Lara Croft and the Lost Storehouse

 

by Tim Radley

trad50@yahoo.co.uk

 

 

This is my first attempt at Tomb Raider fanfic. I'd be really gratefully to receive any

comments or criticism, positive or otherwise.

 

Tomb Raider, Lara Croft, her image and likeness are trademark and copyright © of

EIDOS Interactive and Core Design. No infringement or challenge to these copyrights is

intended.

 

* * * * * 

 

She was being followed. Lara had suspected as much for the last couple of minutes, and now she was

certain of it.

            They were quite good at it too, and if they'd been native Moroccans she doubted that she would

have noticed at all amid the general throng of the Rabat streets. As it was though, with less than a score of

Caucasian faces in sight, her pursuers stood out just slightly too much for effective surveillance.

            Stopping at the street-side she paid for a newspaper with a low denomination dirham note, leaning

back against the side of the vendor's stall and pretending to scan the front page. It was in Arabic and she

only read Arabic moderately well. Still, it was all inevitably about the King Hussan II's latest bout of

illness, so it wasn't of much interest to her. Eyes concealed behind the circular, red-tinted lenses of her

sunglasses, Lara studied the woman who was the closest of the three.

            She had stopped almost simultaneously with Lara beside a rack of postcards and was making a

show of browsing through them interestedly – just a tourist out for a casual stroll her posture tried to say.

Somewhere in her early thirties, the woman was tall and athletic looking with jaw-length blonde hair and a

deep, smooth tan. She wore dark glasses and a lightweight cotton suit, the jacket of which bulged ever so

slightly beneath her left arm. To Lara's experienced eye it was a screaming telltale of a concealed – and

probably highly illegal – weapon.

            Of the other two, the dark haired, muscular looking man in the loud Hawaiian shirt was

somewhere up ahead, having walked right past her a couple of minutes ago. The third – a tall, slim male

with a blond crew-cut – was lost from sight about a hundred or so yards back amid the crowds.

            Lara wondered briefly who the hell they could be. Unfortunately the list of potential suspects was

a depressingly long one. She hadn't been shy about making enemies these last few years. RX Tech

Industries for one had a vested interest in seeing that she remained permanently silent about certain things

she'd witnessed in Antarctica. She was by no means convinced that the Fiamma Nera Cult were quite

extinct just yet either. Then there was the fact that she'd extended the laws of more than one country in her

time.

            A wry smile quirked across her sensually full lips. That's what you got if you didn't stay a nice

sedate little rich girl.

            Moving on, she ducked inside a shop selling cheap looking Persian rugs and assorted other junk

that could be passed off as ethnic souvenirs to gullible tourists. She handed the shopkeeper a couple of

folded dirham notes and thanked him in fairly fluent Arabic for letting her use the back door.

            He grinned broadly, pocketing the money, and with a slight bow gestured her on. "For such a

beautiful lady it is a sincere pleasure."

            The alleyway at the back was narrow, shadowed and rubbish strewn. It was much cooler and

almost surreally quiet compared with the street, the brilliant sunlight not able penetrate all the way down

between the closely huddled buildings. After a quick scan of her surroundings, her eyes adjusting rapidly to

the comparative gloom, Lara pulled herself up onto a low wall with lithely effortless, fluidly cat-like grace.

From there it was a matter of moments to scramble, via a windowsill onto a flat-topped roof.

            And come face to face with yet another of her unknown stalkers.

            For a moment it was a toss up who was the more surprised. She found herself staring, almost

entranced, right into the green eyes of an extremely handsome looking dark-haired man in his mid twenties.

Then the spell broke.

            Even as he was reaching for a shoulder holster and yelling at her to "freeze right there" Lara was

vaulting over the roof's edge, back down into the alleyway from where she had just come.

            She rolled instinctively as she landed in the dirt and litter, springing instantly up to her feet with

breathtaking agility. Choosing a direction at random she sprinted off, her walking boots raising up puffs of

dust in her wake.

            A right turn took her into a narrow gap between two buildings, shoulders scraping against rough-

cut sandstone, and a further right led to another alley that could have been the twin of the first. Lara could

hear the sound of pounding footfalls somewhere alarmingly close behind her, and, without pausing to think

about it she vaulted over a six-foot high wall running parallel to her.

            She found herself in someone's back yard. A wizened old woman with skin like cured leather,

sunning herself and preparing for an afternoon nap, appeared on the verge of heart failure as Lara narrowly

missed landing in her lap. There was no time for an apology though, and quickly she was hurdling a series

of sagging chain-link fences, shrill Arabic insults trailing after her. Another wall loomed up in front of her

and a moment's effort had her clambering over it and dropping into yet another alleyway.

            She was just a fraction breathless as she glanced both ways, but either direction seemed as good as

another. This time she chose left and was quickly off and running again.

            It turned out rather quickly to be a bad choice. An enforced ninety degree turn to the right had her

staring directly at a dead end less than a hundred feet in front of her – just an eighteen foot high

whitewashed wall with piles of wooden crates stacked up against it.

            Lara half made to turn back the way she had just come from, but the sound of rapidly approaching

footsteps and ragged breathing stayed that notion. Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about the

chances of success she launched herself forward towards the wall, leaping at the crates and scrambling ever

forwards and upwards, seemingly in defiance of the laws of gravity.

            Crates tumbled and clattered and broke apart behind her as she searched for footing and strove to

maintain momentum, every moment promising to see her tumbling back to hard, unforgiving ground and

her waiting pursuer. Then she was leaping forward again, leg muscles flexing with all the power she could

muster, arms stretching for the top of the wall.

            For a heart-stopping instant she thought she was going to come up short and smack face first into

the wall. But then her fingers grasped hold of crumbling plaster-work and she held, dangling by her dug in

fingernails. Booted feet scrabbled at the wall for grip for a moment, before finding purchase and helping to

propel her on upwards.

            "Stop right there or I'll shoot!" The voice reached Lara just as she managed to pull herself up to

straddle the wall's top. This time she was aware enough to notice the distinct American accent, and she

looked back down to see the handsome green-eyed man standing directly beneath her, a Colt .38 Combat

Commander trained unerringly in her direction.

            Glancing over to the other side of the wall she saw an ancient looking flatbed truck parked beneath

her, and a short distance ahead a wide opening into bright sunlight and a major thoroughfare. Another look

at the American showed a determined expression and the gun still unwaveringly pointed up at her.

            "I mean it." He sounded just slightly nervous.

            Lara flashed him a quick, impish smile. "Maybe some other time."

            With that she pushed herself smoothly over the wall.

            She rolled as she landed with a thud on the back of the truck, narrowly missing a nasty collision

with a rusting engine block. Then she climbed back to her feet, dusting down her now more than slightly

dishevelled clothing. No shot rang out from behind her as she got down from the truck. As she'd already

suspected whoever these people were they wanted her alive in preference to dead – for the moment at least.

            With an eighteen foot wall between them and no way of climbing it now short of re-stacking those

crates she had sent tumbling, there was a certain sense of nonchalance about Lara's stride – a confidence

that she had managed to slip free of the pursuit.

            That feeling lasted all of twenty seconds, when two figures stepped out to block the head of the

alley directly in front of her.

            Both of them were armed with .38s like their friend she had just avoided. Both of them were

pointing the weapons directly at her. Out of instinctive reaction she started to go for her own guns, only to

remember that she had lost them just over a week ago and hadn't been able to replace them yet.

            She looked from one impassive face to the other – the blonde woman and the man in the Hawaiian

shirt who had first tipped her off to their presence. Then she continued walking towards them as though

their guns didn't exist.

            "Well, what are you two waiting for? Don't we have places to go?"

* * *

            "It is a pleasure to finally meet the distinguished Ms. Croft. You are even more beautiful in the

flesh than pictures of you would suggest."

            Lara had been ushered – the big man in the Hawaiian shirt gripping her tightly around her bicep –

to a waiting S-Class Mercedes with diplomatic plates, a jet black paint job, and no doubt enough in the way

of body armour to shame a small tank. From there they had driven in silence all of the seven or so miles

through the streets of Rabat to this hill top villa with its expansive gardens and its views of the Atlantic

Ocean.

            It wasn't that Lara hadn't tried to make conversation – no need to play the sullen, ungracious guest

after all. It was just that all of her probes, her questions about where they were taking her, what they

wanted, and all of her polite observations had fallen on completely deaf ears. No one had even told her to

shut up or reacted in any way to her words. It was like talking into a void. So, with a growing sense of

unease about her situation, she had shut up.

            Initially after that she had looked for ways of getting out. But there were no interior door handles

and there was a thick layer of probably bullet-proof glass between her and the driver. Even if she could get

the gun off the meatball sitting next to her without getting shot in the process it wouldn't do her a whole lot

of good. And then there was the line of small, almost unnoticeable holes above each of the doors – capable

of flooding the entire passenger compartment with some form of gas an inner voice told her. In the end she

had just sat back and attempted to enjoy the view as best she could.

            Now she found herself sitting on a sun drenched pavilion, separated by a low white table from this

grizzled but distinguished looking American man – the stereotypical image of a retired marine corps

general with his short silver-grey hair and his weathered granite face. Flanking her on either side at almost

military attention were two of the goons who had picked her up – blonde-woman and crew-cut.

            "So much of a pleasure that you felt the need to send these goons to make sure I came to this

meeting?" Lara raised an eyebrow.

            "Hardly." The dry chuckle reminded her of a rattlesnake and the hint of a smile went nowhere near

his ice grey eyes. "No, that was unfortunate. My agents were only supposed to keep tabs on you for the

moment. I'm afraid that your somewhat precipitous actions rather forced their hand." The hint of a smile

disappeared like a flash. "I will be having words with them over how to conduct proper surveillance, I

assure you."

            Lara sat back in her seat and crossed her legs. She was dressed in loose-fitting white drawstring

trousers and a black cropped top which left a hand-span of tanned, tautly muscled midriff bare, a flash of

gold glinting from her pierced navel. A sheer black silk shirt hung open and her long, glossy chestnut-

brown hair spilled down her back in a single long braid. Everything was besmirched by dust stains from the

earlier, short lived chase.

            "I'd put the blame on whoever sent them out there. If he'd been competent he'd have used native

operatives who didn't stand out so much in the crowd."

            She saw his eyelids flicker as the veiled insult struck home and felt a minor surge of petty

satisfaction. He frowned and made a small gesture to the woman standing to Lara's left, who bent over and

none too gently pulled the sunglasses Lara was wearing from her face. Lara shot her a hard glare which

promised later retribution.

            "I always like to see the eyes of the person I'm talking to," he explained. "It's really just a matter of

good manners. You Brits like to think you're something special with all your vaunted etiquette, but when it

comes to it you're just as uncouth as the rest of us."

            Lara realised slightly belatedly that the two goons flanking her had removed their sunglasses

before this meeting. Must be some personal little fetish thing. She could feel herself becoming increasingly

annoyed by the whole situation.

            "Just who exactly are you? And what do you want with me?" The edge of impatience in Lara's

voice was clearly audible.

            "You can call me Mr. Croag." He smiled as though at some personal joke. "Myself and my

associates work for a certain United States government agency made famous by Hollywood and bad thriller

writers with half-baked conspiracy theories. We want to talk to you about a Ms. Jacqueline Natla."

            Lara couldn't keep the look of surprise off her face. That was just about the last thing she had

expected to hear.

            "I see from your expression that you know – or should that be knew – the lady in question."

            Lara's brain whirred. This was a part of her life she'd hoped had been put firmly behind her three

years previously, and it was definitely not something she had any desire to go into with these people. She

wondered exactly how much they knew and what she could get away with telling them. In the end she went

for a highly edited version of the truth.

            "It just caught me by surprise that you would want to know anything about that. It was three years

ago now." Lara gave a slight shrug. "Ms. Natla hired me to recover a certain artefact she was interested in

from Peru – the ruins of the lost Inca city of Vilcabamba to be precise. The artefact in question was called

the Scion if that has bearing on this. Anyway, I recovered the artefact in question and that was that. There's

not much more to say. I'd be delighted to discuss my experiences in Vilcabamba with you if you'd like, but

I get the impression you don't want to talk about archaeology."

            "Another time perhaps. I'm sure its a fascinating story. I do have a personal interest in archaeology

as a matter of fact," he went on, what seemed to Lara a predatory gleam forming in his cold eyes. "But I

digress. Are you saying that is the full extent of your dealings with Jacqueline Natla then. That you

recovered this Scion and delivered it to her."

            He knows I didn't. "Not entirely. For some reason I am not entirely sure of Ms. Natla decided to

renege on our deal. She sent one of her pet thugs to relieve me of both the Scion and my life. He wasn't

entirely successful on the second score." She flashed Croag a tight, humourless smile. "Maybe she just

doesn't like paying for things."

            "You expect me to believe you left it at that?"

            "No. Of course not. I paid a visit to Natla Technologies headquarters in Dallas to have a chat with

Ms. Natla. Unfortunately she wasn't home when I called. I took a look round her office – I'm sure she

wouldn't have minded – but I couldn't find either the Scion or anything which told me where I could find

Ms. Natla. I gave the whole thing up as a loss and headed back to Europe." Not a single outright lie in

there.

            Croag looked a touch nonplussed – probably because he hadn't expected her to come straight out

with all of that so easily. "Are you aware that Jacqueline Natla – a well respected citizen of the United

States of America incidentally – disappeared shortly after your contact with her and hasn't been seen in the

three years since? Indeed, we believe she's almost certainly dead, and from you've just told me you had

more reason than most for wanting her that way."

            Lara shrugged as though to say, what do I care. "You learn not to take these things personally. Yes

I was aware of Jacqueline Natla's disappearance. I can't say I was too upset about it at the time." She

decided to try a little misdirection. "If you listen to rumours she hired a privateer by the name of Pierre Du

Pont after she'd finished with me. Pierre's rather notorious in the circles I move in – an unscrupulous thief

and mercenary who's not above murdering anyone who gets in his way. If Natla tried to pull the same trick

on him as she did with me. . . Well lets just say Pierre Du Pont isn't known for his warm and forgiving

nature."

            "We know all about Ms. Natla's association with Monsieur Du Pont, thank you. His reputation,

incidentally, isn't altogether different from your own." He smiled broadly when Lara stiffened as though

she had been slapped, the look on her face turning suddenly ice cold. "In fact Du Pont disappeared at much

the same time as Natla, and again hasn't been seen or heard from since."

            "Well that would appear to wrap things up rather neatly."

            "Would it. I myself am not so convinced. I don't suppose you are also aware that one of Ms.

Natla's nastier pet goons – a lowlife thug by the name of Bradley Larson, III – was found at an ancient

burial site in Northern Egypt, perforated by bullets from a 9mm weapon, again almost simultaneously with

the disappearance of Ms. Natla herself. You own a pair of Beretta's, which use 9mm ammunition, don't you

Lara?"

            "So do a lot of people. Surely you're not suggesting that I had any involvement in this horrible

sounding incident on evidence as scant as that?"

            She saw Croag's mask of calm momentarily slip, revealing an instant of naked, white hot rage.

"Let's cut the crap shall we. I think you know a lot more about Jacqueline Natla's disappearance than you're

saying. In fact I think you killed Ms. Natla, Pierre Du Pont, and Mr. Larson, whether in self-defence or

otherwise. I don't, quite frankly give a damn about that. I'm not the slightest bit interested." He paused

fractionally. "Although I'm sure that the Dallas police department could be made to feel very differently

given the right prodding and some carefully manufactured evidence. If you get my meaning."

            "Clear as crystal, Mr Croag." She favoured him with a small, wintry smile. "Perhaps you could get

on with it and tell me exactly what you are interested in – and why you think it concerns me."

            "Whatever else Jacqueline Natla happened to be she was a certified genius."

            Certifiable in any case, Lara thought with an inward grimace.

            "The advances she made, in both the fields of computing and genetics, were absolutely incredible.

What other scientists are even now only capable of dreaming of she was making reality four or five years

ago. The US government and military were, to put it mildly, extremely interested in her work. If they could

have put to practical application even a fraction of Natla's creations they would have ensured that the

United States held onto complete technological, economical and military dominance well into the next

millennium."

            "I take it Ms. Natla wasn't too interested in sharing." Lara could see exactly the direction this

conversation was going and she didn't like it one bit. There was a hollow, sinking feeling in her gut.

            "What business leader would willingly share their competitive advantage with others?" Croag

asked rhetorically. "You're right though. What we got from Natla technologies was gleaned entirely

through industrial espionage and it was the merest tip of the ice-burg. When Natla disappeared even that

trickle dried up, much to the distress of numerous prominent individuals at the pentagon."

            "My heart bleeds for them." Lara's tone was dry. "I take it that Natla was too paranoid to share her

knowledge with even her own scientists." Here's hoping.

            "Alas so – as long days of painstakingly fruitless interrogation eventually led us to conclude. No-

one else at Natla Technologies rated as much more than a technician. And the laboratories and computer

systems had all been cleaned out by the time we got to them."

            Now that definitely was a surprise. Lara hadn't even considered going back and doing that, though

now that she thought of it, she most definitely should have done.

            "When Jacqueline Natla disappeared, so did all of her knowledge. It seems that she was, how shall

I put it. . . a completely unique individual. A veritable Einstein in her field. Some might even go as far to

say she was not quite of this world."

            "What. Like the 5000 year old Queen of Atlantis, risen from the dead? Or an alien visiting from

outer space perhaps? Pardon me if I sound sceptical"

            Croag gave a rasping chuckle, which again went nowhere near his ice grey eyes. "Or something

like that."

            So this bastard doesn't know quite as much as he would like to think. There hadn't even been a

flicker when she'd mentioned about the bit about the 'Queen of Atlantis'. "I still don't quite see where I fit

into all this."

            "Patience my dear. I'm just getting to that part."

            Oh, Good. And next time you call me dear I'll break your nose.

            "We did, interestingly enough, find Jacqueline Natla's journals. They make fascinating, though

extremely bizarre reading. There was one thing in them that particularly caught our attention though.

Apparently Ms. Natla created a secret storehouse in which she held her most special creations."

            Lara felt her heart thud in her chest. Of all the things she had feared. . . It was as though someone

had reached straight into her skull and plucked out a nightmare. "W-What did you find there?" If those

genetic freaks, and even worse, the means to produce more of them, fell into anybody's hands. . . she found

herself shuddering at the very idea.

            Croag regarded her levelly, a hint of amusement in his expression at her obvious discomfiture.

"Therein lies our problem Lara. A problem which it seems only you can help us with." The smile he

directed her way was terrifying – made her blood run cold. "Natla's journals didn't tell us where the

storehouse was located – at least not in any form that we could use. Apparently the key to its whereabouts

is the Scion."

            Lara couldn't hide the surge of relief that flooded through her. Looks like you're out of luck there

my friend. She knew for a fact that the Scion was now nothing more than a couple of melted and twisted

fragments of scrap metal, entirely useless to anyone.

            "Oh we're pretty sure you don't have the Scion, Lara. While you were out playing Indiana Jones in

the Atlas Mountains, and getting involved in that little contretemps with those Berber mercenaries, we took

the liberty of searching your home. Although we found numerous artefacts, the Scion – unfortunately –

wasn't among them."

            Lara could feel her blood boiling at the thought of these goons going through her private

possessions – had to fight very hard against the urge to leap straight across the table and attempt to strangle

the self-satisfied Yank bastard.

            Croag continued as though oblivious to her rage. "When it comes to it though we probably don't

need the thing. Just somebody who has seen it.

            "You see Lara, there was a passage of encrypted text in Natla's journals which we're certain

contains the map co-ordinates of the storehouse. Initially we thought it would be an easy enough job to

decrypt the information, given our expertise in such matters. But a year on, with an array of

supercomputers working on the problem every single second of every day, we still haven't cracked it.

Apparently, according to our boffins, Natla devised a previously unknown three-dimensional spatial

encryption algorithm which is comparable in complexity to straight 128 Megabyte encryption. Now I'm not

sure what that really means – all that techie stuff just goes straight over my head. But the bottom line is,

with our current level of computing technology, we could be here for the next 20,000 years and still not

have gotten anywhere.

            "So we desperately need to find the decryption key. It's just fortunate that we know exactly what

that key is – a three-dimensional digital representation of the Scion. Now none of us knows what the Scion

looks like, which is potentially a bit of a problem." He spread his hands wide and gave her a salesman's

grin. "Or it would have been if we didn't have you – the only person we know of currently still among the

living to have laid eyes on the thing – ready and eager to help us."

            "Why on earth should I tell you anything?" The words dripped with venom.

            "Lara, Lara, Lara." Croag shook his head in mock sadness. "Did I mention that my agents

encountered your butler. . . Winston isn't it? When they broke into your house. A feisty old fella. Put up

quite a fight for someone his age. He should make a full recovery from his injuries I'm told, though you

never can tell with someone so old. . . there could easily be an unexpected relapse."

            Lara didn't even hear the rest of it as Croag went on about how his agents had decided to

confiscate some of the artefacts they'd found in her home – how they'd look so much better in an American

museum than her living room. The anger that filled her was suddenly all consuming, transcending into a

kind of deadly clarity in which time seemed to flow more slowly.

            Without warning her elbow drove up and back, catching the woman standing at her left shoulder

flush in the solar plexus, driving the air from her body with a whoosh. Before anybody could react Lara

was up on her feet, pulling the doubled over woman back into her as a human shield. It took a fraction of a

second to free the woman's gun from her shoulder holster, catching crew-cut with his hand only half-way to

his own weapon.

            For an instant Lara could have put a bullet straight through his temple, and saw in the man's eyes

the recognition of the inevitability of his own death. Then she shifted her aim a fraction and shot him in the

meat of the shoulder. He gasped softly in shock and sat down heavily on his backside, a spurt of blood

creating a garish pattern on the white stucco wall behind him.

            "Drop the weapon or I blow the brains right of your pretty little head."

            Out of the corner of her eye she could see Croag standing, a .50 calibre IMI Desert Eagle pistol in

his hand, aimed at her head with the confidant stance of an accomplished marksman.

            "That wouldn't be a good idea, would it. As you've just admitted you need what's held in them

almost as much as I do." She moved the gun up to press its barrel against the side of the blonde woman's

head.

            "Thank you for reminding me of that Lara. We very nearly had a tragic accident for which I'd

never forgive myself." She saw the barrel of Croag's gun drop to point at her slightly lower than before.

            "It looks like we're at a bit of an impasse, doesn't it."

            "Perhaps." Croag lowered the aim of his weapon even further. "Tell me Lara, which of your

kneecaps can you most afford to loose? Left or right?"

            "The moment you shoot me this lady. . . I sorry dear I don't know your name." The woman in her

arms remained tight-lipped and silent. "Gets to experience a rather crude form of lobotomy."

            Croag shrugged. "I have lots of agents Lara. You only have two knees. Now I'll give you a three

count."

            At that moment another two of Croag's aforementioned agents barged through the pavilion doors,

weapons raised and pointed at Lara and her hostage, effectively cutting off the main escape route.

            "One."

            Lara sighed softly. Things weren't going exactly how she had planned. Not that she'd had much

time for planning.

            "Two."

            "Okay Croag. You win." Lara dropped the gun into the seat she'd been sitting in and shoved the

blonde woman powerfully away from her, straight into the faces of the two gunmen in front of her. She

made a start for the pavilion railing and the twelve foot drop into the gardens beyond, hoping to take

advantage of the momentary distraction.

            Croag, however, had read her intentions. Before she could move more than a foot the butt of his

pistol had slammed hard into the back of her neck. Lara was dropped to her hands and knees, vision

blurring as stars seemed to flash before her eyes. As she tried to rise a brutal kick swept her legs out from

under her, sending her sprawling face down on the tiles.

            "Don't try to get up."

            This definitely wasn't turning out to be her day. Now I suppose I get the living shit beaten out of

me.

            Before the anticipated beating could commence a woman appeared through the same doorway the

two agents had just barged through, and all eyes turned to focus on her. She was small and dark haired – a

delicate, pretty looking young thing – and seemed somewhat out of place as she directed a slightly

distressed look at the agent with the crew-cut where he sat, propped against the wall, blood oozing between

the fingers of the hand clamped over his wounded shoulder. In a small brown hand she held an object that

was somewhere between a pistol and a syringe. She looked up at Croag with big, soulful brown eyes. "Am

I too early, Sir?"

            Croag smiled. He stood with one foot planted firmly in the small of Lara's back, keeping her

pressed hard against the tile floor. "No, not all Connie. As always your timing is absolutely impeccable."

            He reached out to take the device from her proffered hand, leaning forward to press it against the

nape of Lara's neck. Then – with a gentle, pneumatic hiss – he pulled the trigger.

            "Ouch." Lara winced at the sudden sunburst of burst of pain. "What the hell was that."

            "You've heard of Sodium Pentathol I presume." She didn't need to see the victorious expression on

Croag's face – she could hear it in his voice. "Well this is a highly advanced derivative of that substance –

though much more useful, and luckily for you, without many of the nastier side effects such as permanent

brain damage. In a few minutes time you're going to become highly open to suggestion. In fact you'll want

to do absolutely anything that I tell you to – anything to please me. What's more you'll be completely

incapable of telling a lie.

            "In this state you'll be the perfect subject for hypnotism. Then. . ." He tapped the side of her head

none to gently with the hypodermic-pistol. "I'll be able to mine every last scrap of information inside that

pretty little skull of yours, and you won't be able to do a single thing to resist."

* * *

Croag gazed at Lara's unconscious form – deeply submerged in the realm of hypnotised sleep. She sat,

manacled by the wrists and ankles in what resembled an execution chair of the sort used for administering

lethal injections, her head lolling forward against her chest. Her breathing was shallow but steady.

            He was, to say the least, surprised – no better, make that amazed – about what he had heard over

the course of the last three hour interrogation session, his mind buzzing over the myriad possible

implications and opportunities that suddenly presented themselves. That crack about the 'Queen of

Atlantis'. . . He shook his head and smiled ruefully to himself. Lara, Lara. To think that I actually almost

underestimated you.

