The Genius Wars (22 page)

‘And when did you see the yellow one?’ Cadel cut him off. ‘How long ago? Five minutes? Ten?’

‘Oh, no. I saw it when we first started.’ Boyd had to shift his weight from one crutch to the other before he could glance at
his watch. ‘Maybe … I dunno … twenty minutes ago? Twenty-five?’

‘And you can remember where it was? Which driveway it was parked in?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Then you’d better tell Saul,’ Cadel advised, as he slid out of the Corolla. ‘Because he’ll want to get over there right away.’

Cadel was sitting in the back of a van. He had been sitting there for nearly three hours.

With him were Reggie Bristow and Angus McNair. Cadel wasn’t sure exactly where the van was parked, because the only window in sight gave him a restricted view of the driver’s cabin, through a screen of steel mesh. All he knew was that they had stopped somewhere in the vicinity of Com’s house, and that it was already dark outside.

The van had been Saul’s idea. He had decided that his foster son should disappear while Com’s abandoned residence was being searched, and a van had seemed like the easiest way of shielding Cadel from prying eyes or intrusive cameras. ‘You can’t be seen on the street,’ Saul had declared. ‘It’s too dangerous.’ But even he had admitted that Cadel couldn’t be sent straight home – not before being given the chance to inspect whatever computer equipment Com might have left behind.

So Cadel had been forced to wait. He had waited while the police established that Com’s house was unoccupied and unsecured. He had then waited for the bomb squad to determine whether it was booby-trapped. And he had waited for Saul to check the place out himself, ‘just to be sure’.

After spending so long in such a cramped and dingy box, pissing into an old paint tin and staring at Reggie’s shoes, Cadel was beginning to feel seriously claustrophobic. He was also suffering from a delayed reaction to the traumatic events of the day
– or at least, that was
his
diagnosis. Why else would he keep breaking into a sweat, while his head swam and his heart fluttered? Surely these passing fits couldn’t be the result of a missed meal, or lack of oxygen?

I can’t stand it
, he thought.
First Sonja, now Hamish
.
I just can’t stand it. That’s all
.

‘You hungry?’ Reggie asked. He checked his watch. ‘Maybe someone should go and get some fish and chips. It must be way past your dinner time.’

‘It is,’ Cadel admitted faintly. ‘But I don’t feel like much.’

‘You should still eat.’ Reggie turned to Angus. ‘You got anything on you? Like a chocolate bar, or chewing gum?’

‘Nup,’ said Angus, whose eyes were glazed with boredom. Both policemen had been instructed not to read or listen to music while they were on duty. They weren’t even allowed to make any phone calls, unless they were faced with an emergency of some kind. So Cadel had been unable to find out how Hamish was faring.

After being loaded into an ambulance, Hamish had been whisked away to hospital, with Richard Buckland following close behind. Vijay had also gone to hospital; his father had decided to take him to the nearest Emergency Department, even though none of the ambulance officers had considered him to be at risk. Gazo Kovacs had generously offered to drive Boyd and Egon back home, while Snezana had abandoned her car upon being reunited with Thi, who had bundled her off in a taxi.

By the time a van had arrived for Cadel, the only wardriver left at the scene of the crash had been Duke. Untroubled by the fact that his phone had been confiscated (perhaps because he had been putting off the dreaded moment when he would have to call his father for insurance details), Duke had been hovering helplessly on the sidelines. Cadel was convinced that Duke had probably slipped away within minutes of Cadel’s own departure. It was hard to imagine someone as feckless as Duke sticking around to organise tow trucks, or help the police with their
inquiries. It was even harder to picture him visiting Hamish in hospital.

Cadel wondered if Hamish
was
still in hospital.

‘Who’s that?’ said Angus. He raised his head as the sound of an approaching vehicle reached his ears.

Reggie did the same.

Then the engine’s purr abruptly stopped. Somewhere outside, a door slammed. Reggie leaned over to address their driver, directing his question through the small window behind the security screen.

‘Are we okay?’ he rasped.

‘I think so,’ came the reply – followed (after a brief pause) by further clarification. ‘Yeah, we’re good. It’s just the DI back again.’

Knock-knock-knock! Knock-knock!
A sudden rapping on the van’s rear end made everyone start. Reggie automatically thrust his hand inside his jacket, but Cadel had already identified the rhythm of the knock.

It was the agreed signal: the all-clear. And it was accompanied by Saul’s muffled voice.

