He slipped the tin box into a briefcase secured with a combination lock and fitted with a steel handcuff. With a wry smile he clicked the cuff into place around his left wrist, knowing that he was more the briefcase’s prisoner than vice versa. Then he went out of the office, locking the door behind him.
The thirty-eighth floor of the BlackWing Building contained the executive suites. The building was expensive and discreet, like BlackWing itself. Cole took the elevator down to street level and reentered the push and pull of the everyday world in downtown Los Angeles. The other offices in the building were vomiting their nightly portion of commuters. Clerks and craftsmen and brokers crowded the lobby.
Cole and the chained briefcase didn’t attract any attention. Besides BlackWing, the building housed dozens of gemstone wholesalers and jewelry dealers. Men of a dozen nationalities and all races came and went frequently, carrying similar briefcases. It was another sign of the care Chen Li-tsao had exercised positioning BlackWing for its assault on the diamond tiger.
A black Mercedes limousine waited at the curb. Its driver leaned against the gleaming front fender, waiting with a look of professional indifference on his face. When Cole emerged from the building, the driver straightened and moved to open the rear door of the limo.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Blackburn. Still going to Beverly Hills?”
“Yes.”
The driver was young, athletic, Chinese, and had hands calloused by martial arts. He spoke with a relaxed southern California accent. Cole knew without looking at the driver’s license that one of the man’s names would be Chen. A branch of the Chen family had been established in America since 1847.
The driver ignored the Santa Monica Freeway, where afternoon traffic was already starting to congeal. Keeping to the surface streets, the limousine reached Beverly Hills in twenty minutes. The lights were just starting to come up in the high-rises along Wilshire Boulevard and the boutiques of Rodeo Drive when the limousine pulled under the awning of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and stopped. A uniformed bellman opened the back door.
“I could be awhile,” Cole said to the driver.
“I’m yours for the duration. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”
Cole didn’t doubt it. The Chens would keep an eye on their ten-million-dollar gamble.
6
Beverly Hills Late afternoon
At one corner of the Beverly Wilshire’s crowded lobby, Erin Windsor lounged unhappily in a brocaded armchair, watching the jet-setters and the Hollywood groupies pouring into the stately hotel. She would have preferred some place less grand than the Beverly Wilshire, and some location less ostentatious than Beverly Hills, but the law firm had booked the suite. Apparently they hoped to impress her.
What a waste of time, she thought.
Even though she’d decided to leave the arctic, she still found civilized pretensions more boring than amusing and more irritating than either.
To help the time pass, she tried to imagine herself as the owner of a remote ranch in Australia. Although she was fascinated by the Pacific Rim, she’d never visited Australia. Now James Rosen, the family lawyer who owned a lucrative practice in Century City, had informed her that she was the owner of a “station” and a set of mineral claims. All this a gift from a man named Abelard Windsor, a great-uncle she hadn’t even known existed.
Rosen had been able to show her the location of the Windsor holdings on maps and had even managed to dredge up some travel-guide photos of the state of Western Australia. The photos made it clear that the Kimberley Plateau wasn’t a lush, friendly kind of place. It was home to a rack-of-bones breed of beef cattle called Kimberley shorthorns, and to exotic animals that included kangaroos, long-tailed birds of prey called kites, and highly poisonous snakes called mulgas.
Erin had been fascinated. The primitive landscape appealed to her,
The thirty-eighth floor of the BlackWing Building contained the executive suites. The building was expensive and discreet, like BlackWing itself. Cole took the elevator down to street level and reentered the push and pull of the everyday world in downtown Los Angeles. The other offices in the building were vomiting their nightly portion of commuters. Clerks and craftsmen and brokers crowded the lobby.
Cole and the chained briefcase didn’t attract any attention. Besides BlackWing, the building housed dozens of gemstone wholesalers and jewelry dealers. Men of a dozen nationalities and all races came and went frequently, carrying similar briefcases. It was another sign of the care Chen Li-tsao had exercised positioning BlackWing for its assault on the diamond tiger.
A black Mercedes limousine waited at the curb. Its driver leaned against the gleaming front fender, waiting with a look of professional indifference on his face. When Cole emerged from the building, the driver straightened and moved to open the rear door of the limo.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Blackburn. Still going to Beverly Hills?”
“Yes.”
The driver was young, athletic, Chinese, and had hands calloused by martial arts. He spoke with a relaxed southern California accent. Cole knew without looking at the driver’s license that one of the man’s names would be Chen. A branch of the Chen family had been established in America since 1847.
The driver ignored the Santa Monica Freeway, where afternoon traffic was already starting to congeal. Keeping to the surface streets, the limousine reached Beverly Hills in twenty minutes. The lights were just starting to come up in the high-rises along Wilshire Boulevard and the boutiques of Rodeo Drive when the limousine pulled under the awning of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and stopped. A uniformed bellman opened the back door.
“I could be awhile,” Cole said to the driver.
“I’m yours for the duration. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”
Cole didn’t doubt it. The Chens would keep an eye on their ten-million-dollar gamble.
6
Beverly Hills Late afternoon
At one corner of the Beverly Wilshire’s crowded lobby, Erin Windsor lounged unhappily in a brocaded armchair, watching the jet-setters and the Hollywood groupies pouring into the stately hotel. She would have preferred some place less grand than the Beverly Wilshire, and some location less ostentatious than Beverly Hills, but the law firm had booked the suite. Apparently they hoped to impress her.
What a waste of time, she thought.
Even though she’d decided to leave the arctic, she still found civilized pretensions more boring than amusing and more irritating than either.
To help the time pass, she tried to imagine herself as the owner of a remote ranch in Australia. Although she was fascinated by the Pacific Rim, she’d never visited Australia. Now James Rosen, the family lawyer who owned a lucrative practice in Century City, had informed her that she was the owner of a “station” and a set of mineral claims. All this a gift from a man named Abelard Windsor, a great-uncle she hadn’t even known existed.
Rosen had been able to show her the location of the Windsor holdings on maps and had even managed to dredge up some travel-guide photos of the state of Western Australia. The photos made it clear that the Kimberley Plateau wasn’t a lush, friendly kind of place. It was home to a rack-of-bones breed of beef cattle called Kimberley shorthorns, and to exotic animals that included kangaroos, long-tailed birds of prey called kites, and highly poisonous snakes called mulgas.
Erin had been fascinated. The primitive landscape appealed to her,
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