The Genius Wars Read online

  ‘Then he must see you’re no threat,’ Saul argued. ‘That’s if he’s keeping tabs on you at all, which is debatable.’

  Cadel gave a snort. He’d never debated it. He’d never even doubted it.

  ‘And even if he is running a surveillance operation,’ Saul continued, ‘it’s not as if you’ve given him anything to worry about. In fact that might be why he’s surfaced now. Because he thinks you’re well and truly out of the picture.’

  Cadel didn’t believe this for one minute. Having twice underestimated Cadel – and suffered because of it – Prosper was unlikely to make the same mistake a third time. Unlikely? Hell, the chances were minimal. Cadel could offer mathematical proof in support of his opinion; he’d calculated the odds.

  He couldn’t deny, however, that there was always room for error when it came to probability.

  ‘Anything’s possible,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve still got a feeling this has something to do with me, though.’

  ‘Which is why you have to sit tight, and not get involved.’ Saul was firm. ‘I wouldn’t even be asking you for a positive ID if I thought there was any chance of Prosper finding out.’ He paused for a moment, his forehead creasing as he fixed his attention on Cadel’s computer. ‘What do you think? Should we use your laptop? Would it be safe?’

  ‘I’d prefer to use something else,’ said Cadel, who had always been paranoid about the health of his hard drive. ‘You don’t know where that disc might have been.’

  ‘Good point,’ Saul murmured. He then opened the door and ushered Cadel through it; together they made their way downstairs, where they found one of the security guards – Angus – sitting in the old dining room. This dark and narrow space had been converted into an office, which contained a couple of CCTV monitors, a computer, a printer, a fax machine and several telephones. Since most of the equipment on show was either black or grey, instead of white, Cadel preferred the office to any other room in the house.

  Angus also brightened up the decor a little. Not that he was very lively, with his bland expression and uninflected voice. Like most of the safe-house staff, he had been trained to keep his distance. But he had red hair and a red face, and his eyes were a deep, vivid blue.

  Even in his mud-brown suit, he struck a cheerful note.

  ‘Sure,’ he said, when asked if the office computer was available. ‘But I’m on duty, right now. I have to stay here while you’re using it.’

  ‘Feel free,’ was Saul’s somewhat acid rejoinder. He allowed Angus to insert Saul’s disc into the appropriate disc drive. But once this simple task had been carried out, Angus was promptly banished to the other side of the room.

  Cadel soon found himself peering at a list of seven files. Each file bore a tag incorporating a date, a time and a location, as well as more obscure number groupings that were harder to interpret. He wondered if they might refer to camera specifications, or network protocols.

  ‘Each file is a different sighting,’ Saul explained, motioning at the screen. He was standing behind Cadel, who had laid claim to a wheeled typist’s chair. ‘They’re listed in order of appearance.’

  ‘Starting three days ago?’ said Cadel. And Saul pulled a face.

  ‘Yes. We’ve been a bit slow off the mark, unfortunately.’

  According to the list, Prosper had been filmed in Hornsby, Bankstown, Campbelltown, Bondi Junction, Parramatta, and Sydney’s Central Business District. In other words, he’d been all over the place: north, south, east and west. There didn’t seem to be a uniformity of times, either – mornings, afternoons and evenings were all represented.

  ‘As you can see, he’s been getting about a bit,’ Saul continued. ‘But there’s been a double sighting in the CBD, so we’re hoping that might have some significance.’

  ‘It all has some significance.’ Cadel planted his fingertip on the third line down. ‘Look at this. An early start at the railway station. Was he heading in or out?’

  ‘In. Definitely. We’ve been checking the schedules, and there are three trains he might have caught.’

  ‘Yeah, but where did he come from, at 5:48 in the morning? That’s got to narrow your search parameters.’ Cadel spun around in his chair, lifting his chin until he was looking Saul straight in the eye. ‘You know what you need? You need a mathematician. You can apply mathematics to a problem like this. Bayesian theory … maybe a Markov Chain model. You can look at where Prosper’s been, and work out where he is now. If you’ve got enough data.’

