The Genius Wars (12 page)

Cadel sighed as he dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. ‘I doubt you’ll find out much,’ he said glumly. ‘Whoever Bev really was, she would have stolen the SIM card.
I
would have stolen it. And then I would have destroyed it.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You might get a rough idea of where she was calling
from
–’ Cadel began, then stopped in mid-sentence. An idea was stirring at the back of his mind.

‘– but she could have been on the move,’ Saul finished. ‘I realise that. Still, it’s worth pursuing.’ All at once, he noticed Cadel’s fixed stare and arrested expression. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘She wouldn’t have been on the move.’ Cadel was thinking aloud. ‘That call wasn’t made from a train or a bus. Bev knew exactly where I was.
Exactly
. Which means she must have been plugged into the campus CCTV network
while she was on the phone.
’ Lifting his gaze from the steaming surface of his milk, he turned to the detective. ‘You wouldn’t be doing a hack like that in public. Not if you had any sense.’

‘So –’

‘You’d need somewhere private. With a stable Internet connection. Maybe not your own house, but a friend’s place. Or a hotel room. Or maybe even a parked car with a stolen wireless connection, though I doubt it.’

Saul nodded, chewing at his bottom lip.

‘I realise you probably won’t be able to pinpoint the exact spot,’ Cadel went on, ‘but if you could narrow it down to just a few streets –’

‘We could canvass them.’ Saul didn’t sound very enthusiastic, and Cadel wondered if it would be worth offering to hack a few customer databases. Probably not. Even if Saul gave him permission to conduct such a hack – even if they managed to secure some kind of official clearance for the procedure – Cadel suspected that ‘Bev’ would be paying her power and broadband bills under an assumed name.

Nevertheless, if she
was
living in the area, and she
did
have an Internet connection …

‘You shouldn’t be worrying about this now,’ Saul was saying. ‘You must be tired. Fiona will give me an earful if she finds out I’ve been keeping you up, talking about phone traces –’

‘You know what might work?’ Cadel interrupted. ‘Wireless mapping.’

‘Huh?’

‘If you can get a rough location, and Bev’s still somewhere in the vicinity, we might be able to catch her by wardriving the whole area.’ Cadel sipped at his milk, considering all the possible scenarios. ‘We’d need to ask Richard for help,’ was his final conclusion. ‘He might agree to do it as a kind of class project. I figure if we could get four or five cars full of wardrivers, scanning for access point IDs –’

‘Woah.’ Saul lifted his hand. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘I’m not saying we’d hack into anybody’s wireless network,’ Cadel assured him. ‘But if it’s Dot who’s done this, or Com, or Vee, I might be able to suss them out.’
They could be using old ID signatures
, he thought.
You never know
. ‘I need to talk to Richard,’ he said. ‘Is there some way I could do that? Without using a phone?’

‘
I’ll
talk to him,’ Saul promised. And before Cadel could object, the detective ploughed on. ‘I don’t want you talking to anyone right now.’

‘I wouldn’t do it
right now
.’ Cadel couldn’t keep the impatience
out of his voice. ‘It’s the middle of the night! I mean in the morning.’

‘In the morning you’ll be going to a safe house,’ Saul quietly insisted. And Cadel gasped.

‘What?’ he said. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Not the one in Roseville. Another one. It doesn’t have a networked security system, but it’s easy to patrol.’

‘No.’ Cadel shook his head. ‘You’re not going to lock me away again.’

‘Listen –’

‘No.’

‘Cadel. This is serious.’ The detective spoke gravely and forcefully. ‘I know how you feel about Prosper English. Deep down, you don’t think that he’ll ever hurt you. But you’re wrong.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Cadel couldn’t believe his ears. ‘Are you deaf? I just
said
that he was trying to kill me!’

‘You can say a lot of things without really meaning them.’

‘But –’

‘Prosper got at you once before, and I was to blame. That’s not gonna happen a second time. Do you understand?’

Cadel swallowed. As he stared into the detective’s taut face, images flashed into his mind: images of a drive through deserted scrubland, with Saul at the wheel of a borrowed car, and Prosper in the back. It had been a hijacking, of sorts; the detective had been lucky to escape with his life. And he
hadn’t
been to blame. Of course he hadn’t. Prosper had simply out-witted them all.

And that, of course, was the point. That was why Cadel couldn’t just sit back and let other people take over. He understood how Saul was feeling. They had both been traumatised by the hijacking incident – Saul, perhaps, even more so than Cadel, who had learned to expect the unexpected after years of living in the shadow of Prosper English. But for that very reason, Cadel was better placed to pass judgement.

