Evil Genius (45 page)

Cadel replaced the card quickly and stuffed the envelope into his pocket. He realized that he should have told Gazo not to communicate with him. Not like this, anyway. It had been a stupid oversight. Sloppy planning.

He collapsed onto his chair with a sigh.

Though anxious to read the Fiihrer's latest surveillance reports, he couldn't go near them until the Virus had left. All he could do was check the state of Max's bank accounts—something that didn't require direct access to the Maestro's own files but which could be done through the bank instead. To Cadel's astonishment, all the accounts were empty: Art had drained them dry. Cadel couldn't believe it. A single day and the money was gone! That was faster than he had ever expected.

He wondered if Max had been alerted yet. Almost certainly, to judge from his past behavior: Max tended to check on his money every six hours or so.

Cadel was working his way toward confirming this when a voice said, "Ah! You
are
here."

It was Dr. Deal. He stood in the doorway, dressed with his usual flair but looking somewhat flustered, all the same.

He was staring straight at Cadel.

"Who—me?" said Cadel.

"I want a word with you."

"Now?"

"Come here."

Reluctantly, Cadel rose. He glanced at Dr. Vee: Would the Virus raise an alarm if Cadel didn't return within half an hour? But Cadel need not have worried. Though Dr. Deal drew him out of Hardware Heaven, they went no farther than the elevators before stopping to talk.

"Have you told anyone?" Dr. Deal murmured.

"About—"

"The incident," Dr. Deal hissed. "
You
know! In the men's room!"

"Oh." Cadel shook his head. "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Breathing heavily, Dr. Deal squeezed Cadel's shoulder. "I'm not angry, Cadel. I just want to know. If you have, it would explain something."

"What?"

"Never you mind. Just tell me the
truth.
"

"I did," Cadel insisted, wriggling out of the lawyer's grip. "I've been keeping you in reserve, in case I need something."

"So you haven't told Thaddeus?"

"No."

"Or Luther Lasco?"

"No." Cadel realized, suddenly, that he was being unwise. "But I've written it all down," he said. "In case anything ever happens to me."

If Dr. Deal heard this last remark, it didn't seem to register. He stared hard at Cadel, then stared through him, as if thinking about something else.

"In that case, what the hell is going on?" he muttered. The question wasn't addressed to Cadel. Dr. Deal suddenly turned on his heel to face the elevators, and punched the
DOWN
button. He was looking more flustered than ever.

"What's wrong?" Cadel asked, with all the innocence that he could muster. In fact, he knew what was wrong. Dr. Deal had probably realized that he was being followed, or that his house had been searched. Something, at any rate, had alarmed him.

"Dr. Deal?" he said, having received no reply. "What's happened?"

"Nothing," the lawyer snapped, just as a chiming noise announced the arrival of one of the elevators. Cadel watched Dr. Deal step into it. When the doors had closed, Cadel raised his eyes to the illuminated panel above them.

Dr. Deal was getting out on the ground floor.

Cadel rushed down the fire stairs in pursuit. He wanted to see where the lawyer was going, and couldn't rely on surveillance reports. Not yet. Not while Dr. Vee was still in Hardware Heaven.

Upon reaching the ground floor, he was very careful. Through a window in the door that separated the fire stairs from the foyer, he scanned the elevators and their surroundings before he dared even to show his face. There was no one in sight. But when Cadel pushed open the door, he immediately heard voices. Raised voices.

They were coming from the corridor, down near Thaddeus's office.

"—those useless gorillas of yours left the place in a shambles!" Dr. Deal was saying. "And I want to know why!"

"You're saying you
don't
know?" It was Adolf who answered. Cadel worked this out when, having crossed the foyer from the fire stairs, he poked his head cautiously around a corner. There, in the corridor, were Thaddeus, Dr. Deal, and a short, wiry man with a gray crew cut, wearing battle fatigues. Cadel recognized this man from a photograph in the Axis Institute handbook. It was Adolf.

In the handbook, of course, he hadn't been wearing camouflage colors.

"No, I do not!" cried Dr. Deal. "I do
not
know why I'm being persecuted!"

"You expect us to believe that?" said Adolf.

"Now, gentlemen." As Thaddeus began to speak, Cadel pulled back. He didn't want to risk being seen. Edging away from the corner, he heard Thaddeus plead for calm. "There's no need to shout."

