Genius Squad (39 page)

‘How?’ he asked. ‘I mean, if the police were watching the building . . .?’

Saul described how a motorbike courier had arrived at the GenoME branch shortly before the first arrests were made. This courier had entered the reception area wearing his bike helmet, and five minutes later had apparently emerged again, carrying a large package.

‘But it wasn’t him,’ Saul disclosed. ‘He was found later, tied up in a toilet cubicle. That woman we’re looking for – Carolina Whitehead – must have driven off in his gear.’

‘And you still haven’t found her?’

‘Not yet.’ Saul began to drag his fingers through his hair. ‘She’s the one we need,’ he fretted. ‘She must know
something
, if she’s on the run. So far we’ve got nothing on the rest of ’em. The thugs we picked up in court are just local muscle, as far as I can see. Guns for hire . . .’ He broke off abruptly as his eyes met Cadel’s. ‘Sorry. I’m unloading, and I shouldn’t be. This isn’t your problem; you’ve got enough of your own. Anyway, I can’t afford to waste time. I have things to do. Calls to make.’ The detective stood up, laying a hand on the computer. ‘Meanwhile, I want you to promise that you won’t touch this thing.’

Cadel opened his mouth. Before he could lodge a protest, however, Saul said gravely, ‘If Prosper’s looking for you, he’ll start on-line. You know that.’

‘But he won’t find me,’ Cadel objected. ‘I won’t let him.’

‘Maybe not,’ the detective had to concede. ‘Maybe you’re too smart. Let’s not forget, though, Prosper has someone on his payroll who hacked into the systems at Corrective Services, and changed the custody protocols. How hard would it be for that same person to track
you
down?’ Without waiting for an answer, Saul hammered his point home. ‘What if we’re talking about that guy from the Axis Institute? Ulysses Vee? Vee knows you, Cadel. He knows your style. And he’s pretty sharp – you said so yourself. Are you absolutely sure he won’t pick up your trail?’

Cadel scratched his head. It was true: Dr Vee
did
know him. And Dr Vee was also a first-class hacker. However unlikely it might be, there was an outside chance that Cadel would somehow give himself away if he logged onto the Net.

‘But what am I supposed to do all day?’ he groaned. ‘If I can’t go out, and I can’t use the computer, how am I going to stay busy? Because I have to stay busy. I
have
to.’ Though he didn’t point out that he needed to keep his mind off Prosper English, the implication was clear.

Saul must have picked it up, because he wrinkled his brow in a fleeting demonstration of concern. ‘Well . . . I guess you can show me your playing-card trick,’ he proposed. ‘Ms Currey told me about that. It sounds pretty neat.’

No doubt he meant well, but the detective could have been talking to an eight-year-old.

Cadel was offended.

‘You don’t have to call her Ms Currey, any more,’ he snapped. ‘I mean, I know you’re going out with her, so why pretend? I’m not stupid.’

Saul raised one eyebrow. He was about to speak when the door burst open and Trader walked in. Trader’s expansive smile seemed to light up the whole room. Even his solid, sculptured hairstyle was reassuring.

‘That’s settled,’ he said. ‘I’ve found emergency accommodation for Hamish and the twins, down in Maroubra.’ He went on to explain that Judith would transport the three teenagers in her car. ‘Unfortunately, no one can take Sonja for the night,’ he continued, ‘but that’s okay. I’ll sleep here myself, and make sure she’s looked after properly.’

Saul grunted, apparently satisfied, but Cadel could hardly contain his amazement. Was Trader really going to uproot Genius Squad at such a time? Was he really going to dump Hamish and the twins in some kind of refuge when there was so much work to be done?

‘Are they all going to be together?’ Cadel asked, trying not to sound as anxious as he felt. Whereupon Trader tipped him a surreptitious wink.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Trader. ‘It’s a great big house near the beach. They’ll love it.’

At this point Cadel remembered that Judith lived in Maroubra, where she had bought herself a sprawling seaside mansion. With all the money she’d made plundering offshore bank accounts, she had also purchased a vineyard, a light plane, a country house and a safe full of gold ingots.

Cadel relaxed slightly. He was sure that Judith’s mansion would offer every kind of facility required by Genius Squad, from Internet access to spa baths.

