Driven (18 page)

‘W
hat do you mean he’s defected?’ barked Quartano over the phone. ‘I knew he’d resigned. How’s he defected?’

‘You won’t believe it,’ replied Straker. ‘He’s gone over to Massarella.’

Quartano exploded. ‘
What?
How could that even be
possible?
What on earth would’ve possessed him to do that? The Judas, the fucking
Judas
. Makes him as big a bastard as they are. Hang on, doesn’t that prove once and for all that he
was
the insider saboteur?’

Straker stayed silent.

‘He’s under contract, for Christ’s sake,’ bawled Quartano. ‘Non-compete. Matt, get onto legal and have them nail this.’ Quartano just seemed to grunt for a moment. ‘Damnit, this
has
to make him the bastard insider,’ he repeated. ‘All the more reason to slap an injunction on him,’ he little-less-than bellowed. ‘Straker, I want you to stop that arsehole getting anywhere near Massarella!’

S
traker decided to stay on in Spa, over Sunday night – after the rest of the team had left – to try to handle the fallout from Backhouse’s departure. Taking a walk through the race complex as the place started to empty, he looked out over the valleys of the Ardennes in the last of the evening sun, trying to visualize and rationalize the whole sabotage situation.

He thought through each of the elements he had encountered so far: Michael Lyons. Radio jamming. Jeremy Barnett. Benbecular engines. Adi Barrantes. Massarella. The strange fob-like device. Trifecta. The engine management system.

Every time he thought of a new incident or person to add to the web of influences in his mind’s eye, he realized an association of some kind could be made straight back to a common denominator: Trifecta Systems. Visualizing all these elements together helped make the circumstances all the clearer.

But why were these people all involved? It didn’t seem to make any sense.

How could he set about rationalizing this? Then he thought of something else. Could there not be something – or some
one
– behind it all? A controlling mind? That got him thinking.

What about this Avel Obrenovich?

Wasn’t he something of a connection between these parties? He was majority shareholder of Trifecta
and
the principal sponsor of Massarella. Might
he
be the one empowering all this?

What on earth, though, was the motivation to launch these malicious assaults on Ptarmigan and Remy Sabatino? This was “just” a competitive sport. It was completely beyond Straker’s comprehension that anyone should go to such lengths – particularly being so invasive, let alone demonstrating contempt for rules, law, fair play, even to the point of risking human life.

Such malicious intent had to be about more than just winning a few races.

T
he following morning Straker was ready to act on his theories. Standing on the platform under Calatrava’s magnificent canopy at Liège-Guillemins station, he called Karen in London. Looking round him on the platform to make sure he couldn’t be overheard, he asked: ‘How’s the research on Charlotte Grant’s iPhone going?’

‘Not bad, Matt, but it
has
been the weekend since you asked.’

Straker smiled, having lost track of time. ‘Sure, sorry. Any idea how long it’s all going to take, though?’

‘I.T. said it should be done by close of business today.’

‘Okay, Karen,’ he conceded, and checked the privacy around him again. In slightly hushed tones, he said: ‘I need something else. Can you do me an all-sources search on those involved with Avel Obrenovich: Obrenovich Oil & Gas, the Massarella Formula One team, and its boss Eugene Van Der Vaal? Could you print off the top fifty stories for each, and put them into one of your binders for me?’

‘You want cuttings too?’

‘You’re one step ahead of me, as always. International, as well as domestic, please.’

‘No problem.’

Straker felt that his research into the other side’s emotional starting point was now under way. His immediate priority, though, was protection. ‘Karen, who’s our head of legal?’

‘Stacey Krall,’ she replied.

‘Can you put me through?’

‘Sure, hang on.’

A deep voice soon said: ‘Stacey Krall.’

‘Hello Stacey, Matt Straker. We’ve not met. I’m a director of Quartech’s Competition Intelligence and Security – CIS. I’m on assignment with Ptarmigan.’

‘Yes, hello. I’ve just been processing your directorship papers with Companies House.’

‘Sorry I can’t come and see you – I’m on my way back from Belgium.’ Once again Straker looked around him to be sure no one was in earshot. ‘We’ve got an issue with a member of staff. Mr Quartano’s asked me to take out an injunction on him.’

