The Genius Wars (43 page)

‘Oh.’ Cadel wiped his sweaty palms on the front of his t-shirt. ‘Well … maybe he hasn’t been living here at all, then. Maybe he’s been living nearby, and paying visits.’ After a moment’s reflection, he added, ‘Maybe someone’s hired him as a gardener. He’s certainly
dressed
like one.’

Larry said nothing. After skipping around for a bit, he had managed to refine his search by concentrating on shots of an area around the south-western corner of the estate. Agents were converging on this spot from all directions, surging through the steel door and spilling out onto the laneway, clumping into pairs before they disappeared off camera. From one angle, Kale could be seen talking and gesturing – but he stopped abruptly when a call came through on his police radio.

It was Larry’s call.

‘I haven’t got a fix on our target,’ Larry declared. ‘I think he’s moved out of range.’

‘
Roger that.
’ Kale’s voice sounded fuzzy and distorted. ‘
Keep your eyes peeled. Just in case more of ’em start coming out of the woodwork.
’

‘Woodwork is right,’ muttered Larry. ‘Where in hell was he hiding? That’s what I want to know.’

‘You could check the footage,’ said Cadel. ‘There might be something we missed.’

Larry’s grunt signified approval. He began to call up various review menus, while the screens that he wasn’t using continued to jump automatically from viewpoint to viewpoint. Vacant room succeeded vacant room. Wind-tossed glade succeeded wind-tossed glade.

As he stared at the swaying trunk of a distant palm tree, something pricked at Cadel’s subconscious like a hot needle. That palm tree, he knew, was delivering a very important message. That palm tree was bugging him. It was practically
waving
at him. ‘Hey! Hey! Look!’ it was saying. ‘Can’t you see what’s wrong?’

But he couldn’t. Not yet. And before he could solve the puzzle, he was distracted by another movement.

Someone was walking down an upstairs hallway, wearing a grey tweed skirt and blood-coloured twin-set. Cadel recognised her instantly.

Weak-kneed, he had to grab at the edge of the desk.

‘Wilfreda!’ he croaked.

‘What?’ Larry didn’t even glance up. He probably didn’t know that Wilfreda had worked for Prosper English back in Australia. After Prosper’s arrest, she had disappeared; no one had ever been able to discover her whereabouts.

Until now, of course. Now Cadel knew exactly where to find her.

She was walking briskly into the bedroom next door.

‘
It’s Wilfreda! She’s in the house!
’ he squawked. And this time he made an impression. Larry looked at Wilfreda, caught his breath and jumped to his feet.

‘She’s in the next room,’ Cadel whispered. He didn’t know if she would be able to hear him through the wall that divided them, but he didn’t want to take any chances. ‘What if she can get
in
here? What if she has a key, or a code?’

‘Is she armed?’ Larry, too, had lowered his voice to a hiss. For a moment he watched Wilfreda open all the drawers in a bedside cabinet, one by one, as if she were searching for something.

Cadel couldn’t hear the drawers slam shut.

‘There must be some kind of insulation,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I don’t think we need to keep quiet. I think this room is soundproofed.’

‘Maybe. Or maybe not,’ Larry murmured. Without taking his eyes off Wilfreda, he pulled a handgun from the shoulder holster beneath his jacket. ‘You know how to use a walkie-talkie?’

‘Huh?’

‘You press this button to send, and this one to receive.’ Shoving the police radio into Cadel’s damp palm, Larry edged towards the door, his attention still fixed on Wilfreda’s blurred image. Having briefly disappeared into the wardrobe adjoining the second bedroom, she had re-emerged to peer under the bed. ‘She doesn’t seem to have a gun,’ Larry continued, very quietly. ‘And she might try in here, if she doesn’t find what she’s looking for out there.’

‘Yes, but –’

‘As soon as I’ve got her in my sights, you can call Agent Platz. Okay?’

‘Okay, but –’

‘There’s no one outside, is there?’ Larry’s shifting gaze fastened on a shot of the main bedroom, before Cadel could even answer. ‘No. It’s all clear. Make sure you lock this door behind me.’ Under his breath, he added a fierce, final directive. ‘
Don’t come out.
Not until you hear from Agent Platz.’

Then he ducked into the next room, closing the door behind him with a soft
click.

Cadel immediately engaged the lock, as instructed. When he turned back to the monitor screens, he saw a foreshortened Larry sidling out of the main bedroom, poised for action. Meanwhile, in the bedroom next door, Wilfreda had finished rummaging through the walk-in wardrobe. She was now standing with her hands on her hips, surveying her immediate vicinity with a dissatisfied air.