‘And
you
can help those kids pack,’ Trader added, still addressing Cadel. ‘God knows, they’ll need all the help they can get. Hamish couldn’t pack a lunchbox, let alone an overnight bag. And I don’t want Lexi bringing her whole bloody wardrobe along.’ Having provided Cadel with a plan of action, he turned back to Saul. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘you were wanting a quick rundown of the alarm system?’

Cadel had to admire Trader’s cunning and self-confidence. Even the detective fell into line, reluctantly giving Cadel ten precious minutes in Hamish’s room. While Trader lectured Saul on sensor pulses and power grids – dragging him all over the house to examine various junction boxes – Cadel caught up on the latest news, which Hamish delivered in a whisper as he drifted around his bedroom, trying to decide what to pack.

‘It’s such b-bad luck,’ he lamented softly. ‘We’re really going to need you, and you’ll be stuck here with that dickhead in the stupid tie.’ Hamish went on to say that the forged email had been sent to Earl Toffany, but no reply had been received; that Jerry had anticipated the police raid by a minute or so, disconnecting every machine so that no one could eavesdrop on the action; and that Dot was still in the process of collating what had been salvaged from the havoc wrought by Jerry’s self-destruct program, which had been more of a challenge than anyone could have expected.

‘It was like
Alien
in there,’ Hamish concluded, referring to his most recent virtual patrol through the GenoME network. ‘You could practically see all the lights flashing and the gases venting. “
Self-destruction in T minus ten seconds
” – that kind of thing. Boy, I had to be quick.’

‘It’s a bloody mess,’ growled Devin. Like his sister, he had made a beeline for Hamish’s bedroom the minute Saul was out of sight. ‘No one knows what’s going on any more. The last we heard from Cliff, he was still outside number eleven, trying to see who the police were pushing into their cars.’

‘I can tell you that myself,’ Cadel hissed, with a nervous glance towards the closed bedroom door. ‘They picked up everyone except Carolina. She escaped.’

‘Really?’ said Devin. ‘Shit. That’s bad.’

‘Not as bad as Prosper English,’ was Cadel’s view. But neither Hamish nor Devin seemed interested in Prosper English.

Only Lexi sympathised with Cadel’s concerns.

‘Poor Caddy,’ she crooned, winding her plump arm around his shoulders. ‘I guess you’re really freaking out, eh? With Prosper on the loose, and all. Do you think he’ll try to find you?’

‘Yes,’ Cadel replied shortly, sliding out of her grasp.

‘He’ll be stupid if he does, with that copper hanging around,’ she said, snagging her brother’s attention. He turned away from Hamish, and demanded of Cadel, in a dour tone, ‘How long is that cop going to stay here, for God’s sake?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Cadel.

‘I hope he stays for a week,’ Lexi chirped. ‘Judith’s house sounds
fantastic.
She’s got a pool and a home theatre and everything! She’s got a wide-screen TV in
every bedroom
!’

‘Shh!’ warned Devin. And Cadel said, ‘Keep it down!’

He had barely spoken before footsteps sounded on the stairs, heralding Saul’s return. Devin swore under his breath, while Lexi assumed the challenging pose with which she usually confronted Saul: arms folded, lips arranged into a sneer.

Hamish didn’t react at all. He was standing with a mismatched sock in each hand and a look of confusion on his face. ‘Are these my socks?’ he asked, as Saul entered the room.

And that was the end of the debrief.

Over the next half hour, Cadel began to feel increasingly isolated. He had nothing to do but watch Hamish and the twins running around with t-shirts and toothbrushes, while downstairs the squad’s computers were quietly smuggled into Judith’s car. Lots of noisy squabbles were staged for the purpose of distracting Saul. Lexi threw a brief tantrum after being told to remove eight pairs of shoes from her suitcase. Devin sulked when Trader insisted that he would need to pack more than just his iPod and a pair of boxer shorts.

Trader even had the brilliant idea of asking Saul to help Hamish, who was utterly incapable of logical thought when it came to filling a toiletry bag or anticipating the need for sleepwear. Because he was busy with Hamish, Saul didn’t notice the way various members of Genius Squad kept disappearing into the War Room, loaded down with the quilts and pillowcases needed to disguise their computers. Nor did he query the presence of so much bedlinen in Judith’s car. ‘It’s best to be on the safe side,’ was Judith’s rather feeble explanation, which Saul accepted without a murmur.

