The Genius Wars Read online

  ‘Hang on.’ Gazo frowned. ‘Didden you say thad Com was the hacker?’

  ‘He couldn’t be doing all this alone. There has to be somebody else online. There has to be somebody helping him.’ Swallowing, Cadel glanced over his shoulder. ‘You’re right. We have to turn around. We have to go another way.’

  ‘Off we go, then,’ Gazo said cheerfully. And he executed a rather dangerous U-turn, nosing across the intersection before swerving back to retrace his route. As he whizzed past the vehicles still stuck in the adjoining lane, a lone car horn honked at him.

  ‘I’ll head for New Canderbury Road,’ he announced. ‘Your guy could be heading there himself.’

  Cadel nodded. His mind was racing and his heart was pounding; he was trying to calculate Com’s likely point of origin, taking into account the Camry’s size, trajectory and maximum speed. And it was hard to concentrate when every car on the road had to be checked for another familiar face. What if Dot was out there, driving around? What if Prosper had been flushed from some dark and secret lair …?

  Cadel suddenly realised that he hadn’t been logging his ID signatures. Was there any reason to continue the wardriving exercise? Might he regret it later if he didn’t?

  Maybe I should stick to our schedule, he decided, dragging his laptop back onto his knees. Just in case I end up wanting the data, for some reason.

  ‘Oh, no.’ Gazo’s impatient groan cut across Cadel’s musings. ‘Will you look ad this? A bloody crash, and id’s ride in our way.’

  As Cadel raised his eyes, he was conscious that the car in which he was travelling had begun to slow. It rolled to a standstill just a couple of metres from another set of traffic lights, beyond which lay a scene of pure chaos. Two other cars had collided at a four-way intersection; one of them had run straight through a red light, clipping the edge of the vehicle innocently heading across its path. The green station wagon had then spun around, leaving a black skidmark on the road. The white hatchback …

  The white hatchback was Snezana’s white hatchback. And the green station wagon belonged to Duke’s father.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ cried Gazo, before Cadel could do anything but gasp. ‘Thad’s nod – is thad …?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Cadel shoved his laptop aside. He began to claw at his seatbelt. ‘Oh no.’

  ‘Don’d move,’ said Gazo, yanking off his fake nose, his fake ears and his fake teeth. ‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘You’re not allowed to get outta the car.’

  ‘There’s Duke – look!’ squeaked Cadel, ignoring him. Even from a distance, Duke’s blond dreadlocks were unmistakeable. ‘He’s walking around! He must be all right!’

  Duke, in fact, was only one of several people milling about at the site of the accident. A fat, middle-aged man with a bag of groceries was patting Duke on the shoulder. Another, much younger man was peering into the station wagon. And a woman in a blue dress was hovering over …

  ‘Hamish!’ Cadel cried. Freeing himself from his seatbelt at last, he reached for the doorhandle.

  ‘Stay there!’ Gazo was already halfway out of his seat. ‘Cadel! You can’t be seen like that!’

  ‘Like what?’ Cadel gaped at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The wig? The chin? The flippers?’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘You look like a freak. You afta stay here. Your dad’s gunna skin me alive if you don’t.’ By now Gazo was standing on the road; he bent down to address Cadel through the open driver’s door. ‘Lock yourself in, eh? I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Wait –’

  But Gazo refused to wait. He slammed the door and bolted, heading straight for the white hatchback. Even as he did so, Snezana emerged from her damaged vehicle, moving very slowly and awkwardly in her high-heeled boots. Skirting a patch of broken glass, she staggered across to where Hamish was slumped. She had a bloodstained tissue pressed against her nose.

  Cadel couldn’t see what was wrong with Hamish, who was squatting on the edge of the kerb, minus his motorbike helmet. If he’s sitting up, Cadel concluded, he can’t be too bad. It was obvious that the smash had only just taken place. There were no police at the scene. No ambulance officers were tending to the injured.

  Cadel began to peel off his wig just as his phone rang.

  It was Saul on the other end of the line.

  ‘Cadel? Where are you? I got your message.’ Saul’s tone was crisp but calm. ‘Tell me where you are, and I’ll meet you. I don’t want you wandering around out there – not with Com Daniels on the loose.’

