As the Argonaut II exploded out from the cliff-side exit tunnel to the short cut, pandemonium broke out amongst the spectators gathered on the headland all around it. Their collective roar of joy could be heard twenty kilometres away.
The Bug squealed with delight.
Jason swallowed in disbelief.
They’d made it!
They’d come out the other side of the short cut!
But before Jason could revel too much in his achievement - shoom!-shoom!-shoom! - he was overshot by three hover cars. The cars of:
Alessandro Romba.
Fabian.
And Angus Carver of the USAF Racing Team.
The fourth car to bank around him was Xavier Xonora’s Lockheed, and in a fleeting instant, Jason glimpsed the Black Prince’s sideways-turned face and his look of pure shock. Xavier obviously hadn’t expected to see Jason again in this race.
Even more satisfying was the car Jason saw in his side mirrors - the purple-and-gold Renault of Etienne Trouveau, the nasty French racer who had almost put Jason out of the race. The Argonaut II had come out of the short cut ahead of Trouveau!
It took Jason a second to absorb it all.
He and the Bug had just made up three whole minutes on the rest of the field, and in doing so had gone from last to 5th.
‘Thanks Mr Syracuse!’ he said into his radio. ‘You just got us back in this race!’
As Sally’s team trailer entered the outskirts of Pescara, every single giant-screen television in the town was showing replays of the Argonaut II blasting out from the short cut.
Every commentator on every TV and radio station was astonished at the Argonaut‘s recovery. Last to 5th in one fell swoop. Fifth! They couldn’t believe it. And with the second series of pit stops due in Pescara in about ten minutes, the race was now officially on.
But with that news, as if on cue, the second black Ford that had been trailing Sally’s trailer across the country suddenly accelerated, pulling ahead of the Lombardi trailer.
And as the two vehicles zoomed underneath a freeway overpass the black Ford suddenly jack-knifed sideways, inexplicably cutting across the front of the Team Lombardi trailer, smashing into its front bumper, forcing it off the road and directly into a concrete pylon supporting the overpass.
With a terrible crunching sound, the Lombardi trailer smashed into the pylon, and crumpled like a giant concertina - while the black Ford simply drove off, darting off into the distance, disappearing.
Everyone inside the trailer was thrown forward by the impact - the driver, Sally, Syracuse - but luckily they were all wearing seatbelts and the trailer was equipped with compressed-air safety blasters that acted like the airbags of old.
The exterior of the trailer, however, was completely ruined.
And as Sally unbuckled herself from her seat, she realised the situation: she was only two minutes’ drive away from the pits. But on foot, that would take…
…about ten minutes.
Syracuse knew the score as well.
‘Grab a handcart and load it up with mags,’ he said. ‘And start running.’
Ten minutes later, the leaders entered the Pescara pits. The hover cars roared into the pits in single file before branching off into their allotted pit bays.
Their pit crews were waiting.
Alessandro Romba led the way, followed by Fabian. Then the USAF pilot, Carver, Xavier Xonora and…Jason Chaser.
The Argonaut II swung into its pit bay…
…to find no-one there.
‘Sally!’ Jason yelled into his radio. ‘Where are you!’
A second later, Jason saw Trouveau slide into his pit bay across the way. Trouveau glared at Jason as his pit machine went to work on his car. But when Trouveau realised that Jason had no pit crew around him, his fierce glare became a nasty smile.
At that moment, Pablo Riviera’s Ferrari shoomed into the adjoining Lombardi pit bay and his crew went to work. If they could have, they would have helped Jason, but they were Riviera’s crew, so they had to service his car first.
‘Where the hell is Sally!’ Jason yelled. Every second he lost here felt like an hour -
‘I’m coming!’ Sally yelled, appearing from a nearby doorway at a run, pushing a hover handcart stacked with magneto drives and some coolant bottles. Her face and hair were drenched with sweat - she’d been running for some time. Behind her, also pushing a hover handcart, was Scott Syracuse.
Shoom. Romba shot out of the pits.
