Death is Forever

his back to the room, clearly separating himself from whatever happened next.
    “I have a child myself,” Faulkner said, lighting up a thin cigarillo. “If he were in this kind of fix, I’d be standing by the window and letting your father explain the facts of life. A good man, your father. But he’s personally involved, so he’s not calling the shots for the agency on this one. I am.”
    Motionless, Erin waited while Faulkner drew on her cigarillo and blew out a streamer of smoke.
    “Let’s build a couple of scenarios,” Faulkner said. “If we assume Abe was simply crazy and had nothing more on his station than cow shit and flies, there’s no problem. You go to Australia, and then you stay there or come home. No big deal. Right?”
    Erin nodded.
    “A pretty scenario,” Faulkner said, staring out the window. “It would be nice if it was true. But I’ve got a gut certainty it isn’t.”
    “Why? Just because you and my father have chosen to live in a world of conspiracies and betrayals and lies doesn’t mean that my world has to be that way.”
    “Until you became Abe’s heir, you had the choice,” Faulkner said calmly. “Now you don’t. Consider this scenario. Maybe the diamonds are real but not from Australia. Maybe they were stolen from Namibia by dissidents who used them to purchase arms.”
    “Then how did Abe get them?”
    “Does it matter? The normal route for submarine goods—smuggled diamonds—is to European or American cutting centers via Egypt. Maybe some of Abe’s old prospector buddies were smugglers. Maybe they preyed on the smugglers or knew those who did. Maybe Abe was a smuggler himself. What do you think, Matt?”
    “I hope to hell he was, because it would mean there’s not much danger for Erin in Australia. Smugglers certainly wouldn’t approach her to buy or sell or hold their goods. Smuggled goods would also answer the question of why Erin was warned off ConMin. ConMin, after all, would be the legal owners of those diamonds.”
    Erin didn’t like what she was hearing, but there was a logic to it that she was too intelligent to dismiss.
    “But that scenario still leaves open the question of Abe’s ‘jewel box,’” Windsor continued. “Was it simply a cache for stolen Namibian gems? If so, then Erin is in some danger if she goes to Australia, because other people—smugglers—will know about the cache.”
    “Your father’s right,” Faulkner said, turning back to Erin. “The danger to you could be finessed if Abe was just a smuggler, a channel. You could go to Australia with a cadre of expert bodyguards and stage a determined, very public search of the station premises. You wouldn’t find jack. You’d leave to take photographs of the outback and then fade from the picture. Nobody would ever bother you again.”
    A long plume of smoke rose from Faulkner’s full, beautiful lips.
    “Here’s another scenario,” Faulkner said. “Assume Abe was crazy like a fox. Assume he really had God’s own diamond mine hidden somewhere on his station. A mine that could yield tens or even hundreds of pounds of diamonds like that handful on the table.”
    Faulkner watched Erin’s instant disbelief followed by speculation and then by unhappy realization.
    “That’s right,” Faulkner said, nodding. “You’re talking about the kind of money that goes beyond wealth to become power. Raw political power. The kind of power that people, corporations, and nations kill for.”
    “I don’t want that,” Erin said instantly.
    “What you want and what you get ain’t the same thing,” Faulkner said sardonically. “Scenario number four. Do you have any idea how many new gem-quality diamond mines have come into production in the past fifty years?”
    “No.”
    “I do,” Faulkner said. “I did a survey that’s locked in a vault in Virginia right now. New mines have entered production in the Soviet Union, in Australia, and in a few African republics that can be brought to heel by the cartel. The Soviets had to invent some polite ideological fictions, but they fell right into bed with ConMin because ConMin controlled the world outlet for their stones. Australia did the same. But only a handful of mines have been discovered, maybe a new one every decade.”
    “Not surprising,” Erin said. “Diamonds are rare.”
    “That’s what ConMin tells us every chance it gets,” Faulkner retorted. “The diamond cartel has hundreds of geologists exploring all over the world.