The Genius Wars

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it.’

  Then he dropped into the typist’s chair.

  With the passwords that Prosper gave him, Cadel found it easy to isolate the automatic door locks. It was quite a relief to be working with computers again; by fixing his attention firmly on source codes and file format identifiers, Cadel was briefly able to forget where he was, and how he was feeling. He was even able to forget Prosper, who remained very quiet as Cadel wriggled his way past Vee’s rather sloppy checkpoints. Vee hadn’t put much effort into his door-disabling protocol. It was obviously a rushed job, which hadn’t been treated as something that required much of a defensive shield.

  In just a few minutes, Cadel had repaired the original program. He didn’t restore its biometric subroutine, but he did scrub out Vee’s numerous modifications, which were really quite ugly, and far too elaborate. For the first time, Cadel realised how much Richard Buckland had influenced his opinion on such things. Though Vee’s programming was effective, it could have been more effective. It could have been cleaner, leaner, and harder to mess with.

  ‘Okay,’ Cadel finally announced, resisting the temptation to stray into any other parts of the system, ‘that’s done.’ He spun around in his chair. ‘There’s a new password now. If you enter that manually, the tunnel doors will open up.’

  Prosper narrowed his eyes. He had been standing behind Cadel, silently watching the monitor screens.

  ‘The new password is “Sonja”,’ Cadel added, without expression.

  Prosper seemed to accept this. He certainly didn’t comment on it.

  ‘So the locks still work?’ was all he said.

  ‘They have to. The doors won’t open unless the locks work.’

  ‘Right.’ Prosper grasped Cadel’s arm, pulled him out of the chair, and guided him towards the kitchen cupboards. To Cadel’s amazement, Prosper then dropped to one knee and removed a portion of kickboard beneath the dishwasher. Without a kickboard to restrain them, two parallel stainless-steel rails immediately sprang across the floor.

  Prosper used them to pull the dishwasher out from beneath the benchtop.

  ‘It’s got wheels,’ he explained, as the appliance rolled forward about a metre or so, along the rails. Behind it, in the wall, was a hatchway. And beside the hatchway was a small, touch-screen interface device.

  ‘Now,’ he said, waving his gun, ‘get down there and key in that password.’

  ‘Do you –’ Cadel began, then hesitated.

  Prosper frowned at him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know where … um …’

  ‘Where Rex is?’

  Cadel nodded.

  ‘He’s nowhere near the hatch, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ Prosper sounded impatient.

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen the footage. That tunnel has cameras in it.’ When Cadel continued to stand there, unconvinced, Prosper yanked open a pantry cupboard. There was a brief and noisy interlude as cans and jars were pushed around. Then Prosper shoved a plastic bottle of dishwashing powder under Cadel’s nose. ‘There. Just keep your face shoved up against that,’ Prosper advised. ‘It’ll mask the smell.’

  Cadel cleared his throat. ‘It’s not the smell I’m worried about,’ he said plaintively. But before he could point out that he had never seen a corpse, and was scared of what Rex might look like, Prosper interrupted him.

  ‘Well you should be worried about the smell. Because there’s bound to be one. And if you feel like throwing up, kindly refrain from doing it all over me.’ Using the gun for emphasis, Prosper gave Cadel a sharp prod. ‘Go on. Hurry. We haven’t got all day.’

  Cadel forced himself to kneel. In a rather pathetic delaying tactic, he then removed his bottle’s screwtop lid, surreptitiously placing the little plastic disc to one side, on the floor, where Kale might see it.

  ‘Nice try,’ said Prosper. The lid quickly disappeared into his pocket. ‘And don’t start throwing that detergent around, either, or I’ll make you eat it.’

  With Prosper breathing down his neck, Cadel had run out of options. There was only one way to go. Cadel therefore did as he was told; clutching his bottle, he squeezed under the benchtop, shuffling forward on his knees and elbows until he was able to key his revised password into the touchscreen security device.

  As soon as he hit ‘enter’, the hatch in front of him swung open – releasing a faceful of damp, fetid air.

  ‘Oh, man …’ he muttered.

  ‘Go on,’ said Prosper, from above him.

