Death is Forever

“My gunnery sergeant served in a dozen countries. He learned all he could about gems and geology in every place he was stationed. He talked about it to anyone who would listen. I was the only one. He bought me my first Brunton compass and nursed me through basic geology texts. He was a hell of a man.”
    Windsor nodded again. “Marcel Arthur Knudsen, right?”
    For the first time, Cole looked surprised. “So that’s what the M stood for. He never told me.”
    “He never tells anyone, if he can help it.”
    “How well do you know him?”
    “I know people who know him,” Windsor said. “There are still people in the Pentagon who think he was God’s topkick. But you’ve done a lot of traveling since the sarge knew you. For instance, Zaire.”
    “Yeah, I was there.” Cole smiled thinly. “How much did it cost you boys to bail Thompson out of that jail in Kinshasa?”
    “The agency wasn’t as amused as you are. If the political police had found out who Thompson really was, he’d have been executed. Your little stunt nearly killed him.”
    Cole’s smile changed, becoming as cold as his eyes. “You’re breaking my heart. Thompson tried to get me killed. Damn near managed it. If he tries it again, I’ll put him in the ground any way I can.”
    Windsor grunted. “You’re even-handed, I will say. You gave the same treatment to the KGB agent in Cairo in…1982, was it?”
    “Was Schmelling really KGB? I thought maybe he was just a particularly filthy dealer in submarine goods.”
    “Full colonel in the Overseas Directorate,” Windsor said.
    “If I’d known that, he would have ended up another one of those bodies you seem so worried about.”
    “That would have been unfortunate. He was doubled, working for us at the same time. Hell, Schmelling was more valuable than Thompson ever thought of being.”
    “Not to me. He was about as much use as my Brazilian partner.”
    “The one you killed?”
    “The one who stuck a knife in my back, missed anything vital, and lived to regret it.”
    “But not for long,” Windsor said dryly.
    “Two months. Long enough.”
    “Think you’re hell on wheels, don’t you?”
    Slowly Cole shook his head. “I’m just a man who likes to be left alone. That annoys some people. A lot. They start crowding, and I don’t like being crowded, and things go from sugar to shit real fast. So why are you crowding me, Windsor? Does the CIA want me to get out of its picture? Has the agency decided to preempt Erin’s inheritance?”
    “I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t like a lot of what I saw in your file. You’re lethal and you’re unreliable. Nobody has ever figured out how to control you, except maybe that sour old gunnery sergeant in the marine corps. I’d just as soon you didn’t come anywhere near my daughter.”
    “I’m not lining up to be your son-in-law. I’m just trying to buy Crazy Abe’s mineral claims.”
    Windsor hesitated, drew a deep breath, and let it out. “That’s the problem, Blackburn. I don’t think Erin is going to sell. She won’t take help or direction from me, and she won’t divest herself in favor of investors put forth by the agency. She’s got the bit in her teeth and there’s bugger-all I can do about it.”
    For an instant Cole wasn’t sure whether to swear or cheer. He’d guessed that Erin was a woman who answered to herself and for herself, a person who chose her restraints as carefully as he did. But even while the maverick in Cole cheered a kindred spirit, the pragmatist in him swore quiet, unhappy oaths. Erin’s love of freedom could cost her life.
    Not to mention Cole Blackburn’s.
    “Shit,” he said, his eyes narrowed against a combination of anger and admiration that surprised him.
    “Yeah,” Windsor agreed. “Shit. My daughter is lovely, talented, and bright, but she knows zip about bucking nations and corporations. As a matter of fact, up to now she has structured her life with total privacy in mind.”
    “Do you blame her?”
    “No. There are times I’d like to retire from the world myself. But I didn’t inherit the Sleeping Dog Mines. Erin did. If she won’t sell her inheritance, she’ll have to live with the real world.”
    “Or die with it.”
    “I’d like to avoid that. What about you?”
    “I think the woman who created Arctic Odyssey is worth more than her weight in fancy diamonds.”
    There was a moment of startled silence before Windsor laughed. “They were right. You’re a real