Driven (11 page)

‘Pretty much trial and error, then?’

The aerodynamicist nodded and moved further down the workshop. ‘Here, for instance,’ said Moore, ‘we’re working on and testing a design for a new front wing we’ve come up with. It’s quite a radical innovation. We’ve configured these three blades,’ he said lifting up a model of the nosecone, ‘to go on each end of the front wing.’

These, Straker saw, were curved and in different sizes, the smallest was about the same size as a paperback novel with the largest about the size of a piece of A3.

‘As you can see, they’re each curved and, when they’re fitted together, have the effect of spiralling the air up and back off the end of each wing. We’ve nicknamed them our Fibonacci Blades.’

‘As in the golden section?’ offered Straker.

‘The very same,’ said the aerodynamicist with a nod of appreciation. ‘It’s uncanny how nature’s arithmetic, so often, gets it right.’

Straker took the model and studied it more closely. ‘When do you hope to have this on the cars?’

‘Spa this weekend. We’re testing it in the wind tunnel at the moment, if you want to go and take a look?’

Backhouse accepted the invitation and they thanked Moore for his time. Straker was led from the modelling workshop through another set of computer-controlled doors and into a vast room. This was filled with a deafening rushing sound. Above their heads was a twelve-foot diameter tube configured in a circle about thirty yards across. ‘That’s the tunnel up there,’ said Backhouse as he led Straker up some stairs. ‘Air is accelerated and then whizzed continually round that loop.’

‘Like your own mini Hadron Collider?’

They reached a viewing gallery. Set in one wall was a sheet of glass which gave them sight of a half-sized model of a Ptarmigan racing car suspended from the ceiling by a complicated-looking hydraulic arm.

Backhouse provided a voice-over for Straker as he stared transfixed through the window: ‘You will notice the floor under the car is being rolled extremely quickly, which is turning the wheels. We do that to simulate the airflow through and around a real car as best we can.’

‘How long do you test each model for?’

‘Each modification gets about an hour in here. The results are analyzed. We then play with a few alterations, which we hope will make a difference, and then go back and test it all again – and so on.’

‘Good God, it sounds never-ending.’

‘It is – because it’s an iterative process. It shouldn’t surprise you that this wind tunnel is running twenty-four hours a day.’

‘No down time, then? How close to Spa will we be testing the car for
that
race?’

‘Right up until Remy’s car leaves here for Belgium tomorrow evening – hopefully fitted
with
our new design, the Fibonacci Blades, that Colin mentioned next door. You can see them, there, on the model,’ said Backhouse pointing through the window.

Backhouse walked Straker back to his office. ‘The fact is that if you don’t make improvements to your car, with every other team constantly trying to innovate, you’ll effectively end up going backwards,’ summarized Backhouse. ‘The Formula may get more and more restrictive from one year to the next, but, despite that, the developments we all make to our designs still make the cars go faster and faster every year.’

‘The pressure to perform is absolutely remarkable,’ declared Straker. ‘We were lectured on competitiveness throughout training in the Marines, but I truly didn’t fully understand what being competitive meant until I saw this. Your pursuit of every possible ounce of performance – in every single component of the cars – is astonishing. With all this effort and dedication, it makes the work of the saboteur all the more detestable.’

B
ackhouse led Straker into his spacious office, which had a restful view through the reflective glass out over the Oxfordshire countryside. Its inside walls were festooned with pictures of racing cars, miniature replicas of trophies, models of Ptarmigan cars and other memorabilia. Unexpectedly, one wall showed an array of photographs from a time when Backhouse had clearly been a member of the Massarella team. Straker had been completely unaware of that association in Backhouse’s past.

Turning his attention to the room, he was grateful to see a plate of shrink-wrapped sandwiches and several cans of soft drink waiting for them on the desk.

‘Thanks for the tour,’ said Straker. ‘It’s helped fill me in on the process, pressures, as well as our systems. Can we talk about overall security?’

‘Sure,’ said Backhouse, unwrapping the sandwiches and offering them to Straker. ‘You saw our computer-operated doors around the factory. Every member of our four hundred staff wears a security pass and has to swipe in and out of everywhere they go, as we did. That would have to make it hard for anyone to be where they shouldn’t, or do anything without being spotted.’

Straker acknowledged the statement with a nod.

‘What about scrutiny of the team out on the road and while we’ve got people at races?’

‘Not possible to be so tight,’ said Backhouse. ‘The road crew numbers about sixty, which includes the lorry drivers, those who travel with the cars, the kit, those who set up the garages in the pit lane, and the staff in the headquarter truck. Lorries can get left unattended, as do, sometimes, the cars and our kit – when things are being unloaded.’

