Driven (6 page)

Overhead came the high-pitched whine of a jet turbine. An emergency services helicopter swooped in over the harbour. It was able to put down on the area of road by the Chicane at a safe enough distance from the wreckage.

Seconds later, four medics lifted the stretcher and shuffle-walked the driver as fast as they could, subconsciously ducking under the rotors. Cunzer’s stretcher was manhandled aboard. No more than a moment later, the pitch on the rotors steepened and, with a blast of air out from under the disc, the helicopter lifted off the ground,
swung round to face the sea, dipped its nose, pulled more pitch, and climbed rapidly up into the air, out over the harbour.

By the time he arrived at the Princesse Grace hospital, Cunzer hadn’t regained consciousness.

U
nderstandably – and fittingly – Qualifying was suspended. It wasn’t until three hours later, in front of a mass of media congregating around the main entrance of the hospital, that a spokesman finally emerged to make a statement.

Within a matter of minutes of his arriving at the hospital, the doctor explained, Cunzer had been rushed into theatre. After two hours on the operating table he had been moved into intensive care. Still unconscious, none of the medical specialists yet knew of his mental condition – whether he had suffered any brain damage in the trauma of the crash.

But at least he was alive.

Just.

T
he mood around the circuit and pits was extraordinarily subdued. Nowhere more so than within Ptarmigan. Not only had they seen their colleague and friend go through such a horrific ordeal – but all minds were concerned about the cause. What did this mean for the reliability of the Ptarmigan cars? Would the same fate befall Sabatino, driving an identical machine?

The effect of all this was worse on those who knew about the sabotage. Was there a connection? Was this hideous accident just an accident? Or was Cunzer’s crash the intended result of malicious intervention?

Straker’s phone went. It was Backhouse: ‘What the fuck does Helli’s smash indicate?’ he asked. ‘What if there
is
a connection between that and the radio sabotage?’

Straker realized he needed to strike the right balance here. He was anxious they maintained a high level of vigilance, but that they were not alarmist – not least given Sabatino’s scepticism and irritation
over the sabotage issue. ‘We don’t yet know the cause of his crash,’ he said. ‘Presumably we will carry out a full investigation on the wreckage?’

‘So you
do
suspect a connection?’

‘I do – if only for the sake of motivating us to take the right precautions. I would far rather we did something and were wrong than we did nothing and were proved complacent.’

‘Should we not talk this through with Remy, then? To make her take the threat seriously?’

Straker couldn’t deny that this accorded with his professional view. ‘I’ll leave that to you, Andy. You know her, and have the advantage of not being an interloper whom she seems to distrust.’

S
traker wasn’t told whether Backhouse did say anything about the possible causes of the crash. Sabatino had shut herself away in the back of the pit lane garage.

She sat with her head down, trying to shut the drama surrounding her teammate out of her mind.

She couldn’t let it affect her.

If she did, she might never get back in a cockpit again.

A
fter Helli Cunzer’s horrific crash, there was much discussion between the powers that be. Eventually, the decision was taken to restart Qualifying – spun aggressively to the press, media and watching world as the sport paying tribute to the bravery and spirit of one of its most promising young drivers.

Q
ualifying Three finally got under way.

But Straker soon realized that Cunzer’s crash hadn’t affected everybody. It hadn’t affected Ptarmigan’s curse.

Midway through Q3, Straker got his first real scent of the saboteur.

Sabatino was out on track. Approaching Massenet.

Backhouse radioed that, with the lighter fuel load, the brake balance needed to be adjusted slightly to the rear. There was no acknowledgement from Sabatino until she was halfway down the hill to Mirabeau. But then, as she transmitted, and started speaking, the radio signal was jammed. She stopped transmitting and waited while she concentrated through that right-hander and the left-hand hairpin of Loews before transmitting again. When she did, her voice was drowned out completely by the crackle of white noise. Approaching the tunnel, she spoke once more, and the same thing happened. Straker heard exactly what it was immediately.

This wasn’t blanket jamming – as Backhouse had observed on Thursday. This jamming was deliberate. Someone was transmitting – very precisely – to coincide each time, this time, with Sabatino’s messages.

This was their saboteur all right.

He was back.

S
traker’s eyes bore into the screen. “Come on, pick him up!” he said to himself. “Where are you, you fucker?”

Suddenly, two vectors flashed across the wire diagram on his screen. And intersected. Mentally, he shouted: “Gotcha!”

The source of the transmission appeared to be on the promontory up by the Palace of Monaco. A printer whirred into life printing off the saboteur’s location on a map of Monte-Carlo.

