The Genius Wars Read Online Free PDF Page A

Maybe he never left the country.’ Before Cadel could protest, Saul ploughed on. ‘He could have been in Sydney for the last nine months. We’ve got guys going through old CCTV footage, looking for him. Maybe he’s surfaced before, and no one recognised his face.’
    ‘He wouldn’t be that stupid.’
    ‘Cadel –’
    ‘He’s been leaving me alone on purpose! I know it! Because he doesn’t want me trying to track him down!’ Cadel leaned forward, gripping the headrest in front of him. ‘This is a stupid thing to do. It’s
stupid
. And Prosper’s smart.’
    ‘Not that smart,’ the detective retorted. ‘Smart people don’t end up as fugitives. They don’t break the law.’ He changed lanes smoothly, weaving his way through the traffic with quiet confidence. ‘Smart people don’t slap their wanted faces all over CCTV networks,’ he finished.
    ‘Exactly! Which is why he must have a
reason
for doing it!’
    ‘Other than the fact that he’s on his own, with no one else to buy his groceries for him?’ An undercurrent of savage scornmarred the detective’s otherwise measured delivery; he hated Prosper English with a vengeance, and couldn’t conceal it no matter how hard he tried. ‘There could be a million reasons, Cadel. He could be getting careless. He could be trying to freak you out. He could be going senile. What matters right now is that we find him before he finds you.’
    ‘If he was looking for me, he’d have found me already. It’s not like I’ve been keeping my head down.’
    ‘No. You haven’t.’ Saul sounded regretful. ‘But that’s gonna change. It
has
to change. I’m sorry, Cadel,’ he murmured, once more lifting his solemn gaze to the rear-view mirror. ‘You’ll have to go back into hiding, until we work out what the hell is going on.’

THREE
    It was the same old room in the usual safe house. Cadel couldn’t believe that he was back.
    Nothing had changed. The room was still a bleak, white box full of plain white furnishings: white desk, white chair, white cupboard and bedspread. There was even a white plastic litter bin, tucked away in one corner. The only touch of colour was the beige of the carpet.
    Of course, this carpet was also strewn with Cadel’s belongings – but they weren’t very colourful, either. Even the book jackets were bleached and grubby. Whatever wasn’t black or grey seemed to be either brown or olive; now that he really looked at his wardrobe, spread out across the floor in tangled heaps, Cadel could see why Fiona was constantly complaining about the way he dressed.
    ‘Anyone would think you were in some kind of guerrilla army,’ she’d grumbled on one occasion. ‘These aren’t clothes, they’re camouflage.’ And she was right, to some extent – Cadel knew he wasn’t the only teenager in the world who chose outfits that were designed to repel interest. Nevertheless, as he contemplated the lack of variety in his pants and t-shirts, he wished that he’d had the sense to bring his doona with him.
    A bright red doona might have done something to alleviate the sheer dullness of his surroundings.
    I should have given it more thought
, he glumly reflected. But then again, there hadn’t been much time. Saul had been anxious toget him into a secure environment, and the little weatherboard cottage that they shared wasn’t particularly secure. ‘You could find our place in the phone book,’ had been Saul’s reasoning, when his wife had objected to the whole notion of a safe house. ‘There isn’t enough protection; not against someone like Prosper English. He wouldn’t
need
to trip any motion sensors. He could throw a molotov cocktail through the kitchen window without setting foot in the yard. It’s just not an option, Fi – I’m sorry. Cadel can’t stay here.’
    So Cadel had been moved. After packing a rather haphazard selection of clothes, books and computer equipment, he’d been whisked off to Roseville, where he’d been installed in a