The Genius Wars (21 page)

It was Duke. Though clearly shell-shocked, he seemed otherwise unaffected by the collision; he wasn’t clutching his nose, or his chest, or any other part of his anatomy. He hadn’t even suffered a cracked lip, or a torn t-shirt. And his grip was steady as he thrust his mobile phone at Cadel – who gaped at him in astonishment.

‘
Your
phone?’ said Cadel. ‘What do you mean,
your
phone?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Hamish wheezed. ‘You scumbag, Duke …’

‘What?’ Duke looked genuinely taken aback – confused that his offer had been so harshly rejected. ‘I didn’t do nothing. I had the right of way,’ he said, then levelled an accusatory finger at Snezana. ‘
She’s
the one who ran a red light!’

‘
I did not!
’ she yipped. ‘
You
did!’

‘In your dreams, hot stuff.’

‘
Nobody ran a red light!
’ Cadel insisted. ‘It was a malfunction. I think the traffic system was hacked.’

‘Malfunction my arse,’ growled Duke. At which point Hamish made a strained, squeaky, despairing noise. ‘Shut up, you turkey!’ he groaned. ‘This is all your fault!’

‘Eh?’ said Duke. By now, he wasn’t the only one looking lost. Snezana and Gazo were both exchanging perplexed glances. As for the woman in blue, she’d already given up, and had wandered off to find out how Vijay was feeling.

‘Why would it be my fault?’ Duke demanded, glaring at Hamish. ‘Your mate just
said
it was a malfunction –’

‘They could have
tracked your phone
, dickhead!’ Hamish snapped, before he suddenly succumbed to a violent coughing fit. Cadel was the one who had to step in and explain.

‘You should have left your phone back at Thi’s house,’ he reminded Duke. ‘We discussed this, remember? No phones.’

‘But it was turned off.’

‘That doesn’t make any difference. Not unless you take the battery out.’ Even so, Cadel wasn’t quite sure how the trace on Duke’s green station wagon could have been accomplished – if, indeed, it had been accomplished at all. Hamish would have been an obvious target, because Hamish happened to be Cadel’s long-time friend. What’s more, Hamish had left his phone on (as instructed) to receive the call from Saul Greeniaus. If Com or some other hacker had infiltrated Saul’s phone, then the same thing might very well have happened to the phone that Hamish had been using.

But Duke’s phone was different. Com didn’t know Duke. Cadel didn’t know Duke. Could Duke’s appearance at the scene have been pure bad luck? Or had he done something amazingly stupid with his phone?

‘You didn’t try to call Hamish, did you?’ Cadel asked him. It was Hamish, however, who replied.

‘He didn’t have to,’ said Hamish, in strangled voice. ‘We b-both signed up for a social mapping service.’ Seeing Cadel’s jaw drop, he breathlessly tried to defend himself. ‘It wasn’t my idea …
it was a group thing … all the other guys wanted to do it …’

‘Are you off your
head
?’ Cadel exclaimed. He couldn’t believe his ears. Why would an intelligent hacker like Hamish even consider using a phone mapping service? Especially one that allowed any number of registered friends to pinpoint the exact location of his mobile. ‘You might as well turn on a webcam! Or stick a microchip in your ear!’

‘Sorry,’ Hamish muttered.

‘And you didn’t think it was important to
mention
this?’ Cadel was so appalled – so thunderstruck – that he forgot all about his friend’s injuries. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you brain-dead?’

‘I forgot.’

‘You
forgot
?’

‘We signed up ages ago. After we started playing that game …’

‘Jesus, Hamish!’

‘It wouldn’t have been a problem, except that Duke had to bring his goddamn phone with him!’ Hamish pointed out. Then he began to cough again.

‘Cadel – mate – calm down,’ Gazo remonstrated. ‘The poor bloke’s not well.’

‘I didn’t even know he was linked up!’ Cadel cried. He was shaking like a paint mixer. ‘Anyone locked onto his phone would have been able to hack into the mapping service, and get a trace on Duke as well! No
wonder
they collided! It probably wasn’t an accident at all!’

‘Uh … guys?’ whispered Hamish. And something about his tone caught the attention of the whole group.

He was staring dazedly at his cupped palm, which was smeared with pale streaks of blood. When he raised his eyes again, they were wide and frightened.

‘I just – I …’

He couldn’t finish.

‘Did you cough that up?’ Snezana sounded almost as scared as Hamish looked. His nod threw her into a panic. She immediately grabbed Duke’s phone, stammering something about
going to hospital. But even as she keyed in the emergency number, a high-pitched
woo-oo
heralded the arrival of a police car.

