He rose to his feet with the Shihan.
Dishonour had shaken this dojo. Their two greatest disciples had left. The one he would not think about, not talk about. As for Wyatt, he had his promise that he would return.
They bowed to each other, then stepped back.
The first blow struck Aito hard beneath his heart. It was a harsh, fighting blow. He looked into the eyes of his opponent. The Shihan did not treat him like a sick man and they fought like men.
It was not over. It was just beginning.
March
Bruce de Villiers surveyed his cars as they came off the Jumbo at Rio airport. It was always an anxious time for him. He just hoped that nothing had been lost or mislaid, because the actual business of transportation was out of his hands. The airlift of all the Formula One teams to South America was a huge operation, coordinated by the head of the Formula One Constructors’ Association, Ronnie Halliday.
Bruce had two spare cars in addition to those he’d prepared for the Brazilian Grand Prix, but they weren’t the cars he’d set up, they were unknown, untested.
He only relaxed when everything was on the ground and it was clear that it was all in perfect shape. The customs people seemed to take forever, then a hydraulic hoist loaded the cars and equipment onto the waiting trucks.
The Brazilians always worried Bruce. He didn’t quite trust their good-natured conviviality.
More and more equipment came out of the plane, and he looked aghast at the four pallets of tyres that Carvalho had insisted he bring with him. He had argued that they could supply him direct from their factory, just north of Rio, but they had insisted that he bring existing supplies.
He walked out of the airport customs area an hour later, more than a little annoyed. The customs officials had insisted on going over one of the cars very carefully, and he’d been terrified that they’d damage something. He couldn’t understand a word of Portuguese, and the one official who could speak English wasn’t interested in playing interpreter.
Now he headed back to the hotel and a fresh set of worries, the first of which was keeping a close guard on his team. The temptations of the city were real. Again he cursed the nature of the Formula One circuit - almost all the events took place in the most glamorous possible locations. But at least he had little to worry about with his drivers. Ricardo had a lot to prove, and he was having an affair with Debbie, who seemed to be balancing out his Italian wildness. Wyatt was already at the circuit, itching to drive.
Bruce entered the hotel foyer and was immediately conscious of much shuffling and bowing - the Shensu factory mechanics had arrived. After shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries twenty times over, he slipped into the hotel bar and ordered a Scotch on the rocks, hoping to find sanity in the familiar amber liquid.
Tomorrow could only be better, he promised himself. They would be down at the track and he could get on with doing what he knew best - pulling his team together and focusing their attention on winning.
Bruce drank alone, studiously avoiding the managers of the other teams. As far as he was concerned, they were the opposition. He maintained his view that he wanted to savage his competitors, not drink with them.
He was pleased that Wyatt had recovered well from the accident at Kyalami. He knew that Wyatt’s mind was totally focused on the race; he wasn’t taken in by the glamour of the sport, he didn’t want to be a prima donna. In that way he reminded Bruce of James.
Bruce knew he had a lot to be pleased about - but there was something that was making him nervous, though he hadn’t admitted it to anyone. The journalist Vanessa Tyson was definitely stalking Calibre-Shensu. Fortunately, her interview with him hadn’t been given much air time in England, though he knew that in the US it had received wide coverage. She could cost him Phelps’s sponsorship and she could do Formula One a whole lot of damage. But, strangely, Phelps seemed unconcerned about her and said that he’d sort Vanessa Tyson out.
Ricardo lay back in the water and contemplated the bronzed goddess who’d been watching him for the last half-hour. There was nothing shy about the way she’d been assessing him; in fact there was almost an open invitation in her eyes.
He glanced across at Debbie and realised that she hadn’t even noticed what was going on. With her blonde hair, she was natural prey for every Brazilian male on the beach. He doubted if she’d ever had so much attention in her entire life - and he knew she loved it.
He closed his eyes again and thought about the Shensu Shadow. His marriage with the car was a hard one, and not yet entirely resolved. The Shadow refused to respond directly to some of his commands - the two of them were still fighting, still unsure of each other. He didn’t trust the automatic gearbox, and was scared that it might malfunction during the race; he knew that more and more of the teams were making the move to automatics, but he preferred the simplicity of a fully manual shift.
This season, there would be more competition on the track. For the first time in years, many of the cars would be equal in their levels of competitiveness. Even if he did have the best car, it would still be only marginally better than the rest. Of course, Wyatt would be driving the other Shadow, and he was certainly gunning for top place.
Ricardo looked at the goddess again, then at Debbie. Why could he never be content with one woman?
A dark-skinned Adonis had sat down next to Debbie, and was getting a little too interested for Ricardo’s liking. He turned over and swam for the shore. By the time he reached them, the man already had his hand over Debbie’s.
‘Eh, she is my lady.’ Ricardo glared at the man, who seemed totally unfazed by his arrival.
‘The charming young lady is talking to me,’ he said.
To Ricardo’s annoyance, Debbie didn’t say a word, nor did she try to extricate her hand.
‘Why don’t you take another swim,’ said the stranger. The tone of his voice suggested there would be a fight if the suggestion was not taken seriously.
