The Genius Wars (5 page)

‘I’m okay.’ Cadel flapped an impatient hand. ‘Just tell me what’s wrong.’

A lopsided smile tugged at the corner of Saul’s mouth. ‘You’re jumping to conclusions,’ he said, pulling a computer disc from his breast pocket. ‘I just want you to have a look at this.’

‘The footage, you mean?’ Cadel’s heart sank. ‘Is that the CCTV download?’

‘It is, yes.’

‘All three sightings?’

‘All seven. We found some more.’ Seeing Cadel wince, Saul apologised. ‘I’m sorry. This must be hard. But we need confirmation. You know Prosper better than anyone. You’ve seen him disguised as other people. We want to be sure we haven’t made a mistake.’

Cadel gave a nod.

‘This isn’t what we agreed to. I realise that.’ Saul was referring to the decision they’d both made, months previously, about Cadel’s role in the ongoing hunt for Prosper English. ‘And I’m not asking you to participate – far from it. You’ve got to stay offline, and keep your head down. All I need is a positive ID. It’s not something that Prosper will ever find out about. I’ll make a verbal report.’

But would that verbal report find its way into an email? Or a phone call? Cadel didn’t entirely trust the police – not all of them. He felt that they often underestimated the sheer depth of Prosper’s cunning.

For this reason, Cadel failed to respond immediately. He sat for a moment, turning things over in his mind. Then he looked up at Saul, and their gazes locked.

‘This might be some sort of test,’ Cadel said slowly. He was talking about Prosper’s reappearance. ‘Have you thought of that? He might have done this
specifically
to see how I’d react. To see if I’d go after him.’

Saul frowned.

‘I’ve got to be careful.
Really
careful,’ Cadel went on. ‘He might be trying to flush me out, or something.’

‘But why?’ Saul couldn’t conceal his anxiety, though he was trying very hard to sound calm. ‘You haven’t so much as googled his name for the last nine months. You’ve been as quiet as a mouse. Haven’t you?’

‘Yeah.’ Cadel had been taking no chances. He’d been roundly ignoring Prosper, in the hope that Prosper would extend him the same courtesy.

‘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.’

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 that 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
dis
agree – 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.’