"No need?" exclaimed Dr. Deal. "I came here to find out why this moronic mercenary thinks it necessary to subject me to his clumsy attentions—"

"I will tell you why!" the Führer interrupted. "I came here to tell Dr. Roth; I'll tell you, too!"

"Gentlemen,
please
" Thaddeus spoke sharply. "If you want to discuss this, do it in my office. Not out here."

"Yes!" said the Führer. "We should discuss this envelope! We should discuss Tracey Lane!"

"
Adolf.
I told you.
Not out here.
"

Cadel shuddered. He had never heard that note in Thaddeus's voice before and never wanted to hear it again. When the door of the psychologist's office slammed shut, he toyed with the idea of pressing his ear against it, before finally deciding not to. Taking a risk like that was unjustified. He knew what would be said in Thaddeus's office. Adolf would accuse Dr. Deal of asking Tracey to deliver the envelope. Dr. Deal would deny having done so. Thaddeus might want to know why Dr. Deal hadn't simply come to him with his suspicions about Terry; had the recording of Terry's phone call been acquired through questionable means? Through a police phone-tapping operation, for example? Dr. Deal, if so accused, would repeat angrily that he had
nothing to do
with the recording. He didn't know where the envelope had come from. He didn't know what Tracey was up to.

Cadel doubted that Adolf would believe Dr. Deal. The meeting would come to nothing, he was sure. And whatever Dr. Deal did next, Cadel would know about it from the Führer's surveillance reports. If, that is, Dr. Vee ever shifted his enormous bulk out of Hardware Heaven. Cadel was beginning to worry that he would be there all day.

But Cadel's worries were unfounded. Upon returning to his computer, he discovered that Dr. Vee had gone. Only Com remained in Hardware Heaven, tap-tap-tapping away. It was a great relief. Cadel was at last able to jump on board the spy sweep, and jump off again when it reached Adolf's files. He scanned them feverishly, anxious to see the surveillance reports.

So far, they were pretty uninteresting. Brendan's condition was unchanged. Terry had stayed with him all night. Tracey had gone out to a party the previous evening and come home at three
A.M
.; she was still in bed. Cadel had been a good boy and was now at the institute. Luther was currently engaged in making an inventory of the Yarramundi ammunition stocks.

It was among Adolf's e-mails that Cadel found more-rewarding material. Luther had e-mailed the Fuhrer, demanding an explanation for the "flies on his tail." Clearly, he had worked out that something was going on. So what would happen when Adolf left Thaddeus's office? Would he return to Yarramundi and confront the enraged Luther there? It was possible. It was even probable. But when Cadel tried to calculate the exact probability, he found himself hampered by his own lack of data. He didn't really know enough about any of these people: Adolf, Luther, Dr. Deal. He knew Thaddeus well enough to conclude that he would very likely refuse to give Adolf authorization for a campus-wide yellow alert. But the others? With them, he was plucking numbers from a deep, black void, wearing a blindfold.

Cadel turned to the Maestro's files. He saw that Max had closed all of his accounts, but found nothing to indicate what his next move might be: no e-mails to Thaddeus, no official complaints about Art lodged with the Fuhrer. Cadel did find an alert circulated by one of the Maestro's banks, on its internal network. The bank was informing its staff that "a fraud had been committed" against at least one customer. The perpetrator was described as being about sixty years old and five feet, seven inches in height, very nearsighted, with a slim build, gray hair, crooked teeth, and "an educated way of speaking."

So Art must have removed the money in person. A risky procedure, to be sure, but necessary for someone without much expertise in the field of computers.

Reading the description of the man who had passed himself off as Max, Cadel was convinced that the Maestro must now know exactly who had stolen his money. Who else could the mysterious thief be, if not Art? Even his crooked teeth had been mentioned.

It seemed strange that Max hadn't informed Thaddeus of this latest development. Unless he had used his phone, instead of his e-mail? That was possible. Cadel decided to see if he could dig up some of Max's phone records, but first he returned to the Fiihrer's surveillance reports. It had been at least ninety minutes since he'd last checked them.

URGENT,
he read.
Subject IJ2n tracked from work to house of subject IM3r. On-site approx. 1 hour. At 10:52 a.m. left site alone, highly agitated. Is now at DARLINGHURST POLICE STATION. New orders required ASAP. Please respond. URGENT.

