Driven

by Toby Vintcent

  ‘There’s a personal history there, no?’

  Straker dabbed his mouth.

  ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if there was,’ she said with a verbal shrug in her voice. ‘She was stunning to look at. All the men clustered round her like bees to honey. She knew how to work people; she had everyone eating out of her trousers.’

  ‘Charlie was a menace,’ Straker said, leaning back in his chair and looking Sabatino in the eye. ‘For various reasons, she was out to do Quartech – and Quartano, personally – serious harm.’

  Sabatino, struck by Straker’s expression and tone of voice, was clearly keen to probe further: ‘How?’

  Straker reached again for his drink and took a long sip. ‘By leaking company – and potentially national – secrets to a foreign rival. Because of that, Quartano’s convinced she’s behind this sabotage of you, your car – maybe even Helli’s car – and the race.’

  Sabatino looked genuinely surprised. ‘How did she die then? I get the feeling it wasn’t anything to do with a road accident?’

  Straker shook his head. He paused. ‘She died in Buhran.’

  ‘Really?’ said Sabatino, indicating that she believed there was a lot more to all this.

  Straker shrugged before taking another sip of his drink.

  ‘How close to her death were you then?’ asked Sabatino, with a strange hint of bloodlust in her voice.

  Straker put down his glass and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Too close,’ he said. ‘Now,’ with a clear edge to his voice, ‘can we change the subject, please?’

  This time, it was Sabatino’s turn to be taken aback – by the sharpness of his tone. She backed off immediately.

  SIXTEEN

  The Formula One circus was on the move. Being a double-header, most of the artics and motor homes were making straight for the Ardennes to set up for the Belgian Grand Prix the following weekend.

  Quartano, accompanied by Sabatino, flew the Mandarin directors out of Monte-Carlo to Mandelieu Airport by helicopter. After seeing them off from there, Remy flew in her private jet to Malta for a few days, to celebrate her win. Straker made his own way to the Nice airport by road, using the time to consider events and refocus on his task. He found himself motivated by something new. For all the pressures Sabatino had to put up with – technical, racing, physical, performance and media – he was troubled by how personally she was now taking the attempt to sabotage her.

  Looking out of the window, as the taxi snaked its way through the rocky scenery of the Côte d’Azur in the early Riviera sun, he returned his mind to what he had by way of leads. Two things. One, a piece of physical evidence – the bug found in Sabatino’s helmet; while the second was a name: Monsieur Michel Lyons – the temporary tenant of Apartment 5 at 25 Rue des Princes. What more could he learn about these? And how could either help him?

  Straker had an idea. Pulling his mobile from his pocket he scrolled through his contacts directory and retrieved the telephone number for the porter of the block of flats. He asked himself: When would Michel Lyons be leaving Monte-Carlo? Taking a punt, he gave the number a ring.

  ‘Could I speak to Michel Lyons, in number 5, please?’

  ‘Non,’ said the aged porter.

  ‘Has he gone out?’

  ‘Non. He has left.’

  Excellent, thought Straker, exactly as he hoped. ‘That’s a nuisance,’ he said. ‘I have an important package for him. Do you have an address I could send it on to?’ Straker asked.

  There was a grunt from down the line.

  ‘Please, monsieur, this is very important.’

  ‘Attendez,’ growled the porter.

  Straker heard the receiver hit something hard and then the man’s raised voice echoing in the background. He breathed deeply, hoping he would get lucky and be able to keep this lead alive. After several minutes of uncertainty, the aged porter came back on the line and, although sounding disappointed, he said: ‘I have a home address.’

  ‘Merci, merci.’

  ‘Monsieur Michael Lyons, Flax Cottage…’

  Straker’s mind was already racing.

  ‘…Prince Rupert Lane, Gaydon, Warwickshire, Royaume-Uni.’

  Straker shook his head as he jotted down the details. ‘Pardonnez-moi,’ he said as apologetically as he could. ‘Did you say Michael, as M – I – C – H – A – E – L?’

  ‘Oui!’

  ‘Monsieur, merci bien. Thank you very much. I’ll send the parcel on to him at home.’

