Iron to Iron

  It was bold of Katsuo—trying something under the racing officials’ sleeping noses. Sabotage was a traditional, if unsanctioned, part of the race, but it was almost always carried out on the road when witnesses were scarce.

  The shadow halted, bending over the front tire. Not Katsuo, but Takeo. His favorite blade was in his hand, doing a delicate dance over the Zündapp’s tire. There was no violent hiss of air or wooshing tire pressure. Luka wasn’t even sure the knifepoint had pushed through the tread at all. But Watabe Takeo seemed satisfied. He stepped away from Georg Rust’s motorcycle and turned for the door, stopping short when he saw Luka in the courtyard corner.

  “If you tell…” Takeo said in German. The boy’s Higonokami folding blade was still open; he gripped its brass hilt meaningfully.

  Luka shrugged. “I’m all for thinning the field. Though you should know I’m going to make a habit of checking my tire pressure before we leave every checkpoint.”

  Watabe Takeo flipped his knife shut and disappeared back inside.

  Luka stared up at the lightening sky and lit another cigarette.

  Georg Rust’s front tire looked fine at the starting line. The racer flashed a million-Reichsmark grin at the Reichssender camera as he cranked his engine. Luka started his own motorcycle and braced for the road ahead.

  If speed was the name of the game from Germania to Prague, then the leg from Prague to Rome was the first test of endurance. This portion was almost four times as long as the first—1,308 kilometers along a road that ran through countryside that swelled into foothills, jagged into the Alps, and then petered off into vineyards and medieval hill towns. Rome was at least an eleven-hour ride at top speeds. Longer still if you wanted to eat more than the odd protein bar crammed into your maw during the necessary stops to refuel.

  It started out smooth enough. They zoomed through Prague’s morning streets, past a Gothic cathedral that looked as if it had been ripped from the pages of a fairy-tale book, and quaint gas-lamp alleyways plastered with a decade’s worth of Goebbels’s propaganda posters.

  Katsuo didn’t try to pass Georg in these charmed city corridors. It was too dangerous. Narrow pavement had been made even narrower by the civilians who lined the road, cheering the racers forward.

  “Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!”

  Luka remained a steady third, never straying far from Katsuo’s fender. They were three hours in—well into the Bavarian countryside—when Georg’s front tire became noticeably tired. Its sides sagged, dark rubber puddling into darker pavement, until the racer could no longer ignore it. He was forced to pull to the side of the road and wait for a supply van.

  First to last. Just like that.

  Sabotage was in the air. The racers drove as close together as their times, and the thought that a few bullets might be enough to claim first was too tempting for Max Kammler. The fifteen-year-old was now running sixth, caught between Kurt Baer and Dirk Hermann. Felix Wolfe was doing an admirable job keeping these racers at bay, holding fourth place with iron-fisted technique.

  They were between villages, well out of the range of the Reichssender cameras, when Luka heard the first gunshot. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed that the racing formation had become a panicked mess: wheels and wide eyes and Herr Kammler, waving his Walther P38 like he was a verdammt cowboy. The boy seemed to be aiming for tires, but even an expert marksman would find such targets impossible. There was too much movement, too many variables, for his shots to be sure. One flinted off Kurt Baer’s Zündapp. Another bit the asphalt by Felix Wolfe’s boot. It was only a matter of time before one of the bullets found flesh.

  It was the sloppy tactic of an eager middleman—all aggression, no preservation—but that made it all the more dangerous. Luka’s attention was torn down the center, half on the road ahead, half on the drama unfolding behind him. Dirk and Kurt were worse than unimaginative; they were at a complete loss at how to stop Herr Kammler, despite their perfect positions to execute a pincer movement. The pair dropped back instead, allowing Max to bully his way into fifth place.

  Felix Wolfe was not so easily cowed. The boy’s face was firmer than ever under the zinc oxide as he jerked his motorcycle in front of the oncoming troublemaker. Herr Kammler’s reflex was to swerve away. The action required two hasty hands, and as a result, his pistol tumbled into the road and his motorcycle veered off it—causing the German rider to brake as the rest of the Axis Tour competitors rushed past.