            There was a disturbing gleam to his cold grey eyes as he continued to stare at Lara – a tiny flame

of naked lust and desire which had absolutely nothing to do with attraction to her undeniably beautiful

physical form. Indeed, his mind had drifted miles distant from the small, antiseptic confines of this

interrogation cell. Thoughts of an army of Natla's New Breed, fighting at the behest of the Organisation

filled his head like a pleasant daydream. It was a shame that the Scion was now lost to them of course. . .

but still, he had scarcely dared hoped for anything of this magnitude.

            It just went to prove that you should never, ever, doubt anything the Great Lady said.

            With a deep, shuddering in-drawn breath he reasserted his composure – his diamond hard

rationality and self-control. It wouldn't do to get carried away on flights of fancy – or to count chickens

before they hatched. Always you must remain calm and in control. Always.

            He turned from Lara to look at Connie Newsome. The young female scientist was seated at the

room's single plain steel desk, finishing off her written notes. There was a small but noticeable tremor to

her hand as she wrote, and her face looked pale and drawn. As he watched the tip of her small, pink tongue

darted fleetingly out to moisten lips suddenly gone dry. The tightness of her shoulders screamed tension.

            "Do you think the information we got was sufficient?"

            Connie started violently at the sudden, unexpected sound of his voice – gazed up at him with wide,

round eyes. "Erm. . . Even if all this doesn't prove to be exact," she made a nervous jabbing sweep with one

hand to indicate her notepad, the tape-recorder and the sketch book filled with drawings of the Scion made

by a hypnotised Lara. "It should still prove sufficient to narrow the search space down enough to allow the

code to be cracked relatively quickly. If it doesn't. . . well we can always go for another of these sessions.

Though we would have to wait 48 hours for it to be entirely safe." She cleared her throat, then trailed off

abruptly.

            "And by then we should know from our computer people one way or another." He gave an

emphatic nod. "Thank you Connie, your help today has been absolutely invaluable. It won't go unnoticed,

or unmentioned, I can assure you."

            He noticed a delicate flush of pink heighten her cheeks at the praise, and found himself wondering

how such a naοve and sensitive seeming young girl could possibly have gotten involved in this line of

business. There was a core of strength, determination and competence that belied those outward

appearances of course. Still just a girl though. In a way it was such a pity. . .

            He would hardly have suspected that she was in the employ of his nominal boss within the

Agency, John Darrow, reporting back on everything  that he said and did. That, Croag supposed, was the

whole point.

            "Sir?" The sound of her voice – almost as delicate as her looks – cut through his musings. "Those

other things she said. There can't be any kind of truth in them can there?"

            "What, you mean ancient rulers of Atlantis walking among us, freed from their prisons by nuclear

testing? Hatcheries full of evil, genetically engineered mutant killing machines? Megalomaniac schemes to

speed up human evolution through genocidal slaughter?" Croag fashioned a calming, slightly

condescending smile on his face. "Tell me, what's your opinion, Connie?"

            She gave a shaky laugh, followed by a rueful shake of her head. "Well. Put like that, obviously

there can't be. She must be. . ."

            "Mad. Psychotic. Paranoid delusional." He interrupted before Connie could finish. "Who knows

what name the shrinks would have for it. If you look at her repressive upbringing, compounded by that

plane crash and being stranded alone in the Himalayas at age 21, is it really any wonder she turned out like

she did? I mean the whole of the English aristocracy is probably several bricks short when it comes right

down to it." He let out a brief, barking laugh at his own attempt at a joke.

            After a short period of silence Connie asked: "What's going to happen to her. After this is all

sorted out I mean."

            "We have clear-cut security camera footage of her breaking into and out of a top secret US Air

Force base. The knowledge she carries in her head is a blatant threat to national security." Croag's tone was

surprisingly gentle. "She will be dealt with like anyone else in the same situation – in the best interests of

our country."

            Connie gave a single short nod at the oblique death sentence he had just pronounced.

            Yes, surprisingly hard and ruthless beneath that exterior. If he only had time to convert her. It

really was a shame. . .

            She turned around to gather up her notes and the sketches, and Croag reached stealthily for the

Desert Eagle pistol held in the shoulder holster that he wore beneath his jacket. He didn't think she could

have heard anything, but nevertheless as he raised the barrel she turned around, her eyes becoming

absolutely huge. "Wha. . ."

            The single gunshot sounded almost dull and inconsequential, deadened and absorbed by thick

layers of soundproof material. A bright red flower bloomed in the centre of Connie's forehead and the back

of her skull exploded, painting the wall behind her in a garish frieze of blood, brain tissue and bone

fragments. She collapsed bonelessly, tumbling to the ground with a weirdly balletic grace. As death took

her, her bowels loosed and urine spattered down her slender legs, forming a pool around her body to mingle

with the blood.

            Croag grimaced in disgust. How undignified death is, with its piss and shit and mangled flesh.

            Moving carefully to avoid the expanding mess, he placed the gun down on the floor beside the

chair where Lara was bound. Then he leant over her to unfasten her wrist manacles, before stepping back

and regarding the scene he was trying to create critically.

            With casual brutality he backhanded the unconscious Lara hard across the face, snapping her head

back. The signet ring he wore left a bloody half-inch gash on her cheek and immediately raised a large,

purplish bruise.

            Apparently satisfied with his work, Croag pressed the intercom button. "Get help down hear fast!

We have an emergency situation. Agent Newsome's been shot." His voice was invested with just the

appropriate mix of urgency and carefully controlled panic.

            Letting the intercom go dead without listening for the response he let his gaze drop down to

Connie Newsome's shattered, lifeless body and smiled sadly. "I am truly, truly sorry my dear. Please

believe me. If there had been any other way. . . But I couldn't allow you to report what you've just heard to

dearest John."

* * *

The blow Croag struck to Lara's face had a side-effect he didn't quite intend.

            It penetrated through the deep velvet darkness of her hypnotised sleep and drew her back towards

the realms of consciousness – able to hear what was going on around her, and sense the bright light through

her eyelids, but not immediately capable of summoning enough will to throw off the chains of lethargy that

left her body feeling like a statue of lead.

            She heard the agents arrive in a clattering rush of noise and agitation – four of them by the

different voices they used. While Croag explained to them how she had grabbed his gun when he leaned

over to get a better look at one of the drawings she was sketching – had then used it to shoot Agent

Newsome in the head before he could react – she listened attentively. A part of her was outraged by the

false accusation – wanted to stand up and shout that he was lying, that it was Croag himself who had shot

the woman. Deeper instincts held her back though. Kept her playing possum.

            There was more talk, and for a short time Lara hazed out again as unconsciousness tried to reclaim

her into its embrace. She only pulled back from that welcoming abyss when a shadow loomed over,

blocking out the light, and one voice was suddenly a lot closer and louder. It was Croag's.

            "Take the murdering bitch to a holding cell. I need her alive and able to talk for the moment. But

otherwise. . . You needn't be too gentle with her if you take my meaning."

            Two pairs of hands grabbed hold of her from either side and pulled her roughly to her feet. Her

legs immediately gave way beneath her, dead with pins and needles, and her arms yanked painfully against

her shoulder sockets before she was caught and held vertical. It was an effort to avoid yelping with the

unexpected pain and giving herself away. Then she was being dragged forward, the toes of her boots

scraping against the floor.

            The light dimmed abruptly, and the quality of the sounds around her altered radically as Lara was

carried through the interrogation chamber door, into a long, echoey corridor. Slowly – not to mention

painfully – she could feel life returning to her legs. The realisation that she had to act quickly and

decisively – that she would probably only ever get this one chance – filled her.

            "Jeez, she's heavier than she looks." One of her carriers said right into her left earhole, almost

making her start.

            I strongly resent that implication.

            "Must be all that ballast she's carrying up front," the one on her other side sniggered.

            And you're treading on very dangerous ground, buddy.

            "I mean look at them. Do you think they're real or fake?" The same man went on.

            There was no reply from the left so after a moment he carried on. "So, you err. . . going to take

advantage of the situation like the boss suggested? I mean damn, she's one hot looking babe."

            "I think Croag meant beat the crap out of her. Not fucking rape her." The other man's voice was

laced with contempt. "If you haven't forgotten, this lady's one major psycho. Newsome's dead and Drake's

still being patched up from what she did. Do you really want to go near this one with your pants down?"

            Lara tuned out of the conversation in disgust. She could hear the sound of footsteps pass by

overhead, and in the distance faint conversation. Her heart was beating rapidly and the feeling had mostly

returned to her legs. She knew that there couldn't be much further to go to their destination – that her

window of opportunity was narrowing rapidly. Yet instinct told her to hold back a few seconds longer.

            ". . . Aguilera ain't goin' to take this good man. Him un' Connie. They was close, I mean. He's

goin' to want to flay this bitch alive."

            "The mood Croag's in he may just let him." A pause, then. "What was the boss thinking off. He's

supposed to be the best of the fucking best. There's no way he should have made a mistake like that. Not

with his experience. No way at all." There was definite doubt and worry in the man's voice.

            You may have made a mistake Croag. One of your pet goons at least is capable of thinking. The

thought didn't give Lara much satisfaction though. She allowed her eyes to drift open the merest of

fractions – couldn't hear anyone else near them now. This was probably the last best chance she would get.

            She let a trailing foot snag on the ground, catching between two tiles so that her arms slid free of

the men's shoulders, seemingly by accident. Before they even got an inkling something was wrong she was

grabbing for their shoulder-holstered guns – just as Croag had claimed she had done to him – and was

leaping powerfully back from them, ripping the weapons free.

            The floor seemed to tilt and gyrate beneath her feet, and her vision swam. She came just inches

from collapsing embarrassingly in a heap on the floor, and felt suddenly deeply nauseous. Damned drugs.

With an effort she pasted a crooked devil-may-care grin on her face, the effect only slightly spoiled by the

bead of sweat which chose that instant to trickle down the side of her face.

            "Okay boys, face down on the floor or I do a quick experiment to see how empty your heads really

are. Now!" She rather hoped that they couldn't see the effort it took to keep the two guns from shaking.

            But they responded instinctively to the authority and faked confidence of her tone. "Right, legs

spread, hands behind your heads. If either of you suffers so much as a muscle spasm it'll be the last move

you ever make." Lara stepped between them, guns trained unerringly, then quickly bent down to retrieve

two sets of wallets and car keys from the back pockets of their trousers. A Ford and Chevrolet Corvette.

She shook her head. Talk about the art of going native. . .

            "Good. Stay exactly like that." The ground seemed to be gyrating slowly beneath her feet as she

walked past them. When she got ten feet beyond where they lay she broke into a run, heading for stairs

leading up from this basement level. A couple of shots, fired back and over the two men's heads stilled their

scramble to regain their feet and any thoughts of pursuit.

            She wasn't worried about the gunshots giving away her position – she knew that the security

cameras had already done that.

            The run through the house took on a strange, drug distorted, surreal tilt for Lara. It seemed to her

almost as though she was viewing things from the third person, outside her own body – that someone else,

other than her own brain was making her limbs move. A door started to open in front of her and she let off

another couple of shots, again deliberately missing, but scaring whoever it was into slamming the door shut

again and retreating. Then, without knowing how she got there, she was down on her knees, throwing up

uncontrollably into a plant pot.

            Her vision swirled and distorted horribly as she regained her feet and half staggered off again, and

she only had the vaguest impression of the person she suddenly came face to face with – just the fact they

were pointing two guns directly at her.

            Heart leaping into her mouth, she managed to squeeze four shots off almost before she had time to

blink. Certainly before her brain belatedly registered the fact she had just murdered her own reflection,

shards of glass, wood and plaster flying everywhere.

            Damn and double damn. She scared somebody into diving out of her way behind a sofa as she ran

through another room, then was at yet another door, which she flung open like all the rest. Cool air hit her

in the face, and temporarily her head cleared.

            Outside it was night. She hadn't registered the fact before, and a disoriented corner of her mind

wondered where all the hours had gone. A bullet ripping into the doorjamb less than a foot away from her

head put an end to any contemplation though. Without looking back she dove forward and rolled outside.

            Directly in front off her, bathed in yellow illumination from rows of arc lamps, was a gravel

crescent filled with parked cars. She made a zigzagging, random path across the lawn towards it, squeezing

off shots behind her back without looking just to keep her pursuers nervous – unable to take the time to get

a proper aim. Ford or Corvette. Ford or Corvette. It repeated in her skull like a religious mantra.

            The choice was Corvette. In her a current state she couldn't tell a Ford from her elbow amid the

ranks of cars. The Corvette on the other hand stood out a mile, brand new, bright red and gleaming in the

artificial light.

            She felt the tug of a bullet passing by her right-hand side and dove round the bonnet of one of

those huge armour plated Mercedes' for cover. Two men, back-lit and silhouetted by the lights of the villa

were advancing across the lawn towards her on the double and she opened up on them, pistols barking

rapidly.

            Acting instinctively how she had been taught, she aimed low. A gun's kick naturally makes you

much more likely to miss high when laying down fire rapidly, so this way there was still a chance of you

hitting a target even with an erroneous shot; plus you tended to take any body armour a person might be

wearing right out of the equation.

            The man in front took bullets in the thigh and the hip, falling to the grass in an almost balletic

spiral, screaming in pain. The one behind went down in a heap too, though Lara couldn't tell where, or even

if, she had hit him. Her breath was coming raggedly now, and she could feel the muscles of her arms

trembling. She'd lost count of how many shots she had fired – something that would never normally have

happened – and knew that she must be just about out of ammo.

            Shaking her head in an attempt to clear it, Lara stuffed one of the guns into the waist of her

trousers, then aimed the remote control to unlock the Corvette's doors. A deep breath, and she made a run

for it, just ahead of a volley of gunfire from the villa. As she was getting in, the driver-side window

imploded, showering her in a mist of glass shards.

            In return she squeezed a shot off at a figure standing in the villa's doorway, not hitting anything

but forcing whoever it was to duck back, and buying herself just enough time to get the keys into the

ignition and gun the engine. Now this is going to be fun, she thought blearily, her vision choosing that

moment to freak out again.

            Then she was off, the Corvette's tires screeching and raising up miniature fountains of gravel in its

wake.

            The back window disappeared in a shower of glass, the same bullet carrying on straight through

the car to transform the windscreen in front of her into a crazy opaque spiderweb. Luckily a second bullet

almost immediately blew it out entirely, cool wind streaming unimpeded into Lara's face. Finally she was

out of range, driving into the darkness – sick and dizzy.

            Belatedly she remembered the lights – and almost screamed as they illuminated the pair of white

steel gates looming directly in front of her. In the split second available to make a decision she stamped

down hard upon the accelerator rather than the brakes and braced herself for impact.

            The noise of the collision was horrendous. Lara was flung hard into the airbag that deployed

explosively in front of her, then back into the seat with enough force to knock all the wind from her body.

The steering wheel was torn violently from her weakened grasp. Time seemed to have slowed to a

standstill, but miraculously the car made it through and was still going on the other side.

            She clawed the deflating airbag out of her way, yanking hard left to avoid a stone wall, and in

doing so leaving half of her tires smeared across the tarmac. There were no other cars coming along that

particular section of main road. Otherwise a collision would have been inevitable. The immediate danger

averted, she leant over to the right and threw up again into the passenger seat.

            The sight of headlights in her rear-view mirror spurred Lara to stamp the accelerator again, despite

the fact that the road wavered and undulated before her eyes like a hyperactive snake. She almost lost it

again going round a sweeping bend in the road. The Corvette's wing raised sparks and a horrible banshee

wail as it scraped for over 50 feet along a rough stone wall.

            Her side was burning as sweat ran down it, and the Corvette's upholstery was becoming sticky

with slowly leaking blood. Apparently the bullet that had just 'missed' her had actually been one hell of a

lot closer than she'd originally thought. In the brief moment of distraction that this realisation caused, Lara's

foot slipped, and – unnoticed by her groggy mind -- her speed began to drop inexorably. The trailing

headlights grew gigantic in the rear-view mirror.

            A violent jolt wracked her as the pursing car gave her an unfriendly nudge, snapping the onset of

lethargy. In the period of time it took Lara to regain control she veered up onto the pavement and narrowly

avoided a terminal collision with a parked van.

            They were back in the city proper now, the roads narrowing and filling with traffic as they headed

toward the harbour. It must have been something approaching divine intervention that enabled Lara – as

bullets rang out behind her – to weave her way through the other cars. Certainly she wasn't more than half-

aware of anything except a crazy morass of too bright lights cavorting insanely before her eyes.

            The Corvette's rear end clouted a parked car as she took another bend faster than her drugged

reactions could safely cope with, and she was straight through a busy junction before it even registered,

gaining a couple of hundred meters as her pursuers were forced to brake desperately. Despite the cold air

blowing constantly in her face through the absent windscreen it seemed as though she was becoming more,

not less, groggy. Other drivers were forced into evasive manoeuvres just to avoid her increasingly erratic

progress.

            The barrier she crashed straight through – further wrecking the Corvette's already badly scarred

front end – didn't seem important until she realised that the road ran out directly in front of her, and all that

lay ahead was a vast, calm expanse of water.

            Hitting the brakes with all her might just as both she and the car went airborne off the end of the

jetty, Lara and the Corvette sailed majestically into the sea.

* * *

            "She drowned. Face it. She must have done." Wade Clauson – the blonde female agent who had

earlier that day helped bring Lara Croft in – spoke to Croag's rigidly straight back, failing to elicit any kind

of a response from her superior. "With that amount of drugs in her bloodstream it's a wonder she could

walk, let alone drive a car. She was probably unconscious before she even hit the water."

            Croag was standing at the end of the same jetty Lara had driven off several minutes earlier, staring

fixedly at the patch of water where the red Chevrolet Corvette had sunk from view. "Perhaps. I will believe

it when the divers bring up her body though. Not before"

            Wade shivered at the wintry chill of tightly contained anger in his voice. She wouldn't want to be

in the position of Nichols and McGhee – the two agents who Lara had managed to escape from. Not for any

amount of money in the world. "You got what you wanted from her though, didn't you sir?"

            "That remains to be seen. It may take several days for confirmation to come through." Then. "We

shouldn't be in this position Agent Clauson. Not at all."

            Behind their backs two Moroccan police cars – Volkswagen Passats – sat parked with their lights

flashing, and makeshift barriers had been erected to keep unwanted eyes back. The local law enforcement

wouldn't interfere though. Croag's influence was enough to see to that.

            And you shouldn't have let her shoot Connie. Wisely though, Wade didn't vocalise the thought.

            "Come on." Croag turned away from the water, pale eyes glittering. "If she's dead then it's saved

us the price of a bullet. She's not though. People like her never have the grace to behave that conveniently."

He brushed past Wade and strode off, back to where their Mercedes was parked.

            Wade sighed. He's paranoid. There's no way anyone could have walked away from that in the

condition she was. She couldn't help but feel a touch of admiration for the British woman though. That was

one hell of a tough lady. Even if she did happen to be a mad, murderous bitch.

            Thrusting her hands low into the pockets of her jacket, she moved to follow her boss before she

got left behind, dark thoughts flashing through her mind.

 

* * * * *

 

The sky was filled with vile, choking black smoke. It was so thick and all pervasive that it threatened to

obscure the bloated, angry red sun, carrying with it the charnel house miasma of burnt flesh and other

fouler pollutants.

            Lara struggled to find enough breath as she walked rapidly through the ruined and deserted streets,

her lungs crying out for more oxygen. Shattered cars burned at the roadside – blackened and gutted husks –

while there wasn't a single intact window within the range of her view, houses staring like malevolent blind

men from vacant eye-sockets as she walked apprehensively past.

            The broken pavement beneath her booted feet was smeared and streaked with red-brown stains,

looking as though it had been painted by a maniac street artist in a frenzy of insane rage. And she didn't

even like to glance into the dark, shadow filled corners – where rubbish and wreckage were piled in great

heaps – for fear of what she would see the hordes of rats nibbling upon.

            Every now and again she would throw panicked, wide-eyed looks over her shoulders as stealthy,

furtive sounds reached her ears through the endless crackle of the flames, but there was never anything to

be seen. Except for once – a fleeting glimpse of a shadow whose source stayed firmly out of sight.

            From somewhere all too close up ahead there was a howl, blood-chilling and feral, with a harsh

metallic rasping quality to it that didn't come from the throat of any natural beast. Lara stopped dead in her

tracks, a shiver passing involuntarily along the length of her spine as hot, pestilent wind stirred stands of

chestnut hair across her face. A horde of answering cries rose up, responding to that initial challenge in a

demonic cacophony that filled the air with rage and madness – the hosts of hell singing for their supper.

            They were very, very near. Quickly Lara changed direction, heading back the way she had just

come from in a half run, breaking into a coughing fit as she tried to breathe in air that felt like treacle and

couldn't provide enough untainted oxygen for her lungs. Suddenly an all too human scream, shrill and

piercing with agony and terror, rang out. The intensity of the cries and howls increased ten-fold, filled with

terrible, hungry lust.

            The scream went on and on, its pain and horror seemingly without end or limitation. The sound of

its sheer, appalling suffering brought Lara to the verge of tears, but she knew that she could do nothing –

that if she went back and tried to help it would soon be her own screams ringing out across this devastated,

benighted city. Then, with abrupt finality, the screaming stopped.

            Lara caught a fleeting glimpse of something moving in the corner of her vision – a gory, sinuous

flash of red.

            Heart pounding, adrenaline rushing, she stopped, pulling the long knife from her belt and

preparing to make a final stand. It seemed weeks – months even – since she had run out of ammunition for

her guns and ceased being able to fight them properly. All things considered it was amazing she had lived

this long.

            She was terrified in way she had never been before – desperately didn't want to die like this, alone

and helpless in a hell of endless death, destruction and suffering, inglorious and futile in her final moments.

She managed to steel herself though – there wasn't any other choice.

            The creature leapt out of the shadows, cat-like, to land lightly in front of her, right in the middle of

the street. Indeed, there was something of the cat about its appearance – though it was a cat drawn straight

from the blackest pits of nightmare and mated with a human to abominable effect. Flayed flesh and gristle

glistened slickly as it rose up from its haunches to a height of more than eight feet, a long hiss escaping

from jaws that could tear through flesh and bone like paper. Razor-like claws tapped out a skittering tune

on the broken tarmac, and its dark, soulless eyes seemed to bore right into her – frighteningly intelligent

and empty of compassion.

            Naked sinews and muscles flexing, it pounced.

            Lara was ready. Just.

            She rolled forward, under the thing's leap completely, then back up to her feet as it flew past, all

four of its limbs scrabbling frantically for grip as it struggled to get itself turned around. In the metre or two

of space she had gained she legged it towards a ruined house. Her knife would be about as much use as a

knitting needle in a fight against that thing, and ultimately – in the wide open space of the street – she

couldn't hope to out pace it for long.

            There was another of the creatures – Natla's horrific New Breed – waiting for her in what had once

been the house's living room. It was seated upon a pile of broken debris and bloody scraps, gnawing on the

remnants of a severed arm – spat hatred at her as she tore right past it.

            As she emerged, running full pelt, into the blasted garden at the house's rear, the howling started

up again, horribly near, calling for others to join the hunt. Knowing it was hopeless, dread devouring her

from the inside out, she kept on going anyway. She imagined she could feel hot breath upon her neck.

            Something swooped at her out of the smoke wreathed air, taking her completely by surprise. It

flew on gory crimson bat wings, and Lara ducked from it instinctively. Still, its hooked claws raked across

her back, shredding through her clothing as though it wasn't there and raising lines of agonising fire in her

flesh, knocking her face down onto hard packed earth. She rolled desperately, the pain from her torn back

enough to make her cry out as it shot through her body in agonising waves.

            A glowing ball of roiling crimson plasmic energy exploded into the patch of dirt she had just been

lying on, and a scorching shockwave of heat washed straight over her. Then the winged-horror flapped

lightly to the earth in front of her. In an act of sheer desperation as the thing's muscles tensed and it raised

itself for the kill, Lara threw the knife hard into its nightmare of a face.

            The blade took it in the eye, burying all six inches of its cold, sharp length – right up to the hilt –

inside its skull. Shrieking, wings flapping spasmodically as it clawed at its own face, the flayed-gargoyle

creature staggered and fell over like a drunk.

            Covering her face with her arms, Lara curled into a ball, knowing exactly what to expect as the

monstrous creation's insane, hyper-charged metabolism spiralled out of control and went into unstoppable

chain-reaction. A second later it exploded violently in a shower of flame and gore and reeking, greasy black

smoke.

            Battered and bleeding, body trembling with pain and shock, Lara pulled herself to her feet. . . only

to straight away come face to face with the two flayed cat-things she had just fled from. Though now of

course she was completely unarmed. The creatures circled her as she backed off slowly, hissing and

growling through their trap-like teeth, clawing at the earth.

            Just as she was about to make a final, futile dash she heard a sound from right behind her, almost

in her ear – a ghastly, rasping, humourless chuckle that turned her soul to ash. Somewhere inside her head

she heard the final nail hammer home.

            A monstrous, spider-like presence – swollen and bloated from feasting upon the endless violence

and death – seemed to stare down at her from above, dripping malevolence and dark unholy glee as it

spectated upon her demise. A seductively feminine – yet at the same time completely inhuman – voice

whispered from nowhere and everywhere at once. "I always win in the end Lara. I always win in the end."

            Then the creatures pounced, teeth and claws flashing.

            Lara woke with a start, gasping, clawing at the bed beneath her.

