Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

His silence, the dark shadows of his eyes staring at her, goaded her into more truth. “I don’t know what it was, Rawn. But it wasn’t fear, or getting to play with a bad boy, or even scratching an itch.”

  “That night in the Pink Galah, after the fight. You looked at my chest and it triggered something in you. A memory, some sort of recall. I could see it in your eyes.”

  She jumped a little. “That wasn’t it,” she said quickly.

  “Too quick, Montana,” he said softly and waited.

  She shook her head. “I can’t, Rawn....” She shuddered.

  “So, you don’t trust me completely, after all.”

  She dropped her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, that’s par for the course. I can count the number of people that trust me on one thumb.”

  She lifted her head quickly, but with his face in the shadows, she could see nothing that revealed the real emotion behind his casual dismissal. Had she imagined the hurt, then? Was it just her own wishful thinking injecting an emotion where none existed?

  It was enough for her to reach for his hand and pick it up in both of hers and try tugging him closer.

  He remained where he was, but she saw his head cock. He was studying her. “Just this once, remember?”

  She glanced at the window. “Just this one night. It’s not morning yet, Rawn.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Steve had met a lot of dangerous people in his line of work, even tucked away in laid-back beach-bum territory like Margaret River. It always amused him in a grim, dark way that if the average resident of Marg’s got to see what went down in just an average night in their quiet little place, they’d be packed and out of there within a month.

  He knew dangerous people. He had grappled with many of them. But Caden Rawn was one of the quiet, confident ones that ran shivers up his back.

  He handed Rawn a cold can of Emu Bitter. Rawn’s hand enveloped the whole can. This was the sort of man that Steve had learned to walk around carefully. They had no respect for the badge. You had to earn their respect by being tougher or smarter than them. Usually both.

  Rawn nodded his thanks for the drink, popped the can and knocked it back in about three giant swallows. He placed the empty on the floor next to his feet.

  Steve turned to Montana. She was sitting on the verandah steps, her face turned to the ocean, watching the sun go down. He handed her the glass of soda water she’d requested and settled one hip on the verandah railing, positioned so that he could see both of them at once.

  “You’ll notice that I’m out of uniform.”

  “We noticed,” Montana said, “and we thank you.”

  “Thanks aren’t necessary. I did it for my own reasons. But payback is due. I can’t take folding negotiable and don’t want it, but I’ll take explanations instead.”

  “First, a question. The two men in the hospital—are they still alive? We didn’t hear anything in the news.”

  He lifted a brow. “That’s because we embargoed the news. Lucky guess, Montana?”

  “Extrapolation,” Rawn answered, in his deep voice. “Was it suicide?”

  “Or made to look like it. It’s driving the doctors and uniforms at the hospital bugshit. They never did get a word out of any of the five of them, not even a name. The nurses were convinced they were all borderline mentally challenged because they wouldn’t respond to simple questions or commands. They’d just lie there. Minor injuries, all of them, and they’re all dead.”

  “The reason they wouldn’t respond is because they couldn’t,” Montana told him. She was still watching the sun, still enjoying the sunset, but she turned her head to look at him, to emphasize her point. “They didn’t speak English.”

  “That would make sense,” he agreed. “Arabic, then?”

  “Arabic,” Montana confirmed.

  He considered that a minute. “They wore nothing that identified them as Muslim, or from the Middle East.”

  “They would have removed all signs of their origins before they emerged into the public,” Rawn answered.

  Steve tapped the top of his nearly full can of beer, staring in Rawn’s direction but not really focused on him, while he tried to grasp the significance of what they had told him so far. Nothing came together. He didn’t have enough information. He refocused his gaze upon Rawn. “Okay, you two have had about twenty-four hours longer than me to put it together and you’ve got facts I don’t have. So tell me what you think is going on.”

  Montana looked at him and he thought he saw a touch of pity in her eyes. “We think you have some very bad people in your town, Steve. Crazy bad.”

