Straker could see how much Quartano was fired up by the events of the weekend. ‘Your absolute priority, Matt,’ he said as the plane levelled off and they were served their coffee and breakfast, ‘is to rid us of any further interference by this sodding saboteur. Thanks to Backhouse’s team finding the bug, and your outstanding countermeasures, we denied them their interference in our communications, which could have done us serious damage. And what about Helli’s crash? God forbid it was sabotage, as it was clearly life-threatening. If they and any bastard insider are still motivated to do us harm — and after the win in Monaco we have to assume they would be — this could get ugly. And now, with a sponsorship deal of $750 million and this phenomenal “in” to Chinese government circles via Mandarin Telecom, Quartech has a massive market position at stake.’
Straker nodded his appreciation of the situation. ‘I’m on it, sir.’
Quartano looked reassured, but his expression seemed to demand elaboration.
‘Backhouse is arranging a car for me from Heathrow,’ Straker volunteered. ‘I’m going straight up to the factory the moment we land.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ve also uncovered some new news.’
Quartano raised an eyebrow.
‘I’ve managed to establish that Monsieur Michel Lyons is not actually Michel but Mr Michael Lyons. And that he lives in Gaydon.’
Quartano’s expression darkened.
‘Should it surprise us he’s British?’ Straker asked.
‘Not really. If Mr Michael Lyons was to have any credibility in motor racing, it would certainly be enhanced by his being British. Seven of the eleven F1 teams are based in England.’
‘And Gaydon?’
‘Fits perfectly,’ replied Quartano. ‘Gaydon is home to Aston Martin and Jaguar Land Rover. Ptarmigan are minutes away. And within an hour you’ve got Lotus, Mercedes, Williams, Lambourn, and Red Bull, while not forgetting that Prodrive’s one junction down the M40. And Silverstone, of course, is right there too. If you wanted someone to come from the heart of motor racing, Gaydon’s pretty close to it.’
‘Well at least it goes some way to confirming that the occupant of Apartment 5, 25 Rue des Princes was the source of the jamming. It would, I suppose, have been too easy for his geographic location to have told us something about his team affiliation?’
‘It might have, if he lived in Maranello or Stupinigi — for Ferrari or Massarella. But, no. Ironically, he’s geographically closer to Ptarmigan than any of the others.’
‘I’ve got Karen in Competition Intelligence doing some digging on him.’
‘Good. Now you know where to find him, I want to know everything about this arsehole — particularly who he’s working for. Then, we will decide how to remove him, and take out anyone around him who fancies themselves as a threat.’
SEVENTEEN
Straker split from Quartano at Heathrow and was met by the car sent for him from Ptarmigan.
On his way up the M40, Karen called him from London. ‘I have some info on Michael Lyons, but it’s not much, I’m afraid.’
‘Not to worry — anything might get us started.’
‘It looks like he’s an I.T. specialist. Graduated from Aston University, started out on a graduate traineeship with IBM. Was sent on secondment to MG Rover and then transferred to them permanently. Joined their electronics team but was made redundant just before the company went into administration in 2005. Strangely, there’s no further information since then. Nothing about current employment. Whereabouts unknown.’
‘Is that it?’ Straker asked disappointedly.
‘Afraid so.’
Just over an hour later Straker was driven onto the Shenington Airfield, one of Oxfordshire’s long-abandoned RAF wartime air stations. Passing some of the derelict pre-fab concrete huts, and even the old control tower, they drove down a long straight approach road lined by an avenue of trees. Straker was greeted at the end by iconic architecture. Confident, proud and powerful were the adjectives implied by the brand-new Ptarmigan factory. It had nowhere near the self-belief of the Foster and Partners statement in Woking, but was impressive nonetheless.
They continued through a tunnel set into a broad, three-storey facade of reflective glass, emerging on the other side into a sizeable quadrangle and more reflective glass. Despite the sheen on the windows, there was some visibility into the buildings. Ghostly-looking figures could be seen working behind desks, at CAD work stations, poring over laboratory benches and, in one window, he saw a team working on a complete chassis. Straker’s car circled round the sweep of the quad, which enclosed a large, heavily-landscaped ornamental garden, and pulled up under the awning in front of the main entrance.
Inside the reception area, he faced more glass, this time fronting a row of display cabinets holding all the team’s trophies, which seemed to cover every spare inch of the walls.
Straker was greeted by Backhouse and handed a security pass.
‘I daresay you’ll want to study our security measures,’ Backhouse said. ‘Perhaps it might be helpful to give you an idea of the whole process so you could see where we might be vulnerable to leaks or outside interference?’
Straker agreed, slipping the turquoise lanyard over his head.
‘Let’s start in Design, then.’
Riding up two floors in a glass-walled lift, they moved through the cathedral of modernity to the design studio. As Backhouse swiped his card through the door panel, automatic doors let them into a vast open-plan office. Forty or so people were distributed across the space. Atmospherically, it was quiet and serious — not exactly what Straker had imagined from a creative team, particularly one that had enjoyed such a historic weekend.
While security was the main purpose of the two men’s tour round the Ptarmigan factory, Backhouse inevitably found himself describing the practices in each room or workshop along their way. Straker soon gathered that, remarkably, Ptarmigan’s aim was to reinvent the car on a continual basis — but always within the dimensional, weight and capacity constraints imposed by the FIA’s Formula. Backhouse explained that in trying to work within those limits, they were faced with the classic trade-offs of any design; in this case, they had to balance any extra performance that might be enjoyed from a new component or configuration against any unwanted consequences — typically extra weight or size. Straker was told that paring a component to the bone might get it to perform better but doing so could reduce its tolerance, weaken it, and even invite it to fail, which would of course then threaten reliability.
Backhouse went on to point out that making their components and cars too reliable, on the other hand, would result in their being heavier than they needed to be, so slowing them down. ‘But, as the legendary Murray Walker had it: “If you want to finish first, first you’ve got to finish”. Except the last thing we want is any structural redundancy,’ qualified Backhouse with a believe-it-or-not expression on his face.
Straker was led on through the quietness of the design studio, between the rows of designers, most of whom were working on large high-definition computer screens. Some of the operators were rotating wireframe diagrams, while others analysed brightly coloured thermal images of components in three dimensions via touch-screen commands. Backhouse indicated that the data recorded from the cars’ two hundred and fifty on-board sensors, which Straker had seen being collated through the headquarters truck in Monaco, was fed into this redesign process. Conclusions drawn then allowed for each component to be redesigned electronically. Once done, the computer could then backtest any new design against a model using the actual load, pressure and temperature data of the last few races.