Terror Stash (11 page)

“What’s the matter, Montana? Do knife fights offend you?”

She scrambled to find a normal response. “When they might involve my friends, they do.”

“Ah.” Nelson relaxed. “I’ll get Crystal to copy you on any news bulletins about it.”

“Thanks, I’d appreciate it. And the access to the files?”

“Ah, that.” He wove his fingers together again. “Who is it you think you have found?”

“It looks like he’s got lots of names, but the regular one is Ghenghis Bob.”

“Ghenghis Bob?” Finally, Nelson did start to chuckle. His whole body wobbled as he let the almost soundless belly laugh out.

“I’m not making up the name. I know it sounds totally bizarre for a terrorist—they love aliases that align them with religious icons or warrior heroes, but that’s his name. I checked.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Nelson said, catching his breath. “Oh dear....” He wiped his eyes. “You really are naïve when it comes to this stuff, aren’t you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“No, clearly not. Let me tell you a bit about Ghenghis Bob, my dear. You’re quite right, he
was
with Black September, but that was years ago, now. He was so radically fundamentalist that even Black September had problems with his extremist ideals and behavior. Do you remember the Primo situation in Turkey, about nine years ago?”

She recalled the salient details. They were engraved on most State department officers’ minds. While touring Turkey, the wife of an east coast Senator, Brian Primo, had been kidnapped and taken across the border into Syria. Black September had instantly claimed responsibility and set up negotiations. In their ruthless view of the world, this had merely been a quick, convenient way to raise a bit more cash for their main operations. But while the negotiations were still underway, a video had been delivered to the Senator. On it was the last three hours of his wife’s life. They had gutted her, laid out her entrails on the table before her and watched her die, all while quoting the Koran to her.

She had been eight weeks pregnant.

The negotiators had quickly decamped, their mission to stall the authorities a success.

“I remember the case,” Montana told Nelson.

“Some weeks after the Senator’s wife died, rumors started spreading around the intelligence world, then out to diplomatic circles, that Black September had not intended to murder her. They blamed a former member of their organization, who had acted on his own authority. They cited the man as being a religious fanatic who fell well beyond even their own borders of tolerance.”

“Ghenghis Bob?” Montana guessed, feeling sick.

Nelson smiled benevolently at her. “Ghenghis Bob. It was made very clear that Black September and Ghenghis Bob had come to a parting of ways.”

“So he might still be out there somewhere, then.”

“You don’t resign from Black September, Montana. You don’t ever get to leave.”

“They executed him?”

“Exactly.” He flicked his fingernails at the sheets she had given him. “Clearly, you were off chasing imaginary Palestinians this weekend, while the real trouble was brewing elsewhere.”

“Can I look in the database, anyway? Indulge me, Nelson. It’s not like it’ll hurt anyone if I see it.”

“What would be the point? Think about it. Why would any self-respecting terrorist come here to Western Australia? Terrorists prefer thick, teeming targets, like cities where the population runs into the thousands per square mile. You’d be hard pressed to find a square mile even in Sydney that holds thousands of people and as for the W.A. bush....” Nelson shook his head again and this time his earlobes barely wobbled. “I appreciate your fervor and dedication, Montana, but it’s quite ridiculous and I’d be compounding the problem if I indulged you in this.”

“But—”

“No, Montana.” He sighed. “Do you think, perhaps, this is just a bit of cabin fever? You’ve been posted to Perth for six years now. That’s long enough to grow itchy feet when you’re as young and ambitious as you are. You must surely want to move on to someplace more exciting than here.”

“I like Perth.”

“You’re keeping your languages fresh?” he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Of course.”

“Next year’s postings come out in the new year. Perhaps you’ll be luckier this time.” He picked up his phone and let his hand hover over the keypad. “It’s good of you to drop by, Montana. We don’t really sit down and talk much about these sorts of things. We must do it more often.”

She got to her feet and forced out a thank you. She shut the door softly behind her, trying to grapple with the speed at which Nelson had shut down the interview. Why had he done that? There really was no good reason to refuse her, after all.

