Still he felt oddly calm as the eastward uphill turn loomed ahead. It was a right turn, and Joe was ready when the lead car moved to the left side of the road to reduce the angle of the curve and take it at the fastest speed possible.
Joe followed the maneuver easily, staying right behind him. Looking at the shadows cast by the late-morning sun, Joe couldn't tell where one car ended and the other began. The flared rear wing of one merged with the tapered nose of the other.
Then suddenly the car in front swerved back into the right lane and the driver downshifted, lurching to a reduced speed. Joe shot past him and realized, too late, that he was going way too fast to make the turn.
Joe slammed on the brakes, making another disastrous mistake. The nose dipped down and scraped the pavement. The rear end bucked up and the back tires lost their grip on the road, sliding sideways and throwing the car into a deadly spin.
Joe fought the wheel, but there was no response. The car was completely out of control.
Chapter 17
The race car spun around violently and skidded backward onto the shoulder of the road. Any other vehicle would have flipped over, crushing the driver underneath. But the low center of gravity kept the Grand Prix racer upright.
Joe was rattled but unhurt. He pried his hands off the steering wheel. They were shaking badly. He willed himself to calm down, but he remembered to keep his foot on the gas pedal, keeping the revs high enough to prevent the engine from stalling out. He glanced at the array of gauges. Everything seemed okay. None of the needles were poking into the red zone.
All of this took a matter of seconds, although it seemed like an eternity to Joe. He was now pointing in the wrong direction, and he could see the other Formula One car in the side mirror, dwindling in the distance.
Joe eased off the clutch, the wheels kicking up gravel as the car moved off the side and back onto the pavement. Joe pulled the wheel hard to the left and made a tight U-turn, skirting the outer edge of the shoulder on the opposite side. Then he grimly pressed the accelerator to the floor, his head jerking backward as the car took off in pursuit.
Frank pulled the van out onto the cliff road about a half mile down from the hairpin turn. He glanced at his watch as he raced up the road. It had only been nine minutes since McCoy had fled the fairgrounds in the stolen car.
"What happens if they come zooming right down our throats?" Callie asked nervously.
Frank flashed a tight grin. "The van will end up with a very exotic hood ornament. But don't worry—we've still got at least a minute and a half."
Frank slowed down for the tight curve where McCoy's race car had crashed through the guardrail from the opposite direction just a few days ago. He steered the van onto the narrow shoulder at the edge of the cliff and then backed it up so that it was now blocking the road.
Frank leapt out of the van and Callie chased after him. "How do you know we have that much time?"
"Because of the time codes on the videotape," Frank reminded her. "It took McCoy ten minutes and thirty seconds to get to this end of the tunnel.
"Here, help me with this," he grunted, swinging the barricade with the flashing lights away from the gap in the guardrail, and blocking the outer shoulder of the road with it.
"But why here?" Callie pressed.
"Because this is the best place to stop him," Frank explained. "This hairpin turn is the trickiest part of the course. He'll be slowing down as he comes out of the tunnel, so he'll be able to stop safely when he sees the van blocking the road. There won't be enough room to turn around, and Joe will shut him in from the other end."
Frank looked at his watch again. He went to the back of the van and opened the rear door.
Callie rolled her eyes. "What now?"
"Still thirty seconds left," Frank said. "You get behind the van. I'm going to set out some emergency flares just to make sure he gets the idea."
He took out the flares and set one in the middle of the road, about twenty yards in front of the van. Then he ran back and knelt down next to the barricade on the shoulder, setting another flare in front of it.
Frank was about to stand up when he heard a rumbling noise behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw a Formula One car come roaring out of the tunnel and screech to a halt near the first emergency flare.
Frank swore softly under his breath. Too late, he remembered the extra fifteen seconds it had taken McCoy to get out of his car on the day of the crash. And now he's caught me off guard, Frank realized. Right out in the open.
He couldn't make out the driver's identity — his face, from the nose down, was blocked by the lip of the cockpit. But Frank could see his steel gray eyes. They were locked on him, staring through him.
As Frank heard the powerful engine rev up, he knew that the man behind the wheel of the race car was going to try to smash through the wooden barrier and take the narrow outer shoulder around the van. He was willing to risk his life for his freedom—and he wouldn't hesitate to run Frank over if he was in the way.
The driver popped the clutch and the car jumped forward. Frank dove for the side of the van. He looked up to see the race car angling toward the barrier, still not going too fast. Then he heard a familiar rumbling sound. Another car was coming through the tunnel!
The second car slowed and came out of the tunnel to smash into the left rear side of the first one, twisting it sideways on the road. As the back end of the lead car swung around from the impact, the driver bashed his head on the side of the cockpit. The man inside slumped forward, and the engine sputtered and died.
The engine of the other race car revved to a high-pitched whine in triumph. Then it settled back down to a low rumble before the driver switched off the ignition. He climbed out, took off his crash helmet, and ran his hand through his blond hair.
