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  Behind the old man, Billy can see the Frenchman is chastened. Poor old Claude, he really embarrassed himself. Oh well. If he wasn’t such an annoying twat who’d tried to arrest him and if he didn’t drive like a grandma Billy might feel sorry for him.

  Dieter nods at Claude. ‘So he’s your agent?’

  ‘Yes, we’re working the case together.’

  Dieter turns to a metal and glass table and nods at a pair of inch-high documents sit, each with a pen lying on top. ‘Before we go any further you will need to sign those.’

  Billy regards them. ‘What are they?’

  ‘It indemnifies Iron Rhino from, well, everything.’

  ‘That’s a lot of document.’

  ‘There’s a lot of risk in F1.’ He grins but there’s no humour behind it. ‘When it comes to my race team I can be a ruthless son of a bitch. Some would say I’m a snake in the grass. I just want us to be clear about that.’

  Billy nods. ‘At least you’re honest.’ Marcellus told the Australian about the deal between Interpol and Iron Rhino. They will assist the investigation by letting Billy and Claude operate as undercover agents within the team. The two agents will have full access to the F1 circus without anyone, except Dieter, knowing their true identities. The upside for Iron Rhino is that if or when the case is resolved they will own all the rights to exploit the ‘property’ through Iron Rhino Media. That means anything for film, television or the internet through scripted or reality formats. On top of that, all news interviews with the principles of the investigation will pass through Iron Rhino Media. Essentially the unofficial ‘sponsoring’ of a police investigation, albeit an investigation with all the perquisites of a story that will be compelling to a mass audience—jewellery thieves in the high-speed world of motor racing—is the next step in marketing, and it won’t cost Iron Rhino a cent.

  Both men sign the documents, then Dieter turns to Billy. ‘So Marcellus has been over everything with you?’

  Billy nods. ‘Yep, I’m up to speed.’

  ‘Okay then, good. Well that’s it. Please wear the team uniform whenever possible. Use however many sets you need.’ Dieter gestures to a table at the far end of the room stacked with gold-and-red Iron Rhino crew uniforms, everything from shirts, pants, jackets and caps to soft-soled shoes. ‘This will be your room so use it as you will. Here are the keys.’ He passes one to each of them. ‘Obviously nobody knows the real reason you are here except me. You will be left alone to pursue your investigation, but if you need anything just call.’ He passes both of them a simple business card with a mobile phone number on it.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Merci.’

  ‘All right.’ Dieter heads for the door. ‘Good luck. Remember, call if you need anything.’ Then he is gone.

  ~ * ~

  It is silent as Billy and Claude change into the Iron Rhino team uniform.

  Billy laces up his shoes then finds a small safe on the far wall and locks his Glock inside it. He doesn’t want to walk in the paddock area with a pistol in a shoulder holster. He would need to wear a heavy jacket to hide the weapon and with the temperature hovering above forty degrees Celsius he’s not keen on that idea. He makes a mental note to get hold of an ankle holster as soon as possible.

  The Australian turns to the Frenchman. ‘So, how are we going to run this? Should we have some kind of—daily debrief?’

  Claude doesn’t reply, just tucks in his shirt.

  ‘Look, we’re going to have to sort this out eventually —’

  ‘No, we don’t. I’m going to work this case on my own and you can make your own arrangements. If you uncover anything I’m more than happy for you to debrief yourself.’

  ‘You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m just being practical. You’ve been a detective for, what—six months? You have limited experience with a case like this. You’ll just slow me down. No offence.’

  ‘As always, when someone says “no offence” it’s actually offensive. Wouldn’t it be easier if you just apologised for your screw-up in the lobby, we let bygones be bygones and worked together?’

  The Frenchman exhales. ‘You don’t get it. It’s an insult that I’m partnered with you. We’re not working together.’

  Billy takes this in with a resigned nod. ‘Okay then, if that’s how you want to play it.’ He pulls his cap down, opens the door and walks out.

  ~ * ~

  Screw him.

  Claude’s already made his mind up and Billy’s fine with that. Sure, he would have liked a helping hand from someone with more experience but he’s sure he can solve this case on his own, without any help from that pain in the arse.

  The Australian steps out of the Iron Rhino mobile home onto pit road. The deep throb of twenty-two turbocharged V6 power plants shake the air as the cars prepare for the qualifying session. It begins in ten minutes and Billy wants to watch it from the Iron Rhino garage, which is directly across from the motorhome. On a screen at the rear of the garage, commentator Martin Brundle tells his audience that one of the Iron Rhino drivers has come down with the flu so he won’t be running today, which means he will start from the back of the grid tomorrow. Before qualifying begins, Billy wants to check out the paddock area to get a sense of the place. His dad always said interesting stuff happens when you walk through the paddock and the old man was usually right.

