Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  The middle of the house was a big open square. A normal family would have used the area as a dining room, and placed a grand table and chairs in the middle and a sideboard or two along the walls. The ceiling soared up to a twenty-two-foot-high peak, lined with solid jarrah beams that glowed richly in the morning sun pouring through the many windows.

  The kitchen shared part of the glass wall at the front of the house, directly in front of the common room and Montana led Caden there, via the common room.

  But he stopped short and put the bags down, as he studied the open square. He took off the glasses for a better look and moved his head around as he deliberately examined every element—the professional treadmill in the corner, the stand of dumbbell weights, a weight bench that converted to a chair and the stands holding the bar with two twenty-five-pound plates already threaded on the ends. There was another stand holding more weight plates beside it. In the opposite corner was a cable pulley exercise system—not as extended as one in a commercial gym, but with all the essential pieces needed to work a body hard.

  The carpet wasn’t really carpet. It was commercial grade rubber flooring, two inches thick, but warm underfoot and would withstand just about any impact.

  Caden examined her home gym silently, absorbing it. “Not a Bowflex machine in sight. I’m impressed, Montana. Really.”

  She waved him through to the kitchen impatiently. He picked up the bags again and dumped them on the kitchen counter. He glanced at the view out of the window, then through the open doorway into the lounge room with its huge fireplace.

  “No chairs. Not anywhere,” he remarked. “Not even in front of a television.”

  “I don’t have a television.”

  “I noticed.”

  “There’s a chair in front of my desks.”

  “Plural. Curiouser and curiouser.”

  “Said Alice. Which reminds me. There’s something I have to check.” She went back out to the common room and into the study that led from it. The study shared the other third of the front bank of windows, with the lounge room and kitchen, but in this room, the windows turned the corner and ran down the other external wall, too. Big eucalypts outside provided shade and kept the room cool.

  The other two walls were taken up with specially made desks that ran the length of the walls, and a system of bookshelves and drawers that covered the walls up to a height of about ten feet. A footstool lived under one end of the desks.

  Montana slid her Tablet PC into the docking station and turned everything on, while Caden wandered the room. He was sizing up again, judging.

  When he got to the wall of books he systematically walked the length of each shelf, scanning the titles.

  Finally, he turned and leaned one shoulder against the shelf. “So, mind here, body out there—” and he nodded towards the common room. “Where’s the soul hide out?”

  “What you see is what you get.”

  He gave a half smile. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

  “Stop analyzing me, Rawn. I’m not nearly as interesting as you want me to be. You’ve hooked yourself up with a woman who eats to stay healthy, keeps fit and does her job. That’s it.”

  “I don’t believe for a microsecond that you do this just for your job.”

  “Let me guess. You don’t believe true loyalty exists.” She stabbed the keys on her keyboard to fire up her scripting program and loaded the appropriate file.

  “True loyalty for a country?” Caden pulled out the steps and perched on the top one. “You’re right, I don’t think it exists.”

  “Well, there’s a surprise.”

  He moved so fast she didn’t see it coming, but suddenly he was behind her, with her arm was wrenched up behind her back and his big hunting knife up against her throat. “Scared?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Fuck you,” she breathed back. It was the most volume she could force out of her locked throat. Her heart was thundering again.

  “Think of me as Ghenghis Bob, Montana. You know some of his record, and if you’re as good as you say you are, then in a few moments you’re going to get the rest of his story. Both of us are realists. We both know what that record is going to look like. So Bob has his knife at your throat and you know damned well he’s going to slit it open if you don’t do what he says. Guess what he says?”

  She licked her lips. “Betray your country or I’ll kill you.”

  “Very good. Not quite as poetic as I was going to put it but it does the job. And your response would be?”

  “Fuck you,” she spat.

  “Exactly.”

  Suddenly she was free again and he reached up behind her for the teddy bear sitting on the shelf there. He held it up and rested the knife against its throat. “Now I’ve got your child, or your mother, or your kid sister. Now what do you say?”

  She looked at the teddy bear. His name was Vinnie-too and he had been hers since she was thirteen and Drusilla had placed him in her arms, to her total delight. Drusilla had had tears in her eyes as she’d smoothed the fur between the bear’s ears and told Montana that she was going to adopt her.

  That day, Montana’s world had righted and begun to travel on straight tracks.

  “Can I call him Vinnie, too?” she asked Drusilla. “Do you mind?”

  Drusilla had burst into real tears and hugged her hard. It had been six months to the day since Vinnie had died and Montana missed him as much as his widow did.

  She looked at Caden now, fighting for calm. “You touch a hair on him and I’ll...”

  “That’s right, Montana. I’m Ghenghis Bob. I’ve got your baby brother Teddy here. I’m telling you to give me the secrets your country has trusted you to carry because you’re so loyal. Give me the secrets, or Teddy here dies. Ten seconds and counting.”

  “Rawn, this isn’t funny.”