  ‘There’s been an accident,’ replied Cadel, who wasn’t really listening. He had removed his wig and kicked off his flippers; now he was picking away at his fake eyebrows. ‘Duke crashed into Snezana.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘It’s on New Canterbury Road. You can’t miss it.’ Tossing aside a strip of acrylic hair, Cadel watched as Gazo approached Snezana and Hamish. Duke, by this time, was fishing around in the glove-box of his station wagon. It looked as if Vijay was still sitting in the back seat. ‘Someone should find Mr Naidoo,’ Cadel went on. ‘Tell him what’s happened. Isn’t Thi with him? Snezana’s hurt. Her nose is bleeding.’

  ‘Cadel –’

  ‘I think you should come,’ Cadel declared. ‘Be careful, though. Someone’s been messing with the traffic lights. I think the SCATS regional computer might have been hacked.’ He was struck by a sudden, dazzling insight. ‘I wonder if that’s what happened to Duke and Snezana?’ he exclaimed. ‘I wonder if both lights turned green at once?’

  It was a definite possibility. But how could both cars have been been tracked? Though Hamish might have been using a bugged phone (it was certainly possible), neither Duke nor Vijay had been carrying their phones with them. All unauthorised phones had been left back at Thi’s house.

  Anyway, Com didn’t even know who Duke and Vijay were.

  ‘Cadel? Listen to me.’ Saul’s voice had sharpened, the way it always did when he was anxious. ‘Where’s Gazo? Can I talk to Gazo?’

  ‘He’s not here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s gone to help.’ Gazo, in fact, had joined Snezana. Cadel could see them both talking earnestly to the woman in blue, though he couldn’t hear what was being said. Snezana seemed to be crying. Gazo was grasping her elbow protectively.

  Hamish was still sitting with his head on his knees and his arms wrapped around his stomach.

  ‘I think I’ll go and help too,’ Cadel decided. ‘I can’t just stay here in the car.’

  ‘No! Cadel –’

  ‘I’ll be careful. I promise.’ Though the situation had every appearance of being an ambush, specially designed to lure him into the open, Cadel didn’t see how another attack could be carried out – not at this particular accident site, anyway. The damaged cars were blocking every approach, so no one could possibly run him down – and he wasn’t afraid of snipers, because Com and his cronies were obviously using subtler, more technology-based techniques. In fact Cadel couldn’t help wondering if he himself was the main target after all. If he had been, surely the malfunctioning traffic light would have been aimed at him?

  At any rate, the risk wasn’t big enough to keep him in the car while his friends were suffering.

  ‘I’ll see you in a minute,’ he told Saul. ‘Don’t be too long. Someone needs to come here and organise things.’

  Disregarding Saul’s tinny protests, Cadel broke the connection. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, without removing its battery first. He took off his prosthetic chin, checked his face in the mirror for bits of sticky residue, and pushed open the rear passenger door.

  Then he climbed out onto the road.

  FIFTEEN

  Hamish wasn’t looking too good. Though he was able to lift his head, his face was ashen, and his glasses were cracked.

  ‘Bloody Duke,’ he slurred, when he caught sight of Cadel. ‘B-b-bloody idiot can’t drive for nuts.’

  ‘We had a green light,’ Snezana shrilled
. ‘Ask anyone. They’ll tell you the same thing.’

  ‘Where’s Vijay?’ asked Cadel, who had been walking very carefully. In his bare feet, with so much glass around, he was afraid of cutting himself. ‘What’s happened to him? Is he still in your car?’

  ‘Vijay’s all right.’ Snezana cast a vague glance in the direction of her hatchback. ‘He’s just a bit upset, I think.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here, Cadel,’ said Gazo. ‘Not wivvout your shoes on.’

  Cadel, however, didn’t even process this remark. He was too busy studying Hamish, who was breathing in short, shallow gasps. Cadel didn’t like the sound of them at all.

  ‘What about you?’ he said. ‘Are you okay, Hamish?’

  Hamish gave a grunt.

  ‘Is it your stomach? Does it hurt?’

  ‘It’s my chest.’

  ‘Your chest?’ echoed the woman in blue. Her appearance was messy and uncoordinated, as if she’d ducked outside in her cleaning clothes to buy some milk. ‘That’s bad. Your chest? That’s real bad.’