  Straker ended the call and smiled in satisfaction. ‘Odder and odder,’ he said to himself as he mulled this new information. Dialling his office number in Quartech International’s London headquarters, he spoke to Karen, his department’s research assistant. He could picture her in their office on the ninth floor of Cavendish Square, with its stunning views out over the capital through its floor-to-ceiling, plate-glass windows. He asked the quiet but superbly meticulous Karen to research Michael Lyons, of Gaydon – particularly in respect of any connection he might have with motor racing.

  With this additional unexpected piece of the jigsaw puzzle, Straker considered his other potential lead. The physical evidence they had in the form of the jamming device found in Sabatino’s helmet. What could they learn from that, if anything?

  Picking up his phone again, Straker rang Andy Backhouse, who had flown out on the red-eye that morning and whom he expected to be back on the ground in England by now.

  ‘Come up to the factory as soon as you like,’ said Backhouse keenly.

  ‘How about later today? I want to tackle this scumbag saboteur as soon as possible.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll be at Shenington within the hour. I’ll be there till whenever.’

  ‘Great. I’m due to land at Heathrow with DQ around lunchtime.’

  ‘I’ll send a car to meet you. See you this afternoon.’

  Straker arrived at Nice airport, and, this being the wealthy Riviera, was processed airside through the large part of the Mandelieu complex devoted to private aircraft. With barely any delay, he was soon driven out across the apron to the steps of the waiting Quartech Falcon. It proudly boasted the company’s logo on the tail fin: a crimson Maltese Cross within the circular part of a black letter Q – and the company motto, “Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum”, underneath.

  Quartano was already on board. The moment Straker appeared the doors were shut, the engines whined into life, and the plane sought clearance for take-off from the tower.

  ‘I’ve just seen Dr Chen and his colleagues board their plane,’ reported Quartano, spreading a linen napkin across his lap. ‘Mandarin Telecom could not be more engaged, despite the horrors of poor Helli’s crash. Remy’s win seems to have sealed the deal. We’ve clearly exceeded their expectations from a marketing point of view. Hardly surprising. The press and media coverage from the weekend – around the first female winner of a Grand Prix, let alone Monaco – has been astonishing. We’ve agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding within two weeks, and the full contract in Shanghai at the Chinese Grand Prix. Mandarin have already offered to introduce Quartech to Chinese government – Ministry of National Defense – officials, no less. Priceless,’ he said with a broad triumphant smile. ‘Thank heavens for Formula One.’

  Straker could see how much Quartano was fired up by the events of the weekend. ‘Your absolute priority, Matt,’ he said as the plane levelled off and they were served their coffee and breakfast, ‘is to rid us of any further interference by this sodding saboteur. Thanks to Backhouse’s team finding the bug, and your outstanding countermeasures, we denied them their interference in our communications, which could have done us serious damage. And what about Helli’s crash? God forbid it was sabotage, as it was clearly life-threatening. If they and any bastard insider are still motivated to do us harm – and after the win in Monaco we have to assume they would be – this could get ugly. And now, with a sponsorship deal of $750 million and this phenomenal “in” to Chinese government circles via Mandarin Telecom, Qu
artech has a massive market position at stake.’

  Straker nodded his appreciation of the situation. ‘I’m on it, sir.’

  Quartano looked reassured, but his expression seemed to demand elaboration.

  ‘Backhouse is arranging a car for me from Heathrow,’ Straker volunteered. ‘I’m going straight up to the factory the moment we land.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ve also uncovered some new news.’

  Quartano raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’ve managed to establish that Monsieur Michel Lyons is not actually Michel but Mr Michael Lyons. And that he lives in Gaydon.’

  Quartano’s expression darkened.

  ‘Should it surprise us he’s British?’ Straker asked.

  ‘Not really. If Mr Michael Lyons was to have any credibility in motor racing, it would certainly be enhanced by his being British. Seven of the eleven F1 teams are based in England.’

  ‘And Gaydon?’