  Kudos to the Wolfe boy. And one more reason to keep an eye on him… though most of Luka’s concentration shifted back to the road at hand. Katsuo tore ahead, and Luka stayed on his tail, always second, never passing. Never letting the fender pull more than a few beats ahead—a goal that became more challenging as the road climbed into the Alps.

  They were well past the mountains and countless vineyards when evening stretched into darkness. Instead of chasing a spot of sunlight, Luka focused on the red flare of Katsuo’s taillight. Keep up. Keep up if you can! The hours Luka had chain-smoked instead of sleeping gathered on his eyelids. His stomach felt like an alley-cat brawl—shriek and claw. The screams were even louder in his bladder and throat. How was it possible to be so verdammt thirsty and need to pee buckets at the same time? At least one of these problems could be relieved on the road, provided you were willing to sacrifice your dignity for several seconds of race time. Luka was willing to sacrifice much more than that.

  (Hail a pissed-pants victory!)

  Riding gear and urine did not mix. There was… chafing in rather unfortunate areas. When Luka reached the villa that served as Rome’s Axis Tour checkpoint, the washroom was the first thing on his mind. But when he parked his bike and peeled off his helmet, he found himself besieged by a Reichssender reporter and accompanying camera.

  “Tell us about today’s leg.… How do you feel about your time?… What happened to Georg Rust?… Do you have anything to say to your fans?”

  If there was a medal for sitting on a motorcycle in a puddle of your own piss while offering tedious answers to equally tedious questions—Luka would’ve earned it. The interview couldn’t have been more than five minutes, but by the end his legs were itching. Forget food and sleep! A clean pair of pants, a wash, and a smoke were all he really wanted.

  Once filming wrapped, Luka paused only to scan the scoreboard.

  1st: Tsuda Katsuo, 13 hours, 36 minutes, 43 seconds.

  2nd: Luka Löwe, 13 hours, 36 minutes, 46 seconds.

  3rd: Kobi Yokuto, 13 hours, 36 minutes, 52 seconds.

  4th: Felix Wolfe, 13 hours, 36 minutes, 55 seconds.

  The sixteen spots below were blank; the racers that would fill them were still out on the road, peeing into ditches and downing rations. This was when the gap between the top of the pack and the others became minutes instead of seconds.

  Rome—kilometer 1,654—was when the race got interesting.

  Chapter 4

  The washroom door was shut. Luka rushed toward it without much thought—driven solely by the itch, itch of his pants and the need to get out of them. When he found it jammed, he pushed harder. It opened to the sound of running water, the sight of a back—svelte and bare. Luka stopped in his tracks. The back turned and became…

  Breasts!

  Luka dropped the clean clothes he was carrying, too busy staring to pick them up. Breasts. In all their curvy, magnetic, entrancing glor—

  SNAP!

  Pain shot across Luka’s sunburnt face, sharp enough to make him swear out loud. He clutched his cheek and realized that the girl he’d stumbled in on was holding a towel. Instead of using it to cover up her bare chest, she’d wrung it tight and snapped it at his face.

  Her face, Luka realized, belonged to the Wolfe boy. Well, not boy.

  (Obviously.)

  “Stop staring!!” she snarled, readying the towel again.

  SNAP!!

  This time Luka dodged; the towel’s end cracked the air by his ear.

  “Scheisse! S-Sorry! I surrender
!” He threw up his hands and shut his eyes, mind spinning.

  Felix Wolfe was a girl. A girl with breasts. A girl who was most definitely not allowed to be competing in the Axis Tour.

  “Don’t they knock on doors in Hamburg?” Her question was soaked with sarcasm.

  “It’s a communal washroom!” Luka pointed out. “And you… you’re not supposed to be here!”

  “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” the fräulein snarled.

  “It’s not me; it’s the rules of the race.” Luka stood still, waiting for the towel to snap again. He heard the click of a door handle.

  “Because you’re so concerned with the rules.” The girl’s hands dipped into the back of his waistband, yanked out the Luger hidden there. “‘No weapons are allowed on racers’ persons.’ That’s on page three of the Axis Tour rulebook. Rule Twelve, in case you were wondering.”

  The fräulein had his gun.

  Luka opened one eye, half-squinting. The girl had thrown on some clothes. The zinc oxide had been scrubbed off her cheeks, revealing three dark freckles. Her hair was cut like Luka’s… like all the other German boys: blond, curtained bangs slicked back, the hair by her temples and the nape of her neck shorn close. Features that had seemed so delicate the night before now looked sharp: cheekbones, nose, towering forehead. Whetted by the simple fact that they belonged to a girl.