  Billy sets off along the roadway and drinks in the sights and sounds of Formula One. Everything seems larger, brighter, more expensive and, somehow, more important than it appears on television. He knows it’s just motor racing, which is both extremely dangerous and appallingly resource intensive, but being here only confirms what he’s always suspected: it is the pinnacle of human sporting endeavour. He knows it’s a big call, but he believes it. The fact is Formula One success only comes to those who can combine the physical (drivers who can operate at peak performance for two hours while enduring 4g of stress on their bodies) with brainpower (designers, technicians and strategists able to solve mechanical and aerodynamic problems and create winning race plans on the fly). It’s very difficult to do but effectively merging these two elements is the key to creating a successful F1 team.

  Could the Three Champions already be working together on the F1 circuit?

  Members of Formula One race teams work closely for long, intense periods under constant pressure and crushing time constraints. What better place would there be to recruit and build a group capable of robbing a couple of jewellery stores? He must keep it in mind as a possibility.

  He walks on, glances into the Evergreen garage, a new, small team out of Switzerland with a tiny budget compared to the heavy hitters like Ferrari and Red Bull —

  Ohmigod.

  Time slows.

  Billy catches sight of a tall, platinum blonde woman in a driver’s suit. In deep discussion with a stout technician, she is striking in a jolie laide kind of way. Yes, it’s a French term, the only one he remembers from the class he took in high school, and yes, he’s not loving the French at the moment with that Claude being such a prat, but the word perfectly sums up this woman: unconventionally beautiful.

  He doesn’t have moments like this very often, in fact he can’t think of a time in the last five years when he has been thunderstruck by the sight of a woman, but it’s happening right now and it’s a doozy. His chest feels full, his head feels light and he can’t take his eyes off her—until she notices him gawking and returns a stern glare.

  Ohhh, that’s not good.

  Billy quickly looks away and continues walking.

  Time speeds up.

  ‘How in the hell did you get the job?’

  Billy turns and takes in the familiar face before him. He’s never met the guy but knows exactly who he is from seeing him on television. Roger Thorne is Iron Rhino’s team principal, a wiry, bespectacled Brit who isn’t much older than thirty and was hired by Dieter to run the squad on a daily basis. He ha
s the sour expression of a guy who just found out about a new reserve driver he’s never met who’s been forced on him by his boss.

  ‘Well I was driving in Australia —’

  ‘It was a rhetorical question.’ Thorne speaks with a sharp tone. ‘I don’t care how you got the job. What I do care about is that you stay silent and keep out of the way of my team. Is that clear?’

  ‘Crystal.’

  The Brit turns to leave.

  ‘I just have one question.’

  The Brit stops, irritated. ‘What?’

  Billy looks him in the eye and keeps his voice low: ‘Did you know your fly’s undone?’

  Thorne’s face flushes red as his hand drops to his fly. He finds that it is, indeed, undone, zips it, then turns and heads towards the Iron Rhino garage without saying a word.

  Wow, what an epic tosser.

  His second for the day. Billy’s been at the track for less than an hour and he’s already managed to piss off two people, the uppity Frenchman and that nasty Brit, and a third if you count the stern look the jolie laide girl served him a few moments ago.

  On the upside he may have found the key to solving this case by looking for groups who work together. It would seem his father was right, interesting stuff does happen when you walk the paddock. Billy instinctively looks up at the blue sky, not because his long-departed father was religious and believed in heaven or anything like that, but because Billy likes to think the old bastard is always looking down at him with a proud smile.

  Billy continues his tour along pit road until he sees two screens set up in the rear section of the Lotus garage. One displays a blank timing board, waiting for the qualifying session to begin but the other shows an image of the Petronas Towers. The local network has interrupted its Formula One coverage because there’s a breaking news story. A ticker scrolls across the bottom of the screen and Billy reads it aloud: ‘Initial police reports indicate a robbery in progress at the Petronas Towers—oh Christ!’

  Could that be the Three Champions?

  Why not? Their mid-morning heist on Collins Street displayed an unblinking bravado, why wouldn’t they try one at the Petronas Towers, once the tallest buildings on the planet?

  For Billy, two problems immediately present themselves. The first is that he needs a car to get to the Petronas Towers and he doesn’t have one. He’s in the middle of a racetrack with some of the fastest, most advanced vehicles on the planet but doesn’t have access to any of them. Why did he let the Frenchman drive him out here? He should have hired his own bloody car. The second problem is that he doesn’t know where the Petronas Towers are located and how long it will take him to reach there. He pulls out his iPhone, swipes it open, taps into the map app and works the screen. The information appears quickly. The towers are sixty-two kilometres away, or forty-five minutes drive time.