  “You mean, worse than him?” He pointed at Rawn. “I know it was you who put Stewart Connie’s lights out a couple of years ago. I just couldn’t find proof before you skipped town.”

  Rawn’s gaze was steady. “Interested in knowing why?” he asked. Low and quiet. Menacing.

  “Try me.”

  “I caught him dealing smack to a pair of sixteen-year-old girls. He was teaching them how to use the hypodermic. They were cherries.” He shook his head. “One of ‘em was wearing a school uniform. The cops wouldn’t have touched him because it wasn’t a commercial venture. He was giving it to them gratis, from the goodness of his heart.” Rawn’s smile was slow and predatory. “Your guys weren’t around and couldn’t have hit him with more than possession. I did you favor.” Then he scowled. “At least, I thought I did, ‘till I come back three summers later and find out he didn’t learn a goddamn thing.”

  “I knew he was dealing,” Steve agreed, forcing himself to calmness. The danger emanating from this man! It blazed and burned, while he sat quite still in the old rocker. “There were a few arguments at the station about taking him off the street, but most of them wanted him right where he was. He was known and could be watched.”

  “And you, Steve?” Montana asked softly.

  “If I couldn’t can his ass, then I’d go higher. When he came out of hospital, I had intended to follow his every move until he led me to his supplier, but the hospital stay clearly dampened his enthusiasm. For six months he was a good little boy. I had to drop it. Then about a year ago, he started showing up again in those dreadful threads of his, in all the interesting places.” He lifted his can a little. “Well, he’s paying his dues now, god rest his shitty little soul.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Rawn rumbled, his voice floating across the thickening dark.

  “I know that, but you’d have trouble convincing some of my colleagues of it.”

  “Why do you know he didn’t do it?” Montana asked.

  “Three years ago, he beat the stuffing out of him, but Rabbit was alive and out of hospital after a day or two. A moderate beating, in other words. It tells me that while Rawn doesn’t have the best sense of self-preservation in the world, he does have control. That’s a rare quality anywhere. The bar fight at the Galah showed more control.” A laugh escaped him in a wheeze. “It’s already legend, you know. I saw the manager’s written statement and he says there were thirty people watching that fight. If you believe the stories out on the street, there were over three hundred and you took on ten men. Not five.”

  “They had knives,” Montana said, “and he left them alive.”

  Steve nodded. “That’s the reason he’s sitting there drinking my beer and not sitting cuffed to the back door of my cruiser.”

  “I appreciate that,” Caden said. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single ironic note to his tone. Steve realized with a blink that he actually meant it.

  The big man stirred and rubbed the back of his neck. “After the fight, I took a run up the river. I figured it was easier than trying to explain things and I’m used to living off the land when I need to.”

  It was an odd thing to say. Steve noted it and stayed silent, encouraging him to continue.

  “At the end of the fight, the last one standing called out to another man in the bar. I don’t speak Arabic, but I’ve heard enough of it in my time to re
cognize it.”

  Montana stirred from her lookout post. “He said, ‘We weren’t told he was a fighter! Command me! Tell me what I must do now!’”

  “Can you do that in Arabic?” Steve asked.

  In answer, she spoke a stream of what sounded like musical gibberish.

  “Yeah, that’s what he said,” Caden agreed. “I remember the rhythm of it, now. But I didn’t need to know what he said, when I was in the bar. It was enough that he called out to someone else. So I faded into the bush around the river afterwards and watched the bar, waiting for the guy to emerge. When he did, I followed him. He led me through town and out the other side, into the bush again. After a few miles, he completely disappeared on me.”

  “Wait. We’re turning the town upside looking for you and you simply walk across it?” Steve found himself laughing at the sheer effrontery of it.

  “It was more a dog-trot and I was ducking and hiding from Abdul. Just lucky, I guess.” Even in the almost dark, Steve could see his gaze sharpen. “Abdul, by the way, we’ve now confirmed is Ghenghis Bob.”

