Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  He stirred the soup with an old silver dessert spoon. “Why is that your business?”

  She kept silent, waiting for him to look at her. Finally, he did.

  “I’m not stupid, either, Caden Rawn,” she told him. “You elude the police, but you don’t leave town. You travel forty miles through the bush, which makes it look like you’re running away, but then you camp. What’s here that’s worth staying still and risking arrest?” She stood up, to bring her head level with his. “The man you call Abdul was in the bar Sunday night. He was directing the five fleas. One of the fleas gave him away. Now three of them are dead and so is Rabbit. I can’t prove it, but I think he killed all of them, or arranged their murders, and I think I witnessed him arrange the death of the other two, earlier this afternoon.” She frowned, recalling his stillness and the eerie sense of communication and the obeisance.

  “Why would he do that?” Rawn demanded.

  “Keeping his identity secret is more important than the lives of six other people.”

  He crossed his arms, smiling a bit. “You know who he is.”

  “So do you. You don’t have a name, but you know who you’re dealing with.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Because when you hauled me off his tail, you told me you were following the money. You’ve been following him, too.”

  He didn’t react immediately. Instead, he poured off some of the soup into a battered china teacup and handed it to her, along with the spoon. He stomped out the fire. With a ragged tee-shirt as a pot holder he picked up the soup can and sipped directly out of the can. After a few mouthfuls he looked at her.

  “I can see I’m going to have to watch you.”

  “I’m not the enemy. He is.”

  “I don’t have friends.”

  “I don’t want you as a friend, Rawn. You scare me and you know it.”

  “I don’t want a partner, either.”

  “And here was me thinking I’d have to disappoint you.” She put her soup down. It was too hot to eat. “I just need to know why you’re following the money man. Rabbit’s dead. It doesn’t matter who killed him, your mission here ended when he died. So why are you still here? Why are you following the money?”

  “Are you proposing we exchange information?” He seemed amused by it.

  “Hell no, I just want yours.”

  “That’s not an even trade.”

  “If I told you what I know, Rawn, I’d be guilty of treason.”

  He put the soup can down, his gaze turned suddenly inwards. Montana had the sensation that he was thinking hard and deep, the wheels churning furiously. He finally looked up at her. “It’s not just the drugs. He’s a known and wanted terrorist.” His tone made it a statement. A conclusion.

  He got to his feet, suddenly restless. “Al Fatah, Hizballah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Al-Qa’ida...no, the name doesn’t matter.” He was talking to himself, walking himself through it. Montana kept her mouth shut.

  “...but you’re not intelligence or military, so why you? Why not a horde of NATO allied special forces....” He shook his head. “They don’t know.” He looked at her. “You didn’t tell them.”

  “I did,” she said, as calmly as she could.

  “They didn’t believe you. So you came by yourself.” He looked up at the sky, as if in disbelief, before pinning her with his dark gaze. “I’ll give you that, Montana Dela Vega. You have courage. What else you’ve got, we’ll figure out as we go.”

  “We?” she said sharply. “I haven’t invited you along, Rawn.”

  “I’m inviting myself.”

  “Why? Why?” It was her turn to shoot to her feet. “What’s so goddamn important about this guy to you? First Rabbit, now—”

  It fell together with an almost audible thunk in her mind. She was aware that her mouth was hanging open as she processed it. “It’s the drugs,” she said at last. “Isn’t it? The drugs. Rabbit was dealing. Hard stuff. He’s dead. You’re moving up the chain now.” She laughed a little. It came out dry. “Following the money. What is it, a personal crusade?”

  “That is most definitely none of your business,” Caden growled.

  “It is if you intend to tag along.”

  “I don’t ‘tag along’ with anyone.”

  “Fine. No problems. Want to point me in the direction I need to get back to Margaret River?”

  He pointed. “That way. But it’ll be dark in an hour.”

  “That’s supposed to scare me?”

