Luigi: That car’s coming at us rather fast!
Blake: I see him.
Luigi: Shit!
Blake: Hang on!
Luigi: Who the hell was that?
Blake: I don’t know. They don’t look like cops. And I doubt we’ve seen the last of them.
Lenin: hey God, why are those people shooting at us?
GOD: they’re the Mafia.
Marx: Can you make them stop?
GOD: but why? you’re avoiding them.
Lenin: good point, let them keep shooting the competition then please
GOD: nope.
at that moment the highway opens up letting the cars escape
Marx: throws middle finger up to the sky again
Marcus kept his foot to the floor, the XR-3’s engine screaming to the world as he tried to outrun the Mafia. He kept the little Makarov in his left hand, threatening Mafia and Racers alike if they dared get close to the little fiberglass sedan, occasionally shooting at the black sedans to make his point serious.
Hooking his thumb into the steering wheel, he rummaged through the center console, grabbed the box of roofing nails, flipped the lid open, and let them fly. This was very shortly followed by a mostly-full glass bottle, before Marcus made a sudden weave into the shopping mall.
There was glass everywhere from other cars making their way through here, but Marcus kept his foot down, driving through a booth selling candy in the process. No one was hurt, but he’d managed to add to the mess, the chaos, and the confusion as gumballs went everywhere. He burst out of the mall and made a bee-line for the outskirts of town, to the safety of the open plains.
With little chance of an ambush, Marcus holstered the gun, keeping an eye on his fuel. “Looks like I’ll be okay for a little while.” he said to himself. “But I’m running lower than I’d like. And whoever dragged the Mafia into this is really going to regret it, if I ever find out who they are.”
Cindy is still quite jittery from the lack of coffee. She’s just about to stop and refill when she hears the 2nd round of gunshots. “Fucking hell, who are these people, ans why do they hate us? No way those are cops. If they were, they’d definitely have choppers and roadblocks set up. I don’t know, this shit’s too shady for me.”
She cycles to a fresh tape the first free moment she has.
The gunfire and ramming picks up again, and she makes a hard right through a small parking lot to avoid being rammed. The Erin driver she threw her coffee at wasn’t happy to see her. But the V8’s sheer potency helped her keep her distance. She quickly sped off as they got out onto the plains, where she sped up, hoping to gain positions. In the meantime, Cindy tapped into her water reserves, still lamenting the total lack of caffeine.
“Shit, there’s one still running Christopez!” Pasquale shouted as the big, black Erin slid around the corner and back onto the road.
Christoforo looked to the side mirror on his side and squinted, seeing the Erin several cars back in the line of traffic. “A Belrose?”, he exclaimed as he downshifted the 330 and floored the accelerator, a black puff of smoke coughing out of the quad exhaust pipes as the Scagliati surged down the road. “I’m starting to think this is amateur hour rather than a group of professionals!” The 330 threaded neatly through the traffic, pulling away slowly but steadily from the bulky, black sedan, hopelessly matched against the nimble Italian roadster.
“Let’s find some roads out of town, Christopez…less chance of an ambush like this again!” Pasquale shouted over the wailing V12, checking his pace notes while keeping a watch on the police radio band. “Here, take a left at the roundabout, we’ll be back in the open before too long,” pointing to the road toward Lattes and Montpelier. Christoforo flicked the 330 into a lurid drift, the tall sidewalls of the vintage-style tires rolling over as the car overwhelmed its tires for a brief moment, then straightened out and launched down the road with aplomb, leaving the Erin far behind as the 330 zigged and zagged through the mid-afternoon traffic.
“Do you think they’ll be back any time soon?” Christoforo asked Pasquale, relaxing a little as the worst of the danger seemed to be past.
“That depends,” Pasquale replied, “if they got their mark, then I doubt it. But since it sounds like everyone in the race is unharmed, there’s a good chance they will be, and they won’t be as easy on us as the last time!”
“What have we got ourselves into, Zocca?”
13 december 2017, 21:33PM. Brooklyn Heights, NY, USA.