  Montana dug in her jeans pocket and withdrew a wad of folded A4 sheets, which she offered him. “Those are the known facts about him, from the web and other public domain places. There’s more, but in secure files I can’t give you.” She pointed to the sheets. “I’d read them on an empty stomach and in daylight.”

  Steve pushed the wad into his pocket. “Who is he?” he asked. Very clearly, he heard his own mind whisper, ‘Do you really want to know?’ He answered the voice aloud. “This guy is in my town, ordering men to pick fights at outrageous odds and with knives. He has the power to make those same five men kill themselves and he’s not even in the room or close to it. He was protecting one of the dirtiest little snot rags to walk the streets. I want to know who he is and what he’s up to.”

  Montana was watching him with the sad, pitying expression again. “He’s Black September. He’s a Syrian Muslim cleric who was taught to hate the Western world and everyone in it with total, ruthless passion. His mission in life is to wipe out the West, producing as much blood and gore as he can while he’s doing it. Terror is his stock in trade. He will use it without pity or mercy, to make the West respect the righteousness of Mohammed, and he’s here in your town, Steve.”

  “There’s more,” Caden rumbled from the dark corner of the verandah. “We don’t think he’s alone.”

  * * * * *

  “So let me get this straight,” Steve said, opening up another can of beer and spilling some of it on his pants. “Both of you follow this Bob into the bush for different reasons. Montana because he’s Bob and you because he’s mixed up in drugs...and both of you lose him?” He realized that he was getting very drunk. But Christ, they’d hit him hard with their calm analysis.

  “I didn’t so much lose him as I got sideswiped,” Montana said. “But yes, neither of us managed to trail him to his base.” She calmly wiped up the ring of froth he’d left on the table and poured herself another soda.

  They’d moved inside to the kitchen, now that it was fully dark and the mosquitoes were out. Caden had offered to cook dinner. Steve had readily agreed.

  Caden inventoried Steve’s fridge and pantry and set about cooking with an absorbed air. Steve had no idea what he was cooking, but it smelled pretty damn good. About a million miles above the flambéed everything he managed most nights.

  The big man was now standing at the stove, stirring something in the iron skillet, as it sizzled and popped in a way that alarmed Steve, but didn’t seem to bother Rawn at all. “I followed Bob into the bush three times over two days,” he said. “Every time, right when he reached the outcrop of boulders, I’d lose him. It didn’t matter a damn how close I got up behind him.”

  “He must have heard you and given you the slip, then hidden somewhere until you’d gone,” Steve said.

  “Not possible,” Caden replied.

  Steve felt a touch of admiration mixed with envy for his total confidence. Then he processed the rest of what Caden had said. “Hang on,” he said, even though no one was speaking. “You said an outcrop of boulders? Big suckers?”

  “One about twenty foot high by thirty across. Half a dozen others leaning against each other. Lots of smaller ones. All sort of egg shaped, with stripes running through them.” Caden took a swig out of the can of beer propped on the back of the stove. “Last thing you’d expect in the middle of all that hardwood.”

  “The ground does change around there,” Montana added. “No more karri trees. Just eucalypts.”

  “This is not far away from an old timber cutters’ trail that runs sort of north-south?”

  They were both looking at him now. He had their attention. He began to laugh, a low chuckle that swiftly grew into a tension relieving belly laugh. Finally, he wiped his eyes with a sigh. “Caves,” he explained. “There’s a pot hole that drills down to caves, right in amongst the boulders there.”

  Montana and Caden exchanged glances.

  “Caves,” Caden repeated and shook his head.

  “We both know about the caves at Yallingup, but neither of us realized there were caves around here.” Montana shrugged a little, her expression rueful.

