Death is Forever

wives, and private lives to the greater glory of the collective. As a matter of principle, independent men or women had to be seduced, intimidated, bought, or removed. Independence was an enemy to Consolidated Minerals, to the Central Intelligence Agency, and to the Chen family.
    If Matthew Windsor was a devoted CIA officer, he would think nothing of using his daughter’s inheritance as a stalking horse for American interests. If he was a truly amoral player, he would use his daughter without telling her.
    Darkness was turning the windows on the thirty-eighth floor into partial mirrors. The city beyond was still there, but reflections from the room flickered across the face of the glass each time Cole moved.
    And even when he didn’t.
    His conscious mind was still registering that fact as he spun away from the desk and came to his feet in a single motion. A knife blade gleamed in his hand as he went swiftly, silently to the door joining the two rooms of the office suite.
    “Impressive,” a voice said from the next room, “but a pistol has more range. I’m Matthew Windsor, by the way. I can prove it if you don’t mind letting me reach into my pocket.”
    Cole looked at the tall, solidly built man in a dark suit who was waiting in the doorway that led to the hall. The man wore an expression of well-chilled competence. He also had eyes the same shape and color as his daughter’s.
    “You’re early,” Cole said, returning the knife to its wrist sheath with an easy movement.
    “Nobody knows I’m here. I’d like to keep it that way.”
    A tongue of adrenaline licked through Cole, quickening his whole body. “What did you do with the guard?”
    “Don’t worry. I didn’t stuff anybody in a closet. The floor guard at the elevator was very polite. He’s getting a cold glass of water so I can take my heart medicine.”
    “I’ll see to it he’s retrained. Maybe we can find a job for him in the infirmary.” Cole gestured toward the hall door. “After you.”
    “Cautious man.”
    “I want to live long enough to take heart medicine.”
    Windsor laughed softly and went back out into the hall.
    Cole locked the door and jerked his thumb to the right. “That way. Conference room is the fifth one on the left.”
    Windsor glanced around as they walked past suite after suite of offices. He stopped in front of the fifth door on the left, tried the handle, and stepped back. “It’s locked.”
    “That didn’t bother you before,” Cole pointed out, unlocking the door.
    When he flipped on the lights, jarrah wood paneling from Australia glowed in shades of cream and rust.
    Windsor turned to Cole. “If I knew who owned you, I’d know whether to ignore you or take you out of the game.”
    Cole didn’t comfort himself by thinking that Windsor was bluffing. Beneath that graying hair was a hard body and a mind that had twenty more years of nasty tricks to draw on than Cole Blackburn did.
    “Nobody owns me,” Cole said. “I like it that way. That’s the way it’s going to stay.”
    “No one is that independent.”
    “Who’s talking, Windsor? The spook or Erin’s father?”
    “Let’s start with the spook,” Windsor said. “The spook sees all kinds of red flags in the files marked Cole Blackburn. You’re a killer, for one thing. You have anything to say about that?”
    “Which incident bothers you?”
    “Start with the eighteen-year-old killer, the one who went into the marines instead of going to jail for murdering a man.”
    Cole walked to a leather chair at one end of the conference table and sat down, wondering why Windsor was trying to get under his skin—and why it was working.
    “It was manslaughter, not murder,” Cole said. “A bar fight that went sour.”
    “Dead is dead.”
    “As for the marines, it used to be a fairly common sentence where I came from.”
    “So you went into the marines, forward recon,” Windsor said coldly. “Good outfit for killers.”
    “Cut the crap. You’re not the one to ride me over spilled blood. You’ve sent plenty of men over the fence.”
    “Some men like to spill blood. Some men are indifferent to it. Which are you?” Windsor asked.
    “Neither.”
    After a moment Windsor nodded. “Let’s fill in some gaps in your file. How did you make the jump from recon marine to geologist without going to college in between?”
    There was silence while Cole decided whether to answer the question. In the end he shrugged and answered because it didn’t matter.