“I had been driving for Maine Motors in the IMSA GTO category, and was offered a place in the Japanese GT series. This race, you know, I often heard of these Cannonball runs and was curious about them, this race was a way to test myself. The ultimate endurance race, with opponents willing to do anything to win the race. The money price was a juicy bonus too, but I knew I wouldn’t win the race towards the first kilometres of Italy.” - Replied the voice.
“Right, right…well Kuro, you just dug your own grave. Not literally, it’s not like I’m gonna send thugs after you…but say goodbye to Motornation Japan. You’ll be moved to the main branch.” - Replied Aaron, pressing his worn cigarette against the ashtray.
“Aaron, we can-” - Tried to reply the voice on the other side.
“You’ll reply when I ask you to reply if you don’t want me to expose this. Now listen up, I still have a few more questions for you.” - Replied Aaron.
D172, France, 15:42. 8th of October 1995. 4195km to Athens.
The google maps route can be seen here.
The mafia was nowhere near to be seen. While most of the drivers were still keeping an eye out just in case, most of them let a sigh of relief escape, focusing on the task of driving as fast as they could, blitzing their way through the French roads. Their next waypoint would be crossing the French-Italian border at Mortola Inferiore. Roughly 400km away.
Musical suggestion by @ramthecowy!
The driver of the Chupacabra got confident with their first place. In fact, too confident. As soon as they could realize, both the Bonham and the Evo Rc blitzed past it, and the Guivre was getting way too close.
As the racers left Milhaud behind, they took the first detour out of the highway, to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb. The road was still wide, but it was progressively getting twistier and twistier. It was there where the Blood Eagle tried to overtake the Dolphine, but the Dolphine held up, blocking attempts from the Blood Eagle to overtake. The road became a sucession of soft S turns, which the drivers negotiated while avoiding traffic at the same time. The Blood Eagle and the Dolphine were both overtaken soon after by the Cannonnero.
The road was getting tighter and tighter as they approached Arlés. The drivers knew they had to cross the city; and they blitzed through it, not giving the local police a chance to keep up nor organize. As the urban highway became a long straight, the Kiito overtook the NRZ, taking its position. The 219+35 was also winning places swiftly thanks to the long straight, which allowed it to show its true power to the competition. The T25 was overtaken by the Interval as well, at the same time as the driver of the truck was seeking revenge on the Friala for overtaking them earlier, but failing as the roads became twistier again.
The racers kept taking the detours the route indicated, towards the mediterranean coast once again. The coast was finally reached as they arrived at Fréjus, a town the racers could luckily avoid. The Chevallier and the Bushranger were back at it, fighting for their place. When both teams less expected it, the Erin Scarlet powered through both of them. Both the Chevallier and the Bushranger ran out of fuel, the drivers looking at each other as they refilled their petrol tanks. During the same “rampage”, the Scarlet got revenge against the Bandito, and took the Arumina’s place as well. But before they ran out of luck, they overtook the Visios too, the Erin being now in the mirror of the Perenne.
It wasn’t long before they reached Monaco, leaving the city behind by the closest highway. Menton would be the last city before the Italian border. They had to prepare to cross the border somehow.
They finally reached the border. Two police agents greeted the group, starting to inspect their vehicles. One of the policemen frowned, recognizing the cars. The policeman tried to unsheath his pistol to try and arrest the racers, when the other policeman knocked his partner down. He winked at the racers, holding his partner, as he gave them greenlight.
Before the racers left, the policeman approached the Bonham, the first in line.
“I reckon you have 5 or so minutes before the rest of my coworkers realized he hasn’t just fainted. Hurry up.” - He said.
The racers started crossing the border. Italy was waiting for them at the other side, greeting them with a “Welcome to Italy” sign. The copilots and racers checked the maps one last time as they entered the Autostrada dei Fiori. Their next stop: crossing Italy and then Switzerland to get to Germany.
The driver of the lime green wagon looked at his mirror, only to realize something: the Evo had caught up.
To be continued.
