Straker straightened up. ‘Let’s suppose someone did make this hole. What could they have expected to happen because of it?’
‘One thing – and one thing only. Suspension failure. Melting that glue would inevitably degrade the wishbone. That wishbone giving out would completely degrade the rear axle. Any rear axle failure would collapse the back end, rendering the car undriveable.’
‘And what would be the consequences?’
‘Depends on the speed the car was going at the moment it failed. At high speed – as in Monaco – we saw the results all too clearly.’
‘You think that’s what the saboteurs were going for?’
Treadwell shook his head. ‘Possibly, if they’re psychotic. To do us straightforward competitive harm, they didn’t need it to fail quite so spectacularly. Even at a slow speed, suspension failure would still degrade the car completely. We’d have been significantly inconvenienced – because of the time and work it would take to replace it. It would have easily disrupted Qualifying or our race, had the car survived that long. So – no – I don’t think they minded, really, when it gave out. Any amount of use – even over several sessions – would have taken its toll on the glue, and, certainly over the course of a race weekend, would have provided enough cumulative heat to degrade it to the point of failure at some point.’
Both men fell silent as the malice behind all this sunk in.
‘These bastards are up to more than just interfering with our electronics,’ said Straker almost to himself.
‘And, again, it’s clever, Matt,’ said Treadwell. ‘This interference was so small and hidden we’d be unlikely to see it – as, indeed, we didn’t during Andy’s checks in Monaco. And, a broken suspension could be so easily dismissed as mechanical failure or driver error – especially with the unforgiving bumps, barriers and kerbstones in Monte-Carlo. Who wouldn’t suspect a young driver like Helli of hitting something around that circuit over the course of a weekend? As a way of attacking us – without immediately arousing suspicion – this sabotage, along with the radio jamming, is fiendishly clever.’
‘We should be in no doubt, then,’ said Straker as a conclusion. ‘These people are deadly serious about wanting to do us harm.’
THIRTY-FIVE
Straker felt this new evidence intensely. He had to get outside, to take some fresh air. Needing to be alone, he stood on the terrace to the north of the factory, and looked out over the rolling Oxfordshire countryside – trying to calm himself down. Even the soothing breeze and hazy summer sunshine had little effect on him.
Straker was motivated, anyway, by his professional duty to complete this assignment – and honour the responsibility he had been given to counter the sabotage risk to Ptarmigan. But now, he clearly had to defend the team against a very real life-threatening danger. And that, in the light of his intimacy with Sabatino, prompted a powerful urge in him to defend her personally. How dare these people be out to threaten the life of anyone, let alone someone he was close to.
Straker wanted to fight back – to retaliate in some way. He was angry that these people, whoever they were, were able to do all that they were doing with impunity. Even so, he fought to rationalize his response, very aware that it was largely driven by emotion, which he fought to control. That emotional tussle, though, ended up helping him. It prompted him to think of ways to fire a shot back at these arseholes, even if it might be indirectly.
An idea he had been toying with finally took hold.
Going back inside, he found the Strategy Director in his office. ‘Ollie, have you and Tahm thought any more about the switch away from Trifecta?’
‘Yes,’ replied Treadwell, clearly not happy with the idea.
‘I take it, then, we’re transferring to Cohens,’ Straker concluded. ‘Have we told Trifecta?’
‘Not yet.’
Straker offered him a sideways smile. ‘Let me, would you?’ he said with a clear edge to his voice.
Treadwell looked a little surprised. ‘Why, who are you going to tell?’
‘Someone whose resultant discomfort might do us some good.’
An hour later Straker had managed to photograph the wishbone, the hole in the exhaust system, and download his pictures to a Ptarmigan iPad – along with a sequence of photographs of Helli Cunzer’s spectacular crash in Monaco, including the horrific moment when his car was completely engulfed in flame. Driving away from the factory in his Honda, Straker headed for Leamington Spa.
