Death is Forever

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “You got it,” Faulkner said. “The balance of power is just that—a balancing act. When something is that delicately poised, it doesn’t take much to rock the boat. At the moment, there’s nothing the U.S. would like better than to get control of a diamond mine that would give us more leverage within the cartel. So would a great many other nations.”

  “Do you understand now?” Windsor asked quietly. “If Crazy Abe had a diamond mine, whoever owns it will find himself a moving target. I don’t think you have the skill to survive. I do. Let me handle your inheritance, baby.”

  Silently Erin went to the window. Without consciously remembering Cole’s warning, she stood to one side, able to see out without being seen. The lights of the city were like a lake lapping against the base of black mountains.

  “You’d both like Cole Blackburn,” Erin said finally. “He wants me out of the game too. I’m supposed to see him tomorrow, to give him my answer to his offer to buy out my inheritance.”

  “How much is he offering?”

  “Three million dollars.”

  “That plus those thirteen diamonds would make you rich,” Windsor said quickly. “You’d never have to do a thing you didn’t want to do. How much money do you need, anyway?”

  “If you need more than three million,” Faulkner put in smoothly, “I know investors who would top Blackburn’s offer. We’d all be a lot more comfortable with American investors than with a loose cannon like him.”

  The room was quiet for a moment. Erin looked at the stones on the table. Even in the dim room, fugitive light shimmered through them like whispered secrets, vanishing as she looked, reappearing along unexpected curves, then vanishing once more. The crystals fascinated her as nothing ever had, not even arctic ice.

  “Thank you, but no,” Erin said softly. “I’m keeping my inheritance. Every last undiscovered bit of it.”

  10

  Los Angeles BlackWing offices

  Cole Blackburn sat with his feet on the map table, staring out over the city of Los Angeles to the darkness that was the Pacific Ocean twelve miles beyond. He was trying to interest himself in the task of plotting a new run of computer data onto the LandSat maps of Western Australia, which were spread on the flat table. No matter how he told himself he should do it, he just wasn’t interested.

  Crazy Abe had been a dinosaur. He hadn’t belonged to the modern age, so his secrets weren’t likely to yield to modern methods.

  On the other hand, there was little else for Cole to do but look at satellite maps until Erin allowed herself to be bought out. If she allowed herself to be bought out. If not, he might have to resort to the IOU Wing had thoughtfully provided.

  Cole didn’t like that idea, because it would mean that Erin was staying in the game. Far safer to buy her out and be done with it.

  He glanced at his watch. He had an hour to kill before Erin and her father came to BlackWing for a meeting.

  Matthew Windsor’s sudden appearance wasn’t surprising, but it was a complicating factor. Cole hoped that Windsor would tell his daughter to sell out rather than buck the diamond tiger.

  At the same time, Cole knew that Windsor was CIA, and the CIA had a vital interest in the diamond cartel. Corporations, clans, and government institutions were all alike in one way. Each required complete loyalty, the sacrifice of children, wives, and private lives to the greater glory of the collective. As a matter of principle, independent men or women had to be seduced, intimidated, bought, or removed. Independence was an enemy to Consolidated Minerals, to the Central Intelligence Agency, and to the Chen family.

  If Matthew Windsor was a devoted CIA officer, he would think nothing of using his daughter’s inheritance as a stalking horse for American interests. If he was a truly amoral player, he would use his daughter without telling her.

  Darkness was turning the windows on the thirty-eighth floor into partial mirrors. The city beyond was still there, but reflections from the room flickered across the face of the glass each time Cole moved.

  And even when he didn’t.

  His conscious mind was still registering that fact as he spun away from the desk and came to his feet in a single motion. A knife blade gleamed in his hand as he went swiftly, silently to the door joining the two rooms of the office suite.

  “Impressive,” a voice said from the next room, “but a pistol has more range. I’m Matthew Windsor, by the way. I can prove it if you don’t mind letting me reach into my pocket.”