Times spreadsheet:
With a fresh tank of gas and a fresh supply of coffee, Cindy eagerly sped off to rejoin the now largely peaceful race. She was still wary of that helicopter and whoever it was hauling, but the race had gone fairly smoothly, only being thrown off balance by the smell of the other driver’s cigarettes and a barking dog in the truck behind her. The sweeping turns gave the Thunderbolt an edge thanks to its quick acceleration.
Cindy only got nervous again as they approached the Italian border. “I really hope we lost the cops back in Spain. If we did, maybe the Italians don’t know about us. Just play it cool…” She prepared her passport so as to avoid arousing suspicion upon arrival. However, a guard waved everyone past. As she drove by, she noticed another guard lying unconscious next to him. “That’s…odd. That shows that he knew what we were doing. And if he found out, who knows how many more did.” She immediately floored it in preparation for a possible police chase within the next few minutes, and the next song kicked in at just the right time.
After filling the XR-3’s fuel tank, Marcus hurtled down the road, surprised at the sudden calm.
“Calm before the storm… We’re heading into Italy, the heart of the Mafia. I wouldn’t be surprised, not in the least, if we got ambushed trying to speed through the land of fast cars.” Marcus said to himself, lighting a cigarette and throwing his match out the window.
As he approached the border, Marcus kept his foot down, letting the XR-3’s tri-cylinder engine blare out a thundering roar, though pulsed the neons in thanks as he crossed into Italy.
Once past the border, Marcus laid into it, flicked the neon lamps into Strobe mode, and planned to put as much distance between him and the border as he could as fast as possible.
Team Angus - Chapter 9
GAR - Chapter 10
Team Angus Bio
The highway proved to be the right choice. Whoever organised the Erin attack had either run out of goons or had chosen to regroup to strike back later on in the race. The way was now clear to get on with the business of winning the race. This was much easier said than done, however, as we had been rejoined by the Chevalier!
They’d managed to get ahead of us using a different path and they were punching hard for the horizon. Immediately a red mist descended and it was Bushranger, no Chevalier, no Bushranger!!! NO!!! The Chev is in front!!! We must have traded places (and paint 
) at least a hundred times; a constant to and fro of angry V8’s vying for the lead.
All of a sudden, as a small gap appeared between us around a sweeping left-hander, a dark blue shape slipped between us like Steve Bradbury winning gold at the olympics. The unassuming coupe gracefully held an elegant drift as it made full use of the gap available, never touching either of us, then straightened for the next bend and disappeared over the yump of the next section of road.
I resolved to chase after our new quarry but, somewhat embarrassingly, the bushranger had drained her fuel tank dry! Fortuitously the Chev had also run out of fuel so we kept our distance from Team Chev (other than a couple of sheepish grins from Ben and an unblinking stare session from sooty) , filled the car from the spare fuel containers and… watched as the Chev guys finished first and roared off.
I was emotionally gutted and physically exhausted by now so we let Valerie drive. I sat in the back and rested my eyes for a bit while Valerie drove to a place where we could patch up the body damage and where she also could procure some items for us to use if the goons showed up again. We arrived at a rural property where Valerie drove to an old garage to the rear of the main house. She parked the Bushranger and entered the garage by a side door while Ben broke out the race tape and patched up the spoilers. Valerie emerged with a duffel bag and some bottles of Coke, handed out the Cokes (labels towards the camera) and let us in on what was in the bag… An AK74SU and spare magazines plus a couple of Soviet era Marakovs!!!
She handed each of us a Marakov and a couple of mags, slung the AK about her chest, shouldered the duffel bag then gave the keys for the car to Ben. We loaded into the car, once we’d enjoyed our icy cold beverages, then set off to rejoin the race; Ben was now driving, Valerie was riding shotgun and I was snoozing in the rear. Just as we were exiting the property, Valerie indicated for Ben to stop then she rolled down her window, whistled loudly then waited; Sooty leapt through the window and plonked himself onto a stack of spare clothes in the back of the cabin and curled up, fast asleep. We then roared off, rejoined the race, then found ourselves being waved through the Italian border, hard on the tail of our perennial rivals, Team Chevalier…
TO BE CONTINUED
I have been meaning to write but with exams around the corner and bad luck at work, it’s been hard enough to get anything of anything done. I’m betting that Anna didn’t even notice the whole mafia business unfolding behind her, running a very lonely race and a (losing) battle mostly for her sanity (as reflected by the increasingly dishevelled state of her cabin) as she’s been trying to run at 100% for the entire time to chase down the estimated four or five cars that overtook her while she was trying to repair the broken front splitter from her airborne shenanigans. If she heard gunshots she’d probably assume it was backfire from a nearby car.
