Death is Forever (35 page)

“Love? You?” Erin made an odd sound that could have been a laugh or a sob. “Sweet God, Cole, credit me with enough sense to come in out of the rain.”

“Yeah, I figured that’s how you’d look at it. Congratulations, honey. You’ve finally learned to be a survivor. Now you’ll have the same problem I had—finding something worth surviving for.”

Erin looked away, unable to meet the bleakness of Cole’s eyes.

“I’m going to call Chen Wing and tell him to come and get his ever-loving sister,” Cole said to Erin. “If you don’t like that idea, you’ve got a gun. Use it.”

Swaying, Erin fought the slow trembling that was taking her body.

“You saved my life out there,” she said raggedly, lowering the gun. “I kept Lai from killing you. We’re even.”

Cole’s smile made ice slide down Erin’s spine. “Lai wasn’t going to kill me. She was going to have me sign a marriage certificate—right after she killed you.”

Lai’s head dipped gracefully as she brushed her chin caressingly across the powerful hand that was still holding her prisoner.

“If the baby had been male,” Lai said huskily, “I would never have aborted it. But the child was only female and you were in Brazil. It is not too late, beloved. She will not shoot you. Take the gun from her. Together we could rule the diamond tiger.”

In the stretching silence, the sound of Erin’s broken breathing was far too loud. Cole watched as the gun muzzle shifted to Lai’s head and Erin’s finger tightened on the trigger. He made no move to interfere, simply waited with inhuman patience for whatever Erin decided.

“You’re better at handling snakes than I am,” Erin said hoarsely, lowering the gun. “Kill her or keep her for a pet, it makes no difference to me.”

Erin walked out of the room without looking back.

“It was good of you to come here,” Chen Wing said to his guests.

The man nodded. The woman ignored him.

Wing closed the door of BlackWing’s Los Angeles office behind Erin and Matthew Windsor. Wing’s dark glance came back to Erin and stayed. She looked different from her photo. Older. More reserved. More controlled. Her hair was pulled back in a sleek chignon. Her clothes were expensive and casual.

But it was her eyes that had changed the most. There was a cool assessment in them that hadn’t been there before.

“Please. Sit down,” Wing said.

He smiled slightly and gestured for Erin and her father to sit at the long conference table. A closed carton sat in the center of the table.

She eyed the carton, decided it contained computer paper, and concentrated on Chen Wing. In his own way, Wing was as striking as his sister. The same perfection of physical form. The same intelligence. The same shrewd black eyes.

“How is your sister?” Windsor asked blandly as he sat down.

“The psychiatrist offers great hope for her eventual recovery,” Wing said. “Until then, of course, she will have to remain medicated and under constant psychiatric observation.”

“Why?” Erin asked bluntly. “Cole broke her wrist, not her skull.”

“I’m afraid Lai’s mind was never very strong. We have had to, ah, oversee her daily life before.”

“Really?” Erin said. “Be sure her overseers have stout chairs and steel-tipped whips.”

Windsor looked at his watch. “We’re on a rather tight schedule, Wing.”

“Of course.” Wing looked directly at Erin. “Cole insists that he owns only half of Black Dog Mines, the half you gave him as a finder’s fee.”

“I gave him half of what I inherited,” Erin said in a cool voice. “Whether I inherited all or half of Black Dog Mines depends on how well you like the signature on the IOU Lai mentioned. Unless you really subscribe to the notion that your sister is crazy.”

“Cole refuses to press recognition of Abelard Windsor’s gambling debt, although there is no doubt the debt exists,” Wing said carefully. “Cole also refuses to make a deal with DSD for more than the half of Black Dog’s output that BlackWing owns. The members of the diamond cartel are understandably…restless. Half a resource does not constitute a monopoly.”

She shrugged. “So they’ll make a little less money. So what?”

Wing looked at Windsor. “Haven’t you told her?”

“My father doesn’t own one carat of Black Dog’s rough,” she said distinctly. “Talk to me, not him.”

“If the cartel is broken,” Wing said, “industrial diamonds will be priced beyond the reach of emerging Third World countries such as China.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If the diamond monopoly is broken, the price should fall.”

“The price of gem diamonds, yes,” Wing said. “But not the price of bort.”

“Why?”

“The cost of cleaning out a diamond pipe is staggering,” Wing said simply. “Bort does not repay the cost of its own mining. For a diamond mine to make any profit, the gem diamonds must be sold at reliable, inflated prices.”

“Then make industrial diamonds in your labs,” she suggested indifferently.

Wing looked in silent appeal at Windsor, who sighed and began speaking.

“It’s not that easy, baby,” Windsor said. “Lab synthesis is coming along, but it still isn’t nearly as cheap as the cartel’s bort. Besides, even if lab diamonds got the job done at a low price, Japan has the best process. No one wants the Japanese to have any more international economic clout than they already have.”

