The Genius Wars (11 page)

‘Has someone hacked into Judith’s computer?’ Fiona inquired, as Saul picked up the desk-phone.

Cadel nodded, without looking at her. He knew that Vee’s malware had a tendency to recreate itself when threatened; stopping this process would require some pretty nifty footwork. ‘It’s Vee,’ he revealed, absentmindedly. ‘He’s been in here already.’

‘Oh my God,’ said Fiona.

‘Which makes a lot of sense,’ Cadel went on, still working away. ‘I couldn’t figure out what might have triggered that wheelchair attack. But if Judith came home, and said something to Sonja about turning the cameras off because I’d told her to …’ Instead of finishing the sentence, he shook his head.

By now Saul was talking to one of the cybercrime team. As he relayed Cadel’s message, Fiona ducked out of the room. Cadel barely registered her absence, because he had noticed something very interesting. Vee’s malware had been designed to take over a whole range of functions, including some that Judith’s house didn’t have. There was an application for hijacking a networked fountain pump, and a floor-washing iRobot. You could even gain access to a wireless security device specifically tailored to protect firearms. It was as if Vee’s program had been created to infiltrate a super-smart home full of bizarre, breakthrough gadgets.

Cadel wondered if the malware’s designer was simply being cautious. Perhaps Vee had devised a one-size-fits-all program, with a protocol for every possible contingency. But no: that couldn’t be it. Because no provision had been included for commandeering a Bluetooth-enabled microwave oven – even though there was a facility for hacking into a Bluetooth-enabled washing machine.

It was clear to Cadel that Vee’s malware had been engineered for another house: an actual, state-of-the-art, computerised house with guns in it. What’s more, the original voltage specifications had been adjusted, from 110 to 240 volts.

Though Cadel couldn’t be absolutely certain, he was pretty sure that the program had been written for a house in America.

‘Okay. They’re on that,’ Saul announced, hanging up. At the same instant, his mobile trilled; he grimaced apologetically before answering it.

‘Hello?’ he said.

Then Fiona stuck her head into the room.

‘I’ve repacked the bags,’ she reported. When Saul turned away, nursing his phone, she mouthed
‘Who’s that?
’ at Cadel.

Cadel shrugged. He was far too busy deleting the web browser cache to worry about Saul’s phone conversation. Besides, he was interested in the American ghost-house. Surely there couldn’t be many homes, even in the US, with a networked, toilet-cleaning iRobot? Or a programmable, sensor-driven showerhead? Or a Bluetooth-enabled washing machine? Cadel knew that, given enough time, he could probably even calculate how many rooms were in this mystery house.

If Vee had been hacking into another residence, and Cadel could identify it, then maybe – just maybe – it would be possible to work out what Prosper English was up to.

‘Uh-huh. Yep. Okay. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah, it is. Thanks for that. I really appreciate it.’ Saul’s rumbling commentary was simply background noise for Cadel, who ignored it until he heard the name ‘Richard’. Then he spun around as the detective, nodding gravely, listened to whatever recommendations were being fired at him from the other end of the line.

‘We’re onto it. What? Oh, sure. No problem,’ Saul mumbled. ‘Thanks again. You’ve been a big help. Okay. Yeah. Bye.’

And he broke the connection.

‘Well?’ Fiona and Cadel both chorused. Cadel added, ‘Was that Richard Buckland?’

‘Yeah.’ Saul looked up. He was frowning. ‘I rang him earlier. From the hospital.’

‘Why?’ said Fiona. But it wasn’t her husband who answered.

‘To ask him about that Bluetooth project.’ Cadel had forgotten all about it. ‘What did he say?’

‘He said he spoke to the fellow who’s been monitoring transmissions,’ Saul replied.

‘And?’

‘And there
was
a signal outside the computer labs today.’ Saul hesitated, his solemn gaze settling on Cadel like something made of granite. Clearly, the news from Richard Buckland wasn’t going to be good. ‘A transmission was logged in at 2:38 p.m.,’ the detective finally revealed, with obvious reluctance. Then, after another brief pause, he concluded, ‘And it came from your phone, Cadel.’

Cadel spent the night under his own roof, after all. But he didn’t sleep much.