As she walked back to her office, it hit her. “
They’re from the Middle east
,” Caden Rawn had said. “
That was Arabic he spoke
.”

Rawn. Possibly a killer, definitely a dangerous man, and he was the only one who might believe her.

Her footsteps slowed until she was barely moving, as she thought it through. Nelson could very well be right about Ghenghis Bob; that was the problem. If Nelson
was
in intelligence, then he knew way more about this than she did. Who was she to dispute him?

On the other hand, she knew what she had seen last night and the man’s words still echoed in her head, the Arabic phrases completely undeniable. Why had Nelson shut her down? He’d barely listened to her. He hadn’t even considered her words. She had been dismissed before she stepped through the door.

She sank into her chair and stared blindly at her computer monitor. What to do? What to do?

“What would Nicollo have done?” she murmured aloud. She recalled Nicollo’s history, the decisions she had made. Above all, Nicollo had fought to do the right thing, despite absolutely no one with any authority believing her. So, what was the right thing, here and now?

If she obeyed Nelson and stayed at her desk, a man she genuinely believed to be a terrorist would get away scott free after sending five of his men after an unarmed man. But if she followed her gut instincts and she was
wrong
, then...what?

Montana, you know damned well you have to do this. Caden Rawn went out of his way to make sure you were safe last night. He deserves no less in return.

The thought clarified her decision, but she continued to sit, staring into space. Then she realized why. She was afraid of where this would take her. She had never done anything like this in her life. Whatever she did now would likely bring her face to face with Rawn once more.

“Gutless wonder!” she railed at herself.

But...what if she was wrong about Ghenghis Bob?

Worse...what if she was wrong about Caden Rawn?

The news of Rabbit’s death reached all the way back around to Caden at about the same time the news of his own re-appearance in Yallingup must have circled back to the police. He knew the times matched, because it was fifteen minutes after that when the patrol car showed up outside the café.

Australia didn’t run to diners, but they had some great tearooms and cafés and one of the best was on the main street of Yallingup. They served homemade meat pies and something they called Yorkshire pudding but his mother might have called biscuit. The café poured hot gravy over theirs and that suited him fine.

Everyone there called the kid waiting tables “Roo,” although the logic for the nickname wasn’t apparent. Caden recalled the Australian habit of naming redheaded men “Blue” and let the puzzle go. Australian humour was quirky at best.

Roo recognized him, even though it had been nearly three years since he’d last stopped by. Roo was just busting to tell someone all the gossip he’d picked up that morning and it was enough to overcome his fear of Caden. As the kid poured Caden’s first cup of tea, he passed along the major headlines and left the pot for him.

Caden already knew most of the gossip. He’d been a part of it. The rescue of the surfer at The Bommie was fresh news and Caden suspected the woman surfer who’d done the rescuing might have been the woman in the bar last night. She’d been sitting with the surfers before Rabbit had cut his way in.

Unbidden, an image of her face and her riveting eyes swam into his mind and he frowned. The memory of her was bothering him and that was unusual. He liked to part from both friends and strangers with all business finished and settled. He’d hooked her out of the fight and out of danger because Stewart Connie had clearly considered her not a friend, which meant his minions would have been just as happy to carve her up while they were trying to take care of him.

But something about those few moments she had spoken to him kept nagging at him. There was unfinished business in there. Something about her kept his thoughts engaged, worrying over it.

Where had her mind gone for those few seconds when he’d pulled off his shirt? Her gaze had become unfocused, as if her attention had been snagged by a thought or a memory. Whatever it had been, it had been overwhelming. It had taken several seconds to snap her out of the trance-like state, but he’d persisted because the cops had been arriving and she deserved a chance to melt away from the scene just as he’d intended to.

As he drank his tea, remembering her, his hand tingled—the one he’d rested on her shoulder to help draw her focus back to the moment. Her skin had been soft and feminine, but with well-developed muscles beneath. Clearly, she was a woman used to using her body. Fit and physical.

