Death is Forever

body lay. There wasn’t enough money in all ofAbe’s mines to make her pick up those diamonds. Street was welcome to them. He’d certainly paid enough for them.
    Before she was finished, Cole came back. He was carrying the shotgun. “Leave the rest. We’re getting out of here before anyone else comes.”
    “I don’t think I can walk very far,” she said with eerie calm.
    “Neither can I. Street was flying the station helicopter.” When Cole turned away he stumbled slightly, caught himself, and kept walking. “Move it, Erin. I loaded everything that matters into the chopper.”
    “Where are we going?”
    “Windsor station. Now that Street’s dead, it should be safe. In any case, it’s the last place anyone will expect to find us.”
    Drawing together the shreds of her strength, she picked up the rucksack and followed Cole out of the cave.
    For the first few minutes the steamy heat felt like a foretaste of heaven. By the time she’d walked to the helicopter, she was back in hell, sweating. Cole wasn’t. When he handed her into the chopper, his skin felt distinctly cool.
    The chopper leaped up, jittered raggedly, and finally settled.
    Ten minutes later she glanced at Cole and saw his head hang, then slowly come upright. He was fighting to stay conscious.
    And he was losing.

46
On the way to Abe’s station
    Rain fell in sheets and torrents over the bubble canopy of the helicopter, cutting visibility to a few hundred yards. Erin read the instruments for Cole as he pointed to them. Her voice was flat, as numb as her mind. She should have been terrified but she was simply too worn out to care.
    She knew it must be much worse for Cole.
    She sensed a great weariness in him. His coordination and his vision were erratic. He was sweating but his skin was cold. Time after time the helicopter sagged to one side or the other in gusts of wind and each time he reacted more slowly to correct their course. Concussion had sapped his strength. He was operating on nerve and reflex alone, and all around them a storm’s dying fury gripped the world.
    “We should set down,” she said.
    “Too far away. We wouldn’t make it.”
    She didn’t argue. It was the truth. She’d barely had the strength to drag herself and the rucksack to the chopper.
    “You have a concussion,” she said.
    “No shit. Read the compass.”
    She focused on the compass.
    A lightning bolt sizzled from cloud to earth, making the earphones Erin and Cole wore crackle violently. He flinched at the sound and turned the volume down on the radio.
    They flew out of the squall as suddenly as they’d flown into it. Within minutes wind tore holes in the black line of clouds. Sun hammered through the openings with stunning force, pulling great sheets of steam from the drenched land.
    Off to the left a tin roof gleamed in watery brilliance beneath the gloom of a storm cell that still had enough power to trail thick sheets of rain from its wild clouds.
    “Look,” she said, touching his arm and pointing to the left. “Isn’t that the station?”
    “ ’Sbout time.”
    The words were slurred. Cole’s face was drawn in harsh lines of effort as he corrected the helicopter’s course. When they flew into the trailing edge of the squall, the helicopter bucked and quivered like an unruly horse. He swore at the controls and at the reflexes that simply wouldn’t respond as quickly as they should.
    The chopper slewed through the rain and wind until the lights of Windsor station were a few hundred feet below them.
    “Look—for—strange—vehicles,” he said thickly.
    He banked the helicopter and flew in a wide, ragged circle around the perimeter of the station buildings. She looked through veils of rain at the ground. Several lanterns glowed inside the large tent that had been erected as a bunkhouse for the Chinese men, but no one was out in the yard. Obviously the men had settled in to wait out the storm.
    A pale flash caught her attention. “There’s a white four-wheel-drive vehicle parked in back of the house.”
    “Street’s. Any others?”
    “No.”
    Cole let out a sigh that was almost a groan. “Thank God.”
    As he circled to the front of the station house, the door opened and a small figure stepped out.
    “It’s Lai,” Erin said.
    “Alone?”
    “As far as I can see, yes.”
    Lai stepped out of the shelter of the awning and looked up into the sky, shielding her eyes against the falling rain.
    Cole shook his head sharply, then winced.