Death is Forever (34 page)

For the first few minutes the steamy heat felt like a foretaste of heaven. By the time she’d walked to the helicopter, she was back in hell, sweating. Cole wasn’t. When he handed her into the chopper, his skin felt distinctly cool.

The chopper leaped up, jittered raggedly, and finally settled.

Ten minutes later she glanced at Cole and saw his head hang, then slowly come upright. He was fighting to stay conscious.

And he was losing.

Rain fell in sheets and torrents over the bubble canopy of the helicopter, cutting visibility to a few hundred yards. Erin read the instruments for Cole as he pointed to them. Her voice was flat, as numb as her mind. She should have been terrified but she was simply too worn out to care.

She knew it must be much worse for Cole.

She sensed a great weariness in him. His coordination and his vision were erratic. He was sweating but his skin was cold. Time after time the helicopter sagged to one side or the other in gusts of wind and each time he reacted more slowly to correct their course. Concussion had sapped his strength. He was operating on nerve and reflex alone, and all around them a storm’s dying fury gripped the world.

“We should set down,” she said.

“Too far away. We wouldn’t make it.”

She didn’t argue. It was the truth. She’d barely had the strength to drag herself and the rucksack to the chopper.

“You have a concussion,” she said.

“No shit. Read the compass.”

She focused on the compass.

A lightning bolt sizzled from cloud to earth, making the earphones Erin and Cole wore crackle violently. He flinched at the sound and turned the volume down on the radio.

They flew out of the squall as suddenly as they’d flown into it. Within minutes wind tore holes in the black line of clouds. Sun hammered through the openings with stunning force, pulling great sheets of steam from the drenched land.

Off to the left a tin roof gleamed in watery brilliance beneath the gloom of a storm cell that still had enough power to trail thick sheets of rain from its wild clouds.

“Look,” she said, touching his arm and pointing to the left. “Isn’t that the station?”

“ ’Sbout time.”

The words were slurred. Cole’s face was drawn in harsh lines of effort as he corrected the helicopter’s course. When they flew into the trailing edge of the squall, the helicopter bucked and quivered like an unruly horse. He swore at the controls and at the reflexes that simply wouldn’t respond as quickly as they should.

The chopper slewed through the rain and wind until the lights of Windsor station were a few hundred feet below them.

“Look—for—strange—vehicles,” he said thickly.

He banked the helicopter and flew in a wide, ragged circle around the perimeter of the station buildings. She looked through veils of rain at the ground. Several lanterns glowed inside the large tent that had been erected as a bunkhouse for the Chinese men, but no one was out in the yard. Obviously the men had settled in to wait out the storm.

A pale flash caught her attention. “There’s a white four-wheel-drive vehicle parked in back of the house.”

“Street’s. Any others?”

“No.”

Cole let out a sigh that was almost a groan. “Thank God.”

As he circled to the front of the station house, the door opened and a small figure stepped out.

“It’s Lai,” Erin said.

“Alone?”

“As far as I can see, yes.”

Lai stepped out of the shelter of the awning and looked up into the sky, shielding her eyes against the falling rain.

Cole shook his head sharply, then winced. “Shotgun. Get it.”

She leaned over and pulled the shotgun from behind his seat.

“Is it ready?” he asked.

She checked the gun, took off the safety, and said, “Yes.”

Visibly he gathered the last of his strength. “Put it across my lap. Keep the pistol hidden but handy. If there’s a trap down there, no one will expect you to be armed.”

Without a word Erin lifted the rucksack onto her lap, dug the pistol from beneath diamonds, and slipped off the safety. She would only have to open the rucksack and grab.

Cole wheeled the helicopter and dropped into the muddy yard in front of the station. The landing was hard. One of the skids dug four inches into the red muck. The other slapped down a second later and vanished beneath mud. He shut down the engine, let the rotor free-wheel, and slumped forward.

Erin scrambled out while the blades were still slicing overhead and went around to the other door to help him.

“Get out,” she said, tugging at his arm. “You can’t stay here.”