* * *

Croag sat, cross-legged in the centre of the small square room's polished wooden floor, his posture slightly

reminiscent of the Lotus position with arms spread and palms raised. He was stripped to the waist, wearing

no more than a pair of loose black silk trousers, belted by a cord of gold. His impressively developed

musculature gleamed in the room's only source of illumination – a pair of tall white candles placed exactly

two metres apart in front of him. Despite his advancing age he still looked as hard as carved stone, with no

incipient signs of sagging, softening or withering. Sketched across his stomach and right side was an

extensive network of pale scar tissue – long healed but never fading.

            Around him there was an immaculate circle of white, crystalline powder exactly one meter in

diameter and piled up to a uniform height of one inch. It was sea salt, one hundred percent pure. Slightly

outside this there was a second circle, just as perfect as the first, though this one was of fine, dull grey ash.

            Inside the two circles, placed on the floor directly before him, were a matching pair of black-

enamelled bowls, one filled to the brim with crystal clear spring water, the other draped by a square of

black silk which concealed its contents from view. Between the two, its plain polished ivory hilt pointing

away from him, was a dagger – an athane – its mirror steel blade exactly nine inches long and glittering

with the sharpness of a surgeon's scalpel.

            There was nothing else in the room – no decoration, no window, and not a single hint of dirt or

dust. This was sanctified territory, and nothing unnecessary, no matter how tiny and seemingly insignificant

must be allowed to impugn it.

            Croag cleared his thoughts. Each concern, worry, desire, or petty emotion that threatened to

distract him and render him impure – unworthy for this communion – he picked up in turn by the corner,

setting it alight with the cold flames of his will and watching emotionlessly as it was consumed. Eventually

all that remained was void, dark and unbroken – and he was ready to become the receptacle.

            Movements slow and measured, Croag reached down and lifted the silk from atop the bowl,

placing it carefully to one side. Within was a lump of raw and bloody meat – Connie Newsome's now

unneeded heart. In his earlier wrath at Lara Croft's escape he had been sorely tempted to add those of Agent

Nichols and Agent McGhee to the offering pile. He had relented only because, for the moment at least, he

still needed his underlings' loyalty – and such an action would have surely tested that beyond the breaking

point.

            With his other hand, and the utmost of reverence, he lifted up the dagger and drew it slowly and

carefully along the meat of his forearm. There were a multitude of other scars there, indicating that this was

by no means the first time this ritual had been performed. Blood flowed, dark and glimmering in the gently

flickering candle light. As it began to drip from his fingertips in fat droplets, into the bowl and onto

Connie's heart, Croag placed the dagger aside atop the black silk square and began to murmur softly.

            It wasn't anything like any other language known to man – maybe not even a language. Just a

rhythmic cadence of formless nonsense syllables and sounds, mixing together into an ever intensifying

chanting that almost seemed to come from many different tongues at once, its meaning forever just beyond

the listener's grasp. Croag's chanting reached a fever pitch, then in the space of a heartbeat fell silent.

            "Eisheth Zenunim. My Queen!"

            Spontaneously the offering of heart and blood burst into foot high flames, and the bowl of water

began to steam.

* * *

Lara winced at the brilliant sunlight streaming in through the window, throwing up an arm to shield her

face from the glare and looking away. Her heart rate was still a little fast from that extraordinarily vivid

nightmare and her head hurt with a hangover straight from the pits of hell. She was lying in a strange bed

with absolutely no idea how she had gotten there.

            Bone tired, surrounded on all sides by inky water blacker than any tomb, with no sense of up or

down, left or right, the temptation to Lara's drug addled and oxygen starved brain was to just lie back and

let herself float away – to open up her lungs and drink in of endless calm and peace. But the fierce survival

instincts which had kept an untrained, privileged and spoilt rich girl alive through a plane crash, and the

subsequent, endless seeming solitary hike through the Himalayas – which had never, ever let her give in for

a moment since, no matter how poor the odds may have seemed – kicked in and refused to let that happen.

She spotted a glimmer of light from one direction, and despite the inner howls of protest, she kicked for it.

And kicked, and kicked, even when her lungs screamed for air and it seemed as though her heart must

explode in her chest, her vision turning the blackness red. Just as it seemed that it would all be in vain

anyway – that she would have to breathe in the endless ocean and drown – she broke through the surface

and sucked in great, gasping lungfuls of cool air. Then, bone weary and scarcely able to think, she pressed

for shore with a steady metronomical stroke. Eventually she dragged herself, crawling on hands and knees,

from the water and collapsed, not caring where she was as she fell into oblivion.

            Someone it seemed had found her – and from the look of her current surroundings it hadn't been

either the Moroccan police or Croag and his mob.

            The realisation that beneath the bedcovers she was naked then hit her. She felt a sudden pang of

uncomfortable vulnerability, realising that whatever situation she currently found herself in she was far

from in control of it. Well, naked apart from a bandage, she allowed as she felt a sudden sharpness from

her side, reminding her pointedly of the bullet which had grazed her.

            She had been bathed by someone while she was unconscious too – as well as being undressed and

patched up. Both her skin and hair were noticeably clean.

            Lara's gaze – just about adjusted to the brightness, though it still made her head throb – travelled

down to the foot of bed where she saw that a set of clothes had been laid out for her. Her own clothes in

fact, along with all of her travel bags from the hotel she'd been staying at. She found herself wondering

whose hands she had fallen into this time.

            "Ah, you're finally awake then. I was beginning to think that I was going to have to resort to the

traditional method of waking up sleeping beauty."

            Lara started at the unexpected voice, deep and rich and mellow, with an educated English accent –

and very definitely male. She lay back on the bed, reflexively pulling the sheets right up beneath her

armpits to cover herself as completely as possible as she looked round to the voice's source.

            She hadn't seen him straight away because he was seated right in the corner of the room, shielded

from her still sensitive eyes behind the glare from the window. From what she could see he was a tall, lithe

and athletic looking individual, dressed in a lightweight and expensive cotton suit with gleaming ebony

dark skin and a smoothly shaven scalp. Half-moon spectacles perched upon the end of his nose, sparkling

where they caught the sunlight, and there was an inch long scar running straight down his left cheek – the

only blemish on an otherwise extremely handsome face. He appeared about the same age as herself, and in

other circumstances perhaps, Lara might have found him very attractive.

            Lara could feel her cheeks flushing at the thought of this man undressing her, not only seeing her

completely naked but washing her and cleaning and dressing her wounds too. . . Not that I'm normally a

prude or anything. She felt a flash of anger for being made to feel this uncomfortable. "Do you normally

spy on women while they're sleeping, or did you make an exception just for me?"

            "Erm." He seemed a trifle embarrassed. "We were concerned about your condition. Someone had

to stay and make sure you didn't suffer any adverse effects. There was a real danger of secondary drowning

you know."

            "Of course."

            "It wasn't me who bathed and undressed you, if that's any comfort to you. My er. . ." He seemed to

be struggling to find the correct word. "Housekeeper, Garda, took care of all that."

            Lara realised that she was probably coming across as some stuck-up ungrateful bitch when these

people – whoever they actually were – may well have saved her life. "My apologies, and thank you. Its just

that I didn't have a particular good day yesterday. And I feel like I'm suffering from one hell of a

hangover." She paused, wondering belatedly whether it had actually been yesterday that everything had

happened. From the way she felt it could easily have been much longer. "It was yesterday, wasn't it?"

            "It was ten past ten yesterday evening when you drove off the end of that jetty, Lara." He

confirmed. "It's just on six o'clock in the evening now."

            So, I've been out for slightly under twenty hours. Not good, but not as bad as I'd feared either.

Then. Lara? How is it that everyone I meet recently seems to know not only my name but my life history for

the past five years. It would almost be flattering if it wasn't so damned annoying.

            "I notice that you've got all my clothes and belongings from the Safir."

            "Garda again." He flashed her a brilliant, charming smile. "I'm afraid that I can't take any credit for

that either."

            "This Garda sounds like a very talented and versatile lady."

            "Oh she is. Sometimes I wonder what I'd do without her." Another of those smiles. Lara tried to

remain resolutely uncharmed. "I'm sorry. I completely forget my manners. I know your name, but I haven't

introduced myself. Emil Ngonge at your service." He offered her a hint of a bow from where he sat.

            "Charmed, I'm sure." Lara tried to ensure that the words were freighted with just the right amount

of irony – so he knew exactly how she really felt. "Might I ask how you came to find me? And perhaps

more pertinently, what it is you want with me? Assuming you are not just playing the Good Samaritan that

is."

            "Direct and to the point. I like that in a woman."

            Oh, spare me please.

            "I have been watching the man who is currently calling himself Jack Croag for some time now.

Him and me have what you might call a shared past. They are a number of things that we need to. . . work

through together. Croag is an extremely dangerous and unpleasant man. Although you probably got to

experience that first hand, didn't you?"

            "He certainly won't be on my Christmas card list." Oh Good. To top everything off I now appear to

be caught in the middle of some kind of blood feud. Things just get better and better.

            "What I want to know, Lara, is what Croag wanted with you. I happen to know that you're an

adventurer, explorer and archaeologist, who has also published several rather interesting pieces of travel

writing. So you probably have a whole raft of interesting stories and anecdotes to tell. I doubt though, that

Croag went to all the trouble he did in order to share a cup of tea and a friendly chat."

            Lara considered Emil's words. He didn't come across as particularly threatening, and indeed

seemed almost friendly – for the moment at least. However, she had no desire to get involved in someone

else's personal grudge – which is what this sounded like. She strongly suspected there was too much at

stake to let herself get side-tracked into something like that. And she definitely didn't trust him yet.

            "Mr. Ngonge. . ."

            "Call me Emil, please."

            "Alright then, Emil. I am very grateful for the help and care you have shown me. I really am. But I

don't want to get involved in anybody else's quest for personal vengeance, or whatever – no matter how

worthy that might in fact be.

            "I would therefore appreciate it a great deal if you would allow me some privacy so I can get

dressed. I've got a phone call I need to make. Then there are then a couple of things that I need to take care

of urgently." Though God only knows how I'm going to manage to achieve them.

            Emil stood up abruptly, taking a couple of paces forward to stand directly in the late afternoon

sunlight streaming through the window. The expression on his face had altered subtly but perceptibly,

becoming harder and more set – the engaging friendliness fading. He opened his mouth a couple times as

though to start saying something, then apparently thought better of it. Eventually he appeared to calm a

little. "Do you have any idea what you are dealing with here, Ms. Croft?" His voice was still several

notches louder than before though.

            Lara regarded him levelly, head propped up on one hand. Her whole posture seemed to be trying

to inform him that if he thought he could intimidate her by simply talking down at her from a greater height

while she was in bed with no clothes on, then he was sadly mistaken. "The implication I was given was that

I was dealing with the CIA."

            He sighed in exasperation. "You're not going to walk away from this are you? I can tell by the

expression on your face." He shook his head slowly. "Lara, we can help each other. I can help you. If you

go up against Croag again by yourself you'll get eaten alive. It makes much more sense if the two of us

work together and pool our knowledge and resources rather than you trying to go up against him on your

own and getting yourself killed."

            "I've found over the years that I work much better alone. And I'm very good at taking care of

myself. It's nothing personal." I just prefer it when I'm not being betrayed, double-crossed or tossed aside

as soon as you look like getting what you really want. And, come to that, she wasn't particularly sure she

was any happier with the idea of whoever Emil was working for getting their hands on Natla's technology

than she was about Croag and his friends.

            "Goddammit!" For a moment Lara half expected him to stamp his foot and start jumping about

like a kid throwing a tantrum because he wasn't immediately being allowed to have his own way.

            "Now, are you going to let me have some privacy, or do I have to get dressed while you stand their

watching." She felt a growing sense of urgency as each second passed with her lying around doing nothing,

fearing that every moment was taking Croag a fraction closer to getting his hands on Natla's storehouse and

what it contained. It was probably slightly irrational she knew – a few minutes now would likely make no

ultimate difference in the end. But she had never been particularly good at just sitting around doing nothing

when there was action that needed be taken.

            At that moment the bedroom door opened, temporarily at least, putting an end to any further

argument.

            The woman who stood there, looking from Emil to Lara and back again with dark, fiery, flashing

eyes was probably somewhere in her early forties. She was small – no more than an inch over five foot tall

– and slim in build, though with a hard, wiry strength radiating from her that was obvious even from where

Lara was lying in bed. She could best be described as handsome rather than attractive, her short, dark hair

showing several skeins of grey, while there were deep frown lines in her lustrous olive bronze skin on

either side of her small, tightly compressed mouth.

            Lara presumed that this was Garda. If so then she looked rather more like a militia fighter than she

did the housekeeper that Emil had described her as. Something about her put her in a mind of a teacher she

had once had when she was fourteen – a Miss Ventner – who had similarly been a small, hard looking

woman, and had managed to leave all of the girls in terrified awe of her.

            A long look passed between Garda and Emil, before Emil looked away from the woman,

seemingly chastened. Garda then returned her fiercely scathing gaze to where Lara lay, muttering

something beneath her breath in Arabic.

            Lara caught the words; arrogant, butter-skinned little. . . donkey? No that didn't seem quite right.

Ass – yes, that was a much more appropriate translation. She couldn't help herself. She burst out laughing.

            "Ah, so you understand Arabic then. Most of you English can only manage to speak the one

language." Her lips twitched in a manner that just might have been a smile. There was no apology though.

Lara didn't expect one either. She got the impression that this was somebody who spoke her mind, and if

you were offended by it – well, tough.

            Instinctively and immediately she found herself taking a liking to this tough, abrasive woman.

            Then the hint of a smile on Garda's face disappeared. "What is happening? I leave you two alone

for half an hour and when I come back you are squabbling like children." Garda shook her head in disgust.

"What is this? Playground?" She rounded on Emil, jabbing him in the centre of his chest with her finger.

"Now you sit down here and stop trying to intimidate the lady into doing what you want by standing over

her and shouting."

            "And you." She turned back to Lara. "Lara Croft isn't it? You just stay there and don't even think

about leaving. You're in no fit state to be going anywhere, especially not with Croag after you. Honestly,

you are as bad as a man with this macho bullshit. Hmm? You just lie there and listen to what Emil has to

say. Maybe try to show a little in the way of co-operation. Are we agreed?"

            Lara gave a weary nod. All of a sudden the impetus of her urgency was gone. What she now found

she actually wanted to do most of all was not get up and go after Croag, but instead lie back and go to

sleep. She certainly didn't want an argument with this woman. She had a strong sense that this would be

about as effective as trying to argue with the sea. Her gaze strayed briefly across to Emil, who she saw was

smiling at her.

            "Lara, may I introduce you to Garda Kachoulla." The next was directed at Garda. "Were you

listening at the door by any chance?"

            "Pfah! I don't have to listen at doors. You two talk loudly enough that I have to stick fingers in my

ears not to overhear."

            "So, this is your 'housekeeper' then?" Lara raised an enquiring eyebrow in Emil's direction.

            If possible he appeared to be blushing. Garda, however, didn't seem to take any offence from the

description. "Yes, this is correct. I keep his house for him. He is a man and therefore not capable of doing

such things for himself." She moved to stand in the same corner of the room where all of Lara's belongings

were piled. "Now I stay here and make sure you two don't start behaving like children again. Yes?"

            Two murmurs of agreement.

            "Good. Tell her about Croag, Emil. Convince Lara that it is in her best interests to assist us. Now

Lara, you could do with a glass of water, yes?"

            Lara wasn't a hundred percent certain whether this was a question or a statement, but she gave a

nod anyway. "Yes, please." In truth she did need a drink. Her throat felt parched.

            "She keeps me sane. And pointed in the right direction. More or less." Emil gave a heavy sigh and

there was, Lara thought, a look of deep melancholy in the man's eyes. "So Jack Croag told you he was CIA

then did he?"

            "Well no. Now that I come to think of it. Neither him nor any of his goon-squad came directly out

and said it in so many words. Though he did imply fairly strongly that was what he was." She frowned.

"Why, is he not then?"

            Lara accepted the glass from Garda as she returned, propping herself up into a seated position with

the sheets wrapped firmly around her as she took a slow sip.

            "He may indeed still be a CIA operative. A section commander no less. But his loyalties no longer

lie with the either US government or his CIA superiors, and they haven't done for a long time now."

            "So who does he work for then?" She got the distinct impression from his body language that

talking about Croag in any shape or form was an effort for Emil – that he was struggling to avoid grinding

his teeth every time he spoke the name.

            "That is a difficult one to answer. Erm. . ." He shoved his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

            "He's scared that you won't believe him." Garda interjected. "That you'll think he's some kind of

paranoid conspiracy theorist nutball."

            "Thank you Garda." Emil's tone was more than a little acid.

            "Look, I've encountered more than a few strange things in my time. I doubt that what you have to

tell me will even cause a raised eyebrow."

            "Ah, yes," a fleeting, humorous light appeared in Emil's eyes as he spoke. "You're the person who

discovered Bigfoot, aren't you? Shot the poor bugger too if I remember correctly. Got yourself on the cover

of Time Magazine for that I believe."

            Why was this the one thing that people always seemed to remember about her? "Could we

possibly get back to the subject in hand please? And anyway, I never had any intention of shooting it.

Things just turned out that way. . ." She realised that she should probably just shut up.

            "Right. Yes." For a moment Emil seemed to have completely lost track of where he had got to.

"There are a group of individuals – a secret society you might say – who sometimes refer to themselves as

the Organisation. They've had other names down the several centuries of their existence, but names aren't

really what they're all about.

            "I don't know what this group's motives or goals really are – or even if they have any. I suspect

that no-one who's not a member off their ruling inner circle does. What I do know, though, is that they

seem to thrive on inflicting chaos – on undermining the very tenets upon which civilised society is founded.

They are extremely ruthless, won't hesitate to kill indiscriminately where they deem necessary, and

apparently have a very strong interest in anything and everything relating to the occult. How many

members they have I'm not sure. Not that many I suspect. But those who I have encountered have all

moved in fairly exalted circles."

            Still sounds to me very much like the CIA. Lara couldn't in her heart pass it off as a joke though.

She had seen too much her time to even be particularly sceptical about Emil's words. Compared to what I

know about Jacqueline Natla, in fact, a centuries old secret society working to cause chaos seems as clear

and sane as day. It didn't, ultimately, make much difference to a single important fact – that this storehouse

couldn't be allowed to fall into Croag's hands.

            "I take it then that Croag is a member of this Organisation then?" The question was rhetorical. She

already knew the answer.

            "A very senior member indeed. If not one of the inner circle, then at most just a single step below

them."

            Lara took a moment to digest this. "Okay then. That's Croag's loyalty accounted for. What about

you two? Who do you work for and why are you after Croag?"

            "We're both self-employed. Though I used to work for the British diplomatic service before an

unfortunate chain of events conspired to leave me out of a job. And need you ask why we're after Croag

after what I've just said? You have met the bastard after all."

            The British diplomatic service. No doubt from the way Emil said it that he really meant British

Intelligence. MI6 in all probability. "So your motives are one hundred percent altruistic then?" A note of

scepticism had crept into Lara's voice.

            "Seven years ago somebody who I loved a great deal died because of Jack Croag. For a long time

afterwards the only thing that kept me going was the dream of holding that bastard's heart in my hands as it

beat its last. Then, later, I found out what he really was involved in. It ceased to become about anything so

petty as revenge right then."

            "I'm sorry." Lara meant it, though she wasn't sure she believed him when he said it was no longer

about revenge. "What about you Garda? If you don't mind me asking. . ."

            "I owe Emil a great deal," she said simply. "I owe Croag too. But for completely different

reasons."

            Lara sensed from the way Garda said it that she wouldn't be getting any more than that.

            "So Lara. Are you going to tell us what Croag wanted with you?"

            Lara sighed, closed her eyes, then gave a brief, resigned nod.

            As quickly as she could, and for the second time in two days, she summarised what had happened

three years ago when Jacqueline Natla had hired her to recover a part of the Atlantean Scion. She edited out

the bit about Natla being over five-thousand years old and one of the three former rulers of Atlantis. She

also avoided mentioning about the great pyramid of Atlantis and skated around the exact nature of Natla's

mutants. Otherwise it was just about the whole truth.

            Then she told them about how Croag's people had found out about the secret storehouse – needed

information from her in order to unlock the key to its location. She could feel her blood boiling with pent-

up rage as she coldly described how Croag had injected her with drugs, then had her hypnotised. Just

thinking about it – that horrible, trapped Lara-in-a-box feeling as a tiny corner of her mind watched on

helplessly whilst some stranger hijacked her body and confessed all of her innermost thoughts and secrets

to Croag's honeyed probings – made her feel dirty and violated.

            She found herself wanting – really genuinely wanting – to inflict violence and pain and suffering

on Croag so that he regretted the day he ever laid eyes on her. Somehow this made her hate the bastard

even more – for reducing her morals down to his inhuman level.

            Lara stuttered to a halt, unable to say anything more. She swallowed thickly, feeling suddenly

almost on the verge of crying, clenching her hands into fists and digging blunt nails into the flesh of her

palms in order to hold back the tears.

            Emil and Garda exchanged a long look. Trying to decide exactly what kind of madwoman they

were dealing with probably. It seemed for a moment as though Emil was going to make some expression of

sympathy about what had happened to her, but apparently he caught the look in her eyes in time and his jaw

snapped shut with a click. It was a good thing too. Right at that moment she would have bitten his head off.

            "So this Natla woman used a three-dimensional representation of this Scion to act as some kind of

encryption key then. I've never heard of anything like that before. It sounds ingenious."

            Cold hard fact she could handle. Though she slightly got the impression that Emil was just saying

anything that sprang into his head just to avoid a period of very uncomfortable silence.

            "Well I'm no computer scientist I'll confess, but it doesn't seem anything particularly special to me.

As far as I'm aware a three-dimensional image would be stored as a series bits, just like any other

information on a computer. That's not, surely, anything fundamentally different to any 'normal' encryption

key."

            "No, I guess that's right." Emil fell silent, studying Lara with an intensity that started to make her

feel increasingly uncomfortable. "Lara, have you told us everything?"

             "No. I damn well have not told you everything!" Lara took a deep breath. Attempted to calm

herself.  "Just like neither of you two has told me all that you know either. I've told you what's important

though, and that's going to have to be enough." She looked between Emil and Garda, her eyes challenging.

"I think I've shown you more than enough trust in even saying what I just have. Whatever is in that

storehouse can't afford to fall into anybody's hand – anybody's at all. Especially not Croag's, but no-one

else's either. Not the British government's. Not the American government's. Not even the late Mother

Theresa of Calcutta's come to that. The only way I can work with you is if we agree absolutely on that."

            Emil and Garda shared another of those very long significant looks, and Lara found herself

wondering if the two of them shared some hitherto unknown form of telepathy. Eventually Garda gave a

single, almost imperceptible nod.

            "Then I guess that's settled," Emil told her.

            Somehow it didn't make her feel a whole lot better. "Now would you let me get up please? I

honestly do have a phone call I need to make."

* * *

"I promise I will be back soon, and safely too Winston. I've never let you down in the past, have I?"

            Lara was actually smiling as she hung up, the foul mood and nascent self-pity of earlier on

forgotten for the present. She felt a genuine affection for her ancient butler, having known him for as long

as her memories went back – right to when she was a three-year old toddler, into every kind of trouble and

mess she could find. He was perhaps the closest thing to family she had left – more so at any rate than the

mother and father she hadn't spoken to on more than six separate occasions during the past twelve years.

Certainly he had long ago ceased to be merely an employee.

            The relief she'd experienced upon hearing his slightly quavering voice at the other end of the line

had been immense. He'd assured her that he was no more than slightly bruised – 'which is more than I can

say for those American brutes.' Hearing that had raised genuine laughter and made Lara's current troubles

seem much less forbidding.

            When Lara had eventually got round to asking what Croag's men had taken she'd felt extremely

guilty. Like some vacuous little rich bitch only concerned about personal property when real people's lives

were at stake – even though she knew it was genuinely important that she find out.

            The answers she'd gotten had reassured her to a degree. As Croag had indicated the Ark of the

Covenant had been taken. Thankfully that was in reality nothing like the artefact as depicted by Spielberg

in Raiders of the Lost Ark – just a very ornate and very holy box containing some crumbled fragments of

extremely ancient stone tablets, and not as far as she'd been able to ascertain, a receptacle from which the

Wrath of God could be unleashed. The golden Kabuki idol was also gone, along with some priceless

emerald jewellery recovered from the tomb of one of Ramases II's high priests, a set of Haitian Loa, and a

couple of irreplaceable original paintings by Turner and Cotman.

            Winston had sounded absolutely livid about that, though Lara had only felt only a dull sense of

relief. They hadn't found their way into the secret treasure chamber. The Dagger of Xian and the four

meteorite artefacts she had recovered from around the globe last year – the really dangerous stuff – were

safe. Later on, she was sure, she'd be absolutely furious, but for the moment there was one less nightmare

scenario for her to concern herself with.

            Before their conversation had ended she'd instructed Winston to take some time off – to pay a visit

to some of his adored grandnieces and grandnephews – and in the nicest way she could, to stay away from

the house until she got back to England and everything was definitely safe again. Somehow though, she

couldn't help but know that he would violate those orders just as soon as she put the phone down.

            She was dressed again now, wearing a khaki shirt over the top of another black cropped top, tied

into a loose knot just below her breasts with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Matching khaki cargo

pants hung low on her hips and a pair of walking boots covered her feet. The whole ensemble was topped

off by a battered amazon explorer style fedora, and she had pulled her chestnut-brown hair back into its

customary single long braid. Unfortunately her sunglasses were gone – the second pair she'd managed to

lose on this apparently cursed trip to Morocco.

            I should have realised that nothing good was going to come out of this right from the start, she

thought with a slightly rueful smile and shake of her head.