He had crawled into bed at half past eleven, after two full hours of feverish activity. The cybercrime team had arrived at Judith’s house while he was still cleaning up her databanks; Cadel had found himself being consulted about passwords and protocols until Saul had finally dragged him out of the place. Back at home, the detective had made a series of flustered phone calls while Cadel was kept busy answering questions, checking window-locks, and helping Fiona to unpack their bags.

Only later, when he was alone in the dark, with nothing to distract him, did Cadel at last begin to feel the full, jarring impact of what had happened that day.

Sonja was in hospital. With a
head injury
.

And it was all his fault.

Lying on his back, staring into the shadows, he couldn’t stop thinking about the look on her face. His brain kept hitting some kind of internal rewind button; the same scene replayed itself, over and over again. First came the accelerating wheelchair. Then the look on her face. Then the cry. Then the crash. Then the blood …

Cadel covered his eyes.

It wasn’t your fault
. Fiona had told him this repeatedly. But Cadel knew that he was to blame. Sonja had ended up in hospital
because she was his friend. And Prosper English had almost certainly put her there.

Cadel seemed to hear Prosper’s voice echoing around his head:
I’ll happily shoot Sonja if you give me the least bit of trouble
. It was a chilling memory – and an instructive one. Had Prosper tried to kill Sonja because Cadel was giving him trouble? Was that it? Or had Sonja simply been the means to an end?

Perhaps she hadn’t been Prosper’s prime target. Tossing and turning, Cadel forced himself to confront the truth. Chances were good that the attack had been aimed at him.
Prosper wants to hurt me
,
that’s for sure
, he decided.
But is he trying to do it through Sonja? Or am I the one he wants to kill?

The threat was certainly there. It had always been there. How many times had Prosper placed a gun to Cadel’s head, in the past? Twice? Three times? Yet the trigger had never been pulled. Always, some kind of warped, possessive, unstable attachment had stayed Prosper’s hand. No matter how much he might have deplored his weakness, he had been incapable of harming his own son.

Except, of course, that Cadel wasn’t his son after all.

Cadel chastised himself for being such a fool. He knew Prosper. He knew what kind of a man Prosper was: practical, ruthless, manipulative. Yet deep in his heart, Cadel still couldn’t believe that Prosper had actually tried to kill him. Deep in his heart, Cadel didn’t
want
to believe it. Because that would mean the complete extinction of an ancient, fragile, buried spark of feeling – a tiny, glowing ember that had nourished him for a very long time.

Prosper had been the centre of his world, once. Prosper had listened to him, and instructed him, and bought him presents. Prosper had
understood
him – or so Cadel had thought.

It was difficult to accept that Prosper might now want to kill him, simply because the connection between them had proved to be a false one.

But why wouldn’t he want to kill me
? Cadel reflected.
I know enough to be dangerous. I’m smart enough to be a threat. And I betrayed
him. I made my choice and I walked away. If I’d been anyone else
,
he would have killed me long ago.

He was so torn that he couldn’t settle. On the one hand, when he remembered Sonja’s bloody face, a vicious rage overwhelmed him; he wanted to smash Prosper’s head against a brick wall. But this mental image opened the door to childhood memories of Prosper’s commanding profile, indulgent grin and attentive gaze.

You are my crowning achievement
. Prosper had once said that, without a hint of irony. It wasn’t something that Cadel could easily forget.

Groaning, he sat up. He threw off his blankets. He swung his feet to the floor.
I’ll watch TV
, he decided.
Maybe a glass of hot milk would help me to relax
.

But when reached the kitchen, he found Saul already there.

Even in the middle of the night, the kitchen was a cheerful room, full of yellow paint and burnished copper. Saul, however, looked anything but cheerful; his shoulders were hunched, and there were dark shadows under his eyes. Wrapped in his old plaid dressing gown, he was sitting at the table, with several sheets of paper spread out in front of him.

The clock on the stove said 2:15.

‘Can’t sleep?’ Saul asked. When Cadel shook his head, the detective added, ‘Have I been making too much noise?’

‘No.’ Cadel moved towards the fridge. ‘What kind of noise have you been making?’

‘Oh … phone calls, mostly. And a couple of visitors.’

‘Here?’

‘There’s a team parked outside, watching the house. I pulled in a few favours.’ Saul sipped from the mug that he was holding. ‘Fiona took some valerian to help her sleep. Do you want to try that?’

