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Angling for the finish line, he stole a glance across the track. Han’s car was picking up speed but losing parts along the way. They were heading for the same spot from different directions. A collision was imminent.
Kurt kept the gas pedal down, merged onto the front straight and cut across the finish line on a diagonal angle. The robot car, or what was left of it, crossed the line half a second later.
Locking up the brakes once more, Kurt skidded to a stop. The robot car slowed with far greater control and stopped a hundred feet down the track.
Kurt threw open the door, punched the quick release on his harness and stepped from the car.
As Akiko ran up to him, he pulled off his helmet and the fireproof hood. Meanwhile, several of Han’s people rushed over to the ruined prototype that had come in second.
“Are you all right?” Akiko asked.
“Never better,” he said, though he was drenched in sweat and smelled like burnt rubber.
“I can’t believe you won,” she said, grabbing his hands. “You really are mad.”
“I don’t like to lose,” Kurt said. He held up a single finger. “Humans: one. Robots: zero.”
Han and his assistant came down from the viewing platform, looking far less excited. “You haven’t won anything,” Han insisted. “You cheated. You cut across the infield.”
“And you said first one across the finish line wins,” Kurt replied. “I don’t recall any conditions about how we were supposed to get there.”
Han pursed his lips, looking angrily at Kurt. “This mess doesn’t prove anything.”
Kurt grinned wickedly. “I disagree. It proves robots can be beaten. And that humans aren’t the only dangerous outside forces.”
Han bristled at Kurt using his own words against him, but there was nothing he could say to refute it.
A chime toned on Gao’s medallion and he checked a message on the screen. “Dinner is ready. If anyone is still interested in eating.”
Han glowered beside his assistant. He seemed to have lost his appetite. Gao looked like he wanted to be anywhere but there. Akiko tensed, her free hand inching toward the hidden knife beneath her sleeve. Only Kurt was all smiles.
“I’m famished,” he said with a grin. “Racing works up quite an appetite.”
37
JOE WAS parked at a scenic overlook on the switchback road that led up into the mountains. From there, he enjoyed a commanding view of Nagasaki Harbor, the waterfront and the CNR factory that occupied a large section of it.
He set a camera with a powerful zoom lens on a tripod and carried a pair of high-powered military-grade binoculars as a backup. Watching Han’s production facility in this way, he’d seen Kurt and Akiko park and enter the building. He’d even caught part of the race on the test track behind the factory. He was glad to see Kurt walk away from the crash unscathed. Most men would have had enough at that point, but Joe knew his friend too well to expect Kurt to call it a night.
With the race over and events in a lull, Joe bit into a rather tasteless sandwich he’d purchased from a vending machine. “Just my luck,” he said to himself. “Stranded alone on a cliff while Kurt goes to dinner with a beautiful woman and races a million-dollar sports car.”
Leaning against the fender of the Skyline GT-R, he put the sandwich down and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. Focusing them with a light touch, he scanned the area around the factory.
Aside from the race, there had been no movement whatsoever. Kurt’s rental car sat, alone and undisturbed, in the parking lot. The grounds themselves remained quiet. Joe hadn’t even seen a security patrol. But then China-Nippon Robotics probably used automated systems instead of humans, making slow and obvious rounds.
Joe lowered the binoculars and checked his watch. It was just past ten o’clock. Kurt had insisted he and Akiko would return by midnight no matter what. If they hadn’t reappeared by then, it was up to Joe to get them help.
Thinking that was a likely possibility, Joe had put in a call to Superintendent Nagano. He’d been told the superintendent was in the field on an assignment and would be out of reach until he returned.
There was something odd in the assistant’s voice. Joe wanted to chalk it up to translating the words to English but couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more.
Regardless, he was ready with Plan B: a trunkload of industrial-sized fireworks that he’d launch into the complex as he called the Nagasaki Fire Department for help.
It was a crude idea, but it would work. These were no sparklers Joe was going to set off. He had bottle rockets the size of mortar rounds. Starburst shells and spinners that he could land on the roof of the factory, where they would flare green, red and white while pumping out huge volumes of smoke. And with fumes and fire pouring from the roof of the factory, Han’s personnel would be unable to turn the fire department away. Joe would rush in right alongside them.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But experience had taught him otherwise. “Come on, Kurt,” he said to himself. “This isn’t the night to linger over drinks.”
Lowering the binoculars, Joe caught sight of something new. A dark sedan moving down the road toward the factory.
