated to do it, but he’d violated at least six local traffic rules to get out of there.

  Bruce came charging up as fast as his untrained legs could carry him, his face puce and bathed in sweat. “Where the bloody hell have you been?” He jabbed his wristwatch. “You’ve only ten minutes to get geared up. This is so unlike you.”

  “I’m on it.” He wriggled into his overalls.

  “Where were you? I wanted to go over the seat adjustments one more time. Now we’ll just have to take our chances.”

  “The seat’s fine. I haven’t grown since yesterday.”

  “But where were you?”

  “I had to help someone.” He hunkered down and ran his hands over the surface of his new drive, the Honda GTX with its direct injection, turbocharged V6 engine and revolutionary energy recovery system.

  “Help someone? Who, in the name of God?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nobody.”

  “One of these days your little habit of driving around between practice and qualifiers is going to get you into real trouble, you know? And I won’t be around to see it because I’ll have died of a heart attack. Don’t you know the death rate on the roads here? It’s astronomical.”

  Adam ignored him and continued his inspection of the car’s wing.

  “Don’t touch that, the paint’s wet.”

  He ran his fingers along the patch anyway.

  “Murphy's ninth law of technology,” Bruce grunted, handing him an oily rag to wipe his fingers.

  “What?”

  “Tell a man there are three hundred million stars in the universe, and he'll believe you. Tell him a car has wet paint on it, and he'll have to touch to be sure.”

  “That’s nice, Bruce.”

  “Yeah. We’ve ten executives upstairs wanking off on the power produced by this baby, so don’t let us down.”

  “I’ll do my job.”

  “Right.” Bruce set down a spanner on the bench and wiped his brow. “God, it’s hotter here than Melbourne in January. Sure you don’t want the GT? You were a tiny bit slower this morning.”

  “No, let Albany have it. Have some faith. Besides—” He jumped into the cockpit and ran his hands along the interior of the chassis. “She feels good. I haven’t felt this way about a car since my Ferrari in Montreal.”

  “Where you’d a five-second lead on Bates. In the pissing rain. Can you repeat that?”

  “Ask me when this is over.” He pulled on his helmet and started the ignition, listening for the unique sound of the engine. Always a thrilling moment.

  With a thumbs up to Bruce, he drove the GTX slowly out of the garage and onto the circuit. The sun above was as high and as hot as it got. Merciless. Great wine-growing weather, not that you could grow anything in this desert sand.

  Of all the days to lose his head and do something really stupid. If he messed up these first qualifiers he’d never, ever forgive himself.

  • • •

  “Good on ya,” Bruce said, as Adam whipped off his helmet in the garage. “Nice driving. I thought you’d make pole after those first sessions. But you lost a little time there in the finals.”

  “It’s oversteering.” Adam forced the words out through vocal cords stiff with exhaustion.

  “It can’t be.”

  “But it is,” he hissed. Twenty million dollars on research and development, and they couldn’t get this right.

  There was a horrible silence.

  Bruce scratched his head and consulted the three other engineers who’d gathered around him, their faces creased with concern. “It was fine yesterday, right?”

  Adam nodded and flung his sweat-sodden helmet onto the bench. “We’re under parc fermé now. That’s it—nothing can be done.” Under the watchful eye of the FIA Technical Delegate and race scrutineers, they could add fuel to the cars, change tires, and bleed brakes. Minor front wing adjustments were also allowed, but little else. Certainly not enough to fix this problem before the race tomorrow.

  “We checked everything,” Bruce said. “It was perfect, as you know. We’ve been working around the clock since we got here to make sure of it.”

  “Well it’s not perfect now. And it sure as hell won’t be tomorrow.”

  “Adam—” a junior engineer called.

  “Don’t want to hear it,” he cut him off, shoving his way through the group to storm through the exit. Outside the garage, the dead heat assailed his unprotected face. So hot he could smell burning tar, burning rubber; even the plastic coating of his overall smelled like it was burning. The oppressive sun high above seemed to mock his shadowless figure on the dusty circuit.

  His time had been okay—enough to get him in fifth, but for this crucial first race he’d desperately wanted an outright pole position, and had been sure he could get it. But who got it? Yeah, Reece, of course.

  He flung around as someone called his name. Bruce was half running toward him. Adam slowed to let him catch up—last thing he needed was his chassis engineer having a heart attack.

