“No, listen!” Mater sputtered. “I—I was disguised as a tow truck with some Lemons, and they got this ray-gun plot!”
“Repeat. Lunatic at gate nine,” the guard said.
Mater could still see Lightning onstage. He used all his tow truck weight to keep pushing through the throngs of cars. “Comin’ through. Life-or-death situation here,” he said as he tried to move forward. But no one seemed to believe him.
As additional security closed in on Mater, he yelled, “Lightning McQueen, if you’re out there, they’re gonna kill you! ”
Lightning suddenly looked up. He saw a tow hook moving through the crowd.
“Mater!” he called out. Lightning drove off the stage and pushed through the throng. He kept tracking the tow hook, only to find it wasn’t Mater at all. It was the Lemon driver, Ivan.
“Sorry,” Lightning said, filled with confusion and disappointment. He could have sworn he had heard his buddy Mater.
As Lightning was led back to the stage, Ivan breathed a sigh of relief. He had done his job by distracting Lightning while Professor Z’s Lemons hijacked Mater! Now Mater was in the back of a transport vehicle. Nobody objected to seeing the lunatic tow truck being hauled away.
“Let me go!” Mater yelled. Professor Z just smiled.
“You really care about that race car. Fascinating,” he said as he slammed the doors of the transport. Professor Z released a sleeping gas into the small space where Mater was trapped. “Pity you didn’t warn him about it in time.”
Mater’s eyes slowly closed, and he tipped over like a fallen tree. He dreamed about everything that had happened over the past days: how Finn had called him an idiot, how he had called in to The Mel Dorado Show and said that Lightning was the fastest car in the world, how he had embarrassed Lightning at the WGP racers’ party—and how he had caused Lightning to lose the first race of the World Grand Prix. Maybe Mater was an idiot, just as Finn had said.
Bong! Bong! Bong!
Mater’s eyes suddenly snapped open. He was awake but couldn’t get his bearings. He was hanging upside down, and his whole body was aching. Now all he could hear was a very loud click-click-click.
Mater looked around and saw nothing but enormous, churning gears. And then he figured it out: he was inside the workings of a huge clock. He spotted Finn and Holley strapped bumper to bumper nearby. Professor Z and the Lemons had caught all three of them.
“Holley! Finn!” Mater cried out. “Where are we?”
“We’re in London, Mater.”
Mater had heard of a famous old clock in London. Now he was trapped inside it. As the clock’s gears—and the cars’ life spans—ticked away, Mater told Finn and Holley, “This is all my fault.”
“Don’t be a fool,” Finn replied.
“But I am,” Mater said. “Remember? You said so.”
“No,” Finn said, then tried to explain. “I was complimenting you on what a good spy you were.”
“But I’m not a spy,” Mater said. “Been trying to tell you that this whole time. I’m just a rusty tow truck.”
Holley realized that Mater was telling the truth. “Finn, he’s not joking,” she said.
But Finn didn’t need to be told. “I know,” he replied. He had finally realized that Mater was no secret agent. He really was just a regular truck.
“You were right, Finn,” Mater said sadly. “I’m just a fool. And what’s happened to Lightning is all my fault.”
Finn was about to object when the doors of the clock tower opened. Grem and Acer rolled in. They pulled a sheet away from a window. The WGP camera was set up and aimed toward the streets of London.
“Professor Z wanted you to have a front-row seat for the death of Lightning McQueen,” Grem said to Mater.
“He’s still alive?” Mater asked hopefully.
“Not for much longer,” Acer replied as he focused the camera on the street below—a street that was part of the racecourse where Lightning McQueen would soon be driving.
Down in Lightning McQueen’s pit, the whole Radiator Springs gang was gathered. They had all traveled to London. Sally, Flo, Ramone, and Sarge were there. Even Red, the town’s fire truck, had shown up. They had all come for the same reason: to find and help their friend Mater. All they knew was that he had never made it home to Radiator Springs.
“Sarge is in touch with the British military,” Ramone told Lightning, hoping it would ease his mind. Lightning was seriously worried about his best friend, especially after thinking he had seen him at the track—and then lost him. Little did Lightning know that his own life was in danger, and that Mater was equally worried about him!