Grabbing a small digital camera and shoving it in his pocket, Straker darted out of the back of the headquarters truck, pulled on a helmet, jumped onto a Piaggio Scooter, fired it into life and hurtled out of the paddock towards the Palace on its rocky promontory above the harbour behind him, to the west of Monte-Carlo.

Getting through any part of the town, with the Grand Prix infrastructure and circus blocking the way, was hell. Weaving and snaking between the traffic, he swept round the back of Avenue de la Quarantaine before starting his climb up the inclined road cut into the cliff face.

Straker crested the plateau no more than eight minutes after detecting the jammer on his screen, and steamed down a few narrow streets before reaching Rue des Ramparts. Pulling off the road into a sightseeing lay-by, he stopped, extracted the map, orientated himself quickly, and confirmed his location. There was no mistake. He was in the very spot identified by the triangulation.

Straker looked up and down the road, squinting against the brilliant sunshine and scoured everything in sight for anything suspicious – any sign of someone with a radio or some kind of device. He studied a group of holiday makers traipsing along the road, but they seemed to be simply using the vantage point of the road to look down over the waist-high wall at the magnificent view of Monte-Carlo, the harbour, and its marina full of yachts bathing in the sun below. There was nothing else there.

No stationary cars. No one looking suspicious. No one with any kind of equipment.

No sign of a saboteur anywhere.

S
traker made it back to the pit lane as Q3 finished. Simi Luciano in the Massarella had qualified on pole by a considerable margin – point-six of a second. A Ferrari was next to him on the front row in P2. Remy Sabatino was third, on the second row, while the Championship leader, Paddy Aston in the Lambourn, was alongside her in fourth. Adi Barrantes, the Argentinian in the other Massarella, was down in P7.

Straker walked back into the garage. Sabatino accosted him: ‘Well? Any developments with the
so-called
saboteur?’

Straker forced a smile – despite the edge in her voice. ‘Yes and no.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Somebody was active. I got a fix. When I got to the location, there was no one there.’

Sabatino screwed up her face. ‘What a surprise.’

Straker responded with a neutral expression and a shrug, realizing he wasn’t going to get any support from her on the sabotage issue. ‘Well done in Qualifying, then,’ he said. ‘Pretty impressive, given the circumstances and the scare with Helli. You pleased?’

‘Sort of,’ grunted Sabatino. ‘Be warned,’ she added with a pointed smile, ‘if I get any grief from the Big Man about not being on the front row, I’ll blame you and the distraction of chasing your non-existent spy.’

S
traker, Quartano and Backhouse were in conference five minutes later.

‘How’s Helli?’

Backhouse looked shattered. ‘Tahm’s up at the hospital waiting for news.’

‘I want to know immediately of any development,’ said Quartano.

‘Of course, sir.’

Quartano changed the subject, saying to Straker: ‘What about the saboteur? Are you sure this bastard’s still out there?’

‘Quite sure.’

‘What more can we do?’

‘Nothing different, at least for the time being,’ answered Straker confidently, despite not offering any new ideas.

‘Remy remains unconvinced by any of this,’ Backhouse reported, ‘and is sorely irritated by the distraction of our countermeasures.’

Quartano shrugged his tolerance. ‘We certainly don’t want to affect her or the team’s concentration in the race.’

Straker said quietly: ‘I’m pretty sure I can do what’s needed without interrupting her normal routine.’

‘Okay, let’s not disturb her race tomorrow,’ summarized Quartano. ‘Do all you can – but try and keep everything as passive as possible.’

T
hat was all fine in principle. Straker had a feeling the saboteur was going to be
anything
but passive.

R
ace day of the Monaco Grand Prix.

At five minutes to two the next afternoon, following a procession of carnival-like entertainment for the crowds – including the drivers being paraded round the circuit on an open-top bus, and the staging of the Formula Renault and GP2 support races – the long build-up to the most glamorous Grand Prix of the season neared its climax.

At the sound of the hooter, the chaotic-looking grid, teeming with brightly coloured overalls in each team’s livery and their trolley-borne equipment, suddenly started to clear. Blankets were pulled off tyres. Umbrellas providing shade from the Mediterranean sun were lowered. Pit lizards, the scantily dressed dolly-birds carrying signs with the name and nationality of each driver, trooped off in procession. The mass presence of the media, TV camera crews and presenters withdrew. And the plethora of international A-Listers from rock, pop, film and the arts, drawn to the glamour of Monte-Carlo, Formula One and, above all, the Monaco Grand Prix, was escorted off the hallowed tarmac to their fiendishly expensive but highly prized hospitality suites and boxes overlooking the circuit.

In no time at all only the cars were left on the grid.

