The Driver (16 page)

WEDNESDAY, MAY
5, 2004
AUTOROUTE A
63/
N
10
SOUTHBOUND
5
MILES TO SPANISH BORDER
GUMBALL +
1
SOMETIME BEFORE DAWN

I was exhausted. Kinsley's flu was worsening. We'd run out of gas. We'd gotten lost. George and Julian had slept through virtually the entire ordeal.

“Kinsley, how far to Madrid?”

“Garmin says…300 miles.”

My phone rang, startling me. “Team Polizei,” I answered.

“Roy! It's…we…south…police—”

“Can you speak up? Who is this?”

“Cops…took the lot…black Lambo…ahead three…threatened—”

Then I lost the signal. “Couldn't hear a thing,” I said, “just ‘cops' and ‘Lambo.' Here's a gas station, let's be safe this time.”

Kinsley and the others stayed in the car while I inserted my Visa card into the pump. We were far behind the main pack. Maybe even last.

Nine hundred miles hadn't seemed that bad—10 to 12 hours with no navigational mistakes—but every stressful hour spent lost was an emotionally and physically debilitating fatigue multiplier. I had no backup driver.

Something pattered against the metal awning over the pump.
Rain
—the enemy of speed.

Suddenly a high-pitched engine flared behind me. I turned and stared, stunned, as a bright red Gumball-stickered Porsche 996 turbo pulled up to the neighboring pump.

Somehow, someone in a
very
good car was behind us.

Two women stepped out, a redhead peering around the pump and waving.

“Alex!!!” she yelled. “Oh my God, it's
great
to see you!”

“M-Trouble?” We ran toward each other and hugged. “
Nice
car,” I said, “but I didn't see you in Paris!”

“It was a mess back there, but the car? Joe sold it to me!”

“Macari?”

“Yup! It's been a tough leg. I heard the police stopped a lot of cars before Mas-du-Clos—”

“Wow,” I said. I guess two girls in a red Porsche can get away with almost anything in France. Have you seen Kenworthy or Torquenstein?”

“Hardly seen anyone, but you know Rory in the black Gallardo? At my last gas stop he told me the police stopped him so many times that if he's stopped again, they're taking the car!”

“Permanently?”

“That's France!”

“M-Trouble,
that's
what you get for Gumballing in a Lambo with temp plates.”

We both turned our heads at the sound of an oncoming car. It
sounded
like a sports car, but the whine of its engine and the growl of its exhaust approached too slowly for it to be a Gumballer. A pair of bright headlights appeared beyond the gas station and entrance. A low black shape cruised past
very
slowly.

“Alison, was that a—”

“Black Gallardo? Guess who!”

There was only one thing to do.

AUTOROUTE A
63/
N
10
SOUTHBOUND
2
MILES TO SPANISH BORDER

I had to catch him.

91

I was pretty sure the speed limit was 130 kilometers per hour, about 80 mph. The Gallardo
had
passed the station
very
slowly.

110

He couldn't get caught. The police would take his car. All he had to do was make it to the border.

126

“Kinsley, how far to the Spanish border?”

“Garmin says…1 or 2 miles.”

I spotted a pair of rear running lights ahead, close to the ground.

“Kinsley, camcorder ready?”

“It's on.”

George stirred. “What's up, Alex?”

“We're chasing someone down.”

“Cool.”

There he is…at 81.

I matched his speed—the driver clearly desperate to save his brand-new, paper-plated Lamborghini Gallardo from seizure and the outright loss of $175,000.

And he was
so
close to escaping France.

“Everyone get ready.”

 

Team Polizei's original raison d'être was the avoidance of tickets and arrest while racing, and the new-for-2004 installation of grille-mounted lights and sirens
had
proven very effective in cutting through Parisian rush-hour traffic, but I'd long believed that in the unfortunate event we fell behind, such gear, if used on other Gumballers in a
Polizei Shock-und-Fear Strategy,
would allow us to pass Gumballers who would otherwise never allow it.

It was inconceivable that I would ever do this to a friend, but to someone I
didn't
know, someone fearful of losing his brand-new Lamborghini cruising at or under the speed limit, in a tail-between-his-legs saunter to the Spanish border, only a mile or 2 away, where he would certainly accelerate to 150 mph or more, I had absolutely no choice.