  ‘Has somebody called an ambulance?’ Cadel wanted to know. He peered around for confirmation, but didn’t receive any. Gazo shrugged, in a hapless and hesitant kind of way. The woman in blue sniffed. ‘I got no phone,’ she said sharply, like someone accused of harbouring an illegal substance. Snezana quavered, ‘You told us not to bring our phones. Remember?’ And she fixed Cadel with a plaintive look, which he decided to ignore.

  Hamish shook his head.

  ‘My phone got smashed,’ he croaked. ‘It was in my pocket. I tried it already.’

  Cadel stared down at him, aghast.

  ‘It got smashed?’ he spluttered. ‘In your pocket?’ He didn’t even want to ask which pocket. A hip pocket might be all right, but a breast pocket …?

  That could be serious.

  ‘Um …’ Weakly, Hamish flapped his hand. ‘I kind of … hit the gearstick.’

  ‘Oh, boy,’ said Gazo. Cadel straightened. He was about to suggest that someone call an ambulance right away when a voice behind him bleated, ‘My phone’s working. We can use my phone.’

  It was Duke. Though clearly shell-shocked, he seemed otherwise unaffected by the collision; he wasn’t clutching his nose, or his chest, or any other part of his anatomy. He hadn’t even suffered a cracked lip, or a torn t-shirt. And his grip was steady as he thrust his mobile phone at Cadel – who gaped at him in astonishment.

  ‘Your phone?’ said Cadel. ‘What do you mean, your phone?’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Hamish wheezed. ‘You scumbag, Duke …’

  ‘What?’ Duke looked genuinely taken aback – confused that his offer had been so harshly rejected. ‘I didn’t do nothing. I had the right of way,’ he said, then levelled an accusatory finger at Snezana. ‘She’s the one who ran a red light!’

  ‘I did not!’ she yipped. ‘You did!’

  ‘In your dreams, hot stuff.’

  ‘Nobody ran a red light!’ Cadel insisted. ‘It was a malfunction. I think the traffic system was hacked.’

  ‘Malfunction my arse,’ growled Duke. At which point Hamish made a strained, squeaky, despairing noise. ‘Shut up, you turkey!’ he groaned. ‘This is all your fault!’

  ‘Eh?’ said Duke. By now, he wasn’t the only one looking lost. Snezana and Gazo were both exchanging perplexed glances. As for the woman in blue, she’d already given up, and had wandered off to find out how Vijay was feeling.

  ‘Why would it be my fault?’ Duke demanded, glaring at Hamish. ‘Your mate just said it was a malfunction –’

  ‘They could have tracked your phone, dickhead!’ Hamish snapped, before he suddenly succumbed to a violent coughing fit. Cadel was the one who had to step in and explain.

  ‘You should have left your phone back at Thi’s house,’ he reminded Duke. ‘We discussed this, remember? No phones.’

  ‘But it was turned off.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any difference. Not unless you take the battery out.’ Even so, Cadel wasn’t quite sure how the trace on Duke’s green station wagon could have been accomplished – if, indeed, it had been accomplished at all. Hamish would have been an obvious target, because Hamish happened to be Cadel’s long-time friend. What’s more, Hamish had left his phone on (as instructed) to receive the call from Saul Greeniaus. If Com or some other hacker had infiltrated Saul’s phone, then the same thing might very well have happened to the phone that Hamish had been using.

  But Duke’s phone was different. Com didn’t know Duke. Cadel didn’t know Duke. Could Duke’s appearance at the scene have been pure bad luck? Or had he done something amazingly stupid with his phone?

  ‘You didn’t try to call Hamish, did you?’ Cadel asked him. It was Hamish, however, who replied.

  ‘He didn’t have to,’ said Hamish, in strangled voice. ‘We b-both signed up for a social mapping service.’ Seeing Cadel’s jaw drop, he breathlessly tried to defend himself. ‘It wasn’t my idea … it was a group thing … all the other guys wanted to do it …’

  ‘Are you off your head?’ Cadel exclaimed. He couldn’t believe his ears. Why would an intelligent hacker like Hamish even consider using a phone mapping service? Especially one that allowed any number of registered friends to pinpoint the exact location of his mobile. ‘You might as well turn on a webcam! Or stick a microchip in your ear!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Hamish muttered.

