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.
Straker’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.
Straker 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.’
Straker, 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.’
That was all fine in principle. Straker had a feeling the saboteur was going to be anything but passive.
ELEVEN
Race 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.