  “No, it’s not. It never will be. That’s the problem with people who fling words like ‘loyalty’ around. They think it’s a cutesy word, an ideal. But it’s not. It’s something in your gut. Your heart. Five seconds.”

  “This is ridiculous,” she snapped, although her heart was running like a piston engine. All she could think about, all she could watch, was the point of the knife next to Vinnie-too’s neck. As she watched, the blade dipped down to his waistcoat and brushed one of the buttons. The button flew through the air and hit her hip before falling to the ground. She bit back a cry of protest.

  “Time’s up,” Caden growled and brought the knife to the bear’s neck.

  “No, stop! Please!” The cry was torn from her, as she held out her hand in pleading.

  Caden instantly lowered the knife. He nodded slowly, looking at her with a gentle expression. Silently, he picked up the button from the floor by her feet. He uncurled her fists and placed the bear and the button in them.

  “Loyalty isn’t something you give, Montana. It’s inside you, built a molecule at a time and you have no say in where that loyalty lies. Loyalty’s about people. Real flesh and blood. Not artificial constructs like countries. Animals like Bob know that. They use it. It’s their most powerful weapon.”

  “You son of a bitch,” she whispered.

  He nodded again. “Yeah, I’m all that. But if you really think I’m your nightmare, then you don’t truly understand the people you’re about to go up against.”

  She wiped her eyes, as they were wet. “I was wrong. I’m not scared of you at all. I just hate you.”

  He shrugged. “Get in line, honey.” He flipped the knife up in the air, caught the handle and slid it back home into the holster on the back of his hip in two smooth movements. “I mean it, Montana. If you’re in this because it seems like a glamorous way to play the hero, then reconsider. It’s still not too late, but the point of no return is going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, I guarantee it.”

  Tell him to get out. Now. He’s crazy! Bail now, while there’s still time.

  But she squeezed Vinnie-too in her hands and realized he was right. Dead right. W
hat she had thought was loyalty to a country really came down to people.

  “I’ll get lunch together,” she told him and turned away. But not before she saw unmistakable admiration flicker across his face.

  * * * * *

  Steve had long ago settled in his mind what loyalty really meant. He also had a good grasp of right and wrong, illegal and legal. He considered himself honest but smart. He slept with a cricket bat under his bed because his methods of maintaining the law often inconvenienced law-breakers who had got used to police who did follow the rules.

  He might sleep with a cricket bat, but he slept just fine.

  The journey from the police station to his small, converted farm house took in some of the more spectacular cliffs and coastline between the Margaret River estuary and Yallingup, but today his attention was not caught by the glimpses of blue sea, or the odd oil tanker, or the even more rare appearance of whales. He was busy thinking about the very strange events of the last forty-eight hours.

  His mobile phone buzzed at his hip and he fished it out of his pocket and noted the number. The backdoor line at the station.

  “What’s up, Bluey?” he said without preamble.

  “There’s a guy on the phone, a Boyd Nelson. Yankee accent. Says he’s with the US Consulate in Perth and wants to talk to you about a personal matter.”

  Right on time. “Give him my mobile number, Blue,” he said. “I’ll take the call.”

  “‘Kay....” Blue’s tone hinted at how bizarre he thought it was.

  You have no idea, mate, Steve thought with a smile.

  The phone buzzed again and he checked the number before answering it. It was a Perth number and not one he knew.

  “Constable Stephen Scarborough?” the American voice said at the other end.

  “When I’m on duty,” Steve agreed. “When I’m off duty, I’m just Steve.”

  “Very well, then. Constable, you should know that I’m with the US Consulate. I understand I’m not the only person you’ve met who works here.”

  “True enough.” He could hear the man’s hesitancy despite the crackling line, but he wasn’t about to rush in and help him.

  “I’m talking about Montana Dela Vega. I have reason to believe you know her rather well. Intimately, in fact.”

  “Nelson, you said, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “I’m having trouble figuring out why Montana’s supervisor is talking to me about a personal matter.”

  “Then you do know why I’m calling,” Nelson said.

  “I can guess well enough.”

  “You have to understand, Constable. The people who relocate here to work for the consulate are a very long way from home, from family, from many of the community supports they would depend upon in stressful situations. We tend to look out for each other here. The line between personal and business tends to blur. Do you understand?”

  “You’re phoning to give me shit about Montana?” Steve injected some ire into his voice.

  “That’s probably putting it too high,” Nelson hastened to respond. “At this point, I’m merely trying to establish, well....”

  Steve translated the hesitation, and pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to look at it in total disbelief. He put the phone back to his ear. “Let me get this straight. You say you’re being a personal friend right now for her, but you’re actually calling to find out if she’s lying to you?”

  His outrage was quite genuine. When Montana had warned him her boss would phone to check her story he’d not believed anyone who professed to care for their employees would go behind their backs like that. The fact that she was lying was quite beside the point. He’d fully expected that if Nelson did phone at all, he really would be the surrogate father with a shotgun, insisting Steve do the right thing by her. He’d have put money on it.

  Montana had been right all along.