‘
It’s Saul! Open up!
’

Angus obeyed, though not before producing his own weapon. Saul seemed pleased to see it. When he yanked open the double doors and found himself staring down the barrel of Angus’s gun, he signified his approval with a nod.

Cadel was the only one who flinched. He didn’t like guns – especially when they were aimed at Saul.

‘We’re good to go,’ the detective quietly announced. Then he sprang up into the van’s rear compartment, pulling its doors shut behind him.

He was moving more nimbly, now that he had discarded his Arabic robes.

‘Tell Lou we’ll head straight for number ten,’ he instructed. ‘She can park in the garage, tell her.’

Reggie sighed. But he tapped on the communication window and transmitted this message, while a space was made for Saul. The detective squeezed in beside Cadel, his long legs folding up
like the mechanism on a sofa-bed. It had been more than an hour since Cadel’s last glimpse of him.

‘There’s a lot to look at, in there,’ Saul remarked. ‘A
hell
of a lot. That’s why I took so long.’

Cadel knew instantly that the detective was referring to Com’s house.

‘You mean Com left some of his stuff behind?’ This was good news, though Cadel was feeling almost too dazed to absorb it properly. ‘What kind of stuff?’

‘Every kind,’ was Saul’s rather cryptic estimation. Though the light was very poor, he seemed to sense that Cadel was staring at him, because he added, ‘You’ll see what I mean. It’s strange. No one can work it out.’

Cadel pondered this remark as the van began to move.

‘How is it strange?’ he finally asked. But Saul wouldn’t elaborate.

‘You’ll see,’ he said. ‘Just be patient. I can’t describe it – you’ll have to take a look for yourself.’ Then, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, he informed Cadel that he’d checked on Hamish’s condition. ‘He’ll be in hospital overnight, to get some tests done. But it looks like he’s cracked a rib.’

‘Is that where the blood came from?’ Cadel wanted to know.

‘Could be.’ The detective shrugged. ‘But he bit his tongue, too, so they’re thinking the blood might have come from there. He could have inhaled it.’

‘Which hospital is he in?’

‘Royal Prince Alfred. It was closer than Prince of Wales.’

‘Oh.’ Cadel’s heart sank as he contemplated visiting both hospitals in a single evening. It would be very difficult – especially for someone who was being pursued by a CCTV stalker. But perhaps, by tomorrow, Hamish would be at home.

And perhaps Com would stay off the CCTV networks for a while.

‘I haven’t told Fiona all the details, yet,’ Saul was saying. ‘I told her that we’ve got a result, and that we’re following it up, but I didn’t want to explain everything over the phone. We’re
gonna have to do that later.’ The jolting of the van was making his voice shake. ‘It’ll come as a bit of a shock,’ he admitted. ‘She’ll be worried about you.’

Cadel said nothing. His mind was still on the hacks that he’d witnessed.

‘You know,’ he mused, as if the detective hadn’t even spoken, ‘it might have been Com tracking me on closed-circuit TV, but he wasn’t the one messing with SCATS. Someone else was in there, and the way they were throwing their weight around, I reckon we have a good chance of picking up their traces.’

‘Well … that’s Sid’s department,’ Saul observed. ‘He’ll be looking into the whole traffic-light business – him and his team.’

‘Yeah, but he’s got to do it
now
. Because if Com left a trail of red lights behind him, then that’s a good place to start.’ Receiving no immediate response, Cadel realised that he would have to spell it out. ‘If we can get into SCATS,’ he explained, ‘and figure out where the controller boxes were hijacked, we might be able to see where Com ended up. It would be like a set of footprints.’

‘Jesus,’ Angus said admiringly. And Saul stiffened.

‘You mean there’ll be a record?’ His tone was sharp. ‘Some kind of register that we could check?’

‘Well … it’s certainly something that
I
could check.’ Cadel racked his brain, trying to remember details of his youthful forays through the SCATS labyrinth. He didn’t know exactly how much it had changed since then. ‘A lot of traffic lights respond to input from loop detectors,’ he went on. ‘They’re programmed to respond in a certain way to certain conditions. If they don’t, there’s going to be an invalid signal showing up – unless this traffic-light malware also stops data from getting back to the regional computer, somehow.’ He considered the likelihood of such a cunning ploy. If Vee were involved, chances were good that the program was as stealthy as a termite. ‘It’s still worth a try,’ he concluded. ‘Sid should already be looking at SCATS anyway, because of its camera network. That whole system should be
crawling
with fingerprints, by now.’

