Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  About Terror Stash

  A stash of terrorists in a tiny town? No one believes her.

  American diplomat Montana Dela Vega, posted to laid-back Western Australia, discovers a band of known terrorists hiding deep in the bush. Laughed at by superiors, she must find courage and her own resources to expose the ruthless zealots.

  The only people who believe her wild story are Caden Rawn, the mysterious and physically intimidating man with a terrifying reputation, and a bloody history that dogs his every step; and Steve Scarborough, a local police officer with an instinct for the truth and a secret of his own.

  Caden and Montana’s private investigation entwines them in tragedy and fear, and teaches them the meaning of friendship...and love. They must face the cost of truth and the courage of their convictions for Montana’s terrorists are very real and very deadly indeed—and they want Montana for themselves....

  Dedication

  For John Maxwell Cooper:

  Emu Bitter drinker, the man with the answer to everything when

  there was no Internet, Tour Guide Extraordinaire and last, but not least,

  my father.

  You showed me this country. It’s all your fault.

  Contents

  About Terror Stash

  Dedication

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  More Romantic Thrillers by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  About the Author

  Other books by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  Copyright Information

  Chapter One

  Yallingup, Western Australia

  If Montana had known the surfers milling about on the white beach thought her to be both brave and totally insane, she would have been puzzled, but right at that moment, she was too busy to care.

  Today, the Bommie was living up to its reputation. The twenty-foot waves on offer could easily dump a rider on his ass right on top of shards of reef. They were keeping even the most dedicated surfer with his feet planted firmly in the baking white sand. Most of the surfers stood in the shade, staring out at the heaving green peaks and troughs, wishing they had the guts to take a run at it. At the very least they would be hailed for their courage while they recuperated in hospital.

  “So when are you humping that bloody great lump of board of yours out there, Jacko?” The loud question came from one of the surfers lined up along the edge of the only available shade, cast by a patch of prickly acacias gasping for life in the arid sand. They were thigh-high bushes which were useless for anything but providing relief to bare feet from the burning white sand. The rutty bantam of a man was speaking to the tanned, bleached surfer at the end of the ragged audience.

  Jacko had planted one of the long, traditional Malibu boards heel down in the sand and was propping himself up with it. “Get knotted,” he offered, not bothering to look around. His accent was a rich Afrikaans.

  “Hey, no problems,” Bruce shot back. “You don’t have the balls for it. I get ya, mate.” The cocky bantam gave Jacko a great, easy grin.

  “It isn’t balls you need to go out there,” Jacko announced. “It’s a healthy dose of insanity.”

  Bruce pushed his bare toes through the fine white sand. A few paces beyond the bushes it was too hot to stand on but just here it warmed their feet and tickled between their toes. “Crazy prob’ly explains what Greg is doing out there, then.”

  They both turned to study the waves with a hand shading their eyes against the dazzling Morse code blinking off the green walls of water rolling in toward them. The waves were so high the horizon was hidden. The front wave curled over itself into a cap of foam, then behind it the next swell built up into a breaker and behind that yet another big peak of green.

  Endless waves. Each of them was a killer, if you didn’t approach them just right. Less than a month ago, Jacko had hauled the mangled, bleeding body of an Argentinean surfer out of the water when he’d read the wave wrong. He’d failed to turn into it so he could slip over the top edge and down the long, easy back slope to safety.

  The Argentinean had won the Puerto Escondido International in Mexico just five days before.

  “There he is,” Jacko said, pointing to Greg, out on his board. “He’s at the lineup, going for a run.”

  “He’s fucking crazy!” the small Australian declared.

  “No balls, huh?” Jacko shot a sideways glance at him.

  The Australian grinned and spread his hands in a “Hey, so shoot me,” gesture.

  Then they both turned back to watch crazy Greg take on the Bommie at its deadliest.

  “Bloody hell, there’s a girl out there!” Bruce declared in an outraged voice, “and she’s windsurfing!”

  There was a strong southerly wind blowing across the face of the waves, which made them choppy and unpredictable. It was dangerous for a surfer, so a windsurfer was guaranteed to be in trouble. A strong cross wind on flat water was tough enough. It could rip the sail out of your hands and knock you right off your board. Add monster waves to that and you had to keep the windsurfing board pointed toward the beach or get wiped out by the many tons of seawater building in a wall behind you and fight the cross wind.

  Bruce shook his head. “Fuckin’ crazy.”

  Jacko’s far-seeing, Aryan blue eyes narrowed. “It’s Montana,” he declared.

  “Well, that explains it,” Bruce said, throwing up his hands.

  After a long, thoughtful moment, Jacko dropped his board to the sand and settled his rear on it. “Could be a good show.”

  “A girl?” Bruce curled his lip in disgust, but he sat down, too.

  * * * * *

  Caden Rawn hovered twenty-five feet above the surface of the earth, taking stock before he plunged downward.

  Every hunter’s instinct he had—both inherited and learned at a cost—were screaming at him. He was not the only hunter here...but where was the other?

