The Genius Wars

  ‘And you’re saying I have?’ Devin barked. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I’m saying someone has.’

  ‘Up yours, Cadel!’

  Thud!

  ‘It might have been Lexi,’ Cadel had to concede. ‘She’s always shooting her mouth off.’

  ‘Screw you,’ Devin snarled. ‘You really are a jerk, you know that? I’ve lost all my stuff, and now you’re blaming me!’

  ‘It wasn’t your stuff.’ Cadel regarded him with icy contempt. ‘You stole the money that paid for it.’

  Devin gasped. He turned bright red. When he raised his fist, however, Gazo stepped in.

  ‘Hey,’ said Gazo. ‘That’s enough.’

  ‘What you gunna do, fart on me?’ Though Devin sounded defiant, he was already retreating. ‘Well, screw you too! I hope you both get caught, you freaks!’

  ‘Hey – come on …’ Gazo made a half-hearted attempt to stop him. ‘Don’t be like that. You’re all shook up. So’s Cadel. You gotta pull it togevver.’

  But Devin wasn’t listening. He had already bolted, heading towards the front gate. Cadel watched him go without regret. There was no point getting sentimental about the Wieneke twins. They were loose cannons, and Cadel was quite sure that one (or both) of them had somehow tipped off Prosper English. Not deliberately, perhaps; Cadel doubted very much that they had consciously betrayed him. Nevertheless, they were unreliable – and he couldn’t afford to get mixed up with unreliable people.

  They’ll be better off out of the way, he told himself. Prosper will leave them alone, if they’re not with me.

  ‘Come on,’ he said to Gazo. ‘Let’s do this.’

  Ignoring his friend’s doubtful look, Cadel returned to the hatch – where Gazo soon joined him. Together they stood for a moment, contemplating the sludge at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Are you sure it ain’t too deep?’ Gazo queried.

  ‘It ain’t. I mean, it isn’t. You stopped it just in time.’ Before Gazo could raise any further objections, Cadel pushed the topmost bag off the trolley. Thud! A single hard shove then sent the bag rolling downstairs, until it hit the congealing concrete.

  ‘There’s the first one,’ Cadel declared calmly. ‘You should go down and stand on that, so you can throw the next one in.’

  Gazo didn’t say another word. He simply hoisted a second sack onto his shoulder and began his descent, moving very slowly and carefully. When he reached the lowest step he placed one foot gingerly on the discarded bag of gravel, which didn’t sink, or tip over, or slide out from under him. As Cadel had promised, the bag made an excellent stepping stone.

  Gazo was able to position both feet on top of it before relinquishing the next bag.

  Unfortunately, however, he had to keep doubling back for more – because he refused all help. ‘Them bags are too heavy for you,’ was his blunt assessment of the situation. Though the minutes were ticking by, he refused to give in; with dogged persistence he single-handedly built a path to Devin’s table, while Cadel kept an anxious eye on the comatose construction workers.

  One of these men was starting to twitch by the time Cadel’s personal effects had been retrieved from the basement. It was Gazo who noticed a telltale fluttering of eyelashes on his tallest, burliest victim. ‘We’ve got about a minute to get out of here,’ he informed Cadel, who immediately began to sprint towards the ute. As he flung his laptop and green bag onto the front seat, Cadel heard a groan. As he climbed in after his luggage, he heard somebody else coughing. And as he slammed the door shut, he saw movement over near the house: a hand was reaching limply into the air.

  ‘Step on it!’ he squealed.

  Gazo didn’t need to be told. His key was already in the ignition; there was a very nasty chugga-chugga-chugga before the engine suddenly fired and the ute surged forward. Gazo spun the wheel, executing a high-speed U-turn. Bumping and skidding over uneven ground, they charged towards the gate – which Gazo, luckily, had left standing open.

  Glancing back, Cadel was reassured to see that no one had yet sat up.

  ‘Do you think they’ll remember you?’ he asked breathlessly.

  Gazo shrugged. ‘Hope not.’

  ‘If they remember anything, they’ll remember this truck. They’ll remember “Greening Landscapes” on the side.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘I don’t see how you could get arrested, though.’ Cadel was thinking aloud. ‘Not for having toxic body odour. I mean, it’s not your fault, is it? How can you get charged for assaulting someone when you couldn’t help yourself?’