  “The caves at Yallingup are a tourist attraction,” Steve said. “They’re mapped and they’ve strung lighting down there. Plus the access is easy; you walk in standing upright. But they’re not the only caves around here, not even close. The whole peninsula is riddled with them. Caving groups hire local guides to take them to some of the more accessible ones, but that’s a relative term. Dedicated cavers are not in the slightest bit claustrophobic. They can’t afford to be. Most of the caves around here are full of squeezes and chutes and there are some very long drops, too. Plus you get to do it all in the dark.”

  Caden put a plate down in front of each of them and sat down at the table himself. He and Montana were looking at each other again.

  “The caves you get to from where these boulders are,” Montana said, picking up her fork. “They’re big?”

  “We used to go in every weekend and evict all the high school kids making out there. A big section of the main cave collapsed about a year ago, but there’s a couple of squeezes through it and you’re into the system beyond. We haven’t worried about it since the collapse. Beyond the main cave hasn’t been mapped because a big pool cuts off access to further in.”

  He took a scoop of the noodles and meat on his plate and ate. His mouth was bombarded with delicious spice tastes that would take a month to deconstruct and he wasn’t sober enough to do it. “This is great!” he exclaimed, surprised into it. “Where did you learn to cook this? I’ve only ever tasted a green curry like this in Singapore.” Like many West Australians, he’d spent a lot of time touring around parts of Southeast Asia. It was cheaper to fly there than to get across the country to Sydney or Melbourne.

  “That’s where I learned how to cook it,” Caden said. “In Singapore.”

  Montana seemed as surprised as Steve at his answer. But she turned back to Steve. “These caves, the pool. Is the pool navigable? I mean, could you cross it if you had a raft, or a canoe?”

  “Sure. There’s head room.”

  She looked at Caden. “It would keep them contained, even if they went stir crazy.”

  It was like they were having a separate conversation, one Steve couldn’t hear except for these odd comments. He grimaced. “You maybe want to tell me what you’re not saying aloud?”

  Montana smiled. “I’m sorry, Steve. We were talking about this on the way down to Margaret River. We were proposing theories.”

  “One of them being that Ghenghis Bob is holed up in the caves?”

  She nodded. “We hadn’t thought of the caves. We just plain didn’t know about them. The best theory we could come up with was that Bob was hiding out in the area, keeping a low profile while those that would most like to see him dead continue to think he is dead. The only hole in the theory was where he would hide out. Where would he
hide five of his colleagues right in plain sight of every surfer and tourist in the area. It’d have to be somewhere where their lack of English and their bad manners wouldn’t give them away. A cave, or a series of caves, makes that more than possible.”

  “Even better,” Steve told them, “There’s a local rumor that the cave system under those boulders goes all the way to the cliffs on the coast. At high tide you can enter them through a slit, if your boat’s navigator has nerves of steel. If you were going to land in this country unofficially, that’s the place to do it. The coastline around here is rarely patrolled.”

  Both Caden and Montana were staring at him again, their eyes wide, as if he’d said something utterly outrageous.

  Montana put her knife and fork down slowly, then glanced at Caden again, in that silent, communing way. “Occam’s Razor,” she said.

  “What?” Steve shook his head, wondering if he’d misheard her.

  Caden propped his chin on his fist, his meal forgotten. His eyes were narrowed as he thought. “Not just a few. Dozens. Even hundreds. Come and go as you please.”

  “Bob is a front.”

  “And the investment manager.” Caden growled deep in his throat. “They could bring the stuff in with them, straight off their own fields. Jesus wept....”

  Steve banged his can on the table. “Hey, people! I’m here! Care to educate the unenlightened?”

  Montana blew her breath through pursed lips, then turned to him. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “We were just talking.”

  “Is that what it was? Let me tell you, I’m a reasonably intelligent guy and I didn’t understand anything after you said something about a razor. I know you were using English. I actually recognized some of the words. But you two keep skipping all the words in between that would make it make sense to someone sitting at the table with you.”

  Caden grinned. “Saves time.”

  Montana laid her hand flat on the table, reaching towards him. It was a placating gesture. “It wasn’t meant to exclude you. I wasn’t aware we were even doing it.”