‘Mr Backhouse – yes, I know – Mr Quartano’s already been on to me.’

‘That was quick.’

‘He doesn’t hang around on many things, least of all with breaches of trust.’

‘And?’

‘I’ve been through the Backhouse file. Unfortunately – and this
didn’t
go down well with Mr Quartano – his contract with Ptarmigan isn’t one of ours.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s an original – a pre-Quartech one. It’s not as robust as ours would be.’

‘Does that mean we can serve him or not?’

‘Afraid not.’

Straker found himself smiling. ‘So we’ve no way of stopping him going to Massarella?’

‘Not legitimately, no. We can threaten him with legal action – and put the frighteners on him.’

‘But in the meantime, we can’t stop him working for Massarella?’

‘No.’

Straker could only pull a face at his luck.

O
nce back in Britain, Straker went directly to the Ptarmigan factory in Oxfordshire. On arrival, he met Tahm Nazar who led him straight to the loading bay, serving as the examination space for the crash investigation of Helli Cunzer’s car.

Right across the polished white-painted floor were the recovered components of the wreckage, placed more or less in the same relational position to each other as on the original chassis. It reminded Straker of a technical illustration where bits of an object are expanded out and cut away to show its innards and workings. ‘To think there was a human being right in the middle of all this as it disintegrated,’ said Straker almost dreading the thought.

‘Amazing, yes,’ said the professorial-looking Nazar. ‘It’s a testament to modern design and safety standards that he lived. He suffered a serious wound to his thigh, and a couple of broken ribs – but that’s about it. He’s already back in part-time training.’

‘That’s extraordinary,’ breathed Straker.

‘He’s been up here on the simulator a couple of times – he’ll be fit to race again soon.’

The two men walked in among parts of the wreckage, and Straker looked at the twisted remains. ‘How much of the car do you think you’ve recovered?’ he asked, as he watched five men working intensely across the floor, measuring, scraping and weighing components, while a colleague was busy recording their findings into a computer to one side.

‘About eighty per cent.’

‘Will that be enough? What if we’re missing key bits?’

‘We won’t get an answer,’ replied Nazar flatly.

‘And there’s no indication, so far, of what caused the crash?’

The team boss shook his head. ‘Not yet, but these things take time, and they really only come together once the initial – time-consuming – recording is completed. We’re still in the assimilation phase.’

N
azar led Straker away, and up to his office. Treadwell was waiting for them there.

‘How’s Remy taken the news of Backhouse’s defection?’ Straker asked.

‘She’s mighty pissed off,’ replied Treadwell in surprisingly soft Australian. ‘She and Andy were incredibly close.’

‘How will you handle his departure?’

‘Ollie used to be one of our race engineers,’ offered Nazar.

‘Yeah, I’m going to work with her.’

‘Will she be okay with the disruption?’

‘Hope so.’

‘Good,’ said Straker sounding a little relieved.

‘How the hell did this happen?’ Nazar asked. ‘How did Backhouse crack – then defect?’

‘Maybe he never
left
Massarella,’ offered Treadwell suspiciously. ‘You know he was with them for ten years before he came here.’

Straker shrugged. ‘I do know he was pretty cut up about the threat to safety from the saboteur.’

‘That doesn’t wash,’ replied Nazar dismissively. ‘It might explain the resignation – but is completely inconsistent with his going to the team that we think’re behind the sabotage.’

‘Unless he only left Massarella in the first place to infiltrate us as part of some long-term deception?’

Straker shook his head. ‘It could just be more prosaic than that. When I came up here before and stayed with him, Backhouse was pretty open about his domestic affairs. He’s recently divorced. His wife cleaned him out financially as well as emotionally, taking the children. He lives in a pokey little terraced house in Tysoe. Drives an ancient Ford Focus. I can imagine Massarella would have offered him an appealing solution to his money troubles.’

‘We’ll only know for sure when we get to ask him, and that’s not going to happen anytime soon.’

‘Right,’ said Straker, taking the comment as a welcome cue to change the subject. ‘Can we talk about protecting ourselves, from now on, against Backhouse’s defection – and against Trifecta?’

‘I thought the Big Man was serving him with an injunction, even if it was only a phoney one?’ replied Treadwell.

