Death is Forever

Pacific.
    One by one he began rolling up the maps that he’d spread on the broad hardwood table. Carefully he returned each map to its own cardboard tube and placed them in the storage rack. The maps belonged to BlackWing’s L.A. headquarters. He’d spent most of the last two hours poring over the best Western Australia maps BlackWing could offer, looking for some hint of a suggestion, searching for the faintest of clues to point the way to the source of Crazy Abe Windsor’s diamond mine.
    Cole might as well have taken a nap. BlackWing’s maps were designed to locate metallic ore claims—iron or nickel, uranium or gold. They didn’t give him many of the fine geological details that he needed to find diamonds.
    He glanced at his watch, but what caught his eye was the copy of Arctic Odyssey that lay open on the desk. He’d turned to the book repeatedly in the past twenty-four hours, as though it would somehow help him under stand the woman he was about to meet. The photograph that most haunted him covered two pages. It showed dawn and tundra, ice and nesting geese. “Uncertain Spring” could have been a trite portrayal of seasonal regeneration, but it wasn’t. Instead, the photo showed an arctic dawn where life hung on by a bloody fingernail.
    Slowly Cole ran his fingertips over the picture, as though he could feel as well as see it. The photo captured a freezing summer dawn. In the background, seen through low streamers of windblown snow, more ghostly shapes than living flesh, adult geese put their heads to the screaming wind as they flattened themselves protectively over their nests.
    In the foreground of the picture, beneath a transparent shroud of ice, lay a gosling that would never feel the warmth of the rising sun. The small creature’s death was agonizing, as was the beauty of the new day and the determination of the adult geese to save their remaining offspring.
    Looking at “Uncertain Spring,” Cole knew that Erin Windsor had discovered the frailty, even the absurdity, of life.
    He only hoped she had learned something about the value of life as well, her own included. If she had, she would be happy to take BlackWing’s offer—three million dollars for her interest in an Australian diamond mine that might not even exist.
    Brooding over the photo, he wondered if Erin Windsor would recognize the danger of being owner of a unique diamond mine whose output ConMin couldn’t control or bury with the contents of their huge London vault. Certainly Matthew Windsor would know the danger to his daughter. Any professional intelligence analyst would be able to calculate the danger down to the last bit of money, adrenaline, and blood.
    Cole hoped that, at twenty-seven, Erin would still listen to her father’s advice. If she did, she’d be satisfied with BlackWing’s offer. If not, there would be hell to pay.
    And Erin would be the one paying it.
    He glanced again at his Rolex, then at the battered tin box with its burden of priceless gems and worthless poetry. He slipped the tin box into a briefcase secured with a combination lock and fitted with a steel handcuff. With a wry smile he clicked the cuff into place around his left wrist, knowing that he was more the briefcase’s prisoner than vice versa. Then he went out of the office, locking the door behind him.
    The thirty-eighth floor of the BlackWing Building contained the executive suites. The building was expensive and discreet, like BlackWing itself. Cole took the elevator down to street level and reentered the push and pull of the everyday world in downtown Los Angeles. The other offices in the building were vomiting their nightly portion of commuters. Clerks and craftsmen and brokers crowded the lobby.
    Cole and the chained briefcase didn’t attract any attention. Besides BlackWing, the building housed dozens of gemstone wholesalers and jewelry dealers. Men of a dozen nationalities and all races came and went frequently, carrying similar briefcases. It was another sign of the care Chen Li-tsao had exercised positioning BlackWing for its assault on the diamond tiger.
    A black Mercedes limousine waited at the curb. Its driver leaned against the gleaming front fender, waiting with a look of professional indifference on his face. When Cole emerged from the building, the driver straightened and moved to open the rear door of the limo.
    “Good afternoon, Mr. Blackburn. Still going to Beverly Hills?”
    “Yes.”
    The driver was young, athletic,