  Gazo flicked him a look. ‘It weren’t no accident, Cadel,’ he said drily.

  ‘Of course not. I know that. But you can pretend it was an accident if anyone tries to blame you.’

  Gazo grunted. By this time they were several streets away from Clearview House, heading for the anonymity of a busy main road. Gazo kept checking the rear-view mirror, as if he expected to see a cement truck on their tail. Cadel was nervously watching for unmarked police cars and sabotaged traffic lights.

  ‘So where d’you wanna go?’ said Gazo, after a long pause.

  Cadel checked his watch. It was still quite early – too early to make for the airport.

  Besides which, he had things to do first.

  ‘Where were you taking this load of gravel?’ he inquired. ‘To the university?’

  ‘Nah. It’s for a private job. New driveway out in Vaucluse.’

  ‘Is it a new driveway for a new house?’ Cadel wanted to know. ‘I mean, is anyone living there?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘What about the builders? Will they be around?’

  ‘I dunno. Probably not.’ Gazo’s tone was cautious. ‘The house is pretty much done – except there ain’t no hot-water system. That’s coming on Tuesday.’

  ‘Do you have the keys?’

  ‘Only to the garage.’

  ‘Then we’ll go there,’ Cadel decided. ‘I need to download something. And get changed. And maybe send an email, if I can do a bit of wardriving on the way.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’ll need a USB drive as well. Maybe we can swing by a computer shop, and you can go in and buy one for me.’

  ‘Listen –’

  ‘And after all that, you can drop me at the airport.’

  ‘The airport?’

  ‘I’m going to America.’ Cadel frowned as the ute swerved. ‘Keep your eyes on the road, Gazo.’

  But Gazo was already pulling over. He braked in front of a doctor’s surgery, without switching off the ignition. Instead he left his engine idling as he turned to confront Cadel.

  ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ said Gazo. ‘America?

  Are you mad?’

  ‘I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘Of course you do!’

  ‘I don’t. There’s a lead I have to follow.’ Seeing Gazo open his mouth, Cadel quickly forestalled him. ‘If I stick around here, Prosper will find me. My job is to find him first.’

  ‘Yeah, but –’

  ‘I’ll be getting help from Kale Platz,’ Cadel went on. ‘Remember Kale? He’s an FBI agent.’

  Gazo’s brow puckered. ‘Uh –’

  ‘He came here from America a couple of years ago. He was the one who arrested Prosper, that time when Vadi knocked you out.’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ Gazo hadn’t forgotten the night he’d escaped from police custody. ‘So Kale Platz – he was the one who locked me in the van?’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘And does he know you’re coming?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ll tell him when I arrive.’

  ‘Cadel –’

  ‘I’ve got his address and phone number. There won’t be any trouble. All you have to do is help me get on the plane.’

  But Gazo was shaking his head.

  ‘If Saul finds out I done all this …’ he began, then sighed. Cadel tried to reassure him.

  ‘If Saul finds out, I’ll be the one who cops it,’ he insist
ed.

  Gazo gave a derisive snort. ‘Are you joking? He’ll have me for dinner.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He will.’

  ‘Then disappear!’ Cadel was rapidly losing patience. ‘You’ve done it before. If you’re that scared, lay low for a while. You’d be better off vanishing anyway, with Prosper on the warpath.’

  ‘And lose me job?’

  ‘You’ll get another one,’ said Cadel – at which point something else occurred to him. ‘Speaking of jobs, do you have any money? I can’t go anywhere near my bank account, in case Vee’s keeping an eye on it.’ When there was no immediate response, Cadel pressed Gazo further. ‘I’ll pay you back. I need to buy some American dollars.’

  Still Gazo didn’t speak. He was staring straight ahead, his lips pressed tightly together.

  ‘What? What?’ Cadel demanded. ‘Tell me what the problem is! I can’t mess about, Gazo – if you’re not interested, just let me out right here, and I’ll find an Internet cafe. I can always get the money from Sonja’s account; I know she won’t mind. She’ll understand how important it is.’