            To start with she had followed two years of painstaking and often frustrating research to a site in

the Atlas Mountains that was almost certainly the legendary Well of Spirits – only to find that it had been

broken open, looted, vandalised, then used as a camp site by a group of Berber mercenaries less ten days

before she got there. Then, later on, she had run into four of the aforementioned mercenaries, stinking

drunk – probably from the proceeds of pawning off loot from the Well – and indulging in a spot rape in a

village where she was staying. Not being the sort of person who could stand idly by, two of the mercenaries

had ended up dead by her hand. Which of course had only gone to earn Lara the enmity of the mercenaries'

leader, Alwairan. Things had spiralled rapidly downhill from there.

            The sight of Garda sticking her head round the door cut off Lara's attempts to catalogue her run of

bad luck.

            "So?" Lara lifted an eyebrow questioningly.

            "The streets are crawling with Croag's people." Something under her breath in Arabic followed too

quickly for Lara to catch. "You can scarcely move an inch without tripping over an extremely obvious

American. They don't seem to believe you're dead I'm afraid. Croag himself still sits like a king in his villa,

and there's no outward sign he plans on leaving anytime soon."

            Emil's so called 'housekeeper' had proved to have a network of informants the size of a small

army, apparently at her beck-and-call. Any of Lara's probes – subtle or otherwise – about them had been

completely ignored though.

            Good enough. He hasn't cracked the code just yet then. A slow, slanted smile spread across Lara's

lips. "Garda, how would you feel about going on a little excursion?"

* * *

Croag hung up, outwardly calm at least. The phone call had been from Geneva. He stared down at the map

reference, and the accompanying short passage of text which he had jotted down on the piece of paper in

front of him. Idly his blunt fingertips caressed the paper's surface. The look in his eyes was strange,

unfocused – as though his consciousness was in a different time and place far distant from the room around

him.

            He stayed that way for several minutes, the only sound in the room his slow, steady breathing.

Then, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened to him, he leaned forward and pressed the

intercom switch on his desk. "Would you tell Mr. Kayser that I'll see him now." He paused a moment. "Oh

yes, and tell all of the boys and girls that its time to pack up and move out."

            A few seconds later there was a diffident knock.

            The man who entered looked like an accountant on the downslide to a mid-life crisis. He was in

his mid thirties, five and a half-feet tall with stooped, rounded shoulders and a balding, sun-reddened head

like an overdone egg. His loose fitting, garishly cheap holiday clothes didn't suit his thin frame at all and he

looked distinctly ill at ease, glancing this way and that from behind circular steel-rimmed glasses with his

watery hazel-brown eyes as he crossed the room. The expression on his face suggested he'd just found out

that his wife had left him for his brother – shortly after being made redundant and running over his pet cat.

            Croag had worked with Kayser on several occasions in the past, and it still came as a surprise each

time he met the man. It was hard to credit that somebody who looked. . . well, to be absolute frank, like the

biggest loser and wimp on this side of the Atlantic, could be what he really was.

            Kayser folded gracelessly into the seat Croag offered him, like a collapsing deck-chair. "Jack.

Long time no see. How have you been keeping?" There was a slightly nasal quality to the man's voice,

which on prolonged exposure would make a dripping tap seem soothing.

            "Oh, you know how it is Bob. Ups and downs. Highs and lows."

            "I hear there's been a little spillage. One where you could use my cleansing skills."

            Croag slid a plain manila folder across the top of the desk to Kayser, his face carefully

expressionless.

            Kayser flicked through the photos and sheets of profiles and personal history for a few seconds

before he met Croag's gaze again. "Lara Croft – noted archaeologist and adventurer. An interesting choice,

if I may comment."

            Croag shrugged. "Who knows where circumstance may lead us?"

            Kayser appeared to mull this over. "You've met her I believe. Tell me what you think. I value your

opinion much more than this soulless detail." He gave an absent wave in the direction of the manila folder

with a bony, inelegant looking hand, dismissing it.

            Croag didn't reply for several heartbeats. "Surprising," was his eventual considered response.

"Strong. Capable. Dangerous. She would make an excellent operative I think. I underestimated the strength

of her will certainly. She made two of my boys look like monkeys."

            "But not formally trained?"

            "No."

            Kayser nodded thoughtfully. "Then that can be taken advantage of." Almost as an afterthought he

added. "I presume from all this you have definite confirmation that the incident at the harbour didn't prove

to be a terminal one."

            No surprise showed on Croag's face that Kayser knew about this. Kayser made a habit of knowing

everything. "From the highest of authorities. There is absolutely no question."

            Another thoughtful nod. "Are there any preferences as to which type of. . . detergent I use."

            "Just as long as everything is spotless when you've finished I don't care how it is accomplished."

            Kayser smiled – a rather sickly looking expression which didn't suit him at all. "As said. Is done."

            Croag seemed to visibly brighten as the deal was agreed. The posture of his shoulders relaxed just

a fraction, only now bringing attention to the fact there had been any tension there in the first place. He

returned Kayser's smile in a way that was almost warm. "So Bob. How are the wife and kids getting on?"

* * *

"They're moving out. It's stirred up like a hornet's nest up there." Garda handed the night-vision binoculars

over to Lara, who muttered something under breath that was completely unbefitting her upbringing. It was

very definitely inappropriate for the traditional Muslim garb she was wearing over her normal set of

clothes.

            There wasn't much to see from this angle. The villa was situated on the highest point within a

couple of miles so there wasn't anywhere you could overlook it from. This spot was the best they could

manage. Even from here all you could really see was a considerable amount of activity amidst the ranks of

parked cars, with vehicles leaving periodically.

            "I see Croag." A flash of white – or more accurately, given the infrared, extremely pale green –

hair caught her eye just as it was getting into the back seat of one of those armour-plated Mercedes'. "Pity

we don't have a sniper rifle."

            "I'm sorry. I forgot to pack one in my handbag."

            Lara lowered the binoculars, though she didn't stop staring up at the villa.

            "We go now then, yes? I told you this was complete madness right from the outset."

            "No you didn't." Lara's reply was absent.

            "Well I thought it extremely loudly anyway." Garda reached out and pulled firmly on Lara's arm

to get her moving in what she considered was the right direction.

            It had been madness, Lara supposed as she got into the front passenger seat of Garda's car – a

battered old Fiat which looked more ancient than half the artefacts she had dug up during her career. She

was still slightly surprised that Garda hadn't tried to stop her earlier –  had probably seen the look in her eye

and realised she'd have had to pull a gun on Lara to achieve anything. Now the worst seemed to have

happened. From the look of things Croag had found out where the storehouse was.

            The car clattered off, billowing smoke, and neither occupant noticed the small, nerdy looking

individual who watched after their departure.

            "What no demands for me to turn round and follow them? Perhaps you are finally seeing some

sense."

            For just a moment Lara felt that was exactly what they should be doing – was on the verge of

ordering that Garda did precisely what she had just suggested. She subsided abruptly with a heavy sigh.

"We already know where they're going don't we? And we don't have any means of following them through

the air."

            A memory of how the last time she had snuck onto an adversary's plane had almost ended up

flitted through her head. It would be really pushing her look to try something like that a second time.

            Garda grunted something noncommittal.

            You have to get a grip, Lara berated herself, scarcely noticing Garda's manic driving style – which

at times appeared to verge upon the suicidal. Calm and control, Lara, calm and control. She had felt fear

and anger in the past of course, many times. Indeed she normally used those feelings in a positive way,

controlling and focusing them to help give her the sharpness and edge upon which she thrived. For some

reason though, Croag's treatment of her had affected her profoundly – fuelled her with a rage and

resentment that was making her act in ways that were, frankly, irrational. It couldn't continue to happen.

            "I'm sorry Garda."

            "What?" Garda took her eyes off the road for a moment and Lara was certain she was going to

drive straight into the back of the van in front of them. Somehow though that didn't happen.

            "I've been acting like an idiot. It won't happen again."

            Thankfully Garda's attention was now back on the road ahead of her. "Good. Make sure that it

doesn't." Lara could see out of the corner of her eye that Garda was grinning though.

            Emil was already waiting for them when the Fiat came to a lurching halt approximately parallel to

the pavement. The expression on his face suggested that he wasn't entirely pleased, his glare moving from

Garda – who simply returned it blandly – to Lara, who was in the process of stripping off the voluminous

layer of black Muslim costume. "Where the hell have you two been?"

            "Sightseeing," was Garda's dry response.

            "I've never been to Rabat before," Lara added. "It's a fascinating place. So much to do and see."

            Emil muttered something unflattering as they walked together into the house. "Why is it that two

women will always, without fail, gang up against a man?" The rhetorical question got the response it

deserved. "Are you two tourists aware that Mr. Croag has a private jet fuelled and ready to fly within the

hour. And that he appears to ready to shut up shop and leave as we speak."

            "We just saw." Lara told him.

            "You. . . You did what?!" Emil threw up his hands. "No don't bother explaining. We don't have the

time. It seems that Croag must have found out where this storehouse of Lara's is located. We need to decide

what our next move is, and quickly."

            They came to a stop in what doubled as both dining and conference room, a large oval table with

places to seat eight at its centre, scattered with maps and assorted papers. "Well as far as I see it we need to

find out where the storehouse is located and get to it before Croag has finished clearing the place out." Lara

moved to stand by an antique globe, idly turning it as she spoke.

            "Brilliant. I just never would have come up with that on my own."

            "Emil," Garda snapped. "Try and do us all a favour and engage your brain before you speak. And

calm down. We all need to be thinking with clear heads." Then she turned to Lara. "You're the only one of

us to have met this Jacqueline Natla. Do you have any idea where she might have hidden this storehouse of

hers."

            Lara was still slowly spinning the globe, the look on her face suggesting that she was miles away.

"That all depends on whether she built it before or after her imprisonment." Her reply was slow and

considered

            "Imprisonment?"

            Lara didn't seem to hear Emil's probe as she continued. "If it was afterwards then I would think it

is somewhere in the United States. New Mexico or Texas would be my best guess." An image of a pyramid

raised above the desert at a place that would one day become known as Los Alamos filled her head. She

had seen it once before in a Scion given vision – built atop the deep underground chamber where Natla of

Atlantis was supposed to have remained, cryogenically frozen for all of time. Perhaps. Such a location

would certainly appeal to the woman's ego and vanity. A poke in the eye  for the two who condemned her –

Qualopec and Tihocan – even if they were millennia dead. "If it dates from before though. . . well the site

which would have one day been Natla's tomb was at Khamoon, Egypt. And Natla had dominion over the

African part of the Atlantean nation. So logic would suggest that the storehouse would also be here in

Africa – probably somewhere near to the Nile, as that's where the bulk of civilisation was centred at the

time. Though of course she may have deliberately chosen to build away from civilisation. That can't be

entirely discounted."

            She became aware that the other two were suddenly looking at her very strangely.

            "Er, Lara." Emil's voice sounded a fraction brittle. "What are you talking about? Natla's tomb?

Dominion over the African part of the Atlantean nation? Did I mishear somewhere?"

            Lara went back over the words she had just spoken whilst thinking aloud and inwardly winced.

"Mmm, didn't I mention that Jacqueline Natla was over five thousand years old and one of the triumvirate

of former rulers of the ancient civilisation known as Atlantis? No? It must have slipped my mind." And now

I am officially declared insane.

            There was a long period of silence.

            Garda eventually broke it. "Leaving certain details aside, you're saying storehouse is in Texas,

New Mexico, or Africa – either near or not near to the Nile?"

            Lara grimaced. "I know. Not much help. I'm sorry. If we had Natla's journals perhaps I could

narrow it down. . ." She gave a heavy shrug.

            While they were speaking Emil had moved across to the other side of the room, and was now

talking into a cell-phone in fluent, rapid-fire Arabic. The two women were both looking at him as he hung

up.

            "I ordered a pizza." He shook his head at the lack of response to the joke. "Sorry. Force of habit.

I've asked Youseff Makhalouf to see if he can get hold of Croag's flight-plan – he has a cousin who's a

senior air traffic controller. Presupposing of course that Croag actually bothers with international aviation

laws. Further presupposing the flight-plan he does file isn't a complete fabrication. It's a long shot I know."

He shot Lara another strange look.

            "Whereabouts do the CIA have their major computer facilities located?" Lara asked suddenly,

completely changing the subject.

            "Arlington, at CIA central headquarters is the main one. Then there's the supposedly top-secret

facility just outside of Geneva, Switzerland. . ."

            "Geneva." Lara snapped her fingers. "While I was under hypnosis Croag mentioned about

'something for the boys in Geneva to get there teeth into.'" She smiled suddenly. "I've always liked

Geneva."

            "No, that's insane. The security levels there. . ." Emil was shaking his head slowly, although there

was a sudden gleam of eagerness in his eyes.

            "I thought my lack of sanity had already been well established."

            Emil laughed abruptly, his face lighting up with enthusiasm. "I love it. I really do. Break into the

second most important CIA computer facility in the world." He seemed almost in awe at the suggestion.

"That's got to be the. . .well, the coolest thing I've done in years."

            "You were right the first time when you said it was insane." Garda's tone was dry.

            "Maybe I was." Emil sounded almost dismissive though, as if he had already made up his mind.

"But unless you can come up with a better idea Garda. . . Then I think its potentially the best bet we have of

catching up with Croag in time."

            Garda muttered something almost inaudible beneath her breath. To Lara it sounded like: 'I thought

you'd gotten over the desire to get yourself killed.' Louder she said. "Makhalouf might still pan out Emil.

And the speed that those lot were leaving they might have left some kind of pointer to where they're

heading up at the villa."

            He nodded. "Which is why I need you and Lara to stay here and follow up on those things. I can

be in Geneva by tomorrow morning. With the help of Martin and some of the others the whole deal can be

accomplished in a couple of days. . ."

            Lara cleared her throat. "Excuse me but wasn't this my idea?"

            "No offence Lara, but you're an archaeologist – maybe of the Indiana Jones school, but still

fundamentally an archaeologist. Just how many successful covert operations have you been involved in –

precisely?"

            "I paid an out of hours visit to a certain top secret US air base in the Nevada desert last year, if that

counts for anything." She folded her arms, her head tilting to one side as she regarded Emil fixedly. "And I

presume that either you or one of your friends is able to read ancient Atlantean."

            Emil's jaw shut with a click, cutting off his reply unspoken. It was apparent that she'd made her

point.

            "Because I can assure you that's what language Natla's journals will be written in."

            The look Emil shot Garda's way was almost pleading.

            The Arab woman sighed heavily. "Alright. Alright. I'll take care of everything at this end on my

own. You two run off and play commandos or whatever. Just don't go getting yourself killed, else I get

very, very annoyed with you. Now stop looking at me like a damned puppy dog." The last came out almost

as a growl.

            "Thank you Garda." Emil gave the woman a quick, fierce hug, which seemed to take her

completely by surprise. "I don't say that to you often enough I know. You're really, really important to me."

            Garda looked positively embarrassed by the whole thing (though she was also, Lara suspected,

secretly pleased).

            Almost immediately as he let go of Garda, Emil was speaking into his cell-phone again in Arabic.

"Hello? I'd like to book two tickets on the next available flight to Switzerland please."

 

* * * * *

 

Bob Kayser hummed a merry little tune to himself as he pulled his clothes back on over his freshly

scrubbed and reddened flesh. Surprisingly, given the stooped and scrawny look he possessed when dressed,

his body was ridged with sinew and hard, wiry muscle. And his movements – now that he knew that he was

unobserved – had lost even the slightest hint of the awkward diffidence they normally contained. Now there

was a lithe, feral grace and absolute poise about his slightest gesture.

            He picked up his round, wire-framed spectacles and held them up to the sunlight streaming in

through the bathroom window. Critically, he inspected them, frowning slightly, before wiping an almost

microscopic spot of blood from one lens with a pristine white handkerchief. Only finally did he perch them

lightly on the bridge of his nose.

            Next he carefully unscrewed the silencer from his tiny .22 calibre automatic pistol and put both

pieces into a small holdall, atop his tool box and a red-stained towel, before zipping it firmly shut. One last

look around to check that all was well, and he walked out of the bathroom onto the landing, shutting the

door quietly behind him. Latex surgical gloves covered his hands so that fingerprints weren't left behind on

the surfaces that he touched.

            He didn't so much as glance in the direction of the open door and the bedroom to his left. Or the

horror story of gore and mangled flesh that lay chained to the blood-soaked mattress – all but

unrecognisable as the woman it had been just a couple of hours earlier. His footfalls scarcely made a sound

as he quickly descended the stairs.

            Kayser had to give her credit. She was only the third person he had encountered in his long, long

career who had managed to remain unbroken right to the bitter end. Normally he could have the toughest,

hardest, most brutal of men singing within a few minutes of his attentions, ready to sell him their souls –

and those of their wives and children too – for the merest of respites. Most people, it had to be said, were

actually harder to shut up than they were to get started. Not this woman though. She had still been spitting

defiant curses at him right until the final bullet had entered her eye-socket, when the agony must have been

beyond belief.

            It had been ironic that all of this woman's suffering had been in vain – all her defiance completely

without point or purpose. Except, of course,  for the special place it had earned her in his heart and

memories.

            He paused before the front door in order to right a vase which had gotten knocked over when he

had initially taken the woman by surprise. It gladdened him to see that there was not the slightest sign of a

crack in it – it would have been criminal to damage such a beautiful and valuable antique.

            Then, feeling enlivened and invigorated by the work of the past couple of hours, he opened the

front door and – removing the latex gloves – stepped outside into the heat of the late morning street. A few

minutes ago he had received a phone call – a pull done on airport records had shown that Lara Croft had

got onto a flight bound for Geneva in the early hours of this morning. Kayser knew exactly what that

meant. Too late for Garda Kachoulla unfortunately – her second piece of bad luck in one morning, after

he'd recognised that clapped out old Fiat.

            Just enough time to buy some souvenirs and a postcode before he had to catch his own flight. If he

finished in Geneva quickly enough, he mused, slouching back into role, then perhaps he would get the

opportunity to brush up on his skiing.

* * *

Lara walked briskly up the steps to the apartment block. It was a cool, crisp spring morning very different

to the scorching heat of Rabat, and in the distance, above the Geneva rooftops, the snow-capped peaks of

the Swiss Alps could be glimpsed.

            She looked quite different than she did in her more customary explorer gear. A very expensive

chocolate brown Versace trouser suit was worn over a white tee-shirt, and she had managed to get hold of

another pair of her favourite red-tinted sunglasses. Her long, glossy chestnut coloured hair was for once

unbraided, hanging loose down her back, and she did a pretty fair impression of being 'just another'

stunningly beautiful rich lady returning from a morning's shopping. Only she blunts nailed and callused

fingers – along with the cut and bruise on her cheek which make-up couldn't quite conceal – could have

given her away.

            An old doorman with a heavy, flowing white moustache doffed his cap to her as she walked past

him and she rewarded him with a slight smile.

            Lara didn't have the patience to wait for the ornate brass-caged lift and swept quickly up the stairs

to the third floor, heading swiftly along the plushly carpeted hallway to the apartment number Emil had

told her. There she rapped on the door with her knuckles.

            "Just a minute!" The voice that answered wasn't Emil's, having a hint of American in its accent.

She heard the sound of footsteps approaching across wooden floorboards, then the door opened.

            She found herself face to face with a tall, lanky looking Chinese-American dressed in ripped jeans

and a grungy old Chemical Brothers tee-shirt. He was wearing black ray-bans despite the dim lighting from

inside the apartment and looked on first impressions to be all of nineteen years old.

            "Martin Liu?"

            "The one and only." He flashed her a brilliant white grin, looking her up and down in a manner

that couldn't be considered the epitome of politeness.

            "I'm Lara Croft." She offered him her hand. His gaze seemed to have stopped somewhere

considerably below her eye level and it was a moment before he took it, shaking it in a slightly distracted

manner.

            Then he gave her another of those dazzling grins. "Come in, come in. Welcome to the command

centre." Lara rolled her eyes as she followed him. It's not as though I'm even showing any cleavage.

            The reason it was so dark in there was that venetian blinds had been pulled down to cover all the

windows, blocking out the sunlight. Lara counted six different computers arranged on a number of tables

pulled together in the room's centre, the glow from their monitors providing eerie illumination. There were

various disk arrays on the floor beneath the tables, along with modems, telephones and a whole lot of

electrical equipment that she just didn't recognise. Everything was connected by a chaotic mass of wiring

which to Lara's eye resembled nothing so much as a horde of garter snakes caught up in a mating frenzy.

            "Yo, Emil. Lara's here." Martin called out. "You never told me that she was such a complete

babe."

            A few moments later Emil appeared in one of the doorways leading off from this main room. He

was stripped to the waist with a white towel slung around his broad neck, his muscular chest gleaming like

sculpted ebony, still glistening with a few beaded droplets of water. "A word of advice Martin." He looked

briefly at Lara, a hint of a smile ghosting across his lips. "Most women prefer not to be referred to as

'complete babes' within their earshot."

            Martin had seated himself amid the nest of wiring and computers, leaning back in his seat with his

feet up on one of the few vacant spaces on the table tops. "No, it's a compliment." He shook his head,

rolling a pen rapidly back and forth between the fingers of his left hand. "I don't see that one Emil. Really I

don't. Lara, what do you think?"

            Oh God. "I don't know Martin. I don't really feet I'm qualified to speak on behalf of 'most women'.

Maybe there's something to what Emil says though. I think a person may prefer to be recognised for more

than just their looks."

            "Mmh." Martin still looked less than one hundred percent convinced though.

            Emil just shook his head, turning his attention to Lara. "So, did you get what you went for?"

            Lara nodded, setting the heavy leather shoulder bag she was carrying down on a chair and

unzipping it, pulling out a locked metal case. "There weren't any problems." She opened the metal case too,

lifting half of its contents – a stainless steel Beretta 92 series pistol – from the wadded foam interior and

inspecting it with an expert eye.

            Since gun-laws had made it illegal to own any sort of handgun in the United Kingdom – even

down to the single shot .22 calibre weapons used in Olympic pistol shooting events – Lara had found it

very useful to keep a weapons stash here in Switzerland. Not only was it a country she knew well, having

spent a couple of years attending finishing school here, it also had just about the most liberal attitude to

gun-ownership of anywhere in Europe.

            Apparently satisfied, she placed the weapon carefully down and repeated the inspection on its

twin. Then, as Martin and Emil looked on, she pulled a modern style pistol grip shotgun of the type she

preferred from the bag and racked it experimentally. This type of weapon was still, for the moment at least,

legal in Britain and she kept one exactly like it locked in the gun cabinet beside her bed at home. Finally

she lifted out a large number of boxes containing cartridges and bullets.

            "I've got that beat," Emil commented with a slight smirk. He moved to a black leather briefcase

resting in a broad windowsill and produced a sleek looking matt-black latest model Uzi, fitted with both

silencer and laser-scope attachments. "Want one?"

            Lara raised an eyebrow. "I thought the idea was to use stealth. Not to go in with all guns blazing."

            "Still is," Emil agreed. "But we have to be ready for all possible contingencies."

            "I think I'll settle for what I've already got."

            "Man, oh man. I thought that you Brits weren't supposed to like guns." Martin was grinning

broadly as he looked from one to the other. "Not like all us whacko fruitcake American types."

            "I don't like guns." This was Emil, the words spoken with a heavy conviction. He placed the Uzi

back in the briefcase and snapped it shut. "I would gladly never touch one of the things again if I thought it

would do any good. They just become something of a necessity in this line of business."

            Lara walked across to the window, moving the blind partially to one side so that she could look

out at the clear blue sky. "So, have you two managed to come up with anything that might help us get into

that computer centre?"

            "Have we come up with anything? You're asking us if we've come up with anything?" Martin

seemed almost to choke with mock indignation at the implied slur.

            Lara glanced over her shoulder at him. Even in the few minutes since they'd met he managed to

come across as very much the brash, cocky, ill-mannered American teenager. From what Emil had told her

though, Martin was actually twenty-four years old, and all of this was an act – well most of it anyway – so

that people tended to underestimate him. He was, Emil had assured her, absolutely brilliant at what he did

best – hack computers and penetrate security systems. She certainly hoped so.

            He flourished a rolled up piece of A1 size paper at her. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

            "I'm sure you're going to tell me." She flashed him a smile.

            "Too right." He unrolled the paper with a flourish. "What we have here is the most detailed set of

schematics you will ever see of the CIA's Lac Leman installation. It includes details the CIA don't even

know about themselves." He waved his hand across the network of faint lines that covered the paper.

"Every single security camera, motion sensor, automated machine-gun nest, pressure plate and laser trip-

wire down in black and white."

            Lara stepped for forward, leaning over to peer at the schematics interestedly. "Where did you get

hold of that?"

            It was Emil who answered. "I have some friends from my old work who'd absolutely love it if we

put one over on the CIA. They were only too eager to oblige."

            "I thought that the CIA and MI6 were supposed to be on the same side, more or less."

            Emil chuckled. "Oh, don't kid yourself. The British and American governments may be friendly

enough, and the two organisations may sometimes have to work together. But in reality they're no better

than a couple of kids fighting over a girl they both like. Its a constant stream of showing off, one-

upmanship and trying to put one over on the other guy. I don't think there's anything either of them enjoy

quite as much as seeing the other side embarrass themselves." He paused as what she'd said sank in.

"Anyway, I never said I used to work for MI6."

            What a marvellous assessment of the competence of two organisations who are allegedly supposed

to make the world a safer place. Lara's lips twitched a fraction. "Well you made it fairly obvious."

            "Ah. . ."

            "I presume we can find some way of subverting all this security." Lara cut him off. Otherwise

we're in for a very short and unpleasant evening indeed. From the look of the schematics they would be

shot to ribbons the moment they stepped onto the lawn the other side of the perimeter fence, and actually

getting into the building in one piece would require an act of divine intervention.

            "That is where I come in." Martin sounded smug. "This. . ." He brandished what looked a like thin

bit of wire attached to a small plastic circle with some circuitry embedded in it. "Is your key to happiness

and long life."

            "What is it?" Lara asked after a slight pause. It seemed that Martin wanted her to ask the question

before he went on.