  Cole looked at the tall, solidly built man in a dark suit who was waiting in the doorway that led to the hall. The man wore an expression of well-chilled competence. He also had eyes the same shape and color as his daughter’s.

  “You’re early,” Cole said, returning the knife to its wrist sheath with an easy movement.

  “Nobody knows I’m here. I’d like to keep it that way.”

  A tongue of adrenaline licked through Cole, quickening his whole body. “What did you do with the guard?”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t stuff anybody in a closet. The floor guard at the elevator was very polite. He’s getting a cold glass of water so I can take my heart medicine.”

  “I’ll see to it he’s retrained. Maybe we can find a job for him in the infirmary.” Cole gestured toward the hall door. “After you.”

  “Cautious man.”

  “I want to live long enough to take heart medicine.”

  Windsor laughed softly and went back out into the hall.

  Cole locked the door and jerked his thumb to the right. “That way. Conference room is the fifth one on the left.”

  Windsor glanced around as they walked past suite after suite of offices. He stopped in front of the fifth door on the left, tried the handle, and stepped back. “It’s locked.”

  “That didn’t bother you before,” Cole pointed out, unlocking the door.

  When he flipped on the lights, jarrah wood paneling from Australia glowed in shades of cream and rust.

  Windsor turned to Cole. “If I knew who owned you, I’d know whether to ignore you or take you out of the game.”

  Cole didn’t comfort himself by thinking that Windsor was bluffing. Beneath that graying hair was a hard body and a mind that had twenty more years of nasty tricks to draw on than Cole Blackburn did.

  “Nobody owns me,” Cole said. “I like it that way. That’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  “No one is that independent.”

  “Who’s talking, Windsor? The spook or Erin’s father?”

  “Let’s start with the spook,” Windsor said. “The spook sees all kinds of red flags in the files marked Cole Blackburn. You’re a killer, for one thing. You have anything to say about that?”

  “Which incident bothers you?”

  “Start with the eighteen-year-old killer, the one who went into the marines instead of going to jail for murdering a man.”

  Cole walked to a leather chair at one end of the conference table and sat down, wondering why Windsor was trying to get under his skin—and why it was working.

  “It was manslaughter, not murder,” Cole said. “A bar fight that went sour.”

  “Dead is dead.”

  “As for the marines, it used to be a fairly common sentence where I came from.”

  “So you went into the marines, forward recon,” Windsor said coldly. “Good outfit for killers.”

  “Cut the crap. You’re not the one to ride me over spilled blood. You’ve sent plenty of men over the fence.”

  “Some men like to spill blood. Some men are indifferent to it. Which are you?” Windsor asked.

  “Neither.”

  After a moment Windsor nodded. “Let’s fill in some gaps in your file. How did you make the jump from recon marine to geologist without going to college in between?”

  There was silence while Cole decided whether to answer the question. In the end he shrugged and answered because it didn’t matter. “My gunnery sergeant served in a dozen countries. He learned all he could about gems and geology i
n every place he was stationed. He talked about it to anyone who would listen. I was the only one. He bought me my first Brunton compass and nursed me through basic geology texts. He was a hell of a man.”

  Windsor nodded again. “Marcel Arthur Knudsen, right?”

  For the first time, Cole looked surprised. “So that’s what the M stood for. He never told me.”

  “He never tells anyone, if he can help it.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “I know people who know him,” Windsor said. “There are still people in the Pentagon who think he was God’s topkick. But you’ve done a lot of traveling since the sarge knew you. For instance, Zaire.”

  “Yeah, I was there.” Cole smiled thinly. “How much did it cost you boys to bail Thompson out of that jail in Kinshasa?”

  “The agency wasn’t as amused as you are. If the political police had found out who Thompson really was, he’d have been executed. Your little stunt nearly killed him.”

  Cole’s smile changed, becoming as cold as his eyes. “You’re breaking my heart. Thompson tried to get me killed. Damn near managed it. If he tries it again, I’ll put him in the ground any way I can.”

