JD’s radio squawked. “I’ve got him,” said Gina, yelling over the rattle of helicopter blades. “He’s tearing down the hill in a red Ferrari.”

“A Ferrari?” Danny clambered to his feet and hauled me up, too. “Where’d he get that?”

“There were supercars in the cellar, being sold,” Gabriel told him. “Becker must have grabbed one.”

“He’s really moving.” Gina sounded worried. “Once he gets into the forest, I’ll lose sight of him. He’s going to get away.”

“No he’s fucking not,” said Danny.

76. Danny

76

DANNY

We blasted up out of the cellar and went airborne for a second as we reached the top of the ramp. Then we thumped down and shot forward across the castle’s courtyard, already doing fifty and accelerating fast.

I ran my hands lovingly over the steering wheel of the Nissan GTR. It was so beautifully engineered, I could feel the ice crystals crunching under the tires and the texture of the asphalt beneath. I snapped in a gear change and we rocketed down the hill, hitting seventy before I had to brake for the first corner.

As we slid through the turn, I stole a glance at Erin. She had one hand on the grab-handle above her and one gripping the edge of her seat. The road hugged the side of the mountain, looping back and forth as it descended, so there was a sheer drop on one side of us and she gulped whenever she looked at it. She was scared, but she’d jumped into the car with me without a second thought. We were a team, now, bonded forever. But for us to have a future, I had to catch Becker. He had a fast car and a big head start.

Fortunately, this was what I did.

I fed the car through bend after bend, feathering the gas to make the back end swing out just so, missing the trees at the edge of the road by inches. And finally, I saw a flash of red up ahead. Every corner brought it a little closer, until we pulled alongside Becker’s growling, snarling Ferrari.

Becker tried to use raw speed to get away, and together we went faster and faster, the scenery blurring. I heard Erin moan and I guessed she’d closed her eyes.

A corner raced towards us. I backed off, slowing, but Becker went in full speed. “No,” I muttered aloud. “No, no, you’ll never make it….”

Becker flicked the car into the turn. He wasn’t a bad driver and any other time, he might have made it: the Ferrari designers had lovingly crafted the car to have perfect weight distribution and it handled beautifully.