  There was a brief pause. When Cadel didn’t go on, the detective finally asked, ‘Have we got enough data?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Cadel hesitated, before adding, ‘Maybe not. I’d have to give it some thought.’

  ‘No.’ Suddenly Saul shook his head. ‘No, that wasn’t the deal. You should keep your distance. We’ll find someone else to do it.’

  ‘Sonja could.’

  ‘Possibly. But I don’t want you asking her. Your job is identification, pure and simple.’ Saul reached for the mouse, then clicked on the first listed sighting. Immediately, a dim, grainy view of concrete and steel enveloped the computer screen. ‘Now, what we’ve got here is a car park,’ he announced. ‘And this figure here, on the left, appears to be Prosper English. We think.’ He indicated a blurred shape moving briskly past the suspended camera. ‘Do you want to run it again? We can pause it, if you like.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  The frozen image showed a tall, thin, middle-aged man wearing sunglasses. His hair was brushed back off his high forehead like a lion’s mane; he was clean-shaven, with a long nose and dark eyebrows.

  Though the picture wasn’t very clear, it sent a cold dart through Cadel’s guts. He had to swallow and lick his dry lips before he was able to speak.

  ‘That’s Prosper,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Saul was frowning again. ‘Because you can’t really see the face very well –’

  ‘That’s him,’ Cadel insisted, staring at the fuzzy recording like a rabbit caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. ‘That’s Prosper English. I’d recognise him anywhere.’

  FOUR

  Sitting in front of the safe-house computer, Cadel examined the image displayed on its screen.

  There could be no doubt that he was looking at Prosper English. Despite the poor quality of the digital video recording, Prosper’s high cheekbones and lanky frame were unmistakable. So was his tweed jacket. Prosper had always favoured professorial outfits, and Cadel recognised this one – which also featured a matching waistcoat and leather elbow patches. But why had Prosper chosen it? Why hadn’t he disguised himself? If he had shaved his head or donned a hooded anorak, he might never have been detected. Yet he’d kept on wearing the same old clothes, in shot after shot after shot.

  What on earth was he up to?

  Cadel couldn’t figure it out. Nothing made sense. Though the car park sighting suggested that Prosper might have a car, the station sighting suggested otherwise. Though the sunglasses were a form of camouflage, the tweedy jacket was anything but. And the five-second film clips didn’t provide nearly enough information. Were there any banks nearby? Any bus stops? Any doctors or pharmacies or Internet cafes? Cadel didn’t know. He couldn’t even work out if Prosper was following anyone, because there wasn’t enough footage. The police had provided only seven brief glimpses of Prosper, as he passed seven different cameras. If he was in pursuit of a person who happened to be more than five seconds ahead of him, it wasn’t apparent. Not to Cadel, anyway.

  What I need, he thought, is better coverage. Better coverage and proper geographical background.

  But he wouldn’t be asking for anything like that. Suppose his request made its way into an official email? Suppose there was a leak? Suppose Prosper had told Dr Vee to monitor the police network? Cadel wasn’t about to take any more risks; keeping the files had been hazardous enough. ‘I don’t know if I can do that,’ Saul had muttered, when asked if he would leave the disc behind. ‘I thought we agreed tha
t you shouldn’t get involved?’

  ‘I won’t get involved,’ Cadel had assured him. ‘I’m just going to take another look at those files.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I might as well. Because they’re already here.’

  ‘This isn’t your job, though. You should be doing something else.’

  ‘Like what? I can’t go online. I can’t talk to Sonja. I’ve done all my homework, and I’m sick of watching TV. What else can I do?’

  It was a good question, to which Saul had been unable to provide a ready answer. So he’d given in. He’d surrendered his disc to Cadel, who had promised faithfully not to download anything off it. ‘I’ll give it back to you when I see you tonight,’ Cadel had said. ‘I won’t use my laptop, don’t worry.’

  ‘You have to be careful.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Prosper’s not stupid.’