But now the Bonham’s just barely in her sights, and even if the Devil were driving that wagon, she’s going to chase it down.
so Valerie is actually a Soviet spy?
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on where the story goes I guess… But I’m probably going to go with ex-spy since she has the skills to mass murder a bunch of organised crime dudes for killing her brother. 
As Teuvo was filling up the car, Jorma thought that he could dig up his portable cassette player again. He reached under his seat and dragged the player out into the daylight, popped in a cassette and pressed play.
As Teuvo got back into the car, he was pleasantly surprised that he finally could hear something else than the growl of the engines and gunshots. Without saying anything he started up the car and pulled away from the gas station.
As the car blasted down the highway, Jorma asked: “Can we stop while we’re in Monaco? I’ve always wanted to drive the F1 circuit there.” “Sorry to disappoint you lad, but we’re not even going through Monaco. We’ll take the highway that goes past it. It’s way faster,” Teuvo argued. “Oh, okay then. We’re in a race after all,” Jorma said, sounding seemingly disappointed.
Soon after the men reached the Italian border and saw two guards: one letting everyone into Italy and the other one seemingly unconscious. “Man, these Italians have some lenient bosses. If I was that drunk when I went to work, I would’ve been fired!” Teuvo joked. He stepped on the gas as he smelled trouble and the men started to make their way over to the Alps.
En route to Monaco, Walter felt the confidence building up inside him. Having just escaped from the mob, he set about closing the gap on the opposition. The twisty coastal roads leading to the principality were an ideal place to utilize the Guardsman’s maneuverability. Then he realized he wouldn’t actually be entering it, much to his disappointment - but there would be many other opportunities to show off his inner Schumacher or McRae. Besides, he would be in Italy very soon, and the roads there presented their own set of challenges.
He remarked to himself, “Who needs Monaco when you’ve got a whole continent to drive through?” before making plans for the next leg. By now it was obvious that being a tortoise in a field of hares wasn’t going to work in the long term, but he was enjoying the drive anyway. This was, after all, a shakedown run for a proposed track-ready Guardsman, and if all went well, it would be very likely that the higher-ups at WMD would greenlight such a variant. With that in mind, he continued driving at his usual fast pace, which was just as well, since a few other rivals were closing in on him - and quickly.
The Scagliati roared down the highway, screaming headlong along the French coast toward Italy. As Christoforo thtreaded the 330 down the highway, approaching Nice, Pasquale made a quick phone call to an old friend of his.
"Vincenzo, my friend! It’s Pasquale, come stai?"
“Very good, very good!” the voice on the other end of the phone said, in typical animated fashion, “How’s my old battalion mate doing? You’re still with that darling Luisa?”
“27 years this July…you and Maria should make the trip to Mirano to celebrate with us!” Pasquale replied.
“I will have to check my schedule…this new position doesn’t give me much time to get away, you can imagine! So, what’s on your mind, old man?” Vincenzo asked.
“Well my friend,” Pasquale started, “I need a favour of you…a big one…”
The phone went quiet for a moment; Pasquale could almost hear his friend shifting in his chair on the other end of the line. “Is this in relation to this race you and your young friend are in? I just got off the phone with my counterpart in Paris about that…you’re alright? Hell of a thing to happen. Can you tell me anything about what happened?”
“Yes, we are fine, but a little shook up.” Pasquale replied, feeling the emotion of the last couple hours well up a bit. “Listen…the leaders are an hour away from the border, and we’re about an hour back from them…can you keep the heat off of us if you can? At very least, tell your reggimenti to turn a blind eye? We’re just cutting the corner through Lombardia and will be out of your hair in a moment. And yes, I will tell you everything I know once we get back home.”
