Death is Forever

shape.”
    “That’s good?” Wing asked dubiously.
    “When it comes to cutting time, yes. Stones dug fresh and sharp from a pipe lose half their weight in cutting and polishing. These alluvial stones will lose no more than twenty percent between the rough state and some spoiled lady’s finger.”
    “Then these stones are at least thirty percent more valuable than nonalluvial rough diamonds of an equal weight?” Wing asked quickly.
    Cole smiled. Wing didn’t need to know much about diamonds to keep a balance sheet in his head. That was one of the reasons Cole trusted his former partner. He knew what motivated Chen Wing.
    Profit.
    “When you take into account color and size as well,” Cole said, “you’ve got at least a million dollars wholesale sitting on your desk, as is. Cut and polished, those stones are worth one hell of a lot more.”
    “How much more?”
    “Depends on how badly someone wants them. The fancies—”
    “Fancies?” Wing interrupted.
    “Colored diamonds. They’re bloody rare, and a true green is the rarest of them all. Wherever that lot came from, it’s God’s own jewel box.”
    “Are there mines like that?”
    “In Australia? Not that I know of.”
    “Are there such mines anywhere?” Wing demanded impatiently.
    “Ever hear of Namaqualand? Southwest coast of Africa, just below the mouth of the Orange River?” Cole asked.
    Wing shook his head.
    “About sixty years ago a geologist called Hans Merensky was prospecting on Crown holdings there. He came across some diamonds lying together on top of the ground, neat as eggs in a quail’s nest.”
    Though he said nothing, Wing sat straighter in his chair and leaned closer to Cole.
    “Everywhere Merensky looked he found more diamonds,” Cole said. “Soon he couldn’t hold them all in his hand. Most of them were too big to fit down the neck of his canteen. He had to store them in candy tins.”
    With a soft grunt Wing looked at the small handful of diamonds on his desk and imagined the sensation of making an even bigger find.
    “Yeah,” Cole said in a low voice. “That’s how I felt when I first heard the story. Every diamond hunter lies awake at night and dreams of how it would feel to find a jewel box like that.”
    “Jewel box. You’re serious, then?”
    “Jewel box, diamond trap, concentrated gem gravels—call it what you will. It’s a place where time and water and gravity have done the heavy work of mining for you. They’ve worn away the softer rock, carried away the dross, and concentrated the diamonds.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Cole curbed his impatience. “Diamonds are heavier and far harder than most minerals, so they sink in quiet parts of river bends, collect behind boulders or in tree roots, or get caught in gravel. Gold does the same thing for the same reason. It’s heavy. Most of the big diamond finds started with men looking for placer gold.”
    “What happened to Merensky?”
    “He filled a half-dozen candy tins full of diamonds, diamonds as big as eighty carats. Gem quality, all of them. He sold out his claim for one million pounds, which in those days was a king’s ransom.”
    “To whom did he sell?”
    “Guess,” Cole said sardonically.
    Wing grimaced and hissed a word through his teeth. “Shit.”
    “That may be your opinion, but stockholders think quite highly of ConMin.”
    “Do you think these are cartel diamonds?” Wing said, glancing at the stones on the desk.
    “No.”
    “So quick? No doubts?”
    “You would have lost more than two people getting the likes of these away from the diamond cartel,” Cole said flatly.
    “But the cartel would be interested in them?”
    “If those stones are all from the same spot, and that place is a new strike, the cartel would move heaven and earth and take on hell to grab control of the find. Archimedes said he could move the world with a lever long enough. The mine that yielded those stones is a lever that long.”
    Wing grunted. “What else can you tell me about these stones? Anything, no matter how small.”
    “Just that the stones don’t ‘feel’ like African diamonds. The colors aren’t right. Too much pink. No Cape yellow at all. Several of those whites are twinned crystals, macles. Australia is known for macles. The green diamond isn’t likely for Africa at all. Brazil, maybe, but that green is both more intense and yet more fiery than the Dresden diamond, which is the best of the Brazilian greens.”
    Wing touched the