Then, as an ever-growing roar, twenty-one high-performance engines started to growl. Fifteen thousand horsepower – screaming – ready to do battle.

The lights on the race gantry went on, indicating the start of the slow formation lap round the 2.1 mile circuit.

The cars began to move.

Out in front, the pole sitter, Simi Luciano, flicked the launch control and throttle of his Massarella, lighting up his rear tyres as he hurtled off in a mock start towards Sainte Devote, laying down some rubber to try and improve his traction the next time round.

The procession of cars made their way round the circuit, each driver weaving, braking and accelerating to work temperature into their tyres, brakes and hydraulic fluid.

Three minutes later they had completed their warm-up lap and were forming up again on the grid. As the last car slotted itself into position at the back, the engine noise became deafening. All twenty-one cars were being blipped between ten and fifteen thousand revs, building up torque for that critical release at the start.

One red light went on.

The second light went on.

Then the third, then the fourth.

The fifth red light came on. The crescendo of sound in the narrow cavern of the street was utterly deafening.

Seconds passed. A pause.

Then, all the lights went out at once.

GO!

Twenty-one clutches were engaged within a fraction of a second. And the fleet of the world’s most sophisticated automobiles screamed off the line, hurtling at breakneck speed down the street towards the impossibly narrow right-hander of Sainte Devote. It was a breathtaking sight.

How could so much energy, speed and hardware converge into that corner and hope to emerge on the other side without incident? There were puffs of blue smoke as tyres were locked-up. There was bumping, wheel to wheel. One car, interlocking its wheels between the wheel-base of another, made contact and was momentarily lifted off the ground. Anyone watching, let alone commentating on the race, could only focus on one tiny part of it, and just hope they could follow and understand even
that
minor segment of the story. It all happened so fast. Only with repeated replays afterwards would the full story of the start be clear.

A matter of seconds later, most of the field was through Sainte Devote. Commentators were frantically trying to call the race – to see who the emergent drivers were, who had got ahead, who had dropped back, and who, if any, was out.

The cars charged on up through Beau Rivage. Simi Luciano in the black Massarella had built a lead from pole. Remy Sabatino had had a blistering start. Although starting one row back, she had jumped the Ferrari into second place having the advantage of the clean side of the track. Paddy Aston remained fourth in the Lambourn, while Adi Barrantes, still having a miserable weekend of it, had been bumped in Turn One and was now down to ninth.

Straker watched the main broadcast feed as the cars streamed past the Casino and hurtled down the hill towards Mirabeau. As far as he could tell, there were no retirements. All twenty-one cars were still racing after the first half-lap.

He heard Backhouse radio Sabatino with an update on placings. There was excitement in his voice.

But there was a long way to go.

Around they raced, more or less as a high-speed procession.

S
o it remained for the next fifteen laps. No one was able to overtake, and there were no incidents.

Fortunately for the spectators, everything came to life shortly afterwards.

Simi Luciano in the Massarella had managed to build up a fourteen-second lead. Then, taking everyone by surprise, he pitted far earlier than expected. Straker heard the TV commentators getting thoroughly over-excited at the realization of his three-stop strategy. They’d all thought the Massarella was naturally quicker, not that it was significantly lighter than the others. Recalculations were swiftly done to try and work out how fast Luciano really was on a fuel-adjusted basis.

That was the first incident.

T
he second involved the other Massarella.

Well down the order, Adi Barrantes was having a feisty scrap with one of the Red Bulls. Heading out of the Chicane, Barrantes caught a good exit and was quickly up behind the Red Bull’s gearbox. With
some distance to run before the ninety-degree left-hander of Tabac, Barrantes, frustrated by his lack of opportunity to overtake, pulled out sharply and lunged down the inside. Relative to each other, it seemed like slow motion, even though they were both travelling at well over one hundred and twenty miles an hour.

Slowly, Barrantes’s front wheel managed to pass the other’s rear axle. Then the front wheel pulled level with the other driver. Barrantes was still gaining when the Red Bull started moving over to claim the racing line.

Was Barrantes alongside far enough? Did
Barrantes
now have a right to the line? Except at that speed, it was almost too quick for rational judgement.

As the Red Bull started to set itself up for the corner, Barrantes realized his space was disappearing. Bottling out, he lifted off and jabbed at the brake.

And that’s when it all went wrong.

Barrantes’s front left rolled over some white line markings on the normally public road. As he braked, that tyre was on shiny white paint rather than the rough, grippy surface of the track. It was no help in slowing him down. The skid started right there. Instinctively, Barrantes yanked the steering wheel to the left, trying to correct the resultant understeer, but the car simply continued straight on.

Adi Barrantes’s Massarella would not respond. It was streaking across the circuit. And there was no way out.