  “Jesus wept!” He crossed his arms, studying her. “If you’re so afraid of me, then why do you keep giving me grief?”

  “Because you’re trying to tell me what to do.”

  “Modern girl, huh?”

  “No, I’m....” She frowned. Hesitated. “I don’t know what I am, Rawn. That’s the truth. I’m not even sure if I’m a State Department employee any more. If I’m not, it means what I’m doing here is likely to not only get me busted back to the States, but directly into a prison cell once I get there. I’ve been running on gut instinct and the proof meter is sitting on zero, so far. I have innuendo and logic, and a guy who called out in Arabic. That and my gut, and I’ve gone against every professional ethic and rule that I hold dear. So I don’t know much, but I do know that I have to keep running on instinct, not anyone else’s say-so. Not anymore.”

  “You’re not going to tell me why, are you?”

  “Are you going to tell me why?”

  He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink.

  “Well, now we’re even. We’re both facing jail time.” She sighed and pushed her hand through her knotty, tangled hair.

  “And we both want Abdul,” Rawn added.

  “Bob.”

  “What?”

  “His name, believe it or not, is Ghenghis Bob.” She grimaced and shrugged. “I don’t know. Some sort of Syrian joke, I’m sure. If he has a real name, no one knows it.”

  “Syrian?”

  “As far as anyone knows.”

  He pushed at the ashes of the tiny fire for a moment and she could see his mind was in overdrive again.

  She realized with a start that it was getting dark. That put it around seven-thirty or so, perhaps a bit closer to eight. Caden Rawn was becoming a dark shape.

  Finally, he spoke. “I can find a way for you to get back in good with your bosses, and that’s key. You need access to the information you can get there.”

  “What are you thinking?” she demanded, suspicion flaring in her.

  He stood, staying bent over so his head didn’t hit the low roof, and stepped to her side of the gully. His shape, barely more than a dark silhouette in the failing light, settled next to her. “Are you sure you want to do this, Montana? Are you really sure?”

  “Why do you ask? I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “Here, but still not committed. Not with your bridges burned. Not yet.”

  “I thought they were already blasted to hell. I fully expect to be escorted back to the States when I front up at the consulate.”

  Deep silence. She could hear crickets.

  “I’ll get you back in good with your boss. It’ll be like you never went away and you can keep it that way, if you want. Or you can keep following your gut and we see where it takes us. You won’t tell me why you started this, so you’ll have to figure out if it’s worth it.” His head turned a little, but there wasn’t enough light to see what his expression was. His eyes were dark orbs. “I think you already know this is no embassy tea party you’re into here. Who knows where it’ll go?”

  She thought of Vinnie and her real parents, the ones she couldn’t remember. Then she deliberately recalled the terror and utter loneliness she’d felt, wandering the streets of Khafji until Vinnie had found her.

  Once upon a time, she had believed the State Department would give her the chance she needed to pay back Vinnie, but after seven years, she had begun to accept that it would never happen.

  If her gut was right about Bob, th
en wasn’t this the chance to pay back everything? She looked at Rawn, at his face silhouetted by the glow of the tiny fire. “I’m in. All the way.”

  His big, warm hand slid up against her jaw, turning her head. “Brains, muscle and courage. Jesus.” He sighed. “Say ‘just this once’.”

  “What?”

  “Say it.”

  She knew, suddenly, what he intended. “Don’t, Rawn. Neither of us can afford—“

  His lips seared hers, stealing her words, her breath and all her resistance. She sighed into his kiss and his arms pulled her against him. The kiss deepened, the world fell away. She grew aware of her own arms, wound around his neck, drawing him closer. Encouraging him.

  Warm weakness trickled through her, and a sweet thrill that thrust any coherent thought aside. For a moment she felt like she was falling, but the fall ended with her cushioned against his solid chest and shoulders. His hands plundered her hair, then slid down her back and cupped her buttocks.

  With a groan, he ended the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “Say it.” His voice was husky with arousal.