He took a deep breath.

‘Without my help,’ he bluntly informed the detective, ‘you’re not going to catch him.’

Saul’s answering smile was little more than a grimace. ‘It might take us a bit longer,’ he conceded.

‘How long? Six weeks? Six months?’ Cadel’s voice grew shrill. ‘You expect me to live in a safe house for
six months?
Doing what? Playing Trivial Pursuit? While Prosper rampages around online, trying to kill people?’

There was a long pause. The detective seemed to be mustering his strength – or perhaps considering his options. It was hard to tell from the pensive look on his face. At last he said, quite gently, ‘I think you’re underestimating us.’

‘And I think you’re underestimating
me
,’ Cadel rejoined. Then, summoning up all his strength, he fired off his biggest, nastiest shot. ‘Which isn’t something that Prosper would do any more,’ he snapped. ‘Prosper knows not to treat me like a kid. He learned it the hard way. He knows what can happen when people forget how smart I am.’

The detective stiffened. Cadel felt awful, but he refused to back down. Because he was telling the truth, and the truth could hurt.

‘When it comes to Prosper English, I’m the expert,’ Cadel insisted, pressing home his advantage.
This is the best thing for everyone
, he told himself.
I can’t afford to get sidelined
. ‘Believe me, I understand why you’re worried,’ he said. ‘But a safe house isn’t going to keep me safe. It really isn’t.’ And by way of a final broadside, he added, ‘Do you honestly think you could
force
me to stay anywhere? Do you honestly think that I couldn’t get out?’

Saul didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t even move. His gaze had dropped to the papers in front of him; for a while he just sat there, pale and rigid.

At last he glanced up.

‘So what do you want to do, then?’ he asked, without expression.

‘I want to stay here. I want to talk to Richard Buckland.’ Cadel found himself quailing beneath the detective’s blank-eyed regard. ‘Don’t be angry. Please? Just give me a chance to help.’

‘I’m not angry.’ And indeed, Saul didn’t sound the least bit angry – just immeasurably tired. ‘I’m scared,’ he admitted. ‘I’m scared you’ll end up like Sonja. You’re my son now. Protecting you isn’t just a job, any more.’

Cadel’s eyes began to smart.
I need my sleep
, he thought, trying to control himself.
There’s nothing to cry about
.

‘Would you at least agree to stay inside?’ Saul begged. ‘Away from any CCTV cameras?’

Unable to speak, Cadel nodded.

‘Just until I can arrange an escort,’ the detective continued. Then he frowned. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

Cadel cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all that he could say.

It was enough, though. And as Saul stretched across the table to ruffle his hair, Cadel saw a holstered pistol tucked beneath the detective’s dressing-gown.

When Cadel woke up the next morning, it was after nine. Saul had already left for work. But the kitchen was still full of people.

Fiona was there, shuffling around in a pair of ugg boots. With her was Gazo Kovacs, who had once again donned his bodyguard outfit: long sleeves, shiny shoes, musky aftershave. Unfortunately, the scrap of toilet paper adhering to a razor cut on his right cheek tended to spoil the overall effect. And he was further diminished by the presence of Angus McNair – a recent arrival from the safe house.

Angus seemed to fill the room. He gave the impression that his scalp was brushing against its ceiling, and that the floor-boards were sagging under his weight. His partner, on the other hand, was a nuggetty little man like a short-haired terrier, with hard, flat, poker-chip eyes that scoured the scene in front of him as if they were made of steel wool. ‘I’m Officer Reggie Bristow,’ this man informed Cadel, in a voice like the squeak of a rusty gate. ‘And I’m here to watch your back.’

‘Oh,’ said Cadel, who was still on the threshold.

‘But I’ll be needing your cooperation,’ Reggie continued. ‘Which means that you can’t leave the premises, you can’t answer the phone, and you can’t open any blinds or curtains.’

Cadel sighed. As he sat down to eat his warmed-up pancakes, the two policemen resumed their ‘sector patrol’, repeatedly checking every access point in the building. What with the steady
creak-creak-creak
of their footsteps, and the accumulation of dirty
coffee cups on the kitchen table, and the locked doors, and the screened phone calls, and the stale, bored, muted atmosphere, Cadel couldn’t help thinking that his cosy little home had started to feel like a safe house. In other words, it was becoming a prison rather than a sanctuary.

