The Genius Wars (48 page)

Another pause. Another stroke. Prosper seemed to be expecting some kind of reaction, to judge from the smirk that was tugging at the corner of his mouth. Though Cadel stiffened, however, he didn’t speak. He didn’t try to contend that the weakest swimmer deserved the most help, because he knew that Prosper would only make some barbed comment about the survival of the fittest.

‘Trouble is,’ Prosper added, pitching his voice high above the wind, ‘I don’t know how I can put that lifejacket on, unless you take the oars.’ Though his lips were blue, and his teeth were chattering, and his hands were shaking as he dragged at the oars’ slippery shafts, he seemed almost to be teasing Cadel. ‘What a conundrum, eh? Should I give you the lifejacket or should I give you the oars?’

Cadel swallowed. ‘The lifejacket,’ he retorted.

‘Oh, really? Why?’

Because the oars aren’t going to save either of us
, Cadel thought. But aloud he said, ‘Because I’m not strong enough to row.’

Suddenly a huge wave slammed into them. It nearly flipped the dinghy over, and it sent Cadel reeling. He was pitched straight into Prosper’s lap as the psychologist lurched sideways. Then the boat righted itself. A loose oar slipped into the sea. Prosper stretched an arm over the side, reaching desperately.

He had to lean past Cadel, who was now sprawled at his feet – and as he did so, Cadel spotted the gun-butt. It was protruding from Prosper’s waistband, right under Cadel’s nose.

‘Got it!’ yelped Prosper, seizing the oar.

At that very instant, Cadel grabbed the gun.

‘Freeze!’ he shrilled.

The boat rolled again, steeply. To prevent himself from sliding into the stern, Cadel had to hook one arm around an
oarlock and hold on for dear life. The bilge pump bounced off his ribs. Seawater slapped him in the face.

Then Prosper caught at his free hand, pushing it upwards. With his wrist immobilised, and his gun pointed at the clouds, Cadel couldn’t do a thing. In fact he probably would have been overpowered, if Prosper hadn’t been tired out – and if Prosper’s own free hand hadn’t been occupied with the rescued oar.

For what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few seconds, the two of them remained trapped in a stalemate. Prosper couldn’t afford to drop his oar, while Cadel couldn’t risk letting go of the oarlock. Neither could achieve any kind of ascendancy – not while they were both throwing every ounce of strength they had into a bout of elevated arm-wrestling.

Finally Prosper began to laugh.

‘I should have known this is how it would end,’ he brayed. ‘You dragging me down for the third time in a row.’ Grinning like a skull, he narrowed his eyes. ‘So what was all that about not trying anything?’ he said. ‘It’s good to see that you still can’t be trusted. I’d hate to think you’d
completely
rejected your upbringing.’

Bang! Bang! Bang-bang-bang!

A volley of gunshots rang out as Cadel fired into the air. He knew that Prosper couldn’t shoot him without bullets. It was also possible that someone, somewhere, might hear the shots. Though he realised that he would be left defenceless, Cadel had calculated that an unloaded gun would be a safer option than the alternative. So he kept squeezing the trigger until it produced nothing but a sad little
click
.

If Prosper was surprised, he didn’t show it. Nor did he fly into a rage. On the contrary, he dropped Cadel’s wrist and picked up the lifejacket.

Cadel didn’t know what to think. He stared in confusion, wet and breathless and freezing cold. The gun was now just a useless lump of metal, weighing him down. He wondered, fleetingly, if he and Prosper should each take an oar. What if they rowed together, sitting elbow to elbow? Would there be any advantage in that?

‘Maybe this time it’ll be different,’ was all Prosper had to say. ‘Maybe this time, I’ll drag
you
down
with
me.’

But then a wave broke like thunder nearby. White froth cascaded over them. The boat reared like a startled horse, nearly pulling Cadel’s arm out of its socket as he clung to the oarlock.

Prosper didn’t have a choice; if he hadn’t grabbed the gunwale, he would have been hurled backwards. Therefore, rather than relinquishing the lifejacket, he let go of his oar – which was promptly snatched away by a surge of water.

‘If I were you,’ he loudly suggested, ‘I’d hit me with that gun and take this lifejacket!’ He was wearing a strange, lopsided grin, and there was a wild look in his eye. ‘It seems like the obvious solution, don’t you think?’

