Terror Stash (7 page)

The girl on the other side of the table, cuddling up to Greg, frowned and pouted at the same time. “God, who’d want to do
that
for a living?”

“I would,” Montana replied, keeping her tone cool.

“This is what you do at your consulate?” Bruce asked.

“Not exactly.” It wasn’t a lie, but it avoided the direct question that would follow if she’d said “no.” She wouldn’t tell them what, exactly, she did at the consulate. Ever.

“You work at a consulate?” the woman asked, startled. She sat up straighter.

“The American consulate,” Jacko said quietly.

“The United States Consulate in Perth,” Montana amended.

“She’s a diplomat,” Jacko added.

“I’m a consular officer,” Montana corrected.

That was when the barmaid screamed. Her scream, unlike her speaking voice, was high and piercing—the type of silvery shriek that made your adrenaline surge and put you on high alert. Montana swung around, her heart leaping.

The barmaid was swiping at the bar with a straw broom.

“What on earth...?” Jacko murmured.

The bar was littered with dirty glasses, carafes and empty bottles and a battered dishwasher tray the barmaid had been filling.

Montana stood up for a better view and saw what had the barmaid terrified.

A cat crouched amongst the middies and tall schooner glasses. It was the most ugly, battered tomcat Montana had ever seen in her life. The big orange and dirty white creature had only one good eye. His fur was erratic, broken up by old, healed scars that rippled across his body like trenches. The clawed foot he held up to the barmaid’s broom was missing a couple of toes and his ears were a lacework of holes and ragged edges.

The barmaid clearly wanted him off her bar. Just as clearly, he had no intention of leaving. The average cat might have seen the broom descend and taken off with a yowl. This old warrior hunkered down, instead. His tail was whipping about with irritation. The last two inches of tail were bent like a crooked finger—possibly it had been broken once and had mended stiff.

The barmaid took another swipe at him and he lifted up on his paws, hackles rising all along his back. He hissed with bared teeth and the barmaid squealed and pedaled backwards in response.

“Yeah, I’d be running, too,” Bruce said.

The laughter around the table came harder still.

“So would I run from that creature, I think,” Jacko added softly, meant just for her.

A large, rolling man stepped behind the bar from an inner room. His jeans and button-down shirt marked him as an owner or manager. The beer belly hanging over the belt of his jeans made Montana think he was probably the owner, with a fondness for his stock. He scooped up the tap mix faucet and sprayed the cat, which gave a squawk. It scattered glasses as it slithered across the bar and onto the dirt.

The laughter under the lean-to subsided as people realized the cat was amongst them now. They gave a good imitation of pigeons, jumping onto tables and benches and scattering out of the way as the old tom arrowed across the dirt toward the river.

“Watch out, he’s coming straight for us!” Bruce cried.

Montana heard them scrambling for safety behind her. She watched the cat instead, judging its direction. It would bypass her if she kept still. “I suggest you move,” she told Jacko. “He’ll want to run under the table right where you’re sitting.”

“Maybe.”

He stayed seated beside her until the very last second when it was clear the cat was aiming straight for him. Then he tried to scramble out of the way with a low curse. He wasn’t moving fast enough. The cat gave a low, rumbled warning from the back of its throat. It batted at Jacko as it passed, streaked under the table and was gone.

Jacko let out a yell and hopped around on the other foot while he clutched his lower leg. He propped his foot on the edge of the bench and slid his jeans up to inspect the damage.

Four deep scratch marks had left furrows of blood welling along his shin. The two outer claws had not dug deep, but the center pair of scratches looked nasty, especially over the bone.

“You’ve had a tetanus shot recently, right?” Greg asked. “That cat could’ve been anywhere.”

“Yeah, lockjaw, man!” Bruce shook his head. “You’d better get some antiseptic stuff on it.”

Jacko picked up his glass of scotch and poured the contents onto his shin. He sucked his breath in through his teeth. “Done,” he said, dropping the glass back on the table.

“Hey, look who’s just turned up,” Greg said. “That big freakin’ guy there. Isn’t that the one, a couple of years ago that—you know?”

Everyone looked toward the door.