81

The Gallardo was now three car lengths away.

“PA system's on?” I asked Kinsley.

“PA system is on.”

The Gallardo was now two car lengths away. I signaled Kinsley to flip down and activate the visor-mounted yellow lights. I pressed the steering-wheel tunnel switch for the white strobes concealed in our headlights. The Gallardo's brake lights came on.

“Awwww yes!” Kinsley squealed.

“We got him!” I said.

“Get him to
stop,
” George said in an uncharacteristically aggressive tone.

I reached for the public-address system's handset, and in what little French I could remember without laughing, ignoring all rules of grammar, in the most authoritative voice I could muster, I said,
“ARRETE LA VOITURE…A LA DROITE.”

Whether the driver understood or not, the Gallardo slowed and moved onto the right shoulder.

“Awww,” George said with great satisfaction, “that's so beautiful.”

“Yeesssssss!” said Kinsley.

The Gallardo came to a stop. I stopped the RCMP M5 one car length behind him.

“ARRETE LE MOTEUR DE VOTRE VOITURE.”

“Try to get them out of the car,” said George. “That would be funny.”

How can he
not
recognize a blue M5 covered with stickers? I shook my head.
“ARRETE LE MOTEUR.”

“They don't speak French,” said Kinsley.

I heard someone shouting.
Was the driver calling out at us?
I lowered my window.

“—don't speak French!” came a faint voice from the Gallardo.

“It's Eubanks,” said George, referring to Chris Eubanks, the retired boxer.

I reached for the handset.
“METTEZ LES MAINS SUR LE VOLANT DE LA VOITURE.”

“Should I go to the side of the car?” asked Kinsley.

“SORTEZ LA VOITURE…A GAUCHE.”

“I don't speak French!” the driver yelled.

I pressed the PA switch, and in what little German I knew said,
“SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCHE?”

“No!” the driver yelled.

Kinsley and I giggled while George and Julian tried to contain themselves behind us.

There was still one
more
thing I could do, and in my best ever impression of a French gendarme
trying
to speak English, I said,
“TURN OFF ZEE ENGEENE OF ZEE CAR.”

The driver didn't comply, but he
did
fumble with his visor, clearly looking for his car documents.

“PLACE YOUR HAND BRAKE.”

“Oh, man,” said George.

“ZEE DRIVER PLEASE STEP OUT OF ZEE VEE-HI-KUL!”

The Gallardo door opened to reveal a gorgeous beige leather panel, now being spattered with rain.

“Yes!” said Kinsley.

A tall slender thirtysomething guy stepped out, documents in hand, wearing a green shirt and track pants, looking exactly like the young banker-on-vacation I presumed him to be. I thought I'd seen him with Jodie Kidd at the prestart party, but the darkness made it hard to be sure.

He started walking toward us.

The driver crossed in front of our lights and toward Kinsley's window.

“PLEASE BRING YOUR DOCUMENTS TO ZEE CAR.”

He must be close enough to see our stickers.
He hesitated. Kinsley lowered her window.
Doesn't he see our red Mountie jackets?
He advanced once again, approaching her window just as we burst into uproarious laughter.

“YOU HAVE BEEN CAPTURED BY GUMBALL 144!”

“You,”
he said upon seeing the camcorder in Kinsley's hand, beginning to grasp the magnitude of the situation, any relief at our
not
being gendarmes outweighed by shame and anger, “are such a fucking loser.”

“I'm sorry,” I said over my passengers' laughter. “What's your name?”

“My name is…
blow me
.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “really, man, I'm sorry.”

“You're not sorry, motherfucker.” He angrily stormed back to his car while I cackled along with my passengers.

 

Once this story got out, I was sure no one would try to outrun a cop for the rest of Gumball 2004. Alternatively, if Gumballers thought the flashing lights behind them were mine
and
they made a run for it—there was no telling the legal ramifications.

I'd done my part to ensure the safe driving of all Gumballers.

 

When we arrived in Madrid—after befriending the
real
Spanish police at our next gas stop—we learned that the overnight checkpoint was 370 miles farther, in Marbella.

I couldn't believe I'd driven it alone. George and Julian had slept through most of it. Kinsley, despite her worsening condition, had remained awake. By the time we lay down for a preparty catnap, after driving 1,283 miles in something like 17 or 18 hours, I thought I might be in worse shape than she was.

