Death is Forever

rigors of the climate and the land?” van Luik asked.
    “The buildup got to her real quick. She’s short-tempered as a cat in a bath. She and Blackburn aren’t as chummy as they were.”
    “How close were they?”
    “Fucking close.”
    Van Luik grimaced. “Has she made any progress on finding clues in ‘Chunder’?”
    “She spends a lot of time reading it.”
    “Good.”
    “Why?”
    “A person does not work on a puzzle that is already solved.” There was silence while van Luik fought against the impulse to squeeze the bridge of his nose. “How is Mr. Blackburn holding up?”
    “Mean as a snake,” Street said cheerfully. “Going on short rations will do that to a man.”
    “Rations? Is there a problem getting food to the station?”
    “Food isn’t the problem. Sex is. They’re sleeping in the same room but not on the same blanket.”
    “Your information is quite complete.”
    “That’s my job,” Street said. “If you don’t believe me, go to the station yourself.”
    “I will leave that dubious pleasure to you.” Van Luik drew a thin parcel from his suit coat and slid it across the table. The packet was wrapped in bright yellow plastic and secured with string wrapped in a figure eight around two buttons. “Do not open it.”
    Street glanced down. “What is it?”
    “Your entree, a letter of introduction to Miss Windsor.” Van Luik reached into his pocket and withdrew a sheet of paper. “This is a photocopy.”
    Without a word, Street took the sheet, read quickly, and looked up.
    “Genuine?” Street asked bluntly.
    “Does it matter?”
    “Not as long as the signature passes muster.”
    “There will be no difficulty with the signature.”
    “Bloody hell. Somebody really twisted the CIA’s balls.” Street shot van Luik a glance. “ConMin? Or was it their own government?”
    Van Luik retrieved the copy, stood, and walked out without a word.
    It wasn’t until the plane was over the vast Pacific Ocean that painkillers subdued van Luik’s savage headache. Just as he slid into sleep, the thought that had nagged beneath the pulses of agony surfaced.
    Street had never mentioned having any satellite scrambler except the one van Luik had given him.

32
Abe’s station
    Dawn was a silent tidal wave of heat and savage light. The Kimberley Plateau’s big birds of prey spread dark wings and leaped from their boab tree perch into the rising inferno. Erin crouched over first one tripod and then another, triggering the shutters repeatedly, refocusing, triggering again, moving quickly until the rapid snick snick snick of the motor drive fed the last thin strip of film and fell silent.
    Even as she reached for the third camera body she’d loaded with film, she sighed and knew it was too late. The moment of the predatory kites’ dark awakening was over. She stretched her back, sighed, and began removing cameras from their tripod mounts.
    “That’s it?” Cole asked, rising from the darkness beneath an acacia tree.
    She jumped. She’d been so intent on her work that she’d forgotten he was nearby, watching her, shotgun in hand.
    “Yes,” she said. “I’m through for now.”
    She packed up her camera equipment, shouldered all of it, and looked around at the land that was slowly, inescapably being transformed by the rising violence of the sun. She was learning new rhythms in this strange, austere country. One of them was to rise early and savor the relative coolness.
    For a few minutes each morning the sun felt almost welcome.
    Almost, but not quite. Despite the fact that dawn was less than five minutes old, the temperature was already in the high eighties. The heavy blanket of air simply didn’t let the land cool off, even during the hours of darkness. Each day was hotter and more humid than the one before. Each day the clouds teased and muttered and didn’t deliver rain.
    Squinting against the early light, she looked up at the black designs made by the Kimberley kites soaring gracefully in a sky that seethed with light.
    “I’ve always wondered,” she said softly, watching the kites, “whether birds of prey spend so much time hanging in the sky because they can, or because they must.”
    “Probably they can because they must.”
    When Cole reached for the straps of the camera bags, his fingers brushed over the bare skin of Erin’s arm. She flinched and stepped back, saying without words that she didn’t want his touch or his help.
    His mouth flattened as he turned away and