Terror Stash (27 page)

She climbed out herself, in time to see Caden, still bare-chested and barefoot, look up at the twenty-second floor. There was a small, clean white square of gauze taped over the wound on his chest, right over his heart.

He squared his shoulders and looked back at her. “Let’s do it.”

They were parked in one of the “interview rooms” and that alone told Montana how quickly she had become
persona non grata
here. The interview rooms were bulletproof, with one-way-locking doors, security cameras and alarms. Montana was one of the few people in the consulate that knew the room was also equipped with a knockout gas dispenser that could be triggered remotely.

Caden pushed two chairs out, settled in one and lifted his feet to the other. After visually scanning the room, he stared hard at the corner where the security camera was hidden and lifted a brow at her. She nodded.

After a few minutes, they were brought room-temperature soft drinks, in tall glasses. The guard put the tray on the table and indicated they should help themselves.

Montana was outraged. “Don’t touch the glass,” she said, as he reached for it. “They’re trying to get your fingerprints without your permission.”

After a minute pause, he picked up the glass. “They’re welcome to them,” he said and drained the glass in big swallows. He put the glass back on the tray and winked at the guard. “There you go.”

The guard silently picked up the tray again and took the glass out. The door was shut behind him.

“You don’t have to roll over for them.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He was quite calm. “Relax. We’ll probably have to wait a while.”

She lowered herself onto a chair, but could barely sit still. “How can you just sit there?” she said.

“I’m only half here,” he told her, looking over his shoulder at her, with a small smile.

“Where’s the other half.”

“Up here.” He tapped his temple.

“I imagine that’s a big place, up there. Where, precisely?”

“Oh, about thirty hours ago, amongst other spots.”

She did a quick count back and could feel herself blushing from her toes to her hairline. Thirty hours ago, they had been making love. The one last time before the sun rose. The one last time, just for the one night they had agreed to.

But Montana could still feel Caden’s lips against hers, from when he’d kissed her in the back of the cruiser. At the same time, she was mortally aware of the camera in the corner, mercilessly recording every move they made and every word they spoke. Including her blush. They were being watched and analyzed. Boyd Nelson would be one of those watching and he believed she was pregnant to a man other than Caden.

“Yeah, okay, you won that bet fair and square,” she said, giving the watchers a reason for her blush. “But it was a good game, wasn’t it?”

Caden gave no sign that he was surprised or confused. He nodded slowly, considering. “One of the better ones. But I’m not a good sports critic. I just don’t get to watch cricket all that much.”

She could feel her jaw sagging and caught her teeth back together again before the camera picked it up. Did he mean that literally? Somehow, she had assumed that Caden would have his fill of women whenever he wanted and with little effort.

“I’m surprised,” she said carefully. “You’re a guy. Watching sports games is one of life’s essential nutrients, isn’t it?”

He glanced at her. “Oh, there’s plenty to watch,” he assured her, with a wolfish grin. “But I only like the games where the underdog has a fighting chance. If they’re brain dead or just playing around for the fun of facing off against serious opposition, it’s not worth the time and effort to watch.” He glanced directly at her again. “I like the stakes high...and the opponents worthy.”

She dropped her hands in her lap to hide their trembling, unable to think of a coherent word to say.

Caden crossed his arms, showing no sign of stress or emotion. “Do you play chess, Montana?”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“Would you like a game?”

“Here? You have a set in your pocket?”

“Mental board. Figure you could hold a game in your mind?”

She dragged her fingers through her salt-ladened hair, staring at him, while her mind reeled. Chess? Mental chess?

He was staring at her steadily, his black eyes silently imparting calm. Then she remembered.
Insh’Allah
. She nodded. “I could try,” she said. “Who’s white?”

“Oh, ladies first,” he said with a grin.

She mentally laid out the board and considered her opening move. “Pawn to d-four.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Algebraic notation. I should’ve expected that from you. Okay, knight to c-six.”

When they came for her ninety minutes later, she was fully involved in defending her queen from Caden’s knight’s vicious attack and was almost irritated by the interruption.