  Cadel started to crawl. Luckily, he wasn’t crawling headfirst into a pitch-black hole. Beyond the hatchway, fluorescent lights were flickering on. (Had they been triggered by an infrared movement sensor?) He could see grey concrete walls, and some cable ducts running off into the distance. His detergent bottle was wedged uncomfortably into his chest.

  ‘Hurry up,’ snapped Prosper.

  The smell wasn’t as bad as Cadel had expected. In fact, with the sharp scent of artificial lemons filling his nostrils, he could barely detect even a whiff of corruption. It was Prosper who grimaced, upon emerging into the escape tunnel.

  But he didn’t let the smell slow him down. And he didn’t for one instant take his eyes off Cadel.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Cadel asked. He couldn’t understand why Prosper was still crouched on the floor, reaching back through the hatchway with one hand while aiming his gun with the other. ‘Are you stuck, or something?’

  Prosper shook his head. Then he gave a heave, pulling at some invisible weight, and the ensuing clunk told Cadel what had happened. Prosper had been dragging the dishwasher back into place. Cadel could only assume that the two rails had also retracted, automatically.

  After kicking the hatch shut, Prosper scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Right,’ he snapped. ‘Off we go.’

  The tunnel was actually a wide corridor, lined with reinforced concrete. It contained nothing but lights, cabling, and a handful of CCTV cameras – several of which had been smashed with a heavy object. Cadel didn’t ask if Rex had done this. It was the sort of thing an imprisoned man might do, but it didn’t bear thinking about.

  Instead, as he was propelled down the tunnel, Cadel tried to concentrate on what he should do when he finally got out. There weren’t any private beaches in California. Did Prosper realise that? Did he understand how dangerous it would be, trying to launch a boat on a public beach? What if someone was standing nearby when the tunnel door opened?

  I could shout for help, Cadel decided. A neighbour might hear. Or a surfer. Or a fisherman. Of course, Prosper had his gun – but could he actually risk firing it? A gunshot would be noisier than a shout. A gunshot would bring all the FBI agents running.

  ‘God help us,’ Prosper croaked. They had turned a corner and hit a stench. Even Cadel could smell it, very faintly, through the clean, chemical odour of fake lemons.

  He stopped in his tracks, reluctant to advance around the next corner.

  ‘We must be close now,’ Prosper remarked. He was obviously holding his breath. ‘The boat’s parked where you can push it straight down to the sea.’

  ‘He’s not in the boat, is he?’ Cadel demanded, struck by a sudden, terrible thought. And he felt the gun quiver against the back of his neck.

  ‘God,’ Prosper growled. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No. I don’t know.’

  ‘But you said there were cameras!’ Cadel protested.

  ‘He smashed most of the cameras down this end. With an oar. He didn’t want us watching him.’ Sucking in another gulp of air, the psychologist laid a hand on Cadel’s shoulder. ‘You can close your eyes if you want to. I’ll steer you in the right direction.’

  ‘But what if he is in the boat?’

  ‘Then we’ll have to bail him out, won’t we?’

  Cadel nearly threw up. He had to swallow several times before thrusting his entire nose i
nto the bottle of dishwashing powder.

  Prosper seemed to relent a little.

  ‘I’ll take care of it,’ he promised, in the tight, creaky, rapidfire voice of someone trying not to breathe. ‘Just close your eyes and do what I say. All right?’

  Cadel nodded.

  ‘All right.’ Prosper gave him a push. ‘Start walking, and I’ll tell you when to stop …’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Cadel stood absolutely still, his eyes squeezed shut and his nose rammed into the bottle of dishwashing powder. He sensed that he was in a large space, though he couldn’t have said why. Perhaps it was the way Prosper’s coughs and curses echoed off the walls.

  ‘Okay. It’s safe to look, now,’ Prosper said at last, breathlessly. ‘I’ve covered him up.’

  ‘Was he – is he –?’

  ‘He’s not in the boat.’ After a brief pause, occasioned by a fit of coughing, Prosper added, ‘It was better than I expected. Must be all the salt in the air.’

  Cadel didn’t want to think about what that meant. So he opened his eyes. The first thing he spotted was an aluminium dinghy sitting directly in front of him. Its bow was pointed at a big metal roller door, and it had an outboard motor attached to its stern.

  Beside this vessel, a green tarpaulin had been spread across the concrete floor. There was a lump beneath the tarpaulin.