  Windsor grunted. “You’re even-handed, I will say. You gave the same treatment to the KGB agent in Cairo in…1982, was it?”

  “Was Schmelling really KGB? I thought maybe he was just a particularly filthy dealer in submarine goods.”

  “Full colonel in the Overseas Directorate,” Windsor said.

  “If I’d known that, he would have ended up another one of those bodies you seem so worried about.”

  “That would have been unfortunate. He was doubled, working for us at the same time. Hell, Schmelling was more valuable than Thompson ever thought of being.”

  “Not to me. He was about as much use as my Brazilian partner.”

  “The one you killed?”

  “The one who stuck a knife in my back, missed anything vital, and lived to regret it.”

  “But not for long,” Windsor said dryly.

  “Two months. Long enough.”

  “Think you’re hell on wheels, don’t you?”

  Slowly Cole shook his head. “I’m just a man who likes to be left alone. That annoys some people. A lot. They start crowding, and I don’t like being crowded, and things go from sugar to shit real fast. So why are you crowding me, Windsor? Does the CIA want me to get out of its picture? Has the agency decided to preempt Erin’s inheritance?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t like a lot of what I saw in your file. You’re lethal and you’re unreliable. Nobody has ever figured out how to control you, except maybe that sour old gunnery sergeant in the marine corps. I’d just as soon you didn’t come anywhere near my daughter.”

  “I’m not lining up to be your son-in-law. I’m just trying to buy Crazy Abe’s mineral claims.”

  Windsor hesitated, drew a deep breath, and let it out. “That’s the problem, Blackburn. I don’t think Erin is going to sell. She won’t take help or direction from me, and she won’t divest herself in favor of investors put forth by the agency. She’s got the bit in her teeth and there’s bugger-all I can do about it.”

  For an instant Cole wasn’t sure whether to swear or cheer. He’d guessed that Erin was a woman who answered to herself and for herself, a person who chose her restraints as carefully as he did. But even while the maverick in Cole cheered a kindred spirit, the pragmatist in him swore quiet, unhappy oaths. Erin’s love of freedom could cost her life.

  Not to mention Cole Blackburn’s.

  “Shit,” he said, his eyes narrowed against a combination of anger and admiration that surprised him.

  “Yeah,” Windsor agreed. “Shit. My daughter is lovely, talented, and bright, but she knows zip about bucking nations and corporations. As a matter of fact, up to now she has structured her life with total privacy in mind.”

  “Do you blame her?”

  “No. There are times I’d like to retire from the world myself. But I didn’t inherit the Sleeping Dog Mines. Erin did. If she won’t sell her inheritance, she’ll have to live with the real world.”

  “Or die with it.”

  “I’d like to avoid that. What about you?”

  “I think the woman who created Arctic Odyssey is worth more than her weight in fancy diamonds.”

  There was a moment of startled silence before Windsor laughed. “They were right. You’re a real loose cannon.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” Cole asked dryly. “The spooks you work for?”

  “Among others.” Windsor hesitated before continuing. “I’ve been with the CIA for thirty-two years. I’ve had to do some hard things in that time, but I’m proud of my agency, of my record, and of my country.”

  Cole made a neutral sound.

  “This is the first time in my entire career that I’ve put my own interests and those of my family ahead of the agency’s,” Windsor said simply.

  Cole sensed that the other man was telling the truth. But Cole also understood that Windsor was a trained, experienced, and skillful operator of covert schemes.

  “That’s very uplifting,” Cole said blandly. “But you’re forgetting I know what you do for a living.”