‘What can we do to tighten security away at races?’

Backhouse finished chewing and snapped open a can of Coke. ‘The circuits operate very strict accreditation and pass controls, as you saw in Monte-Carlo. But they are not perfect and – here’s the crucial flaw – they don’t stop accredited members of other teams coming near us. We often find people wandering about – particularly, would you believe, in the pit lane?’

Straker frowned. ‘Where, then, do you reckon we are most vulnerable to interference?’

‘If these saboteurs have someone on the inside, Matt, it could be anywhere. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

Straker was surprised by such resignation. He hadn’t expected Backhouse to be quite so fatalistic. ‘What about external interference, then?’

‘We have a number of external suppliers – not many – who we accredit at the factory visit by visit. There, though, I think the opportunities are more limited – as the risks are enormous. If the saboteurs
are
connected with another team, and they got caught, the fines they’d suffer from the FIA would pretty much put them out of business. So if it is another team, they have got to be
extraordinarily
careful, clever and discreet.’

‘I think we need to face up to this being a very real and devious threat.’

Backhouse almost shrugged. ‘What do you want from us then?’

‘Enhanced awareness,’ replied Straker. ‘You have good security in the factory, which seemed to work well as we walked around this morning. We need everyone to stick to your existing rules, to the letter; it might be an inconvenience, but that will make it harder for any rogue insider. Also, at races, let’s cut out all visits to the pits for non-team members. Let’s set up our own internal checks into and out of our garage in the pit lane.’

Backhouse raised his eyebrows. ‘You do realize there’s an incompatibility between the spontaneity of a tactical racing team and the rigid processes of a security system.’

‘Look what happened to Helli. Do we really want to take any chance with machines that go this fast? It’s not just the lives of our drivers. It could be the crowds around the track. Next time the saboteurs strike, they could actually kill people.’

‘Of course I understand that,’ said Backhouse testily.

‘So we’ll tighten everything up?’

The race engineer nodded unenthusiastically. ‘So what are
you
doing – about all this?’ he said with just a hint of a challenge.

Ignoring Backhouse’s frustrated tone, he said: ‘Sabotage research. I want to learn more from the bug, which I’m hoping will tell us something. I also want us to go over what’s left of Helli’s car – to convince ourselves that his crash wasn’t caused by anything sinister.’

Backhouse took another bite of his sandwich. ‘The Monaco kit should be here by lunchtime tomorrow. We can examine the bug and begin the crash investigation then.’

‘Okay.’ Straker went on: ‘In the meantime, I want to chase down every lead – particularly Michael Lyons. How far are we from Gaydon?’

‘Ten or so miles.’

Straker looked at his watch. ‘In that case I’d like to borrow two things?’ Straker explained what he wanted to do. ‘The first, therefore, is a version of whatever system you use to track the cars round a circuit?’

‘A GPS tag. We can fix up some bits and pieces normally attached to an MES logger. What’s the other?’

‘A car?’

‘We’ve got Ptarmigan courtesy cars. You can have one of those.’

‘Are they liveried?’

‘Turquoise, brand name, the works.’

Straker smiled apologetically. ‘I’m looking for something inconspicuous – not flashy. Unmarked.’

‘Not really, then. You can take mine, if you like?’

‘What’ve you got?’

‘A six-year-old Ford Focus.’

‘Perfect.’

L
ater that afternoon, having spent some time with a Ptarmigan technician, Straker drove the nondescript Ford down the Edgehill escarpment, making his way to Gaydon. To his delight he saw four Aston Martins – being driven under trade plates – go by in the other direction.

He reached the edge of the village and started looking for the address elicited from the porter of that apartment block in Monte-Carlo.

A few minutes later Straker found himself driving down a very rural single-track road. Several hundred yards further along he saw a patch of mown verge and several white-painted stones marking the entrance to a driveway. “Flax Cottage” was painted, in an Old English typeface, on a plaque fixed to the gate.

Straker had reached his target.

Slowing to a walking pace, he crawled by – looking through the driveway to take in the small cottage, its thatched roof, neatly gravelled drive and wealth of colourful plants and flowers in the garden. There were no cars parked out front.

Straker found another house a few hundred yards further on, meaning that Lyons’s home was isolated and fairly private.

Turning round, but hanging some way back from Flax Cottage – on a bend in the road – Straker pulled up onto the verge and positioned himself to have a partial view back along the lane towards Michael Lyons’s driveway. This spot would allow him discreetly to observe anyone who came or went. He looked at his watch. It was nearing five-thirty in the afternoon.

