Driven (21 page)

S
traker 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.

B
efore 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?

T
ahm 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 disappointment 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.

A
round 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?’

Straker felt he needed to step in. Time was tight. Both drivers were expected to appear at the Festival at lunchtime. ‘I’ve got us all together,’ he said severely, ‘because I’m anxious you’re made fully aware of the sabotage threat we still face. It’s more serious than we thought.’ Bending down, Straker reached into a holdall and lifted the two key components from Cunzer’s car – the wishbone and the exhaust section – which he placed on the table between them. This was Treadwell’s cue to give an account of the conclusions drawn from the crash investigation.

Cunzer and Sabatino looked increasingly shattered.

They ended up studying the flexure on the wishbone, and inevitably rubbed a finger over the hole in the exhaust.

‘Someone
did
this to me,’ said Cunzer, the shock of the realization all too clear in his face and voice. ‘Someone
made
me crash.’ Looking directly at Straker, he said: ‘
Who
did this? Who could
possibly
do this – who could be putting my life in danger?’

Straker realized he needed to sound authoritative and yet remain genuine, knowing all too well that he didn’t have enough of the answers. ‘This
had
to have been done by someone in the team – an insider,’ he stated.

The drivers fell silent.

The mood was eerie.

‘It must be the same person who planted the bug in my helmet,’ offered Sabatino to the room rather than to Straker directly.

‘Highly likely, but not known for sure,’ he replied. ‘Both interventions – the bug and this,’ said Straker with a sweep of his hand over the damaged components, ‘were done some time ago – in the build-up to Monaco – and nothing like this has happened since. They could simply be historic acts, nothing more than a legacy from Charlie Grant.’

‘What about my engine limiter in Spa – and, particularly, the
removal
of the bug from my helmet after Monaco?’ Sabatino asked. ‘Don’t they indicate more recent evidence of an insider?’

Treadwell stepped in: ‘Possibly, Remy. Certainly Andy Backhouse handled your helmet, and he’s since defected. He, too, is a suspect. With Charlie and Backhouse now both out of the picture, though, we’re clearly hoping the saboteurs have lost their insider, if it was in fact either of them.’

Sabatino looked far from convinced or settled. She picked up one of the components, and drew attention to the wishbone by waving it. ‘This shows real intent to do Helli and the team harm. My high-speed loss of control at Spa, and now knowing about this from Monaco, means that Helli and I have been at serious risk.’

Straker made himself meet her eye, despite the awkwardness he felt – anxious to maintain his professional credibility. ‘I wish I could say that wasn’t the case.’

Cunzer looked back and forth between the others around the table. ‘Do you think we are
still
at risk from an insider, Colonel?’

This time Straker looked Cunzer in the eye: ‘I can’t guarantee that you aren’t.’

W
ater. Cold water, smashing down into his face. And the panic of not being able to move. He was struggling – violently struggling, straining against the straps. But he couldn’t breathe. The contraction of his diaphragm – as he fought
not
to breathe – was unbearable. How much longer could he hold out? Now the cramp. The pain. The pain in his leg was agony. Bastards! These people were allies.
Allies
, for fuck’s sake! Straker fought on against the straps, thrashing from left to right. Something warm: he felt something warm. That wasn’t right! It didn’t fit.

Straker’s brain began to compute. Why was it warm?

He struggled again and then, finally, broke from his sleep. Dripping with sweat – his head spinning – he regained consciousness. The bedroom light in Fulham was still on. Angrily, he ripped away the duvet.

Straker pulled himself up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat there, his chest heaving and heart racing, trying to calm down. It took several minutes for him to register his immediate surroundings. Looking at his alarm clock he recognized all too clearly the return of his affliction. It was three-forty a.m.

What the hell had triggered such a relapse? He thought through recent events, but didn’t have to for long. His meeting with Sabatino loomed large. His disappointment with her behaviour. That was undoubtedly the cause of this disturbance. That – and the intensity with which he had conjured up memories of his troubles to get him through that meeting with her.

Oh Christ, Straker thought. Now setbacks in parts of his new life were pulling him straight back – down – even deeper into the dark.

Knowing the rest of the night was now lost for sleep, he climbed into his running kit. He pounded the streets of Fulham, through the darkness, until the sun came up.

A
ll manner of thoughts swirled around Straker’s head for several days. He would have to shut Sabatino out of his mind, at least in the way that might have been. He decided to fill the days before Monza with activity and distractions.

He resolved to throw himself into anything, however small, to take his mind off her. An early necessity was his car. He rang Treadwell for the number of the recovery shop, but learned he was away – and that his office didn’t have it. Straker tried to remember what Treadwell had said: Morgan of Kineton – or something – wasn’t it?

To get a contact number, Straker threw some guesses into Google. Scores of results were displayed – including the one he was after. Attracting his attention, though, were several to do with a different Morgan altogether – the Morgan of Morgan sports cars.

Out of curiosity he clicked on their website. He was captivated. Their latest design was prominently displayed, which didn’t do it for Straker at all. Much to his delight, though, the British design icon – the Morgan Roadster – was still there, portrayed in an eye-catching and fresh electronic brochure. Evidently, the classic Morgan was still very much in production.

Forcing himself to concentrate on the job in hand, he returned to his search for the intended Morgans and found the name of the recovery shop in Kineton. When he got through, the news on his Honda was not good. It was terminal. It had basically had it. Little more than scrap. Straker cursed. He couldn’t do without a car.

Then he had a flippant thought.

After the downer of his divorce, and the unwanted complexity of his involvement with Sabatino, didn’t he deserve to give himself a lift? Following Quartano’s offer on the completion of his last assignment – which included a directorship on the Quartech main board and a substantial bump in salary – wasn’t he in a position to indulge himself? If so – why the hell not?

He could only resist the idea for so long.

Logging back on to the earlier Google pages he looked up a list of local Morgan dealers and emailed a showroom in Henley-on-Thames.

F
orty-eight hours later Straker had plenty else to think about and keep him occupied – activity triggered by the passing of the deadline he had issued to Michael Lyons. Straker requested a conference call with Nazar and Treadwell.

‘I take it we’ve heard nothing from him?’ Treadwell asked.

‘Of course not,’ Straker replied.

‘Hardly surprising,’ said Nazar. ‘Even so, your ploy was probably worth a shot – to try and unnerve the other side.’

‘It may still happen, Tahm,’ offered Straker casually, ‘if, when you inform them, you make a point of citing Michael Lyons as the reason for terminating our business with Trifecta. The ploy could still have caused unseen – or delayed – consequences.’

‘I’ll send the termination notice today,’ said Nazar, ‘mentioning Apartment 5 at 25 Rue des Princes, yes? – and stating that this takes immediate effect.’

‘Spot on,’ said Straker.

‘Okay, fine. But Matt, if this
is
going to have unseen consequences, I trust you to be ready for whatever they might be.’

Straker grunted positively. ‘I have a week to work with our new electronics firm, Cohens, to prepare our defences.’