The van stopped suddenly, nearly dislodging them all from their seats. Cadel was flung sideways. The back of Reggie’s skull bounced off one wall with an audible thump.

‘Ow,’ he said.

‘
For Chrissake, Lou!
’ Angus loudly remonstrated. ‘
You been boozing it up, in there?
’

‘Sorry,’ came the indistinct response. Then the engine died.

But as Saul rose to his feet, Cadel grabbed his arm – because there was a lot more to be said.

‘It’s time I got back online,’ Cadel insisted. ‘You can see that, can’t you? I need to tackle this myself.’

‘Maybe,’ Saul replied. ‘I’ll think about it.’

‘There’s no point worrying about who might spot me while I’m chasing back trails. Not any more.’ Cadel wouldn’t let go of Saul’s arm. ‘It’s riskier for me on the street than it is in cyberspace. And you need my help.
Sid
needs my help.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Saul repeated. ‘First things first, okay?’

‘Like getting out of this bloody van, for instance,’ Reggie growled. Angus was already leaning towards the rear doors, but Saul stopped him with a peremptory, ‘Wait.’

When the detective’s hand disappeared inside his jacket, it became evident that there was no point trying to pursue the subject of Internet access – not while he was fully focused on who might be approaching the back of the van. Saul’s tense muscles didn’t relax until he heard a familiar
Knock-knock-knock! Knock-knock!

Lou was giving them the all-clear signal.

Next thing he knew, Cadel was emerging into what appeared to be a small garage. A dusty, dangling light bulb dimly illuminated a framework of wooden beams; though some kind of cladding had been slapped on the outside of the structure, no one had bothered to line its internal walls. Cadel could see cobwebs festooned across stacks of old junk: flowerpots, paint tins, roof tiles, curtain rods. Only the lawn mower and whipper snipper looked new.

Two uniformed policemen were murmuring together near a garbage bin.

‘Through here,’ Saul prompted. He nudged Cadel towards a side door, which led straight into a small room furnished with a concrete laundry tub and a washing machine. This room opened onto the kitchen, but Cadel wasn’t encouraged to stop and contemplate the fridge or the stove. Instead he was hustled into what may have originally been a dining room, since a serving hatch had been cut into one wall.

But it wasn’t a dining room any longer. It contained only floor-to-ceiling racks of computer equipment, jammed together like books on a bookshelf. Great swags of cabling spilled from these racks, while powerboards strewn across the floor sprouted untidy clusters of plugs that were carelessly piled up on top of double adapters, clinging together like barnacles or profiteroles.

Cadel had never seen anything like it before.

‘Oh, my God,’ he whispered, wide-eyed with astonishment.

‘It’s the same everywhere, except in the bathroom,’ Saul revealed. ‘And the kitchen, of course.’ He fell silent, watching as Cadel’s gaze travelled across the web of technology that surrounded them.

Every screen was dark; every motherboard was silent. That was the first thing Cadel noticed. Nothing was turned on. No heat was being generated at all.

‘It was like this when we came in,’ Saul revealed, as if reading Cadel’s mind. ‘No one’s touched it.’

‘They’re so old,’ said Cadel, wonderingly. A good half of the machines were older than he was; he could tell because they were so big and chunky. There was a Toshiba T4850/500, a Macintosh Color Classic, a Compaq Portable II …

Where had Com
found
all these antiques? In the street? On eBay?

‘We’re concerned that it might be some sort of booby-trap,’ Saul continued. ‘The explosives dogs didn’t sniff out anything, but you can see how all the different components seem to be linked up.’

‘Do you think they even work?’ asked Cadel, as he drifted into the next room. Here a battered velvet couch, a wide-screen
LCD television, and a coffee table covered in food stains and burn marks shared the floor with yet more racks of old computers. Beyond an arched doorway at the other end of the room, Cadel could see another, similar display: an NEC PC 8801 on top of a Hewlett Packard HP-9826 jostling an Amstrad CPC 464.

He could also see two familiar faces, which turned towards him at the sound of his footsteps. Sid and Steve, the forensic computer technicians, were making hushed, awestruck comments about an old model with a built-in dot matrix printer. Steve wore a bleached goatee, a vintage jacket, and a tie printed with winged toasters. Sid had four earrings in one ear, and three in the other; his tie featured an eye-puzzle of thin, flaring stripes, specially designed to confuse and annoy.