  “As Max Kammler made quite clear today, nobody follows Rule Twelve.” Luka opened the other eye. He kept his hands raised. She’d flicked the Luger’s safety off, but she wasn’t pointing the pistol at him.

  Yet.

  “‘Racers are only allowed to use riding gear that has been preapproved by Axis Tour racing officials.’ Rule Eighteen.” She nodded at his brown jacket.

  “I got special permission to wear it,” Luka explained.

  “Did you get special permission for those cigarettes, too?” the fräulein asked.

  This could go on for a while. Luka was tired. His pants were still stiff with pee, and the scratching cats in his stomach had grown ten sizes. The mirror behind the girl showed Luka the welt her towel had left. Nasty, puckered with blood, dangerously close to his eyeball. “Fine. Yes. I break the rules. But this… what you’re doing? It’s dangerous.”

  “Dangerous?” The fräulein’s lip curled to show teeth. “I’m the best racer in the Nürburgring circuit. I can handle a motorcycle, even with ovaries.”

  “What do you think the Axis Tour officials are going to do when they find out you’re a girl? Hmm? Give you a chain of daisies and send you on your way?”

  “They’re not going to find out.”

  The Luger swung up. Luka found himself staring down the barrel of his own gun, then into the eyes of the fräulein who held it. They were as fine cut and heavy as a crystal candy dish, filled not with sweetness but grit. Hard, yes, but not a murderer’s eyes.

  “You won’t kill me,” he said.

  The girl shrugged and aimed the gun at his foot. “Maiming works just as effectively. Carrying a Luger around in your pants, where the safety can slip on your belt? You’re just asking to get detoed.”

  She had oomph.

  But he had her by the (metaphorical) balls.

  “Don’t think I won’t tattle from my hospital bed. I’m not above petty revenge.” Luka dropped his hands. “Listen. I think there’s a way we can both come out ahead. You need me to keep your secret, and I need an ally to help me on the road. Zinc oxide, soup-guarding, all the things I told you last night.”

  “You want to team up?”

  “Not want,” he corrected her. “Need. You saw what happened to Herr Rust today?”

  “The flat tire.”

  “That wasn’t an accident. That was sabotage. Tsuda Katsuo can’t stand for anyone to pull ahead of him. If you steal the lead without a plan under your belt, he’ll take it back through less conventional means.”

  Those first-frost eyes narrowed. “I assume you have a plan under your belt.”

  “A few.” Luka nodded. “Depends on how the race goes. Most of the plans require a set of helping hands, and I’d rather not have to rely on Dirk Hermann and Kurt Baer. They’re slow. Unambitious.”

  “If I help you edge out Katsuo, you’ll keep my secret?”

  “I swear on my big toe, and all the little ones, too,” he added. “But if you double-cross me, I’ll have no problem letting Joseph Goebbels and every other Axis Tour official know what you’re hiding.”

  “How do I know you won’t do it anyway?”

  “Look, love, I don’t think you’re in much of a position to doubt my honor.”

  Her eyes thinned even more. She jerked the pistol at him. “Call me love again, and see what happens.”

  “What’s your name, then?” Luka asked. “It’s obviously not Felix.”

  “Felix is my twin brother.” The girl hesitated a moment before lowering the Luger. “I’m Adele.”

  “Adele.” The name rolled smoothly off his tongue. “Adele Wolfe. I like it.”

  “Like it all you want,” she told him. “You just can’t say it where the others might hear.”

  “Certainly not, Adele.” Luka held out an open palm. “My gun? If you please?”

  Adele Wolfe switched the Luger’s safety back into place and returned his weapon. Luka wondered if he was making a mistake, not turning her in to the racing officials immediately. But he needed her to help oust Katsuo from the running, and really, how much damage could one fräulein do? Even if she did get ahead of Luka, he could always expose her secret.

  Luka’s fingers closed over the gun. He tucked it back into his pants and smiled, ignoring the lightning stab in his cheek. “You and I are going to make an excellent team.”