  ‘I know.’ Cadel didn’t need to be told how smart Prosper was. Only a smart man could have escaped from prison. Only a smart man could have stayed out of prison. Yet suddenly Prosper had resurfaced – in Sydney, of all places – wearing clothes that were bound to be recognised. It was a dumb thing to do, and Prosper wasn’t dumb.

  So what was he thinking?

  Cadel studied the recorded scene in front of him, searching for clues. There had to be a pattern to Prosper’s movements, buried somewhere inside the captured data. Prosper’s timing was important. His choice of route was important. So was his decision to cross the foyer of a multi-storeyed office block in downtown Sydney. He hadn’t used an elevator; he hadn’t taken the stairs; he’d simply walked through the foyer.

  Why?

  Cadel gnawed at his thumbnail, wishing that he could ask Sonja for help. Sonja was good with patterns, just as Cadel was good with systems. She could always spot the numbers lurking within the colours and the shapes. She had an eye for repetition, and a nose for anomalies. Her view of the world was purer than his, and therefore more attuned to the underlying rhythms of what she saw.

  But he wasn’t meant to be communicating with Sonja. Not directly. Even an encoded text message was out of the question, because Saul wanted him ‘off the grid’. ‘No electronic exchanges,’ the detective had warned. ‘If there’s something important you want to tell her, I’ll pass it on myself. In person. It’s the safest way.’ He’d then hesitated, before adding, ‘Prosper might already know where you are. He might have had me followed. But that’s okay, because you’re in a secure facility. The important thing is that he doesn’t find out what you’re thinking or doing. The less information he has, the better. Don’t you agree?’

  It had been impossible to disagree – especially when confronted by Saul’s strained expression. Cadel had therefore pledged that he wouldn’t use either his phone or his laptop to make contact with Sonja. Instead he’d scribbled an encrypted note, which Saul had delivered to Judith’s place.

  Cadel sighed. In the circumstances, he could hardly email the CCTV files to Sonja – and he knew that Saul would never agree to give her the disc. Not without official clearance, which probably wouldn’t be forthcoming. Someone up in the higher ranks of the Commissioner’s office didn’t like the idea of kids becoming involved in police investigations. That was why Genius Squad had folded. That was why, instead of being employed in a useful investigative role, Hamish had been put on probation, Sonja had received an official warning, and the Wieneke twins had simply … well, they had simply disappeared.

  Cadel wasn’t too worried about the Wienekes. They were both pretty streetwise (especially Devin), and Lexi was always popping up on cryptanalysis websites, because she just couldn’t leave an unencoded cipher alone. Cadel had established that she was moving between Sydney and Brisbane, using a lot of Internet cafes. He had also spotted her in somebody’s Facebook snapshot, which had been taken in a bar full of grinning young party animals. So she was clearly getting on with life, despite her disappointment over the end of Genius Squad. And if she wanted to do this without police interference, Cadel could only sympathise. In fact he had carefully refrained from alerting anyone to her activities – except, of course, Sonja. ‘If the police are so keen to get hold of the twins, they can do their own legwork,’ he’d informed his best friend. ‘It’s not my job to run online surveillance checks.’

  All the same, he couldn’t help wishing that Lexi and her brother were still around. For the first time ever, he was regretting that Genius Squad hadn’t survived. With Genius Squad’s help, he would have had no trouble solving the mystery of Prosper’s reappearance.

  But the squad was now defunct. And Cadel was all alone, with no network connection and no access to official databanks.

  He might as well have been working blindfolded, with one arm in a sling.

  I’m missing something, he decided, as he peered at the scene in front of him. He had a niggling sense that the answer – the key – the pattern – lay right under his nose; that everything he needed was already there, among the blurred figures frozen on the computer screen.

  Leaning closer, he tried to interpret the look on Prosper’s face. It wasn’t easy. It wouldn’t have been easy even if the picture had been clearer; Cadel would still have had to fight the nausea that invaded his stomach every time he was exposed to Prosper’s chiselled features and loose-limbed form. The last time they’d met, Prosper had been armed and dangerous. He had put a gun to Cadel’s head. And Cadel couldn’t shake off the memory of that cold, deadly weight sitting against his temple.