* * * * *

Boyd Nelson closed the door of his office very softly. For once, he didn’t ask her to do it.

He shuffled around to his side of the desk, literally sidling past the corner where space was tight, and eased himself into the oversized chair he used. He was puffing audibly by the time he had himself settled and his face was very red.

Montana was more interested in the monitor on the sideboard behind his desk. The black and white image showed Caden in the interview room. He was staring directly into the camera, his arms still crossed and his legs still on the second chair. It felt like he was staring directly at her.

Nelson cleared his throat, then leaned backwards, making the chair groan, and turned the monitor off.

Montana smiled cheerily at him. “And how are you, Nelson?”

“I really have to wonder if you’ve taken leave of your senses, Montana. I know pregnant women often have hormonal imbalances that can make them behave erratically, but you really do seem to have gone off the deep end. If you don’t mind me saying so? What are you doing running around with this Rawn man? And for god’s sake, offering him the protection of the United States. What were you thinking?”

“I was keeping him out of the hands of some very near sighted local police who would only have been interested in locking him up and throwing away the key.”

“From what’s been reported back to me, that’s all he deserves,” Nelson snapped back. “A bar brawl, five men injured—”

“They came at him with knives.” Montana said it calmly, although she knew that Nelson wouldn’t hear it even if she shouted it. He’d already made up his mind.

It meant that anything else she had to say would also be filtered through the prejudice he was already carrying, but she had to get it on the record. She knew their conversation was at the very least being recorded, if not filmed. Other eyes and ears would analyze it later.

He tapped his pen on the desk. “I’ve known you six years, Montana. You’re usually level headed. Why don’t you tell me what you think is happening here?”

So she told him, leaving nothing out. It was important that all the details be covered. They would be used to verify her story later. The only details she skimmed over were those that would get Steve in trouble with his station. She let Nelson continue to think she was pregnant and that Steve had been involved in their venture on a personal level. She also implied that Steve knew nothing about Caden’s bar fight.

It took a long while to tell the story. Nelson asked her the occasional question to bring her back on track, or to clarify a point, but otherwise he let her talk and he listened hard. By the time she was finished her throat was very dry and Nelson’s eyes were very large. He had taken no notes at all, which further confirmed that the conversation was being recorded.

He put the pen down on the blank pad with the gentleness of placing an egg, or a bomb, and rubbed at his temples. “Oh Lordy.” he breathed.

Montana forced herself to stay silent. She wanted Nelson to direct conversation now, so she could see where he was going to take it.

He spread his hands on the pad. Blew out his breath.

“What is it, Nelson?” Montana said softly. His huge reluctance to speak was unsettling.

He lifted the fingers and drummed them on the page. Then he lifted his gaze to look at her. “We can’t protect this man, Montana. I can see why you think we should, but we cannot.”

“But...”

“It’s your turn to hear me out.”

Fair enough. She shut up.

“Do you have any idea about this man? Who he is?”

“Does it matter?” she asked, as calmly as she could. “He’s done nothing but protect himself and actively assist the police since I met him. Now he’s in a position where he needs our help.”

“Help of some sort, I supposed,” Nelson said. “But not ours. To start with, he’s Canadian.”

She gritted her jaws together, scrambling to hide her surprise and her dismay. How could Nelson know something like that and she did not? But it had never come up in conversation....

Nelson nodded, as if he’d seen her surprise anyway. Her silence would have confirmed her ignorance, she realized.

“I see there’s a great deal you don’t know about him.” Nelson turned to his computer and stabbed at the keyboard. “I must enlighten you.”

“If he’s Canadian, then why do we have records on him?” she demanded sharply.

“Oh, your friend Rawn is notorious in certain circles.”

She licked her lips. “Go on.”

“Caden Rawn, also known as Dennis Rawlings, also known as Daniel Rourke.” Nelson frowned. “None of those are confirmed aliases, by the way. Barely anything here is confirmed. There’s a great deal of speculation about him.”

“Why don’t you start with the facts?” she said dryly.