  “Mr. Nelson, I’m going to halt the conversation right here. It’s completely inappropriate for you to be talking to me about this. What’s more, it’s bloody rude. If I’ve got myself into a mess, I’ll figure it out for myself. It’d be nice if you gave Montana the same expectations, but it sounds like that’s asking too much. So do me a favor, huh? Stay out of her personal business. I don’t need you stirring the pot any more than it has been already.”

  There was a short silence, then Nelson cleared his throat. “I believe I’ve learned all I need to know. Thank you for your time, Constable Scarborough.”

  Steve threw his mobile on the seat beside him and grimaced. Some people’s kids. Shit.

  He reviewed the conversation, sifting through what he had said. Not a single lie in there. The fact that there had been a dozen major omissions and misdirections didn’t trouble him at all. He drove on, smiling. Life was good.

  Then he remembered the reasons why Montana had warned him about Nelson, and his smile faded. He wondered what she was doing at that moment.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Montana stared at the lines of text on the screen, unable to absorb the overwhelming reality of the stark facts listed there.

  “This guy is evil.”

  “I read it,” Caden said, behind her.

  He had been the one to prepare lunch, in the end. She had gone back to her computer to retrieve the electronic worm she had planted in her computer at the office, using a script she had written herself.

  As she reeled it back home, it brought with it codes to access the databases. Because she knew considerably more about the computer network and protocols than anyone in the office had ever suspected, she found it easy to have her PC emulate an authorized PC and tap into the database. She’d called up Ghenghis Bob’s profile three minutes after hacking in.

  While she ate, Caden had read the file in total, absorbed silence, his face expressionless, black eyes flicking across the screen, one big thumb occasionally touching the page-down button.

  Now it was her turn to read, while Caden prowled restlessly behind her. He seemed to be fascinated by her book collection. Having him behind her made her as restless as he.

  “He’s the devil incarnate!” she declared.

  “You’re being melodramatic,” Caden growled impatiently. “He’s just another fucking bad guy.”

  She shook her head. “Did you actually read this supplementary page, here? About Senator Primo’s wife?”

  He stood behind her shoulder and read the screen, while she scrolled down for him. Finally, he sank back onto the top platform of the set of steps he was using as a perch. “Yeah, that’s enough to make you want to puke for a week. I think that’s why you’re missing the point again,” he said softly. “Evil is a binary state. You either are evil, or you’re not. There’s no varying degrees after that.”

  “But an act like this. It’s much worse than....”

  “Than what?”

  “I don’t know! Other bad guys.”

  He shook his head. “Most people have an internal benchmark, a line they won’t cross because they know that if they do, they’ll lose their dignity, the love and approval of people they respect and their ability to sleep at night.”

  “It’s called a conscience, Rawn,” she pointed out.

  “Conscience implies an external control, or an artificial control built into people through training and upbringing. I’m talking about what you’re born with. An internal gyro system that tells you instinctively where the line is. Evil people don’t have that line anymore. They stepped over it long ago. Once you step over it, you’re capable of anything. Anything at all. The only difference between Ghenghis Bob and your average evil guy is that they just haven’t got around to doing the shit this guy has already pulled. They’re just as capable of it as he is.”

  She couldn’t dispute him. That was the problem.

  “They’ve lost their soul,” Caden added, standing up. “Which is why I know you’ve got one stashed around here somewhere and I’ll find it yet.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. H
er email alert pinged and she tabbed over to the mail program. “It’s from Steve Scarborough,” she said, opening it. Then she sighed. “Damn it, you were right. Nelson called him.”

  “At least you know now where you stand with Nelson.” He tapped some books on the shelf. “These are the odd man out.”

  She looked up. He was touching the spines of the set of plays by Machiavelli. “Why are they the odd man out?” she said, trying to keep her tone breezy and casual.

  “They’re in Italian and they’re the only plays. You’ve got English, and Chinese—”

  “Mandarin.”

  “This script here is probably Arabic, but there’s another one that doesn’t look quite the same.”

  “Farsi.”

  “You just absorb all these languages like a suntan?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Are you schooled in the Muslim philosophies?” he asked.

  “No, I just read and write the language.” She tabbed back to the database. “Speaking of which. I’m going to have a look around here and take advantage of the opening. I’m good, but I don’t for a moment assume they’re never going to notice my worm.”

  “You’re changing subjects on me.” He slid one of the Machiavelli books off the shelf. “You speak medieval Italian, too?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You’re going to have to practice that.”

  “What?”

  “Lying.”

  She could feel her cheeks getting red and concentrated on the laptop, tapping the enter key furiously. Photos of known terrorists flicked up on the screen like an old movie reel.

  “So, Machiavelli is...what? A hero? The idol you want to emanate? A symbol?” He put the book back, came over to the desk. “Is this your soul I just stumbled over?”

  “Do you go round analyzing everyone you meet this way?”

  “Most people don’t have enough depth to make it worthwhile. I take advantage of the few chances I get.”