He drove onto the now-familiar industrial estate and pulled up a discreet distance away from, but with a clear view of, the main entrance of Trifecta Systems. He was instantly relieved. The Peugeot he hoped to see was parked out front. His quarry, therefore, ought to be inside. Straker killed the engine.
He readied himself to wait.
He willed his quarry to emerge.
Nothing happened for quite a while. A stream of people came and went from the office building, more exiting it with the onset of lunchtime. None of them, though – as far as Straker could tell – was his man.
Suddenly Straker sat up.
There he was.
Michael Lyons – balding, middle-aged, and slightly overweight, wearing an ill-fitting suit – appeared through the glass front doors of the Trifecta building. Straker immediately felt relieved again – not only that he had spotted his man, but also that Lyons was alone and didn’t seem to be walking with any degree of urgency or purpose. Nor was he carrying anything – briefcase, laptop, files – so it didn’t look like he was heading off to an appointment.
He watched Michael Lyons walk through the business park. Straker climbed out of his car and, after a considered interval, started to follow him on foot.
Straker was able to keep up.
From a distance, he kept Lyons in view.
The man ambled down a narrow footpath out of the complex, and turned left at the far end. Straker needed to jog briefly to maintain visual contact. Lyons – and then Straker – soon emerged onto a street with shops, bustling with shoppers. Looking left, Straker caught sight of his man – some way along the pavement – as he disappeared into a watering hole.
Straker quickened down the street to follow him inside.
It turned out to be a chichi bar occupying a redundant branch office, hived off by a high street bank. Straker entered in time to see Lyons make his way across the crowded room, between groups of chattering people, towards a free table and set of chairs against the back wall.
Straker picked his moment to pounce.
Moving swiftly across the room himself, he headed towards Lyons’s table. In one movement, Straker pulled out the opposite chair, dropped himself onto it, and said: ‘Michael, you should take a look at this,’ swinging the iPad round to face him. ‘After you jammed Sabatino’s radio in Monte-Carlo, and that psychotic crash you caused in Spa, this is the latest evidence of your sabotage – damage to Helli Cunzer’s exhaust and wishbone, and the cause of his crash in Monaco.’
Such an invasion of space was so unexpected – and so rapid. Moreover, a stranger had addressed Lyons directly by name. Then he was confronted with the series of images, the latter ones showing Cunzer’s horrific crash, the wreckage of his car, and an arresting one of the fireball that engulfed him. Lyons was completely thrown. The man looked up, an expression of concerned bemusement on his face. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he spluttered.
‘Someone who knows precisely what you and your scumbag friends are up to. You don’t have to be part of this, you know, Michael. Jamming may just be a bit of technical fun, even if it is still a violation of decency. But threatening lives is something very different. Always remember this,’ he said tapping the frame of the iPad on the table, ‘we can prove, now, that you’ve all got form. If you and your friends do go on to cause a death,’ said Straker with considerable menace, ‘it … will … be … murder. You will be named as an accessory. Do you understand? Do the right thing, man – shop these arseholes, before it’s too late … too late – for you.’
> Lyons’s equilibrium started to return, fuelled by a growing sense of intrusion at this confrontation. He tried to smile, but did so lamely. ‘You quite clearly don’t have the faintest idea of who you’re dealing with.’
Straker paused, saying nothing – deliberately for effect; he simply looked the other man straight in the eye. ‘The real question, Michael,’ he said, his voice quietening significantly, ‘is: do you?’
Straker paused again.
‘Do you trust them, Michael? Have you thought about that? Have you thought about what they might do – the moment they think you know too much? Have you ever thought they might even be setting you up as the fall guy?’
Straker was pleased.
The unexpected angle of this last comment clearly threw Lyons anew. ‘Here’s what I’m going to do, Michael: I’m going to give you a week – to do the decent thing and expose these people. If I’ve not heard from you by then, Ptarmigan is going to sack Trifecta – and we are going to cite your unethical conduct as the reason. You know, Apartment 5 at 25 Rue des Princes?’