            "Think of it as being a bit like a phone tap. Your key to access." His voice took on a lecturing tone

and Lara hid a smile which might have offended him. "You see, the weakest point in most security systems

you come across is the security of the security system itself, if you follow."

            Lara thought she did, but didn't say anything.

            "And once you've compromised the operation of the security system, well you're in. They may as

well not have bothered with security at all. Its absolutely amazing how many times I see it, it really is.

Sometimes you despair. . ." He shook his head, a pious look crossing his face. "I could make an absolute

fortune as a consultant on things like this you know. Maybe I should offer my services to the CIA after

you've waltzed in and out. . . Show them how to tighten things up."

            "What my friend here fails to mention," Emil moved behind Martin and clapped a hand down on

his shoulder, making him jump. "Is that we have to wire this thing right into one of the perimeter security

cameras before he can actually manage any of this 'compromising' that he's going on about."

            "Hey, I never said it had to be one of the security cameras. Any part of the security network will

do equally well. Its just that the cameras look like the easiest thing for you to get at from outside. . ."

            Lara switched off from the conversation, studying the positions of the perimeter security cameras

on the schematic, and the surrounding cover as it was drawn in. "It's going to be pretty tight."

            "Yeah, I've gone over it pretty carefully. I think I should just about be able to make it though."

            "You think?"

            "Well nothing in this life is certain, is it?" Their eyes met. Both of them knew it was going to be

very tricky indeed.

            "Once Emil gets it hooked up that transmitter will allow all these babies," Martin indicated his

computers with a sweep of his arm. "To go to work. I should. . . no, I will be able to control their security

systems completely, without anyone being any the wiser about it. I can turn off the motion sensors and the

laser trip wires, disable the intruder alarms, and make the camera's see what isn't there – or rather, not see

what is there."

            "Very impressive."

            Martin positively beamed up at Lara. Still not quite managing to look me in the eye though.

            "Of course, getting in is probably going to turn out to be the easiest part of this whole operation."

Emil interjected. "Actually finding the information that we want, then getting out again is going to be the

difficult bit."

            Lara had been thinking about that little detail while she was out fetching her guns too. "Martin

won't be able to hack into the main computer array from out here will he."

            It was more a statement than a question, but Martin was quickly shaking his head. "Difficult as it

is to believe, there are limits to even my superhuman powers. They keep all that stuff deep below ground

and completely shielded from the outside world, on a completely different network to everything else

where you can't even touch it from the outside. They may be a little slow when comes to some aspects of

computer technology, but they're not entirely stupid either. And much as I hate to admit it they're learning

all the time.

            "If you wanted to take a look at some personnel records, or maybe screw over their website then

maybe. . . Even that wouldn't be easy though. They've tightened things up quite a bit since a couple of

embarrassing incidents last year."

            "I think we can do without redirecting the CIA homepage to a XXX live sex site," Lara said dryly.

"No, what I was going to suggest is that we target some of the project heads' offices. Knowing the way

people tend to behave there's a good chance that we can find something printed out in hardcopy – at the

very least something which will tell us where else to look."

            Martin gave a shrug. "Doesn't sound a bad first move to me." Then he grinned. "That's not for me

to worry about though, is it?"

            Emil shot him a dirty look. "What if we can grab their disk arrays and bring them out with us?

We've got some forensic data analysis tools haven't we Martin?"

            "Yeah, that'd be fine too. . . Just so long as you can find the correct set of disks. I suspect you'd

need a lorry and a team of porters to get them all though – there's likely to be hundreds. And even if you

managed that it'd likely take weeks of work to pick out the info you need. I'd stick to Lara's suggestion

boss. Leave the thinking to those that can manage it without breaking into a sweat."

            "Thank you so much Martin. As always I appreciate your attempts at wit – however feeble they

may be." Emil turned to look at Lara. "I'm going to finish being dressed now. Then the three of us can

finish hammering out all the details. There's much work to do if we're even going to consider going for

tonight."

            Lara nodded her agreement. That there was.

            For a moment Martin looked at Lara, then after Emil's retreating back. "Excuse me a moment will

you?" He flashed Lara another of his grins, then got up and followed Emil.

            Slightly curious, Lara drifted closer to the door they had just gone through. Not to eavesdrop

though. Oh no, never that. She could hear Martin speaking in a semi-whisper that managed to be much

more intrusive and penetrating than an ordinary tone of voice ever could.

            "So boss, why didn't you mention that she was so. . ." Lara didn't get to hear what 'so' was, but she

could picture the accompanying hand gestures quite vividly. "Are you boning her then?"

            She had to drift a fraction nearer to pick out Emil's reply. "I don't, as you so charmingly put it,

'bone' women Martin. Only boys who haven't gained any self-control of their sexual function 'bone'. I on

the other hand make love. . . And before you ask the answer to that one is no too. I only met her a couple of

days ago for Christ's sake. We're just two individuals working together out of necessity."

            "That's cool boss. I'm not criticising. So you won't mind if I make a move then, seeing as how

your relationship is entirely professional."

            She could hear Emil sigh – was grinning. "I wish you wouldn't call me boss. She's nearly ten years

older than you Martin, and as well as being very beautiful she's rich and extremely intelligent. Why on

earth would she be interested in you?"

            Martin didn't seem offended though. "Hey, my youthful vigour, my dazzling smile and winning

personality. The chicks really dig that kind of thing. . . It's an effort to fight them off sometimes."

            "I'll bet. It must be a real strain. I think you'll find though that Ms. Croft is much more of a tiger

than a chick though."

            Lara turned away, for a moment struggling to fight back laughter.

* * *

Bob Kayser drove his car – an anonymous gunmetal Ford Mondeo – slowly and carefully along the

lakeside road, taking the time to appreciate the beauty of the setting.

            The waters of Lac Leman to his left reflected the sky – deep, sparkling crystal blue, spreading out

almost as far as the eye could see. He could make out a number of white boats, small at this distance, taking

tourists out on day-trips, and beyond, rising against the horizon, were the Swiss Alps – glittering like jewels

beneath a frosting of snow. Close around him everything was bursting into green life with the onset of

spring, the trees on either side of the road losing their skeletal winter appearance as new foliage budded.

            In contrast to the splendour of it setting, the CIA installation was – to Kayser's eyes at least – an

eyesore. An anonymous square of office space that could have been anywhere in the world, surrounded on

all sides by wide expanses of lawn where any obtrusive foliage had been brutally chopped back. And

topping it all off, an unsightly chain-link fence surrounding the entire perimeter. To Kayser's mind the

whole thing displayed a chronic lack of imagination, at odds – rather than in harmony – with its setting.

            He eased to a halt at the security station at the site's only entrance, yellow and black steel barriers

blocking his way forward along with jagged ridges of steel teeth rising from the tarmac. As he hit the

control to lower his driver-side window, a grey uniformed security guard walked across to him. He

appeared to be unarmed, but Kayser knew there would be at least three others like this one back inside the

security station, all of them with heavy firepower trained in his direction.

            Smiling up at the rigid looking, impassive faced young man Kayser handed him his security pass

before he could be asked. He wondered if it was his imagination, but the guard's complexion seemed to

grey a fraction, as he unfolded and read it.

            Very good sir. If you would follow the road around to the parking in front of the main building. I'll

let reception know to expect you." He handed the pass back to Kayser, and made a signal back to the

security station, his voice sounding almost constipated.

            Thank you so much." In front of him the barriers lifted up and the rows of steel teeth retracted into

the road's surface to allow him to continue.

            An extremely attractive young black woman was waiting on the front steps to greet him, smiling at

him with well practised insincerity. She was dressed in a charcoal grey business suit, the impractically short

skirt of which displayed most of her amazingly long and shapely legs. Spike heels lifted her to at least half

a foot taller than he was.

            "Mr. Kayser? A pleasure to meet you." She extended an immaculately manicured hand, which he

shook politely. "I'm Leeann. We've made all of the arrangements that you requested. If you'd like to follow

me I'll show you to your office. I know that the Director is especially eager to meet with you later on."

            They exchanged small talk as they took the lift to the top floor: How was your journey?; This must

be a lovely place to work; and so forth, every word of equal inconsequence. Eventually she left him alone

in a spacious office complete with a spectacular view of the lake and both a shower-unit and a miniature

kitchen, telling him to call her if there was anything he needed.

            Kayser let his smile fade away, laying his suitcase down atop the several acres of polished wooden

desk that appeared temporarily to be his. There was, he supposed, a very simple way of dealing with the

current situation – one that his superiors, with the notable exception of Jack Croag, would expect him to

adopt.

            When it came right down to it, it was his duty as a CIA operative to inform installation security

about his suspicions of a forthcoming raid by Ms. Croft and her male companion. They would then take

care of the situation, and the two would be intruders could suffer a little 'accident' without any untoward

risk to the integrity of this facility. He wasn't going to do that though, and for two reasons.

            Kayser quickly set the tumblers of the suitcase's combination lock, then waited for the green light

to appear on recognition of his thumbprint.

            First of all he was slightly worried that he would only end up scaring his target off. The man

accompanying her, he was sure, would have the resources to detect any unusual alteration to the site's

normal security posture. That could lead to their attempted incursion being aborted. . . which would be a

little inconvenient.

            He flipped the suitcase open as the light appeared. It didn't contain clothes.

            And the second reason of course. . . well it just wouldn't be any fun. Not a motive his superiors

would approve of, he was sure. But you had to take job satisfaction where you could find it. Otherwise you

started to become jaded, and in the cleaning business when you became jaded you very quickly also

became dead.

            He began to carefully unpack.

            No, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted Ms. Croft and friend to succeed, at least in

so far as getting into the installation unharmed. Then. . . well then there would be ample opportunity for

him to indulge in that which he did best.

            Kayser actually started to whistle to himself. He would have to arrange for the Director to give

him a tour. It always paid to know the killing ground.

* * *

Emil moved through the sparse undergrowth in as near to complete silence as he could manage. It would be

much easier, he reflected, do be doing this a couple of months later in the year when there was a lot more in

the way of actual cover.

            He had removed the glasses he normally wore and was dressed in dull greens, browns and black.

Not camouflage, as that would look far too suspicious, but something which would help conceal him whilst

still allowing him the excuse of being a hiker who had gotten lost. Each footfall he made was carefully

purposeful.

            From somewhere close by there was a burst of shrill birdsong, followed by a fluttering of wings.

For a few seconds Emil stopped in his tracks, listening intently to his surroundings. Then he continued

forward, deciding it was just his own presence that had caused the momentary uproar.

            He deliberately tried to keep his thoughts calm, focused only on the here and now. Worries –

about how tonight would go; about what he was doing right now; most of all about not being able to reach

Garda the five times he had already tried today – were thrust as far aside as he could manage. Nothing but

his surroundings were allowed to intrude.

            About ten metres up ahead he could see the corner of the chain-link fence he was aiming for –

close enough to easily read the red on white sign written in French, Italian, German and English that

indicated 'Trespassers will be prosecuted.' Those who there's anything left of anyway. He came to a stop,

crouching on one knee upon the damp earth as he watched the camera atop the fence post, ten-feet above

the ground, as it swept through its slow, steady, relentless arc.

            The fence wasn't electrified, Emil knew. Neither, according to the schematics, was it equipped

with vibration sensors, although an alarm would be triggered if it was cut. The only added protection were

two parallel strips of barbed wire running across the fence's top. No sense in having a secret facility if your

outward security precautions scream 'this is a secret facility' to all who see them. This particular spot had

been chosen because it had cover almost all the way up to the fence, and crucially, was covered from the

view of all but the installation's top floor by the contours of the ground.

            He watched the camera go through the entire sweep four times, counting out the timings,

rehearsing in his head each and every move he would make until he had it down by rote. Then, just at the

precise moment in the fifth sweep, without letting himself even think about it, he went into action.

            Sixteen carefully measured strides took him in an arc outside the camera's field of view, right up

to the foot of the fence-pole on which it was mounted. A single upward leap, accompanied by a couple of

scrabbling steps had him level with the top of the fence, clinging on precariously to avoid ripping his hands

on the barbed wire. Heart racing, he pulled out the small set of pliers from his pocket, then used them as

quickly as he could to strip back a small section of insulation from the security-camera's main cable.

            The camera had now reached the far end of its arc, and was in the process of inexorably swinging

back round towards him.

            He could feel his breath coming hard and fast as he connected Martin's tap up to the bit of wire

he'd exposed, then wrapped the rest of its length swiftly around the camera's cable so that it didn't flap. All

finished with a foot to spare.

            Then he realised that his sweater was caught on the barbed wire. He couldn't get it free. Six inches.

No more time. Cursing beneath his breath, Emil let himself drop.

            There was the sound of tearing fabric and he fell back to the earth with a thud, rolling over in the

mud. Three inches. Desperately he scrambled forward towards the undergrowth. One inch. A frantic

leaping dive, then he was lying face down, his cheek pressed against the damp ground, twigs and branches

digging into him painfully. No more inches.

            He lay like that for a while, counting under his breath, not daring to move. Then, taking a deep

lungful of air, he pulled himself up.

            Just about half of his dark, olive green sweater seemed to be still attached to the barbed-wire,

flapping gently in the breeze – a veritable flag.

            Emil cursed beneath his breath. Here we go again.

* * *

Lara sat waiting in the black Opel Omega that Emil had hired, parked in a roadside lay-by just over a mile

away from the CIA computer installation. She was gazing out across the clear blue waters of Lac Leman,

her thoughts miles away. The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky to the west, directly over Geneva.

            She started as the dashboard phone trilled suddenly, jerked out of her reverie. "Yes?"

            "Hey, Lara." She recognised Martin's distinctive voice instantly. "A pleasure to hear your voice. I

thought you'd like to know that Emil succeeded. I'm in."

            A pleasure to hear your voice? That almost managed to raise a smile. "Excellent. So, do you think

you'll be able to do what you need to?" She tried to put some enthusiasm into her words which she wasn't

really feeling.

            "Cake and pie, Lara. Cake and pie." She could hear him laughing on the other end of the phone.

"Really, it's going even better than I could have hoped for. In fact. . ." He paused, deepening his voice a

couple of octaves. "It's almost too easy." Then he burst out laughing again.

            Well, somebody at least seems to be enjoying themselves. "As far as you're concerned then

tonight's still on?"

            "Yep. No problem whatsoever. I'll have 'em twisted round my little finger." She could picture him

grinning that dazzlingly infectious grin of his as he spoke into the phone. "So, Lara. Do you think the boys

and girls of the CIA would like a fire drill? Just say the word and it'll happen."

            "Martin!"

            "Yeah, yeah, I know. No fooling around. I was only joking." A fractional pause. "No point

anyway – It's not raining. Say hi to old muscle-head for me when he gets back. . . mother." With that

Martin hung up.

            Lara was smiling ever so slightly as she slid the phone back into its holder, her thoughts diverted –

temporarily at least – from the gnawing anxiety of what she was about to do in just a few hours time. If

nothing else, talking to Martin was a useful distraction.

            According to Emil, he'd first met Martin Liu four years ago, whilst the American was studying for

a year at the University of London on an exchange program. Apparently the young man had been involved

in some quite serious computer crime at the time – stealing hundreds of pounds worth of free phone calls,

obtaining services under false pretences, and indulging in some fairly destructive hacking of several major

companies. It had only been a matter of time before he got caught, expelled and arrested. Emil had found

him before that happened though, and after talking to him and being quite impressed by what lay beneath

the surface, had offered him a job.

            It had, Emil had told her, taken 'quite a lot of persuasion' before Martin accepted the offer. What

form that persuasion had actually taken he hadn't elaborated upon. Over the intervening years the two of

them had apparently worked together on a number of occasions, becoming friends.

            A part of Lara had been left wondering precisely how self-employed Emil actually was by that

explanation, but she hadn't pressed him, sensing that he would tell her in his own time. If at all.

            The passenger door opened, and she glanced around quickly – only to relax back into her seat as

she saw it was Emil. She noted the fact that he was covered in mud, and that his sweater looked as though it

had been worried by several extremely hungry wolves, with most of the front of it completely missing.

"Problems?"

            "I kind of got hung up," Emil said dryly as he climbed into the passenger seat.  He stripped the

remnants of his sweater off over his head and tossed it, along with the huge piece that had been torn from

its front, over his shoulder and into the back seat.

            Lara noticed that he was getting mud all over the upholstery. That'll cost him his deposit. Then she

wondered why an earth she had thought such a thing, especially at a time like this. "What happened to your

glasses?"

            Emil had pulled the slightly forlorn looking things from his pocket. One lens was starred with

cracks and the wire frames were twisted and buckled. "I landed on them," he answered heavily. "Don't

worry, they were only plain glass. My effectiveness won't be in any way hindered."

            At the look she directed his way he added: "If you must know I wear them to draw attention away

from my scar. I've found that its a lot easier to pull women with them than without. Makes me look much

less like a drug dealer or violent criminal, or something." He sounded defensive.

            "Sorry. None of my business." In fact, knowing that little detail about him made Emil suddenly

seem a lot more human and real to her. Like everyone else he had his petty little vanities, and not just his

unending quest against Croag. "I take it from the lack of panic that, despite the way you look, it all went

according to plan."

            Emil smiled fractionally. "More or less. I just had a close encounter with some barbed-wire.

Nothing to compromise our mission I assure you."

            Lara nodded. "Martin called a few minutes ago. He said he was in and gave us the go ahead from

his end."

            Emil grunted. "Then tonight it shall be. No backing out now."

            Lara wondered if he was as nervous – not to say scared – as she was at the thought of the

forthcoming exercise. His face – from what she could see of it in profile – looked expressionless,

completely unreadable. "It's about two hours till sunset. We should go for a drive. Sitting around here for

that long might look suspicious."

            Out of the corner of her eye she just caught his nod. He didn't speak though.

            For quite a long time silence reigned as Lara threw the car along the winding Swiss roads, going

just in excess of the speed limit – but not by enough of a margin to attract the ire of any watching traffic

police. Out of the blue Emil commented: "You don't exactly fit my image of an archaeologist, Lara, if you

don't mind me saying."

            "Believe me, I've heard that one before." Lara gave a slight laugh. "Many, many times."

            "Sorry, I didn't mean it to come out like some kind of cheap chat-up line, honest."

            "What do you think an archaeologist should look like anyway?"

            "Erm. . ." Emil sounded a fraction embarrassed. "I've always had this picture of middle-aged men

with beards, dressed in woolly hats and open-toed sandals, up to their knees in mud and pottery shards in

the middle of some godforsaken stretch of moorland or other."

            "Just woolly hats and open-toed sandals," Lara teased. "I have to say your fantasies are even sicker

than I dared imagine."

            "Ouch. Thank you for that lovely image." Emil winced. "No, what I guess I was wondering is how

someone with your background and upbringing gets to be where they are today?"

            For a time Lara didn't reply, her concentration seemingly fixed firmly upon the road ahead.

            "If it's a sensitive subject you don't have to. . ."

            Lara shook her head, slowing down and signalling as she turned left into another lay-by before

coming to a halt. She twisted the key in the ignition and the engine died. "Tell you what, I'll do you a trade .

My story for yours. How does that sound."

            Emil seemed to hesitate. "Sure. That's only fair I guess."

            Lara's hand came up to sweep a stray strand of hair from her face. "I guess I was always interested

in archaeology, right back to when I was a girl of nine or ten. While my friends were all reading teenage

romances, interested primarily in boys and clothes and their ponies – though not necessarily in that order –

I had my nose stuck in histories of Egypt, Ancient Greece and the Mesoamerican civilisations. I just found

it fascinating – especially anything to do with Egypt.

            "My parents didn't really approve. Dad especially. I think he sometimes believed I was 'behaving

in this strange and unnatural manner' just to spite him. Half the time I came away with the impression that

they both secretly thought I'd been replaced at birth by some kind of changeling – their sweet, pretty, docile

Lady Lara swapped for this weird, awkward creature interested only in fighting, causing trouble, and

defying their will – thwarting all their grand and carefully laid plans.

            "I think it would have been better for me if I'd had siblings. Maybe I could have hidden behind

them and maintained something approaching a good relationship with my parents. Maybe they'd have been

less determined to mould me into the image that they had for me." She sighed fractionally. She hadn't

meant to get into all this. It wasn't what Emil had asked.

            "Eventually, through sheer force of attrition they just about got what they wanted. It just became

easier to bend to their will than to fight them all the time, and I turned in this pale facsimile of the young

woman they wanted. I still had these strange interests, but they were willing to let that pass as long as I

'seemed to be recovering from my behavioural difficulties.'"

            "What happened?"

            "I was twenty-one. Just completed two years at a Swiss finishing school. Yes, they do still have

them, even in this day and age would you believe? I was engaged to be married. James his name was –

though I can't honestly remember that much about him now, except that he was extremely wealthy and

from a family that my father considered 'appropriate to my station'. He was very handsome and very upper-

class, and absolutely hideously, appallingly, irredeemably dull.

            "Kind of as a last hurrah before returning to the realms of the real world there was this end of term

skiing trip, arranged by the finishing school. My last taste of freedom." She stopped a moment at the

memories that suddenly flooded through her, before carrying on, voice wavering just a fraction as she told

Emil about the plane crash. The numb terror she had felt when she'd realised that they were experiencing

more than just a spot of particularly bad turbulence. About the miracle that had seen her thrown clear of the

wreckage – battered and bruised and bleeding, with a dislocated elbow, but otherwise more-or-less

unharmed – into a snowbank, just before the fuel-tanks had caught fire and exploded. Of walking through

the still smouldering fragments of aircraft and the bodies – some still recognisable but most not – and

trying to salvage something in the way of supplies whilst tears ran down her cheeks, almost but not quite

freezing on her face.

            "There was a moment which I can only describe as some kind of epiphany. There I was, alone

amid the ice and snow and soaring mountains that seemed to go on forever. A pampered, privileged little

rich girl completely unequipped to deal with the situation I found myself, all of my friends dead on the

mountainside behind me. And I found it beautiful – perhaps the most beautiful sight I have ever laid eyes

on in my life.

            "I should have been scared out of my wits – who knows: maybe it was just the thin air and the lack

of oxygen reaching my brain; or maybe I had simply gone beyond the ability to feel terror. But I felt calm.

Absolutely calm. I knew that I was almost certainly going to die up there in those mountains, but for the

first time that I could recall I felt that I was in control of my own destiny, that I didn't have to answer to

anybody else, or live up to their rules and expectations – that the only person I had to please and depend

upon was myself.

            "I guess what I'm trying to say, is that – for the first time in a very long while – I felt as though I

was really alive."

            Lara shook her head slowly, trying to clear away the vividness of some of the images that were

flooding back. "I know that this must sound extremely selfish and heartless. After all ninety-six people,

most of whom I knew – and some of whom had been close friends of mine – had just died, scattered across

the mountainside like so much human chaff.

            "Anyway, I started walking. I won't pretend it was easy. In fact it was the hardest thing I have ever

done in my life. There were times when all I wanted to do was give in to weariness and absolute despair –

to lay down in the snow and let myself drift off, into a sleep that would never end and where I would never

be cold or hungry or in pain again. A large proportion of the time I think I was probably delirious with

altitude sickness. But twelve days later I was still alive – barely – and I walked into the Nepalese village of

Tokakeriby."

            A short period of silence passed when neither of them said anything, and the only sound in the car

was their breathing. "Needless to say, when I returned to England I was a changed person. It probably

sounds pretentious, but when the plane crashed I was still a girl. When I walked down from the mountain I

think I was a woman." A wry smile twisted across Lara's lips. "Not that I'd recommend it as a way of

growing up, you understand.

            "I broke off my engagement to James. He doesn't know how lucky an escape he had – I'd have

made just about the worst wife it's possible to imagine. And I started to seriously study and pursue the

things that really interested me – archaeology, travel and exploration. My parents were appalled, but

initially they gave me a bit of leeway on the assumption that I was still suffering from the trauma of the

crash. Then I started to arrange solo expeditions where I would be away from home for weeks on end. That

was, I think, the last straw.

            "My father cut off my allowance. He even threatened to have me committed 'for my own good' as

I had 'quite obviously gone insane'. We exchanged words – most of them extremely unpleasant – and I

ended up walking out.

            "I started funding my travels through my writing, and commissions from various museums and

private collectors, though I think my father imagined I would still have to come crawling back to him

eventually for money. It didn't happen though – I made finds which left me independently wealthy, and I

bought back the old ancestral home which the Croft family had sold in the last century when there were

financial difficulties.

            "I made an attempt to patch things up with my parents, hoping that they'd see that I'd made some

sort of success out of my life and would be able to accept me for what I was." Lara let out a long

exhalation. "It didn't quite happen the way I had envisaged. These things never do I suppose. My father told

me that he no longer considered me to be his daughter and disowned me."

            She turned to look at Emil directly. "That was just over eight years ago now." Then. "I'm sorry. I

said more than I tended to. I didn't mean to go on about myself for quite so long. Apologies if I bored you."

            Outside the sky had turned almost golden, the sun a huge fiery red sphere hanging over Geneva's

distant skyline. There was a wonderful sense of tranquillity about the soft, satiny light and for a time a spell

was cast where the world really did seem to be a beautiful, mystical place – all of the hard edges smoothed

away.

            "Bored me?" Emil met her gaze. "How could you possibly believe. . .?" He looked away from her,

shaking his head. "I guess it's my turn now. Though I don't really have anything to tell that can compare

with what I just heard."

            "It's not a competition you know. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. . . but I

would be interested to hear."

            Emil chuckled softly. "A deal is a deal."

            "Believe it or not I used to be a policeman," he began. "I got into law-enforcement. . . No, maybe

that's not the best place to start.

            "My father moved to England in the early sixties from Nigeria – took British citizenship a couple

of years before I was born. He was a very driven, ambitious man – set up his own business and managed to

make a success of it at a time when it really was very difficult to succeed if your skin was the wrong colour.

