Free Clive Cussler by The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy Page B

rescue the floating powerboat team in the water. None of the other powerboats or their pilots had stopped to help. They roared around the men in the water as though they didn't exist.
    "We've fallen back in the pack," said Casey. "At least six boats have passed us since we stopped."
    "The Boss went by too," Lacey said.
    Casey nodded. "He didn't dare attack us in front of so many people. He's down the river, waiting to pounce on us again."
    "This time we'll be on our guard."
    Wasting no more words, Casey turned Hotsy Totsy back toward the center of the river and pushed hard on the throttle pedal. The big Wright aircraft engine howled as it went to full power. The prop dug into the water, lifting the bow, and Hotsy Totsy rocketed back into the race.

12 The Dash to the Finish Line

    Floopy stood with his rear paws on the seat and his front paws on the instrument cowling, his tail wagging wildly as if it was conducting a band. Lacey studied her chart of the river and warned Casey when a sharp bend in the river was coming close. Casey and Floopy kept their eyes ahead, looking for any sign of the black phantom boat hiding in the bushes along the shore.
    Although Casey had his hands on the steering helm, it seemed to move without him turning the rudder. Hotsy Totsy was flying down the river, passing one, sometimes two boats on the straight stretches, then curving into a bend at full speed until the edge of the cockpit was only inches above the water. Casey gripped the wheel, but Lacey and Floopy had to hold on for dear life, hoping their seat belts were secure.
    Sometimes Hotsy Totsy, ignoring Lacey's pleas, cut around a boat while going through a bend. Swerving with her keel almost out of the water, throwing up a high rooster tail of water behind her stern, she skidded around her competitors as if she was attached to underwater railroad tracks.
    The people onshore stood in awe as Hotsy Totsy with the two children and a funny-looking dog with a leather helmet and goggles came and went, the roar of the big V-12 Wright engine booming out of the twin exhaust pipes in the stern like thunder. Vroom, vroom, vroom! The faces on the other race pilots reflected shock, disbelief and finally amazement at the daring antics of the antique boat as it darted past them.
    As they hurtled through another turn, Lacey yelled,
    "After we pass the bend at the end of the next straight, we'll enter the upper bay."
    "Still no sign of the Boss?" Casey shouted back.
    "No, but I'm sure we haven't seen the last of him," Lacey said, staring downriver.
    The words had no sooner been spoken than the black phantom boat, with the Boss at the helm, shot from behind a big rock and came roaring up the river on a collision course with Hotsy Totsy. The twins had no doubt the Boss would be merciless.
    Closer and closer the two boats shot toward the other. Neither slowing. The Boss was pushing the black phantom as fast as it would go. Casey didn't have to hold the pedal down. Hotsy Totsy's great Wright engine was running as fast as it would go. For a few seconds time seemed to slow, and Casey and Lacey thought this might be the end. Floopy stared at the black phantom boat and snarled.
    A hundred yards, then fifty. The twins could clearly see the faces of the Boss and his henchmen. Twenty-five yards came and went, and the speeding boats were only fifty feet apart when Hotsy Totsy lifted her bow and soared out of the river and flew over the black phantom boat. The Boss and his henchmen looked skyward, eyes wide, mouths hanging open as the spinning prop whirred by overhead. They watched dumbly as the antique boat bounced back into the water with a massive splash beyond the Boss's boat.
    Casey was afraid the propeller might fly off when it came out of the water as the engine raced uncontrollably, but it held on to the driveshaft without letting go. Within minutes, the black phantom boat was nearly a quarter of a mile behind Hotsy Totsy.
    "Blast those brats and their crazy