  Chapter 5

  The next day was straightforward: no sabotage, no subterfuge. Just an eight-hour stretch of road from Rome all the way to the edge of Europe—where the Mediterranean lapped at Sicily’s shores and the racers were allotted an entire day of rest for the ferry crossing to Tunis. This boat trip was one of Luka’s favorite parts of the tour. Over twenty-four hours without riding. No crowds screaming Sieg heil! His road jitters had faded into the backdrop, even though he was now technically in third. Luka had dropped back outside of Rome, allowing Kobi Yokuto to pass him. It was a necessary sacrifice. He needed the space to plot with his new ally, and riding close would afford them that.

  Salt and wind lashed Luka’s hair as he leaned against the deck railing. The sea unfolded beneath his feet. Shades of aqua and sapphire, echoes of the cloudless sky as far as the eye could reach.

  The rest of the Axis Tour riders sprawled across the deck, letting their muscles mend just in time to be ripped apart again by unforgiving desert roads. (Luka’s least favorite part of the Axis Tour: potholes, sand-clouded vision, dust in his teeth.) Even Katsuo was curled up in a chair, napping.

  Felix—oh, wait, Adele—walked up to the railing, keeping a whole section between herself and Luka. Instead of leaning, she sat with her boots dangling off the side of the ship. She closed her eyes and lifted her paste-covered face to the sun. Again, the zinc oxide was very strategic, distracting the eyes from the fräulein’s more feminine features.

  “What’s the plan?”

  The volume of her question made Luka wince. There weren’t any other racers in their vicinity, but boat winds had a habit of snatching words and spreading them. He stepped closer, lowering his own voice to a rough whisper. “The plan is not to talk about the plan where everyone might be eavesdropping.”

  “So when can we talk about it?” Adele’s eyes snapped open. They were even more striking under daylight: clear as the Mediterranean shallows, something you’d want to swim in.

  “We’ve got about three and a half days of riding to Cairo—provided the desert doesn’t decide to play hide-the-road. Camps are longer in this stretch, since sand makes for Scheisse night visibility. Ride close, and we’ll camp together.”

  “Camp?” Adele grunted.

  “Trading night
watches. Breaking bread—er, dehydrated meat. Trying not to cuss while figuring out how to set up those verdammt pup tents.”

  “I know what camping is.” Her boots thumped the side of the ferry, offbeat. “I’m just not sure about camping with your ogling eyes.”

  “Worry not, Herr Wolfe. My intentions are completely honorable.” Luka’s fingers wandered to the welt on his face. It was mostly bruise now, set exactly where his goggles fitted. “Aside from plotting Katsuo’s eventual demise, of course.”

  “Of course.” She nodded, both feet drumming in agreement. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  Did they? Maybe Adele thought she understood him (most people thought so, another hazard of being 1953 Poster Boy Wonder), but Luka was having a very hard time understanding her. The ladies in his life were his mother—a sweet woman whose shoulders had a habit of hunching every time his father walked into the room—and his fans: girls with pressed blouses and pinned-up curls, who smelled like gardens and smiled as if they had something stuck in their teeth. They were perfectly pleasant, but uninteresting. There was no… challenge in them. All they did was listen to Luka’s tales about the Axis Tour and nod, hoping he’d wrap up the story and kiss them. (Sometimes Luka did. Their lips were red and velvet soft, and—just like the first victory, just like his smokes—they did not fill him.)

  Adele Wolfe wasn’t like them at all.

  Luka found it fascinating.

  “Anything else?” Adele asked.

  He’d been staring, he realized. Caught up in those drown-worthy eyes. Luka overcorrected, swinging his stare out to sea. “Make sure you’ve got a scarf for the next leg, to cover your mouth and nose,” he told her. “That sand will shred apart your insides if you let it.”

  The desert road was just as terrible as Luka remembered. Worse, perhaps, because this year he wasn’t leading the pack and Katsuo’s wheels did an excellent job of spewing dust at Yokuto, who in turn flung it toward Luka. It didn’t matter that he was wearing protective gear. The sand always found a way in, lodging between his molars and making the insides of his ears itch. His goggles acquired a fine film that made pothole spotting much more difficult than normal. There were plenty to spot. The road was a maze of them—so many that Luka wondered if the Axis Tour officials hadn’t just gone ahead of the racers with pickaxes and chopped up the roads to make things more interesting.