Sally and Syracuse came alongside the Argonaut II. Sally immediately started unloading magneto drives from her handcart, while Syracuse simply hit a button on his cart - causing the entire cart to mechanically unfold and rise, transforming itself into: a portable Tarantula pit machine. Sally clipped new mags to the Tarantula’s waiting arms, while its other arms started demagging the Argonaut II.
Shoom. Fabian shot out of the pits.
To save time, Sally poured coolant fluid into the Argonaut II‘s tanks by hand. Emptied one bottle. Chucked it. Emptied another into the Argonaut II. Chucked that one, too.
‘Come on!’ Jason urged.
God, he thought, after all we’ve been through in this race, how can this be happening!
Shoom. Shoom. Shoom.
Carver, Xavier and Trouveau all left the pits.
The Tarantula rose up and spread its arms wide - finished.
‘Sally…!’
‘Just…one…more…second…’ Sally grimaced as she jammed some fresh compressed air cylinders into the Argonaut II‘s rear-thruster nozzles.
Shoom. Riviera exited the pits.
Then Sally yanked her hands clear.
‘Clear!’ she yelled. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Jason punched it and the Argonaut II roared out of the pits - in 7th place - and entered the final stages of the Italian Run.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The stage was set for a killer finish.
The setting was spectacular: where the seas on the other side of Italy were dark and rough, here the Adriatic shone like a flat turquoise jewel.
And the finishing stages of the Italian Run were notoriously difficult: this would be no full-speed dash to the Finish Line. After they raced up the coast, the racers would face two fiendishly curved sections of track: the tight and twisting - and identical - Grand Canals of Venice and Venice II. The second of these two sections was so intense it had a name: the Venice II Gauntlet.
The field thundered up the coast, bending and banking, swooping left and right to take the archways, kicking up spectacular geyser trails behind them.
Romba was out in front, tussling with Fabian for the lead.
Then there was a gap to the next bunch of racers: Carver, Xavier, Trouveau and Riviera - with Jason hard on their heels. Behind him, there was another cluster, led by Kamikaze Ideki in his Yamaha.
Venice came into view. Not Venice II, but the original waterborne city.
The racers shot up and around the fish-shaped island before swinging back south - and rocketing into the Grand Canal from the north. The Grand Canal takes the shape of a wide, swooping reversed ‘S’ and is flanked on either side by high and historic buildings.
Into the city they went, low and fast, spraying geyser trails as they shot underneath the first of the three bridges that span the Grand Canal, the Ponte dei Scalzi.
Indeed, it was a geyser trail that allowed Jason to get up into 6th place - Etienne Trouveau had seen Pablo Riviera trying to overtake him, so Trouveau had lowered the Vizir slightly at the Ponte dei Scalzi and cut across Rivera’s path, causing his geyser trail to spray all over Riviera’s cockpit.
Blinded by the sudden spray, Riviera had flailed away to the left, out of control, under the bridge, and rocketed like a missile straight at an 18th century church - where his Ferrari lurched to a sudden, springing halt, caught in the hover car equivalent of a gravel trap: a magnetic ‘Dead Zone’. Naturally, all of Venice’s buildings were protected by these negatively-charged dead zones - so that no
piece of history could be destroyed by a crashing hover car.
And suddenly Jason - skimming along behind the two racers - was in 6th place and right on the hammer of Etienne Trouveau.
Both cars banked hard, almost at 90 degrees, as they navigated the swinging bends of the Grand Canal. Under the Rialto Bridge with its enclosed shops, then through the wooden Accademia Bridge - Jason flying within inches of Trouveau’s tailfin.
And then they were back out over the open sea, flanked by pleasure liners and hover grandstands, shooting round toward the final sector of the race: Venice II and its Grand Canal.
The Argonaut II shot low over the Adriatic, the Renault of Etienne Trouveau right in front of it.
Venice II loomed on the horizon, its high replica of the great Bell Tower of St Mark’s Square standing tall in the afternoon light.
‘This is where we make our move,’ Jason told the Bug.