  At last Gazo turned his head. ‘You know what?’ he mumbled. ‘You sound just like Prosper.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘When he used to boss people around, I mean. Sometimes he’d be firing off orders like no one else had a brain in their ’eads. He talked like that to me all the time.’ There was a quiet dignity in Gazo’s rebuke. ‘I know I’m not real smart – not like you, Cadel. But you’d still be in that basement if it wasn’t for me. You got no call to be acting like whatever I say ain’t worf listening to.’

  Cadel swallowed. All at once he felt dizzy.

  ‘Sure, I’ll let you into that garage. And I’ll take you to the airport, too, since you’re probably right. You usually are,’ Gazo admitted. ‘All I’m saying is, you should watch yourself. Because nobody likes a smart-arse bullyboy, and most people don’t know you like I do. They might take it wrong. Same as Devin did.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cadel whispered. He was horrified. Stricken. He suddenly looked so white – so ill – that Gazo hastily tried to make amends.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s just because you’re scared, I reckon. You didn’t really mean it, eh?’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t fret. I ain’t mad, or nuffink.’ When Cadel seemed to derive no comfort from this, Gazo offered up more in the way of reassurance. ‘You’re only a kid. You’ve had a tough time. When I get scared, I stink the place out. So I can’t exactly blame you, can I?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Cadel repeated. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Hey – no harm done. Forget about it.’ Gazo reached for the gearstick. He flicked on his indicator and checked for approaching traffic. Before he could pull back onto the road, however, Cadel squeaked, ‘Stop!’

  Obediently, Gazo braked. The ute jerked to a standstill. Cadel pushed open the passenger door and leaned out.

  Because he hadn’t had any breakfast, there wasn’t much to throw up. Even so, it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Cadel had never been on a plane before. At least, he couldn’t remember having been on a plane before. As a two-year-old he’d been smuggled into Australia from the US, but he wasn’t quite sure how this had been accomplished – whether by plane, boat, or submarine. He had no memory of the trip, and Prosper English hadn’t provided any details.

  So he was quite nervous as he approached the airport, despite the fact that he knew what to expect. He’d been briefed by Gazo, and he’d watched countless television documentaries over the years, dealing with things like air safety, thrombosis and customs officials.

  Nevertheless, he couldn’t help worrying. It was hard not to, because he was travelling under a false name, with a forged passport, as a member of the opposite sex.

  The main problem was that Ariel didn’t quite fit him any more. Though he hadn’t grown much since first donning her snap-on earrings and Indian cotton skirt, there had been a lot of minor changes in his appearance – so many that they were beginning to affect the overall impact of his disguise. He was still small enough and cute enough to pass as a girl, but only if he was exceedingly careful. It couldn’t be done unless he took various precautions: plucking a few moustache and chin hairs, wrapping a scarf around his Adam’s apple, wearing sleeves so long that they covered not only his arms, but most of his hands as well. (His knuckles were no longer the knuckles of a teenaged girl.) His jumper had to be very baggy and his make-up had to be very thick.

  He also had to do as little talking as possible. Though his voice wasn’t exactly a booming baritone, it had well and truly broken; no matter how high he pitched it, or how softly he spoke, it wasn’t entirely convincing as a girl’s voice. So he’d decided to pretend that he had laryngitis. If he kept coughing and sniffing and squirting saline spray up his nose, people were unlikely to question his hoarseness, or his reluctance to answer questions.

  ‘They might stay away from me on the plane, as well,’ he’d observed, ‘if they’re afraid of catching the flu.’

  ‘They might,’ had been Gazo’s response. ‘Or they might be shoving cough drops and aspirins and neck pillows at you the whole time. Blokes on planes always chat up young girls. I seen ’em do it on my way here from England.’

  ‘You think?’ Gloomily, Cadel had surveyed himself in the ute’s wing mirror. He’d looked good, but not that good. Surely even a pair of enormous blue eyes wouldn’t be enough to make up for a hacking cough, or a volley of wet sneezes? ‘Maybe I’ll pretend not to speak English,’ he’d decided.