‘Fuck off!’ Ricardo yelled.
The Brazilian rose, and Ricardo swung a hard left into the man’s jaw. He toppled over into the sand, and suddenly the beach went very quiet.
‘Ricardo, you . . .’
He stared at Debbie and she shut up. The Adonis dragged himself up, wiping blood from his mouth, and Ricardo sat down next to Debbie and examined the broken skin on his left hand. She slapped him on the face, an unexpected, hard, stinging blow.
‘You bastard!’ she said. He’d never seen her so angry. And suddenly she started shouting at him.
‘So you lie there eyeing that Brazilian bitch for the last half an hour, then I decide to talk to someone and you hit him!’
‘He was holding your hand . . .’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘you’re just beyond belief.’ She got up.
‘I suppose you’re leaving?’ he said, not moving.
She walked off the beach without turning round once, and he smiled to himself. If she thought he was going to tolerate her seeing other men, she had another thing coming.
His mind was quickly distracted. The dark-skinned goddess he’d been watching earlier was walking slowly up the sand towards him.
‘I see you’re alone.’
The voice was husky and attractive.
‘You see very well,’ he said.
She sat down on the sand next to him and then stretched out, exposing herself to the sun.
‘You have a fight with your woman?’ she said lazily.
‘She is for me, not for anyone else.’
‘But you can have who you want?’
He laughed. Slowly at first, then out loud. She was very perceptive, this woman. He turned on his side and stared into her dark eyes. ‘Are you a mind-reader?’
He couldn’t keep his eyes on hers for long, instead they moved down to inspect her beautiful body, the svelte torso, the fecund hips and the long, long legs.
He moved forward and kissed her on the lips. It was going to be an enjoyable afternoon.
The television studio was filled to capacity, and all eyes were on the woman who held the floor.
‘I believe that your legal system has exposed itself to a level of abuse unprecedented in the history of civilisation. The facts I have laid before you show that you have become slaves to an obsession with money, rather than the servants of justice . . .’
The Senator from California looked up at the woman with the hypnotic voice and cursed the day she had decided to investigate what her programme series called ‘The American Way of Justice’.
Who the hell did this British bitch Vanessa Tyson think she was - a knight in shining armour? That was the way the majority of US television viewers saw her, and it made her a dangerous adversary.
She was a difficult woman to handle. Her face was arresting with dark eyes and full, almost pouting lips; her body was, in a word, voluptuous. But she was a tough professional through and through - anyone thinking she was a pushover because of her sexy looks should think again. Vanessa Tyson was a formidable reporter with an incisive mind.
‘Far from making you a strong nation, your laws have crippled you. Ridiculous liability claims have prevented manufacturers from spending enough money on research and development to evolve better products. My findings suggest that serious and major reforms in your legal system are a necessity.’
The Senator shuffled his feet uneasily and eyed his female adversary cautiously.
‘You may have a point, Miss Tyson, but I think you are using specific examples to undermine the overall strength of our legal system,’ he said in his deep, sonorous voice. As well as being a Senator, Burt Calhoun ran a prosperous legal practice that specialised in liability suits. They had a high success rate that brought in millions and millions of dollars each year.
‘Might I suggest that you’re scared you’ll lose business, Senator?’
His face reddened. He scratched at the deep dimple on his chin.
‘I’d like to tan that fat bitch’s hide,’ he muttered under his breath, and then, out loud: ‘No. But I am afraid that ordinary people who are protected by those very laws you seek to attack, may once again become victims of unscrupulous manufacturers if those laws are repealed.’
‘Unscrupulous manufacturers, Senator?’ Vanessa said sarcastically, her eyes sweeping across the studio audience. ‘Like Jeff Sutherland, whose new car plant was closed down by a claim represented by your legal firm? A claim that would never have been made if one of your attorneys had not approached the owner of a Sutherland sports car and encouraged him to move against the company - providing he paid your company fifty per cent of the settlement?’
‘That’s a downright lie!’
‘A downright lie that closed down Jeff Sutherland’s factory, put the five thousand men who worked for him on the street, and personally bankrupted him. All because your client had a bad accident after a heavy drinking spree. Is that justice?’
‘The man is a cripple. He needed that money to survive.’
‘Seventy-five million dollars for him and seventy-five million for you? I would hardly call that survival money.’
‘He can’t walk.’
‘Neither can thousands of Vietnam veterans who fought in a war you pushed for, a war that your son did not have to fight because you got his call-up deferred.’
‘That’s irrelevant!’ the Senator yelled.
‘No, that’s politics. It’s what suits your needs, your back pocket, Senator. Not the needs of your people - the American people. Your committee is a sham, like you. You are protecting laws that keep you in business while closing down the American economy. Jeff Sutherland shot himself yesterday. He could have been a future Henry Ford. You, with your great legal system, destroyed him!’
Vanessa Tyson rose, indicating that the live debate was over, and the audience clapped loudly. Her attack on the US legal system over the past year had culminated in this opportunity to put her views to Senator Calhoun, live.