So now he was sitting there, watching the house that he believed belonged to the Monte-Carlo saboteur. This address was all he had to go on to trace the people trying to do Ptarmigan harm. Straker had to smile to himself. How could this sleepy single-track road, and the modesty of this quintessentially English cottage, be so directly linked to the glamour, pace and wealth of the global Formula One industry? But it
was
– through an unknown I.T. specialist from Gaydon in Warwickshire.

Who
was
Michael Lyons? Who did he work for? And why the hell had he been trying to sabotage Remy Sabatino in Monaco?

Straker settled back in to his seat and waited for him to appear down this lonely country lane.

I
t wasn’t until seven o’clock that evening that anything happened. A Peugeot hatchback appeared, coming down the road towards him.

Straker sat up.

The car indicated left and shortly afterwards pulled in through the gate of Flax Cottage. Was this Michael Lyons returning home?

The evening was still bright, although with the cloud thickening to the west, the sun was long obscured and the light levels were fading fast.

Wanting to take a closer look, Straker climbed out of his car and walked along the lane towards Flax Cottage. He reached the gate and cautiously peered into the driveway. The small Peugeot was parked out on the gravel. Lights had come on in the house. Each window, Straker saw, had a curtain drawn across it. The occupant had clearly withdrawn for the day.

Straker walked in through the gate. Ghost-walking across the gravel – careful not to make a noise – he reached the back of the Peugeot. Bending down, he slipped a small magnetic container – the tag – up under the rear spoiler. But as he stood up, twisting slightly, his shoe made a crunching noise on the gravel.

Immediately a dog started barking from behind Michael Lyons’s front door.

Straker froze.

He held his breath.

It kept barking.

For several minutes.

Would the dog never relent? Straker daren’t make any more noise, in case of further alerting the dog. If he was quiet, surely the owner would dismiss the commotion from the animal as a false alarm. Straker remained crouching down, out of the sight of the windows,
directly behind the car. He seemed to be there, motionless, for an age. The barking continued, but at last he heard a raised voice from the inside, shouting the dog down.

Finally
, it shut up.

Straker, still in a crouch, slipped off his shoes. Easing himself up to full height again, he ghost-walked in his socks across the uncomfortable gravel to the grass beside the driveway. He made for the gate post. Nipping round the corner, he made it onto the verge, walked briskly to the end of the mown strip, put his shoes back on, and sauntered away slowly, back to his car.

Once inside and behind the wheel, he lifted a laptop he had left in the passenger well and turned it on. Within a matter of seconds, a satnav-like display showed a map on its screen with a flashing arrow indicating the location of the tracker.

Straker smiled to himself. He started his car and drove away.

B
ackhouse and Straker had supper at a local pub. After their early start that morning from Monte-Carlo, both were relieved to turn in relatively early – at Backhouse’s two-bedroom terraced house in Tysoe.

Straker woke at half-past five the next morning and immediately checked the tag-tracker device on the laptop. He was relieved to see Michael Lyons’s car still appeared to be parked out in front of Flax Cottage.

Straker drove straight for Gaydon and was back on his verge within view of Lyons’s driveway by six-thirty.

At seven thirty-five, Straker’s attention was caught by the white reversing lights of the Peugeot backing out of the drive from Flax Cottage. Simultaneously, the tracker beeped into life on his laptop, confirming Lyons’s movement and that, more importantly, the device was working.

He waited until the Peugeot was out of sight before following on behind. Any sight of Straker, now, would draw attention to him, particularly in such a quiet country byway. Once they were on the
open road, it wouldn’t be so much of a problem; he could lose his presence among other traffic.

Straker eased along, past Lyons’s home. Still out of sight, he saw on the tracker that his man was turning left towards the middle of the village. Straker followed suit.

Lyons headed for the motorway, turning north towards Warwick and Birmingham.

Hanging back, Straker followed him, observing the Peugeot from some distance behind, comforted by being able to track him electronically at the same time.

Lyons left the M40 and headed for Royal Leamington Spa. Straker followed him into the centre of the town, in amongst its surprisingly elegant white stucco Regency townhouses and dark green cedar trees.

Lyons parked by a meter in the town centre.

This was odd, thought Straker. Where was Lyons going? Not to his office, if he was on a meter. Was he there for a meeting or a trip to the shops? Still some distance away, Straker quickly came to a halt, pulling over on the opposite side of the road, hoping to observe the direction in which Lyons might be making on foot. Straker saw his man walk down the street away from him. Lyons reached the intersection with The Parade and turned right. Driving on again, Straker pulled up to the same crossroads. From there, he was able to wait long enough at the intersection – before anyone honked him from behind – to see Lyons crossing the road a little way further down the hill. Lyons, dodging through the traffic to the far side of The Parade, soon disappeared into the grand entrance of The Regent Hotel.

