Read Chapter 6: The Mechanic's Gambit

The paddock stank of hot rubber and burnt fuel, a smell Jules had learned to love like a brother. He knelt beside the Number 17 McLaren, wrench in hand, pretending to torque the rear suspension while his eyes tracked the security officer making his rounds. Two hundred meters away, the casino's white marble facade gleamed under the Mediterranean sun, indifferent to the chaos about to unfold within its walls.

"Jules, you're going to strip that bolt if you keep turning it backwards," said a voice behind him.

He flinched, nearly dropping the wrench. Pascal, the team's chief engineer, stood over him with a clipboard and a look of mild concern. Fifty-eight years old, bald, and sharp as a scalpel. He had hired Jules three years ago after watching him rebuild a gearbox in under twenty minutes during a pit stop emergency at Spa.

"Just checking the alignment," Jules said, flipping the wrench around and giving the bolt a convincing forward turn. "She's been pulling left on the high-speed corners."

Pascal grunted. "She pulled left because the wind was pulling left. The aero map said it before the race. You don't fix wind with a wrench, Jules."

"Old habits."

The chief engineer knelt beside him, lowering his voice. "You've been twitchy all week, son. More than usual. If something's going on outside this garage, I'd rather you tell me now than have it blow up during the most important race of the season."

Jules met his eyes and held them. Pascal had been good to him. Signed his paperwork, vouched for him when the Monaco authorities wanted to know why a former Formula 3 crash driver had a record with the local racing commission. He deserved better than a lie.

But the lie was the only thing standing between Jules and a debt that would follow him to the grave.

"Just stressed about the telemetry," Jules said. "We've got transmission data lagging from the secondary sensors. I want to run a diagnostic before the race."

Pascal studied him for a long moment. "Fine. Run your diagnostic. But the scrutineers come through in forty minutes, and if they find anything that looks like a data manipulation device, we're both out of a job and possibly out of the country. Understood?"

"Understood."

Pascal clapped him on the shoulder and walked off toward the pit wall, leaving Jules alone with the McLaren and the weight of what he was about to do.

He waited until the garage fell into that particular lull that always preceded qualifying—the mechanics finishing their final checks, engineers reviewing digital displays, drivers in air-conditioned rooms staring at holographic track maps with blank, focused faces. No one was watching him. No one ever watched the guy with grease under his fingernails.

Jules slid the access panel off the car's secondary telemetry unit, the one bolted beneath the floor pan near the rear axle. Inside, among the fiber-optic cables and the heat-shielded transmitters, there was exactly enough space for a device the size of a matchbook. He had built it himself over three sleepless nights in the cramped apartment above his uncle's garage, using components sourced from three different countries to avoid a paper trail.

The device did one thing, and it did it beautifully. When triggered by a specific frequency pulse—which Zoe would send at exactly 14:03:27 during tomorrow's race, the moment the lead car entered the tunnel—it would hijack the car's team-to-pit telemetry and broadcast a jamming signal across a narrow band. Not to the car's systems. Those would remain clean. But the signal would bleed outward exactly far enough to reach the casino's security cameras on the east wing, wiping forty seconds of footage with static while the feed looped the previous minute.

Forty seconds. That was all Alex needed to get through the security office door with Zoe's access codes and claim the ledger.

Jules pressed the device into its seat, his fingers trembling only slightly. He had stripped engines at 300 kilometers per hour with less fear than this. A race car was predictable. Metal, fuel, combustion. You gave it precision and it gave you speed. This was different. This was a betrayal of every rule he had lived by since he was a kid watching his father's crew work miracles on Sunday afternoons.

He was about to snap the panel shut when he heard the footsteps.

Heavy boots. The deliberate, measured cadence of someone who had authority and intended to use it.

Jules whipped around. A FIA scrutineer in a crisp white polo stood at the entrance of the garage, flanked by the team's security liaison. The scrutineer—a stocky man with a clipboard and the weary expression of someone who had seen every trick in the book—was looking directly at Jules's position.

"Mr. Moreau," the scrutineer said, consulting his clipboard. "Random aerodynamic and telemetry inspection. We'll need access to the primary and secondary units."

Jules's throat went dry. He could feel the warmth of the device against his fingertips, a heartbeat of heat beneath the floor pan. The panel was off. The device was visible if the scrutineer leaned down and looked at the wrong angle.

"Of course," Jules said, forcing calm into his voice. He stood, wiping his hands on his racing suit, stepping between the scrutineer and the open panel. "You'll want the primary unit first. She's up front, under the nose cone. Takes a bit of finesse to get the latch released."

The scrutineer narrowed his eyes. "I've inspected three hundred cars, Mr. Moreau. I can open a latch."

"I'm sure you can, sir. But the secondary unit is the one with the access panel already open"—Jules gestured behind him with a casual thumb—"so maybe start there and save us both the hassle."

The scrutineer's expression flickered. Suspicion. Curiosity. Jules had played this game before, but never with a device that could land him in a Monégasque prison for a decade.

"Fine," the scrutineer said. He stepped forward, and Jules moved aside, his heart pounding a rhythm that felt like it belonged to someone else's chest.

The scrutineer crouched, peered at the open panel, and Jules's world compressed into a single point of failure. The device was black, the same matte finish as the car's internal components. It sat flush against the casing, wired into the telemetry loom with connectors Jules had meticulously color-matched to the factory spec. If the scrutineer knew what he was looking for, it would take him four seconds to spot it.

The scrutineer reached into the panel and wiggled a connector. Pulled it free. Held it up to the light.

"Loose connection," he said. "You know this is a safety violation."

"Must've vibrated loose during the earlier shakedown," Jules said. "I was just tightening it when you came in."

The scrutineer grunted, snapped the connector back into place with more force than necessary, and ran a hand along the harness. Jules's breath caught as the man's fingers passed within three centimeters of the device.

The scrutineer withdrew his hand. "Make sure it's secure. If that comes loose during the race, you'll lose the primary feed and the team will be blind for the entire stint."

"Yes, sir."

The scrutineer stood, made a note on his clipboard, and walked toward the front of the car to inspect the primary unit. Jules exhaled a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and backed away slowly, finding a tool cart to lean against before his knees gave out.

His phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out, keeping one eye on the scrutineer.

A text from Zoe: *You're still alive. Good. I watched it on the security feed. Which means the casino is watching too. Be careful.*

Jules typed back: *Device is in. Scrutineer didn't see. We're go.*

A pause. Then another message from Zoe: *We're not go yet. I found something in the feed gaps. The person who left you the trail, Alex—they're not just watching. They're inside the casino. And they have access to the security office's maintenance schedule. Whoever it is, they're planning to be there tomorrow. At the same time as Alex.*

Jules's blood ran cold. He stared at the message, the heat of the paddock suddenly feeling like a distant memory.

He typed: *Who?*

Zoe's reply came back immediately, almost as if she had been waiting for him to ask:

*I don't know yet. But I pulled a partial plate from the parking garage footage. Thirty seconds, Jules. That's all I got. And the plate matched a car registered to Viktor's shell company. Alex's financer is already inside the building. Tomorrow, he's going to be standing right next to the ledger when Alex walks in.*