The man strolling through the opening was big, perhaps a bit over six feet, but not extraordinarily tall. He had a well-developed shape, though. The simple white tee-shirt he was wearing stretched over biceps and wide shoulders that arrowed down to a flat abdomen. Short, jet black hair and from here his eyes looked obsidian black, too. He was moving his gaze around the room, sizing it up, as people carefully stepped around him. The Sunday session was in full swing.

Montana could feel her pulse spike. He reminded her of Vinnie, somehow, although he looked nothing like Vinnie. Then his gaze swung across her section of the room and Montana caught her breath. Something grabbed at her chest and she brought her fingers to rest against it, almost feeling the breast bone creak.

There was an alertness about him that she usually only encountered in people whose bodies supported their profession—soldiers, law enforcement and the odd State department clerk she’d met that she’d later confirmed was actually working for one of the intelligence units. Some of the world-class surfers and windsurfers she’d met here in Margaret River had the same quality.

So had Vinnie, although that wasn’t something she had realized until many years after Khafji.

Montana swallowed and tried to draw more than a shallow breath. Her heart was thundering in her ears. She watched the man’s gaze swing around the room and guessed he was looking for more than a place to sit or people he knew. “Who is he?” she asked Jacko and was pleased when her voice emerged evenly.

Jacko gingerly lowered his jeans back over his shin. “His name is Rawn, I think.”

“Caden Rawn,” Bruce said, curling his lip. “He’s an ugly bastard. He beat the crap out of some guy a couple of years ago, god knows why. I heard the police arrested him.”

“Not that one,” Jacko said with cool certainty. “I think he’d leave the country before he’d let himself be arrested.”

“You know him?” she asked, watching Rawn. The man’s expression was distant and hard and she suddenly shivered.

Jacko shook his head. “Don’t want to. There’s stories about him. He’s bad news.”

Montana turned back to her computer, but kept her angled position on the bench so she could glance out of the corner of her eye. She pushed at her chest again, wondering what on earth had got into her. She had never experienced such a strong reaction to someone simply stepping into a room, especially a stranger.

She found her gaze drawing back to him again. The man strolled up to the bar, digging into his pocket.

The barmaid saw his approach and instead of dropping the glass she was drying and moving to the bar to take his order, she backed up a step or two until her shoulder bumped into her boss’s chest. She looked up at him, spoke a word or two and shook her head emphatically. Twice. Then she handed him the tea towel and hurried to the door marked with a hand-written ‘office’ sign and shut herself in.

The manager stepped up to the bar and jerked his chin in a “what will you have?” manner.

“Hey, Montana, I hear you’re looking for me.”

Reluctantly, Montana pulled her attention around to the other side of the long table. Rabbit stood at the far corner, in a silk shirt and dress pants. Anyone else in those clothes would have looked out of place in a joint like this but Rabbit seemed to fit. The silver jewelry in his ears and nose helped. So did the tattoo on his neck—a writhing dragon that clawed its way up to his jawbone. He smiled at Montana, showing crooked, broken yellow teeth.

“Hello, Rabbit,” she acknowledged. “Was I looking for you?”

Rabbit tapped Greg’s shoulder and Greg immediately climbed off the bench and made room for him. Rabbit settled in his place and carefully placed his bottle of beer down. Unlike the other beer drinkers here, he wasn’t drinking pub draught out of a glass or even one of the labeled beers in a stubby. He had a full-sized dark brown bottle of Emu Bitter.

He smiled at her again. “Bruce said you were looking for me.”

She looked at Bruce for clarification, but he shot her a sideways glance and pretended he was in deep conversation with the flower-children people further along the table. No help there.

Then she put it together and her jaw descended a little before she snapped it shut again. She stared at Rabbit. “
You’re
Stewart Connie?”

His grin broadened, displaying missing molars and old silver amalgam fillings that were black with age and abuse. “At your service.”

“I’ve only ever known you as Rabbit,” she said apologetically.

Jacko snorted a little and shook his head, half-smiling. “Stewart Connie. Connie.
Coney
. Rabbit. Stewart,
stew
. Rabbit Stew. I should have figured it out, too.”

The smile on Rabbit’s face faded as he stared directly at Jacko. It was a challenge, as clear as a trumpet call.

Jacko stared calmly back.

“I believe the lady and I have business to discuss,” Rabbit said.