Thank God Rex Austin’s so paranoid,
Cadel thought. Without access to such an intrusive CCTV network, he would never have been able to follow Larry’s progress out of the main bedroom and into the hallway outside. It looked very much as if Wilfreda was about to enter the same hallway. She shook her head, spun around and …

Suddenly the screen went black.

Cadel was startled into an exclamation. ‘What the –?’ He leaned forward, fruitlessly jabbing at switches. He squatted down to check for loose cables beneath the desk. Then – upon seeing nothing untoward – he straightened up again, examining the radio in his hand. What had Larry said? Press
this
button to send and
this
one to receive? Or was it the other way around?

‘I’ll take that,’ a crisp voice remarked behind him.

And Cadel dropped the radio onto the floor.

Prosper English stooped to pick up the walkie-talkie.

‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘I think you might have broken this. But I’ll turn it off, just in case.’

He wasn’t wearing orange overalls – or a tweedy jacket, either. Instead he was dressed in shapeless corduroys, and a knitted jumper so shabby that it was beginning to unravel at the hem. Both garments looked too big for him. Though he had always been thin, it was obvious that he’d lost even more weight; his cheeks were hollow, his hands were like claws, and his long nose seemed beakier than ever. As for his complexion, it was dull and pallid, as if he hadn’t been out in the sun for months.

Behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, his eyes were still as black as a snake’s, and as sharp as a hawk’s. But they were also pouchy, bloodshot, and ringed with dark smudges.

When Cadel opened his mouth, no sound emerged.

‘Don’t bother. They can’t hear,’ Prosper drawled. A wolfish smile crept across his haggard face. ‘As you so insightfully remarked, this room is soundproofed.’

Cadel flung himself at the door. He wasn’t fast enough, though; Prosper yanked him back, hauling him by the collar. Choking and gasping, Cadel was dragged through a dark hole that had opened up in one wall. Only later did he realise that this hole had previously been concealed by the cupboard full of toilet paper. For the moment, his only concern was getting air into his lungs again.

Suddenly he was released. Dropping to the floor, he coughed and spluttered, vaguely aware that Prosper was pulling the cupboard shut behind them both. Something went
click.
Something else jingled.

Cadel began to crawl away. He staggered to his feet just as Prosper caught his elbow.

‘Calm down,’ said Prosper. But Cadel pulled free.

‘Get off!’ he yelled, kicking out wildly. They were in a small, narrow, windowless space with a door at each end. Fluorescent tubes overhead illumined nothing in the way of potential weapons: no stools or lamps or fire irons. The walls were lined with yet more cupboards.

When Cadel lunged for the nearest doorknob, he was grabbed again.

‘
Calm down.
’ Prosper spoke sternly, his fingers clamped around Cadel’s wrist. ‘There’s no need to panic …’

‘Let go! Let go of me!’ Cadel swung at Prosper, who promptly seized his other wrist. No matter how furiously Cadel jerked and tugged and wriggled, he couldn’t loosen the iron grip that restrained him.

‘Help!
Help!
’ he bellowed, and Prosper sighed.

‘For God’s sake, boy, use your head. I just told you this place was soundproofed.’

Cadel barely heard. He was hysterical with fear, pumping adrenaline and deaf to all arguments. He tried to bite one of the psychologist’s bony hands.

‘
STOP IT!
’ With a single shove, Prosper slammed him against a cupboard. Cadel found himself squeezed between a hardwood panel and an arm like an iron bar.

Then Prosper lowered his head, until they were eye to eye.

‘
I’m not going to hurt you.
Is that clear? Cadel?’

‘You’re lying!’ Cadel sobbed. ‘You tried to kill me!’

‘What?’

‘
You’ve been trying to kill me!
’

Prosper blinked. As he withdrew his face a little, Cadel tried
to escape by sliding towards the floor. But it didn’t work. Prosper simply applied more pressure.

‘What are you talking about?’ he demanded.

‘You
know
what I’m talking about!’ Confronted by raised eyebrows and pursed lips, Cadel lost his temper. ‘You tried to push me downstairs! And run over me! And drown me in concrete!’

‘I did
what
?’

‘Of course you did! I
know
you did! Do you think I’m
stupid
?’