The man on the other end of the phone sighed, “You know you’re asking me to do something illegal, Zocca?”
“How is it any different than when I covered for your little escapade in Sardinia all those years ago?” Pasquale replied.
“Well for one, I wasn’t a Comandante in the Carabineri back then, for starters…”
“…and if I didn’t cover your ass, you never would have been either, with a mark like that on your service record! Come on…you DO owe me at least the courtesy of consideration!”
Vincenzo sighed again, pausing; “I guess I do owe you that much. I will consider your request…but we’re even after this, my friend!”
“Thank you, Vincenzo…I appreciate it! And call us if you decide to come out in August…the Amarone was particularly good last year!”
“How could I pass up an offer like that!” Vincenzo said with a laugh. “Be careful, my friend…”
“Thanks…and thank you!” Pasquale said as the cell phone chirped, the call ended. “Well, that might buy us some slack, I hope!”
Christoforo scowled for a moment; “I thought you said the Amarone was bad last year!”
“Well…” Pasquale replied, laughing a little bit, Christoforo cracking a smile as the border approached…
Autostrada dei Fiori, Italy, 17:43. 8th of October 1995. 3820km to Athens.
The google maps route can be seen here.
(Musical suggestion by @CadillacDave!)
The slightly narrow Autostrada hugged the mountains around it. The cars blazed past the houses on the sides of the mountains…entering a light fog. Those who had anti fog lights switched them on; those who didn’t were in a pickle. All of them would have to be more and more careful by the impredictability of the weather. What made the whole experience even scarier, was that the racers were now going downhill.
The racers would be pushing their luck with any move at all. The first and bravest move was the Blood Eagle’s: he throttled back, making the Dolphine think the traffic was on the right side; as soon as the black coupé switched lanes, the classic pushed onwards, taking the place.
The mountainous highway entered a section of tunnels. The drivers had to dance around the traffic once again, at speeds that were more than dangerous. It was then when those drivers who had a police scanner could hear the following dialogue, in Italian:
“The French police received an order from the Spanish police to stop a group of highly modified cars from crossing the borders, but it seems like no highway connecting us to Germany, Belgium or Italy have reported such a group crossing them.”
“They must have gone northbound. They were pretty hasty, so if they kept going towards Italy they’d have reached the border by now.”
Some of the racers reacted by getting slightly nervous; others couldn’t help but relax or smile as they heard the police were being misleaded. As the tunnels followed each other, the outdoors sections of the road started switching from mountains to coast. During these quick sections, the Interval overtook the NRZ once again without thinking it twice. A clean pass.
The downhill racing had taken quite a few kilometres already, and the brakes were starting to show some fade. Unable to brake just enough, the Evo RC hugged the guardrail, scrapping its paint, but luckily not losing control nor too much time. The Bonham driver saw this through his mirror, in the distance, and realized the pesky rally car was getting closer and closer. The kilometres went on and on, still downhill. This was starting to become a nightmare for all of the drivers, who feared for their brakes. Some of the racers started using techniques such as engine braking to reduce wear on their discs and drums.
The nightmare eventually ended at San Nicolò, where the road become an uphill path once again. In this segment, the Bushranger overtook the Chevallier once again, in their unending battle, and got closer to the Scarlet again. The fog cleared out as they got further into the mountains once again, with their next destination being Milano. Not too much time later, the city was finally visible. This signaled they were halfway through Italy, but it also meant something else: going through the city could get them back on the sights of the police.
To be continued.
Team Angus - Chapter 10
GAR - Chapter 11
Team Angus Bio
The road leading through the mountains on the French/Italian border was narrow and winding. This meant that Ben, now driving the Bushranger, had to limit his speed due to poor visibility and lack of room to manoeuvre. Ben’s workload was further compounded by the sudden onset of a light fog, which reduced our visual range even further. To keep the iconic look of the Bushranger intact for the movie we hadn’t installed any extra fog or driving lights which was coming back to bite us, hard!
