Death is Forever by Elizabeth Lowell
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.
Fragile, dusty, incredibly stubborn acacia trees growing out of stone.
Lightning arcing across an empty sky.
Empty stretching away to all horizons, relentlessly desolate, absolutely flat, the quintessence of loneliness.
And over all, the sun, always the sun, the blazing eye of an all powerful god.
“But…these are mine,” she whispered.
Every single image had been taken from the rolls of film Erin had left behind in the sabotaged Rover.
“The negatives have been duplicated,” Wing said. “One set is in a vault in the government casino in Darwin. The other set is in the safe here. A third is in your father’s own safe. Cole did not want to take a chance on losing any of your work.”
She tried to speak. She couldn’t. She could only stare at images she’d been certain were lost forever.
“These are really good,” Windsor said, sifting through the photos intently. “Hell, they’re incredible. It’s the best work I’ve seen you do, and that includes Arctic Odyssey. What do you think, baby?”
“I think—” Her voice broke. “Why did you lie about the Rover, Mr. Wing? It wasn’t destroyed. These photos are taken from all the rolls of film I had to leave behind.”
“The Rover and everything in it was destroyed,” Wing said. “Cole carried the exposed film in his rucksack until you went down into the cave.”
“I pointed that out to him,” Wing said dryly. “He said you had taught him there was more to life than just survival, but all he had taught you was the opposite.”
Numbly, fighting emotions she couldn’t even name, she sifted through photo after photo. There were hundreds of them, but only one drew her eye again and again, Cole in the dry watercourse just before the helicopter had come and sent them on a desperate hike across the Kimberley. Cole had been examining a handful of dry-panned grit when he had noticed her stalking him. He’d looked up the instant before she’d triggered the camera. Even shadowed by the brim of his hat, his eyes shone like clear crystal. The intensity in him was stunning, as was the hunger for her he’d never bothered to hide.
If I had Abe’s diamond mine right now, I’d trade it for film and give it to you.
She closed her eyes. She couldn’t look any longer and know that Cole had carried her film through a hell of thirst and pain and danger and had never given up so much as an ounce of his burden.
“You really didn’t know, did you?” Wing asked, watching the slow, silent fall of Erin’s tears.
“He never said anything about saving my film,” she whispered.
“Not the film. Cole. He loves you.”
A shudder went through her body. In the silence that followed Wing’s statement, she heard echoes of other words, her own accusation: You and Abe were a lot alike. Once burned, forever shy.
And Cole’s matter-of-fact response.
You should know, honey. You’re backing away from the fire as fast as you can.
Tilting her head back against the tears that wouldn’t stop falling, she asked herself if what he’d said was true.
“Forgive me, Miss Windsor,” Wing said, “but I must ask again. What are you going to do with your half of Black Dog Mines?”
Without a word Erin stood up and walked out of the room.
48
London Two days later
Like the multicolored foam of a breaking wave, a curling line of extraordinary rough stones ran the length of the DSD’s conference table. Like water itself, the first impression was of transparency flushed with blue, yet there were rainbows trapped within. Rising like bubbles amid the clear foam were flashes of chrome yellow and vivid pink, and exclamation points of a green so pure it had to been seen and touched and held to be believed.
Cole shook the last stone from the battered rucksack and walked the length of the long polished table where crystal ashtrays, sparkling water, and ballpoint or fountain pens awaited the pleasure of the members of the diamond cartel. He nodded slightly to Chen Wing, who was pulling BlackWing’s “prayer” from a sleek leather folder.
Saying nothing to the other people who were staring in shock at the centerpiece he’d poured down the table, Cole went to the chair that had been placed at his request along the wall rather than at the table.
A rising hum of excitement ran through the room.
Mr. Feinberg picked up a pink stone the size of his thumb, pulled a loupe from his pocket, and began muttering in reverent Dutch.
Nan Faulkner gave Cole a shuttered glance, poured a glass of ice water, drank it, and walked over to him.
“I didn’t know Street was compromised,” she said bluntly.
She spoke in a voice that carried no further than his ears. Not that she needed to worry about being overheard. The cartel members were still transfixed by Cole’s casual display of incredible rough goods.
For a long moment Cole looked at Faulkner with eyes that were as hard and emotionless as the clear stones he had dragged from beneath the relentlessly rising black water.
“That’s what Matt told me,” Cole said finally. “If he believes you after the stunt you pulled with that forged letter and house arrest, I guess I can.”
“Does that mean you’ll extend your agreement with DSD?” Faulkner asked quickly. “Three years ain’t shit in the diamond trade and you know it.”
“That’s up to my partner.”
“Mother of God,” Faulkner muttered. “Erin refuses to see me or any representative of DSD.”
“Do you blame her? You nearly got her killed.”
With a narrow black look, Faulkner turned away.
“Faulkner.”