In time we got rich. . . maybe not in the manner of your family, but by our standards it was beyond our

dreams. . . well maybe not beyond dad's dreams. He had quite some dreams. I went to all the best schools,

and I mean the best schools. . . Harrow, then a place at Cambridge.

            "I did well. . . dad was almost like some kind of god to me, and I could never dream of

disappointing him. . . not that our relationship was without its difficulties mind. Then, back in 1985 he

made the decision to expanded his business into Nigeria – give something back to his homeland I think the

idea was.

            "He was a proud man, dad, never gave in to anybody, or let himself be bullied. He wasn't the sort

to be intimidated by some low-grade Lagos thugs running a protection racquet. Stupid sod. . ." Emil broke

off, and Lara thought she detected a slight waver to his voice.

            "He was gunned down on a road crossing in Lagos. Mum was absolutely devastated. I was. . . I

was furious with the whole fucking world.

            "I think I joined the police to get my own back on the sort of scumbags who did that to him – to

my family. Not, with hindsight the very best of motives."

            There was another pause in Emil's flow, and Lara began to wonder if he was going to continue at

all. "Very quickly I became disillusioned. Not with the way my career was going. . . I made detective

sergeant at twenty-four, which is pretty good going I'm told. No, more with the system itself. Now I'm on

the outside I recognise the fact you absolutely cannot risk jailing an innocent person just to ensure ten

guilty ones get convicted. I agree with that wholeheartedly. But when you're on the inside. . . it all seems so

different. Everything seems weighted so heavily in favour of the criminal. It starts to look nigh on

impossible to secure a conviction, and people – really nasty, viciously unpleasant people – who you know

absolutely are guilty walk free and commit more harm. It happens constantly, and you begin to wonder

where the justice is. You see things that begin to deaden your soul, and I think I was in danger of starting

down a very dark path.

            "When the man tried to recruit me into MI6 I leapt at the chance. This, I was sure, was my chance

to really make a difference." Emil smiled ruefully, as though in memory of his old naοvetι. "Do you have

any idea what intelligence work really involves Lara?"

            "I suspect it is not quite as advertised in the James Bond films."

            Emil laughed. "No kidding. Let me tell you, it is ninety-eight parts excruciating, mind numbing

tedium mixed in occasionally with two parts of bowel-loosening terror and adrenaline rush, when you

know for certain you're going to die. The benefits are lousy too.

            "I'd been in the job about two years when I met Jack Croag. It was in Bosnia – our two

organisations were engaged in a joint operation that seemed for the most part to involve little more than

keeping tabs on the atrocities committed by both sides. To start with he seemed an alright bloke – for

somebody of his seniority – old stoneface we used to call the bastard.

            "There was a woman too. Mariana Vlaovic her name was. . . also working for MI6. She was. . .

she was. . . Very special," he finally managed, his voice catching in his throat. "I don't know if you'd say it

was love at first site, but there was definitely some kind of major connection there right from the moment I

laid eyes on her. The days and nights we spent together. . . they were like nothing I have known before or

since. I probably wasn't behaving very professionally. In fact I know I wasn't. But I believed that I'd found

the one true love of my life, and I frankly didn't care. Maybe if I'd have been paying a bit more attention I'd

have noticed that Croag was acting suspiciously. Maybe not. I don't know.

            "Anyway, Croag led a small team, supposedly to assassinate a Serbian militia leader – Drazan

Alsavijec – who had been implicated in several of the worst atrocities committed against the Muslim

population. Mariana was part of that team. I wasn't.

            "I later found out that the real reason for taking out Alsavijec had nothing to do with the alleged

atrocities he was supposed to have committed. His militia group simply possessed some artefact or other

dedicated to a whacko demon-goddess which they were using as a kind of battle-standard. The organisation

who Croag's loyalties truly lay with wanted this, seemingly at any cost.

            "The hit was a success – went extremely smoothly apparently – and Croag came away with what

he wanted. Unfortunately though, Croag was – and still is – something of a paranoid bugger. He didn't feel

comfortable with the hit team knowing that he'd taken the artefact. So he had a CIA cleaner – and by that I

don't mean someone who sweeps the floors – brought in to tie up 'loose ends'.

            "Mariana was one of those loose ends."

            Emil fell silent again, staring out across the lake's waters where they reflected the flaming glory of

the setting sun. Lara wanted to say something to him, but she wasn't sure what she could – half felt she was

intruding upon private grief – and in the end she just kept quiet.

            Eventually he turned round, facing her once more. His eyes seemed calm and untroubled as they

looked into hers. Suddenly he was leaning forward, towards her, one hand coming and sliding round her to

gently cradle the nape of Lara's neck.

            Lara's breath caught in the back of her throat, and as his face came close hers, lips fractionally

parted, she could feel her heartbeat racing – though not with fear. What the hell was he doing?

            He veered fractionally to one side at the last moment, and she could feel the warmth his breath

against her ear, lingering traces of the cologne he sometimes wore filling her nostrils. "Look in the mirror,

at the car that just pulled up behind us." His voice was scarcely even a whisper.

            Lara let out a shuddering exhalation. A Swiss police BMW loomed large in her vision. Walking

rapidly towards their car was a uniformed officer, florid faced with a moustache that made him look like he

was attempting to swallow a live squirrel headfirst.

            Emil pretended to start at the tap on the window, pulling quickly back from Lara and opening the

window. "Can I help you officer?" He asked in halting, badly mangled French – deliberately faking, as Lara

knew he spoke the language fluently.

            "English?" The officer asked dryly, his voice containing virtually no trace of an accent.

            "Er. . . Yes. Is there some kind of a problem?"

            The policeman took out his wallet, displaying his badge to Emil before responding. "Routine

enquiry. I don't know if you're aware of it Monsieur, but a young girl went missing from this area last

week."

            "How awful," Emil murmured. "I'm very sorry officer, I don't think that we can be of much help.

You see we only arrived in Switzerland yesterday, I'm afraid." He gestured at the car's glove compartment.

"I have my passport in the front if you wish to confirm that. Shall I get it for you?"

            The policeman waved that he should do so. "Go ahead Monsieur, please."

            Emil opened the glove compartment slowly, allowing the policeman to see into it at all times. He

reached carefully inside and handed the thin black-covered booklet over.

            "Thank you. And your. . . companion?" The policeman let his gaze linger over Lara.

            "Er, this is Ms. Croft. We're over here on a business trip together. She's my. . ."

            "Let me guess," the policeman butted in as Lara silently leant across Emil to pass him her driver's

license. "Your secretary?"

            "Erm, no. My boss actually. I'm her Personal Assistant."

            "Is that so?" Lara could see the policeman's smirk even through the shrubbery on his top lip. He

handed the passport and driver's license back to Emil. "Sorry to have troubled you. And enjoy the rest of

your stay. Geneva is a beautiful place at this time of year." He turned to go, but then paused mid-stride,

looking back at them over his shoulder. "If I might offer a piece of advice. You may want to take that back

to you're hotel room where you have some privacy."

            "Yes. Thank you officer." Emil fixed a smile on his face, which quickly faded when the

policeman's back was turned and he was safely walking back to his car.

            "Was all of that really necessary?" Lara shot him a glowering look as the police BMW pulled out

of the lay-by and drove away.

            Emil was grinning at her broadly, all signs of his earlier introspection faded. "Your hair smells

very nice. Do you know that?"

            Lara shook her head and sighed.

* * *

"Umh, that outfit really suits you Lara." Emil directed a mock leer in her direction.

            Lara, who had just finished stripping off her outer layer of clothing, looked up and met his gaze

with a level stare. "In your dreams."

            She was wearing a matt black cat-suit, which clung to each and every lissom curve like a second

skin, in the process of efficiently belting her twin Beretta pistols around her narrow waist, then sliding her

shotgun over her shoulder and through a loop to secure it in place. Her backpack – in addition to its normal

first-aid kit, flares and survival kit – held climbing gear including a long coil of nylon rope, plus one or two

more specialised items Emil had supplied her with.

            Emil laughed. "Believe me Lara, in my dreams you're wearing considerably less that that."

            Overhead the sky was a deep, smooth, inky blue, dusted with the first faint traceries of silver

starlight. The moon – a bright, sickle crescent – cast its pale glow through sparsely foliaged tree-tops, while

to the west there was still a brighter line of paler blue sky where the sun had set less than an hour ago. To

the east, over the Alps, in contrast, the sky was close to pure black. Numerous small lights still shone from

out upon the lake.

            Unaccountably Lara found herself blushing at Emil's words – found herself hoping that the

minimal illumination managed to hide the fact from him. "You're just as bad as Martin you know. Is it

some kind of infectious condition do you think?" Then. "Pick a limb."

            "Er. . . Lara?"

            She had eased one of her pistols free of its holster and was making a show of inspecting it

carefully. "I said pick a limb." Her voice was calm. "I think I'm going to shoot you. It's only polite to give

you the option as to where."

            "Umh. That'd hardly be very professional of you. Given the circumstances."

            "But I think it would be fun," she pointed out. "I haven't had nearly enough in the way fun in

recent weeks."

            After a moment she slid the pistol firmly back into place at her hip. Then she pulled on the headset

that would allow her to remain in instantaneous contact with both Emil and Martin, back at the flat. "Lets

get going shall we. The sooner this is over with the better."

* * *

To start with everything went smoothly.

            Emil watched as Lara went over the perimeter fence in front of him with a grace and fluidity that

was simply astonishing, moving in almost absolute silence and avoiding the barbed-wire as though it wasn't

there. He felt his doubts about her ability – her lack of any kind of formalised training in this type of covert

activity – evaporate in a single instant. It was very apparent that she had done this kind of thing before and

knew exactly what she was doing.

            In fact he made considerably more of a meal of the fence than she had, feeling almost embarrassed

as he landed on the grass at her side.

            It was full dark now, though the CIA installation itself was lit up like a Christmas tree, bathed in

the glow of dozens of powerful sodium vapour lamps, illuminating the sky with its residual glow for

several miles around. Lara was slightly surprised that the environmentally conscious Swiss didn't consider

the place an unacceptable pollutant – quickly pushed the thought from her head as completely irrelevant to

the matter in hand.

            Two of the lamps had been extinguished to create a narrow corridor of relative shadow across the

expanse of lawn leading up to the building – Martin's work. He had also set up the nearest three security

cameras to play back a couple of minutes of recently recorded footage in an endless loop so that any

security guards watching the monitors would not see them breaking in. There were a number of motion

sensors too, hidden in white sprinkler heads spaced across the lawns. Martin had set these down to their

lowest level of sensitivity. He was unable to turn the things off entirely because it would trip a system

monitor and cause a control board somewhere to light up.

            Moving with almost painful slowness they started out across the grass, separated from each other

by about five paces with Emil leading the way.

            The feeling of exposure and vulnerability was horrible, verging upon agoraphobia. The area of

shadow they were moving through didn't seem to provide anything like enough cover, and there was a

constant urge to break into a run to escape from the eyes that a tiny, paranoid part of Lara's brain was sure

were watching her from the building. Rationally Lara knew that anyone looking out of the installation's

windows would be blinded by the glare of the lights, able to see little more than a reflection of their office's

interior and inky darkness beyond. Sometimes rationality wasn't much help though. Ahead of her Emil

looked like he was trying to wade through treacle.

            It took getting on for ten minutes to cover slightly under a hundred yards, and by the end of it

Lara's nerves were feeling distinctly frayed.

            "Martin, we've arrived at the entry point. Take the alarm down." Emil's words came over loud and

clear through Lara's ear piece, though they were spoken in what scarcely qualified as a whisper.

            "Done." There was no hint of flippancy in Martin's tone now, just cool, detached professionalism.

"Quick as you safely can." Reminding them that every second the alarm was down they risked detection.

            Emil took out the glass cutter he had ready in his pocket, pressing the suction cup against an area

of window near to the latch. Body positioned to shield his hands from the motion sensors, he then drew the

arm round in a swift circle, diamond whispering softly against glass. A single firm tap, and the circle came

free, still attached to the suction cup. Then he was reaching through the hole he had created, easing the

window open just enough to allow them access.

            Climbing through it in slow motion was the work of a skilled contortionist, but a couple of

minutes later they were both inside.

            Almost before Lara's feet touched the floor Emil was easing the window shut behind her. He then

slotted the circle of glass back into place in the hole it had left, and sprayed carefully around it with clear,

quick-hardening gel to secure it in place. After a ten count he gently prised the suction cup away. No one

who saw it would be fooled in the slightest as to what had happened. However it would be enough to

convince the alarm system that the window was still intact.

            "Martin, we're in."

            "Bringing alarm back on line. Now cycling cameras back to live feed. . . Okay, all done."

            Lara let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding when no alarm rang out to give them

away.

            "Status check?"

            "Route A still open. Proceed as per the initial plan." There was a slight pause followed by a

muttered "Oh shit. Er I think there may be a problem boss."

            "Don't keep us in suspense." That was Lara. She'd moved silently across the room and was peering

out of the glass section of the office door.

            "Dr. Rachel Adler just checked in at the security station. She's heading up to the installation." Dr.

Adler was one of the project heads whose offices they planned to search.

            After a moment's silence Lara said: "This could turn out to be a positive. If we can't find anything

there's now somebody who we can ask." She didn't need to add about how much more problematical this

also suddenly made things.

            "We carry on," Emil informed Martin.

            Abruptly the light came on in the corridor outside the office. "Security Guard." Lara quickly drew

her head back from the door. "Martin, could he have noticed the alarm going down?"

            "Maybe. Could just as easily be on a routine round though."

            Lara was staring upwards and Emil followed the direction of her gaze. Removable ceiling tiles,

about two foot square. Then she had leapt, catlike, up onto a table top and was lifting one of the tiles aside.

"Quick, follow me." Even as she finished speaking she was pulling herself up, only her dangling legs still

in Emil's field of view.

            Hearing the sound of the security guard's footsteps now, slowly getting closer, Emil moved to do

as he was told.

* * *

Up in a darkened office on the top floor of the building, the only source of illumination coming from the

LCD display of a laptop PC, Bob Kayser monitored the incursion's progress – a spider feeling slight

vibrations travelling across his web, waiting patiently for his prey to become entangled.

            Hooked into the installation's computer systems he had been able to track Lara and her friend to

their entry point on the ground floor by watching the changes to the motion sensors' settings, then the short-

lived period where the alarm on office B1.25's window had been taken down. For the moment though he

had temporarily lost them

            He was smiling to himself, his visage transformed into an almost alien mask by the laptop's sickly

glow. Altogether he was impressed – by now he had half expected to have to intervene on their behalf: to

cover up a slip; or even assert his authority to call security off.

            So far, though, they had been flawless in their performance. And even now he was unsure as to

how they had managed to gain access to the computers without leaving a trace – the diagnostics showed no

sign.

            The sense of anticipation grew within him. Just possibly tonight he would for once face worthy

opposition. Idly his hand caressed the weapon resting on his lap.

* * *

"All clear." Lara whispered, then lowered herself down into the office below them, disappearing from

Emil's sight.

            They had crawled almost the entire length of the corridor through this cramped ceiling cavity

filled with what seemed like years worth of accumulated dust and grime, their progress slow and

meticulous as they picked their way carefully between a tangled mess of cabling. For the last couple of

minutes Emil had had to hold back from coughing from the irritation in his nose and the back of his throat.

The space had begun to seem ever more confining to his sizeable frame, almost as though it was closing in

on him. It was therefore with great relief that he eased himself down to the floor again.

            It hadn't been part of their plan to take this route, but it had definitely had its benefits. As of yet

they hadn't needed to venture into the corridors with their security camera coverage, and now they were

right next to the fire escape they planned to use.

            "Okay Martin, we're about to move for the first juncture. We need you to work some more of that

camera magic."

            There was a couple of seconds pause before the reply came. "Go ahead."

            Even as the words were finishing Lara was slipping silently out of the office door, .38 pistol now

in hand, muzzle carried pointed upwards towards the ceiling. Emil followed just behind – a huge,

substantial shadow at her back. He too now openly carried his gun in his hand.

            "Clear," Emil informed Martin as the fire escape door closed behind his back. Ahead of him Lara

dropped smoothly into a combat crouch, pistol aimed at unwaveringly at the next stairwell.

            No one was there.

            They ascended the three flights of stairs to the top floor in rapid fire fashion. Both were filled with

a steadily mounting tension, and in a strange way the fact that everything had gone so perfectly smoothly

up to this point actually increased rather than lessened this feeling.

            Then they were at the fire escape exit leading to their target. "Martin, which office is Dr. Adler's?"

            "D4.07," Lara answered him before Martin got the chance.

            "Yeah, don't you pay attention, man?"

            Emil ignored him. "Okay, Lara you take the offices on the left. I'll take the right."

            She gave a short nod of acknowledgement

            "Martin?"

            "I know, switch the cameras. Just a moment. . . There, it's done. Go ahead."

            Emil took a deep breath. There was nothing to be gained by just standing around. "Okay, lets get

going."

* * *

Bob Kayser finished reeling off his authorisation code. "Can I be entirely candid with you Mr. Murcheson.

Good. I fully appreciate your concerns, and I understand your objections. I really do. Feel free to raise them

with my superiors when this is over. But the fact remains that I am giving you a direct order. I am not

asking you for your opinion. I'm telling you what you are going to do. The top three floors of this building

are, as of now, under quarantine. Anybody who violates this risks being shot – and if they are not shot, then

their career with the Agency is most certainly over, with probable criminal charges to follow. Is that quite

clear? Thank you Mr. Murcheson. You've been a great help." Kayser hung up on the installation security

chief as he started another blustering reply. Pompous, self-important little bastard.

            About five minutes earlier Kayser had seen the intruders on the feed from a concealed micro-

camera, which he'd hidden within the foliage of a miniature palm tree in the corridor just outside this office

– one of several similar devices he had planted throughout the installation at potential target points. Lara,

his primary target, gliding like just another shadow through the gloom, and yes, it really was who he had

thought. Croag would be especially pleased by this turn-up. An unexpected little bonus which would see

the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

            Switching to a feed from the main security camera had shown nothing – empty corridor with no-

one in sight. That had raised a smile.

            He'd then switched back to his own camera, and watched as Lara managed to successfully spring

one of the office doors before disappearing inside. Emil Ngonge, the other one, had moved on further down

the corridor and out of sight. Still going so well. It almost seemed a pity to interrupt their little jaunt and

bring it all crashing down on them.

            Now, though, the time had come.

            He hit the laptop's enter key, and suddenly the security circuits covering each of the top three

floors of the installation were shut down. Then he rose to his feet, silencer-fitted automatic in one hand,

suitcase in the other.

            Time to do the day job.

* * *

Lara ran the beam of a penlight across the file, then slotted it back into the cabinet, before quickly picking

out the next one. No good, I'm not interested in costing reports on proposed network upgrades.

            It seemed as though it was taking forever, and at the current rate of progress they would probably

both still be here, fruitlessly searching, come morning when people started to arrive for work. Her mouth

felt dry, and she had to consciously fight down the sense of nervous urgency that filled her – made her want

to empty all the draws and cabinets of files in a great heap on the floor and ransack the place. Never mind

that the office three doors down was occupied, light filtering through the crack beneath the door and the

gentle strains of classical music – Beethoven's Fidelio overture she thought – reached her faintly even with

the door shut. You'd have thought the CIA would have better soundproofing fitted.

            She moved to the next file.

            This is just like raiding a tomb, she tried to assure herself. The same skills and virtues – patience,

concentration, thoroughness – are what is required. She never felt the need to rush when walking through

the ruins of an ancient temple, where any misstep or lack of caution could trigger sudden and fatal disaster;

where any unnecessary hurrying could result in priceless millennia old artefacts being lost forever. There

was no need to treat what she was doing at the moment any differently. The setting may have been different

but the principles still applied. And you can think of the Doctor three doors away as a mythical guardian

beast who the slightest sound will wake up.

            A report on possible weaknesses in the Lac Leman Installation's security. Martin might find it of

some interest, but it was of little use to her right now. She moved on past it.

            There was a growing feeling within her that she should give up on this office. The person who it

belonged to was obviously into the hardware side of things. Probably head of computer systems, or some

title pretty close to that. It was doubtful that he – she glanced quickly at the desk to get the name; Allan

Lufkin – would also be directly involved in code cracking operations for Jack Croag.

            After a couple of folders containing nothing more than various invoices – for a pair of Sun

workstations, various disk arrays and sundry cabling – Lara concluded that this was exactly what she

should do. If necessary she could always come back. Then a thought struck her. This was probably the best

place to find out which disk arrays were allocated to what. Maybe a couple more minutes.

            "Lara." Emil's voice in her ear interrupted her thoughts. "I may have got something here. Did you

know that Natla Technologies used to have their African headquarters based in Uganda? Kampala to be

precise."

            "Uganda?" She echoed softly. To be honest she hadn't been aware that Natla technologies had

even had an African headquarters – though if that was where Jacqueline Natla had her storehouse located it

was logical that they would. It suddenly hit her that Uganda was where the Nile – well, one of its tributaries

anyway – had its source.

            Emil's voice suddenly changed, the excitement in it barely contained. "Lara, I think you want to

come and see this."

            She dropped the folder she was holding back into the drawer, then slid it closed. "On my way."

            Lara eased the door shut behind her in absolute silence, glancing down the broad corridor with its

plush carpeting, lush tropical plants spaced at regular intervals, and works of modern art hanging from the

walls. She didn't try to lock it – it had been tense enough unlocking the thing in the first place, using the set

of skeleton keys that Emil had supplied her whilst half-expecting at every passing instant that Dr. Adler

would open her door and see her.

            Suddenly she froze. There was someone in the corridor with her.

            He had his back turned towards her and was half-hidden in the shadow of a yucca plant, so still

and silent that it took Lara a couple of seconds to register the fact that this wasn't just some bizarre piece of

sculpture. He was quite short – Lara topped him by several inches certainly – and she could see his balding

scalp gleaming in the dim light. With his wire-frame glasses and his cheap looking, strangely lumpen suit

he could pass for a stereotypical, ageing computer nerd – if it wasn't for the modern, silencer-fitted

automatic weapon of a make Lara didn't recognise held almost casually in one hand.

            How? How can this man be here? She didn't pursue the thought though. There would be time to

think later.

            Still he seemed oblivious to her presence, even as she silently drew one of her pistols and aimed it

steadily at the back of his skull. One shot – a smooth squeeze from her trigger finger – and it would all be

over, no more problem.

            A deep calm came over her, time seeming to slow to a crawl. She hesitated though, unable to do it.

Killing someone in the heat of combat, in self-defence, was one thing. Shooting somebody in the back of

the head, without them even knowing she was there quite another. Her trigger finger wavered.

            "You guys, we have a big problem." Martin was suddenly speaking over the headset, into her ear.

"The security loops on the top three floors have gone dead. Completely dead. I think you need to get out of

there. Right now." The panic in his voice was audible, barely contained.

            Lara didn't know if the man somehow heard Martin's frantic communication, or saw the gleam of

her weapon's silencer-fitted barrel out of the corner of his eye, or just plain sensed her eyes fixed upon the

back of his head. Whatever, he was suddenly spinning round, gun blazing, bullets stitching the air with a

quiet phhtt, phhtt.

            She dove to the floor, the moment of lethargy gone in a blazing rush of adrenaline, feeling the

passage of the bullets like bees buzzing just inches above her. Desperately she squeezed off a couple of

countershots, punching twin holes in the plasterwork either side of where his head had just been – forcing

him to retreat back into the scant cover of the shadows and the yucca, and buying herself a few fractions of

a second.

            Somehow she managed to get the door open again and roll through it, an instant before the second

burst of her gunfire which would have ripped her to shreds.

* * *

"What the hell is going on out there. . ." The words died suddenly upon Rachel Adler's lips as she took in

the scene in the corridor, realising as Bob Kayser's eyes met hers that she was looking death straight in the

face.

            Aged in her late thirties, Rachel was an attractive, if slightly cold seeming woman – tall and slim

with jaw-length reddish blonde hair, flawless alabaster pale skin and bright sea-green eyes. She was well-

groomed and professional looking, and as the gun barrel lifted towards her – her legs rooted to the spot and

completely unwilling to respond to her brains frantic urgings to move – she felt a brief flash of regret. She

wasn't going to be able to make that date on Friday after all.

            Then, without warning, a huge, dark missile exploded out of the shadows, slamming into her hard

and knocking her bodily backwards, blasting the breath straight from her body as they crashed together

onto the floor of her office.

            Bullets ripped over them both, tearing a painting to shreds and shattering her PC's monitor in a

shower of broken glass and blinding sparks. A window exploded outwards, cold air flooding inside, and

puffs of stuffing and jagged splinters of wood rose into the air as her chair was ripped apart.

            As the burst of gunfire subsided – louder now than the sounds that had drawn Rachel out of her

office, as the effectiveness of Kayser's silencer began to degrade – Emil pulled his weight off her body and

kicked the door closed with a thunderous retort. Little snowfalls of paint and plaster were knocked from the

surrounding door-frame to flutter to the floor.

            Sucking great, gasping gulps of air back into her lungs, Rachel struggled to sit up.

            Immediately, his own silencer-fitted Uzi still trained upon the door, Emil dropped to her side. One

large hand clamped firmly over her mouth as she gazed up at him, a wild, frightened look in her eyes.

            "Listen to me very carefully, and do exactly what I tell you if you want to live. Clear?" Emil's

words came out in a harsh, almost hissing whisper.

            A fractional nod of her head. "Dr. Adler? Now I just saved your life. That guy out there is called

Robert Kayser, and he's a CIA cleaner – one of the best. You know what that means?" Another scared nod.

"I'm afraid you're part of the mess he was sent to tidy up after."