For a moment she was silent, weighing what had been said. And what had not.

“What you’re telling me,” she said finally, “is that it would be tough for Third World countries to industrialize without low-priced industrial diamonds.”

A shuttered look came over Wing’s face. “It would be nearly impossible. Diamonds are far more important in manufacturing than most people realize, especially in the type of manufacturing that is within reasonable reach of emerging economies.” Wing spread his hands in silent appeal. “Isn’t it better to let the luxury diamond trade in First World countries subsidize the cost of mining industrial diamonds for the Second and Third Worlds?”

“An industrialization the Chen family is in a position to control in China,” Erin pointed out evenly, “a country that has more than a fifth of the world population and a tradition of being central to all Asian power. Whoever controls China will soon control all the Pacific Rim economies except the U.S.A. and Japan. You could, of course, ally yourself with Japan. In that case the U.S. would be driven into even stronger economic alliances with Europe. Even with Japan’s help, you can’t expect to succeed. Correct?”

Wing nodded slowly, understanding too late that Erin was as bright as Cole had warned him she would be.

And as hostile.

“I won’t even discuss the Chen family’s persistent interest in strategic minerals, which are handled through one of ConMin’s many companies,” Erin continued. “Nor will I dwell on the fact that if the cartel goes under, Black Dog Mines’ value goes through the floor, taking with it BlackWing’s half interest in a hugely lucrative chunk of real estate.”

Wing shot Windsor a look.

Erin’s father didn’t notice. He was watching his daughter with amused admiration.

“You’ve done your homework, baby.”

“As in opening my eyes?” She smiled coolly. “As I said to Cole, I’m a slow learner, but I do learn.”

“The Chen family is already quite wealthy,” Wing said neutrally. “We don’t depend upon ConMin for that wealth, or upon Black Dog Mines.”

Erin looked at her father.

“He’s telling the truth,” Windsor said. “The Chens aren’t bucking Hugo van Luik and DSD just for money. They want power.”

“How does Nan Faulkner feel about that?” Erin asked.

“She’d rather give the Chen family power than sink the diamond cartel. Right now the Soviets need the cartel too much.” Windsor shrugged. “Besides, the cartel is the devil we know, and we’ve spent forty years learning how to get a handle on it. We’ve turned it into a game of checks and balances. At this point no single country’s interests rules. Not even ours.”

Erin waited. Her father simply watched her. “No advice for me?” she asked. “That’s new.”

“You’re too busy looking for blood to listen.” Windsor smiled slightly. “Besides, you don’t need my advice. You’ve changed, baby.”

“Being hunted like an animal does that.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said quickly, smiling. “I’m not complaining about the changes. You can’t own half of Black Dog and be a trusting soul. And you’re not planning on giving up control of your half of the mine, are you?”

“I haven’t decided.”

“Three choices,” Windsor said, yawning. He’d spent too many sleepless nights worrying about Erin’s safety and Nan Faulkner’s mistakes. “One: Hand over control of your half of the mine to someone and walk away. Two: Keep control and grab a piece of the diamond tiger. Three: Kill the tiger by talking Cole into withholding his half of the rough from DSD.”

She nodded, having reached the same conclusion herself in the middle of the many long nights she’d spent neither awake nor asleep, half dreaming, half remembering, regret and desire and anger clawing her soul. “As I said, I haven’t decided.”

With a small sound, Wing cleared his throat. “The third choice isn’t a realistic option.”

“What you’re saying is that dear old Uncle Li won’t let Cole break the cartel.” It was a statement rather than a question.

The smile Wing gave Erin was as thin as the cutting edge of a knife. “Unfortunately, no one controls Cole Blackburn, not even my very clever uncle. But Cole is far from stupid. He knows it would not take much of a bomb to close off the cave or even to destroy the commercial value of the diamonds with radiation and pass it off as a mining accident.”

Erin’s mahogany eyebrows lifted. “Sounds rather drastic.”

“Quit baiting the man,” Windsor said, yawning again. “One way or another, nearly every country in the world has a stake in the cartel. No one would help you cut its throat. All of them would rather have Black Dog destroyed, and you with it, than have the cartel broken.”

“Cole knows the danger,” Wing said to her. “He does not want you hurt. He has made unpleasantly vivid to Uncle Li exactly what would happen to the family of Chen if any, ah, accident were to overtake you.”

Windsor’s eyes narrowed. “If Erin had an ‘accident,’ Blackburn isn’t the only one who would come down on the Chen family like seven years of bad luck.”

Wing nodded. “Granted, but it is Cole Blackburn we fear.”

With an effort Erin kept her face impassive, revealing nothing of her inner turmoil. “You’re jumping at shadows, Mr. Chen. Cole Blackburn would trade me for a bucket of diamonds. In fact, he already did.”