Warily she turned back and faced Cole, warned by the quality of his voice.
“Don’t get in Erin’s way again,” he said.
“I hear you, babe.” Faulkner grimaced. “I heard Matt, too. But both of you would make life a hell of a lot safer for everyone—especially Erin—if you’d get her off the goddamn dime!”
With ill-concealed frustration, Faulkner stalked to the head of the conference table, lit a cigarillo, and opened a beautifully worked Moroccan leather folder. Instantly the room became still but for the soft rustle of prayers being passed up to her and the muted crystal music of stones being returned to the center of the table. Faulkner blew out a stream of smoke, set the cigarillo in a crystal ashtray, and began gathering up the prayers.
“Before I proceed to the business of the day,” Faulkner said, stacking the prayers neatly in front of her, “Mrs. van Luik asked me to express her thanks for your sympathy at the tragic death of her husband. It’s times like this when you find out who your friends are.”
Cole didn’t see the black sideways glance Faulkner threw in his direction. He was doing what he’d done many times since Erin had walked out of his life. He was staring at the green diamond she’d given him to seal their bargain. The stone had been extraordinary in the rough. Shaped, polished, and set in a brushed-platinum band, the tear-shaped diamond was a brilliant green flame burning with every dream, every secret, every hope of man.
Slowly his hand clenched around the ring until the stone’s unfeeling edges bit into his flesh.
“You’ll be pleased to know that a scholarship has been set up in Mr. van Luik’s name,” Faulkner continued. “The money will be used to train promising young geology students who wish to specialize in the discovery and utilization of diamond mines. Bringing such mines into production in an orderly, rational manner is crucial to maintaining stable prices in the diamond market. At a time when economic regimes are collapsing more quickly than we could have imagined a few years ago, maintaining DSD’s stability is pivotal to the economic hopes of many nations.”
She flicked her cigarillo against the crystal ashtray, opened a folder, and withdrew DSD’s answers to the various prayers. After she stacked the papers next to the prayers, she poured a glass of ice water, drank it, and set it aside.
The room was silent except for the muted murmurs of men who still couldn’t believe what had been set before their eyes.
“ConMin isn’t bulletproof,” Faulkner said baldly. “We’re at a crossroads. The reason is spread down the table in front of you. I’ve talked privately with every member of the advisory committee. Does anyone have anything to add?”
This time the silence was complete.
“Then I would like to officially welcome the newest member of the advisory committee, Mr. Chen Wing. Mr. Chen represents the interests of BlackWing Inc., the source of the diamonds you’ve been admiring. Thanks to Mr. Chen’s strenuous arguments with his partner, we will be handling fifty percent rather than twenty-five percent of the output of Black Dog Mines.”
“For how long?” Yarakov demanded.
“Three years.”
An unhappy muttering in several languages ran around the table.
“That is not enough time for short-term economic planning,” Yarakov said.
The intercom began chiming with sweet insistence. Faulkner ignored it. It kept chiming.
With a sharp curse, Faulkner slapped the switch. “This better be good.”
“A Miss Erin Windsor is here.”
“That’s real good, babe. Send her in.”
The big door opened and Erin walked through. As she walked the length of the table, she didn’t notice the approving masculine looks from the various cartel members. She had eyes only for the big man who sat removed from the conference, his eyes hooded as he watched her.
Cole was dressed as he’d been when she’d first seen him—black silk sport coat, gray slacks, white shirt, no tie. She also was dressed the same as she had been then, in black shirt and slacks still rumpled from the suitcase.
“Well?” Faulkner demanded when Erin would have walked by without a word.
“What did Cole say?” she asked without stopping.
“A trial run,” Faulkner said quickly. “Three years, fifty percent of the output.”
“One year, one hundred percent,” Erin countered as she stopped in front of Cole.
“Two years, one hundred percent,” he suggested.
“Two years, one hundred percent,” she agreed.
“Mazel und broche,” Faulkner said quickly, sealing the bargain.
A chorus of mazels went around the table, echoed by Erin and Cole.
With a look of shuttered hope, Cole watched the woman whose eyes were more beautiful than the diamond clenched in his fist.
“Two years, huh?” he asked, his voice deep, almost rough.
“Not for you.” Lifting her left hand, she traced his mouth with fingertips that trembled. “You don’t get off that easily. No trial run. All the years of your life. One hundred percent.”
Silently Cole opened his hand, revealing the green flame of the diamond ring. “What about you?”
“The same. One hundred percent. All the years of my life.”
He put the ring on her finger and pulled her onto his lap. Just before he kissed her, he whispered against her mouth.
“Welcome aboard the diamond tiger.”
Author’s Note
When I began writing The Diamond Tiger in early 1990, the world was a very different place than it is now. Updating the book in the sense of bringing plot points into the twenty-first century was impossible. Too much has happened, from huge diamond finds in Canada to wrenching political changes around the world.