Chapter 14

Marcus Appleton had met up with Kalby Mitchell, the much younger associate of Dr. Jenkins, in Detroit. The sky had a gray, overcast look about it, not threatening rain but not letting the sun through either. After a hearty hand shake Mitchell had led Appleton to his office. Appleton couldn’t help but be impressed by the space in Cadillac Tower.

The whole building was empty except for Mitchell’s office, its affordability was a side effect of the hard times that had befallen Detroit over the last decade.

As Appleton walked next to Mitchell across the lobby and towards the elevator, he took notice of their opposing characteristics. Mitchell was younger by many years while he himself had rounded the corner into his fifties. Mitchell had filled out from too much time behind the computer screen and easily hovered around the three hundred pound mark. He, on the other hand, could still fit in his high school jeans if he wanted too. He had blond hair while Mitchell’s was very dark brown and framed a very round face. Appleton didn’t consider his face to be long or thin but he had to admit that it didn’t carry the same roundness that Mitchell’s had. Mitchell was obviously affected by his sedentary lifestyle.

As the two rose in the elevator Mitchell talked about the Cadillac Tower. Appleton’s mind wandered back to their opposing differences and wondered why he seemed exempt from the obesity bug when he and Mitchell did the exact same thing for a living. He too lived behind a computer most days. This had led him towards carpal-tunnel syndrome and the surgery to correct it, but had not prevented him from the amount of exercise necessary for the sake of his health. Mitchell was still young and perhaps had not been confronted by such things as potential health issues just yet.

When the elevator door opened Mitchell ushered Appleton onto the third floor. What surprised Appleton was that it was completely devoid of anything. Empty space stared back at him. In the far corner a few eight foot tables had been set up as workspace with many computers spread out, three on each table. The only other space that was furnished contained a fully set-up breakroom with a full-size refrigerator, a stove, microwave, and stacked boxes of Lay’s Potato Chips. It looked like the average college student’s idea of the perfect workspace. Although, Appleton considered, judging by Mitchell’s appearance that may not have been too far off the mark.

“What do you think? It’s perfect, right?” Mitchell asked.

Appleton looked at Mitchell with a wry smile. “Yeah, it’s perfect. All you’re missing is a little art to bring it all together.” He said with a satirical tone.

“I thought of that to.” Mitchell pointed to place off to the left.

Here, Mitchell’s finger pointed to his collection of full-sized cardboard cutouts of each cast member of the movie Star Wars, A New Hope. Each individual character seemed alive with their character’s demeanor. Chewbacca’s expression was lost on Appleton because he had no idea what Wookies looked like when they smiled.

Appleton raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I see you have the art all taken care of too.”

Mitchell put his arm around Appleton’s shoulder and dragged him in. “Come in and see what I’ve already dug up.”

Once at the table closest to the outside wall, Appleton took his indicated seat. Mitchell pulled his chair closer and sat next to him. He pointed and spoke of what he had done, where his research had taken him thus far, and how much further he needed to go. His hands pointed to the other computers as he explained their purpose.

“I’ve isolated each of these computers to work independently of each other and to pull all of their information from servers outside of the United States. That way no one will figure out where any of these workstations are if they try to trace them back. Dr. Jenkins wanted us to find the source of the money trail and consequently who is behind the attacks on the other racers. He’s very afraid that his driver and weapons specialist may be in trouble as the number of participants start to dwindle. The purse is large enough to create headaches for…”

Appleton stopped Mitchell. “Have you figured out who sent the explorer after them? The MIT team, I mean.”

            “I put an information gathering worm in the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in every state right after that incident happened. What I got back might surprise you,” Mitchell said, as he leaned back in his chair. He paused for dramatic effect.

“Well?” Appleton asked.

“The Explorer belonged to a thug that is a known associate to the mob here in Detroit named Kelly Durrin.”

“Belonged?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Durrin’s dead, along with his passenger.” Mitchell said. “I’m not sure who the passenger was just yet. There are no records from the hospitals, of course, but I got a hit from a search in the police database for mob activity here in Detroit. They posted chatter from a guy named Killington. He’s the guy in charge. Anyway, two guys got promoted within their ranks, the same number of ones we assume are dead.”

“How do we know this is accurate?” Appleton asked as began to type in a string of commands on the computer in front of him.