  A shadow flittered over the rippled sand below him and he cursed silently. The hammerhead shark above him had zeroed in on the distressed dolphin, too, but the shark’s intentions were deadly.

  A jumble of fishing line that someone had tossed overboard had snagged the dolphin’s tail. The line was hooked around an outcrop of reef, anchoring the dolphin.

  The hammerhead was cruising backward and forward above the dolphin, assessing the situation, its muddy brown eyes rolling in ancient, instinctive delight.

  Caden was nearly out of air. Time to make a decision. He’d be better off letting nature take its course. He should go back to the surface and get the hell away from the hammerhead while the dolphin was there to distract it. But, dammit, he hadn’t flown thousands of miles just to have his nose rubbed into the harsh facts of life one more time.

  He pulled his knife out of its calf sheath and realized he’d made his decision.

  With a powerful jackknife, he kicked his way down to the dolph
in, pushing through the water with broad strokes. He had to move fast. The shark would figure out fast that his easy pickings were getting away on him. Sharks were cantankerous assholes that normally he would avoid pissing off.

  Caden went deeper than the dolphin, touched the rippled floor of the seabed, then pushed off with his foot. As he clawed his way over the knoll of reef, he sliced through the fishing line with one pass of the blade. The dolphin immediately shot to the surface. He’d need oxygen, too.

  By now, Caden’s temples were thudding from the need for air and he forced himself to ascend at the same rate as his bubbles to avoid decompression issues. He emerged just enough to gulp three deep breaths of delicious air, then jackknifed and headed for the reef knoll again. He had to stay hunkered by the protection the reef offered until the hammerhead gave up on dinner. Best-case scenario would be if it trailed after the dolphin to check if it was weakened or stressed. That was the only way the shark would be able to take advantage of it.

  Caden gripped the reef, anchoring himself, and located the shark. It was cruising by the reef again. Back and forth with irritated flicks of its tail.

  Not good.

  He was going to have to go up for air again very soon...would it take advantage of him splashing about on the surface?

  As the seconds ticked by the hammerhead slowly cruised closer. He had been marked.

  Shit.

  He knew he was going to have to make a decision in a few seconds. His temples were starting to pound again.

  Suddenly, the sleek grey dolphin bulleted past him with barely an inch to spare. Caden rocked in its wake, barely hanging on to the reef. He watched, awed, as the dolphin rammed its snout into the hammerhead’s gills. The shark roiled in the water, stressed.

  The dolphin turned a tight circle and rammed into him again. Then again.

  The hammerhead bowed out with another huge swipe of its tail, turned and streamed away, trailing bubbles.

  Caden didn’t linger to see more. He was out of air. He stroked to the surface, too desperate to stay level with his bubbles, and burst through with a huge gasping breath.

  The dolphin surfaced close by him and chattered happily.

  Caden grinned. “I know I came to Yallingup to look up old friends, but you’re a friend I really didn’t expect to run into.”

  More chatter. His voice didn’t seem to bother the dolphin at all. That wasn’t unusual around here. Dolphins up and down the Western Australian coast were used to humans talking to them, feeding them and sometimes even handling them if they allowed it.

  Caden looked around one last time for any sign of unwelcome dorsal fins cutting through the water, then struck out for the beach. The dolphin kept him company all the way to the first breaker line.

  As Caden waded out of the surf and up onto the baking white sand, he realized that the dolphin had reassured him that it had been a good decision to head to Margaret River for Christmas.

  When he reached his borrowed car on the hard-packed gravel that made up the informal parking area, seawater still dripped steadily from his snorkeling gear and from him, so he reached in far enough to snag his beach towel and mop off the excess. In this heat, he’d dry in about fifteen minutes and he’d prefer to return Ria’s car in the same state he acquired it. He could afford fifteen minutes, so he carefully spread the damp towel on the hood, parked his butt on it and a heel on the bumper and watched the endlessly fascinating surf.

  Sometimes, although it was rare, Caden would find that within the first forty-eight hours of arriving in a country he would have moments of disorientation. He’d have to deliberately recall where he was—and why. That never happened here at Marg’s. There were too many ties and too much history here. Perhaps that was why he kept returning.

  There was no way to mistake where he was—an Australian beach on a Sunday morning. It was getting late in the morning for surfers and the surf here was a choppy mess, but there were already a good thirty or so people swimming in the shallow surf. By eleven-thirty everyone would be gone. Most would head back indoors to while away the throbbing heat before emerging around sunset. Often they came straight back to the beach for a dip and to feel the coolness of the unfailing afternoon sea breeze.

  There were just a few people sitting on the beach. Those not in the water weren’t lying around sun baking, though. At this time of the year the hole in the ozone layer was right overhead. Acquiring a tan was a natural by-product of surviving a torrid summer that seemed to last all year, interrupted by a short rainy season in the middle. Most of them were watching other swimmers and surfers, or just passing the time. It was a great day for it.