It was Joe. He glanced inside the other car, and then he looked at his brother and smiled. "Looks like a TKD to me. Does that mean I win?"
They pulled Angus McCoy from the cockpit and laid him down gently next to the race car.
Frank reached into the car Joe had been driving and flipped the radio talk-back switch. "You better get an ambulance up here. It looks like the reports of Angus McCoy's death were greatly exaggerated."
A police cruiser escorted the ambulance to the scene. Officer Con Riley got out of the police car, followed by Scott Lavin and Reinhart Voss. "Looks like I was wrong about you boys after all," Riley scowled. "You are a couple of car thieves."
Joe shrugged. "I figured it was only fair to chase down McCoy in a car that belonged to him."
Voss looked over the Formula One machine. "There's no real damage," he concluded. "It's still in pretty good driving condition."
"What's all this about McCoy still being alive?" Riley demanded.
"See for yourself." Frank jerked his thumb towar his shoulder.
A paramedic from the ambulance was helping slightly shaken but unmistakable Angus McCoy to his feet. Joe winked. "Looks like the real McCoy to me."
"Well, I'll be!" Riley exclaimed, pushing his patrolman's hat back on his forehead.
"Before you take him away, we'd like to ask him a few questions," Frank said. "You don't mind, do you, Con?"
Riley frowned. "I don't even know what to charge him with. Impersonating a dead man?"
"Stick around," Joe said. "You might learn something."
McCoy seemed calm and relaxed, almost resigned. But his eyes still radiated a sense of confidence as they locked on Frank. "I should have known you were going to be trouble from the moment I saw you nosing around the crash site."
"You saw us?" Joe asked.
"Sure," Frank said. "He had to be hiding inside the tunnel, watching everything. He had to wait until we all left before he could make his getaway."
"Then what did he do?" Callie wanted to know. "Walk back to town?"
"Well, part of the way," Frank replied. "We found footprints up on the ridge, but he probably had the Lotus hidden in the woods farther down the acc
ess road.
"He was going to leave town," Frank continued, "but he got nervous after he saw me pick up that piece of the remote control device. There's probably more evidence around here, too."
Frank turned to McCoy. "My guess is you loosened the bolts on the guardrail to make sure the car went over the edge. Right?"
McCoy shrugged. "You're doing just fine all by yourself. You don't need my help."
"You're right," Frank said. "I don't. McCoy started following us around. When Joe and I split up, he stuck with me since I was the one who found the device in the first place. He followed me to Phil Cohen's house and then back to Scott's garage."
"Right," Joe agreed. "Then he knocked Frank out and tried to make it look like an accident. When he realized Frank wasn't carrying the gizmo, he doubled back to Phil's place, sucker-punched Phil, grabbed the device, and set the fire to cover his tracks."
McCoy frowned slightly. "I'm sorry about your friend. But you forced my hand."
"But that wasn't enough." Frank picked up the story. "McCoy wanted to wipe the slate clean. So he broke into Arno's office, looking for the videotape of the crash, but he couldn't find it. So he tried to throw us off the track again by sabotaging Scott's car, making it look like someone who wanted to win the race was behind the whole thing."
"And when that didn't work," Joe said, "McCoy decided to use us for target practice, but he hit Arno by mistake."
McCoy chuckled softly. "I don't hit people I'm not aiming at."
Frank and Joe exchanged a puzzled glance.
McCoy smiled thinly. "It looks like you boys don't know everything. Arno knew I was up to something. He found out about the Clarco Industries scam I was using to stash my money."
"The canceled checks!" Joe burst out.
McCoy nodded. "Sooner or later Arno would have figured out the whole thing."
"I think he may have caught on a lot quicker than you think," Joe said. "He took out a million-dollar life insurance policy on you!"
"It figures." McCoy sighed. "That two-bit hustler was always trying to cash in on my sweat and blood."
Frank looked at the world champion driver. "You seem to be taking all this pretty well."
McCoy shrugged. "A race car has ten thousand parts. Even if it's 99.9 perfect, there are still ten things that can go wrongBut there's no sense getting mad at the car. My plan wasn't perfect. You won. I lost. No hard feelings."
Con Riley slapped a pair of handcuffs on McCoy and led him away. Joe turned to Scott Lavin and said, "I'm sorry about the way things worked out. This should have been your big day, but now you don't even have a car."
"Oh, but I do!" Scott smiled. He patted Reinhart Voss on the back. "Reinhart made me an offer I couldn't refuse."
"It is nothing, really," the German driver said. "I told Scott he could drive my car. As I said before, this race is not that important for me. But for Scott it could mean much. So I said to myself, why not? And with Angus gone, who is there to say no?
"What could be more simple?" Voss went on. "Until you came along and took off in my race car like some crazy person! Lucky for you, the car is all right, and Scott will have his chance after all."
"You mean, after all this, there's still going to be a race?" Callie asked in disbelief.
Joe grinned from ear to ear and clapped Frank on the shoulder. "A Grand Prix race is like the Hardy brothers — nothing stops us!"
The End.
Collision Course Page 10