At the very same instant, Cadel spotted Saul’s Corolla approaching from the opposite direction. It came to a sudden halt not far from the hatchback’s mangled bumper bar. Then the driver’s door popped open and Saul sprang out, still dressed in Arabic clothes.

Cadel began to pick his way across an uneven stretch of asphalt, doggedly making a bee-line for the detective. Saul, however, wasn’t in a time-wasting mood. Cadel had barely taken three steps before he found himself toe to toe with his foster father, who had removed his
chador
.

‘Get in the car! Right now!’ Saul barked.

‘Hamish needs an ambulance.’ Cadel had just one thing on his mind, and Saul’s wishes were of secondary importance. ‘Is there some way you can get an ambulance? Really quickly?’

But the detective didn’t seem to hear. His gaze had dropped to Cadel’s bare feet.

‘For Chrissake, Cadel!’ he exclaimed. ‘What happened to your shoes?’

‘I wasn’t wearing shoes. I had flippers. Remember?’

‘You’ll cut yourself.’

‘Hamish needs an ambulance.’ Cadel refused to be sidetracked, dismissing Saul’s fears with an irritable wave. ‘He’s coughing up blood. We’ve got to do something.’

‘There’s an ambulance on its way here right now.’

‘Really?’

Saul grunted. He had begun to inspect the scene before him with a kind of measured detachment; his eyes travelled smoothly from one piece of evidence to the next – from the black skidmark to the broken glass to the hatchback’s buckled grille. At last he fixed his attention on Hamish, and Cadel heaved a sigh of relief.

Saul would take care of things. He was a policeman. He would know what to do.

‘I haven’t talked to Vijay,’ Cadel admitted, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘I don’t know how
he
is.’

‘It’s all right. Just get in the car.’

‘This whole thing was a set-up. Somebody made them crash. Somebody’s hacking the controller boxes –’

‘Cadel.’ Saul spoke firmly but gently. ‘You can tell me later. Just get in the car, okay? And watch those feet.’

Cadel didn’t argue. As instructed, he watched his feet intently all the way to the Corolla, not even pausing to glance back at Hamish. In fact he was so focused on where he was treading that he nearly ran headfirst into Egon, who was draped against the Corolla’s front passenger door, sullenly watching Saul take charge.

‘Hey!’ said Egon, fending off Cadel with one arm. ‘Look where you’re going!’

‘Oh!’ Cadel’s chin jerked up. ‘Sorry.’

‘I can’t believe this. No – actually, I
can
believe this. What I can’t believe is that I ever agreed to do it.’ As Cadel crawled into the back seat of the detective’s borrowed car, Egon continued his spiteful monologue. ‘So who was the idiot driver, then? The bimbo or the Rasta? Wait. Don’t tell me. It was the Rasta. Oh dear – and now the bimbo’s nose-job is ruined.’

Cadel didn’t bother to reply. He leaned his forehead against a headrest, closing his eyes and swallowing hard. All at once he felt queasy.

‘Maybe she can wear that fake nose she gave your friend,’ Egon continued. ‘Or get a nose transplant from some super-model organ donor. Hello – here’s Richard. Come to think of it, this street’s on his route, isn’t it? I bet he’s wishing he never had a bar of this. I always said it was a stupid idea … lucky for him that copper’s responsible …’

First Sonja, now Hamish. First Sonja, now Hamish
. The words kept banging around inside Cadel’s skull, like birds caught in a greenhouse. He was very, very frightened. Coughing up blood was bad. He knew that. It could mean … what? A ruptured lung? A broken rib? Hamish was an only child. His parents would be
furious. They would blame Saul, and Richard, and Cadel most of all – exactly the way Judith did. You could understand why, too. Cadel was beginning to feel like a radioactive isotope: his proximity was becoming dangerous to people’s health. Whatever he did, he left a trail of blood in his wake.
First Sonja, now Hamish. First Sonja, now Hamish
.

Prosper’s team of sociopathic geeks seemed to be picking off Cadel’s friends one by one.

‘… I said I’d be home by five-thirty. At this rate, I’ll be lucky if I make dinner,’ Egon was muttering, apparently unconcerned as to whether anybody happened to be listening or not. ‘I wonder if Richard will give me a lift back? I mean, I’m in his class. He has a duty of care. And I don’t even
know
most of these people – it’s not as if they’re going to mind if I’m here or not …’

You can say that again
, thought Cadel. But he didn’t speak, because he felt so nauseous that he was afraid to open his mouth.

