Death is Forever

“wet,” Street guessed the old man had been dead for at least three days, maybe more. But there was no doubt that it was Abe Windsor who lay beneath the tarp. The heavy ridge of scar on his left wrist had resisted decay better than the softer flesh around it.
    Street turned away with an exclamation of disgust and glanced at the room without a lot of hope. He doubted that the occupants of the helicopter had left behind anything except flies. But he might have surprised them before they’d finished searching everything on the station.
    Grimacing, breathing carefully through his mouth, Street turned back to the corpse. He pulled the dirty undershirt open and looked for the worn velvet pouch that Abe had always worn around his skinny neck.
    The pouch was gone.
    With a seething curse, Street went to the unpainted wooden shelf next to Abe Windsor’s rocking chair. The battered tin box was missing too.
    “So you went for your last walk in the bush, did you, you old wanker?” Street said savagely to the corpse. “Did you take that bloody box with you like always? Did your secret die out there in the bush with you? And who in hell was watching you besides me?”
    There was no answer but death’s hideous grin. For an instant Street was sure the old man was still alive, still mocking him.
    “You knew what I was after the whole time, didn’t you? Christ, but you loved stuffing me around. Sod you, old man. You’re dead and I’m not.”
    Tiny sounds came from beyond the kitchen door as decaying floorboards shifted.
    Someone was headed out of the house.
    Street spun and dashed through the doorway into the gloomy kitchen. He was quick enough to catch a flicker of movement as a dark-clad figure slipped through the back door. Sounds came again, the soft, rapid thud of bare feet fleeing over sun-baked earth.
    Street leaped to the open door and tripped a quick shot. The bullet caught the fleeing man a few feet before he reached the corner of an outbuilding. He jerked and sprawled facedown in the dirt.
    Cautiously Street approached the man and checked for weapons. Nothing. He stood and rolled the man over with one booted foot. Chu, Abe’s cook, squinted up at Street through eyes that swam with pain. Street pointed the gun at a spot between the cook’s eyes.
    “Where’s the box, you thieving Chink?”
    Chu hissed through his teeth, his face contorted with pain, and said nothing.
    “Listen up.” Street ground down on Chu’s wounded shoulder with the flat sole of his boot. “Where’s the box and the velvet sack?”
    Chu groaned and said something in Chinese, a plea or a curse or both at once.
    Street bore down harder with his foot. From the corner of his eye he caught a hint of movement as someone lunged toward him from the cover of the outbuilding. Reflexively Street’s head turned toward the new attacker.
    The instant Street’s attention was divided, Chu doubled up and aimed a kick at the Australian’s crotch.
    The two prongs of the attack were so swift and so well-coordinated that Street knew immediately he’d fallen into a trap laid by professionals. His own reaction was equally quick and deadly. He fired point blank at Chu and at the same time twisted so the cook’s kick was off the mark.
    In the split second before the heavy bullet struck, Chu’s heel thudded harmlessly into Street’s muscular thigh. Street continued the twisting motion, throwing himself off to the side and bringing his gun to bear on the remaining attacker. As Street hit the ground, he triggered two shots at the second attacker. Both shots missed, but Street’s action avoided a head-high kick that would have smashed his skull.
    The attacker flew past Street, who was still in the midst of his defensive roll. When Street landed on his belly, he twisted again and calmly shot the attacker twice in the back. Something about the single exclamation of pain and the fall told Street that the attacker was a woman, and that she was dead before she hit the ground.
    Even as the information registered in his brain, he was rolling again, anticipating another attacker. He came to his feet in a crouch, his back to a wall and his pistol covering the entire station yard.
    Fifty meters away a flock of pale cockatoos, startled by the shots, called noisily among the stunted trees. After a few moments the cockatoos settled back onto their perches, leaving the silence of death to spread unbroken over Abe Windsor’s station. All that moved were the flies, as