“I supposed they’re bad enough,” Nelson murmured and scrolled down. He cleared his throat. “Let me see. We’re pretty sure Caden Rawn is the name on his birth certificate. We know he was born in Alberta, Canada. Possibly Edmonton. Father unknown. His mother was a nineteen-sixties flower child who never gave up the lifestyle even when it became passé. She moved into the seventies and while the rest of the world grew respectable, she supported her lifestyle and Caden’s upbringing by smuggling drugs across borders. Any borders. She had like-minded friends in a dozen countries around the world and she stayed constantly on the move, one step ahead of any authority. She was a damned good courier. For ten years they tried to pin her down, but she was elusive. Nothing could be proven.”

“What about Caden? Where did he grow up?”

“At her side.” Nelson’s voice was dry. “We’re pretty sure she was teaching him all the tricks of her trade, too. Well, it all came to an end in nineteen eighty-seven. His mother was busted in Bangkok airport and thrown into jail to await execution.”

Montana stared at him, horrified. Nelson was clearly enjoying himself. “This is all still...verified fact?” she asked. Her voice was hoarse.

“Most of it. I’ll be sure to point out the speculation when I get to it. Here’s another fact for you. His mother failed to inform Canada of her arrest. She simply refused to contact anyone. I think she was afraid that if she did, the Thai authorities would track them down, too. Which left them in a pickle. They didn’t know what to do with the elementary school child by her side. As it turned out, they did nothing.”

“He stayed with her?
In jail
?” Even Montana had heard of the appalling conditions of the Bangkok jail. The beatings, the suppression of prisoners, the rape and humiliation heaped upon them, the cramped quarters and lack of privacy, the terrible food and conditions, and these were stories from today,
this
year. What had conditions been like thirty years ago, when the world’s eye had not seen what went on there quite so easily?

What would it do to a child to grow up in those conditions, even with a mother by his side?

Horror touched her. She stared at Nelson, genuinely speechless.

He gave a grim little smile. “Also verified fact. In November nineteen ninety-three, his mother was executed by machine gun fire. She was one of the last to be executed by the Thai authorities. Eighteen months later, Caden Rawn, now an adult, escaped from the prison.”

Montana’s horror doubled, then tripled, as her imagination painted the details of Caden’s terrible childhood. What would something like that do to a child?

“What else is there?” she asked. Her voice was a croak.

“Ah, well, we’re moving into the realm of speculation now. Based on rumor, second hand reports and sometimes pure legend.” Nelson seemed to be enjoying himself. This was his big pay-off. He was getting to say “I told you so” with a vengeance.

“We think that by the turn of the century he’d made his way to Bali. He met a great many West Australians there and the drug trade was brisk. Australians were happy to pay prices they considered reasonable. There, those prices are a kings’ ransom.”

“He would not have been involved in selling drugs,” Montana said firmly. “I don’t believe it.”

Nelson nodded. “Surprisingly, the little we know supports that. It seems Rawn became a sort of crusader. He spent a lot of time taking on the local drug lords and...well, ‘dealing’ with them, shall we say? His methods were less than legal and he managed to make himself a tidy little fortune while he was doing it. For that reason alone, I think the Balinese authorities took umbrage at a private citizen waging a war. Not only waging it, but winning where they plainly could not make an impact.”

“Speculation again. Rawn appeared in Singapore around two thousand and one and has been an unofficial resident there ever since. The theory is that the Singaporean authorities are more than happy for him to help them clean up their streets. They let him live there without hassles, while they turn a blind eye to his less savory methods, as his methods work better than anyone else’s.”

Montana felt a little dizzy. Caden’s words as they’d got out of the car. His implication that what came next would change everything for her. And it did. Oh, it did!

But Nelson wasn’t finished, yet. “It’s not like Rawn stayed exclusively in Singapore. He’s a world traveler, going where his ‘work’ takes him. He’s expert at staying off the grid. He travels under different names and crosses borders illegally and with impunity. He seems to delight in throwing a spanner in the works of authority whenever he can. Misinformation is a specialty of his. He creates chaos, promotes anarchy, will steal when it suits him—”