We staggered through that night's party drunk on DayQuil, then collapsed in bed. I stared at the ceiling and listened to Kinsley breathing laboriously beside me.

I sorted through the rumors I'd heard at the party, during which Gumballers—having driven 24 hours or more—continued to arrive.

We'd been lucky. French police roadblocks had stopped dozens of Gumballers, seized multiple cars, stranding many who'd had to hitch rides in what few cars had more than two seats, or fly to Marbella. Numerous drivers had paid 750-euro fines—some more than once—for the crime of driving while Gumballing, a euphemism for having stickers on an expensive car.

Several cars were immobilized after their drivers filled them with diesel.

A Saudi-plated, million-dollar, Gemballa-modified Porsche Cayenne turbo—hand-waxed by a team of four the night before departure—had broken down.

So had a million-dollar red Ferrari Enzo, as if that were a surprise.

But one rumor kept me awake.

FRIDAY, MAY
7, 2004
HOTEL MANSOUR EDDHABI MARRAKECH
PARKING LOT/PREDEPARTURE STAGING
GUMBALL
+ 3
0850
HOURS

We were precisely halfway through the 2004 Gumball. King Mohammed VI
had
lifted all speed limits and traffic laws for the 48-hour duration of our visit. We'd arrived in the port of Tangier 17 hours earlier. To my relief, George and Julian chose to escape the RCMP M5's cramped rear for rides in other cars—taking their luggage with them.

Departure was in 10 minutes. I'd warned Jim, our quiet, fortyish, shaggy long-haired English TV cameraman of the day, not to be late.

“Alex,
tell
me you fixed the GPS.”

“It wasn't broken,” I said. “I'd loaded the wrong map set.”

We were in approximately thirtieth position.
Kenworthy was farther up. So was Torquenstein.
Today was the day I caught them.

“Here comes Jim,” said Kinsley, “
right
on time.”

HIGHWAY P
24
NORTHEAST SUBURBS OF MARRAKECH
282
MILES TO FEZ CHECKPOINT

“Livestock ahead!” Kinsley screamed.

I veered left into oncoming traffic—narrowly missing the donkey-driven vegetable cart—then jerked the wheel right
just
before colliding head-on with a horse-drawn cart.

“Jesus!” I yelled. I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my blue NYPD uniform shirt.
“That,”
I exhaled, “was the closest one yet. I can't believe no one's hit an animal.”

“Yet! Look,
there
they are!” Kinsley pointed at the Gumballers ahead, fighting through traffic like snakes surging through a pipe. I downshifted to third, lunging forward and around a dense group of donkeys, horses, bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, stray dogs, and commuters in dusty hatchbacks.

A trio of mustached Moroccan police—all in pressed royal-blue uniforms, double-breasted jackets, light blue shirts, black ties, shiny boots, bright white belts, shoulder straps, and hats—enthusiastically waved us on.

I was driving 74 mph in a densely populated urban area. Legally.

We were moving up the grid.

Kinsley leaned right in her seat. “Traffic circle ahead!”

77

“Keep those warnings coming! We don't need a North African
Bonfire of the Vanities
!”

HIGHWAY P
24
APPROXIMATELY
100
MILES NORTHEAST OF MARRAKECH
LATE MORNING

The convoy's tight columns uncoiled, lunging and fighting two and sometimes three cars abreast—one column against thankfully infrequent oncoming traffic, forcing locals onto the left shoulder, the other onto the right shoulder when debris didn't force quick reentry into the one legal lane.

“More livestock ahead!” Kinsley yelled.

121

We exchanged waves with a Moroccan farmer cradling a small dog in one arm.

A pair of gray-clad Moroccan police stood back from the right shoulder, repeatedly thrusting their long white traffic gloves toward the horizon.

Toward Fez.

The Gumballers ahead accelerated as traffic thinned, yellow fields stretching far off to both sides.

125

“Wow,” I said, “these guys are really booting.”

“You gonna stay with them?”

“Sure.”

We'd moved far up the grid, but Kenworthy and Torquenstein were still ahead.

129

“Watch out,” said Kinsley, “left, on the left!”