I would have been unaware of most of this stretch except that, in order to conserve the brakes due to the downward descent, Ben was using compression braking which filled the cabin with lots of growling and crackling from the engine and exhaust and whining from the diff and gearbox. Upon waking I was confronted with a surreal scene; a murky haze punctuated feebly by a cone of dull white, with glowing red eyes appearing out of the blanketing darkness to streak by us, some occasionally howling their shrill disapproval via their horn.
Ben was a portrait of concentration, revealing an economy of movement not seen before, no effort wasted in the focus to drive as fast as possible down this road. Valerie, in contrast, looks like an ancient greek statue; her pale face frozen in a half grimace, fear etched in every line, body rigidly held. No sound or movement is allowed to escape her form; it could distract Ben leading to our inevitable demise! Sooty, in contrast, was showing her typical feline disdain for anything other than her own needs; she was wedged in a convenient spot where she could groom herself with only an occasional brace against the car body…
After what seemed an eternity we reached the bottom of the mountain and powered through San Nicolo, thankfully with no Mafia or Police interference, then headed back up into the mountains. Much to our relief, the fog had cleared so Ben was able to pour on the throttle and we made up for the time lost having to drive in the fog without fog-lamps!
As we headed up the road, a familiar set of tail-lights appeared. It was that damned Chevalier! Realising that they hadn’t seen us yet, Ben held back, waiting for a yump. When the Chev disappeared over the hill, Ben floored the accelerator and the momentum gained was used to ambush the Chev; we rushed past, Valerie and I waving, and pulled ahead and into the lead!
We were able to extend our lead by a few minutes over the Chev, which pleased us greatly, then we saw something glinting further ahead; Valerie spotted a metallic blue wedge at a point where the mountain allowed us to see a longer distance than usual. It was that Erin that passed us just before we left France! Seeing our next target re-invigorated us all; maybe we could win this thing after all!
TO BE CONTINUED
Marcus sat back in the XR-3, relaxing as he held the wheel with one hand, and lazily smoked a cigarette with the other. He had the radio on, despite not being able to hear it all that clearly over the growling rumble resonating from under the hood and down the length of the car, but it helped him relax. The fog was no real issue for his piercing green foglights and glowing neon tubes, and so he didn’t mind. In fact, this dense fog had him even more relaxed than ever.
“Fucking helicopter can’t see us in this shit. Cops’ll only see us when they’re about to drive right up our asses, and the Mafia has to be able to see to actually hit shit with their heaters. Yeah, there’s likely some dunces who didn’t pack a pair of fog-lights, or didn’t install some rally off-roading lights, and they’re shittin’ bricks right about now, but they’ll be easy road-blocks to drive around.” Marcus said. At this point, he’d grabbed the little micro-cassette recorder from the center console and had been recording the events up to this stage, in hopes that once everything was all said and done, he could have his ‘stupid younger brother’ write it all down, compile it into a book, and get it published. That way, his younger brother wouldn’t feel the call of the streets as much, as he could see it already in his choice of video games. Anything to deal with cars or racing, Cody was into it.
“You know, driving this road reminds me of that time you brought the Hot Wheels track to the hotel room.” Marcus said, grinning. “Mom was so pissed when you broke the window and that the only thing you cared about was that your Twin Mill ended up in the pool. I knew then that you were going to be into cars. Then you got that go-cart when you were a little older and it was pretty much confirmed. I’ve said it before, I don’t want you racing, it’s dangerous and there’s a lot of crazy people out here in this world. And the cops are relentless. You street race, you spend a lot of your days looking over your shoulder, jumping at every siren. And when the cops do finally catch you, and they will, they put you away for a long time. Been thinking about that a lot lately. Wouldn’t be my first time in jail, that happened when I was 15 and got busted stealing the neighbor’s car. Won’t be my last time in jail, either. Just hoping that when that day comes, that the police come knocking on my door, that you don’t have to see it, Cody.”