  Bruce gasped as he drew close. “We’re sorry, mate.”

  “Bruce, stop.” Adam held up his hand. “Just … go back.”

  “No, you listen up. The engineers, they’ve been busting themselves fixing up the GTX. In this heat. You have to remember, they’re regular guys at the end of the day. It’s more than a job for them, it’s a passion … but they’re only human.”

  He hesitated, unsure how to respond. Of course Bruce had to defend his team, but surely trying to eliminate the sources of the problem was more important right now? Of course, he should have checked it himself, but the team manager told him he was first driver now and shouldn’t spend so much time in the garage. Like a fool, he’d listened.

  Bruce was still gasping for air. “You’re one of the best drivers I’ve had the privilege to work with, and you have an uncanny knack with engines. You understand engines like—well, like some men understand women.”

  “Your point being?”

  “Sometimes things go wrong no matter how much you check them. And when it comes down to it, I’m going to side with my engineers. I’ll say this to any driver I work with: Sometimes you have to care about the people aspect, too, you know? Treat people nice, right? Especially my team.”

  “Okay. Point taken,” Adam said, more to end the conversation than anything. He wasn’t about to apologize for wanting a perfect car when he was one being strapped into it.

  He strode on toward the main circuit building. And voilà, there was the very thing he didn’t want to see—the unmistakable figure of Reece with his red overalls and yellow, shaggy mane lounging in the concrete shade of the building’s porch. Even fifty meters away, Adam could smell the smoke of his disgusting Petroff cigarillos. Who did he think he was? Clint Eastwood?

  Ignoring him would be worth a try at least.

  “Hold up,” Reece said, sliding his boot in front of the large aluminum door. Just two syllables of his hateful London accent set Adam’s nerves on edge.

  “What do you want?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Reece beckoned toward the Gatari garage.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing, huh? What’s got you looking so mad then?”

  “Out of my way, Reece.”

  “Just one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Have you seen Viv?”

  “Who?”

  “Vivienne McCloud. Blonde BBC reporter? Total babe. She’s supposed to be here. You know, interviewing drivers?” He smirked. “Interesting ones. Sociable ones.”

  “Meaning you, I suppose.”

  “For example.” Reece exhaled a long plume of smoke.
Adam itched to cough the poison out while Reece pretend cuffed him on the shoulder. “Do you know something?”

  Adam turned his attention to the door handle. Reece never asked idle questions, so why was he asking this? “Don’t make me kick your foot away.”

  Reece’s blue eyes studied him through the smoke. “Do you have another facial expression? Because that one doesn’t come across too well on TV.”

  Adam clenched his teeth. Reece had done a pretty good job himself of masking his megalomaniac tendencies two years ago when they’d been friends.

  “You might want to work on that.” Reece chuckled. “As well as your steering, of course.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No, apart from that, you’re fucking perfect. But if you do come across Viv, tell her I’ll be in the Infinity Lounge, third floor.” He removed his foot, which was just as well because Adam was about to do it for him.

  “Tell her”—the Englishman’s voice turned even slimier than usual—“tell her that her favorite driver will be waiting for her.”

  “Sure,” he said. If he encountered Vivienne again, he’d do her a big favor and direct her as far away as possible from the Infinity Lounge. If she made it back in one piece from Riyadh, she wouldn’t want the likes of Reece breathing down her neck. She seemed too smart to be taken in by him.

  Then again, she’d dated Maddux Bates.

  • • •

  Viv never wanted to go to Riyadh again.

  After a long, insect-infested wait in a corridor in the palace Al-Saeed called home and a stilted interview with the sheik himself, she hadn’t squeezed a drop out of him that she hadn’t known already. Five minutes in, it became apparent that the surly sheik sitting before her wrapped in his pristine white dishdash wasn’t going to divulge anything and she was wasting her time.

  From observing him at F1 events last year, she’d pegged Al-Saeed as a mild-mannered individual, nothing like this belligerent, monosyllabic ogre. There was something wrong.

  Curious, she hung around for a bit in the leafy shade, watching black chickens cluster around a trough of scraps in the courtyard. She struck up a conversation with a junior clerk standing outside smoking. He had on the traditional robe too, but he seemed very interested in all things modern, especially Formula One. After an animated debate on the prospects of the German team this year, he opened up and admitted he was in disgrace for messing up one of Al-Saeed’s appointments.