Death is Forever by Elizabeth Lowell Read Free Book Online Page A

lost a ten-million-dollar gamble,” Cole said calmly. “The jewel box may exist, but it sure as hell wasn’t in Sleeping Dog One. That’s a pipe mine, not a placer pocket. Dog One’s diamonds haven’t been washed out of the lamproite. Getting them out is a hammer-and-blast job, and then you have to crush the lot to get to the diamonds. You’ll get sharp-edged junk. Ninety-five percent of it is bort.”
    Wing didn’t look impressed.
    Cole made an impatient noise. His new partner just didn’t understand the difference between the extraordinary, exquisite stones in that worn velvet bag and the largely worthless crap that Crazy Abe had gouged from his Sleeping Dog Mines. Like most people, to Wing diamonds were diamonds—the emperor of gems, the most valuable stone on earth.
    “Wing, the biggest diamond Abe ever got out of Dog One was maybe fourteen carats, flawed, fractured, and the color and clarity of bad coffee.”
    Wing didn’t move.
    Cole leaned forward. “You aren’t listening to me.” He pulled the contract out of his breast pocket and tossed the document on the desk. “Rip it up, and while you’re at it, burn that forged IOU. I’m not interested in screwing the Chen family out of ten million dollars.”
    “We consider it an investment.”
    “In bort?” Cole asked sardonically.
    “In the future.”
    Cole realized that Wing was utterly serious, which meant that the Chen family was willing to spend millions on a long shot. There could be only one reason for a gamble of that magnitude.
    Someone believed there was a high-grade placer diamond mine on one of Abe’s claims.
    “What makes you think I can find that mine after the Chen family and all its resources have failed?” Cole asked.
    “What makes you think we have failed?”
    Cole’s expression was both cynical and amused. “You wouldn’t be calling me in if you had a chance in hell of success on your own. We were partners, but we never were million-dollar buddies. I know you. You know me. Cut the bullshit and tell me what’s going on.”
    “Mr. Windsor’s heir is a girl. A woman.”
    “There’s a big difference between a girl and a woman,” Cole said dryly.
    “Only to an American.” Wing shrugged. “To me she is a female manqué.”
    “Lacking what?”
    “A man.”
    “Haven’t you heard? A modern woman needs a man like a snake needs ice skates.”
    Wing laughed softly. “She isn’t one of those cold females who want only power. She was engaged once. Presumably, her appetites are normal, if rather suppressed at the moment.”
    “What happened?”
    “Officially the man decided he wasn’t ready for marriage.”
    “Unofficially?”
    “He was a spy, a Soviet intelligence agent who tried to use the girl to gain access to secret information. Her father and brother are American intelligence agents. All that was almost seven years ago. She was twenty at the time. She has stayed away from men since.”
    “Smart woman.”
    “There are lessons to be learned from the past.” Wing hesitated, then added delicately, “This young female may have learned caution too well. The same might be said of you.”
    Cole’s mouth flattened into a thin line. He and Wing both understood that the remark referred to Chen Lai, Wing’s sister, a woman of exquisite form and infinite betrayal.
    “I learned long ago that diamonds are more enduring than women,” Cole said.
    “And more alluring?”
    Cole shrugged.
    “If a woman was all that stood between you and ‘God’s own jewel box,’ what then?” Wing asked.
    For a moment Cole thought about the shimmering green diamond. There was an extraordinary rarity and beauty to the stone that transcended whatever dollar value man might put on it.
    Without waiting for an answer, Wing reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a palm-sized picture. He slid the glossy color photo past the diamonds.
    Cole glanced at the picture the way a poker player looks at his last card—with a single, comprehensive,