By two o’clock, the evacuation was complete. Cadel wasn’t allowed to wave goodbye from the garden. He couldn’t even watch everyone leave from inside the house, which was stuffy and dark now that all the curtains were drawn. All he could do was sit in the kitchen with Sonja, listening as first Judith’s car, then Tony’s, roared off down the driveway, taking with them Hamish, Lexi, Devin, Judith, Tony and Dot.

Suddenly, the house seemed very quiet. Even Trader’s lustrous personality couldn’t lighten the morose atmosphere. Neither could a scrappy lunch of baked beans followed by tinned pears. After lunch, Trader had to go out for a while. Cadel assumed that he was tracking down Cliff, or perhaps visiting Judith’s house to oversee the installation of a temporary War Room. Whatever the reason for his absence, however, he was sorely missed. Sonja was never chatty at the best of times (because communicating was such an effort for her), and Saul couldn’t seem to concentrate on any topic for more than a few minutes. His ear was always cocked for suspicious noises, and he kept leaping up to check windows, or make phone calls.

In the end, Cadel read to Sonja for most of the afternoon. He also played a bit of Hackenbush, and gave Saul a demonstration of the Solitaire Cipher. As the hours rolled by, and Prosper remained at large, Cadel grew more and more depressed. Saul received regular updates about the progress of the police investigation, but they weren’t particularly encouraging. Jerry Reinhard refused to talk. The hired thugs had said only that they’d received their instructions over the telephone, from ‘a woman with an American accent’. Carolina still hadn’t been located. As for the rest of the GenoME staff, they appeared to be totally clueless.

When Trader returned, it was time to cook dinner. Saul took charge of the preparations, rolling up his pin-striped sleeves to produce a very tasty pasta sauce. Cadel peeled the vegetables while Trader threw together a salad; it was Trader who also insisted on feeding Sonja, while his own meal grew cold. ‘That’s what microwaves are for,’ he said, with a display of indestructible vivacity. He even did most of the washing up, and was a huge help in getting Sonja ready for bed.

All in all, he gave a terrific impersonation of someone born to be a professional carer. Anyone less attentive than Cadel would have been fooled. But Cadel noticed that Trader was always hyper-alert, constantly focused on the detective and what he was doing.

Saul missed this; he was too preoccupied. And whenever he
did
turn his attention to the people around him, it was focused almost exclusively on Cadel.

He was worried about Cadel. That much was obvious from the questions he asked, and the manner in which he asked them.

‘Do you want to talk to Ms Currey?’ was his first, tentative inquiry. ‘You can call her now if you like. It’s not too late.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Cadel, who had just emerged from the second-floor bathroom – towel in hand – to find Saul leaning against the banisters outside. ‘I’m finished in there, if you want to use it.’

But the detective ignored this offer. His face looked drawn and bruised. ‘Have you discussed all the recent developments with Sonja?’ was his next question. ‘She might have something useful to contribute. You can stay in her room tonight – we could arrange it.’

‘No. That’s okay.’

‘She’ll be all right here. You both will.’ Saul jerked his thumb. ‘There’s been a change of shift outside. Jack and Luca are on the job now – they’re top guys. Really reliable.
Nothing
will get past them.’

Cadel nodded. He didn’t know what to say.

‘And if anything does get past them, I’ll be here. Guarding your door. So you mustn’t be nervous.’ After a brief pause, during which Saul continued to regard Cadel with discomforting gravity, the detective said, ‘It’s only a precaution, though. You realise that, don’t you? I’m not expecting Prosper to show up.’ He cocked his head. ‘Our latest reports indicate that he might have headed south. Do you have any idea if he has a boat stashed down near Wollongong somewhere?’

‘No.’ said Cadel. By now he had noticed the kitchen chair stationed outside his bedroom. And he pointed at it. ‘Is that where you’re going to sit?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘All
night
?’

‘That’s the plan.’

‘But when are you going to get any sleep?’

Saul hesitated. His gaze slid away towards the darkening stairwell. ‘I don’t sleep much,’ he finally divulged. ‘Not when I’ve got things to think about.’ Then he glanced back at Cadel. ‘I hope
you
get enough sleep tonight, though. I don’t want you lying awake worrying. Because there’s no need.’

‘Oh, I’ll be all right,’ Cadel insisted, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be.

Sure enough, he found himself tossing and turning when he did go to bed, his head full of fearful possibilities. He could never rest easily, now – not as long as Prosper was at large. Not as long as his own details were drifting around on the police computer system. It was no good relying on systems like that. It was no good relying on anything or anyone – not where Prosper was concerned.