  ‘Fits perfectly,’ replied Quartano. ‘Gaydon is home to Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover. Ptarmigan are minutes away. And within an hour you’ve got Lotus, Mercedes, Williams, Lambourn, and Red Bull, while not forgetting that Prodrive’s one junction down the M40. And Silverstone, of course, is right there too. If you wanted someone to come from the heart of motor racing, Gaydon’s pretty close to it.’

  ‘Well at least it goes some way to confirming that the occupant of Apartment 5, 25 Rue des Princes was the source of the jamming. It would, I suppose, have been too easy for his geographic location to have told us something about his team affiliation?’

  ‘It might have, if he lived in Maranello or Stupinigi – for Ferrari or Massarella. But, no. Ironically, he’s geographically closer to Ptarmigan than any of the others.’

  ‘I’ve got Karen in Competition Intelligence doing some digging on him.’

  ‘Good. Now you know where to find him, I want to know everything about this arsehole – particularly who he’s working for. Then, we will decide how to remove him, and take out anyone around him who fancies themselves as a threat.’

  SEVENTEEN

  Straker split from Quartano at Heathrow and was met by the car sent for him from Ptarmigan.

  On his way up the M40, Karen called him from London. ‘I have some info on Michael Lyons, but it’s not much, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Not to worry – anything might get us started.’

  ‘It looks like he’s an I.T. specialist. Graduated from Aston University, started out on a graduate traineeship with IBM. Was sent on secondment to MG Rover and then transferred to them permanently. Joined their electronics team but was made redundant just before the company went into administration in 2005. Strangely, there’s no further information since then. Nothing about current employment. Whereabouts unknown.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Straker asked disappointedly.

  ‘Afraid so.’

  Just over an hour later Straker was driven onto the Shenington Airfield, one of Oxfordshire’s long-abandoned RAF wartime air stations. Passing some of the derelict pre-fab concrete huts, and even the old control tower, they drove down a long straight approach road lined by an avenue of trees. Straker was greeted at the end by iconic architecture. Confident, proud and powerful were the adjectives implied by the brand-new Ptarmigan factory. It had nowhere near the self-belief of the Foster and Partners statement in Woking, but was impressive nonetheless.

  They continued through a tunnel set into a broad, three-storey facade of reflective glass, emerging on the other side into a sizeable quadrangle and more reflective glass. Despite the sheen on the windows, there was some visibility into the buildings. Ghostly-looking figures could be seen working behind desks, at CAD work stations, poring over laboratory benches and, in one window, he saw a team working on a complete chassis. Straker’s car circled round the sweep of the quad, which enclosed a large, heavily-landscaped ornamental garden, and pulled up under the awning in front of the main entrance.

  Inside the reception area, he faced more glass, this time fronting a row of display cabinets holding all the team’s trophies, which seemed to cover every spare inch of the walls.

  Straker was greeted by Backhouse and handed a security pass.

  ‘I daresay you’ll want to study our security measures,’ Backhouse said. ‘Perhaps it might be helpful to give you an idea of the whole process so you could see where we might be vulnerable to leaks or outside interference?’

  Straker agreed, slipping the turquoise lanyard over his head.

  ‘Let’s start in Design, then.’

  Riding up two floors in a glass-walled lift, they moved through the cathedral of modernity to the design studio. As Backhouse swiped his card through the door panel, automatic doors let them into a vast open-plan office. Forty or so people were distributed across the space. Atmospherically, it was quiet and serious – not exactly what Straker had imagined from a creative team, particularly one that had enjoyed such a historic weekend.

  While security was the main purpose of the two men’s tour round the Ptarmigan factory, Backhouse inevitably found himself describing the practices in each room or workshop along their way. Straker soon gathered that, remarkably, Ptarmigan’s aim was to reinvent the car on a continual basis – but always within the dimensional, weight and capacity constraints imposed by the FIA’s Formula. Backhouse explained that in trying to work within those limits, they were faced with the classic trade-offs of any design; in this case, they had to balance any extra performance that might be enjoyed from a new component or configuration against any unwanted consequences – typically extra weight or size. Straker was told that paring a component to the bone might get it to perform better but doing so could reduce its tolerance, weaken it, and even invite it to fail, which would of course then threaten reliability.

