‘Yes … if there's a legal ban on any form of public assembly.’
‘You’re saying this was an illegal meeting?’
‘Hell, yes.’ McMahon hesitated for a moment. ‘It's pretty clear why Pavlova held this gathering there, though – to try and confuse her crowd with passengers coming or going to the airport, except the numbers are far too big. Look at the platform Pavlova's on – it's pretty improvized, but deliberately mobile, wouldn’t you say?’
The clip ran on. The crowd was then heard starting a rhythmic chant. Even on the video, the clarity and volume became audible enough:
‘Zhar-ptitsa! Zhar-ptitsa! Zhar-ptitsa!’
Straker strained to discern the words: ‘Is that them celebrating the Tsars – like the Grand Prix circuit?’
‘No, no,’ she said shaking her head. ‘Zhar and Tsar may sound alike, but Zhar-ptitsa's nothing to do with the imperial family. It's a reference to a Russian myth. Zhar-ptitsa translates as the Firebird … an eye-catching female creature … supposed to have majestic plumage that glows red, orange and yellow.’
‘So the Grand Prix circuit's named after some sort of fairy tale?’
‘Oh, it's far more than that,’ admonished McMahon. ‘The Firebird legend has endured for centuries – because she's a symbol of hope … a kind of longed-for messiah. The Firebird is only ever implored to bring the people good fortune. In Russian folklore, the Zhar-ptitsa is always invoked to come and save the country … particularly in times of crisis.’
McMahon rang Straker's room at seven o’clock the following morning. ‘How ready are you?’
‘Just leaving.’
‘Stay there – I’ll come and pick you up. I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
‘Why, what's going on?’
‘A press conference has just been announced.’
‘By whom?’
‘The prosecutor general.’
‘About what?’
‘Ms Sabatino's car,’ declared McMahon. ‘Word on the street has it that Gazdanov's going to announce the cause of the crash.’
‘Like hell he could ever know that,’ he said. ‘Christ. What time is this thing … and where?’
‘Eight o’clock at the Autodrom. And, get this – they’re holding it right in front of the Ptarmigan motor home.’
‘Talk about loading the dice.’
‘The prosecutor general wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t feel it strengthened his case.’
Straker, thinking through some of the ramifications to their defence, responded: ‘If this is about the car and, possibly, technical, we should have Andy Backhouse there as well.’
‘Leave that with me. I’ll be with you at a quarter past.’
McMahon's car pulled up in front of the Baltschug Kempinski Hotel and Straker climbed straight in.
‘Andy Backhouse is on his way to the press conference,’ she reported as they pulled away. Heading for south-east Moscow and the Zhar-ptitsa Autodrom, they made swift progress, going mainly against the flow of rush-hour traffic.
McMahon's phone went. She took the call.
‘Pokrovsky and his team are ready to discuss their next set of findings. They’ve got some stuff on the property aspects of the Autodrom.’
‘Can we have them ready to go through it all the moment we’re back from this conference?’
At the Zhar-ptitsa Autodrom, the crowd for the press conference was huge. As billed, the location and backdrop was the Ptarmigan motor home. A trestle table had been set up in front of it, draped with a cloth bearing the seal of the Ministry of Justice. On it was the usual profusion of press and television microphones. A low morning sun bathed the area in a soft apricot light.
Three men appeared and stood behind the table.
One of them was Yegor Baryshnikov.
‘I guess we shouldn’t be surprised he's here,’ hissed Backhouse ‘They’ve wasted no time in capitalizing on the gutless turncoat.’
Léon Gazdanov, the prosecutor general, announced in English: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, as promised, we are building the evidence of the case against the perpetrators of the atrocity at the Moscow Grand Prix.’
He turned and signalled.
Another man appeared from inside the Ptarmigan motor home carrying two small objects. These were brought to the middle of the table and placed down on the blue cloth in full view of the press. Camera shutters clicked as the moment was recorded.
Gazdanov continued: ‘Now with the expertise of one of Ptarmigan's own staff – a Russian patriot, who has chosen to put his country before his own professional interest – the Ministry of Justice has analyzed the data stored on the black boxes of the car that crashed.’ The prosecutor general waved Baryshnikov forwards to the bank of microphones.
Baryshnikov, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket, began to read from a prepared statement. Also in English, he announced in his heavy accent: ‘I can confirm what Prosecutor General Gazdanov has just said. From my analysis, I have inferred that there was mechanical failure on the part of the Ptarmigan car. This, in my opinion, induced the loss of control at Turn Eleven of the Zhar-ptitsa Auto-drom and that, consequently, there is a direct causal link between Ptarmigan's negligence and the deaths of the spectators.’
Flash guns were fired off in a near-continuous fusillade.
‘How can he utter such bullshit?’ said Backhouse, loud enough for those around him to hear.
