Crash Course by Derek Fee (pdf to ebook reader .txt) 📕

those interested in the progress of the race. Doc, Reg, and Bill Thompson were out there somewhere on one of those boats, ready in case of trouble or an accident. However, only those in the helicopters saw how the race was unfolding. In this way, powerboat racing was like motor racing – the static spectator witnessing only the order of the cars as they sped past his position. But like motor racing, the main attraction for the spectators was not the two-hour war of attrition between the boats and the drivers but the possibility that something spectacular might happen.

They were ten laps into the race and Kane could already feel the strain in his arms as the boat rose out of the water only to pound against the waves several seconds later. On the turns, the boats swept around the huge white buoy throwing jets of blue water into the air. Tadeka was in the lead closely followed by Hakonen with Jackson and Kane interchanging third and fourth places.

“She didn’t trim properly on that turn,” Morweena said as soon as Kane straightened for the return leg of the eleventh lap.

“Let’s fire the driver,” Kane said, bringing the boat onto course. The hours he’d spent staring at the bank of dials before him made them as familiar to him as the dashboard of his car and he could absorb their information in a glance. “There’s nothing amiss on the panel.”

“Take my word for it, she didn’t trim properly.” The trim indicator in front of her was showing minute changes which should not have been present.

“Any ideas?”

“I don’t understand it,’ Reg said over the communications channel. “She was damn near perfection during the tests. Maybe you got the fuel rotation wrong.”

“No way,” Morweena said, a note of tension in her voice.

Kane felt a slight lurch in the boat when the engines began to pink on him. He struggled to keep the boat on course as the engines coughed and spluttered. “Morweena was right, we’ve got a problem.” The engines gave a final splutter and then faded, running down slowly as the boat came to a stop in the middle of the return leg.

“What the hell’s happening down there?” David’s voice was a full octave above normal. “Reg, get out there now.”

“Already on the way, boss,” Reg said.

“Relax, David,” Kane said in the calmest voice he could muster. “Reg, time for you and the gang to do your stuff.” The canopy was clear and he could see a speedboat racing in their direction.

Reg was not a young man but he belied that fact by jumping from the speedboat onto the rear of the stricken Kernow. He pulled open the engine canopy while Doc clambered on board. “The smell of fuel down here would knock you out.”

Doc handed Reg the emergency toolbox and took out the torch. He ran the light quickly over the engines. The beam of orange light picked out a pool of fuel lying at the bottom of the hull. “There’s fuel all over the bloody place that’s why she lost the trim,” Reg said.

“Can you fix it?” Kane said sharply. “We’re already at the back of the field.”

“Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on down there?” David Penhalion’s shrill voice came over the radio.

Karakatis smiled as Hellas sped past the stricken Penhalion boat which lay dead in the water. Thompson was as good as his word, he thought. It was the best ten thousand pounds he had ever invested. He pointed his boat along the course he had plotted and braced himself as the fifty-foot vessel soared out of the water returning with a crash that shook the hull.

The Riviera would be another nail in the coffin of David Penhalion and the gods were assisting Karakatis by driving the nail in to the hilt.

Barrett could afford to give no more than a cursory glance at the bobbing hull but it was obvious that Kane’s boat was in serious trouble. “What’s happening with Penhalion’s boat?” he shouted into his microphone.

“We have no idea,” his team manager replied. “It looks like an engine problem. They slowed right down and then came to a complete stop.”

“Keep an eye on them and inform me of their progress.”

The gods were certainly smiling on him today, he thought. Kane was out of the race and even if they managed to get the engines working, he’d finish well down the field.

That bastard Kane had taken his water at Sorrento and cost him a place on the rostrum and a fat cheque to boot. He and Morweena could go to bloody hell now. Revenge was sweet.

The other boats raced past the stricken craft sending out waves in their wake which rocked the hull. Reg had to brace himself against the sides as he continued his examination of the engines. No apparent problem with the fuel pump. The orange beam from the torch moved into the pit of the engine housing and traced the fuel lines running from the engines to the segregated fuel tanks. The thin black tubes stood out against the grey paint of the inner hull. Reg squinted as he followed the lines to the intersection with the tanks.

“Got it,” Reg murmured.

“What is it?” Kane asked.

“The fuel lines are fractured,” Reg said. “No, Mark, they’re not fractured. At a guess, I’d say some bad bastard cut through them with a knife. We’ve been sabotaged.”

Kane thought of the look on Barrett’s face and immediately knew the source. “You heard that, David.”

The helicopter carrying Tom and David was now hovering directly overhead.

“Yes.” There was a sound of defeat in David Penhalion’s voice. “Can you fix it, Reg?”

Reg had already descended into the engine housing with his toolbox in tow. There was hardly room for him to squeeze between the engines. The bastard who’d sabotaged the fuel lines had chosen the most awkward spot. He pushed past the engines while Doc shone the torch on the severed tubing. “A neat job,” he said. “Very neat