  Forty-five minutes!

  It’s too far away. The robbery will take four point five minutes, not forty-five. He’s missed it.

  What should I do?

  He’ll go anyway. You never know what might happen. He turns and sprints for the spot where the Frenchman parked the car. He’ll hotwire the Hyundai then ‘borrow’ it for the afternoon —

  A flash to the right.

  Claude.

  He’s running towards the car. He must have seen the news story as well.

  Damn it.

  Claude glances back and clocks Billy. Surprised, he realises they’ve had the same idea and ups his pace—and pulls away!

  How is that even possible? He’s so old.

  They sprint into the car park and weave through the rows of vehicles. The Frenchman holds up the car’s key fob and hits a button. The Hyundai’s indicator lights flash, he veers towards the vehicle and extends a hand to open the driver’s side door —

  Crunch. Billy tackles him to the ground, grabs at the key fob. ‘Give me that.’

  ‘Get your own damn car.’

  Bam. Claude elbows Billy in the jaw and knocks him backwards. The Frenchman scrambles to his feet and wrenches the Hyundai’s door open —

  Wham. Billy slams him against it. It opens as wide as possible, creaks, then springs back and throws them both to the bitumen. Claude scrambles to his feet again, hip-checks Billy who’s still rising, slides into the driver’s seat and slots the key into the ignition—which the Australian grabs and yanks out.

  Both breathing heavily, they look at each other.

  Billy holds up the keys. ‘Truce?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘While we waste time they’re getting away.’

  Claude takes a moment. ‘I drive.’

  ‘But you’re so bad at it.’

  ‘I drive or we don’t go.’

  They stare at each other for another moment, then Billy nods resignedly. ‘Christ.’ He sprints to the passenger door, slides inside and passes the keys over. ‘You’re so slow by the time we get there the place won’t be robbed anymore.’

  Claude cranks the engine to life, works the gear lever and jabs the accelerator. The Hyundai launches out of the parking space and screeches backwards.

  ‘Oh-my-godfather.’ Billy grabs the armrest in terror.

  The Frenchman yanks on the handbrake, drags the car into a smoking one-eighty-degree turn, works the gears like a maestro and hits the gas with a smile.

  The Hyundai’s tyres chirp and it rockets out of the car park.

  ~ * ~

  ‘We’re cut off.’

  Red glances at Black. ‘Gee, do you think?

  ‘We should go to plan B.’

  Yellow’s not happy about that. ‘I really don’t like plan B.’

  Red turns to Yellow. ‘Well you better start loving it because the alternative is twenty years in a Malaysian prison.’

  Yellow peeks around the corner of a desk that’s turned on its side, aims the pistol and squeezes the trigger.

  Bam. The bullet thumps into the far wall, beside a doorway where the helmets of three police officers in riot gear are visible. They shuffle out of sight.

  Yellow turns to Red. ‘They can just wait us out. They’ve got nowhere to go and all day to get there.’

  Red nods. This heist has not gone to plan. After their issues in Melbourne they were convinced their bad luck had all been used up. It appears not. While Yellow was cracking the vault in the jewellery trader’s office they must have tripped a silent alarm that alerted the police. They managed to get the vault open, with the help of two strips of C-4 explosive, but the cops soon arrived and put a kibosh on their escape. They’re now blocked from using the office’s one and only exit.

  ‘This was meant to be the easy job.’

  Black is right. It was meant to be a breeze. In. Out. As simple as breaking into any old office, albeit in one of the world’s tallest buildings. Not so. Like Melbourne, the unforeseen has thrown a spanner in the works and now they have to improvise. Fortunately, Red has already thought of a way to do that. It’s called plan B. Now all they have to do is execute it.

  Red turns to the others, still huddled behind the upturned desk. ‘You ready?’

  Nods all around, though Yellow is reluctant.

  ‘Good.’ Red turns to Yellow. ‘Where’s the duffel bag?’

  ‘What? Don’t you have it?’

  ‘If I had it why would I be asking you where it is?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought it was strange.’

  Red’s head drops. ‘So you don’t know where it is?’

  ‘It must be back in the vault room.’

  ‘Why would it be in the vault room?’

  ‘Because I thought you had it.’ Yellow looks unhappily at the vault room, fifteen metres away. ‘I’ll go get it but you need to cover me.’

  Red nods. ‘Okay.’

  A moment passes. Yellow doesn’t move.

  ‘You’re still here.’

  ‘I’m psyching myself up.’

  ‘Can you psych any faster
?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Come on, we need to get out of here.’

  ‘Okay. I’m on it.’

  ‘On three.’

  Yellow nods, then: ‘On three or after three?’