“Are you sure you want to settle into business right now?” Jacko said softly.

“None of your concern, my good man,” Rabbit said with a forced joviality that sent the second shiver of the night up Montana’s back. This was the man who knew Nicollo? She had trouble believing it and could feel all the hope and excitement over finally getting a step closer to her goal starting to deflate. This was probably going to be a dead end. A false hope.

“Not my concern, no,” Jacko replied. “But I think it’s a concern of yours. Have you seen who’s sitting at the bar?”

Montana turned her head enough to check the bar. The lone occupant was the Rawn guy, sipping on a glass of beer. There had been at least five people sitting on the tall stools pulled up at the bar before he’d sat down. He didn’t seem to mind that everyone had cleared off and left him alone.

She snapped her head back to check Rabbit’s reaction to Rawn’s presence and saw his gaze flicker back to Jacko. “Yeah, and?” His face was neutral, but a little tick had started up at the corner of his eye, where two prominent veins also throbbed.

Jacko smiled a little. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me why he put you in hospital two years ago?” The counter-challenge, direct and brutal.

“I don’t suppose you want to take a hike before I ram this bottle up your ass, you fucking Kraut prick?” Despite the words, Rabbit’s tone was reasonable, even friendly.

Jacko sat still and silent for twenty seconds, staring at him.

Rabbit gave him a wide, wide smile. “That wasn’t a request.”

Jacko dropped his eyes and picked up his drink. “I’ll see you later, Montana,” he murmured, without looking at her.

No, stay!
Montana held the words back, though. She desperately didn’t want to be alone with this guy, but he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to talk to her unless they were alone, and if he knew Nicollo, then she might never have another chance like this one.

She watched Jacko walk away and felt closer to panic than she’d ever felt in her life. Not even when she was twelve and ducking machine-gun fire in Al Khafji had she been torn by such doubt and fear.

She licked her lips and turned back to face Rabbit.

“Hi,” he said, with another big smile. “So let’s you and I talk.”

Caden had spotted Rabbit the moment the little shitheel had walked in the door but he bided his time. Time was a resource he had plenty of. So he kept his stool and sipped his beer, genuinely enjoying the strong Australian staple.

He knew Rabbit had seen him. The South African guy everyone called Jacko for reasons unexplained had drawn Rabbit’s gaze to the bar, warning him. No matter.

The layer of wavering heat building up under the tin roof didn’t bother him. Singapore was slightly cooler, but the humidity there could make you feel miserable if you let it get to you. After Singapore, the dry, dry heat Australia had to offer was as good as a sunlamp on sore muscles.

Caden felt a soft touch against the fabric of his jeans. Then another pat. He looked down.

“Goddamn, look at you.” The cat head-bumping his ankle was the most battle-scarred creature he’d ever seen. It blinked up at him, then rubbed a ragged ear against his jeans. It looked up again, enquiringly.

“Hey, kitty, I’m the last man on earth you want to adopt. Believe me.” He gently withdrew his foot, hooking his boot over the stool’s foot railing to keep it out of the cat’s reach and went back to his drink.

The cat hunched down, gathering itself, then took an almighty leap, straight up onto the bar. The waitress, Barbs, backed up with a breathless little shriek of shock. The cat ignored her with graceful disdain, walked along the bar with his bent tail up at full mast and plonked himself down in front of Caden, looking up at him without blinking.

Caden studied him, astonishment warring with amusement. “Stubborn cuss, huh? I like that.” He reached his hand out slowly, to avoid startling the old warrior, and left it in mid-air for the cat to decide what he’d do with it.

After a second, the cat stood and rubbed the side of his face along Caden’s fingers. Caden felt rough, dry fur and sharply defined bones beneath. He didn’t know much about cats, so he experimented. He turned his hand over, still moving slowly, and rubbed the cat under the chin then scratched him behind the ragged ears.

The cat’s reaction was nothing short of amazing. It began to purr and the purr was loud enough to be heard over the white noise of the busy bar. The low, deep motor sound rumbled through the cat’s body and he melted onto the counter, a suddenly boneless bag of pleasure. He rolled over on his back, legs splayed and paws up, opening up his vulnerable stomach to Caden’s scratching. His mouth hung open a little and Caden swore the cat was smiling at him.