Prosper could be blamed for that, too.

‘If I can’t leave here,’ Cadel said to Fiona, as calmly as he could, ‘then how am I supposed to visit Sonja?’

‘Oh, we’ll work something out,’ she assured him. ‘We won’t be able to see her until tonight, anyway. That’s when she’ll be moving out of the Surgical High Dependency Unit.’

‘Have you heard from Judith?’

‘Judith says it’s going pretty well. She took Sonja’s old Dynavox machine to the hospital, which should make things easier for everyone.’ The chiming of the doorbell briefly silenced Fiona; she set down her cup of tea as Angus’s heavy footsteps sounded in the hallway. ‘Shall I get that?’ she asked Reggie, who shook his head.

‘Leave it to Officer McNair,’ he replied.

‘But –’

‘We can’t take any risks.’

Cadel bit back a retort. He knew that if there was going to be another attack, it would be launched by a wireless network, rather than by someone who showed up and rang the bell.

He wasn’t surprised when the newcomer turned out to be Hamish Primrose.

‘You know this guy?’ Angus queried, upon escorting Hamish into the kitchen. ‘He says he’s a friend of yours.’

‘He
is
a friend of mine,’ Cadel said patiently. And Hamish snorted.

‘Some friend!’ he scoffed, jerking out of the policeman’s grip. ‘Word is that Sonja fell d-downstairs. I heard she’s in hospital. Is that true?’

Cadel could only nod. The picture that had invaded his mind – of Sonja’s striped headband smeared with blood – had rendered him speechless.

‘Then why didn’t you call
me
?’ Hamish spoke through a mouthful of chewing gum. ‘She’s my friend too, y’know.’

Before Cadel could think of an excuse, Fiona rose from the table. ‘It’s been a bit hectic,’ she admitted. ‘Do you want something, Hamish? Maybe a cup of tea?’

‘I left four messages,’ Hamish went on accusingly, as if she hadn’t spoken. He was glaring at Cadel. ‘You d-didn’t answer them.’

‘I don’t have my phone,’ Cadel rejoined. ‘Speaking of which, are
you
carrying a phone? Because you can’t bring it in here.’

‘Huh?’ Hamish seemed too stunned to resent this advice. He goggled like a fish, apparently unaware that Angus was already patting him down. ‘Why?’

‘Because someone sent a Bluetooth transmission to Sonja’s wheelchair.’ Cadel explained what had happened, while Angus produced a mobile phone from somewhere deep within the oversized leather jacket that Hamish was wearing. Only when Cadel had finished did Angus inquire as to whether Hamish had come by car.

‘Uh – yeah,’ said Hamish. ‘It’s parked outside.’

‘Make and model?’

‘It’s a green Prius.’

‘Can I have the keys?’

‘I guess so.’ Hamish fished them out of his pocket. ‘Why? Are you going to check it for bombs?’

‘No.’ The policeman remained poker-faced. ‘It’s a safe place to put your phone.’

‘Because we don’t want that phone anywhere near us,’ Cadel broke in. ‘You and I were both at Clearview House, Hamish, so we might have ended up with the same problem. It’s no good hunkering down in an unwired house if you’re surrounded by sabotaged mobiles.’

Angus, by this time, was on his way out the door; Cadel could only assume that he was heading for the Prius, which Hamish had received from his parents upon finally securing a driver’s licence after three failed attempts. Cadel had always been slightly
suspicious of this unexpected achievement. He couldn’t help wondering if Hamish, with his wide knowledge of traffic-related computer networks, might have given
himself
a pass mark on the driving test.

‘So you figure it was Dot who messed with your phone?’ asked Hamish. He acknowledged Gazo with a careless wave, then threw himself into one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Or Trader, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’ Cadel pushed aside his half-eaten pancake. ‘Unless
you
did it.’

‘Ha, ha. Very funny,’ Hamish snapped.

‘It’s all part of the same set-up,’ said Cadel, as Fiona whisked his plate away. ‘That, and the CCTV bug, and the malware in Judith’s system. It’s all connected somehow.’

But Hamish wasn’t enlightened. ‘What malware?’ he demanded. And Cadel suddenly realised that, in all the confusion, Hamish hadn’t been kept properly informed of recent developments.

There was no quick way of summarising them. It took Cadel at least ten minutes to describe the events of the past two days, while Hamish listened avidly, and Fiona stacked the dishwasher. By the time Cadel had said his piece, nothing was left on the kitchen table except a sugar bowl.