  ‘For God’s sake, what are you gawping at?’ barked Prosper. ‘I told you, there’s nothing to see!’

  ‘I – I –’

  ‘Now bring that oar over here, and stick it in the boat. We might need it.’

  There was already an oar in the boat, but Prosper wasn’t pointing at that. He was indicating a second oar, which lay at one end of the large, triangular space in which he and Cadel both stood. The space itself was about the size of a three-car garage; it was where the last stretch of tunnel widened out, like the top of a martini glass, upon approaching the inside of the cliff face.

  Damp and cold, and lined with rough grey cement, it was one of the most inhospitable places that Cadel had ever experienced.

  ‘On second thoughts, what am I saying?’ Prosper suddenly remarked. There was an undertone of amusement in his voice. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near that oar. The last thing I need is a fractured skull.’ He turned away from the wall-mounted computer screen near the roller door, closing the distance between himself and Cadel in just a few, long strides. ‘Stay right where you are. I’ll take care of this myself.’

  Cadel hesitated. A picture had flashed into his mind: a picture of himself throwing powdered detergent into Prosper’s face, before snatching up the oar and bringing it down on the psychologist’s head.

  But this whole notion was pure fantasy. For one thing, Prosper had a gun. And as for the inevitable impact … the crunch of wood on bone …

  Cadel shuddered. He couldn’t bear the thought of it. He was paralysed by fear and doubt.

  Then Prosper passed by, and so did the moment.

  ‘What’s that over there?’ Cadel asked, squinting at the wall-mounted screen. ‘Is that a CCTV monitor?’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Prosper picked up the discarded oar. ‘Do you think Rex would even consider going outside without checking that the coast was clear, first?’

  He tossed his oar into the boat with a clang. Meanwhile, Cadel peered harder at the flickering screen, which wasn’t big enough to display more than a single image. Either there was only one camera on the other side of the roller door, or you had to flip from camera to camera using the keypad under the screen.

  ‘You might want to put this on,’ said Prosper, who had been inspecting the dinghy’s contents. (He was holding his breath again.) ‘It looks a bit wet out there, and I know what a sheltered life you’ve been leading since I saw you last …’

  Cadel glanced around, just in time to get an oilskin coat full in the face. He nearly dropped his bottle.

  ‘The weather should work to our advantage,’ Prosper continued, ‘because there won’t be anyone out and about. And even if your friends are scouring the cliff-top, visibility will be very poor.’

  With a growing sense of panic, Cadel edged closer to the CCTV screen until he could clearly make out the spray-flecked view of what lay just beyond the roller door: whitecaps, scudding clouds, a narrow stretch of shingle. Waves were breaking high over a pile of rocks.

  The storm. He had forgotten about the storm.

  ‘We can’t go out there!’ he squeaked.

  ‘Of course we can.’

  ‘But – but –’ Staring in shock at the turbulent sea, Cadel let his bottle drift downwards, away from his face. Almost immediately, a foul smell rushed up his nostrils and set him coughing. ‘Oagh – aagh – cakk …’

  ‘The fresh air will do us both good,’ Prosper added. He had scooped up the oilskin coat again; his consonants were blurred and his vowels snubbed because he was trying not to breathe through his nose. ‘Put this on, if you’re worried.’

  Once again, the coat took Cadel by surprise. This time, however, he didn’t drop it. Instead he dropped his bottle, which he didn’t dare retrieve. He was afraid that, if he bent down, he would throw up.

  By now Prosper had returned to the CCTV monitor. Jabbing at its keypad, he skipped from scene to scene, scrutinising a sequence of bone-chilling pictures: roiling white surf; rain-lashed boulders; a heaving horizon.

  ‘Good,’ said Prosper.

  ‘Good?’ Cadel wheezed.

  ‘There’s no one in sight.’

  ‘We’ll sink out there!’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘It’s blowing a gale!’

  ‘It’s a bit of rough weather.’ Prosper seemed genuinely unmoved – and mildly diverted by Cadel’s alarm. ‘Weather like this isn’t hazardous. Not for a sea-going vessel with an outboard motor and a bilge pump.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Cadel cried. ‘You’re just a wine waiter, you’re not a fisherman!’