She left the studio quickly and made her way outside. Reporters and spectators were waiting for her.
‘Miss Tyson, how did it go?’
‘Watch my programme at six tonight on WWTN and find out.’
‘Senator Calhoun says you’re seeking media hype and nothing else.’
‘Senator Calhoun is destroying this country. I’m trying to keep it where it belongs, on top.’
In front of her she saw Max, her assistant, pushing people away so that she could get to her car. Thank God. She needed to be away from all this. The interview had been far rougher than she’d expected; Calhoun had frightened her - though she refused to show it. He was like a mountain bear on the rampage, scared of no one and not afraid to strike out.
Max closed the car door and she stretched out, safe behind the dark-tinted windows. She gestured for her driver to pull off and began to compose herself. Her secret was to bring emotion into her arguments, constantly pushing her opponents to react.
As one of the highest-paid television reporters in the United States, she had an important reputation to uphold. Because she was a Londoner, some called her an alien, interfering in American matters, but she loved the United States and its people. What she did not love were the big wheeler-dealers who were destroying all that was good about America.
Calhoun had played into her hands, and she knew that evening’s programme would put her in an unassailable position. Her objective was to motivate major reforms in the American legal system.
She closed her eyes and relaxed.
Senator Calhoun poured himself a stiff Bourbon and eased into one of the leather button-backed armchairs in his office.
‘What that bitch needs is a good fuck,’ he roared at his chief aide.
He’d asked Cleaver to ask the men on Capitol Hill some questions. In particular, Calhoun wanted to find out how the President was reacting to his chairing of the Senate Committee that was investigating possible flaws in the American legal system.
David Cleaver was a thin, bespectacled, twenty-five-year-old Harvard legal graduate, with a nose like a hawk and a mind like a razor.
‘So, David, give me the low-down.’
‘Well, sir, the President obviously knows that you and he are closely allied in the eyes of the voting public - the public believe that whatever you say is endorsed by the President. The economy is in poor shape, we’re being annihilated by the Japanese in our traditional export markets, our motor industry is under attack. Now, you are seen as having destroyed Jeff Sutherland ... Of having sided with the big corporations to take out a young entrepreneur.’
‘It was perfectly legal,’ Calhoun snorted. ‘The man didn’t protect himself from liability action.’
You bastard, thought David Cleaver. But he said: ‘He would never have had the capital to open his factory if he had, sir. That’s what the President is saying. Sir, I think compromise is the order of the day.’
‘Jesus Christ! What the hell is this country coming to when some fat British reporter who looks like she needs a first-rate fuck can dig holes in our great legal system?’
David Cleaver refused to answer his employer. Personally, he thought the Senator had played right into Vanessa Tyson’s side of the court.
‘So, David, what do I do?’
‘I think, sir, you should announce that the committee has found there are certain areas that require special investigation, and that if these areas are found to be problematic, changes should be made.’
Calhoun’s glass was shaking, the ice rattling noisily.
‘The bitch has beaten me.’
‘This way, sir, you come out clean. You never told me about your son evading a Vietnam call-up. What other dirty linen will she dig up if you don’t back down?’
Calhoun looked away from his aide. What other dirty linen? Cleaver was right - his only way out was to back down.
‘All right. Phone her up at WWTN and tell her that I’ve decided she has a point and we will be reviewing certain laws in a serious light.’
‘You’ve made th
e right decision, sir.’
‘Just shuddup and make the call.’
Vanessa walked into the main office, smiling from ear to ear. The head and founder of Worldwide Television News, Jay Levy, was waiting for her.
He’d asked her out many times, but had always received a pleasant rebuff. He had to admit he was infatuated with her. She wasn’t attractive in the conventional sense, though the camera loved her: the full, sensuous lips, the dark arched eyebrows and her olive complexion made her irresistible on the screen. But he longed to know what lay behind that incisive mind. He guessed she might be passionate, but she certainly didn’t show it. And he also knew that she didn’t have a lover. Yet every time he made the slightest effort to get closer to her, he had received that ever so pleasant, ever so polite rebuff. It was frustrating, to say the least.
He kissed her softly on the cheek. ‘Congratulations, Vanessa! You’ve done it again!’
‘Thank you, Jay, but really it’s Burt Calhoun we’ve all got to thank. He played right into our hands,’ she said softly.
You could get anyone to play into your hands if you just used your looks instead of your mind to win an argument, thought Levy.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘our ratings have never been higher.’
‘Jay, the point is, I was right. There are genuine holes in your legal system. I hope that what I’ve done goes a long way to repairing them.’
That was one of the reasons why Jay had hired her. She wasn’t in this for the money and the fame, she was in it because she believed in what she was doing.
‘So, Vanessa, what about your next assignment?’
‘Ah ha. Formula One. Smoking and death.’
Jay nodded, wanting to hear more. Her first report from Kyalami in South Africa had researched excellently. It was media dynamite.
‘It’s controversial, don’t you worry. And it’s something I’ve been interested in exposing for a long time. We’re off to Rio tomorrow.’
Eye of the Cobra Page 18