‘What Backhouse knows about our cars – now – is going to be out of date pretty quickly,’ said Nazar. ‘I’m not that fussed.’

‘Really?’ said Straker a little surprised. ‘Remind me to talk to you about our Fibonacci Blades when we’re done.’

‘I thought you said on the phone that you wanted to talk about Trifecta?’

Straker nodded. ‘I do. Our sabotage experience is becoming extensive. We’ve uncovered a number of people who seem to be involved in this. But I believe there is a clear common denominator. Somehow every incident we’ve suffered links back to Trifecta. Every one. It strikes me that we’ve either got to stop them, which would not be straightforward – or we have to remove them, completely, as any form of future threat.’

‘Couldn’t we just confront the senior management?’ suggested Treadwell. ‘Do we really believe the board are behind all this – even aware of, let alone sanction, these incidents? It’s a grown-up firm – with grown-up directors. Surely a word with any of them would cleanse the firm of any roguish activity?’

‘Fair point,’ Straker replied. ‘How big’s the company – how many staff?’

‘About a thousand.’

‘A security nightmare,’ observed Straker with conviction. ‘Far too big for us to be sure they’ve flushed out every rogue employee. And we’d still have the influence of Obrenovich, as a shareholder. I was thinking – can we not be more surgical? Can we not switch everything to another provider? That way, we would cut Trifecta out as a risk – once and for all.’

Treadwell scoffed. ‘Okay for things like our radios and data links, but Trifecta are integral to our engine management system. Starting again – in the middle of the season – could set our performance back months.’

Straker had already considered this difficulty. ‘Aren’t there other ECM contractors in the swim? Don’t other Benbecular runners use different firms?’

‘Yes,’ said Nazar. ‘Valentines would be the biggest. Cohens are probably the more specialized.’

‘Can we not at least ask them some questions about their capabilities and discuss a possible switch to them?’

Treadwell looked decidedly unhappy.

‘We’ll look into it,’ said Nazar, with a hint of an overruling.

‘Good,’ said Straker. ‘I think that’s it, then, for now.’

‘Thanks for your help, Matt,’ said Nazar. Then, sounding slightly intrigued, he said: ‘Hang on. You asked us to remind you about our Fibonacci Blades?’

‘Oh yes,’ replied Straker, ‘should I be surprised to see precisely the same design on the front wing of the Massarella in Spa?’

‘
What?
’ asked Nazar, sounding genuinely taken aback. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Completely.’

‘How the hell did they get there?’

‘What about Andy fucking Backhouse?’ offered Treadwell, slumping back in his chair. ‘If he was only ever with us as a Massarella plant, why
wouldn’t
he have leaked our modifications and ideas back to them as well?’

S
traker returned to Fulham.

But the empty flat didn’t do it for him. His sense of loss nearly prompted him to move out and stay in one of the shockingly retro bedrooms in his beloved Brooks’s.

In the end, though, his tiredness prevailed, and he fell asleep. But the talk of treachery and betrayal had clearly triggered Straker’s subconscious.

During the night, his psyche harked back to the last time he felt betrayal – his last encounter with Charlie Grant. He relived every moment of the night he had spent with her, in this flat, in London.

His mind swirled back to the morning after. It was all so vivid still. Leaving her sleeping, Straker had gone through to the kitchen to make breakfast for them both. He was wallowing in the afterglow of intimacy and first sex with this amazing new woman in his life.

But that feeling didn’t last.

Heart-stoppingly, he came across, entirely by accident, the woman’s ID card, lying on the floor, having fallen from her bag – collateral damage from their frenzied passion of the night before. He realized immediately that this serene beauty was
not
with him by accident. It was clear that she had deliberately targeted him, aiming to exploit information about his assignment – so as to thwart Quartech’s defence contract with Buhran and Quartano’s relationship with that regime. She turned out to be nothing less than an – as-yet-unmet – colleague in Quartech’s Competition Intelligence, his own department. Charlie Grant, he had discovered through her own proximity to him, turned out to be the traitor he had been tasked to uncover.
She
had been the one leaking highly secret and commercially sensitive data to outsiders. She was the reason the weapons
contract with Buhran needed salvaging.
She
had been the one betraying the company.