Jim's long, black hair, and pale arm loomed large in my left rearview mirror—he was hanging out the window, shooting the black 360 Spyder one car length behind us in the left lane, poised to pass.

Suddenly a car appeared to the 360's left—on the
LEFT
shoulder—passed the 360, and veered right toward us, still accelerating, turning in too tightly, the car beginning to spin—

“Kinsley! Hang on!”

—Just
6 feet ahead of us,
flashing past our front bumper at a 90-degree angle before it rolled into the field to our right.

“Oh my God,” said Kinsley, looking back at the long geyser of smoke and dust.

I pulled over on the right shoulder, a long line of Gumballers stopping behind me, and we ran to where the car had come to rest.

Gumball no. 57, the white-and-orange-striped Reyland Cosworth—a highly modified, race-prepared, 700-horsepower, 194 mph–capable Ford Escort with a roll cage—lay on its side, several hundred feet off the road, luggage and debris strewn in long colorful ellipses across the field. The Cosworth was the only
pure
race car on Gumball. Its crew even wore track-grade neck-protection devices—which might have been why this hadn't been the first time I'd seen them make a risky pass like this. I'd tried to give them a wide berth anytime they came close.

Dozens of Gumballers surrounded the car as we approached. The Moroccan police arrived within minutes.

There was nothing for us to do. We stood among a crowd of silent Gumballers watching emergency personnel tend to the copilot lying prone, blood streaming from his nose. According to the police, he'd been unbelted and thrown from the car. He'd apparently suffered no more than a bloody nose and one or more broken ribs.

The driver, a lanky Englishman with a single line of blood running down his pale, shaved head, stalked the scene, ensuring no one stole any of their personal items lying in the field.

I
knew it had been his fault. As far as I knew, this was the first-ever major accident on Gumball, and although I was relieved their injuries weren't serious,
everyone
was lucky to see them out of the rally. He'd almost killed us.

I held Kinsley close. “We'll take it easy from here on.”

We joined a long slow line of Gumballers pulling away from the accident. Laggards who came up quickly upon the accident slowed, then joined our pensive convoy. No one needed to explain.

HIGHWAY P
24
NORTHBOUND
MIDDAY

“Kinsley, any idea where we are?”

The road gently dipped as if on its hind legs, then lifted its neck, its spine curving upward into the Atlas Mountains, the asphalt rising and curling around its golden cliffs—their rare split unveiling dark green patchworks planted in the yellow desert, far below.

“Look who it is!” Two black coupes—a Bentley GT and a BMW 850—sat parked side by side. “We
have
to stop,” said Kinsley, “and take a picture.”

The GT-Car no. 09…belonged to well-known veteran Michael Ross.

The 850 belonged to Mark Quinn, a gentleman Gumballer of the highest order, a veteran of 2003 I'd chatted with but overlooked in my pursuit of Kenworthy and Rawlings. Quinn was a handsome, understated, fiftyish London real-estate developer who, had he not been so quick to flash a childlike grin, resembled James Mason at his peak.

They waved as we skidded to a dusty halt.

“Mr. Quinn,” I said, “it's good to see you safe.”

“And
you,
Mr. Roy, and you.”

“You know,” I announced to all, “I still can't believe the king of Morocco—”

“I know,” said Ross, “but maybe you should take a moment.”

Quinn nodded, looking out from our perch. Kinsley wiped her nose and inhaled the crisp, cool, fresh mountain air.

We stood and looked out over the green, gold, and blue horizon, grateful for our first-ever quiet, motionless minutes together.

HIGHWAY P
24
NORTHBOUND
APPROACHING KHENIFRA
APPROXIMATELY
100
MILES TO FEZ CHECKPOINT
EARLY AFTERNOON

134

Kinsley sighed. “Guess you got over that accident.”

“Too fast? I can slow down.”

“The road's decent…be my guest.”

 

My phone rang. It was Julie, Max's wife, Gumball's Number Two.

“Alex, Alex!”
she yelled from a windy convertible.
“Can you hear me?”

“Barely! Julie, I tried to call you! There's been another accid—”

“I know about the Porsche!”

“Kinsley”—I cupped my hand over my phone—“did anyone call you about a Porsche crash?” She shook her head and shrugged.

“Julie, no! A red 360 hit a tractor and—”

“Alex! Listen! No more speeding! We're kicking people off who speed—”

Then the signal cut out.