“The police have undercover cops in the mob. The chatter they report is stored in the police database. I’m pretty sure it’s accurate. But that’s not really the concern. The fact that the mob is involved gives us a unique problem when trying to track down the money source behind the attack.”

“How so?” Appleton asked.

“Because the mob doesn’t use traceable currency like checks or credit cards or even electronic transfers. Since they usually deal in cash it will be very difficult to track who it came from.” Mitchell stated.

“Not really.” Appleton corrected. “In the United States, every bank is required to report large sums of money being withdrawn. If I can hack into the bank information conduit at the National Reserve, I might be able to start searching for large sums of money that are moving around and match them up with all of the investors of the race.”

Mitchell shook his head. “Two problems with that, first is that the mob doesn’t use banks, and your idea would only work from the time you began. It’s way too late for that now since the mob doesn’t do the work until they get paid. The trail would already be cold.”

“Okay,” Appleton said. “Think of it this way. Someone paid the mob to do this job, right… so we can assume that someone took the money out of the bank to pay Killington. We can still look at banking transactions.”

“But we can’t go that far back. Like I said that trail would be cold.” Mitchell restated.

Appleton smiled confidently. “What you might not know is that there is a master copy that is held for only one month and then retransmitted every time the information is dumped to the National Reserve in case there is a transmittal problem. Call it an insurance policy that delivers the same information thirty times over, then repeats over the next month. We can hope that Killington wasn’t paid in the month before the race began. If so we would really be out of luck and would have to try another idea. If not, we can have a working list in two minutes.” Appleton began typing away on the keyboard in front of him.

After much typing and several minutes of waiting, the computer was ready. Appleton turned the screen towards Mitchell. On it there was a long list of names of people who were probably guilty of nothing more than spending their money. “Want to bet that one of these names is on our list?” Appleton asked.

“Cool. You want a Monster or some Mountain Dew?” Mitchell asked in return.

~~~

Katrina moaned about being hungry again. They had finally gotten past the traffic jam. “Please can we stop somewhere? I have to go to the bathroom too.”

Richard had a sour look about him. Katrina had wanted to talk about his father and why he had been so angry after receiving the phone call that morning but he didn’t divulge anything. Of course five hours of listening to Katrina have a one-sided conversation about her views had only infuriated him more.

Her pleas to stop for food and now a bathroom had been ignored and he had passed every possible stop along the way. Katrina knew that his stoic disregard of her needs was his punishment for pestering him about his private life, but it didn’t stop her from needing to go.

“I’m telling you, if you don’t pull over soon you’ll be cleaning up a mess in this car.” Katrina finally spat out, her finger pointing to an exit that had a sign which advertised many restaurants and gas stations.

Richard put his blinker on and took the off ramp. In two minutes time he was pulling into a parking space at a Subway restaurant. Katrina squeezed herself out of her window and bolted for the entrance. He, on the other hand, leaned on his window lost in thought. It didn’t take long before he had to admit that his hunger was getting the best of him and he followed Katrina inside.

Being in a race didn’t allow them the luxury of time to enjoy a quiet meal. Not ten minutes later both were heading back out with enough sandwiches, chips and drinks to last them through the last leg of the day. Unfortunately it had not occurred to either of them that they had needed to keep watch on their car.

While they had been inside, the racecar that looked like a dune buggy had pulled up next to the MIT car where it had been parked. The passenger had slipped out and was in the process puncturing their tires through the side walls when they came back out of the store.

Richard immediately dropped everything that he had been carrying, yelled at the guy, and ran at him to take care of business. The passenger dropped the ice pick that he had been holding and ran back to his car. The driver had already started moving away and the passenger had to dive into his open window. They kicked up small rocks and dust from the asphalt as they sped off.

“Bastards!” Richard shouted with his fist in the air. He picked up a rock by his feet and threw it at them even though they had traveled too far for the rock to do anything other than help Richard blow off some steam.

            Katrina sat on the curb by their car and stared at the only tire that had been spared the thrust of the ice pick.

Richard walked back, slightly less angry than he had been a second ago. “So... what did they get? Two tires?”

“Three.” Katrina said. “You know it never occurred to me that we couldn’t ever leave the car unattended. The chance that another racecar would see us here should have been infinitesimal since we are way off course.”

“I’m willing to bet that as more cars become disabled, a lot of different tactics will be taken to undermine our car, especially if they don’t think they can overpower our weapon.” Richard said, before he sat on the sidewalk next to Katrina. “Please tell me that we have three spares in the car?”

“We don’t even have one. It was a weight saving thing. We have enough goop to put into the tires to fix flats, but we can’t use it.” Katrina said.

“Why not?”

“The goop is designed to fill a hole where centrifugal force pushes it, to the tread area. These holes are in the side wall. The goop won’t work here. We need new rubber,” Katrina said as she unwrapped her sandwich.

“How can you eat at a time like this? We need to find something that will work or we’ll be the last car in again.” Richard’s voice climbed as stood to pace.

Katrina patted the curb next to her. “Sit down and relax. We can be last by one minute or by twelve hours and it won’t make any difference. Since we are going to be last one way or another, eat your sandwich. I have phone numbers for companies that can fix our problem. After I eat I’ll call one of them and have them come out and bring us new tires.”