Straker felt embarrassed and angry with himself. Angry he had been so clearly taken in, angry at his own sense of feeling betrayed and hugely embarrassed that he had failed to anticipate such tactics. All this hit him hard and taught him a serious lesson about the secretive and cutthroat competitiveness of the arms business. That episode with Charlie Grant also did something else. It stripped away any lingering naïveté he might have had about the likely practices he should expect from exponents of industrial espionage. That first assignment for Quartech saw him well and truly bloodied, in numerous senses of the word.

Now, in the immediate present, Straker couldn’t help but wonder what other havoc Charlie Grant might have wreaked against Ptarmigan? Such thoughts were alarmingly significant: throughout the period she had been so damagingly engaged in industrial espionage against Quartech’s weapons contract with Buhran, Charlie Grant had been officially on secondment to the company’s Formula One team.

T
he following morning, Straker made it in to Quartech’s London global headquarters in Cavendish Square. Having not spent any proper time in his department office since his previous assignment, it was strangely comforting. With his domestic difficulties, and the hollowness of being on his own in their marital flat, this felt more like home than home did.

Walking into the Competition Intelligence and Security offices on the ninth floor, he saw the cityscape of London through the ceiling-to-floor plate-glass windows. In the morning sun, which had now burned off all the earlier mist, the capital appeared warm and inviting to Straker – something he never thought possible after leaving his outdoor life in the Marines.

Karen was already at her desk. They caught up, particularly given the dramatic goings-on in Belgium.

Straker slipped off his coat and hung it over the back of his chair. ‘Have you managed to get anywhere with Charlie’s phone?’

‘A bit. It’s really weird prying into her affairs.’

Straker nodded his sympathy. ‘I appreciate that. Sadly, Karen, she was up to things that did us a fair amount of harm. Now, her phone can help us.’

‘There are loads of numbers in there, and I.T. have said that most of them are entered as nicknames or some sort of code name.’

‘I saw that. Okay, we need to do something about it. Let’s try this. Can you rope in some of the research team and get them to call each of the entries that aren’t fully named? But they’re only to call using a Caller ID Withheld number – so there’s no way we can be identified.’

‘Okay? And what do you want them to say?’

‘Let’s think … What about that they’ve found the phone – as lost property, or something – and are trying to identify its owner by ringing some of the numbers in its directory?’

‘Okay, Matt. I’ll get on to it.’

‘Good. How did the all-sources search go?’

Karen pointed to a lever arch file placed in the middle of his desk.

Straker opened it to find a contents page, dividers and comprehensive index references. ‘Immaculate,’ he said looking up to meet her eye.

She smiled coyly and returned to her screen.

Straker offered to get her a cup of coffee, which she accepted. Having put it on her desk, he went back and poured one for himself which he then carried along with the folder into a quiet room in the corner of their floor. This room had its own eye-catching views of the City of London and Canary Wharf in one direction, and the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster and the London Eye Ferris wheel through the other.

The whole Formula One scene and the extraordinary sabotage incidents were about to become a whole lot murkier.

He started with the earlier press cuttings which referenced Massarella and Van Der Vaal.

MASSARELLA’S VAN DER VAAL SAYS OPPORTUNITIES BEING LOST
, read one headline from two years before.

VAN DER VAAL ATTACKS GRIP OF F1 POWER
, read another.

TOO MUCH POWER IN TOO FEW HANDS
was published at the end of the previous season but one.

Van Der Vaal, it seemed, had been constantly criticizing and sniping at the governance of Formula One.

Then, in the middle of last season, Straker noticed the angle of Van Der Vaal’s comments began to change. This seemed predicated on the story headlined:
MASSARELLA LANDS OBRENOVICH MILLIONS
.

There were dozens more like this. Among them:
VAN DER VAAL + F1 + OBRENOVICH = THE MIDAS TOUCH
.

A few months after that, Straker picked up a new theme which Van Der Vaal was clearly encouraging – or at least doing little to discourage. One article summed it up:

‘Bloody hell,’ said Straker out loud.

HOW I WOULD RUN F1, SAYS VAN DER VAAL
, was the headline above an interview in which Van Der Vaal launched his strongest diatribe yet against Motor Racing Promotions Limited and the commercial
interests of the sport. The quote that caught his eye was: “I’m the man to run Formula One.”