‘Wh-what?’ Cadel’s own teeth were chattering, now. His shoulder was killing him. The whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion, spinning off course. Or was it the boat? The boat was spinning too – and a dark, heavy, towering threat loomed somewhere off in the middle distance. But he couldn’t focus on that. He didn’t have the energy. He was still trying to work out what to do with the gun.

‘Didn’t I teach you
anything
?’ Prosper thrust his face into Cadel’s, bawling out advice over the boom and hiss of breaking waves. ‘When it comes to survival, it’s every man for himself! Forget the common good! Forget the bleeding-heart crap that all those coppers and social workers have been feeding you! I
know
you, Cadel – you’re a pragmatist! You think with your head!
You should hit me with the gun and take the lifejacket
!’ He laughed again – the craziest, most despairing laugh that Cadel had ever heard. ‘If you do that, dear boy, I’ll die happy!’

The words were snatched away by a howling wind. Then a huge jolt yanked Cadel from his seat. He felt the impact through his entire body. His head snapped back. The breath was knocked out of him. Turning somersaults, he saw the dinghy’s crumpled bow soar up to block out the sky – and knew instantly what had happened.

They had hit submerged rock.

Suddenly he was buried in water. The gun was gone. His lungs were bursting. He thrashed and kicked and dislodged one shoe. Something nudged him, but bobbed away when he tried to grab it. He surfaced, gasping, and caught a glimpse of the boat. It had flipped over. He couldn’t reach its exposed keel, though he tried to swim in that direction. The swell, however, was dragging him away, round and round, pushing and tugging. There was no sign of Prosper. A broken oar flashed past. Seaspray lashed and stung.

Then a huge wave lifted Cadel like a cork, before submerging him again. Dumped in a trough, he was propelled down, down, down by massive forces, as tonnes of water piled up on his head. He said to himself,
I can’t drown. Not now. This is impossible
.

An overwhelming sense of disbelief snuffed out his panic. He wasn’t thinking about Saul, or Fiona, or his friends. He was thinking about the boat, and how he might reach it. Kicking off his other shoe, he struck out for the greenish light overhead, away from the darkness beneath him.
Swim. Swim. Swim
. The word beat a tattoo inside his skull. His whole life had been narrowed down to that one, simple procedure.
Swim
.

All at once he was gulping down air. The relief was so great, it was almost excruciating. But his arms felt so weak. His chest felt so sore. He couldn’t see the boat – in fact, he could hardly see anything, because his eyes were full of salt water. And a terrible realisation was creeping up on him. He asked himself:
Is this how it’s going to end? Am I going to die off the coast of California?

The third time he went down, he wasn’t pushed; he was pulled. A rip dragged him under, twirling him like laundry in a washing machine. And when he struggled towards the surface, it seemed to recede. The pale, submarine light grew fainter and fainter. The blackness crept up on him, on every side, like the walls of a tunnel. He was suffocating – his chest was burning – he
had
to breathe!

What happened next was a jumble of vague impressions:
darkness, then a blank period, then a solid presence and a loud noise. A sensation of acute urgency was followed by one of immense relief. But never once did Cadel break through into consciousness. His mind was adrift, detached from everything firm, proven and understood; he let his own identity slip away. The world dissolved. There was nothing left. He was floating … floating …

… and coughing. He was coughing.
Hack-hack-hack
. Slowly, he reconnected with his arms and legs. They were pinned down. He couldn’t move.

Hack-hack-hack
. He struggled for air.

‘He’s breathing!’ someone shouted. And someone else said, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’

Cadel opened his eyes. A face was hovering over him, against a backdrop of dark cloud. The face was long and brown and damp, with very white teeth. Cadel didn’t recognise it.

‘Are you okay? Can you hear me?’ the lips enunciated.

Cadel didn’t reply. He retched, then tried to roll over. Immediately, the weight on his chest and arms lifted.

He heard someone say, ‘It’s a miracle.’

By this time, the edges of his vision were clearing. He could see things – and make sense of them, too. He was lying on sand. He was wet. He was alive.

It was raining.

As he threw up, something was placed across his shoulders. A jacket? It nearly blew off again, before an eager pair of hands tucked it around him like a shawl. More people were talking, high above his head. He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t move. He had to lie there in his own vomit, because the effort involved in bringing up a bellyful of seawater had exhausted him.