~~~

Frodes paced back and forth in the Fort Dodge, Iowa Super 8 Motel parking lot. It was after nine-thirty. Moths had begun to collect around the parking lot lights. His team of interns, all hyped up on energy drinks, joked and goofed off loudly around the equipment. All of them were waiting for their car to come in. Other teams were already working on their cars.

Compared to last night, Frodes could see far fewer cars than normal in the lot. There were only nine teams working, eight really, since their car had not come in yet. He didn’t know just yet how many cars were still in the race. He was certain, however, that the number had dropped drastically.

He looked at his watch and thought that it might have started to go backwards since it had barely moved since the last time he had checked. He sighed loudly as Dillon walked up and stood next to him to wait. He had a worried look about him.

“I feel the same way.” Dillon said.

Frodes voiced his exasperation. “Why are they this late again? I mean, Katrina said that they had to contact a company to come out and replace their rubber, but that was hours ago.”

“Well, after tonight that won’t be a problem anymore.” Dillon said. “I secured a set of tires that can’t go flat.”

“How much did that cost us?” Frodes asked indignantly as though it was his money that was being spent.

“Dr. Jenkins said that I needed to find the best possible tires so that they wouldn’t have this problem again, because, you know, we can’t help them after tonight.” Dillon said sheepishly.

“So how much?”

Dillon cleared his throat before he answered. “$1600 each.”

“Oh my God!” Frodes said. His hands rose in the air in disgust as though they were connected to balloons.

As if on cue Richard and Katrina drove into the parking area. Dillon’s laughter brought other teams members’ eyes to the car. Bertrand stopped in the center of the lot as their team approached, laughing and pointing fingers. Katrina placed a hand over her face out of embarrassment.

When the crowd grew there was more finger pointing and a lot more laughter. Katrina plucked up the courage and slipped out of her window.

Frodes walked up with his jaw hanging open and said, “What the hell are those?”

Richard answered the question. “The only company that could help us didn’t carry the right tires to replace what we had. So, we had to go to a different size tire and different rims because ours were too wide. The only rims they could get on short notice were for a minivan.”

Dr. Jenkins walked up as Richard was explaining their new look. When he indicated to have everyone move out of the way so he could get close enough to see the car he understood why everyone was laughing. The sleek racecar before him had rolled in on a narrow set of tires mounted on minivan rims. The thin white walls on the tires shone brilliantly under the bright parking lot lights. It truly was an abomination, an insult to their car’s design, and deserved to be laughed at. Jenkins laughed too, in spite of his consternation.

“Hey, it got you here didn’t it?” Jenkins said before he turned to Frodes. “You know what to do.”

Jenkins turned towards Richard and Katrina. “First a meeting, then you guys can get cleaned up before dinner. Follow me.”

Richard began to exhibit his anger over the tire puncture incident but Jenkins waved a hand to indicate that he keep quiet. Richard hadn’t noticed but they had been walking past the dune buggy car as its technicians worked on it. Jenkins led them to his hotel room and closed the door behind them. After opening up the mini fridge, he took a couple of bottles of beer and offered them to Bertrand and Katrina. They each took one and sat at a small table set by the window.

“I have information to share with each of you.” Jenkins started.

“First, I’ve learned that someone inside the race hierarchy has hired people to disable cars in the race to give their car an edge. The incident with the red Explorer was not against you personally. But, unfortunately they don’t care who gets hurt as long as they win.”