Marcus used the XR-3’s big engine to slow down as he cruised down the mountain at speed, the big triple barking and backfiring and banging as it dumped unburned fuel into a screaming hot exhaust manifold. And as soon as he was down the mountain, it was back up the mountain again. He took the opportunity to change the tape in the recorder, wrote “Racer’s Diary, Part 11” on the tape he’d taken out, and placed it neatly in the suitcase sitting on the passenger seat. He then peeled the plastic wrapper off of another tape and popped it into the recorder, ready for the next stage, and the next bit of history.
As the road fogged up, Cindy turned her lights on. The popups triumphantly protruded from the body, and were only complemented by the fog lights. “Such an underrated feature.” Cindy remarked as she saw other racers without them struggle to see. It was around then that the scanner started squawking with intel relevant to the racers for the first time in a couple days. “Well, my Italian isn’t the best, but it looks like we’re in the clear for now. I just wonder for how much longer.”
The prolonged downhill slope kept Cindy from contemplating too much, but the Thunderbolt’s low curb weight and strong vented discs kept it at a safe speed for the entire duration, with Cindy just opting to coast down some larger hills to save a bit of fuel. After all, you never know when you’ll need it most. But that went out the window with the elevation climbing again, and with it, the revs from the 3.3 behind her. And just over the hill, another city. “This could be the calm before the storm.” Cindy’s stomach knotted up as the racers drew closer to the city limits. The 3.3 roared as she dropped down a gear in preparation for a quick pull through it.
Finally, a little writing:
1 & 2: Prologue
3: Prologue
4: Prologue
5: Malaga - Granada
5b: Malaga - Granada
5c: Granada - Alicante
Life was winding road. Road in rain and shine, road covered in snow. Four tyres gripping, slipping, aching hands pulling at the wheel, on the gear knob, and legs pistoning at the pedals. Anna’s body and its parts had long gone numb, mere extensions of the fatigued parts of her trusty steed as it blew and snorted and groaned and roared its path to legend. Sweat was caked to her face, to her collar, gluing her suit to her shoulders, her breasts, her thighs. But worst of all was her mind, having lost track of all time in amidst the constant cacophony of road noise and white static, and competing voices demanding she drive faster, that she pace herself. And all the while, the aft of the cabin was becoming more and more cluttered with the empty cans and bottles of her rations.
France had come and gone, it seemed, in a flurry of white, four passed cars and a fusillade of what sounded like rather loud backfires. And at the border to Italy, she had spotted the green Bonham, the devil itself, in the queue some minutes ahead of her, and her spirits soared. Her Evo RC had kept pace. The lead was within striking distance.
A quick look at the map revealed twisting coastal roads followed by a long straight highway making a beeline to the next checkpoint in Milan. She knew the Bonham had the speed advantage. So it would have to be in the curves that she made her move.
As the coastal views and the villages streaked by, Anna could feel her sense of urgency rising further. The Bonham was still not in sight and through the smoother curves and medium to high speed bends her auto locker made controlling the car more difficult. Still, she allowed herself the indulgence of cracking the window slat to listen to the V12 whine and exhaust crackle and pop through the tunnels. But as the Evo slingshot into the mountain roads, it was back on mission.
Several dozen turns later and some minutes of a vague sense of abdominal urgency that Anna was studiously ignoring, she saw the familiar flash of bright green, garish against the rustic palette of rural Italy. Some turns ahead still, it flitted in and out of view, tantalisingly close yet still dancing beyond reach. Anna grit her teeth, pushing the Evo’s nose harder into each corner, braking later, shifting down earlier and revving higher. And in that moment Anna pushed too far. The front tyres slid and the steering went light, and the guardrail rushed to meet her. Swearing, Anna jabbed the brakes again, sawing the wheel back, and the wheels bit, but too late. Sparks flew as the quarterpanel scraped along the guardrail with a metallic shriek. The vibrations shook Anna but she held on for dear life, praying the tyres didn’t shred again. Then the corner was over and the car veered back to the road, seemingly little the worse for wear save the paintwork. But she was still in the race.
The abdominal urgency was back with a vengeance now. It wasn’t far to Milan, where she would presumably have to refuel the car and… empty herself. Beyond that, there was still more than half the race left. If she was to catch the leader, it would only happen in good time, and with everything in one piece.