Gradually the murmur of voices became clearer. They all seemed to be male voices, with American accents. He heard ‘phone’ and ‘shock’ and ‘ambulance’. Then he started to cough again.

‘Jesus! Cadel! Oh, my God …’

Kale
. The word sprang into his mind, followed by a flurry of other words:
Prosper
and
boat
and
lifejacket
. Meanwhile, someone had squatted beside him.

He craned his neck to look up at the hunched figure.

‘Kale?’ he croaked.

‘Are you sore? Can you move? Is anything broken?’ It was Kale, all right. He raised his voice sharply before Cadel could ask about Prosper. ‘
Where’s the ambulance? Did someone call an ambulance?
’

‘I did.’

‘They’re on their way.’

‘I’ve done a first-aid course …’

‘Should we shift him? Before they get here?’

‘He needs to be kept warm …’

This babble of responses was reassuring. There had to be six or seven people standing around in the rain – and it occurred to Cadel that some of them might be policemen.

Kale certainly was. His jacket was flapping open in the wind, exposing the gun tucked into his shoulder holster.

Prosper doesn’t stand a chance
, thought Cadel, slumping with relief.

‘Prosper,’ he rasped, and Kale leaned down to listen.

‘What’s that?’ asked Kale. He laid a hand on Cadel’s sodden curls. ‘Can you sit up? If you can sit up, we’ll carry you. We’ll get you up the stairs.’

Up the stairs? Briefly distracted, Cadel raised his chin again, peering through the forest of legs that surrounded him. Across an expanse of sand and rocks he saw a crumbling orange cliffface with a flight of steps hanging off it.

Though he didn’t recognise these steps, the tightly packed mansions perched above them rang a bell.

‘We won’t take you back to that goddamn house,’ Kale assured him, at which point Cadel realised that ‘the goddamn house’ – Rex Austin’s house – must be quite close. It had to be close, or Kale wouldn’t have turned up so quickly.

Unless it hadn’t been quick? Cadel didn’t know. He couldn’t
tell how long he’d been lying on the beach like a stranded whale. Minutes? Hours?

‘Where’s Prosper?’ he muttered. And this time Kale heard.

‘Prosper?’

‘He was on the boat with me …’ As Cadel strained to peer back over his shoulder, Kale started firing orders at the men clustered around them both. Clearly, many of these people were also FBI agents; Cadel registered the fact in some remote corner of his brain, though he didn’t really listen to what was being said. It was happening too far above him, and he didn’t feel well enough to concentrate.

He did notice, however, that the churning, thundering surf had to cover a lot of ground before it was able to lick at his toes. And he thought,
Did I get all the way up here by myself?

There were no drag marks that he could detect – but then again, there were no marks of any description. No footprints, no tyre tracks, no nothing. The sea would have washed everything away.

‘Cadel.
Cadel
.’ Kale squeezed his arm. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Of course I can hear you,’ said Cadel, feeling vaguely annoyed. ‘I don’t have water in my ears.’

‘You told me you were with Prosper. In a boat. Is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened? Did he throw you overboard?’

‘No.’ A fit of coughing intervened before Cadel could finally gasp out, ‘The boat capsized.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I took the gun, but I dropped it. Prosper got the lifejacket.’ As he tried to organise his scattered memories, Cadel made a feeble attempt to sit up. His head swam with the effort. He was starting to shake. ‘There was hardly any petrol in the engine,’ he continued. ‘Rex must have turned it on, to make a noise. He’s under a green thing, now.’

‘Take it easy,’ Kale begged. ‘Don’t force it. You can tell me later.’

But Cadel couldn’t seem to stop talking. The words kept
spurting out of him, like the seawater he’d swallowed. ‘We hit a rock,’ he continued. ‘The boat was upside down. There’s a house inside the other house – that’s where Prosper was hiding. Wilfreda was there too, but she’s gone to Mexico, I think.’

‘Shh. It’s okay. Can you hear that siren? That’s the ambulance.’

‘Prosper’s a good swimmer. He told me so.’ Cadel was flagging. His eyelids drooped. His muscles wouldn’t hold him up any more. ‘You’d better be careful,’ he murmured, sinking back down onto the sand, ‘because Prosper took the lifejacket. If I made it, then he made it. He wasn’t scared. He wouldn’t have drowned.’

‘
Down here!
’ Kale shouted. ‘
Over here!
’