  “Just this once.” Her own voice was thick and distorted.

  “Okay. Just this once. All right.” He sighed.

  Chapter Twelve

  Steve finally got out of the station around ten p.m.

  He had clocked enough hours in the last four days to last him another week. He had happily stared down Borelli’s protests when he dared tell him he was going home. He wanted to get a solid eight hours’ sleep before dragging himself back in tomorrow morning for the ten a.m. shift.

  His station wagon was out the back of the station, parked under the orange security light that flooded the area, but he stopped short six feet away from it, the keys he’d pulled out of his pocket hanging from his hand. His jaw dropped.

  Montana sat on the bonnet of his car. He had never seen her so filthy and unkempt. Her hair was a witch’s nightmare of tangles and spikes and there was a streak across her cheek that looked like ashes from a fire. Her oversized sweatshirt was muddy and stained with green marks that could be grass stains, unless she was into hugging trees. There was a pink slash across one sleeve that, if he didn’t know better, he’d have said was lipstick.

  The jeans were worse—ripped, frayed, discolored. They matched the sneakers beneath.

  “What the hell...?” he said.

  She pushed hair out of her eyes with the back of one filthy hand. The wondrous green eyes skewered him with a direct stare. “I want you to be the father of my child.”

  “No problems,” he said instantly.

  * * * * *

  A little over fifty minutes later, Steve slid behind the wheel of his car. Tiredness was dragging at his muscles and his mind. He sat for a full minute, holding the steering wheel, trying to absorb the events of the last hour.

  He burrowed into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and dug through the musty corners at the back until he found it. He put the wallet away and turned the photo until the orange security light fell on it through the windscreen.

  He touched it with his finger, thoughts bouncing around in his mind like ricochets. After a while he gently put the photo aside, started up the car and drove home. Time for sleep.

  If he could sleep now.

  * * * * *

  At nine-thirty the next morning, precisely, Montana tapped on Boyd Nelson’s door. His muffled, abrupt “Come!” wasn’t a good sign. She pushed the door open.

  He had his head down over a file of some sort or other, so she sat on the other side of the desk and waited, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap.

  Finally, he lifted his head to look at her, and blinked, his eyes widening. “Good god, you’re pale as a lily!”

  “I’m not feeling very well,” she admitted.

  Nelson’s frown deepened. “But...Crystal said...” He shook his head. “Never mind. Perhaps you’d like to explain what happened to you yesterday?”

  She bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I’m so sorry about that, Nelson. Honestly, I had the shock of my life yesterday when I went to the doctors. I...I really didn’t know what to do.” She put both hands up to her face. “I suppose I must tell you about this to explain yesterday. Oh god, Nelson, I found out that I’m pregnant.”

  Nelson’s mouth opened in a slack-jawed ‘O’, his top chin doubling in length. “Pregnant,” he finally repeated, his voice flat. “You.”

  She dabbed at her eyes and gave an almighty sniff. “I was so dazed when I came out of the doctor’s office that I just had to sit and consider it.”

  “Hardly a surprise,” he said dryly. “Usually it’s not an employer’s place to ask, Montana, but we’re so far from home I feel I should enquire—delicately—and you can tell me to go to hell if you wish, but....”

  “The father?” she asked.

  “Well, yes.”

  “I went to see him yesterday afternoon. That’s where I was all day. I went down to Margaret River to see him and tell him.”

  “I see.” Nelson was getting over his shock now. He threaded his fingers together and leaned back. “So how do you explain the call you made to Crystal Wong yesterday?”

  The phone logs. He’d checked the phone logs. She gave a tiny grimace. “I phoned to get a phone number from her. You can ask her, if you like.”

  “I did.” Nelson’s voice was suddenly hard and sharp, at complete odds with his melting shape. “I asked her last night before she left her desk, just after I checked the phone log and discovered you’d called her and hadn’t had the decency to check in with me and explain your absence. She gave me the strangest story—that you’d asked for the number of the staffing desk at the Margaret River police station and that you were very upset and agitated. Something about ordering police to the hospital.”