            Inside Emil's thoughts were racing. Kayser? What the fuck was that psychopath doing here? Lara

obviously. Croag must have decided he couldn't afford to have her running around behind him, causing

who knows what kind of trouble. But how the hell had he found them? A sudden horrific thought struck

him. Garda! No! It was a struggle to maintain a facade of calm as he said: "Now, I'm going to let go of you

now. You're going to remain completely calm and not try to do anything stupid. Understand?"

            After a second or so delay she gave another slight nod, and he lifted his hand away from her

mouth, standing up and looking around the office.

            "W-Why would a cleaner be after me? Who are you?"

            Emil glanced back at Dr. Adler as she pulled herself to her feet, a noticeable tremor in her legs.

"Jack Croag," he said simply, looking her directly in the eye. He saw from the almost imperceptible start

that she recognised the name. "Croag's been a renegade for a long time now, and that code he asked you to

crack – lets just say he isn't willing to share the pot of gold at the end of that particular rainbow with

anyone."

            He found himself wondering, just for a moment whether this could be true. That Kayser's presence

was merely some horrifically unlikely coincidence, and that he really was here to kill this woman. It didn't

seem likely, he concluded with an almost inaudible sigh. Even Croag isn't mad enough to target one of the

CIA's own installations for cleaning. His gaze settled on the ceiling tiles – the same as the ones that had led

to the crawlspace they had utilised on the ground floor.

            Some of the glassy, frightened look had faded from Rachel Adler' face. "Just who the hell are you?

And why should I trust you or anything that you say?"

            Emil regarded her levelly. "I'm somebody who wants to see that Jack Croag doesn't get what he

wants. And you don't have to trust me." He shot a meaningful look at the office door. "You're quite

welcome to stay behind and chat to Mr. Kayser if that's what you desire.

            "Now I'm going up there," he gestured towards the ceiling with his gun. "I suggest that you come

with me. Though the choice is entirely yours of course."

* * *

Kayser was absolutely furious with himself. Livid. He knew that if Lara Croft hadn't suffered from quite as

many moral scruples, or had been professionally trained – like Emil Ngonge for example – his brains

would now be scattered across the wall and his corpse would be bleeding slowly into the deep pile carpet.

            Not only that though, he now had armed opponents on either side of him who both knew of his

presence, and one of whom at least had good knowledge of his capabilities – along with every reason on

earth to want him dead. To top it all off he now needed to kill Dr. Adler – which might not go down too

well with some of his more squeamish superiors. And he'd managed to waste more than half a clip of

bullets with nothing to show for it.

            Oh, well. I always did like a challenge. . .

            He had been sloppy and overconfident up to this point. He was still alive though, and now had

ample opportunity to correct those mistakes and turn the tables. His gaze turned to the open doorway that

Lara had dived through a few seconds before. Her first.

            She was after all the target he had been sent to kill.

            Moving with controlled efficiency, Kayser opened his case and took out a slightly elongated,

perfectly smooth, spherical black object – a knockout gas grenade. Humming beneath his breath he pulled

out the pin and rolled the grenade across the carpet and in through the doorway, listening to the soft hiss of

the escaping gas. Then he followed up with a second identical grenade.

            He sat down on his haunches, gun trained on the doorway to cover any attempted break, and

started to slowly count within his head. By the time he reached two-hundred there was still neither sound

nor sign from within.

            Out of the window? He mused as he stood up. It was difficult to credit that the grenades had

actually got her. Calmly he tossed a glow stick into the office in front of him, lighting it up in sickly green

hued light. There was no sign of an unconscious woman from what he could see.

            Advancing forward, he squeezed off a few rounds into the deeply shadowed corners, but there was

no sign that he hit anything. Then he rolled through the doorway, firing more shots into the only corner

completely invisible from outside. But the only result was a row of shredded manuals.

            The office was completely empty.

            Kayser glanced around, breathing only shallowly through his nose. Even so he could taste the

acridity of the gas hanging in the air – though it was now too diluted to be of much harm to anyone of his

constitution. All of the windows were intact and still closed. There was no other way out, and nowhere that

an adult human could successfully hide. A frown crossed his face, and for a moment he was to say the least,

perturbed.

            Then he looked upwards, the only direction he had yet to check, and a smile of dawning

understanding spread across his lips. Stupid, stupid. The admonishment was directed towards himself.

            Still smiling, Kayser proceeded to empty the remainder of the clip into the ceiling, managing to

put at least one bullet into every single one of the tiles. No cries of pain resulted though, and no distinctive

sound of bullet ripping into flesh.

            Quickly he slotted a second clip into place – there were four more to come after this one if it

proved to be necessary. Then he sprang agilely up onto the desk, a part of his mind briefly noting the pencil

holder that Lara had obviously knocked over when taking the same route just before him. Using the barrel

of his gun, with its now almost useless silencer attachment still fitted, he pushed the tile directly above him

upwards.

            No shots rang out to greet him, but he wasn't taking any chances. He reached up and fired a couple

of short bursts blind into the dark space above him, raking round in an arc to cover the full 360?. Again

there was no distinctive sound of a live human being struck by bullets. Cautiously – ready to draw back in a

moment's notice – he stuck his head up into the dark space above him.

            It took a moment for Kayser's eyes to adjust to the gloom. When they eventually did he could

clearly see the route that Lara had taken, swept free of accumulated dust by her body, with the forest of

wires and cables pushed aside and disturbed by her rapid progress. There had been no attempt to cover up

her trail. Somewhere in the distance he could make out a paler square amid the gloom, and absolutely no

sign of Lara Croft.

            An unpleasant thought occurred to him. Adrenaline suddenly flowing, he dropped swiftly to the

floor, weapon moving almost instantaneously to cover the doorway. But she hadn't doubled back at him. He

shook his head – allowed himself to relax. She isn't a professional killer, he reminded himself. She won't

think like I do, or possess the same ruthlessness.

            Nevertheless Bob Kayser was beginning to enjoy himself. He went to get her.

* * *

Emil slid free of the ceiling cavity and landed in a crouch on the carpet. After glancing quickly about at his

surroundings, he reached up to help Dr. Adler down beside him, the two of them staggering as she landed.

Lara followed quickly on their heels – effortlessly graceful and controlled as always.

            "You know him?" Lara queried. It was obvious who she meant.

            "Robert Kayser," Emil filled her in quickly. "A CIA cleaner. The CIA cleaner."

            Lara knew immediately what he meant by that. The CIA cleaner he had told her about a few hours

earlier. The one who had killed Mariana – the lost love of his life. Quickly on its tail came the thought:

What the hell is he doing here right now?

            Emil seemed to read the unspoken question from the expression on her face. "I don't know exactly

why he's here – well apart from to kill us all obviously." He cast a quick glance in Dr. Adler's direction.

"There could be any number of reasons."

            He knows all right. But the implication was clear: not a topic for discussion in front of the Doctor,

and not now. Lara had a pretty good idea herself. Croag wanted loose ends – such as herself – tied up. How

he found them was quite another matter. "You got what we came for?"

            Emil patted one of his pockets. "A map reference and a paragraph of some kind of text I couldn't

even begin to read. You'd need to look to know for sure." Then. "It'll have to be enough. We won't be doing

any more searching tonight. We've got to get out of here. Now preferably."

            Lara glanced at Dr. Adler, who looked pale and withdrawn – perhaps in danger of sliding into

shock. She seemed to notice Lara's scrutiny and abruptly refocus. "You don't have to worry about me. I

won't try to hinder you."

            Lara nodded – gave the woman a smile she hoped was reassuring. Dr. Adler seemed to be

handling the situation reasonable well though – understood the realities of it, so for the moment wasn't

raising any questions or protests. Those would inevitably come later.

            Somewhere in the distance behind them came the sound of gunfire – now only slightly muffled.

Presuming of course that there was a later. They got going.

            "Martin. Status report." Emil spoke urgently, leading the way at a half run. He was gripping Dr.

Adler around the arm and almost appeared to be dragging her along. Lara was bringing up the rear,

covering behind them, both of her pistols now in hand.

            "Man, is it good to hear you're voice again. I thought. . ."

            "Later Martin."

            "Sorry. Er, the three top floors might as well be invisible. I can't see them and I can't touch them.

There doesn't seem to be the uproar I expected though – no alarms and no running around like headless

chickens."

            They rounded a corner. "The cleaner. He's initiated a quarantine so there won't be any interference

with his work." Emil then muttered something inaudible beneath his breath.

            "The roof." Lara butted in suddenly. "We can get down from there."

            Emil nodded. It was certainly better than trying to play cat and mouse through four floors of

unfamiliar building where they no longer had control of the security systems, with a professional killer in

hot pursuit. They switched direction quickly. "Martin, we're going to need you to switch off all those

motion sensors on my word. Not just desensitise them. Switch them off. Stealth has ceased to be much of

an issue."

            "Sure, I can still do that. Just yell."

            They reached the maintenance doorway, behind which lay the stairs leading to the roof. It was

locked.

            Cursing beneath his breath, Emil rammed his gun back into its holster and began to go at the lock

with his set of skeleton keys.

            "Get out of the way. I'll blow it open with this." Lara indicated her shotgun with a pat. "We don't

have the time."

            "Just another couple of seconds." She could see a trickle of sweat run down the side of Emil's face

as he continued to struggle with the lock. Felt her own heart rising up into her mouth with every instant of

delay. "Just another couple of seconds."

            After what seemed, subjectively, to be an eternity there was a small, brittle sounding click. The

maintenance door swung open. Emil let out an explosive sigh of relief. Then, from behind them, gunshots

rang out.

            Between them Dr. Adler gave a sudden gasping cry of shock and pain, collapsing onto her knees

like a broken puppet. Lara and Emil just about managed to drag her through, then kick the door shut behind

them before another volley of gunfire rang out.

* * *

Kayser saw Dr. Adler go down, a flower of blood blooming from her left calf. Then the door slammed shut

between them, cutting off his view. He let off another short burst of gunfire, but to his trained ear the sound

of the bullets hitting a metal plate behind the wood was quite distinct. Quickly he let up, realising that he

was just wasting bullets.

            First blood is finally mine.

            Calmly, and in no apparent hurry, he walked the length of the corridor towards the door his

quarries had just gone through. Of course he would have much preferred for it to have been one of the other

two – that went without saying. But crippling Dr. Adler still wasn't without its good points.

            Now his targets were weighed down with bleeding meat. If it was him he would have left the

useless bitch behind, to bleed and be killed – or more likely, just put a bullet through her brain there and

then. It was the only sensible, pragmatic option that anyone who considered themselves a professional

could take. One dying so that two might have a better chance of living was just a matter of simple maths.

But neither of those two would be able to see it like that. Emil certainly wouldn't, and – from what he had

so far witnessed of her – Lara would be even less likely to.

            No, he thought. These two would feel a sense of responsibility for the good Doctor – that they had

caused her to be dragged into a mess she otherwise wouldn't be involved in, and couldn't just throw her to

the wolves. Despite the fact that they didn't know her, or anything about her – and could even be said to be

working on different sides – they would continue trying to help her. Even when it was obviously going to

get them both killed in the process.

            Human compassion made his job so much easier.

            He reached the door. The handle turned but it wouldn't budge. He threw his shoulder against it, but

it still didn't show any sign of giving. Bolted, he surmised.

            Kayser stepped back, hooking his weapon through the belt of his trousers. Still showing no signs

of hurrying, he produced a compact looking pistol-grip shotgun from his case. Then he pumped a round

directly into the lock at close range, turning his face away from the backwash of heat and splinters and

pellets. A second and third round quickly followed, leaving the door a complete shambles – the lock area

mangled entirely beyond recognition.

            Swiftly he returned the shotgun to its case, before throwing his weight against the door once more.

This time it flew open with a resounding clatter to reveal the stairway beyond.

            Kayser leapt coolly back as a chatter of bullets tore up the carpet in front of his feet. He could see

blood smeared in a slick trail up the concrete steps, and the impact mark where the slug had gone all the

way through. It would have been better if it had hit bone and got wedged, he observed clinically.

            He returned fire almost casually – just to let them know he was still there. There were a couple

more brief exchanges of shots, and it quickly became obvious to him that he wouldn't be going up this way

– at least until he could dislodge Emil from his position. On the plus side Emil wasn't going anywhere for

the moment either. . .

            Time for a change in tack. For a moment he considered abandoning his attempt to reach the

building's roof entirely – instead waiting for them to come down the outside and picking them off there.

Quickly he dismissed the idea though. For all he knew they were gong to call a helicopter to pick them up –

however unlikely that might seem. And in any case there was just too much building to cover for him to

risk taking that chance. No, he decided, there were other more direct ways.

            He produced another couple of grenades from his case, these of the more traditional pineapple-

shaped variety. Yes they should do the job very nicely indeed. . . Smiling like a kid on Christmas day,

Kayser threw first one, then the second up the flight of stairs and onto the roof.

            Somebody shouted: "Oh shit. . . Get down!"

            Even as the shockwave of heat and debris fragments were still washing down the stairs, Kayser

was up and moving at a sprint, firing a burst of gunfire ahead of him to clear the way.

            Now we finish it.

* * *

Lara had managed to get Rachel Adler dragged behind a block of air-conditioning vents, and was in the

process of trying to patch up the woman's wound. From somewhere up ahead of her she could hear Emil

and the cleaner, Kayser, exchanging short bursts of gun fire up and down the stairway leading onto the

roof. But she resolutely pushed that distraction from her mind, ignoring it to concentrate on the matter in

hand.

            Dr. Adler was shivering, her lips looking almost white – both tell tale signs that she was suffering

from shock. The bullet had gone straight through the meat of her calf. To Lara both the entry and exit

wounds looked neat and tidy, which was some kind of blessing, but she was bleeding profusely and had

almost certainly lost some muscle tissue.

            She gave the woman's hand a reassuring squeeze, more than a little concerned by how cold it felt

in her grasp. Then she took a tourniquet strip from the first aid kit she carried in her backpack, tying it

tightly just beneath the woman's knee.

            Lara felt Dr. Adler's wince of pain, but the welling of blood did seem to ease a fraction. She began

to wipe away some of the gory mess from around the wounds' edges, trying to ignore the stifled gasps this

action elicited. As soon as she was satisfied, she sprayed both sides of the woman's leg copiously with a

numbing antiseptic spray, then wadded the wounds with gauze padding and began to tightly bandage it up.

It wasn't ideal, but in the circumstances it would have to do. She could get proper treatment assuming that

they survived.

            Quite how she was going to get Dr. Adler down from the roof in this condition was something she

didn't particularly like to think about.

            Suddenly she heard Emil yelling: "Oh shit. . . Get down!"

            For a moment Lara gaped at him as he sprinted headlong towards them. Then, slightly belatedly

she caught on, flattening herself on top of Dr. Adler in an effort to shield the woman, just as the first

grenade exploded.

            She felt the scorching heat wash over her, and the leading edge of the shockwave violently buffet

her body just before she heard the thunderous retort of the explosion, frighteningly close by. Even as it was

dying down a second, equally powerful explosion rang out – though this one seemed a fraction further

away.

            As she pulled herself up onto hands and knees, Lara's ears were still ringing with the violence of

the explosions. One side of her face felt as though it had been badly sunburnt, her night vision all but wiped

out by the brilliant flashes of light. Blinking, eyes watering, she could just make out Emil's body a few

metres beyond her, lying face down on the rooftop, completely motionless. His gun had fallen several feet

beyond the reach of his outstretched hand.

            It took her a few moments to realise that he was still breathing.

            Not for long though. Out in the open like that he was a sitting duck for the cleaner.

            Biting down on the fear that rose up inside her, Lara drew both of her pistols, and – not hesitating

before the complete insanity of what she was about to do could register – she dove straight out of the cover,

guns blazing.

            In mid air she managed to squeeze off three shots with each pistol. Time seemed to almost stand

still, so she could clearly see the way that the moonlight reflected weirdly off the lenses of Kayser's glasses

– how the man's jaw sagged in amazement at the sight of her, his automatic still pointing in completely the

wrong direction to be brought to bear. Then at least four bullets slammed straight into his chest from a

distance of about three metres, driving him down to his knees.

            She landed hard, rolling as she slammed into the rooftop, behind the cover of another of the four

foot high metal vent units which dotted the broad, flat expanse. Belatedly a burst from Kayser's automatic

rang out behind her.

            "Oh, very good. Very good indeed. If I didn't have both hands full I'd stop and applaud."

            Lara felt numb as she listened to his voice ring out. How can he not be dead? I saw him hit four

times, virtually point blank range, right in the centre of his chest. Then she remembered the strange,

slightly misshapen way that his suit had hung on his frame. Body armour. Damn. Damn. Damn.

            She had to keep him busy, away from the others – not give him time to notice them and finish

them off. So she did something that normally she never would have even considered. She called back to

him. "You haven't seen anything yet. Believe me Mr. Kayser."

            Firing blind over the cover, she let off a couple of shots in the general direction she'd heard his

voice coming from. She deliberately kept her aim high to avoid accidentally hitting Emil or Dr. Adler – had

no real thoughts of achieving anything other than a momentary distraction.

            Then she made a break, sprinting in a half crouch down the length of the roof, away from Kayser –

away from Dr. Adler and Emil.

            Kayser's gun sputtered behind her, kicking up splinters of shrapnel as it stitched a line across the

rooftop mere inches from her heels. Then she was diving full length behind another of the vents, bullets

showering her with sparks as they clanged against the metal.

            The gunfire died out with a stuttering cough. Out of bullets, Lara guessed. Though no doubt he

would have enough spare clips to keep him going half the night. She started crawling quickly on hands and

knees towards the next set of cover.

            "So Mr. Ngonge told you my name, did he Lara?" That voice, with its nasal, almost whiny edge

was already starting to become distinctly annoying. "Did he also tell you how we know each other?"

            Lara ignored him and kept on going. She wondered what he was trying to achieve. Did he hope to

lure her into breaking cover, or distract her in some way? All that his talking was doing though, was

allowing her to pinpoint his position and covering up the noise of her movements.

            "I killed the woman he loved you see. Shot her in the head. Nothing personal though, just doing

my  job."

            She more or less had his position locked now – was stealthily working her way around so she

would have a clear angle on him. For a supposedly professional killer he sure does like the sound of his

own voice.

            "She died instantly. No pain whatsoever."

            Okay you bastard, one more comment and I've got you. Lara crouched, guns ready and muscles

tensed to spring, waiting for the moment.

            "Which is more than I can say for poor Garda unfortunately. Her death was quite agonising."

            Lara felt as though a skeletal hand had closed around her heart – was momentarily paralysed by a

combination of grief and rage, tiny tremors passing through her body. She closed her eyes – bit down on

her bottom lip, tried to reassert calm and control.

            "You should have remembered to leave a forwarding address. It would have saved so many long

hours of torment."

            Got you. Lara sprang up, guns blazing, bullets ripping into exactly the spot where Kayser's voice

had been coming from. Unfortunately there was no one there. Kayser was standing more than twenty feet to

the left, gun aimed directly at her, a wide grin slanted across his lips.

            Damn, he knows how to throw his voice. It didn't seem a particularly glorious way to die.

            Only the fact that Emil chose exactly that moment to stagger unsteadily to his feet and unleash a

wildly inaccurate spray of bullets in Kayser's approximate direction saved her life. Kayser dived

instinctively to the floor, causing his own shot to miss Lara's right ear by almost an inch.

            As Lara ducked back into cover herself, she saw Emil stagger and collapse bonelessly to the hard

rooftop in a heap. She didn't think he'd been shot though. Just a concussion. Please be just a concussion.

Her heart was hammering wildly out of control, her breath coming in jagged, frightened gasps, and she

could feel cold sweat trickling from her armpits and down her back. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Got to stay calm

and controlled.

            She fired a couple of shots across the top of the block Kayser had dropped behind, working to

make sure his attention was still directed towards her and not Emil. One of the guns clicked empty. Which

means two rounds left in the other one. Quickly she holstered her pistols and slid the shotgun free from her

back. "I'm still alive Mr. Kayser. What's the matter, having problems shooting straight? If you don't mind

me saying, for a professional hitman you're not really very good at your job."

            Behind and to the left of her, out of the corner of her eye she could see a square shaped structure

resembling a small shed. The vibrating electrical hum emanating from it told her that it was some kind of

generator unit. Slowly she began to back her way towards it.

            Kayser popped up like a mad jack-in-a-box with her still only halfway there, horribly exposed and

out of cover. The reflexive blast from her shotgun caught him high on the shoulder, knocking him over

onto his backside and sending his volley of bullets high and wide of her into the night sky.

            Unfortunately she was also off balance, not having time to brace herself for the shotgun's kick.

She stumbled in the half crouch she was moving in, foot catching in one of the rooftop's many grills. As she

instinctively tried to catch herself from falling over backwards the shotgun skittered from her grasp,

spinning over two metres away from her across the rooftop.

            Lara made a move to recover it, but a raking spray of bullets from Kayser had her drawing her

hand back and yelping in pain, fingers torn and bleeding from splinters of rooftop shrapnel. She gave up on

it, changing direction abruptly and diving for the cover of the generator shed.

            Somehow she made it without bullets ripping into her back.

            Lara tried to control her breathing as she crouched in the shadows, mind racing, wondering what

on earth she was going to do now. She reached over her shoulder to her backpack, initially intent on getting

reload clips for her pistols before Kayser could come and get her. Then she changed her mind – had a

different idea.

            "Have you lost your gun Lara? Ahhh, what a pity. And you were doing so well."

            She could hear Kayser's voice getting steadily nearer as she took a coil of nylon rope from her

pack. After rapidly estimating the particular length she required, she clipped and tied it to her belt harness

with trembling, blood slick fingers. The other end of the rope was attached to a spring loaded grapple.

            "I'm bleeding you know Lara. There aren't many who can say they've made Bob Kayser bleed. In a

way it almost seems a pity that I have to end it like this." He faked a sigh. "But it's what I get paid for."

            His voice sounded as though it was coming round the generator shed from the left. Don't think that

trick's going to work on me twice do you? Lara slid the grapple head between a grill on the floor between

the wall of the generator and the two-foot high rim of the roof, four spring-loaded titanium steel hooks

snapping out to wedge it tightly in place. Then she pulled herself swiftly and silently up onto generator

shed's roof, ignoring the knifing pain that shot through her hand and the sticky red palm print that she left

behind.

            Kayser, actually coming round the shed from the right – as Lara had already guessed – caught a

glimpse of her shadow moving out of the corner of his eye. Almost laughing aloud at her cleverness, but

not in the least taken by surprise, he sprang round, bringing his gun up with lightning speed in order to

empty half a magazine of lead into her torso at point blank range.

            Or at least that's what would have happened if Lara had actually tried to jump him as he'd thought.

Instead the bullets went wide of their target by nearly a foot, and Kayser watched in stupefied amazement

as she plummeted straight past him and over the edge of the roof. A few instants later, before he had time to

realise what was going on, the rope snapped taut around him so forcefully that it almost ripped him in two.

            Without even having time to cry out, Kayser was yanked backwards, straight over the edge of the

roof and into space. He fell four stories in eerie silence and landed on the lawn with a dull thud.

            Lara's own fall was arrested after just one and a half stories, though the force of the rope snapping

taut was strong enough to yank all the breath from her body. Moments later the rope slammed her hard into

the side of the building, sending her bouncing and skidding off it in a glancing blow. Dazed and gasping,

she swung slowly back and forth in mid-air, like some kind of bizarre novelty pendulum.

            Thank Christ that's over. Lara's gaze dropped down to Kayser's body, lying spread-eagled on his

back with one leg twisted unnaturally under him, his glasses torn from his face. He moved.

            Numb shock filled her. A hand twitched spasmodically, then moved to grasp the gun that had

landed less than a metre away from him. A part of her almost expected to see a glint of steel through the

torn flesh of his scalp – one glowing mechanical red eye.

            Moving with all the grace of a broken marionette, somehow Kayser managed to pull himself up,

onto his knees, propping himself up with the barrel of his gun. She could see violent shudders wracking his

shoulders. Then, shaking wildly, he managed to raise his gun. Up towards her.

            Finally the danger penetrated. She reached for the pistol that still had the two bullets left in it.

Unfortunately it wasn't there – the holster at her left hip empty. Lara desperately started climbing back up

the 15 feet of rope separating her from the rooftop, knowing she wouldn't make it in time.

            Just before he fired, Kayser slipped. He caught himself an instant before he ended up flat on his

face on the grass. A high-pitched mechanical whine just about penetrated into his pain-clouded brain. He

froze mid-way through his efforts to bring the gun back to bear.

            Lara glanced back just in time to see the automated machine-guns that the motion sensors had

triggered open up. Kayser seemed to be doing a strange, groovy dance to music only his ears could hear.

Little fountains of blood – nearly black in the artificial light that bathed him – spurted from his limbs where

the bullets ripped into him. He collapsed forward onto his face. This time he didn't move again.

            Lara took a deep, steadying breath. "Okay Martin, I think it might be a good idea to turn the

motion sensors off now."

* * *

Lara pulled herself back up, onto the rooftop, gasping. The pain in her torn hand had progressed from the

merely very painful into a continuous throbbing agony about halfway up the climb, and the relief of being

able to let go of the rope was something approaching bliss.

            She took a moment to gather herself, feeling battered and bruised now that the pumping of

adrenaline through her veins had started to subside. You're not out of this yet. Not by a long way. Can't

afford to relax just yet. Quickly she set about the business of unhooking herself and gathering up the rope,

before recovering both of her lost guns from where they lay on the roof. Then she remembered Emil.

            He had managed to pull himself up from where he had collapsed, onto his haunches, and was

looking about himself in a bleary eyed, disconnected kind of way that suggested he was only half-aware of

where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. She hurried over to him, kneeling down at his side.

            "Emil, are you okay?"

            He managed a fractional smile. "Feel like shit. Like somebody's been battering me about the head

with a sledgehammer." He winced, pressing the heel of his hand against his forehead and closing his eyes.

