Daily Flash Fiction Challenge 90: Race Track

This is the 90th in a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing. You can find out more about the challenge here.

Race Track, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 1st March 2013

Word count: 998

Info: a few days late with this one, playing catch up. Bish bash bosh, here they come….

The story:

“This is the Pagani Huayra,” the salesman said, “It’s as fast as you could possibly want, and it’ll do fourteen miles per gallon, which is pretty good for a super car.”

“Hmm,” the man in the expensive suit said, “Does it come in black?”

“Of course,” the salesman said with a smile.

“Great, I’ll take it,” the man said.

“Let’s go do the paper work,” the man said with a smile, imagining the commission.

He was a little shocked when the man presented him with a bag of euros, but he gracefully accepted the payment, after verifying it was real.

The paperwork took an hour, but the man drove out of the exclusive dealership, in one of the world’s most exclusive sports cars. The dealer waved good bye and went off to arrange a security van collection for the money,

The man in the Pagani Huayra meanwhile was pulling into a warehouse.

“Good you got it, any trouble?” an attractive young woman asked.

“For this much money, few questions asked,” the man said climbing out of the car.

“Got the car, got the money, got us,” she said as if confirming a list of groceries.

“Did you get the ordinance?” he asked seriously.

She went deathly still for a moment, then broke out in a smile, “You doubt my skills?”

“So we’re ready to go?”

“We go tonight – you to practice with that thing though,” she said pointing at the car. “I’ve laid out a route in here, get to it.”

That evening as night fell, the Pagani blasted across the Italian motorway, stopping only for petrol before it got to its destination. A seemingly disused industrial complex on the outskirts of a Northern Italian town.

“Okay by the numbers Luke,” the woman warned, “You need to hit the checkpoints on time or the cameras will pick us up.”

“I know the plan,” he growled annoyed as he surveyed the gate and mapped out the checkpoints against what he could see with his eyes. Aerial photos were fine, but even in the lack lustre street lighting used inside the site he could see bumps and dips in the road he needed to be wary of. He cricked his neck, put the car in gear and set the launch control on.

“On my mark,” she said looking at her watch and waiting. Her hand grasping the hand hold on the door until the skin had gone white. “Mark!”

The man released the breaks, his foot hard to the floor. The wheels spun briefly as they found temperature and traction and then the car flew forward smashing through the flimsy wire fenced. His race training immediately kicking in even if the course they were driving was in his head. He kissed every imaginary apex, barrelled down the make believe straights, broke hard to get round an invisible chicane.

“Your doing good Luke,” the woman said looking at a stop watch and occasionally the powerful, but currently unpowered security lights around the perimeter which showed up in the cars headlights occasionally. “Four more turns for phase one,” the woman reported dutifully, still gripping the door handle with a death grip.

“Three, two, one,” she counted down quickly, as she finished, the car came to a stop between two warehouses, in a gap barely big enough for the car. “My turn,” she said opening the door and getting out with a bag.

She walked over to the wall of the left warehouse, from her bag she pulled something out, and put something onto the wall, then she walked back to the car, she smiled at the focused driver, “Fire in the hole.”

He looked at her as she pressed a button on a device in her hand. The space between the two warehouses filled with smoke, the sound registered to the driver moments later, a loud fizzing sound.

“Pull up by the hole,” she instructed the driver. She walked a head and clambered through the hole. A few minutes later alarms sounded all around. The woman piled out of the hole firing a gun indiscriminately at something inside. She approached the car, placed a small package in the small boot then clambered in, taking a moment to reach around the gull wing doors and fire a few shots at the hole.

“Nine seconds,” she told the driver as she looked at her stop watch.

“Strap in,” he said focused, the engine roaring as he got ready to launch down the ridiculously tight passage way. Then suddenly they were rolling forward, picking up speed, the wing mirror scraping sparks from the metal warehouse wall.

The car peeled out of the passage way, narrowly dodged two armed guards who had been racing to reach the passage way and block them.

After following another predefined, and precisely timed course around the cameras movements, they left the way they came in. In the mirrors the lights off many vehicles setting off in chase.

On the Italian motorway they were no match for the Pagani, they rapidly became pinpoints in the mirrors, and then vanished.

The police did not get involved, as promised. One hundred seventy nine miles away they pulled into the warehouse they had set off from.

“As promised, the car is yours,” the woman said climbing out.

“Its a lot of money for something so small,” the man noted.

“This device is priceless,” the woman explained, “They stole it from me, I was just getting back my rightful property. Besides I took the money from their accounts.”

“Can I at least offer you a lift somewhere?”

“No, it’s best we’re not seen together. But thank you Luke, for everything.”

“It was a pleasure, a terrifying one I’ll admit, to be racing again.”

“Good luck with that,” she said with genuine warmth.

“I’ll watch out for your noble prize for whatever that is,” he said waving her off.

He didn’t hear her say “Fat chance,” as she walked out into the night clutching the package tight.