Straker needed to follow him on foot to be sure. Sod’s Law had it there were no free parking spaces or meters nearby. Straker had to drive on down past the hotel and over the River Leam. It wasn’t until he reached Bath Place – two turnings on and some distance later – that he found a parking space. Bolting back from the car over the bridge, and up to the hotel, he reached the main entrance and walked in.

Slightly out of breath, he ordered a coffee to be taken in the reception area. Asking for the lavatories, Straker walked on into the hotel past the dining room. He managed to spot Lyons over by the window having breakfast with someone. Straker looked around his immediate location to check whether he was being stealthy enough. Believing he was, he moved slightly behind a door, pulled out his phone, switched it to “camera” and, as surreptitiously as possible, aimed the lens at his quarry, zoomed in, and fired off a couple of shots. In one, he managed to catch Lyons’s rendezvous almost face on.

Straker returned to his low table in among the armchairs of the reception area, where he helped himself to the coffee and, reading one of the broadsheets available in the hotel, kept a discreet but attentive eye on the main entrance in the lobby.

Michael Lyons walked out an hour or so later.

Straker, raising his eyes from the crossword, saw him go and, within a few seconds, had dropped a note into the leather bill holder, replaced the newspaper, and followed Lyons as far as the door. Through the porch windows to one side, Straker was able to watch Lyons make his way back up The Parade to Regent Street, and presumably his car.

Moving quickly from the main entrance of the hotel, Straker turned left and ran swiftly and easily down the street in the opposite direction, back over the river and to his own car in Bath Place.

Ten minutes later, Straker was three cars back from Lyons as he saw the Peugeot indicating left to turn into an industrial estate. Still some way behind, he followed Lyons through the business park before his quarry pulled up in front of a sizeable and impressive modern factory complex. Michael Lyons parked in what looked like a reserved bay, among the heavily manicured beds and trees out the front. Above the glass doors of the main entrance, Straker saw the name of the business. It rang a bell from his tour round the Ptarmigan factory the day before: Trifecta Systems. And, from the respectful nod Lyons received from the security guard standing by the main entrance, and a smile from a woman coming out of the building,
Straker felt comfortable in deducing that Lyons was well-enough known here for this to be his place of work.

S
traker made it back to Ptarmigan shortly after nine-thirty, and passed on his findings to Backhouse. ‘Michael Lyons had breakfast with a guy in the Regent Hotel,’ he told him, ‘and then pitched up for work at Trifecta Systems.’

‘
Trifecta?
’

‘Didn’t you mention them yesterday?’

‘I did – when we were talking about working with Benbecular. They provide our bespoke EMS – engine management system.’

‘What else do Trifecta do? It looked like a pretty big set-up.’

‘It is. They’re not just into engine management. They produce all our on-car electronics.’

‘All of them?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Including radios?’

Backhouse’s eyebrows raised as he realized the implications. ‘Oh Christ. But that doesn’t make sense, at all. Why would Trifecta be out to sabotage one of their own clients?’

Straker smiled, appearing to relish the conundrum.

‘It can’t be Trifecta on their own,’ said Backhouse. ‘It’s much more likely to be another Grand Prix team behind this.’

‘I agree. How many other teams would Trifecta be involved with?’

‘Most, in some way, shape or form. They’re more or less motor racing’s in-house electronics firm.’

‘No immediate leads there, then,’ concluded Straker as he pulled out his iPhone and, flicking through his pictures to find the clearest shot, handed the device to Backhouse. ‘Okay, what about this, then? Here’s the guy Lyons met for breakfast. Any idea who
he
is?’

The race engineer looked down at the snatched portrait, before frowning. ‘No.’

Backhouse studied the picture closely. He paused. ‘Hang on, can you zoom in?’

Straker leant across and demonstrated a two-finger spread on the screen. Backhouse copied the action for himself, zoomed in to enlarge the picture, and then peered closely at the image. ‘Well, looky there,’ he said turning the screen round to show Straker. ‘This guy’s wearing a Benbecular lapel pin – logo and all. What’s the betting he’s a company man?’

‘Where are Benbecular based, then?’ asked Straker.

‘Also in Leamington Spa.’

‘And which teams do
they
supply?’

‘Us, Lambourn and Massarella.’

Straker smiled resignedly. ‘The Byzantine interconnectivity is utterly incestuous here.’

‘Oh it is. You have to remember that pre-Bernie, Formula One was tiny – a set of cottage industries. Thanks to him, it’s all grown proportionately: many of the firms originally involved in the sport are more or less still there – they’ve just got a lot bigger along the way.’

‘Which is fascinating, charming, and impressive – but seriously reduces the chances of any one relationship indicating who might be behind the sabotage.’