  “That’s where I was, Nelson. At the hospital. I wasn’t about to spill my guts to Crystal.” With mentally apologies to Crystal, she curled her lip a little. “She’s just a secretary. I tell her, the whole blessed office hears about it.”

  “Then why were you asking her to send police to the hospital?”

  “Oh, I see—you don’t get it, do you? The constable at the police station, Steve Scarborough. He’s the father and he wouldn’t take my calls. So I was trying to get him to come to me.”

  Nelson sat very still for nearly a full sixty seconds, while his face grew very pink. “Montana, for goodness sake, you’re trying to tell me...I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in my life!”

  “Oh god, you don’t believe me....” she whispered. “I so hoped you’d understand and support me in this, Nelson. What I’m going to have to do now...it won’t be easy, and Steve won’t...can’t.” She held her hand over her mouth, the other clutched to her stomach and staggered to her feet. “I think...” She clutched Nelson’s paper-littered desk. “...I’m going to be sick.”

  And she was.

  * * * * *

  White and shaking, Montana stepped out into the fresh morning air along St. George’s Terrace and turned her face into the breeze. It ruffled her hair and cooled her sweaty face.

  She dug into her handbag, pulled out her car keys and turned to head for the public car park where she kept her car. She’d taken only a few steps when a black Holden Rodeo pulled up sharply at the curb in front of her. The passenger door opened.

  It was her car. She looked at her car keys, put them back in her bag and crossed the wide pavement to the car. She climbed up into the passenger seat.

  Caden sat in the driver’s seat, in black jeans and a tee-shirt with the sleeves slashed out of it. He held out to her one of the protein shaker cups that serious gym rats used. “Knock it back. It’s protein and lots of heavyweight carbs to line your stomach and soak up the Ipecac.”

  She shut the door and accepted the cup. “Did you hotwire my car, Rawn?”

  “And destroy all the wiring under the dash?” He grinned and flicked the keys hanging from the ignition. They were her emergency set. “Fou
nd ‘em wired to the chassis right where I figured they’d be.”

  He drove well in the heavy traffic, obeying road rules, but making the most of sudden opportunities. After watching him a minute or two, she tried to relax. It had been nearly fifteen years since she had been driven anywhere by anyone and never in her own car.

  “Did they believe you?” Caden asked.

  “You throw up on your boss’s desk, you tend to get taken at face value. Yeah, they believed me. But I left the phony lab results for him, too.” Caden had created them on her laptop very early that morning, as she had driven them both back to the city. His skill as a forger and his familiarity with the computer were unexpected. The sun had been rising as they’d arrived in the outskirts of the city and he pronounced the task finished.

  He glanced at her. “Let me guess. You didn’t like lying to them.”

  “No.”

  “Get used to it, Montana.” His voice was resonant with experience. “Think of the reasons why you’re doing this and suck it up. It’s part of the territory you’re in and you don’t get to pick the terrain, just the direction.”

  There was no sympathy in his voice and contrariwise, it helped. A little. So did the protein shake.

  * * * * *

  Reluctance weighed her down as Montana pushed open the front door of her house. Very few people had ever been inside the house and Caden’s presence, right next to her, was a stark reminder of that.

  He was waiting for her to open the door, his arms weighed down with grocery bags, making the biceps and triceps bulge. His eyes behind the wrap-around sunglasses were unreadable.

  She pushed the door open with a convulsive jerk and walked inside. There was no help for it now. He was here.

  The house sat atop a steep drive, in the rolling foothills of Lesmurdie. The front of the house was all glass panes and glass doors to take advantage of the view. The view was worth it. It took in the whole of the city, with a tiny glimpse of ocean on the top of the horizon. She had bought the house within a month of arriving in Perth and had never regretted the decision despite the commute to the city. Surrounded by trees and non-nosey neighbors, her house had swiftly become her retreat.