Sabatino flung her arms around the man's neck.
The bald man's face broke into a radiant smile as he reached up and removed his dark glasses.
He hugged her close, squeezing her gently, for well over a minute.
Tears were streaming again down Sabatino's cheeks.
Finally, she opened her eyes.
Looking across, she addressed the gothic woman standing next to them who was also smiling broadly. ‘You must be the lawyer,’ said Sabatino with a catch in her voice as she released Straker and limped across to give Sandy McMahon a long hug too.
‘What … the? … What the fuck?’ was all that Sabatino could say.
SEVENTY-FIVE
Matt Straker finally held out both arms and took a step forwards, encouraging the women to take a seat with the others. Nazar and Backhouse shuffled along to make room for them. Straker was about to sit when a white-tunicked steward appeared in the saloon.
‘Please forgive me, everyone, but there's a call for Colonel Straker in the command centre. It's Mr Quartano, sir.’
Straker smiled his apologies to the others: ‘I’d better report in,’ he said, and followed the steward out of the room.
Another steward approached them with a silver tray. This time, Sabatino did accept a glass of champagne. ‘What the hell's been going on?’ she asked.
Backhouse, sitting across the corner within the nest of chairs, was beaming. ‘We’ve probably witnessed a Straker stratagem at its most audacious,’ he declared in broad Brummie.
‘Is this a two- or a three-glass story?’ asked Sabatino looking at her drink.
‘It's a case of Moët & Chandon, is what it is.’
Backhouse looked like he couldn’t wait to retell their horrific experiences. First off, he described the challenges they’d faced as the Russian institutions denied the access of Ptarmigan's legal representatives.
‘So it wasn’t just getting access to me that was a problem,’ said Nazar.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ replied McMahon. ‘Our challenges were compounded, though, by the case being escalated to the Supreme Court, your being prosecuted by the highest law officer in the land and the trial being called within four weeks. Of more concern was the police impounding the wreckage of Ms Sabatino's car and the crash site.’
Backhouse chipped in: ‘You were both adamant there had been nothing wrong with the car. So how had you crashed? We were being denied the chance to examine the wreckage for ourselves, and the telemetry was taking time to gather in and be analyzed. We did look at the video records, though; and something had clearly happened to your car, Rems. So, Matt, being Matt, he felt he had to go and recce the crash site for himself – to see what that could tell him. A lot was the answer. It produced the first proper evidence of sabotage. Matt was even shot at as he made his escape. His discovery, that the circuit had clearly been tampered with, led to questions about the Autodrom – which led us to none other than … Avel Obrenovich.’
‘No!’ said Sabatino. ‘That's not possible.’
Backhouse nodded. ‘I’m afraid it was. He was the money behind the circuit.’
Nazar took a gulp of champagne. ‘So did it mean that that arse-hole was also behind the sabotage?’
‘No, but unwittingly he probably triggered it. He’d initiated the transfer of the Russian Grand Prix from Sochi to Moscow … for entirely political reasons: to promote Mayor Pavlova as a presidential contender. Doing so upset some pretty powerful figures – the president and his ruthless puppetmaster, Vadim Kondratiev. We found out that, between them, they have direct control of every aspect of government. From that moment on, we knew we were in serious trouble – the trial was going to be nothing less than a sham.
‘And then, of course, we had Yegor doing the dirty, turning himself over to the prosecution. From that point on, Baryshnikov would have been able to contradict anything we said. Who, then, would a jury believe? A bunch of foreigners with blood on their hands, or a loyal Russian who had sacrificed his place in a Championship-winning car to reveal the truth? All of this guaranteed that the trial was going to be a foregone conclusion … against us.’
‘Your hands were completely tied,’ offered Nazar to McMahon.
‘They were. Early on,’ she added sheepishly, ‘I was all for respecting the system, and fighting our cause within the legal opportunities of the trial. But, completely against my protests, Matt was adamant that if we did that – and relied solely on that – we were only ever going to lose.’
‘How did he fight it, then?’
Backhouse smiled. ‘This was where we saw Matt's mind go to work. He wanted to chip away at any weakness in the prosecution's assertions – and, most spectacularly, he wanted to destabilize the politics behind the case and trial.’
‘How the fuck did he think he could do that?’ asked Nazar swaying slightly. ‘Where the hell would you even start with doing that?’
‘Straker was convinced – but we didn’t see it – that Baryshnikov had been got at.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘That Baryshnikov was not being himself.’
‘You mean smug, egotistical, selfish and a right bastard?’ suggested Sabatino.
‘Almost precisely,’ said Backhouse. ‘Matt kept banging on about Yegor's body language during the press conferences, and crap like that. When we looked at the video coverage, of course, Matt had been right: Baryshnikov wasn’t being anything like his normal self.’
‘So?’
‘We found out that he was being manipulated. Baryshnikov's mother had effectively been taken hostage – by the police – in order to hold Yegor to ransom.’
‘Good God. What did you do then?’
‘Matt took on the police at the Baryshnikov house,’ said Backhouse. ‘Step one, he flew a Quartech drone around the mansion and grounds, building up an intelligence picture of what security arrangements were there, as well as the lie of the land. During that operation, he managed to spot Mrs Baryshnikov at an upstairs window, which did at least confirm that she was inside. He then mounted an attack on the house.’
Backhouse said with a smile: ‘You should have seen it, Rems. He kicked it off with a huge explosion – as a shock and diversion. Matt then released twenty Rottweilers – which he’d sourced from a local security firm – to clear the gardens of any police patrolling the grounds. After they’d been called off, he broke in and made straight for the house's standby generator, which he knocked out. Then he blew the mains power into the property, causing a total power outage.’
‘Fantastic,’ applauded Sabatino, ‘so that's how he got Yegor's mother out?’
