His face had reddened. The blood vessels stood proud in his neck, while the muscles in Van Der Vaal’s shoulders, arms and fists were clearly clenched.
Backhouse continued: ‘Mr President, once in with Massarella, I was told by Mr Van Der Vaal that Ptarmigan — particularly the arrival of Dominic Quartano on the scene — had ruined Mr Van Der Vaal’s long-term ambition to succeed Bernie Ecclestone as the Tsar of Formula One. Massarella’s attracting sponsorship by Obrenovich Oil & Gas, and the financial clout it brought, was to have been the launch pad for Van Der Vaal to mount a bid to be the new Tsar. To conceal his intentions, though, he wanted to stay on as a team boss for as long as possible — until his path to the top job was clear. So he did a deal with Joss MacRae. He offered to invest many of the oligarch’s millions in his Motor Racing Promotions company — in order to carve up the commercial side of the sport between them. That included taking stakes in key businesses within the sport, such as Trifecta Systems. The more I heard and pieced together — with snippets here and there from conversations with Mr Van Der Vaal — the more I was able to confirm Colonel Straker’s earlier findings and deductions.
‘Mr President,’ Backhouse said, ‘Eugene then told me something deeply disturbing. He told me about his policy of rectification — which all began after Ptarmigan was hailed for its marketing genius. Media and public applause for Ptarmigan really got up Eugene’s nose. As we all well know, our hiring Remy Sabatino — the first serious female racing driver — exploded in the press. There was another massive press explosion when Ptarmigan started discussions with Mandarin Telecom, about a sponsorship deal valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Both of these developments really irritated Mr Van Der Vaal. Eugene, in a fit of anger one night, told me how he detested all the attention of the sport swinging to Ptarmigan — away from himself and Joss MacRae. Those two men had clearly wanted that sort of publicity for themselves — let alone the Mandarin sponsorship money, which they also believed should have been going in their direction. Why else would MacRae have taken such an extraordinary position on Remy’s high-speed sabotage in Spa, unless there was a conflict of interest somewhere — and that there was something else going on?’
San Marino, for all his patrician dignity and bearing, was clearly affected by this unexpected news. Surprisingly softly, he asked: ‘What was this policy of rectification?’
‘Sabotage, Mr President,’ came the reply from Backhouse over the loudspeaker. ‘Van Der Vaal’s sabotage of Ptarmigan was very carefully planned out — and to be done completely invisibly. Deviously. It was clever — under the radar, like the radio jamming in Monaco. Or concealed as malfunctions, such as Helli Cunzer’s suspension failure. Or simply actions that could be so easily dismissed as driver error, such as Mr MacRae did so emphatically with Remy’s high-speed loss of control in Spa.
‘Van Der Vaal’s ultimate blow, though,’ Backhouse went on, ‘was particularly devious. It was to accuse Ptarmigan of industrial espionage. After the FIA, under a predecessor of yours, Mr President, fined an F1 team $100 million in the 2007 Spygate case, Van Der Vaal confessed to me over a beer in Singapore that his plan had been to inflict a similar fine on Ptarmigan. His ruse was simple. He aimed to get Ptarmigan to adopt some identifiable piece of Massarella’s proprietary technology. It didn’t really matter what — anything would do. The moment that happened, an accusation of industrial espionage could follow, which would inevitably land Ptarmigan in front of the World Motor Sport Council. Once there, Ptarmigan could be indicted and preferably hit with a similarly crippling fine — or at the very least be fatally stigmatized by such damaging accusations against its integrity. In other words, Massarella’s accusation and the inevitable bad press stemming from it would knock Ptarmigan — and more importantly Dominic Quartano and his financial and marketing genius — out of Formula One.’
There was no attempt by anyone around the Council table to intervene in Backhouse’s testimony.
‘Van Der Vaal had an unexpected early bonus, Mr President,’ he continued. ‘You cannot imagine Van Der Vaal’s jubilation when he heard that even the first inconclusive FIA hearing into this case prompted Mandarin Telecom to pull out of their sponsorship deal with Ptarmigan. Not only was his plan working earlier than expected, it also opened up the way, afterwards of course, for Massarella to try and pick up that potential contract for themselves.
‘Charlotte Grant, God rest her soul, was complicit,’ Backhouse added. ‘She had already done bad things to Quartech, and was trying to do them again to damage Quartano’s prized project — his F1 team — for her own personal reasons. But she would not have got anywhere without Eugene Van Der Vaal’s initiating everything. I may well have blown my reputation and credibility for this deliberate deception, Mr President, but I had to do something to prove that Ptarmigan was the victim here.’
Backhouse had clearly reached the end of his testimony.
The room was aghast.
It stayed silent for quite a while.
It was strangely unnerving.
As if nobody knew what could possibly happen next.
Straker, too, was nervous. How would his subterfuge be received? Would he be censured for mounting such deception? Surprising himself, the first person he turned to for a reaction was Remy Sabatino.
She met his eye.
Her face seemed stern to him. Had he upset her again? Straker held her stare. Then, very slowly, Sabatino’s expression broke, giving him the tiniest hint of a smile. It graduated into a smile of you-shouldn’t-have-done-that-you-son-of-bitch-but-I’m-sort-of-glad-you-did. He gave her a smile of relief in exchange, before turning his attention back to the hearing.
San Marino now looked concerned. ‘Mr Backhouse, thank you for that bombshell.’ The President exhaled. ‘Eugene,’ he said with a strong hint of disdain, ‘do you wish to reply?’
Van Der Vaal looked completely thrown. Straker had expected the man to explode with some blast of a defence — defiance — outright denunciation of Backhouse’s testimony, perhaps, or even a direct attack on his character. But nothing came. Straker reckoned the blow inflicted by the surprise telephone testimony — that Backhouse had been a mole, not to mention the weight of the man’s evidence — was probably too much for him to regroup that quickly.
Straker scanned the rest of the room, trying to gauge the reactions from other Council members. Were they glowering at Ptarmigan, ready to challenge and chastise them — over the deception and the nature of this testimony — or were they prepared to accept it?
He watched all twenty faces around the table turn in Van Der Vaal’s direction.
They were clearly looking to him for an answer.
Not to Ptarmigan.
Not to Straker.
‘Mr President,’ said Brogan choosing this moment to step back into the discussion. ‘Ptarmigan has made its case. We’d be very happy to take any questions.’
San Marino’s attention, though, stayed trained on Van Der Vaal.
‘We have some questions,’ said a pronounced Finnish accent, sternly, from the far end of the table, ‘but for … Eugene … and Joss.’
There were mutterings of agreement.
San Marino turned to address the Ptarmigan contingent. ‘In that case, Mr Brogan, let me thank you and your client for your presentation so far. May I ask you and your colleagues now to leave the meeting?’
‘Certainly. Do you wish us to remain in the building?’
‘Yes, please,’ said San Marino.
As the Ptarmigan party stood up to leave the magnificent plaster and chandeliered room, Oscar Brogan asked: ‘Is it your intention to reach a judgment today, Mr President?’