Lyons suddenly looked genuinely startled.
‘We will make it perfectly clear that it was you – Michael – that lost Trifecta its business with us. You will then have to tell your scumbag friends that you lost them their opportunity to do Ptarmigan any more harm.’
Straker stared intently into the man’s face. ‘You’ve got a week to put this right,’ he said, placing a business card with his contact details down on the table. Standing up, Straker retrieved his iPad, and walked out of the bar.
Making his way back to the Ptarmigan factory, Straker turned this ploy over in his mind. Had he even gone far enough? Should he not have terminated the link with Trifecta, then and there? Straker was soon smiling, though, pleased with what he had done. His gambit – and deadline – had to put Lyons under some sort of pressure.
Straker was thinking all this through as he rounded the corner at the bottom of the Edgehill escarpment, when his attention was jolted away. Dropping a gear to start up the long climb, he heard a soul-wrenching growl of protest from his Honda engine. It got worse – before the thing packed up completely, and ground to a halt. Straker tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn’t even turn over. Nothing.
On a blind corner, he was stranded on a slope – fully in the road. Twisting quickly round, concerned about traffic hitting him from behind, he flicked the car out of gear, let it start rolling backwards down the hill and, once freewheeling under gravity, applied a little left-hand-down. With enough momentum, the car soon bumped up off the road, and completely onto the grass verge. There, close in against the hedge, Straker applied the handbrake.
Half an hour later Treadwell arrived to pick him up. There was a blast of Australian piss-taking over the state of Straker’s car. ‘I’ll get Morgans of Kineton to recover it. Probably far more humane to take it straight to the crusher – save everybody’s time.’
They abandoned the Honda on the side of the road, and drove back to the factory. ‘How did you get on with Trifecta?’ Treadwell asked.
Straker explained his tactics and relayed the conversation.
‘Oh to be a fly on the wall when Lyons has to fess up to that lot.’
Straker, though, wasn’t smiling. ‘We will have tweaked the tail of the tiger, all right. And they won’t like it. They’re bound to lash out. We have to be ready, Ollie, for whatever they throw at us next.’
THIRTY-SIX
Straker returned to London by train that same afternoon. Most of the way down through the Chilterns he was smiling to himself – savouring his first obvious move in striking back – and the protection it might afford Sabatino. His thoughts then turned to her in the context of their night together. He spent considerable time on his iPhone, drafting a text. It took him numerous iterations to get the tone and balance exactly right. Finally, as the train pulled out of High Wycombe, he pressed Send.
While waiting for a reply, Straker rang the factory. He pushed Nazar hard for a meeting with the drivers – to discuss Cunzer’s sabotaged suspension, and its implications in light of the other sabotage the team had endured. Although keen, the team principal was concerned about timing – the challenge of arranging a get-together before Monza, given everyone’s commitments elsewhere: he declared he could only give it a try.
Before arriving back in London, Straker got a reply from his text to Sabatino.
It wasn’t what he was expecting. At all.
All it said was: Me too, RS.
And that was it.
How could that be it? What was he meant to make of so little?
Tahm Nazar managed to come up with a clever solution for a meeting with the drivers. A forum was found – on common ground for the key players – surprisingly soon.
Within forty-eight hours Straker was able to meet them and Treadwell in Sussex, at the foot of the South Downs. Both Sabatino and Cunzer had long been scheduled to appear at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. To ensure comfort and privacy for their meeting, Nazar even sent down one of the Ptarmigan motor homes.
The Goodwood estate was bathed in summer sun. A gentle breeze blew across the English countryside. Thousands of people had come to enjoy the day out, and to celebrate the car. All kinds and marques were there – all treasured, cared for, and adored by their owners.