He was also afraid to open his eyes, in case he saw something that he wouldn’t be able to forget afterwards. Like Sonja’s fractured leg, for instance. Or the blood in Hamish’s cupped palm.

‘… Oh, great – and here’s Boyd,’ Egon complained. ‘He’s on crutches and I
still
can’t get away from him. For God’s sake, you big lummox, can’t you see there’s nothing happening over here? Why don’t you go and pick on someone else …?’

The howl of a distant siren caused Cadel to raise his head; he saw that Boyd was approaching the Corolla, having apparently extracted himself from the front seat of Richard Buckland’s car. Richard had parked at a safe distance from the scene of the accident, well clear of any emergency-vehicle access routes. He had then set off towards the group of people clustered around Hamish, which by now included Saul, Vijay, and a uniformed police officer. Perhaps Boyd found the police uniform off-putting. Or perhaps he didn’t feel safe, negotiating his way across an obstacle course full of broken glass and pot holes on a pair of crutches.

Whatever the reason, he had obviously decided to favour Egon with his company, despite Egon’s hostile scowl.

‘So what’s up?’ said Boyd, when he was still a good five metres away from the Corolla. ‘Did you see it? What happened?’

‘What does it look like?’ Egon snapped. ‘The Rasta collided with the bimbo.’

‘Yeah? Wow. That’s no good.’ Boyd peered around. ‘Where’s Thi?’

Egon didn’t answer. Possibly he had decided that the question was too stupid to merit a reply. Boyd therefore addressed Cadel through an open rear passenger door.

‘So did you flush anyone out?’ asked Boyd. ‘Because I didn’t.’

Cadel nodded. For the first time since reaching the accident site, his thoughts turned to Com – and he couldn’t help wondering (in a fleeting and distracted kind of way) whether anyone had actually caught up with the fugitive.

‘You
did
?’ said Boyd. ‘Really? Cool.’ When Cadel failed to elaborate, Boyd gave him a verbal prod. ‘So did you actually manage to identify a particular house, or …?’

‘No.’ Seeing Boyd’s face fall, Cadel added, ‘I saw his car. Not his house.’

‘Because it’s not as if this concept actually
worked
,’ Egon interposed snidely. ‘I mean, it’s not like someone picked up the guy’s signal or anything. It was all an accident. An accidental sighting.’

‘It was
not
an accident.’ Cadel spoke through clenched teeth. ‘Our target was flushed out because of the phone call. When Saul mentioned wardriving, Com got so scared that he bolted. And I happened to spot him doing it.’

Egon sniffed. ‘Pity you let him get away, then.’

‘He hasn’t got away! Not yet.’ Unsure of how much Egon actually knew, Cadel decided to fill him in, reciting Com’s registration number and describing the fugitive’s car. ‘Every policeman in Sydney will be looking out for a yellow Camry with a broken antenna and a “Baby on Board” sticker –’

‘Yeah, but he won’t be keeping
that
car, will he?’ Egon
interrupted. ‘Your hacker will have dumped it by now, if he’s got any sense. Which he obviously does.’

‘Hey,’ said Boyd. Egon, however, wouldn’t let him finish.

‘You should have had roadblocks set up. Or at least a few extra coppers around. I mean, what did you expect? That your guy would sit tight and wait for you to come charging through the door?’

‘
Hey!
’ Boyd repeated. ‘I
saw
that car.’ As Cadel and Egon both turned to stare at him, he gave a nervous titter. ‘Yellow Camry? I saw it parked down near the river a little while ago.’ He jerked his thumb. ‘It was parked in someone’s driveway.’

A brief, stunned silence greeted this announcement. Cadel had to lick his dry lips before he could request further details.

‘Are – are you sure?’ he squeaked.

‘Oh, yeah.’ Boyd’s tone was sublimely confident. ‘I saw the licence plate and everything. It’s the same one.’

But Egon wasn’t convinced. ‘Maybe you
think
that’s what you saw,’ he said. ‘Maybe your memory’s playing tricks on you. I mean, what was so special about this car that you ended up noticing its licence plate?’

‘I always notice licence plates,’ was Boyd’s response. ‘I collect them.’ Seeing Egon’s raised eyebrows, Boyd quickly added, ‘In my head, not in real life. I collect them in my head.’ A pause. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’ve got more important things in my head,’ Egon said with a sneer. Cadel, however, wasn’t quite so dismissive.

He knew that Sonja nursed a weakness for registration numbers.

‘You play games with them? Is that it?’ he asked.

Boyd nodded.

‘I can’t help it,’ he confessed, with a giggle. ‘Especially since I like cars, too –’