  ‘And you didn’t think it was important to mention this?’ Cadel was so appalled – so thunderstruck – that he forgot all about his friend’s injuries. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you brain-dead?’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘You forgot?’

  ‘We signed up ages ago. After we started playing that game …’

  ‘Jesus, Hamish!’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been a problem, except that Duke had to bring his goddamn phone with him!’ Hamish pointed out. Then he began to cough again.

  ‘Cadel – mate – calm down,’ Gazo remonstrated. ‘The poor bloke’s not well.’

  ‘I didn’t even know he was linked up!’ Cadel cried. He was shaking like a paint mixer. ‘Anyone locked onto his phone would have been able to hack into the mapping service, and get a trace on Duke as well! No wonder they collided! It probably wasn’t an accident at all!’

  ‘Uh … guys?’ whispered Hamish. And something about his tone caught the attention of the whole group.

  He was staring dazedly at his cupped palm, which was smeared with pale streaks of blood. When he raised his eyes again, they were wide and frightened.

  ‘I just – I …’

  He couldn’t finish.

  ‘Did you cough that up?’ Snezana sounded almost as scared as Hamish looked. His nod threw her into a panic. She immediately grabbed Duke’s phone, stammering something about going to hospital. But even as she keyed in the emergency number, a high-pitched woo-oo heralded the arrival of a police car.

  At the very same instant, Cadel spotted Saul’s Corolla approaching from the opposite direction. It came to a sudden halt not far from the hatchback’s mangled bumper bar. Then the driver’s door popped open and Saul sprang out, still dressed in Arabic clothes.

  Cadel began to pick his way across an uneven stretch of asphalt, doggedly making a bee-line for the detective. Saul, however, wasn’t in a time-wasting mood. Cadel had barely taken three steps before he found himself toe to toe with his foster father, who had removed his chador.

  ‘Get in the car! Right now!’ Saul barked.

  ‘Hamish needs an ambulance.’ Cadel had just one thing on his mind, and Saul’s wishes were of secondary importance. ‘Is there some way you can get an ambulance? Really quickly?’

  But the detective didn’t seem to hear. His gaze had dropped to Cadel’s bare feet.

  ‘For Chrissake, Cadel!’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened to your shoes?’

  ‘I wasn’t wearing shoes. I had flippers. Remember?’

  ‘You’ll cut yourself.’

  ‘Hamish needs an
ambulance.’ Cadel refused to be sidetracked, dismissing Saul’s fears with an irritable wave. ‘He’s coughing up blood. We’ve got to do something.’

  ‘There’s an ambulance on its way here right now.’

  ‘Really?’

  Saul grunted. He had begun to inspect the scene before him with a kind of measured detachment; his eyes travelled smoothly from one piece of evidence to the next – from the black skidmark to the broken glass to the hatchback’s buckled grille. At last he fixed his attention on Hamish, and Cadel heaved a sigh of relief.

  Saul would take care of things. He was a policeman. He would know what to do.

  ‘I haven’t talked to Vijay,’ Cadel admitted, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘I don’t know how he is.’

  ‘It’s all right. Just get in the car.’

  ‘This whole thing was a set-up. Somebody made them crash. Somebody’s hacking the controller boxes –’

  ‘Cadel.’ Saul spoke firmly but gently. ‘You can tell me later. Just get in the car, okay? And watch those feet.’

  Cadel didn’t argue. As instructed, he watched his feet intently all the way to the Corolla, not even pausing to glance back at Hamish. In fact he was so focused on where he was treading that he nearly ran headfirst into Egon, who was draped against the Corolla’s front passenger door, sullenly watching Saul take charge.

  ‘Hey!’ said Egon, fending off Cadel with one arm. ‘Look where you’re going!’

  ‘Oh!’ Cadel’s chin jerked up. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I can’t believe this. No – actually, I can believe this. What I can’t believe is that I ever agreed to do it.’ As Cadel crawled into the back seat of the detective’s borrowed car, Egon continued his spiteful monologue. ‘So who was the idiot driver, then? The bimbo or the Rasta? Wait. Don’t tell me. It was the Rasta. Oh dear – and now the bimbo’s nose-job is ruined.’