It wasn’t until almost an hour after arriving at the stand, minutes before the race was due to start, when the hush of expectation had swept over the crowd, that he turned the conversation to more serious matters.
“I owe you my life again, Jack,” he said quietly.
“I did what was necessary, Mr. ... I mean, Eli,” I replied.
He smiled at my use of his name. “You went above and beyond, and I might not be here now if you hadn’t done so. I’m in your debt again.”
“What happened to Henry Wilson?” I asked.
Justine had told me all about her experiences with Carver’s aide.
“He’s on a plane back to Washington,” Carver replied, his eyes narrowing. “He’s going to tell us exactly what he knows and then he’s going to face the full force of the law.”
I nodded.
“We’re starting an operation against the remnants of Propaganda Tre and the Dark Fates,” Carver revealed. “I want to find every member and expose them to the light of justice. This isn’t just about national security for me, Jack. It’s personal. They tried to kill me.”
“I understand,” I replied. “We’ll share everything we have.”
“Good. I want to make sure there aren’t any other Henry Wilsons working against the US government, hiding some perverse allegiance.”
“What about Raymond Chalmont?” I asked.
Carver scoffed. “He skipped the country. Took a private plane to Morocco yesterday morning. We’ll find him though. In the meantime, we’re going to freeze his assets.”
“I don’t think he’ll cope well with hardship,” I remarked.
Carver smiled. “Neither do I.”
He patted his thighs.
“Anyway, that can all wait. We’re here to have fun. Looks like the race is starting.”
He gestured at the big screen to our right, which displayed the starting grid. Twenty beautiful, slick, precision-engineered, super-powered machines lined up in ten pairs, waiting for the lights to give them the go signal.
I turned to Justine and kissed her. She smiled.
The crowd cheered as the race started and the cars roared away.
It was absolutely thrilling to hear them approaching, their engines sounding like savage monsters, making the world tremble and shake. I couldn’t help but feel a thrill of excitement as the leaders entered the Louis Chiron chicane, slowed momentarily like tamed beasts, before rediscovering their inner animal and roaring as they shot away in front of us.
I looked at Justine and saw her eyes too shining with excitement.
Life was good.
Acknowledgments
We’d like to thank Rachel Imrie, Emily Griffin, Lynn Curtis, and the team at Penguin for their excellent work on this book. We’d also like to thank you, the reader, for joining Jack Morgan and the Private team on another adventure, and hope you’ll return for the next one.
Adam would like to thank James Patterson for his continued collaboration. Thanks too to his wife Amy and their children, Maya, Elliot and Thomas, for their love and support. He’d also like to express his gratitude to his agent Nicola Barr.