He didn’t move.

“Get out!” she shouted. “I can’t carry you to the house. Come on, Cole.
Help me.
”

Slowly his head came up. He dragged himself out of the helicopter, shotgun in hand. Clutching the rucksack, she steered him through the mud to the station house, where Lai waited.

“I’m so glad Mr. Street found you,” Lai said huskily, watching Cole with luminous black eyes. “We were very worried. Wing has been beside himself.” She looked beyond Erin and Cole. “Where is Mr. Street?”

“Dead,” Erin said bluntly.

“Dead? I don’t understand.”

“He tried to kill Cole. He missed. Cole didn’t.”

Lai’s breath came in with a soft, ripping sound.

Erin pushed past Lai and guided Cole into the house. “Cole’s hurt. Get some blankets, a first-aid kit, and ice for the swelling.” She looked at Lai, who was standing as though bolted to the floor.
“Move.”

“But first,” Cole said thickly, “call Uncle Li and tell him to send in reinforcements. We found the mine.”

For a moment longer Lai stared at Cole. He was swaying slightly on his feet, but his eyes were focused and his finger was on the trigger of the shotgun he carried. When Erin steered him toward the couch, he moved with a kind of ruined grace that spoke of willpower and muscle slowly losing control over injury and exhaustion.

Lai turned and ran toward the back of the station house.

Erin eased Cole down on the center of the couch. With a muttered curse, he slumped back and fought against closing his eyes. After a moment he pulled the shotgun across his lap. She set the rucksack at one end of the couch. As she knelt next to him to check his injury, her knee knocked against the butt of the shotgun.

“You’ve got a bruise half the size of my fist,” she said.

He grunted.

“No more bleeding,” she continued. “The swelling isn’t any worse. Good thing you have such strong muscles in your neck. Otherwise, I’ve got a bad feeling we’d still be in the cave.”

“Stone dead.”

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“It comes and goes.”

“It?”

“Nausea, double vision, dizziness.”

She shifted again. Her knee hit the shotgun. “I’ll take that,” she said, reaching for the shotgun. “We’re safe.”

“Not quite, Miss Windsor,” Lai said from the doorway. “But you soon will be. Move away from Cole.”

Startled, Erin looked up and saw an automatic pistol held in Lai’s left hand. The muzzle was pointed directly at Cole’s heart. Nothing about Lai suggested that she wasn’t willing to pull the trigger. In her right hand she held a small battery-operated tape player.

“Move beyond his reach,” Lai said. “Even wounded, he is still very dangerous.”

Erin retreated down the couch toward the rucksack.

“Put the shotgun on the floor and shove it away with your foot,” Lai said to Cole. “Move slowly or you will force me to kill you.”

In slow motion he bent over, set the shotgun on the floor, and shoved it away with his foot. Black eyes and the muzzle of the gun followed him every inch of the way. Lai’s attention was so fixed on Cole that she didn’t notice Erin’s hand coming out of the rucksack.

“Put down the gun,” Erin said in raw voice. “I’m too tired to care if I kill you.”

From the corner of her eye, Lai saw the gun in Erin’s hands.

“Don’t be foolish,” Lai said quickly. “It is your life I am trying to save!”

“I’m damn tired of being called a fool—and being taken for one. If Cole wanted me dead, he could have killed me a hundred times over by now.”

“You don’t understand what is at stake.” Lai spoke in a calm, low voice, and her attention never wavered from the man on the couch. She knew very well his strength, coordination, and intelligence. Obviously Street had underestimated Cole.

Lai never would.

“Street was playing the Chen family against ConMin,” Lai said, “hoping to gain control of the mine for Australia. The Australian government wouldn’t have ordered your death, Miss Windsor, but if you and Cole died in the bush and Street came to his superiors with the coordinates of the mine, the government would have registered the mine, declared you dead by accident—or by Cole’s hand—and ridden out the storm of protest from the CIA.”

“I’m alive,” Erin said, “and planning to stay that way. Put down the gun.”