  The other man smiled grimly. “I spent a long night last night, reading and rereading your file. In some ways, the important ones, we’re a lot alike. You’ve never betrayed a friend or forgotten an enemy. I want Erin to be your friend. I want you to help her even if she won’t sell you Abe’s claims. In return I’ll do everything I can to help you. I won’t betray the agency, but I’ll cut every corner I can as long as I can—information, logistical support, whatever you want. When the time comes that Erin is ready to move on to something else, I’ll guarantee you the inside track on the sale of her claims. Just keep her alive.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  For an instant Windsor was furious. Then he looked at Cole’s pale crystalline eyes and realized he meant every word: He would do what he could.

  “All right,” Windsor said softly. “But there are a few things I still don’t understand about you.”

  “Do they matter?”

  “They might. How did you get hold of Abe’s will?”

  Cole shook his head.

  “That’s what I thought,” Windsor said coldly. “How can a man who prizes his independence so goddamn much belong to one of the most ruthless tongs in Asia?”

  “Easy. I don’t belong to the family of Chen.”

  “Do they know that?”

  “Not my problem,” Cole said calmly.

  “It will be if you make the mistake of thinking Erin’s interests in this are identical to the Chen family’s.”

  “I don’t give a damn about Uncle Li’s interests.”

  After a moment Windsor nodded curtly. “Good. That saves me the trouble of taking you out of the game and finding someone else to look for Erin’s diamonds, someone I’d control. There are a half-dozen good geologists in the agency.”

  “Baker is the only one who could find brown shit on a white tablecloth,” Cole said, “and he’s on loan from Con-Min. If the CIA ever really wants to find a diamond mine, give me a call.”

  Windsor smiled. “I just did, didn’t I?”

  The door opened and closed and Cole was alone in the conference room. He took a long breath, let it out soundlessly, and wondered how a much younger Erin had found the guts to go against her old man.

  11

  Beverly Hills

  Erin was on her way out of the hotel room when the phone rang. She answered, expecting either her father or Nan Faulkner, who had quietly insisted on coming to the meeting with Cole Blackburn. The faintly hollow sound of the connection told Erin the call was long distance even before she heard the voice of Jeffrey Fisher, her New York editor. He was her age and one of the hottest young stars in the field of art publishing. He was also so excited he could hardly speak.

  “How do you do it?” Fisher demanded. “You’re a witch, aren�
�t you? You cast spells on people from your den up there beyond the Arctic Circle. That’s it. You’re a sorceress. I used to think I was the only one haunted by your aloofness, but I can see you own the whole world. They’re dying to beat a path to your door and cover you with wealth and glory.”

  “Jeff, what in the name of God are you babbling about? Slow down.”

  “Slow down? No way, can’t do it, no reason to do it, and you’ll be as wild as I am when you hear what just happened. It’s the chance of a lifetime. It’s a book that will make you the most famous photographer in the world. It’s fantastic, it’s incredible. It’s…” His voice died as he searched for the word he wanted.

  “Spit it out. It’s…?”

  “Diamonds,” he said in a hushed voice.

  A chill moved over Erin. “What?”

  “Diamonds. You’ve just been invited to do a definitive—no, make that the definitive—book about the most glamorous thing on the face of the earth.”

  “Invited?” She cleared her throat. “Really? By whom? When?”

  “By the people who own all the diamonds in the world, that’s who. Consolidated Minerals, the company that controls the output of every diamond mine worth mentioning. ConMin has decided to cooperate in the most extensive and expensive photographic study of their product ever undertaken. They want one and only one photographer to do it. Erin Shane. Apparently somebody saw your work in Arctic Odyssey and said, ‘If she can do that for frozen water, think what she can do for real ice.’”

  Erin closed her eyes and thought about coincidences. Nothing she told herself made her stomach stop sinking.

  Fisher caught onto the fact that Erin wasn’t nearly as excited as he was. “Hey, kid, listen up,” he said. “You’ve been out in the cold too long. It’s frozen your brain. Harry Conner went nuts for the idea, especially because Con-Min would be underwriting the project. He’s talking a solid advance—middle six figures at least, maybe more. If you play your cards right, your agent might be able to get it to seven figures, all to the left of the zero. That would be for world rights, of course.”