The victory in Wilmington was not celebrated with champagne. It was answered with grease, steel crates, and thirty-six hours of unrelenting preparation in the hollows of Bedford.
Outside the carriage barn, two colossal Peterbilt semi-trucks finished in matching matte slate-gray with black trailer bodies hummed quietly at idle. These were Vance’s private transcontinental transporters—custom-built rolling workshops equipped with on-board machine lathes, nitrogen tire-filling stations, ultrasonic parts cleaners, and air-ride pneumatic suspension systems designed to isolate multi-million-dollar cargo from the brutal ruts of Interstate 80.
Inside the carriage barn, Elena Brooks was no longer wearing her cleaning uniform.
She wore a warm, tailored wool coat in dark camel, dark slacks, and comfortable leather ankle boots. In her hands was an electronic tablet, where she was methodically checking off inventory manifests: spare Weber carburetor gaskets, boxes of period-correct Champion racing spark plugs, fifty-gallon drums of specialty Sunoco 110-octane leaded racing fuel, and custom-machined copper head gaskets.
When Marcus walked into the bay carrying a heavy steel toolbox, Elena stopped him, reaching out to gently adjust the collar of his navy mechanics' jacket.
"You haven't slept more than four hours since Delaware, Marcus," she said, her voice carrying that eternal maternal concern that no amount of money could silence. "Look at your eyes. You’re running on fumes."
Marcus smiled, setting the toolbox down with a soft metallic clink. "I’m fine, Mama. When an engine is apart on the bench, you can't leave it halfway. If moisture gets onto the bare cast-iron cylinder walls while the heads are off, surface rust starts forming in twenty minutes. We load in one hour."
Elena looked around the magnificent cathedral of sleeping giants. Three weeks ago, she had been counting dollar bills at a laundromat on 14th Street, wondering if she would have enough money for Marcus’s school bus pass. Now, she was managing the logistics for a multi-million-dollar expedition to the most exclusive automotive gathering on the planet.
"Mr. Vance told me this morning that Viktor Rossi has scouts watching the highway exits," Elena whispered, her brow furrowing. "He said that man doesn't lose gracefully."
"Let them watch, Ms. Brooks," Arthur Vance’s gravelly voice came from the top of the hydraulic lift stairs.
Vance descended slowly, holding two sets of embossed black credentials suspended from woven red lanyards. The badges carried the golden silhouette of the Lone Cypress and the words: PEBBLE BEACH CONCOURS D'ELEGANCE — ENTRANTS & PADDOCK CREW.
Vance handed one to Marcus and the other to Elena.
"Rossi is an asset stripper," Vance said, his gray eyes cold and focused. "He operates through fear, paper, and intimidation. When those fail, he resorts to sabotage. That is why we are not flying the cars to Monterey. We are driving them across the continent in our own convoy, with our own security, under our own steam."
Vance walked over to the 1968 Heilbrown prototype, which was now securely strapped into the belly of the lead transporter alongside the 1973 Carrera RS 2.7.
"The Concours at Pebble Beach is not an ordinary car show, Marcus," Vance explained, leaning against the trailer tailgate. "It is an arena of social and mechanical warfare. Four hundred of the wealthiest collectors on earth bring their finest treasures to the eighteenth fairway of the Pebble Beach Golf Links. The judging is merciless. They will inspect the originality of every cotter pin, the grain of the leather, the chemical composition of the paint, and the exact historical cadence of the engine at idle."
Vance paused, looking Marcus dead in the eyes.
"Rossi’s 1969 Ferrari 312P prototype was built by the Scuderia factory in Maranello to beat the Porsche 908 at the 1000 Kilometers of Spa. It is powered by a three-liter, forty-eight-valve V12 that produces four hundred and thirty horsepower at ten thousand RPM. It is beautiful, it is priceless, and it has an entire team of Italian factory mechanics attending to its every whim. To beat that Ferrari, the Heilbrown cannot merely run. It must be a revelation."
Marcus stepped up into the trailer bed. He reached out and touched the cool aluminum flank of the Austrian prototype.
"The Ferrari has twelve cylinders, Mr. Vance," Marcus said quietly. "Twelve combustion chambers mean twelve potential points of mechanical failure. The more complex the system, the more fragile the harmony. Anton Heilbrown didn't build this car to win a beauty contest. He built it to outlast machines twice its size in the rain."
Marcus turned around, his face illuminated by the trailer's interior LED strips.
"Let’s go to California, sir."