Once again, they shot north, preparing for the swinging reverse turn into the Grand Canal.
Jason saw the yawning entrance to the Grand Canal off to his right: flanked by apartment buildings that looked just like those of Old Venice, only these were brand new.
Trouveau hit the Grand Canal on the fly.
Jason charged in after him.
Blurred city buildings rushed by him on either side.
And then Trouveau tried to do to Jason what he had done to Riviera - at the New Ponte dei Scalzi, he cut right, raising a curtain of spraying water across the Argonaut‘s path.
But Jason’s reactions were up to the challenge - he stayed right, and rather than slowing, he gunned his thrusters, rushing perilously close to the Dead Zone protecting the New Ponte dei Scalzi - and pressed between Trouveau’s Renault and the bridge’s swooping arch, he banked up on his side, going a full 90 degrees, and with barely an inch on either side …
…he rocketed out from under the bridge and shot past Trouveau’s Renault - now in 5th place!
Trouveau swore. But not before Kamiko Ideki tried to seize the opportunity and swoop past him as well. But Trouveau wasn’t going to allow that and he banged against the side of the Kamikaze’s Yamaha, fighting him to the finish.
As for Jason, the black V-shaped tailfin of Xavier Xonora’s 4th-placed Lockheed-Martin now loomed before him, banking right, taking the sweeping right-hander that led under the Rialto Bridge.
Jason did the math quickly: with only two turns to go, there just wasn’t enough racetrack left to catch Xavier before the Finish Line.
Which meant, if he kept his head, he could finish 5th in his first Grand Slam race - not a bad effort at all. Just finishing was an achievement, but 5th was simply awesome. And beating that creep Trouveau would be even more satisfying…
Under the Rialto. The crowds roaring. Venice II rushing by him on either side.
Then banking left. The crowds going nuts. Shooting under the Accademia Bridge, after which Jason straightened and suddenly, gloriously…
…the end of the Grand Canal came into view, the point where it opened out into a wide harbour-like bay, flanked by the red-brick Bell Tower of St Mark’s Square on the left and the giant dome of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute on the right. Only today, beyond the two colossal structures stood a massive alloy arch, hovering above the water of the bay, covered in chequered flags and a huge digital leaderboard…
The Finish Line.
Jason’s eyes lit up.
The end was in sight. They’d done it.
It would be the last time he’d smile in a very long time. For it was at that precise moment that a small explosive device attached to the tailfin of the Argonaut II went off.
It was about the size of a pinhead, hardly even noticeable to the naked eye.
An ultra-concentrated military explosive made of SDXIII epoxy. It was used by commando teams to blow open doors. One gram was enough to destroy the average reinforced door - more than enough to completely destroy the lightweight polycarbonate tailfin of a hover car.
It had been surreptitiously placed on the tail of the Argonaut II by a light-fingered hand in the last few moments before the Italian Run had begun.
The tailfin of the Argonaut II blasted outwards in a shower of tiny pieces.
Jason immediately lost all control - at 740 km/h - his Ferrari lurching downwards with shocking suddenness. He grappled with the steering wheel, but it did absolutely nothing in response.
He looked up and saw the Finish Line approaching and for a brief instant, thought they might make it over the line - but then the whole horizon rolled dramatically and abruptly they were travelling on their side, almost upside down - which meant ejecting was not possible - so that now all Jason saw was the surface of the Grand Canal rushing up toward his eyes.
‘Bug! Hold on! This is going to be really bad!’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It was bad.
The Argonaut II slammed into the surface of the Grand Canal with a terrible splash. It hit the water nose-first, then tumbled three times, sending debris shooting out in every direction, before - whack! - it smacked down on the surface of the Canal and lurched to a halt, floating upside-down: its underside pointing skyward, its cockpit underwater. Every single person in Italy, whether they were at the track or watching at home, stood up and gasped.
The silent underwater world.
Holding his breath, Jason quickly unclasped his seatbelt. He spun, suspended in the water, and saw the Bug grappling with his own seatbelt.