Katrina pulled on her Budweiser as though the news didn’t surprise her. Richard, on the other hand, didn’t take a drink. His eyes were wide as thoughts ran wildly through his head.

“I need to ask you a question Richard. I don’t want to sound insensitive but I think I need to know what you and your father were talking about before you launched your phone across the parking lot this morning.”

Richard got up and left the table. He was startled by the question and it took him a moment before his automatic reaction of anger faded. His eyes welled up and he kept his back to both of them. Katrina wanted to get up to go and comfort him but Jenkins placed a hand on her arm to silently tell her that she should stay put.

When Richard composed himself he started to speak. “My father only became an investor in this race because I wanted him to. I wanted to compete in a race that would help launch my career. I convinced my mother to talk him into it. Eventually he caved and committed to the race.

“He has done a lot of things right in his career and even in this venture he decided that he wanted to win even though he would not have had any part of this if it wasn’t for me. Honestly I was pretty sure this was going to be his biggest flop because I was the one driving, like he would set me up to fail. But he jumped into the project with both feet. He went out of his way to hire you Dr. Jenkins. He researched all that you had accomplished and fell in love with your engine design.”

One day, toward the end of the building stage, I walked into his office to ask him for something and found a pile of applications. All kinds of people wanted to be the driver for this car. When he came in I fought with him about how I was supposed to be the one driving, that it had been the reason that he had gotten into the race to begin with. He just laughed. He said I didn’t have what it took to drive in a race that pulled in a purse so huge, that…”

Richard paused again.

            “You see, he is very disappointed with me. I’m not quite what he wanted in a son. But he loves my mother enough to do anything she asks.”

Richard paused for a long moment. Katrina and Jenkins looked at each other. The fact that he was the driver made them realize that Richard’s mother had most likely forced his father to allow him to be the driver.

Richard started again but on a different tack. “We fought the day before I was to show up to the starting gate, or in this instance, the parking lot. My father said he didn’t want me to drive anymore, that the race wasn’t safe. I thought that it was just his way of trying to talk me out driving, that he wanted to win and he felt that I couldn’t do it. So I used my mother’s influence again and here I am… getting exactly what I wanted.

“That morning, at the start of the race, he was drunk and I thought it was because he thought that we were going to lose if I was driving. When the Explorer came into the picture things changed. I started to wonder if there wasn’t more going on, if he might have been telling me the truth about why he didn’t want me to drive. I thought that my father might have feared for my life because he loved me.

“Then this morning when he called, he was really afraid. I could tell because he was all choked up when he said he was happy that I had pulled out of the close encounter with that Explorer, that the gun had really scared him. But he still wanted me to drop out of the race. He said that he had another driver in the wings to take over for me. He explained that the race was about the cars not the driver, and walking out wouldn’t change anything. He begged me to come home. Then it hit me, no one knew about the gun except Katrina and myself. It didn’t show up in the video. I watched it after the first day. The only person we told was Dr. Jenkins. The only way he could have known was if Dr. Jenkins said something to him. But Dr. Jenkins would never give up that kind of information. My father had to know more about what was happening.”

Richard paused on that thought but pressed on. “But I couldn’t walk away after spending even one day with Katrina. How could I leave her to whatever was going to happen with another driver who was only being sent in to fail or maybe die. I had to see this through. I have…”

Finally Richard’s feelings overcame him and he dropped his face into his hands.

Katrina’s mouth hung open in shock at what Richard just said. Not only was he confessing to what his father may be mixed up in, he had confessed that he didn’t want her to be hurt in any way either.

Jenkins sucked down the rest of his beer before he turned back to Katrina. “I think you have a pretty good handle on what we’re facing. Not only do you have to finish a race, but you must confront whatever his father might have done to hijack his investment. He doesn’t want to see you finish, but, on the other hand, he doesn’t want to see you hurt either. I had a feeling last night when he said that he wanted me to spend whatever it took to ensure that you have all of the tools that you needed to stay safe that something was up.”

Jenkins turned back to Richard. “Not to excuse your father’s actions, but I believe that he had no control over how you might have been disqualified. I think someone else is pulling the strings. I believe the leader of the group is hedging their bets to make their own car win. I wonder how much money your father was going to make just for agreeing to partner up with whoever is running this game? I’m sure he regrets it now.”