‘Okay, listen.’ Prosper took a deep breath, adjusting his hold so that one elbow was wedged painfully into Cadel’s sternum. ‘We’re going to discuss this, but not right now. Right now I need to get you downstairs so you can address yourself to a little problem I’m having.’ His bright, black gaze bored into Cadel’s skull. ‘Are you going to be sensible? Are you going to be smart? Or am I going to have to truss you up like a bag of old clothes?’

‘You’ll never make it downstairs!’ Cadel spat. ‘There’s an agent right outside!’

‘Who can’t get in again. And by the time he works out how to unlock two sets of reinforced doors, we’ll be long gone.’ Seeing Cadel’s brow crease in perplexity, Prosper grinned. ‘My dear boy, I won’t be using the
outer
staircase, I’ll be using the
inner
one. That panic room out there is just the tip of an iceberg.’

Bemused and distracted, Cadel stopped fighting. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

‘Haven’t you worked it out, yet?’ Prosper seemed surprised. ‘When I heard you ask for a measuring tape, I thought you must have hit on it. That’s why I was forced to take action.’ He grew impatient when Cadel continued to stare at him, blankly. ‘Isn’t it obvious? A panic
room
wasn’t enough for our friend Rex. He built himself a panic house, as well.’

‘A panic
house?
’

‘Concealed inside the other one. There’s a hidden staircase. And a hidden kitchen between the pool and the basement. And a hidden bedroom behind the chimney flue –’

‘Why?’

‘
Why
? Because Rex was paranoid. He was afraid of kidnappers.
And
escaped convicts.
And
former employees. The list goes on and on.’ Prosper’s tense frame relaxed a little as he mulled over Rex Austin’s peculiarities. ‘In my opinion, the whole panic-house concept was a failure. It made him over-confident. And men of his generation simply don’t understand the kind of things a hacker can accomplish, nowadays.’

Cadel winced. He knew enough about Prosper to understand that the word ‘over-confident’, when used in this context, was very bad news. ‘Where
is
Rex? What did you do to him?’

‘Oh, we’ll discuss that in a minute. When we get downstairs,’ Proper replied. Then he stepped back, gesturing gracefully towards the nearest door. ‘Shall we go? It’s not far. And it’s really quite interesting.’

Cadel hesitated.

‘I swear I won’t hurt you. Unless you kick up a fuss,’ Prosper assured him. ‘Believe me, if you’ve been having trouble, it wasn’t my doing.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Cadel scoffed. ‘Are you saying it was
Com
who tried to run me over?’

‘If it was, he’ll answer for it.’

‘Don’t give me that rubbish!’ Cadel said harshly, rubbing his wrists. ‘Why would Com want to kill me? Why would
anyone,
except you?’

Again Prosper sighed, in a long-suffering manner, as if unreasonable demands were being placed on him. ‘I’m hardly in a position to answer that,’ he pointed out. ‘It’s not as if I’ve had any direct contact with my Australian team, recently.’

‘So you admit it!’ Cadel pounced on this confession like a cat on a bird. ‘You admit you hired Dot and Com!’

‘Well, of course,’ Prosper said mildly. ‘I had to keep track of you somehow.’

‘And Vee?’

‘Ah. Well.’ A smile tweaked at the corner of the psychologist’s mouth. ‘Let’s just say that Vee’s not in Australia, at the moment.’

‘But he’s been tracking me, hasn’t he? With security cameras?’

‘I believe that
is
one of his more ingenious techniques, though I gather the grunt work is usually done by Com –’

‘Was it Com who stuck you into the CCTV footage?’ Suddenly Cadel was ravenous for information. Suddenly he was desperate to know if he had miscalculated, somehow. ‘Why would he do that? When I was minding my own business? It was
stupid
!’

For the first time, Prosper looked puzzled. He frowned, and seemed to forget that there were more urgent matters to attend to.

‘What footage?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes.

‘You know. Around Sydney.’

‘Around
Sydney
?’

‘Don’t try and pretend you don’t know all this. You
must
know all this.’

But even as he spoke, Cadel began to wonder. Prosper’s face wore a grim look.

‘Perhaps you’d better tell me what’s been going on,’ he said.

Cadel eyed him, torn between terror and suspicion. ‘Your digital double kept popping up all over the place,’ he quavered. ‘And then I worked out it wasn’t really you.’

‘I see.’

‘After that, Sonja’s wheelchair was hijacked. It nearly killed me, and Sonja ended up in hospital. Naturally I thought you did it.’