In among the automotive stars were plenty of human ones too. Rally drivers, MotoGP riders, and, in large number, Formula One stars – past and present. All were celebrated by the public – fans just looking for a glimpse of, a moment of interaction with, an autograph from, even a photograph standing beside one of their heroes. Age didn’t matter. Enthusiasm for the stars seemed to be the same from small boys, right up to pensionable men.
Straker was on site and in the motor home ahead of time. There, he waited for the drivers to appear. How was Sabatino going to react? he wondered. To his disappointment, he had heard nothing more from her since that brief text the day after their night together.
Now, waiting for Sabatino, Straker had to admit that he was apprehensive. He became agitated, and then even angry with himself. Why was he feeling this unsure of himself? Disconcerted by his troubles? Certainly they had undermined his confidence in other areas. Was it his divorce? He had never been awkward around women. Was there something else going on? Or was it this woman?
Shortly after eleven, the door of the motor home hissed open and Sabatino climbed up the stairs. Straker waited anxiously to see how she would behave.
She greeted Treadwell, and then him – exactly the same. This was functional – professional to professional. Sabatino was clearly being cool.
That was good, wasn’t it? thought Straker. Put on an indifferent front – not give anything away to the rest of the team. Much better to pretend.
But then there came no breach in the façade from Sabatino. No discreet “Hey you” wink, no hidden-from-other-people’s-view nudge, no accidental physical contact. She was cold. Completely cold. Straker was knocked back. He hadn’t expected anything like such a clinical reception.
After a few minutes, he realized – starkly – that this was to be the shape of it.
Thrown by her coolness, he kept his distance, leaving Treadwell and Sabatino to catch up between themselves – this being the first time the two of them had been face to face since Treadwell’s appointment as Sabatino’s race engineer.
Straker’s reaction to this was far worse than he had expected or feared.
He suddenly felt raw. Trying to rationalize things, he tried to persuade himself it would be easier this way. An intimate relationship – even an emotional one – would have to be complicated in such a high-pressured workplace, wouldn’t it? Mess things up. It had to be better to keep this professional.
Straker worked hard to convince himself that this was the better outcome.
Every time he came close, though, he found himself falling short – coinciding, more or less, with each time he looked at her. Why couldn’t he accept that line? His di
sappointment increased, almost to the point of distraction. He realized he was going to have to deal with this somehow. He was going to have to go on working with Sabatino. Even letting his feelings show would complicate things. He felt he was in a jam.
Bizarrely, Straker found himself an immediate and powerful cure.
A truly perverse one.
His antidote to all this was to summon up his troubles with the Americans and his flashbacks – which very quickly and all-too effectively distracted him from thoughts of what might have been with Sabatino. Despite the pain that that induced, Straker soon had to smile at his twisted fate. It seemed ironic that the very thing he was trying to escape from had become the antidote to his failing recovery from it.
Around Goodwood, Helli Cunzer, back up and about again after his terrifying Monaco crash – albeit on crutches – was a crowd favourite. Everywhere he went or tried to go he was fêted by fans and admirers. It took him much longer to get anywhere around the showground.
Later than planned, Cunzer climbed up into the Ptarmigan motor home. Sabatino, who hadn’t seen him since her hospital visit in Monte-Carlo, jumped straight up, flung her arms round him and hugged him closely. The contrast of her interaction with Cunzer hit Straker like a train.
The pint-sized German with his fine boyish features and close-cropped blond hair manoeuvred himself deftly onto one of the turquoise leather benches and stacked his crutches on the floor beside him.
Sabatino looked into her teammate’s face with genuine interest and feeling. ‘I still can’t believe you didn’t break anything major.’
‘Amazing, isn’t it? Several cuts – one big gash from a piece of carbon fibre through my thigh. But otherwise, no. I was extremely fortunate. What a car … What safety!’
‘When will you be able to drive again?’ Sabatino asked.
‘Monza,’ he said with a confident grin.
‘Wow! That soon?’
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