Cadel swallowed.

What on earth was going on?

Subject IJ2n was the code name for Dr. Deal. Subject IM3r was the code name for Tracey. Dr. Deal had gone to Tracey's house, stayed an hour, then rushed off to Darlinghurst police station.

Why?

Numbly, Cadel considered the possibility that Dr. Deal was about to spill the beans about everything: Thaddeus, Dr. Darkkon, the Axis Institute ... everything. Perhaps the lawyer was scared. Scared because his house had been searched. Scared because someone was following him. Scared of being "sorted out" by Luther Lasco. (An unexpected heart attack, perhaps? An unfortunate accident in his own spa bath?) Nothing that the police might do to Dr. Deal could ever be as bad as a Luther Lasco solution.

While Cadel tried to work out what was happening, he kept checking the surveillance reports. There was no news after ten minutes. No news after fifteen, or twenty-five. Another hour passed before the next message came through from the team following Tracey.

Re: Subject IM3r. Police have arrived at house with ambulance. Crimescene tapes erected. Query: Further directions? Looks bad.

A little later came another message.

URGENT. Subject IJ2n still on-site. Police team dispatched. Please advise.

Cadel was doing frantic calculations in his head, but it was pointless; he didn't have enough data to work with. Obviously, Dr. Deal had gone straight to Tracey's house because the Fiihrer believed that she had delivered the envelope. Any man in Dr. Deal's position would have wanted to know what the hell she was up to. Unless there was another reason? It suddenly occurred to Cadel that Dr. Deal might not have known about Tracey's relationship with Terry. Other people had known (Carla, for example), so Cadel had assumed—he had
assumed,
like an idiot!—that the lawyer would know, too. Especially since Terry knew all about Dr. Deal.

But Cadel had never laid eyes on any written proof that Dr. Deal did know about Tracey and Terry. What if he hadn't? What if he had been told about Terry, for the first time, in Thaddeus's office? What if he had gone to Tracey's house with rage in his heart, discovered the truth, and decided to seek revenge by spilling his guts to the police?

Cadel considered this scenario from every angle, but he wasn't convinced. He couldn't imagine Dr. Deal doing any such thing. And the numbers certainly made no sense, when he was trying to calculate probabilities. On the other hand, if Dr. Deal feared that he was being framed by Luther and Thaddeus and Adolf—wouldn't that be enough to send him running for help?

Finally, after two more hours, a report was filed that removed all doubt.

Re: Subject IM3r. Corpse removed from subject's house in body bag. Forensic activity. Media attending. Subject IM3r deceased
?

Tracey was dead.

Cadel squeaked, and covered his mouth with his hand. Com looked up. He directed an inquiring glance at Cadel.

"I-I've got a headache," Cadel stammered. This seemed to satisfy Com, who returned to his program. Cadel, however, couldn't face his computer again.

He shut the whole thing down with trembling fingers. Then he headed blindly for the door. He had to get out. He had to-to—

To what?

They were watching him. It was important to keep that in mind. He couldn't do anything peculiar—anything that might alert Thaddeus. Not while he was under surveillance. Crying and moaning, wringing his hands—they were out of the question. If he didn't control himself, swallow his sobs, blink away his tears, then Thaddeus would hear of it. Thaddeus would hear and wonder.

There must be a place, he thought despairingly, as he stepped into the elevator. Somewhere I can hide...

And then he remembered.

He was shuffling across the lawn, making for the front gate, when someone called his name. "Cadel!
Cadel!
" The voice rang out like a siren, but he kept going. He had to. Gazo was bound to say something stupid, and the electronic sensors were everywhere. Cadel picked up his pace as Gazo's heavy steps began to close the gap between them.
Thump, thump, thump!
When Cadel swiped his key-card, the gates opened automatically. Wall-mounted cameras were trained on his small, hunched figure.

The gates were closing behind him when Gazo slipped through them, narrowly avoiding a nasty accident.

"Gazo! For god's sake!"

"Didn't you hear me?"

"I heard you." Cadel darted across the street; he wanted to put as much space as possible between himself and the institute. Before Gazo opened his big mouth and ruined everything. "What is it?"