Talk about a blatant challenge. Van Der Vaal’s chutzpah was amazing.

Straker read on.

Big of him, thought Straker. The ego which gave Van Der Vaal the status of self-elected leader of the group was quite remarkable.

And then everything changed.

Literally overnight.

Remy Sabatino came on the scene.

The moment Quartano signed her to Ptarmigan, the press coverage exploded. Most of the subsequent references were unreservedly positive – praising the excitement of adding a female driver to the Formula One grid. They applauded the huge increase in public interest this was creating. Quartech was hailed for its imagination, innovation, and ability to advance the sport.

There was at the same time, though, some fierce opposition.

While Straker accepted this snapshot of press cuttings was filtered, it did seem clear that the detractors of a woman driver had found themselves an emphatic front man.

Karen had played a blinder in unearthing all this. She had not limited her search to one medium, either. She had even found a YouTube clip, and identified the relevant link in the folder. Firing up his laptop, Straker clicked on the two minute video entitled:
F1 IN DANGER OF DAMAGING STATUS OF SPORT
.

As far as he could tell, this was from a local news programme in France – recorded in English but carrying French subtitles. Despite the poor quality of the clip, Van Der Vaal’s gruff personality came through loud and clear:

In another article, headed:
SPONSORSHIP REVENUES TO BE DAMAGED BY EFFEMINACY
, Van Der Vaal attacked the presence of Sabatino on the grounds that male and masculine brands were being diminished by a woman driver.

His attacks intensified after Sabatino first made it onto the podium.

Then there seemed to be a dramatic key change.

The first major counter to Van Der Vaal’s attacks came from within the sport and from a highly respected source:

Straker found the following headlines and supporting articles:

One thing was becoming abundantly clear. While Straker believed he had been accurate in deducing Massarella’s involvement in the sabotage incidents on the track, he was now convinced he had unearthed a clear motivation for causing Ptarmigan harm.

An emotional starting point.

Van Der Vaal’s vaulting ego had clearly got the better of him. He had raised the stakes – having held himself out as the next Bernie Ecclestone – and clearly overreached himself. He’d been completely outshone by Quartech. Van Der Vaal, it seemed, had been humbled – even humiliated, some might have said. That meant Avel Obrenovich might not be the prime mover behind the sabotage attacks on Ptarmigan.

With this re-evaluation, another related thought came to him.

What about that bizarre reaction from Joss MacRae in Spa? Was that MacRae just being MacRae, or was there something else behind his behaviour, too? MacRae’s total dismissal of Massarella’s alleged wrongdoing had been mighty peculiar. Straker was prompted to check him out.

Walking back into the office, Straker said to Karen: ‘What you’ve found is superb,’ he said. ‘Thank you. Could you have a further look and see if you can find any connection, this time, between Van Der Vaal and Joss MacRae?’

‘Just those two?’

‘Good point, the other names involved might be Massarella, Avel Obrenovich, Obrenovich Oil & Gas and Motor Racing Promotions.’

Karen wrote down the names and an outline of the task.

‘Righto.’

‘How’s Charlie’s phone coming?’

‘I’ve just heard. Should be finished soon after lunch.’

H
aving spent three hours cocooned in the quiet room, Straker left the office for some fresh air. He bought a sandwich, walked up to
Regent’s Park, and sat down on the grass to eat his lunch. The park’s trees, planting and manicured lawns helped calm his thoughts. Even so, it didn’t stop his mind eventually drifting back to his divorce, the causes of it – and the other stresses stemming from the effects of his rendition and torture by the Americans. Not even the tranquillity of Regent’s Park could save him from those thoughts.

Straker walked back to the office, desperate to be distracted again.

‘Oh, Matt,’ said Karen. ‘I’ve just got the research back on Charlie’s phone – the directory numbers and some of the names.’

Glad to be occupied again so quickly, Straker took the latest batch of research and returned to the quiet room to sift through what they had found.

Now with a fuller name attributed to each number, he hoped to cross-reference these with the itemized phone log. It might enable him to build a picture of the people and organizations with whom Charlie Grant had been in contact. Straker set to work. From the list of calls in and out he found high volumes between her and Adi Barrantes, Lord Lambourn and Andy Backhouse.