Chapter 32 Thirty two

Chapter 32 Thirty two
Kane hadn't been at the property for forty-eight hours when his first message reached Colt.

Rivera intercepted it.

Not the content the channel was encrypted and breaking it would compromise the evidence integrity but the metadata. Timestamp, duration, signal origin. Enough to confirm that Kane was coordinating actively from twenty kilometers outside the final circuit and that the communications had increased from once daily to four times in the last twenty-four hours.

Rivera told me at breakfast. She'd taken to sending morning updates through the prepaid, brief and factual, the operational equivalent of a weather report.

Kane communication frequency increased. Suggests timeline acceleration. Unknown trigger. Working on it.

I read it twice and put the phone face down on the workbench and looked at the Ducati and thought about what accelerated a timeline when the main variables the final, the arrest, Colt's contract were all fixed points.

Hitch appeared at seven-thirty with coffee and the answer before I'd finished forming the question.

"Diesel's replacement rider was registered with the championship council yesterday afternoon," he said, setting the coffee down. "Death Dealers filed the substitution paperwork at four PM. I have a contact on the council's administrative team she flagged it this morning."

"Who's the replacement," I said.

Hitch sat on his stool and turned his coffee cup in his hands with the deliberate patience of a man who knew the information he was carrying was significant and wanted to deliver it correctly.

"A rider named Trent Voss," he said.

I looked at him.

"Dutch's Voss," Hitch said. "Left this compound three weeks ago when Dutch was arrested. Apparently walked straight to the Death Dealers."

I stood very still for a moment.

Voss had been training privately for three weeks at a Kane-funded facility before Dutch's arrest Rivera had told me that during the qualifier briefing. He'd been Dutch's planned replacement for me in the final, the controllable rider who would take the championship result in whatever direction Kane's payment structure required.

He hadn't stopped training when Dutch went down.

He'd just changed his entry.

"He's racing for the Death Dealers," I said.

"Registered and confirmed." Hitch looked at his coffee. "Which means the Death Dealers now have two championship entries. Colt as an independent and Voss under their colors." He paused. "Two riders with the same objective."

I thought about the chicane complex. About the outside apex option and the false line I'd given Cole to film. About a race plan built around one opponent and now carrying two.

"Kane accelerated the communications because he has two assets on the circuit now," I said. "He's coordinating their approach."

"That's my read," Hitch said.

I picked up my phone and called Rivera.

She answered before the second ring, which meant she was already at her desk, which meant she already knew.

"Voss," I said.

"Registered yesterday. We ran him overnight." Rivera's voice had the quality of controlled frustration not at the situation, at herself for not anticipating it. "He's been at a private facility in the next county for three weeks. Clean from a federal standpoint no criminal record, no direct financial connection to Kane that we've found yet. He's Dutch's man, not Kane's, which means the connection runs through Dutch and Dutch's cooperation has limits."

"Can you pull his registration."

"Not without triggering a legal challenge that delays the final and gives Kane's attorney grounds to file again." A pause. "He's registered legally. He qualified through a regional time trial six months ago. The council has no basis to exclude him."

"So he races."

"He races," Rivera confirmed. "Which changes your threat assessment significantly. Colt's objective is you specifically. Voss's objective is the championship result he'll race to win for Kane's purposes regardless of your position on the circuit." She paused. "Two riders with different objectives create coordination problems for them and targeting problems for you."

"Or they create a trap," I said. "Colt drives me toward Voss. Voss closes the other side."

Rivera was quiet for two seconds. "That's Kane's likely approach, yes."

I looked at the circuit map on the workbench. At the chicane complex in the third sector. At the entry point that led into four hundred meters of multiple apex options and limited marshal visibility.

"Rivera," I said. "The chicane complex. How many cameras does the circuit have covering it."

"Three fixed, one mobile," she said. "The mobile is positioned at the marshal's discretion on race day."

"I need that mobile camera on the chicane entry," I said. "Not the apex, not the exit. The entry. Specifically the braking zone thirty meters before the first apex."

A pause. "That's an unusual position for a race camera."

"I know," I said. "Tell the marshal it's for a broadcast angle. Whatever reason works." I paused. "If Colt and Voss are coordinating a trap in the chicane complex I want it on camera from the moment it starts, not the moment the contact happens."

Rivera was quiet for a moment. "I can arrange that through the circuit director without raising flags." Another pause. "Zed I need to ask you something directly. Is there any version of this race where you don't run the chicane complex at full commitment?"

I looked at the Ducati.

"No," I said.

"Then I need you to understand that what I'm arranging with the camera is for evidence purposes," Rivera said carefully. "Not rescue. Whatever happens in that chicane, we document it. We can't intervene in a moving race."

"I know that," I said.

"Good." Her voice returned to its operational register. "Four weeks. Stay on the compound. Keep preparing."

She ended the call and I put the phone down and looked at Hitch.

He was looking at the circuit map with the expression of a man doing calculations he wasn't happy about.

"Two riders," he said. "Colt and Voss. Chicane complex, third sector, four hundred meters of limited visibility." He turned to me. "You know what that setup looks like."

"It looks like the kind of thing Kane has been building toward for three years," I said.

"It looks like the kind of thing people don't walk away from," Hitch said.

The garage was very quiet.

Then Tank appeared in the doorway, which was unusual at this hour, and his expression was the expression of a man who had heard something he needed to deliver personally rather than through any other channel.

"VP wants everyone in her office," he said. "Now." He looked at me specifically. "Rivera just called her. Something happened at the federal holding facility."

I was moving before he finished.

"Dutch," Tank said, as I passed him. "She's asking to change her plea."