  He had taken a taxi to the airport, having come to the conclusion that Gazo’s ute was too distinctive. A ‘Greening Landscapes’ gardening truck was exactly the sort of vehicle that might stand out on CCTV footage of the airport’s busy drop-off zone – where there were bound to be dozens of security cameras. And although Gazo had wanted to come with him in the cab, Cadel had scotched this idea, as well. In many ways, Gazo was just as distinctive as his truck. It was possible that Vee or Com or Dot might be keeping an eye out for Gazo, whereas it was much more unlikely that Ariel would trigger any online alarms.

  Unlikely, but not out of the question. Despite his enveloping scarf, high heels and baggy jumper, Cadel’s measurements might still rack up enough matches to alert a video analytics program. So he kept his head down on his way to the check-in line, using his handkerchief to shield his face as he pretended to blow his nose, repeatedly.

  The taxi trip hadn’t been much of a challenge. After receiving his instructions from Gazo, the driver hadn’t uttered a single word during the entire half-hour journey. This might have been because Cadel was posing as a foreigner who couldn’t speak English. Or it might have been because the driver himself hadn’t been exactly fluent in the same language. Whatever the reason, they had parted without exchanging more than a halting sentence or two.

  But the check-in counter was different. A cheerful Qantas representative asked Cadel question after question. Did he want an aisle seat or a window seat? Had he packed his bags himself? Were there any sharp instruments in his carry-on luggage? Cadel answered hoarsely, sucking on a cough lozenge as he sniffed and mopped his nose. He was hoping that the cold symptoms might explain his grumpy, monosyllabic demeanour. He was also hoping to distract the attendant with his wet noises and eucalyptus smell while she checked his passport, which hadn’t really been used before. He was concerned about his passport. He didn’t know if it was convincing enough.

  He needn’t have worried, though. After about three minutes, he came away from the check-in counter with his boarding pass, his departure card, and instructions about where to go next. The security checkpoint was a breeze; having briefly surrendered his watch and computer bag, he stepped through the metal detector and was quickly on his way. No one asked any questions. No one wanted to search his baggage. He was surrounded by busy, preoccupied people who weren’t the least bit interested in who he might be,
or what he might be up to.

  It was still possible, however, that he was under surveillance. The airport was honeycombed with electronic security systems, and there were cameras mounted everywhere. For that reason, during his ninety-minute wait in the departure lounge, Cadel spent most of his time glued to one carefully selected spot. He had chosen it because it gave the cameras a restricted view of the top of his head. As long as he remained there, and didn’t look up, his face would stay off the airport’s CCTV footage. In fact he was so anxious to avoid being filmed that he moved only once, to go to the toilet (in the ladies’ bathroom). Otherwise he sat with his head down, either reading or pretending to sleep, until his flight number was called.

  And all the while he was sweating bullets, afraid that the police were going to pounce on him. Even after he’d boarded his flight, and the hatches had been firmly secured, he didn’t feel entirely safe; it was still possible that a last-minute delay might ruin everything. Only when his plane had finally taken off did he stop worrying about police interference – and start worrying about Prosper English, instead.

  Planes were vulnerable things, run by complicated computer systems. What if Vee had worked out how to invade the navigation program on this particular flight? What if he’d done it to another plane as well, and the two aircraft were heading straight for each other? What if Prosper knew exactly where Cadel was, and had decided that a midair collision would get rid of him once and for all?

  If Prosper wanted to crash this plane, he would have done it when it was taking off, Cadel reasoned. The most dangerous sections of any flight were the take-off and the landing; he had heard this over and over again, from any number of sources. If Prosper hadn’t sabotaged the jet during take-off, when so many things could go so terribly wrong, then he was unlikely to do it over the Pacific Ocean.

  That was what Cadel told himself, anyway. It was something to cling to during the fourteen-hour trip, which he didn’t enjoy very much. Apart from the hovering threat of sabotage, he had to endure all kinds of other discomforts – like the constant attentions of the woman wedged in beside him. She was a fat, friendly, grey-haired grandmother named Jan, who wasn’t at all put off by his sniffing and coughing. On the contrary, she seemed worried about him, and kept trying to make him comfortable. She would offer him her serving of cheesecake, for instance, or show him where his air-sickness bag was, or kindly explain away various frightening phenomena. ‘You always get a bit of turbulence when you’re flying through cloud,’ she would say; or ‘That’s just the undercarriage retracting, isn’t it, Vern?’