‘No.’ Cadel was nervous about drugging himself. He couldn’t afford to lose his edge. Suppose Prosper launched another attack? ‘I’m getting some hot milk,’ he explained, removing a bottle from the fridge. ‘That usually works for me.’

‘Uh-huh.’

If Fiona had been there, she would have asked Cadel how he was feeling. Saul’s technique was different. He tended to watch and wait, his dark eyes following his foster son’s every move.

‘I’ve been thinking about why this happened,’ Cadel said at last, as he placed a glass of milk in the microwave. ‘To Sonja, I mean. I know she’s the one who ended up in hospital. But I still don’t think she was the main target.’ Frowning, he hit the ‘start’ button. ‘That chair was programmed to follow my phone signal,’ he announced. ‘I was supposed to get hurt as well.’

‘Maybe.’ Saul’s tone was very calm. ‘We don’t know enough to be sure, yet.’

‘
I’m
sure. I reckon Prosper’s found out that I’m not really his son. He’s probably trying to kill me.’

‘Cadel –’

‘It makes sense. Why wouldn’t he? I know too much about him. If he ever went to trial, I’d be the star witness. Of
course
he’s trying to kill me. Only he’s too smart to hire a goon with a gun, because goons with guns always end up talking. Doing it by remote control is much more secure.’ The microwave pinged; retrieving his glass of milk, Cadel moved towards the table, talking all the while. ‘He must feel like he’s been fooled all these years. He must be furious. He probably wants to wipe me off the face of the earth.’

‘Cadel.’ Saul leaned over to grab his wrist. ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘We can’t be sure. Not yet. Don’t tie yourself in knots about it.’ In a transparent attempt to change the subject, Saul added, ‘I had a call from Steve. He told me someone’s tampered with your mobile phone.’

Cadel’s eyes widened.

‘One of the wires has been snipped,’ Saul continued. ‘To stop that Bluetooth symbol from popping up on the screen.’ Releasing Cadel’s arm, the detective was quick to offer reassurance. ‘Steve says it wasn’t necessarily a recent job. In fact it could have been done last year. At Clearview House.’

Cadel began to gnaw at his thumb. He had always been very careful with his mobile, carrying it either in his pocket or in the bag that contained his precious computer. The only time he ever let the phone out of his sight was when he came home. Then he might dump it on a benchtop or a bookshelf, along with his wallet and sunglasses.

At Clearview House, he’d always followed much the same pattern.

If the damage was done there
, he pondered,
then who could have been responsible?
He cast his mind back to the day on which he had first received his phone from Saul Greeniaus. At the time, Cadel had been living with another set of foster parents – and since the device had merely been loaned to him, he’d taken very good care of it. But when he was kidnapped by Prosper English, it had been left behind at Clearview House. For a good twenty-four hours it had sat on his bedside table, unattended.

Could that have been when the sabotage occurred? Or could the wire have been snipped some time earlier, during his two-week stay in a house full of spies?

The head of Genius Squad, Trader Lynch, had been secretly working for Prosper English. So had Dorothy Daniels, also known as ‘Dot’. Cadel thought about Dot, whose enigmatic presence at Clearview House had always troubled him. Her younger brother, Com, had been one of Cadel’s classmates at the Axis Institute; Com had vanished after the institute’s collapse, just as Dot had disappeared after Genius Squad disbanded. Both Dot and Com had shared the same squat build, waxy white skin, and taste for hacking into computer systems. Both had been distinguished by a strangely robotic demeanour, and both had somehow managed to avoid arrest – with the help of Prosper English. Cadel knew that Com had always been a favourite of Dr Vee’s. Could Vee and Com now be working together, on Prosper’s behalf?

If Dot had snipped the wire back at Clearview House, then her brother might very well know about it. Especially if Dot herself was still on Prosper’s payroll.

‘It could have been Dot,’ Cadel said aloud. ‘I wouldn’t put it past her. She could have done it so she could track my movements somehow, back when she was being paid to keep tabs on me.’

‘Perhaps,’ Saul agreed. ‘I’m gonna be asking Trader about it, in the morning.’ Unlike Dot, Trader was now in gaol, and likely to remain there for some time. ‘If it was Dot, then she was involved in this whole thing somehow. Even if she didn’t hijack your phone.’

‘Yes.’

‘We need to find out if Bev and Dot are the same person. I’ve asked for a trace to be put on that call, but the results might not be back for a day or so.’