‘Okay,’ said Straker, ‘good. This is a clear step forward. But, if this was none of our doing, we need to establish how we think the engine limiter was activated.’
Straker was surprised by the ensuing silence in the room.
‘We don’t know?’ he offered as rhetorical confirmation. He paused to be sure. ‘In that case, does when the engine limiter was activated tell us anything? Can we identify the exact time, please?’
A page was consulted. ‘1.36.52.09.’
‘And, just remind me, what was the time coding for the radio interference on the data link carrier wave?’
‘1.36.52.09.’
‘They’re identical!’ exclaimed Sabatino.
Straker, holding up his hand, said: ‘Let’s not jump to conclusions — correlation is not causation. Before we discovered this engine limiter dimension, we had been looking at interference in the carrier wave, possibly from an unknown radio signal,’ he said. ‘Let’s try and close the circle, then: could the engine limiter have been activated by a radio signal?’
‘Fuck a duck,’ responded Treadwell. ‘How can we not, now, see a link between the activation of the limiter and the unknown radio signal?’
Straker saw the same feeling reflected in the expressions around the motor home. ‘Okay, if this logic is holding up,’ he said, ‘we’re back to looking for that radio source. So far, though, we haven’t got anywhere with it coming from the spectators — and we’re pretty sure of that, having gone through some comprehensive footage from the CCTV camera. And, I’ve just heard from the Belgian police — who have drawn a blank with their sniffer dogs — that there was no sign of anything in the woodland above the circuit. Neither of these help directly, but they are reasonable eliminations. We need, then, to look for the next possibility for the source of that transmission.’ Straker pointed at the image on the laptop. ‘There’s a car — bang next to the incident. Could the radio signal have come from that?’
There was further buzz around the table.
‘Can we take another look at the on-board footage of the Massarella?’ Straker asked.
The laptop was pulled back into position. Backhouse hit the play button. They saw the forward-looking view from above the driver’s helmet again. The clip showed the turquoise Ptarmigan shooting past and swerving violently, heading towards the corner of Les Combes.
‘Play it again, this time in as slow a motion as possible,’ said Straker.
The footage was rerun.
The picture showed Barrantes, with his right hand on the wheel. Then, with a tilt of the helmet to the left, the driver looked like he was checking the track behind him through his left-hand mirror.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Straker forcibly.
‘What?’ replied Backhouse.
‘Didn’t you see that?’
‘See what?’
‘Run it back.’
The footage jumped back by ten seconds and played again. It showed the familiar helmet tilt. A second later, the driver started raising his left hand, at which point Straker quickly leaned in and tapped the pause button with his finger.
‘What?’
‘What?’
‘There,’ said Straker, pointing at the exact spot on the screen. ‘Barrantes has got something taped to his glove.’
‘What — where?’
They all peered at the freeze-frame image.
‘What the hell … well spotted, Matt! What is that?’
Treadwell prompted the computer to zoom in. ‘Looks like some sort of fob — like a car alarm.’
The image was then nudged forward, one frame at a time.
‘And it looks like he’s squeezing it,’ said Sabatino. ‘With his thumb. Could that be some kind of zapper?’
‘Mark the time code. What’s the exact time he squeezes it?’ asked Straker.
Treadwell read it out as he wrote it down: ‘1.36.51.99.’
Sabatino sighed audibly: ‘Barrantes’s action happened ten one hundredths of a second before my engine crashed. Matt, you’ve sussed it.’
Straker shook his head. ‘Not yet. Let’s be thorough,’ and then said, in a way that acknowledged he was repeating himself: ‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions. We have no idea what that fob thing is for. All we have is the coincidence of two actions, but no proof of a connection. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.’
Sabatino pulled a what-the-fuck-does-that-mean smile. ‘Matt, the right word here is coincidence,’ she countered. ‘That’s cause and effect, right there. We have proof of a button being actively pressed, on what looks like a fob — an item that has no place on an F1 car. We have proof of a radio signal — which you called the unknown radio — and which you spotted from a burst of interference in the data carrier wave. We’ve discovered an indication that my rain light was activated, which we have verified was not because of any fault in the sensors — but because it’s linked to my pit lane engine limiter which, at the critical moment, had been activated, but not by a malfunction or by me.’
‘I agree,’ said Treadwell, emphatically. ‘There’s a line of best fit, here; these discoveries clearly point to some kind of remote activation of Remy’s engine limiter.’
Straker was anxious that he — they — be sure. A lot of credibility would be riding on this.
‘Oh come on, Matt,’ said Sabatino, ‘it’s far too coincidental to be dismissed.’
Straker finally nodded. He really could not dismiss their deductions.
‘Holy shit,’ said Backhouse.
‘It’s Massarella, then. It’s Massarella doing this. The sons of fucking bitches.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Within the hour, the President of the FIA — Bo San Marino — received Matt Straker and Andy Backhouse in his hospitality suite within the Spa-Francorchamps complex.
Straker, having been at the last meeting to reveal the discovery of sabotage in Monte-Carlo, made contact through official channels and offered this meeting to the President as an update and follow on. San Marino agreed to see Ptarmigan immediately.
As Straker and Backhouse walked in through the President’s doors, though, they were taken by surprise. Joss MacRae, the head of the F1 commercial rights holder, was there too. In response to Backhouse’s expression, San Marino said: ‘I hope you don’t mind Joss being in on this,’ but offered no chance for them to demur.
They were invited to sit. Straker looked over at Joss MacRae who, already sitting and working on some papers in his lap, seemed far from ready to engage.
‘What’s happened to prompt another meeting?’ asked the President.
‘Sir,’ replied Straker, ‘when we met before in Monaco, we presented you with evidence of interference with Ptarmigan’s radio communication.’ Straker glanced across at MacRae who still seemed distracted. ‘We regret that we’ve had another case of intervention here this afternoon. We had an incident during Q2 when Remy Sabatino’s car went unexpectedly out of control approaching Les Combes. We have findings to indicate that this was induced by another team.’
Joss MacRae suddenly looked up and glared at Straker. ‘How convenient that one of the overpaid chauffeurs should cite a third party to excuse lousy driving.’
Straker felt his hackles instantly rise, but fought to freeze his face to prevent giving away the strength of his reaction. He determinedly maintained eye contact and, judging the moment to reply, did so in a slow, soft voice: ‘Do facts not have a bearing in assessing such things?’