Straker looked at the president as he spoke, and then at the Russian. Obrenovich's appearance – his angular features – could so easily have been read as lean and hungry. Straker was now floored. He was about to discuss things – highly sensitive matters, concerning the legal fate of two colleagues as well as the Ptarmigan Formula One Team itself – in front of a man he suspected until only five minutes before of foul play in the proceedings.
Obrenovich said: ‘Bo, I am happy to let you two speak privately, if you would prefer?’
‘It's up to you, Matt,’ said San Marino. ‘I have offered you my confidence in Mr Obrenovich. I will leave it up to you.’
Straker turned to face the president. He realized he had to rely on his own judgement. To help him, could he rely on San Marino? Could he rely on his vouching for the Russian? The stakes were so high.
Straker breathed deeply.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I have information that will alter your perspective on the deaths in Moscow.’
He paused.
Then, Straker stated: ‘Remy Sabatino's crash was no accident,’ and looked straight at the Russian.
Obrenovich said nothing.
‘I appreciate that such a claim – from someone associated with Ptarmigan – could be dismissed as convenient,’ Straker went on. ‘But I have significant proof. Both Tahm Nazar and Remy Sabatino have declared themselves 100 per cent happy with the reliability of that car, as well as the tactical manoeuvre that Remy had been attempting at Turn Eleven.’
Straker lifted his laptop on to the tablecloth. Firing it up, he displayed on the screen the overhead shot of Sabatino's cockpit, which showed her two attempts to apply left lock to the steering wheel; he also pointed out the wisp of smoke from the car's right-rear tyre.
‘There are several occurrences in the hydraulics which have had us vexed. At this critical point into that turn,’ said Straker, ‘an unusual sequence in the working of the hydraulic valves – in the steering, differential and brakes – rendered the car unsteerable and unstoppable into that corner.’
Straker proceeded to show them the on-board CCTV footage with the telemetry data overlaying the image underneath.
San Marino made a request with a nod of his head for a closer look at the displays. Straker swivelled the computer round to face him. San Marino leant in further to scrutinize it all, running the footage on to study the sequence for himself.
‘The authorities have impounded the wreck of the car,’ continued Straker, ‘so we cannot conduct our own technical investigation, or our own validation.’
Having finished his closer scrutiny, San Marino swivelled the computer round to face Obrenovich.
Straker, deciding to continue, added: ‘With little other chance to investigate the crash or the remains, I took the risk of conducting a close reconnaissance of the crash site myself. I found clear complementary evidence which shows that this crash was highly engineered and intentional.’
Straker now had both men's attention back on him again.
He went on to explain the firmness of the gravel trap, validated by the lab report of the cement coating; the plasticine in the breeze-block wall, playing his video which showed how easily he could move and dislodge it with his fingernail; the missing fence ties that should have been holding the wire mesh fence to the uprights, which he evidenced with the still photographs he had taken; and finally, he showed them the cut sections of the wire mesh fence, again using his photographs as proof.
‘All of these,’ Straker declared, ‘from the interference in the car's hydraulics – right through to the tampering with the wire and perimeter wall at the circuit – show quite clearly that there was a predetermination for Remy Sabatino to leave the circuit at high speed and to impact with that section of the fence. And, with the public spectating area directly behind it, it can only mean that there was a clear intention on the part of the saboteurs to cause injury and death.’ Straker had directed the last point to San Marino. He needed the president to buy in to his conclusions before the next stage of the exposition.
‘Well then, Avel,’ said San Marino to Obrenovich, ‘it seems to look pretty much as you thought.’
FIFTY-TWO
‘What?’ Straker asked.
‘Mr Obrenovich had suspected that something must have gone on.’
Straker found himself trying to take stock. Questions were ricocheting around his head. ‘If you suspected something “had gone on”, how come no one's been in touch with us?’ Straker's tone was harsher than he had intended. ‘Any suspicions you had around the crash could have had a material impact on our response to the charges that Ptarmigan and my colleagues are facing.’
Straker found himself staring at Obrenovich: all his suspicions of the man were fully re-ignited.
The Russian remained impassive. ‘It's complicated,’ he said.
Straker retorted: ‘How is the truth ever complicated?’ He felt impatient to ask a whole raft of questions.
There was silence around the table.
He stared at Obrenovich, who still said nothing.
With no dialogue forthcoming, Straker chose to wade in, putting the oligarch firmly back in the guise of a suspect: ‘I want to know about Moscow 100. How is it that you removed four members of the board from your corporate vehicle? How is it that two of them have died subsequently, despite being suspiciously young?’
The Russian sighed. ‘This is what I mean by things being complicated,’ said Obrenovich. Slowly and calmly he added: ‘I can assure you that I had nothing to do with the removal of board members, and certainly nothing to do with their deaths.’
‘You were the principal shareholder and investor in Moscow 100: surely you had a say in the management and board of that company?’
‘Commercially, yes,’ he said. ‘But I had no say in the politics.’
‘What? How does politics come into play?’
‘Politics infuses everything in Russia, colonel. You haven’t been there very long if you haven’t worked that out.’
‘How did politics, then, remove and kill two of your Moscow 100 directors?’
Obrenovich lent forward. ‘I think … colonel … Bo … I need to put all this into some form of context.’
Straker simply stared at the oligarch.
‘Russian politics are dire,’ said Obrenovich calmly. ‘They have been deteriorating for some time. It started, for real, with President Putin's manipulation of the constitution. You might remember that, in 2008 and 2012, he swapped roles with Dmitry Medvedev – between the presidency and the premiership, and then back again after one term – to circumvent the constitutional time limit on how long Putin could serve as president of Russia? The so-called tandemocracy? That was also accompanied by Putin's attitude to opponents and criticism, a period which saw the death of the accountant Sergei Magnitsky; the suspicious death in London of the former Russian secret service agent, Alexander Litvinenko – mysteriously poisoned by polonium 210, a chemical element simply not available to nongovernment agencies; the hounding of Putin's former political ally Boris Berezovsky; and the shameful assassination of the opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov. All these placed an unbearably high price on political criticism. As a result, political opposition in Russia had been all but obliterated. Following that, we had the Tarkovsky succession, a transfer of power which was seen as blatantly corrupt … a coup, for want of a better word. Its lack of legitimacy having been compounded ever since by more and more restrictive laws. In parallel, this latter period has seen a clampdown on public assembly – accompanied by the arrests, farcical trials and imprisonment of journalists critical of the regime.’