  Prosper blinked. He had been studying the CCTV footage, but Cadel’s accusation caused him to glance down, eyebrows raised. There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘I used to sail my own yacht,’ Prosper rejoined at last. ‘It was a hobby of mine. Naturally, that was some time after I had abandoned my fledging career as a sommelier.’ Suddenly, without warning, his mood changed. He jammed his gun hard against Cadel’s upper lip and said, ‘Put that coat on. Now.’

  The way Prosper spoke, through clenched teeth, scared Cadel far more than the click of the gun being cocked. There was no arguing with that whiplash voice, or those narrowed eyes. So Cadel hurriedly thrust an arm into one sleeve, expecting his hand to emerge from the other end. But the sleeve was far too long. So was the second sleeve; Cadel had to push both of them up until they were concertinaed around his wrists. Then he tackled the zipper, which wasn’t a hard thing to manage as long as his arms were raised. When he let them fall back towards his knees, however, each cuff slid down over his knuckles, flapping and dangling like empty windsocks.

  ‘Lift your arms straight out to your sides,’ said Prosper, frowning.

  Cadel obeyed. He did so automatically, staring up at the monitor screen and wondering what on earth he was going to do once he hit the beach. An oilskin coat wasn’t a flotation device. It wouldn’t save him if the boat sank. How was he supposed to swim in sleeves that were overshooting the tips of his fingers by a good hand’s length?

  ‘Hmm,’ said Prosper. He began to circle Cadel, who vaguely expected him to make some stupid comment about folding the cuffs back. Instead, Prosper pounced. He grabbed both sleeves from behind.

  ‘Hey!’ Cadel protested. But before he could pull away, a sharp prod to the back of one knee made him buckle.

  Next thing he knew he was kneeling on the floor, and Prosper was tying his sleeves together. It was like being handcuffed.

  ‘I’ll drown!’ By now Cadel was seriously frightened. ‘I can’t swim! Not like this!’

  ‘You won’t have to swim.’

&n
bsp; ‘Help! Help!’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’ Prosper placed a foot between Cadel’s shoulder blades, pressing down hard. At the same time, he reached across to push a few buttons on the wall-mounted keypad.

  Doubled over, with his chin almost touching his thighs, Cadel heard a crunching sound. When he turned his head, he saw the steel roller door begin its slow ascent. He also caught a glimpse of the rough plaster surface behind it.

  He could hardly breathe.

  ‘Right,’ Prosper said briskly. Removing his foot from Cadel’s back, he seized a handful of oilskin collar. Cadel was then jerked upright and propelled towards the boat. With his hands tied behind him, he couldn’t really fight back – though he resisted every effort that was being made to pull him along. He dug in his heels and hung like a dead weight. Upon reaching the boat, he wedged both feet against its gunwale and pushed hard.

  ‘Help! Help!’

  ‘Jesus,’ hissed Prosper, who was trying to bundle him over the side. ‘Don’t be such a fool!’

  ‘Lemme GO!’

  ‘This is completely irrational.’ Prosper adjusted his grip, hampered somewhat by the need to keep his gun pointed at the ceiling. ‘How can I possibly let you go if you won’t calm down?’

  At that instant, a gush of crisp, salty air invaded the room. Cadel realised that the outer door was swinging open, and bucked so convulsively that Prosper nearly lost his footing.

  ‘Stop it, damn you, I’ve got a gun!’

  ‘Help!’

  ‘There’s no need to panic like this!’ Prosper snapped. ‘I know you can swim, I paid for the lessons myself!’ As the whistling wind hurled sea-spray into his face, and his captive kept thrashing about hysterically, Prosper’s tone took on a frantic edge. ‘Why the hell are you so worried about a bit of water,’ he demanded, over the pounding of the surf, ‘when you’ve survived a bus crash and a runaway wheelchair? This will be like a school camp, for God’s sake!’

  Cadel froze. His muscles clenched, rigid with shock.

  Even his tongue wouldn’t move.

  ‘I’ll untie you when we’re out to sea!’ Prosper said loudly. ‘You can man the bilge pump!’ Then he lifted Cadel into the boat, before scurrying behind the stern and throwing himself against it. Slowly, as Prosper pushed, the vessel began to slide forward. ‘Don’t even try to stand up, you’ll just hurt yourself!’ he advised, between grunts.