Jenkins felt bad for Richard, who now knew that his father had known the danger involved with the race all along. He turned to Katrina in a downtrodden way. She still looked shocked. He realized that this information was destroying the morale of his team. He wouldn’t be surprised if Richard or Katrina decided not to leave the parking lot in the racecar the next morning. And could he ask them to? He sighed.

Jenkins turned back to Richard sitting on one of the beds. “Listen, I’m sure your father tried to talk you out of driving specifically because he knew it would be too dangerous. He probably only agreed to let you drive in the end thinking the car would be disqualified. If your car got disabled quickly then it would break your racecar driving addiction. I’m also sure that no matter how the race ends he still wins in some way, we just haven’t figured it all out yet.

“What he didn’t count on was that whoever was set up to do the disqualifying would go to the extremes of hurting the team members. I’m sure he never wanted to see you hurt. He may not like you sometimes, but you’re still his son and your mother’s son.

Imagine if you died because of his actions? What would happen if your mother found out that he had caused your death? I think he knows that and is worried about your safety, and his wife’s opinion of him.”

Richard raised his head, hope in his heart.

Jenkins continued. “I have a couple of guys I can trust looking into who might be running the game and who might be in charge of taking cars out of the race. I don’t want to say what my thoughts are just yet, you know... in case I’m wrong. But tonight is the last night we can perform service to the car.

Now my job is not only to have you survive but also to give you the tools to stay safe and to win. So we are going to put on tires that can’t go flat for starters. Frodes has another update to the car’s computer and we are going to give you another set of tools that you might need to help you along the way.

Remember that you have ramps in the back that are the only way to get the car high enough to get into the winners loop. The finish line is in the middle of the desert. Anything else that you need to finish the race you need to acquire before you reach the last town.

“Richard, I have seen your driving skills. If anyone can win this race it’s you, despite all of the problems the team is facing. You need to understand that. You also need to keep Katrina safe, but let her do her job. I’m sure she’ll surprise you if you let her. The two of you are a good team.”

Richard chuckled from behind his fingers. Jenkins turned to Katrina. “Try to keep his head on straight. He really is a good driver,” Jenkins reiterated.

Katrina kicked back the last of her beer before answering. “Yeah, he really is, as long as he doesn’t get too full of himself.”

Jenkins walked toward the hotel room door thinking about all of the damage he had just inflicted. When he opened the door to leave he found Dillon waiting at the threshold.

“Yes?” Jenkins asked.

“Uh… I came to ask a few questions… from Katrina.” Dillon said sheepishly.

Jenkins turned to Katrina with raised eyebrows but left the room so that she could come to the door to talk to him.

Katrina stepped outside of the room to give Richard some privacy pulling the door partially closed behind her.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I was wondering if you weren’t too tired if you wanted to go out for dinner?” Dillon asked.

“Dinner?” Katrina asked, as though she had never considered needing to eat. Her confusion seemed deep.

“Uh… yeah, you know, with me.” Dillon’s confidence strengthened as Katrina didn’t outright say no. “I’m supposed to set up your meals tonight and I thought maybe I could sit with you and… and stuff.”

Dillon’s self-confidence began to evaporate again as she just looked at him without answering.

Katrina looked back to the room’s door thinking about Richard’s fragile state.

Dillon took that look to mean that she wouldn’t consider him as a dinner companion when a famous racecar driver was waiting for her. He was just a nerd.

“Um, it’s no problem. I understand.” Dillon said changing gears. “I only asked in case you were dining alone, that’s all.”

Katrina’s stomach was in knots. She knew that she needed to spend some time with Richard to help him get through this mess but she didn’t want to hurt Dillon.

She put her hand on his arm. “Listen, I would love to have dinner with you but tonight isn’t good. Can I ask for a rain check until after the race? I need to talk to Jenkins again,” she lied, “and I wouldn’t want to cut short a wonderful dinner. We have to be at the starting line pretty early.”

Dillon brightened instantly.

Katrina pressed on so she could go back inside. “If you’re in charge of getting us dinner, can you get us a six pack of beer and some Chinese food? You know, fried rice, chicken fingers, teriyaki sticks, crab rangoons, sesame chicken, the usual stuff?”

Dillon nodded and his expression gave her the impression that he was storing the information away somewhere in his head. He smiled and said, “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

Next Chapter: Chapter 15