  Not that Prosper would have pulled the trigger. I’m not going to shoot you, he’d once said. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything of the sort. But I’ll happily shoot Sonja if you give me the least bit of trouble. You understand that, don’t you?

  Cadel could almost hear the smooth, precise drawl ringing in his ears. He could almost see the piercing gaze and wolfish grin – despite the fact that they were both completely absent from Saul’s CCTV footage. Prosper wasn’t smiling at the camera in any of these shots. If he was even aware of being filmed, it certainly wasn’t obvious. His sunglasses concealed any telltale sidelong glances.

  He simply walked from one side of the frame to the other, his pace brisk, his hands empty, his expression unreadable.

  Defeated, Cadel turned his attention to the other people in the foyer shot. There were five of them: two women and three men. All were dressed in business suits. One was carrying a takeaway coffee cup, while the rest were toting either handbags or briefcases. The smaller woman was talking into her mobile phone; she didn’t seem to register Prosper’s presence at all when he overtook her. Everyone was moving in the same direction, towards the elevators, past an enormous piece of modern sculpture that comprised three giant silver balls hanging from steel wires. Cadel could see one end of a dark leather couch. The floor was pale and glossy; the only visible bit of wall was covered in wood veneer; the front entrance wasn’t anywhere in sight …

  And then, suddenly, it hit him.

  The silver ball.

  There was a pattern – but it didn’t have anything to do with timing or movement. Hastily he skipped to the next file, in which Prosper was walking through a car park. Sure enough, this scene contained a convex traffic mirror. And in the next scene, at a suburban shopping mall, there was a window display featuring strings of large, chrome-covered balls like overblown Christmas-tree decorations. And at the railway station, a newsstand was hung with shiny, metallic mylar balloons. And in the harbourside hotel lobby, another convex mirror was sitting in a gilded Venetian frame, above an elaborate console table.

  Not a single shot was without some gleaming little half-sphere, its surface a complex web of wraparound reflections.

  ‘Hey, kid,’ said Angus, from the other side of the room. ‘Your parents have arrived.’

  Cadel blinked. Spinning around in his chair, he saw that Angus was pointing at one of the security monitors.

  Even from a distance, Cadel could recognise Saul’s car as it glided across
the screen.

  ‘They’re not my parents,’ Cadel observed, absentmindedly. ‘Not yet, anyway.’ Then he asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. ‘Does your CCTV network have an IP address?’

  Angus’s response was a blank, uncomprehending stare. So Cadel tried again.

  ‘Is it connected to the Internet? Is there a central monitoring station?’

  ‘This is the central monitoring station,’ said Angus.

  ‘Yeah, but what if no one’s around? Is there remote access surveillance when the place is empty?’ Seeing Angus frown, Cadel gave up. ‘Never mind. I’ll check it myself.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’ The security guard was adamant. ‘Sorry, mate. You’re not cleared to touch any of this equipment.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Work it out with your dad. He might be able to help.’

  Saul’s car was now parked near the front steps; Cadel could see it quite clearly, on the screen behind Angus. As for Saul and Fiona, they were already inside, being filmed by the camera in the vestibule.

  Hastily Cadel scanned the office ceiling.

  ‘This room doesn’t have any cameras, does it?’ he demanded. ‘I can’t see one.’

  ‘Nup,’ Angus replied.

  ‘Then I’ll wait here. They’ll find me.’

  And they did. Saul, in fact, headed straight for the office, without even pausing at the foot of the staircase. Fiona followed him, looking flustered. Her thick, reddish hair was beginning to escape from all the combs and pins securing it. Her jacket was buttoned up crookedly, and she had forgotten to wear her watch.

  When she and Saul arrived on the threshold, Cadel greeted them with an urgent summons.

  ‘Come here! Look at this!’ he exclaimed. ‘You’re not going to believe it.’

  The detective sighed. ‘You haven’t even moved since I left, have you?’ he murmured. And Fiona said, ‘I brought your doona, sweetie. It’s in the car.’

  ‘Yes – thanks – great. But I might not be needing it.’ Cadel tapped the screen in front of him. ‘See this? I think it’s a light probe.’