HIGHWAY P
1
EASTBOUND
135
MILES EAST OF FEZ
APPROXIMATELY
65
MILES FROM NADOR PORT FERRY
LATE AFTERNOON

A red speck appeared in my rearview mirror.

“Kinsley, when we left Fez, how close was Torquenstein to being ready to go?”

149

“Omigod, did you
see
him standing on top of his car, throwing stickers at the people until the cops arrived?”

“No, but it sounds like a classic Torquenstein move. Did he look ready to go?”

“No,” said Kinsley, “but I think I saw him eating lunch when we arrived.”

“Holy shit!” I yelled. “You
saw
him with his mask off?”

“I didn't see
him,
but I saw his wife and some people wearing those Torquenstein shirts, at a table…near the bazaar.”

“Wait, was his mask on the table? He must have been one of them! What did he look like?”

“Sorry, Alex, I didn't know it was that important to you.”

I hadn't seen Torquenstein at the Cosworth accident, which meant he'd been ahead, maybe even running with Kenworthy…but Kinsley saw him in Fez, which meant that even once we'd slowed
after
the accidents,
I'd almost caught up with him in Fez,
which meant we'd been making
great
time, despite the accidents.

I shouldn't be proud of this.

Red speck closing the gap, quickly.

135

An unidentifiable animal darted across the road.

“I'm slowing, Kinsley, the road's starting to suck anyway.”

120

“Those lights.” She pointed. “Is that a gas station?”

“I don't know…we're really low now. Not enough to get us to the ferry in Nador. If we miss it, we're out of Gumball.”

I slowed to enter the station.

Red speck approaching fast.

If Torquenstein was back there, I was seconds from losing the enormous lead I thought I'd had. I checked the mirror one last time before turning into the station.

Torquenstein's red Viper roared past—a second's rush of wind kicking up prior customers' gas receipts—and disappeared over the hill.

LOCAL ROAD
19
NORTHBOUND
40
MILES FROM NADOR PORT FERRY

“Kinsley…I see a lot of people up ahead.” The sun had just disappeared behind the mountains.

“Oh, please no,” she said.

Someone in a black Gumball jumpsuit stood atop a small rise a hundred feet from the left shoulder, a crowd of locals gathered beneath him. A truck had stopped on the right, as had a police car and official-looking white van.

I stopped, got out, and approached one of the Moroccan bystanders.

“Who was it?” The man shrugged. “The driver! Where is the driver?”

“The driver?” he said in French-accented English. “The driver is dead or in jail.”

I stood on the median stripes, paralyzed, at the exact point where the car had left the road. Then I walked the car's path. The tire treads pointed diagonally left off the road and into the dirt, debris scattered along a pair of long shallow trenches leading several hundred feet up the low rise.

A gray-clad police officer approached.
“Monsieur!”
he said sternly.
“Vous parlez français?”

“Oui,”
I said sheepishly,
“mais—”

Someone had been killed. I knew it. I felt it as I had the morning almost exactly three years earlier, when I stood in the shower longer than I ever had—ignoring the ringing phone until emerging naked to answer the fifth call—and was told my father was dead.

“Oui,”
I said to the officer in uncharacteristically faltering French,
“je parle français…mais…j'ai oublié comment…
I've…just forgotten—”

The officer looked at me, clearly a New York City police officer, on vacation. In uniform.

“You are American?” he said in excellent English.

“Er…yes?”

“Allahu Akbar, we could use your expertise, monsieur,” he said. “Do you know the men in this car?”

I peered over his shoulder at a single large piece of red debris lying halfway toward the wreck. The crowd separated. I spotted the front half of a red Viper.

I'd caught up with Torquenstein.

MONDAY, MAY
10, 2004
CARLTON INTERCONTINENTAL HOTEL BANQUET HALL
CANNES
GUMBALL FINISH PARTY

“And this year's winners of the Gumball Spirit Trophy are—”

Gary Lutke and John Docherty—the crew of Gumball no. 112, the “General Lee”–liveried vintage orange Citroën 2CV, possibly the cheapest, oldest car in the rally—won, and they deserved it. Although their car's maximum speed was 72 mph and the engine rattled like a loose chain saw in a metal box, they completed the route with no tickets, no accidents, and no complaints.