“Bullshit, baby,” Windsor said instantly.

She gave him a bleak look.

“I’ve talked to Cole,” Windsor said, “which is more than you can say.”

“When?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Is he all right?”

“His skull wasn’t fractured. His brain is working just fine. As soon as he was back on his feet, he called to ask me two questions. The first was where Hans Schmidt is.”

Her mouth dropped in shock. “Why in God’s name would Cole want to find Hans?”

“To kill him,” Windsor said impatiently. “Why else?”

“I…that’s…” She shook her head, too stunned to speak.

“So I told Cole where Hans was. Name, rank, serial number, and exact address of the hospital where Hans lives in unholy matrimony with a respirator and a feeding tube sewn into his gut.”

She tried to say something. She couldn’t. In seven years her father had never mentioned Hans Schmidt’s name.

“Seems the sorry son of a bitch had an accident about seven years ago,” Windsor said with icy satisfaction. “One of those nasty little tricks of fate. A car wreck. Glass everywhere, including in every inch of good old Hans.”

“An accident,” she repeated hollowly.

“He’s completely paralyzed,” Windsor continued in a soft voice. “Well, not completely. He could still blink his eyes, if he had any eyelids. He could see, if he had any eyes. He could talk, if he had a tongue. He could come, if he had a pecker and balls. But he doesn’t have any of those things. His brain waves are fairly normal, so his mind is intact. Lucky Hans.”

Wing’s breath went out in a stream of rapid Cantonese.

“Cole thought it over,” Windsor continued calmly, “and decided that Hans would look on death as a favor, and Cole wasn’t feeling particularly generous. He wishes Hans a long, long life. So do I, baby. So do I.”

“An accident,” Wing said in English. “How…convenient.”

Windsor looked at him. “Nothing personal. A message had to be sent to the opposition about civilian dependents being mauled by professionals for no better reason than sadistic pleasure. I got to choose the message. It was received. Not one dependent has been touched in seven years.” He looked back at his daughter. “The second thing Cole wanted to know was if the letter Jason Street had with my signature on it was a forgery.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice thin.

“Probably the same reason he wanted to know where Hans was,” Windsor said dryly. “You may have walked away from Cole, but he hasn’t walked away from you. I’ll tell you the truth, baby. I’m damned glad the note was a forgery. That’s one tough man you have.”

“He’s not my man. All he wanted was the mine.”

“I don’t believe that and neither do you.”

“You would if you’d heard the tape.”

“I heard several versions of it,” Windsor said impatiently. “All of them were true as far as they went. They just didn’t go far enough. People keep forgetting that Cole Blackburn is as independent as an avalanche. He didn’t just wag his tail and line up for the Chen family’s diamond-studded collar and leash.”

“How do you know?”

“Simple. I went up to his office to have an off-the-record chat with him before I ‘met’ him with Nan Faulkner. I asked Cole why he was doing it. He told me that a woman who could take photographs like you was worth more than her weight in fancy diamonds.”

Erin made a small, startled sound.

“So I’ll bet he took the IOU from Wing,” Windsor said, “and went along with the game to prevent the Chen family from forging another IOU and cutting a deal with someone who wouldn’t care if you lived or died. It’s what I would have done if I’d been Cole and cared about your survival.”

Wing smiled wryly. “Uncle Li recently arrived at the same conclusion. You and Cole are a lot alike, aren’t you?”

“In some ways,” Windsor agreed. “But not in one. I’d rather die than be down in that damned black hole right now, racing the monsoon rains for a bucketful of diamonds, watching the water level around me rise and rise and rise until there’s no way out but death.”

Erin’s hand shot out and grabbed her father’s wrist.
“What are you talking about?”

“You heard me.”

“But Cole knows how dangerous it is! He wouldn’t risk his life for more diamonds, no matter how many!”

“Why not? What else does he have going for him? The woman he would have died for—and damn near did—walked away from him. That leaves him with second prize, the richest diamond strike ever made and the most expensive slice of hell ever owned by man.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered, forcing the words past the aching constriction of her throat. “I meant very little to Cole. I was a small affair on the way to a big strike.”

“For God’s sake, Erin—”

“Is that all, Mr. Chen?” she asked, cutting across her father’s words.

“Except for the matter of turning your property over to you, yes.”

“What property? You’ve already replaced the camera equipment that was destroyed when the Rover was buried in a flash flood. I took everything else I owned out of the station when I left.”

“Not quite.”

With quick, graceful movements, Wing opened the carton that sat in the center of the table. He tipped over the box. Eight-by-ten color photos cascaded across the surface of the polished wood. Pieces of the outback flashed and gleamed like glass in a kaleidoscope.

Termite mounds creating an alien city beneath a steamy silver sky.