  Backhouse went on to point out that making their components and cars too reliable, on the other hand, would result in their being heavier than they needed to be, so slowing them down. ‘But, as the legendary Murray Walker had it: “If you want to finish first, first you’ve got to finish”. Except the last thing we want is any structural redundancy,’ qualified Backhouse with a believe-it-or-not expression on his face.

  Straker was led on through the quietness of the design studio, between the rows of designers, most of whom were working on large high-definition computer screens. Some of the operators were rotating wireframe diagrams, while others analysed brightly coloured thermal images of components in three dimensions via touch-screen commands. Backhouse indicated that the data recorded from the cars’ two hundred and fifty on-board sensors, which Straker had seen being collated through the headquarters truck in Monaco, was fed into this redesign process. Conclusions drawn then allowed for each component to be redesigned electronically. Once done, the computer could then backtest any new design against a model using the actual load, pressure and temperature data of the last few races.

  Straker was clearly impressed with the attention to detail and the capacity of the system. ‘But won’t reshaping one component have an effect on all the others around it?’

  Backhouse gave him a smile of appreciation. ‘Welcome to the Rubik’s Cube of race car design.’

  Backhouse led Straker on through the room to another set of automatic doors. Once he swiped his card, they passed onto a balcony overlooking a cavernous space that reached from the ground up into the three-storey roof of the building. Every surface of the room was white and gleaming. Here, there was considerable noise.

  Several bulky machines were spread out across the workshop floor. This, Backhouse explained, was where the newly designed components were sent to be made. They walked down a flight of long white stairs to ground floor level, and across to one of the sizeable machines. Backhouse indicated that one of them made aluminium components, while another did tungsten, and another titanium parts.

  Leading him off into the next room, Backhouse told Straker: ‘This is where we test samples of our new components to destruction.’

  I
nside, behind some sturdy-looking safety glass, several technicians were operating machines and applying force – percussive, compressive, torsional or tensile – to several components.

  ‘And once you’ve made and tested something new – and it passes these tests – what happens if it does require a change in the shape of its mounting or its interface with other components?’

  Backhouse explained the most likely consequence of a new component was a change in the shape or weight distribution of the car, albeit that the change might be small. Even so, the bodywork could be affected, necessitating remedial adjustment in the aerodynamics. Most problematic, he said, was a new component that threatened to protrude beyond the limit of the physical dimensions set by the Formula.

  ‘And if you do break the Formula, what can that mean?’

  ‘A big fine.’ Backhouse described the penalties imposed by the FIA, and illustrated how the governing body meant their fines to hurt. The last one – for an infringement – had been five million dollars for a non-compliant diffuser on one of the Massarellas. But worse, the FIA could dock Championship points, which potentially cost the teams even more. Under the Concorde Agreement – the arrangement with the commercial rights holder to distribute some of the multi-billion-dollars-a-year revenues from Formula One sponsorship, advertizing, TV rights and royalties – shares of that income were calculated using a team’s standing in the Constructors’ Championship at the end of the season. Being docked Constructors points as a penalty, therefore, could cost a team its placing in the standings, which would then hurt its share of the Concorde payout – to the tune of millions of dollars.

  Backhouse led off into a smaller room. ‘This is our carbon fibre workshop.’

  In the middle was a large – twenty-or-so square feet – waist-high table. On it was a sheet of what looked like black cloth. Lifting up a corner, Backhouse extolled the virtues of carbon fibre as a remarkable material, showing a fascinated Straker that it came in flexible sheets and, depending on the direction of the fibres, could give enormous tensile strength while being remarkably light. This was coated in resin and fired in an oven. Backhouse leant down and lifted up a three-foot long nose assembly from Remy’s car, offering it as an illustration. ‘This is constructed of twenty-five layers of carbon fibre. It can withstand a head-on impact at one hundred and twenty miles an hour, absorbing all that force within it and so is capable of protecting the driver. This stuff most certainly saved Helli’s life over the weekend. But feel the weight?’