“If I do, Cole will kill you. Listen to me, Erin. Your life depends on it. Cole has a forged gambling note from Abelard Windsor giving him half of the Sleeping Dog Mines.”

“How do you know?”

“I oversaw the forgery,” Lai said simply. “Now Cole controls half of the mine outright, plus half of your half. Don’t you, Cole?”

“Whatever you say,” he said. “You’re the one with the gun.”

Erin looked quickly at Cole. He was watching Lai with predatory focus, waiting for the least flicker of distraction on her part.

“Fascinating,” Erin said, “but Cole never said one word to me about any gambling note.”

Lai’s mouth tightened. “He did not have to use the note. He had a much better lever against you: his body. He is a skilled, powerful lover and you are a woman of little experience. A very easy conquest. He has probably asked you to marry him already. If not, he soon would. And when you died a few months later—and you would die—Cole would have control of the mine in a way no man or government could question. You don’t want to believe me,” Lai said quickly, “but you will. Listen carefully, Erin Windsor. Your life depends on it.”

“Cole?” Erin asked.

“Do as she says. You’ll hear it all sooner or later. Divide and conquer. The oldest game of all. But whatever else you do, Erin, keep pointing that gun at Lai. The second you flinch, you’re as dead as diamonds.”

Lai pressed a button on the small machine. The tape started moving.

“The first speaker is my brother, Wing,” Lai said. “You will recognize the second man. Cole Blackburn. The conversation took place the day before Cole came to you in Los Angeles.”

After a brief silence, a voice came from the speaker.

“Wing is referring to the IOU,” Lai said in the silence that came when the men stopped speaking. “The IOU said, ‘I owe Cole Blackburn half of Sleeping Dog Mines/Because I lost at 2-up one too many times!’”

After a few more moments of silence, Wing resumed speaking.

The tape went silent.

“There is more,” Lai said.

She watched Cole with unblinking attention. He watched her in the same way.

After a few seconds of silence Wing’s voice came again.

There was a brief pause before Wing continued.

A pause, then, “All right, Wing. Tell Uncle Li he has his man.”

The silence hissed with unused tape.

Lai waited, never looking away from Cole.

“I would like,” Erin said hoarsely, “to hear that tape again.”

Lai groped one-handed for the rewind button, then glanced aside to find it.

Cole’s foot lashed out and connected with her wrist. The gun went flying. When his hand wrapped around Lai’s delicate throat, she went utterly still. In a gesture that could have been a caress or a warning, he ran his thumb over the pulse beating visibly in Lai’s neck.

“You’re just one surprise after another,” he said to Lai. “How long have you spied for Street against your own family?”

A shudder went through Erin as she heard Cole’s voice. There was no hatred, no passion, no anger, no emotion of any sort, simply a ruthless patience that owed nothing to civilization or humanity. It was the same for his eyes, icy in their clarity and lack of mercy.

“I began planning my revenge the moment I was forced to abort your child and marry a man three times my age,” Lai said. Her voice was low, soft, husky, the voice of a woman talking to her lover. “I was the one who approached Jason Street. I was the one who sabotaged the helicopter and the Rover. I was the one who told Jason to have one of Abe’s Aborigines follow you and report the instant that you died. Then Jason and I would fly in and fix the Rover, discover the tragic deaths, and take out new leases in our own names.”

Slowly Erin’s hand tightened on the heavy gun.

Lai didn’t even notice. Her attention was fixed on the ice-pale eyes of her former lover. She kept speaking, her voice sweetly musical, as though talking of love rather than vengeance and death.

“On the day I owned the mine, the family of Chen would count the cost of using me as a pawn,” Lai said. “I am queen, not pawn. And the man by my side would be king.”

Cole’s strong fingers ran caressingly over Lai’s neck. “Queen of lies.” He glanced over at Erin. Her face was pale, her eyes so dark they looked more black than green. “I don’t suppose it would do any good to say I fell in love with your photos before I ever met you.”