Straker waited for more. He wanted more. He paused, looking to see if she was prepared to say anything substantial.
After nearly fifteen seconds of silence, she relented. ‘We were under pressure. The car wasn’t performing. I’d just had a rough ride with the stewards. Massarella were coming at us again, with no sign of any retaliation from us. I was tired of it all.’
He remained impassive. Finally, Straker said: ‘I was — and still am — gutted at not being able to see them off. It remains a matter of professional discomfort to me. Even so, there was no call for your outburst.’
Sabatino’s face conveyed a hint of mocking condescension. ‘You’re offended by being treated like that by a woman.’
Straker’s tone was commanding: ‘No, Remy — none of your chauvinism crap this time. This has nothing to do with gender. It has everything to do with acting as professionals.’
‘Or,’ countered Sabatino, still mockingly, ‘as one-time lovers?’
Straker smiled and looked down.
Dismissively, she added: ‘Intimacy would have to make things difficult. I knew the Ronnie Scott’s night was going to be a mistake.’
Straker looked back up. His mood seemed to change in an instant. ‘It might have been a mistake for you,’ he said, ‘but unforgettable for me,’ and found himself smiling. He felt exposed and vulnerable the very moment he did so, but knew immediately that he didn’t care.
Sabatino frowned, looking him directly in the eye. Was she gauging him? Reading him?
Within a second or two, her expression changed — markedly. She seemed unable to hold back a vulnerable smile of her own.
The Quartech Falcon flew into Singapore Changi Airport. Straker boarded immediately. Quartano’s private jet was on the ground for less than an hour. Refuelled and recrewed, it streaked down the runway and was soon climbing into the eastern sky, heading for China.
On board, Straker was introduced to Stacey Krall, Quartech’s Head of Legal Services.
She was nothing like Straker imagined, having spoken to her on the phone. Then, on his return from Spa — talking with her about serving Andy Backhouse with an injunction — he had been struck by her deep voice and seriousness. In person, she was in her thirties, petite, with a roundish face, red-haired, severely dressed but, despite the intense appearance, had a mischievous smile and a wicked sense of humour. For all the grown-up things she had to deal with for the firm, and the unimaginable pressure Quartano must put her under from time to time, Straker was impressed by her calmness.
Quartano wasted no time. ‘Right, where are we?’
‘Here’s the letter from the FIA,’ said Straker.
Krall took it and read it intently.
When she’d finished she asked Straker: ‘What are your thoughts?’
He replied: ‘First, the team is adamant this is completely groundless. For some reason, Massarella’s allegations get traction with the FIA while ours don’t.’
Straker then asked: ‘What must Massarella prove — to make this allegation stick?’
‘They’ve pretty much got to prove a physical handover or transfer of the design. If they only reference an idea for the blades, they’d have a job to prove it in law. That should be the principle part of our case. Anyway, let me illustrate this more fully by setting up the framework for the statement of facts we’ve been asked for.’
Krall spent an hour on her laptop sitting at the small desk in the sumptuous cabin. At the end of that time she printed off a couple of copies of her draft.
‘Excellent,’ replied Straker.
‘I take it you’ll be organizing all this, Matt?’ Krall asked. ‘How long before you’ll have collated this stuff?’
‘I’ll get on to the team and have them start each element of it immediately. Will you also be drafting the statement our people should sign to confirm no contact with Massarella?’
‘Sure. Mr Q?’ she asked, addressing him as he worked at his own desk in the cabin. ‘The sabotage by Massarella — are we planning to launch a counter-claim against them? The forum of the World Council would be an appropriate place to hit back.’
Quartano seemed to ponder this. ‘Let’s pull together the work to do so, but I can’t make that call until we’ve seen Mandarin tomorrow. If we’ve clearly blown it with the Chinese, we’ll hit Massarella with everything we can think of. If Mandarin Telecom are still talking to us after this, though, then probably not; counter-claiming might just stir everything up and appear undignified.’
‘Fine, but I’ll draft a framework for that too — just in case it’s needed.’
Quartano nodded in affirmation.
‘Matt,’ she said, ‘once it’s all together, we’ll take these responses and go to see Oscar Brogan.’
‘And he is?’
‘Quartech’s QC. We’ll be briefing him to represent us in Paris at the hearing.’
‘Good,’ said Quartano hearing how the response was taking shape. ‘Now you’ve heard all about it, Stacey, what’s your take on this case?’
‘We need to take it seriously, however bogus we believe this allegation might be. The FIA has a range of surprisingly punitive powers, and can levy some pretty hefty fines.’
‘How hefty?’
‘I’ve been through the Statutes and, for an incident like this, anything up to $100 million.’
Straker was surprised at his own reaction to the conversation with Sabatino before leaving Singapore. Relief was the main sensation — that the air might have been cleared. Except that that didn’t seem to be all.
During the flight, though, he was too busy to think about much more than their hearing at the FIA. He spent the following hour on the jet’s dedicated email link, sending instructions to various members of the Ptarmigan team — delegating the compilation of material to populate Stacey Krall’s statement of facts.
Just before the Quartech Falcon began its descent into Shanghai, the three of them had lunch together.
‘Have you decided how to play this with the Chinese?’ Straker asked.
Quartano inhaled. ‘More or less. Above all, we’ve got to prevent Mandarin Telecom from losing face over any embarrassment our hearing might cause them.’
‘How do you do that? Do we apologize? Do we withdraw unilaterally from the negotiations? Do we give them the opportunity to withdraw?’
‘There are, I expect, two levels to this,’ replied Quartano. ‘There’s the personal level — between Dr Chen and myself. I need to demonstrate my readiness to shoulder responsibility and honour his exposure to Quartech. And then there’s the public level — of how Quartech takes responsibility, so as to protect Mandarin from any embarrassment.’
‘Doesn’t this kind of boxing and coxing tire you?’ asked the lawyer.
Quartano smiled. ‘Not in the slightest. Quartech may be a vast multinational conglomerate, but whatever institution or government we do business with, the decision to buy from us is always made by a human being. Unless we remember, that — above everything else — we will miss out. Badly. Understanding how people think — how they make their decisions — is critical to making a sale and keeping them as a client in future. The Chinese may formalize these considerations more than other cultures, but we all know that nobody, wherever they come from, likes to lose face. Nobody likes to be embarrassed. Other people might call it something else, or not have a name for it at all, but the dynamic of human interaction is exactly the same the world over. I love dealing with the Chinese for this simple reason: their protocols for doing things are far, far clearer than anybody else’s. Those who adopt an informal approach to negotiations, and profess to a free and easy attitude, are very often the people who are the most difficult to deal with.’