No run-off.

It could only slam into the Armco on the outside of Tabac. Luckily, the angle was slight – more of a glancing blow. Even so, at that speed of impact, the front wing and carbon-fibre nosecone crumpled and splintered, as it was designed to. The front wheel hit the barrier. Again, the shock was absorbed in the car’s construction, this time in the wishbones. Fragments of carbon fibre exploded outward from the impact. The car scraped its broken front end some distance along the bottom of the barriers before its kinetic energy was finally dissipated.

Barrantes came to a stop. He waved a hand immediately to indicate that he was conscious and not hurt.

From around that section of the circuit, race marshals jumped into action, waving yellow flags and radioing to the operator of the hydraulic crane, a short distance along the Armco.

Right behind the stricken Massarella, Formula One cars were still belting past only a matter of feet away. A lethal situation. Barrantes looked over his shoulder, hurriedly yanked off the steering wheel, pulled himself up out of the cockpit, and jumped up and over the steel barrier to safety.

In a matter of seconds, with extraordinary Monégasque efficiency, the marshals managed to hook the car to a crane and lift the dangling and broken Massarella clear of the track. The race was continuing, but under yellow flags.

Next to Straker in the headquarters truck, the Ptarmigan team members were animated – particularly Oliver Treadwell, the Strategy Director. ‘Get a shot of Tabac,’ he commanded, ‘quick!’

Treadwell was soon able to study the CCTV image. ‘Is that oil?’ he asked the room.

‘Looks like it,’ replied one of the team.

‘All stations, all stations: possible safety car.’

Straker heard the radio traffic buzz in both ears as the pit lane spoke to Sabatino. This was absolutely crucial. Tactically, the team had a huge call to make.

Was the safety car about to be called?

If so, Ptarmigan could take a punt and call their driver in immediately, and maybe grab a “cheap” pit stop. At full race speed, taking the twenty-five seconds out of the race to make a pit stop – when the field was travelling at one hundred and fifty miles an hour – was always expensive in time and distance. But to make a pit stop now – with the chance that the entire field might soon be bunched up and slowed to seventy miles an hour behind the safety car – would cost them a lot less time. Sabatino could dart in, pit, change tyres, refuel, and be out again with the opportunity to shoot round and quickly
rejoin the back of the pack. If the safety car was then deployed, she would have stolen a march on her rivals – Race Control would close the pit lane for stops once the safety car was out. Her rivals could then only pit when the race was restarted and the field was back up to full race pace, costing the stoppers, then, considerably more speed, distance, possibly even track position.

On the other hand, if they called Sabatino in and the safety car was
not
deployed, they would have destroyed their planned strategy for the race.

Treadwell watched the CCTV screens showing the crash scene at Tabac. Two marshals, leaning over the Armco, were clearly checking for debris on the circuit as cars continued to hurtle past. Arms and fingers were being pointed at the middle of the track. One of them was speaking animatedly into a radio.

A camera zoomed in on the surface of the road.

It was clear that there was oil among the razor-sharp splinters of carbon fibre scattered across the road.

The team made its decision.

‘Remy, Remy…’ said Backhouse over the air, ‘Boccrrgghh…’ but the saboteur returned – jamming the radio – obliterating the message with white noise. There was total mush over the air – the message was completely blanked out.

This was critical. A spontaneous adjustment to race tactics was going to be thwarted if they couldn’t co-ordinate things right now over the radio.

Another message was transmitted by the Ptarmigan pit wall. At precisely the same moment the jammer blasted them again with crackle. Sabatino’s radio
could
be heard in reply. But only as static.

The CCTV showed more commotion at the trackside down by Tabac.

The Race Director wasted no time. The safety car was ordered to deploy.

Very soon the field started to slow down. The cars all began to bunch up. The crocodile started to form.

The pit lane was closed for stops.

Straker, though, heaved a massive sigh of relief. Despite the jamming, Sabatino
had
got the message – and
had
pulled in to pit. Ptarmigan had just pulled off a stunningly opportunistic stop and had got her back out – just in time. Straker’s insurance policy had proved inspired.

Advising the team to fit second radios and setting the original radios to transmit only, meant the driver and pit wall were not hearing any of the white noise. Straker may have been. But the critical discussion about tactics and the call to “Box” had proceeded without interference – all conducted over the second radio net on a completely separate frequency.

Despite the enthralling drama on the track, and over the air, Straker had to pull himself away. He now had work to do.

Looking down at his screen, he saw that three of his dishes had actively vectored the saboteur’s jamming transmission and plotted the direction of their signal.

He had a multiple fix.

Triangulation.

Straker had got him.