  As he watched the waves roll in, Caden realized that he was happy, with a mellow contentedness he hadn’t felt in far too long. The inexplicable restlessness that had been driving him crazy had momentarily lifted.

  He filled his lungs and breathed out, feeling life tingle in every extremity.

  “Howya goin’, mate?”

  The tall, gangly teenager standing between the nose of Caden’s car and the next was vaguely familiar to him. The teen was watching Caden, his eyes wide and his feet poised for flight.

  Caden hadn’t heard his approach at all. It was a measure of how relaxed he was here. It was also a good warning. He let the tension flow from the muscles that had bunched in preparation and gave the teen a friendly grin. “Hello, yourself.”

  The pimply kid was easily over six feet, possibly even taller than Caden, but the only way he’d get the scales to hit more than one hundred and forty pounds would be to rig them and fill his pockets with lead. He had a chin than fell away to nothing and sported feathery first whiskers. His black, long-sleeved Zero tee-shirt said he was a skateboarder. The jeans with the holes at the knees showed he wasn’t a good one. There was a region of lily-white flesh between the hem of the tee-shirt and the elastic of his boxers; the loose band of the jeans started another two inches lower.

  He was wearing flat-soled sneakers.

  “Where’s the skateboard?” Caden asked.

  The guy’s eyes widened even more. “Err...” He looked around. “Well...” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “It’s back in the car.” He shrugged and gave an all-mighty sniff. “No bitumen around here.”

  True. Caden took in the teen’s bloodshot eyes and the painfully protruding hipbones and kept his mouth shut. He’d let him lead the conversation to where he wanted it, although he already knew where that would be.

  “I’m Joel,” the kid offered.

  “Yeah.” Caden considered him again. “Do I know you?”

  “I didn’t think you’d remember me.” Joel blushed. “About three years ago. Outside the Yallingup liquor store.”

  “Got it.” He’d placed the kid at last. He’d been heading into the store to pick up some of the local wine that Ria liked and had almost tripped over three high-school kids. Two of them were in jeans and Hawaiian shirts, their hair slicked back and cigarettes on conspicuous display in their pockets. The third had been a petite blonde with big blue eyes, in a sundress. The boys had pulled him to one side and seriously, man-to-man, proposed he buy them a carton of Swan stubbies for their party that evening. He could keep the change.

  As they’d made their proposals, one of them kept looking over his shoulder at the blonde, who watched the action go down with her arms crossed and a pout on her lips. Caden recognized the type instantly. In twenty years’ time she’d be the woman in high fashion clothes and the latest accessories, with no visible means of support but a handful of adoring, deep-pocketed men who would do anything to keep her happy.

  His heart had hardened. He’d eyed the two colorful twenty-dollar bills the boys held out to him, took the average price of a carton away from it and laughed. “Not enough profit in it for me,” he told them and walked away.

  He looked at Joel now. “You’ve got a lot taller,” he remarked.

  Again, the self-conscious blush. “Yeah, well. It happens.”

  Caden shut up ag
ain and just watched.

  The kid’s blush deepened the longer the silence stretched. “You were just sitting on your car,” he said at last. “Looking.”

  “Yep.”

  “Looking for someone?”

  This wasn’t quite what Caden had expected. So he played along. “Maybe.” It was a safe enough answer.

  “Maybe...looking for a way to have a good time?” Joel’s expression wasn’t just hopeful, it was desperate.

  Ah... The mental sigh mimicked the deflation he felt, but Caden kept his face neutral. “Are you offering a date, kid? Or something else?”

  “What?” Joel’s face flushed hard this time. “No, no, not that!”

  Bingo. Caden hid his grimace. “What can you offer?”

  The kid nodded, eager. “Whatever you want, man. Whatever, you know? I’ll get it for you.”

  Caden shook his head. “Too quick, Joel.”

  “Huh?”

  “You were too quick to offer the anything. No one’s that stocked.”

  He grabbed the kid’s wrist. It was easy. Joel wasn’t expecting it and his reaction was slower than a turtle’s. Caden pushed the long sleeve up past the skinny elbow. Inflamed tracks were revealed. Caden hid the sick feeling it gave him. “How long?” he asked.

  “Hey, man, what the hell—!”

  Caden slid off the hood, still holding his wrist. With his other hand, he grabbed a good bunch of the kid’s shirt and pushed him up against the side of the car. He smiled to take the sting out of it. “I said, how long have you been mainlining?”

  Joel’s face crumbled and his shoulders bowed. “A year. About. I think.”

  “You’re into it pretty heavy, or you wouldn’t be trying to do an end run around your dealer.”

  “Huh?” Joel blinked.

  Caden rephrased the American football analogy for him. “You’re trying to pull one over your dealer. Cut yourself some profit without telling him you’re going into business for yourself. Anyone tell you that’s a quick way to get yourself dead?”

  Joel’s eyes were wide, full of hurt and bewilderment. “But I just...I just...”