“The robbers are in a small white sedan. There are two of them. The car has a bunch of bumper stickers on the back,” Kell told the phone, and yanked hard on the acceleration lever, sending us jerking forward. “Look, lads—there they are! Let’s get ’em!”
To the right of us, a small white car sat waiting at a petrol station. It was exactly as Kell described, and as we passed it Kell waved his arm wildly. The driver of the white car responded with a similar signal. It pulled out and quickly overtook us.
“Hanging up now, Roger,” Kell yelled. “It’s too dangerous to talk and drive. We could be killed if I don’t give this wild chase all of my attention.”
I couldn’t help it—I rolled my eyes... at least I did until we passed another petrol station. This one had a familiar long white car sitting at a pump. Coming around the side of the building, Paulie emerged at a run. Standing in their car, d’Espry’s daughter waved her hand, clearly calling to Paulie. At the wheel was the woman named Melody, hurriedly wrapping a big white veil of netting around her head.
“There’s the suffragette car,” I called as we sped past.
“Good! They were ahead of us. It means we’ll make up some time,” Kell bellowed in reply.
The wind ripped away the rest of his words. I glanced worriedly at the dials set behind the steering wheel, noting that we were now speeding along at a rate of fifty miles per hour. Although the cars more or less were equipped with modern engines that didn’t require hand cranking and were infinitely more powerful and reliable, the frames of the cars were original and not built for high speeds. We’d all been warned about pushing the cars over the limit of fifty-five, a speed that we found made the De Dion shake horribly.
“Slow down!” I yelled, pointing at the gauge when Kell applied more pressure to the accelerator lever. The car began to make a horrible rattling noise.
“We have to make a show of it,” Kell answered.
“He’s going to shake the tires off,” Rupert shouted, leaning over the back of my seat. “What the hell is he thinking?”
“He’s not. That’s the whole prob—”
The word stopped in my mouth as a white bonnet appeared to my left and a raucous horn sounded.
Rupert and I both turned to watch, astonished, as the Thomas Flyer pulled past us. In the backseat, swathed in white veil, Paulie waved and mouthed something, giving us a thumbs-up as their car pulled past.
Kell snarled something anatomically impossible and wrenched on the lever to give the car more speed. Snatches of words could be heard over the sound of the rattling and wind: “...they think they are doing... Roger told them. I will have my agent... stupid bitches getting in the...”
“Slow down!” I screamed, clutching the windscreen when it began to vibrate furiously. I was afraid the damned thing would come out of its frame and smash over us. “Kell, you’re going to tear the car apart!”
“We’re fine! It’s just noise! I’m not going to let those bitches beat me to the camera!”
I turned my head. Next to my shoulder, Rupert was gripping the back of my seat, his knuckles white. “Call d’Espry,” I yelled. “Tell him Kell is trying to kill us.”
“You do, and I really will!” Kell screamed over the noise of the engine, car, and wind.
Rupert ignored him and pulled out his mobile phone and dialed.
A high-pitched scream of anguish emerged from Kell’s open mouth. At the same time, I saw ahead of us the Thomas Flyer on the side of the road along with a smallwhite sedan and a third car belonging to the camera crew. The cameraman stood on the hood of their car, filming as the ladies bounded over tall grass edging the road. Beyond them, two dark shapes bolted into a dense growth of trees.
A car approaching from the opposite direction screeched to a halt on the shoulder, and Roger emerged.
Kell began pounding on the steering wheel, obscenities polluting the air around him. I relaxed my hold on the windscreen as we started to slow, then suddenly was thrown forward, my head hitting the wooden dash of the car. Kell slammed on the brakes, still swearing profanely. The car fishtailed and skidded, one of the tires exploding loudly while we continued to skid to an eventual stop halfway off the shoulder into a shallow ditch.
“Christ!” Rupert yelled, fighting with his seat belt. “What the hell do you think you are doing? You could have killed us! Dixon, are you all right? There’s blood all over your face.”
The car shuddered slightly when a large lorry passed us. I sat up and felt my forehead, my fingers coming away red. “I’m all right despite Kell’s attempt to send me through the windscreen.”
Kell didn’t wait to hear more from us. He ripped his seat belt off and leaped out of the car, running to where Roger was standing with the film crew. Across the field of tall grass, the three ladies were slowly returning.
“That’s it,” Rupert said, his face grim. “I’m done with this race. I hate to be a quitter, but life is too valuable to be riding around with that madman.”
“I agree, but I’m not going to quit.” With shaking hands, I got my seat belt undone and crawled out the side of the car away from passing traffic. “I am, however, going to demand that Roger replace Kell. He’s a downright menace.”
The cameras had turned from the women, now almost back to their car, to where Kell was storming up and down in front of Roger, his hands waving wildly, his face contorted with anger.
One of the women veered away and trotted over to where I stood clutching the side of our car.
“Dixon, the most exciting thing happened! Roger called us to say that someone had just robbed a gas station just down the road from us—holy shitake! You’re bleeding!”
