McMahon read the order, slowly and thoroughly.
Pudovkin's expression revealed that, in being halted, he was having to contend with a loss of face induced by the lawyer, as well as being shown up in front of his own men.
Straker looked again down the inside length of the motor home. Backhouse was darting from console to console, urging his team to upload as many of the team's videos as they could. How much longer would they have?
Straker switched back to McMahon outside, dreading that she was about to be overruled.
It looked like she’d come to and was reading the last page.
Pudovkin said: ‘I order that you step aside.’
McMahon raised her hand ‘Not so fast, colonel.’
The policeman's hand was moving menacingly towards his left hip.
McMahon was folding the sheaves back into their original configuration.
Pudovkin took a step forward.
Straker looked back at McMahon. Her pale red hair was set off even more by the adrenalin-induced glow of her skin. Straker couldn’t take his eyes off her – how could he describe the effect? With her colouring and complexion she seemed to have developed an aura.
Colonel Pudovkin was now beginning to fidget.
McMahon said: ‘Gentlemen, this court order is invalid. To be effective – under federal law – it must be an original document, which this is not: this is a scanned copy. A copy can be valid if it bears the stamp of the Ministry of Justice, which this scan does not. This piece of paper, therefore, is not an authentic court order. It does not give you – or your men – the power, legally, to impound this vehicle. Any attempt you make to enter it, gentlemen, will be an illegal act.’ She politely offered the court papers back to the police colonel.
Pudovkin was very obviously thrown by the lawyer's conclusions.
He could have charged on – but there was something convincing about this woman's authority.
Spinning round, Pudovkin walked away from McMahon, barging out through his wall of policemen – shouting an order over his shoulder. The phalanx of policemen was soon following the commanding officer back to their cars.
Backhouse banged the door release which hissed open, letting McMahon back up into the truck.
‘Sandy, mate!’ bellowed Backhouse. ‘That was bloody great. Way to go.’ He offered her a glass of whisky from the motor home's secret stash. Others team members clapped enthusiastically, stepping forward to shake her hand.
She smiled at their appreciation and downed the shot of single malt in one hit. When Straker caught her eye, he said: ‘That was phenomenal, Alexandra. Brava!’
She nodded.
Straker announced to the team: ‘Thanks to Sandy, the first shot of the fight-back has just been fired.’
THIRTY-FIVE
More glasses of whisky were poured as the showdown was celebrated. Straker found himself unable to participate fully, though. He was deeply concerned. The authorities had shown a clear intent to confiscate Ptarmigan's motor home. Either the prosecution wanted access to the data stored in its computers and video banks, or – as with the crash site and car wreckage – they wanted to deny Ptarmigan use of its own data for its defence against the charges. Were these Russian institutions going to stop at nothing in this case?
McMahon moved towards Straker.
‘Sandy, that was magnificent,’ he said. ‘Talk about coolness under fire?’
‘I think we can all see that we’re now up against something verging on the unreasonable?’
Straker nodded his acknowledgement; compared with her attitude and comments in their private conversation earlier, that was quite a concession.
‘Those sods will be back, though,’ said Straker. ‘We must assume we are destined to lose access to all our video files in here. We initiated a panic upload, while you were facing down the police. We’ll get it finished. To have some security, though, we’d better move the fight-back out of the motor home right away. Can we transfer everything to Brandeis – relocate to your offices – and have access to your mainframe?’
‘Sure.’
‘Let's get that going right now, then,’ said Straker.
By a quarter past eleven, Straker could finally relax. McMahon's car was leading three taxis – carrying the remaining Ptarmigan personnel – out of the main gates of the Zhar-ptitsa Autodrom. They had managed to strip the motor home of data, and were okay now to abandon it.
‘I’ve got us a conference room in the Brandeis building,’ said McMahon. ‘We’ll set that up as your HQ.’
‘Good, thank you.’ Straker groaned involuntarily from the discomfort of his injuries.
‘I’ve also arranged for the company doctor to see you. There's more wrong with you than you think.’
‘We’ve got no time to lose,’ he said. ‘We may have preserved the video research material, but we need to download all the telemetry from the Ptarmigan mainframe – which will require some pretty hefty bandwidth – and there are several other lines of enquiry we need to initiate …’
‘I’ll sort the bandwidth. Let me have the other lines of enquiry: I’ll get them going while you’re being looked at. What else do you want?’ she asked, opening a page on her iPhone to take notes.
‘Yegor Baryshnikov seems very close to being a son-of-a-bitch,’ he said, ‘and so I was surprised by Backhouse's response to his defection. After ratting Remy out with the FIA in Montreal, I wasn’t surprised he switched sides at all.’
‘He's got form,’ agreed McMahon. ‘Maybe Backhouse is just in a state of denial?’
Straker pouted. ‘That's as maybe, but Andy's reaction was a surprise. As I said before, in any investigation, I love coming across surprises – because they so rarely occur without a reason. A surprise offers a clear invitation to look into something further. Backhouse's opinion, therefore, has me intrigued.’
‘But it is only that – an opinion.’
