‘I’ll leave that to you, Andy. You know her, and have the advantage of not being an interloper whom she seems to distrust.’
S traker wasn’t told whether Backhouse did say anything about the possible causes of the crash. Sabatino had shut herself away in the back of the pit lane garage.
She sat with her head down, trying to shut the drama surrounding her teammate out of her mind.
She couldn’t let it affect her.
If she did, she might never get back in a cockpit again.
TEN
A fter Helli Cunzer’s horrific crash, there was much discussion between the powers that be. Eventually, the decision was taken to restart Qualifying – spun aggressively to the press, media and watching world as the sport paying tribute to the bravery and spirit of one of its most promising young drivers.
Q ualifying Three finally got under way.
But Straker soon realized that Cunzer’s crash hadn’t affected everybody. It hadn’t affected Ptarmigan’s curse.
Midway through Q3, Straker got his first real scent of the saboteur.
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.
S traker’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
S traker wasn’t told whether Backhouse did say anything about the possible causes of the crash. Sabatino had shut herself away in the back of the pit lane garage.
She sat with her head down, trying to shut the drama surrounding her teammate out of her mind.
She couldn’t let it affect her.
If she did, she might never get back in a cockpit again.
TEN
A fter Helli Cunzer’s horrific crash, there was much discussion between the powers that be. Eventually, the decision was taken to restart Qualifying – spun aggressively to the press, media and watching world as the sport paying tribute to the bravery and spirit of one of its most promising young drivers.
Q ualifying Three finally got under way.
But Straker soon realized that Cunzer’s crash hadn’t affected everybody. It hadn’t affected Ptarmigan’s curse.
Midway through Q3, Straker got his first real scent of the saboteur.
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.
S traker’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
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