His body tightened and he cursed under his breath. Damn, but that was a complication he could do without. He straightened and focused on the customers in the café instead, distracting himself. He tried to catch Roo’s eye. The kid might have more information about the events last night.

In between serving the other customers, Roo fed him the news about the three murders and the suicide. Caden didn’t have a hard time looking shocked. Encouraged by his reaction, the first he’d given him, Roo nodded and added what else he knew. That was a compilation of every speculation and scrap of story he’d heard, with a handful of facts thrown into the mix for seasoning. Caden would have to sift through it later, but it was all grave news.

They’d hauled the five injured men from the Pink Galah to the hospital and later two of them had died. At first it was thought that they’d died of their wounds, but the wounds had not been considered life-threatening, or they would have been taken by ambulance or air ambulance to one of the Perth hospitals. Yet two men were dead. The speculators were whispering of foul play. The third, who had sustained a knife wound to the abdomen, had inserted an empty syringe into his artery and injected air. He died of an embolism within seconds. Nurses had found him on the floor beside his bed, about ten minutes later. That bought the body count up to three – two of mysterious circumstances and one by suicide.

But the more interesting news for Caden was that Rabbit was dead. Murdered and flung into the river. Who had done the deed?

It was around then, two bites into his Yorkshire pudding, that the police wagon had pulled up outside the café, the lights slowly revolving, and Caden realized that they believed
he
had done the deed.

He’d stood up, stretched, and headed for the washroom at the back of the café. Once there, he slipped out onto the back verandah, sliding past the door into the kitchen where two busy cooks were keeping up with orders. He faded over the fence across the road.

He paused between two houses, head down, trying to figure out which direction would get him out of town the quickest and safest. He dismissed the small notion of going back to Ria’s place for his backpack. The police would probably be staked out there already. He’d never hidden where he stayed when he was in town. He’d never insisted Ria not speak of it, either. He’d told her that morning he intended to have lunch at the café and she must have told the police. It was the only way they could be so confident about pulling up right outside its door.

It was a pain in the butt to lose the contents of the pack, but he’d live without it. In high summer in the Australian bush, the only danger he really had to concern himself with was dehydration.

The trouble was, any direction out of town meant crossing Caves Road. The cops would have it well and truly pegged. But he was going across it, rather than down it. If he came at them from an unexpected angle he might well be able to slip over without raising an alarm.

Still refining his plan and totting up supplies he would have to acquire as creatively as possible, he jogged back to the quiet residential street and headed in the opposite direction, back toward the heart of town.

* * * * *

Borelli swore and hung up the phone with a bang. “They bloody well missed him!”

Steve looked up. So did Chris. “You mean Rawn?” Steve asked.

“Who else?”

Who else, indeed. It seemed like the entire station was focused on catching up with the elusive Caden Rawn. Steve shifted in his chair and hefted the file in his hands. “I still don’t see how you figure he did the deed in the hospital Monday night. I saw to the distribution of the guards myself. There was no way anyone could have slipped into those rooms.”

Borelli threw his pen back on the desk with an impatient snort. “Three apparent suicides in the space of one hour? Coincidence doesn’t stretch that far.”

“Two apparent, one definite. The guy with the syringe still had his fingers on it. No other fingerprints. He fished the syringe out of the box on the shelf.”

“And where was the guard while that was going on?” Borelli asked heavily.

Steve subsided. The guard had chosen that ill-fated moment to take a toilet break. He’d been desperate and didn’t wait for someone to cover for him. He’d also been gone a lousy sixty seconds. It was all the time the injured man had needed. Steve wasn’t going to try to argue the point because Borelli was right—if that guard could turn his back for sixty seconds, so could the others.

So Steve fumed silently. The problem was the police in this corner of the world were used to busting surfers for weed and commune residents for psychedelics, and breaking up the odd drunken bar brawl. They hadn’t been able to adjust quickly enough to the extreme factors of this case.