Jason saw that the Bug needed help, but before he could help him, Jason needed more air himself. He swam four feet upward and broke the surface - to see the high buildings of Venice II flanking the Canal all around him; to hear the crowd cheer briefly, glad to see him alive. He made to take a deep breath when he saw them.
Saw Etienne Trouveau and Kamiko Ideki round the final turn together, emerging from under the Accademia Bridge, banging into each other, fighting to the end.
And in that instant, it happened.
Trouveau got ahead of Ideki and performed his signature move - he cut across Ideki’s nosewing and sheared it off with own his bladed nosewing.
The Japanese racer’s nosewing fell clear off, splashing down into the Canal, and Ideki - poorly, in a panic, desperate to finish the race - tried to avoid the safe landing that the nearest Dead Zone alongside the Grand Canal would have provided him.
Instead, he grappled with his steering wheel and straightened his Yamaha up - but he hadn’t counted on how quickly he would lose altitude.
And he realised the truth of his situation too late.
His Yamaha was going to smash directly into the Argonaut II, helpless on the surface of the Grand Canal.
Ideki may have realised it too late, but Jason, still treading water, saw exactly what was going to happen.
The Kamikaze’s Yamaha was going to slam into the Argonaut II…and the Bug was still trapped in it under the surface!
Jason gauged the distance and the Kamikaze’s screaming speed: impact would come in about five seconds.
And so, with the out-of-control Yamaha zooming like a guided missile toward his upside-down hover car, Jason took a deep breath and went under to try and free the Bug in time.
Underwater again.
Frantically swimming in his flightsuit, Jason came to the Bug, and saw that his brother’s seatbelt buckle had jammed. It wasn’t coming free.
The Bug was in a fearful panic - tearing at his buckle, screaming underwater, yelling bubbles.
And in that instant, Jason saw the future.
This would take more than five seconds.
Kamiko Ideki’s Yamaha shot through the air like a bullet. A moment before it hit the Argonaut II, two blurring
objects could be seen rocketing up into the sky above it - the ejection seats of Ideki and his navigator.
Then without slowing or stopping or even veering to the side, the Yamaha slammed into the stationary Argonaut at a shocking 700 km/h.
The impact of hover car on hover car
shook the world. And the ensuing flaming explosion filled the Grand Canal, expanding across its breadth in a billowing orange cloud.
Pieces of the Argonaut II rained down on the Canal for a full minute, creating a thousand tiny splashes.
A deathly hush descended upon the crowds gathered in the grandstands around the Finish Line. Sitting in his own
VIP box, Umberto Lombardi could only stare at the horrific scene in disbelief.
The Argonaut was gone - blasted to nothing.
And with it: Jason Chaser and the Bug.
‘Oh…my…Lord…’ Lombardi breathed.
PART VI: THE DEATH OF JASON CHASER
CHAPTER ONE
THE FINAL STAGES OF THE ITALIAN RUN VENICE II, ITALY
The explosion of Kamiko Ideki’s Yamaha crashing at 700 km/h into Jason Chaser’s stricken Argonaut II echoed across Italy - in every grandstand, in every home, on every television, on every digital radio.
For a full twenty seconds, not a single person in all of Italy spoke.
They just stared at the ghastly scene in horror.
Where once there had been two racing cars, now there was just a rising cloud of black smoke.
No-one could believe it.
Jason Chaser and his little brother, the Bug - the two young boys from the International Race School who had won the hearts of race fans with their determined never-say-die attitude; the kids who had turned the tables on Fabian during that wonderful exhibition race - were dead.
Killed in a spectacular blazing inferno.
* * *
Watching from a hover stand overlooking the Finish Line, Henry and Martha Chaser were in total shock.
They couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t drag their eyes away from the tall wispy smoke-cloud on the water’s surface - the smoke cloud that had once been their sons.
‘Oh, no…’ Martha gasped. ‘Dear God, no!’
Henry just whispered: ‘Come on, Jason, tell me you got out of there…Please tell me you got out of there…’
But nothing happened. Rescue vehicles took off from the shore, their siren-lights blazing.