Lara could see blood from his nose encrusted on his chin and top lip, and a further line running down from

one of his ears. "I'll be alright. What about Kayser?"

            "He had a firsthand opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the lawn security systems. I

don't think we need worry about him any more."

            It seemed to take him a moment to register what she was saying. Then he nodded. "You did good.

I guess we'd better be on our way."

            "Unless you intend to spend the night here." She watched in concern as he levered himself

unsteadily up onto his feet.

            After a moment he said: "Don't worry I'm not going to collapse on you again Lara. I'd prefer not to

have to do any sprinting or wild gunfights for a few minutes though." His smile looked a fraction sickly.

            "Neither of you move."

            Lara turned around slowly.

            Dr. Adler was sitting, propped up against one of the air conditioning vents, her injured leg

stretched out in front of her. She was holding Emil's dropped Uzi in both hands, aimed to cover both of

them. Lara noted that blood was just starting to seep through the bandage on her leg. "I said don't move. I

have a gun." There was a tight look about her face, but Lara thought she looked slightly better than she had

a few minutes – god, was that all it was? – ago. 

            "And a very nice one it is too. Though not yours I think." Lara took a couple of steps towards her.

"How's your leg?"

            "Sore." Dr. Adler grimaced. "I'll recover I'm sure." Then. "Are you deaf or stupid? I have a gun

pointed at you." There a was a slightly waver in her hands, a distinct edge of nervousness to her voice.

            Lara looked her straight in the eye. "If you really feel the need to shoot me Doctor, then I suggest

you go ahead and get it over with. Because I'm not going to take any notice of you."

            They held each others gaze for several long moments. Then, abruptly, Dr. Adler let out a heavy

sigh, lowering the gun-barrel before setting the weapon entirely aside. "You win. I never was really cut out

for this kind of thing."

            "If you're okay we'll be going. I think it would be best for all of us if you don't try to stop us."

            Dr. Adler gave Lara a wry look. "I think we've just established the fact I won't be able to do that."

            Emil had moved to stand at Lara's shoulder, his step – outwardly at least – steady. "Let them know

about Jack Croag."

            Dr. Adler fixed him with a hard look. "Why should I take any notice of anything that you say?

You're both criminals who broke in here and put my life at risk – got me shot in fact – for no better reason

than you wanted to steal some information. By all rights it is my duty as an agent of the CIA to do

everything within my power to stop you, even if it ends up costing me my life. Give me one good reason

why I should so much as lift a finger to help you!"

            Emil looked away from her. "Do whatever you will. At the end of the day I don't suppose it really

matters."

            "I guarantee that you won't like it much I Croag finds what he's after." This was Lara, her voice

soft.

            "You're Lara Croft aren't you?" Realisation dawned in Dr. Adler's voice. "The woman Jack Croag

interviewed to get the information we used to crack that code."

            "If by interview what you actually mean is have kidnapped, pumped full of drugs, then scheduled

for execution if I hadn't escaped before he could carry that out, then yes – that's me. Not forgetting sending

that psychotic bastard down there along to scrub away any potentially embarrassing traces."

            It was Dr. Adler's turn to look away. "I'll see what I can do," she murmured eventually. "I doubt

it'll be much though. Jack Croag is one of the golden children – the mighty and the favoured. All but

untouchable."

            Lara looked around at Emil. "Is that phone of yours traceable?"

            Emil shook his head, seeming puzzled by the question.

            "Give it to her."

            After a couple of seconds he nodded, then flipped the small black object to Dr. Adler who caught

it unsteadily in one hand.

            "Call security when we're gone. Get them to call an ambulance. Tell them that Mr. Kayser met

with an unfortunate accident." Lara paused. "I'd be grateful if you let us have a five or ten minute start.

Your choice though." Then she and Emil turned and started to walk away.

            Dr. Adler watched them go, idly caressing the phone's smooth plastic casing with one hand.

 

* * * * *

 

Jack Croag stepped out of the plane's doorway and into the searing heat and humidity of the late Ugandan

morning. A hint of breeze blowing off the nearby waters of Lake Victoria did nothing more than stir the air

turgidly, offering no hint of respite or refreshment. Blurring heat haze rose up off the baking, dusty runway.

            Standing off to the left, in the shade, he caught sight of the man who had been sent to meet him.

Their eyes met briefly, across the distance.

            Croag turned away, looking back into the aircraft. "Stay here until I give the signal," he ordered

Agent Szalecki, and by implication all of the others too. "I have some urgent business that I need to attend

to personally."

            He descended the steps steadily, deliberately crossing the hundred or so yards of tarmac between

them with an unhurried stride, his expensive loafers raising up little puffs of dust. Already, in the just the

few minutes he had been here, the heat seemed much worse than it had been in Morocco, the humidity

sapping. The man he was meeting made no move to leave his shade – to meet him halfway.

            "Mr. Croag. It is a profound honour to finally make your acquaintance. I have been hoping to do

so for quite some time now."

            Croag studied the man who addressed him carefully. The first thing he noticed was his size. He

was huge – six foot six tall at least but so broad that he appeared almost stocky in build. He was also a

Sikh, the turban he wore a dark bloody red in colour. His skin was a deep shade of olive-bronze that

slightly resembled beaten metal in texture, and his heavy black, square-cut beard seemed to emphasise the

harsh angularity of his face. Eyes glittered like black pearls beneath straight, heavy brows. They seemed to

Croag to be laughing at a private joke he was having at the world's expense.

            His grooming was immaculate, the light tan safari suit he wore perfectly tailored to fit his massive

frame. And one detail that Croag particularly noted was the black silk scarf tucked neatly into his breast-

pocket. Instinctively he knew that he was in the presence of a man of standing.

            "The honour is doubly mine, Mr. . ."

            "Singh. Narayan Singh."

            The Lion. The living legend. The Dark Prince of Sighs. He was even more honoured than he had

thought. Croag inclined his head forward in a bow of respect.

            Narayan returned the gesture, though anyone who observed the exchange with a cold, objective

eye would have noted that his bow was just the merest of fractions less deep. "The news you bring us has

caused great excitement." Croag thought he saw the smallest hint of a smile. "Should you be able to deliver,

your status among us will assume that of legend."

            Or to read that another way, don't screw this up or you're finished. "I have no doubt that I will be

able to deliver. What the delivery turns out to be though. . . that is an altogether different question."

            "Indeed. But you have faith, do you not my friend?"

            "Implicit faith." He returned the man's fractional smile in kind. "I am sure that neither yourself,

nor our good associates will have cause for disappointment."

            "I'm sure that is so." Narayan paused for a moment. "If I may be frank Mr. Croag, I am gladdened

that it is to you that this great work has fallen to. I know that you are a man of special ability, and truly

deserving of this glory."

            For a few seconds Croag was left speechless. High praise indeed from one such as The Lion. An

extremely sharp and double-edged sword too, though. Before he could respond Narayan continued.

            "Have you seen sign of those who follow the heretic?"

            "They are always out there. The one who provided the key escaped my hand. A mistake I

acknowledge. She is a dangerous one and they may try to act through her. I have employed Mr. Kayser to

eliminate that threat though."

            "It is not mistakes that are important. Only that you don't make the same one more than once – and

show a willingness to tidy up after yourself. Mr. Kayser is an excellent choice. A man of singular talent. I

am pleased, but enough chat. It is a hot day to be standing around."

            Narayan Singh looked absolutely cool and refreshed though, despite his words. He leant over and

picked up a bag resting on the tarmac beside him. "I bring a gift to aid you in your task Mr. Croag. A

captured seed of the Great Mother's divine essence. One of only three such fragments known to exist"

            Carefully, and seemingly with great reverence, Narayan unzipped the bag and removed an ancient

looking box. It was about six inches square and four inches deep, made of a tarnished, dull grey metal with

every millimetre of each surface covered in incredibly intricate carving. Upon the lid were a pair off eyes –

slanted, seductive female eyes – inlayed with ivory, jade and onyx, and surrounding these was a carved

wreath of serpents and roses and fire. Sun-crosses – inverted swastikas – stood out in bold relief, and

around the four sides was an orgiastic mass of intertwined male and female forms, engaged in every form

of copulation imaginable. It was a work of art, and from the look of it incredibly ancient.

            Croag had to hide a slight tremor in his hands as he accepted the object from Narayan, genuinely

awe-struck. It was much heavier than it looked, almost as though it was in fact a solid ingot of metal, and

there was a noticeable warmth radiating from it, making Croag's flesh tingle half way up his forearms. As

he continued to hold it he became aware of a slow throbbing pulse – like the heartbeat of some kind of

living entity.

            "I am scarcely worthy of such a gift." He just about managed to keep the stammer out of his voice.

            "You are as worthy as any of us my friend." Narayan sounded sincere. "The success of your

mission is of paramount importance to us. The Great Mother looks upon your work with favour, and in

entrusting this to you we are taking a giant step towards the fulfilment of our divinely given purpose.

Believe in yourself as I do."

            Croag gave a nod of acknowledgement.

            "You should find what you hold to be a more than adequate substitute for the Scion – for your

purposes at least. You are conversant with the prescribed method for opening it?"

            "Quite conversant." He knew all about these boxes, and what would be required.

            "Then know that the blessings of Great Mother, our most divine queen, are with you and your

work."

            "I humbly thank you, Mr. Singh." They exchanged another fractional bow. "The arrangements that

I requested. . ?"

            "Taken care of." He handed Croag a folded slip of paper. "A Mr. Thugwane Mbangwa has been

instructed to place himself and his men at your disposal. You will find him to be quite capable. Now I must

take my leave. Both of us have important tasks that we must attend to."

            They turned away from one another and walked swiftly in opposite directions across the runway.

* * *

Chris Drake had concluded that he detested Kampala within an hour of the plane landing. And a day and a

half's further exposure had done absolutely nothing to improve his opinion of the place.

            The heat and humidity was just one factor – though certainly quite a big one. It was making his

head itch, his blonde crew-cut feeling prickly and irritating. And it was playing absolute hell with the half

healed bullet wound in his shoulder. He felt an almost constant urge to rip the bandages away – to tear at

the slowly knitting flesh and scratch and scratch. Anything to stop the crawling sensation that made him

feel as though something was burrowing, maggot-like just below the skin. It sapped the energy too, making

concentration difficult and transforming even the simplest tasks into a horrendous chore.

            There were other deeper reasons too. Nagging things which he wasn't quite able to put his finger

on, but which lurked ominously just beneath the surface. It had to be to do with the situation, he decided –

certainly, viewed with rational objectivity he had been in places far worse than this. Certain parts of Los

Angeles I know for starters. But he couldn't make himself stop hating the place down to the last brick and

piece of wood.

            The bar was little more than a shack. And not even a particularly well made shack when it came to

it. Drake was aware of every eye in the place turning his way the moment he stepped through the door, and

none of the looks he was receiving could be deemed friendly.

            He felt acutely self-conscious as he walked across the floor, bare floor-boards creaking beneath

the soles of his walking boots. He was out off place – white; affluent looking; very obviously foreign – and

he felt that fact being rammed back down his throat with every passing moment. Every one of them was

male, poor looking, and as tough as dried up leather; as alien to him in their way as men from mars. A part

of him was reminded of those dreams where you suddenly realised you were walking around stark naked in

public, and the urge to turn around – 'sorry, wrong turn, I hope I haven't disturbed you' – and walk straight

out was intense. For sure this was not a tourist spot.

            Then somebody turned away from him and cranked the volume of the radio up – it was a

commentary of a local football match, in English – and the spell seemed to break. In an instant he went

from centre of attention to nobody – completely ignored. It was almost eerie.

            He saw Wade sitting in an island of space at a table at the back of the room – the only woman in

the place. If the attention he'd received had been unnerving he didn't like to think what it had been like for

her. Strangely though everyone was ignoring her, giving her table a wide berth and studiously pretending

that she wasn't there in a manner that wasn't quite convincing. He had the strong feeling that there had been

some kind of 'incident' a few minutes before he walked in. Why the hell had she picked this place?

            Instead of crossing straight over to her he went to the bar; bought two bottles of beer from a man

whose constant smile made him nervous. Bud, and ice cold too. Maybe this place isn't all bad after all. He

accepted the fact he was overcharged with no comment. He was the invader here and could afford to pay

the tax.

            He sat down opposite Wade and pushed one of the bottles across to her. She caught it without

comment and took a long pull. He couldn't help but notice the dark, wet patch soaking into the floorboards

beside their table. It looked uncannily like blood.

            There was no preamble. "Okay Drake, what to you want. Why I have I been sitting in this hole for

the last fifteen minutes? It had better not be some half-assed attempt at a chat up."

            "I'm crushed. My heart lies in shreds on the floor." Drake's tone was sardonic. "Like someone

else's by the look of things." She refused to rise to the draw, so he stopped trying to be the comedian. "It's

about the boss, Jack Croag."

            A strange flicker seemed to pass across her eyes and her expression was suddenly tight and fixed.

            "I know you're having doubts about him Wade."

            She leaned back in her seat, took another long swig from the neck of the beer bottle. "I don't know

what you are talking about."

            Drake sighed inwardly. So it was going to play like this was it. "Okay Wade, you want me to lay it

on the line? I'll do that." He took a deep breath; leant over closer to her so he could speak more softly. "I

think Croag's lost it big time. Gone bad, if you will. I think he's working to his own agenda which has got

nothing to do with the Agency's, and that if we continue to let him go on like he is at the moment at best

we'll be betraying our country, and at worst we'll all end up like Connie Newsome."

            Wade stared at him. He stared back. They seemed to hold each others gaze for a long time.

Eventually she looked away from him. "That's very interesting Chris. And I'm sure you've more than

earned your free subscription to Paranoid Conspiracy Theorist's Monthly." She stood up. "But I really don't

have the time or inclination to sit here and listen to this crap. So if you'll excuse me. . ." She turned to leave.

            "Wait Wade!" His voice was quiet but fierce. "Are you going to seriously walk away from this just

because the implications scare you. I know you've been having similar thoughts to the ones I have. I didn't

have you down as a coward."

            She froze in her tracks – turned back to face him. For several long heartbeats she just stood there,

hesitating. Then, with obvious reluctance, she returned to her seat. "I'll admit it Chris that some of his

actions recently have seemed a little. . . well strange. And Connie. . . that was fucking negligent. No two

ways about it. If one of us had done what he did, that's it – career over and lucky to get a job behind the

counter at McDonald's. But that's the privilege you get when you reach his rank. The shit no longer sticks.

To suggest anything more sinister is ludicrous."

            He could read the doubt in every line of her face though. "Is it? Is it really? Lara Croft held a gun

pointed directly at my face. She could have killed my like that." He snapped his fingers for emphasis. "I

thought I was dead. I really did. But she shifted aim and shot me in the shoulder."

            "What a sweetie," Wade muttered beneath her breath.

            "What I'm getting at is I don't think she's the sort of person who would kill an unarmed woman.

Her actions just don't suggest it. Ask Nichols – she could have shot both him and McGhee; had no reason

not to given what she's already supposed to have done. Even in the fire-fight across the parking lot no one

got killed. All her shots were aimed low. And why shoot Connie and not Croag – surely he was the biggest

threat and would have been her first target."

            "Chris, she was drugged up to the eyeballs and under hypnosis – hardly a normal and rational

state. And of course she'd see Connie as the bigger threat – she was the one who was conducting the

hypnosis, making her reveal her secrets. What you're suggesting – that Croag killed Connie – just doesn't

make sense. Why? What actual evidence is there to support it?"

            "Maybe she heard something he didn't want her to know. I'll admit all I've said is fairly

circumstantial and wouldn't stand up for a moment in court. But why did Croag even have his weapon

while conducting an interrogation – that's against all procedure for starters. Then there was the fact that the

cameras were turned off for the duration, and no-one other than him has been allowed to look at the

transcripts or listen to the tapes. That at least is enough to warrant an investigation."

            "Okay Chris, I'll grant you that Croag is an arrogant shit. That's his prerogative. But there are

explanations for all of those things, and they don't add up to murdering a subordinate officer."

            Drake realised he was getting nowhere with this tack. "Alright, I'm not necessarily saying that he

did shoot her. But his actions really make me think, you know Wade. His competence to lead us is brought

into question at the least."

            Wade gave a grunt of grudging acknowledgement.

            "And what about that Thugwane Mbangwa and his merry mob of mercenaries? What's the betting

that they aren't fresh from a good ol' massacre across the border in Rwanda?"

            Wade sighed. "Chris, some people might say that's an incredibly tasteless remark. Indeed they

might go as far to say that it borders on the racist. We don't always work with choirboys – hell we aren't

choirboys ourselves when it comes to it. We've got to look at this in an adult way. Sometimes, out of

necessity, we have to co-operate with some pretty nasty individuals. And Thugwane, I admit, is a very

nasty individual. But its just the nature of the job. You know that as well as I do."

            "So you're saying that, basically, everything is just fine. Hunky-dory and all that."

            Wade made an exasperated noise. "No, I'm not saying that at all. Its fairly obvious everything isn't

okay. Croag is acting a touch strangely, and I do have my doubts about him. But what you're suggesting is

quite a leap I think. There are other more reasonable explanations that also fit."

            "Oh?"

            "Okay, say you're exactly one-hundred percent correct about all this. Just say that for a moment.

What the hell are you going to do about it? Report him to his superiors?"

            "Maybe. Yeah, maybe that's what I should do. He does have superiors you know. He's not God."

            "No? As far as you're concerned he may as well be though. You try that stunt and your career will

be over before you can blink. If you're lucky."

            "There are more important things at stake here than my career."

            Wade groaned. "Christ, Chris. I hadn't got you down as an idealist."

            "You say that as if it's meant to be an insult."

            "Oh, don't be so naοve," Wade snapped at him. "If Croag is what you think he is, how do you

suppose he's going to react when you go over his head like that? D'you think maybe he might provide his

cleaner friend with another employment opportunity? That guy's bound to be finished with Ms. Croft soon

– even assuming she did survive that midnight swim like Croag thinks."

            "I don't hear you making any constructive suggestions." This conversation wasn't turning out the

way he'd hoped. What were you hoping for exactly?

            "Sit on what you've got. Don't talk about it – it'll get you into the kind of crap you can't dig your

way out off. Keep watching him like I am. Wait for some evidence to confirm your suspicions, or

otherwise. Because at the moment you don't have shit: negligence at an interrogation you're trying to turn

into murder; a strange meeting with a giant Sikh; some mercenaries who – just maybe – are a bit on the

dodgy side. I mean, Jeez.

            "Then, when you know – I mean really know – and have the evidence to be able to back it up.

Then you act. Not before."

            "So, if I can summarise, what you're saying is that I should do nothing."

            "If that's how you want to look at it, then yes."

            Drake stared at her. "Well if that's all you've got to say, then I think this conversation is probably

at an end."

            He stood up and started to walk away.

* * *

"Mister Croag, I think you will very much want to see this."

            Croag stared at Thugwane Mbangwa through the torrents of rain that made seeing anything more

then a few metres in front of him almost impossible. He had come to the conclusion over the course of the

past several days that he didn't like the man much.

            Thugwane was tall and lanky, his skin so dark that it seemed to gleam. There was usually a

disturbing vacancy about his expression and his eyes seemed to look through you rather than at you when

you were talking to him. A certain hollowness to his cheeks gave his head an almost skull-like look, and in

repose his jaw had the tendency to loll open – suggestive somehow of a mental deficiency he most certainly

didn't possess. Then there was his tendency to bare his teeth like a snarling dog when 'smiling', and the fact

he would burst into laughter at the strangest and most unlikely seeming of events or phrases.

            Something about the man whispered to Croag that he had absolutely no moral code – that he was

possessed of a type of madness where every possible action held equal merit and nothing was forbidden or

taboo, or even undesirable.

            But it wasn't really any of this that set Croag's teeth on edge. He could have handled all that

without blinking. No, it was the general lack of fear or respect that the man showed him. Oh, he carried out

his orders unfailingly, never questioning, and always demonstrating skill and efficiency in what he did.

Somehow though, without ever doing or saying anything overt, he always managed to make it very clear

that he worked for Croag only because he had been instructed to – that at heart he was still very much

Narayan's creature, and always would be.

            "Lead the way."

            He followed Thugwane through a trail of chopped branches and hacked vegetation – in these

remote hilly areas the Bwindi Forest really managed to live up its name as being 'impenetrable'.

            They'd been forced to leave their jeeps three days ago once they'd left the more travelled regions

behind, and since then they'd been making ten to fifteen miles of slow and painful progress each day. After

the first few hours, when the wonder at the untouched beauty and wildness of the place had still been fresh,

a general consensus had been reached that they were travailing through some kind of particularly green and

wet purgatory.

            The joys of endless swarms of mosquitoes, leaches with a nasty knack of finding the most

uncomfortable area of skin possible to fasten onto as soon as you stopped for a breather, and air that it was

easier to drink than breath, quickly palled. Couple this with permanently sodden clothing, gear and even

rations – along with long, exhausting periods of hacking through dense vegetation with machetes – and the

view of this expedition as some kind of exciting wilderness vacation quickly faded.

            Croag himself bore it all with unflinching stoicism – a man of stone. Physical discomfort had long

ago ceased to be of interest him, and each step brought him a fraction closer to his goal. Only Thugwane

appeared to be enjoying himself – but he also gave the distinct impression that he would equally have

enjoyed being burned alive, just for the novelty of the experience.

            Suddenly the rain seemed to ease slightly, and in front of him the world opened up into brightness

and wide open space.

            "Impressive is it not Mister Croag." Thugwane was grinning that broad, animalistic grin once

again. "We have reached the place the place you seek, No?"

            They were standing at the edge of a lake. Not a particularly big one perhaps, the far shore being

only about two or three-hundred metres away from where he stood, but a lake nonetheless – its waters deep

and clear looking. Croag felt a tiny twitch of deep buried excitement. Three sides of the lake were bounded

by the same dense rain-forest through which they'd been trekking, but on the fourth side – opposite the

position where he was now standing – there rose a limestone cliff face about fifty metres tall at its highest

point. From its centre cascaded a glittering waterfall.

            It certainly fitted the translated description in Natla's journals. Just to assure himself Croag pulled

out the GPS system he carried from his back pack.

            He read back the co-ordinates. They were a match, give the extra two hundred odd metres to cross

the lake. "It would seem so Mr. Mbangwa. It would seem so." His gaze remained fixed upon the deep

shadows that lay behind the foot of the falls.

            For no apparent reason his comment elicited another fit of braying laughter, the sound slowly

fading into the background of the falling rain as Thugwane wandered away from Croag along the lake

shore. One day soon, my friendly hyena, your usefulness to me will be at end. Then your heart – should I

find you have one – will make a suitable addition to the offering bowl.

            It took them the best part of three hours to construct a makeshift raft.

            It would have been much quicker, but Agent McGhee wandered slightly too close to a floating

'log'. The 'log' had blinked at him, startling him into panicked flight. He might actually have managed to

outrun the crocodile if it wasn't for an inconveniently protruding tree root.

            They'd had to prise the dead reptile's jaws off McGhee's leg as the CIA agent whimpered and

thrashed and cried out. It had taken almost the whole of a magazine from an AK-47 belonging to one of

Thugwane's men before it had eventually died.

            The wounds the crocodile inflicted were extremely nasty – multiple bone deep lacerations along

with a serious compound fracture, a badly dislocated knee and ripped tendons and ligaments. A few more

seconds and McGhee would most likely have lost the limb at the knee. As it was he was lying on a

stretcher, leg splinted and tightly bandaged, floating in and out of consciousness and emitting the

occasional semi-delirious howl despite the fact he'd been pumped to the gills with painkillers.

            Croag had been disgusted by the display, filled with dark thoughts about overseeing a bunch of

school children. No doubt his feelings showed all too clearly on his face. After the incident everyone had

been at great pains to keep their distance from him, conversation restricted to the occasional muted whisper

at the edge of his earshot. Well, except for Thugwane of course. That was a given.

            On the bright side, by the time the raft was finally completed the rain had stopped and the sun was

peeking out from behind the clouds. And for a few blissful minutes at least the humidity became almost

bearable.

            Six of them had set out across the lake – Croag, Agents Szalecki and Clauson, plus Thugwane and

two of his men – while the rest stayed behind to set up camp. The short trip was conducted in complete

silence – this time even on Thugwane's part – and Croag's mood gradually lightened before the sense of

approaching destiny that filled him.

            As they approached it, the shadows behind the falls resolved themselves into a cave, over ten feet

tall and obviously deep, though the true extent of it could not be ascertained from the outside. The waters of

the falls were surprisingly chill as they passed beneath them. Then the raft's underside scraped bottom and

they were forced to abandon it, wading ankle deep into the cold water.

            The quality of sound inside the cave was strange and eerie, with the burbling, musical rush of the

falls playing ceaselessly at their back. The daylight from outside was unable to penetrate far through the

screen of ever moving water – softened and distorted. His voice echoing crazily off the walls, Croag gave

the order for flashlights to be turned on.

            It quickly became obvious that this was no natural cave. The walls and ceiling were too smooth

and regular, and once the ground beneath their feet sloped slightly upwards and out of the water, it became

apparent that it was actually covered in extremely ancient and smooth worn paving stones. As they got

deeper and deeper, with no sign of branch or end – the spot of water-filtered sunlight at their back

becoming fainter and fainter – Croag became filled with a deep calm that bordered upon tranquillity.

Around him still no-one broke the silence. Very soon, he thought. Very soon now I will make good on all

my promises. For your glory my Queen.

            Abruptly the beam of his flashlight was playing upon something blocking the way in front of him.

The breath caught in his throat as he studied it, but curiously – for the moment at least – there was no sense

of disappointment, or rage or frustration.

            A few metres ahead of where they were standing the roof had caved in, the passageway ahead

blocked by tons of stone.

            "It looks like we have some digging to do." Nothing will thwart me now.

* * *

Lara hadn't been altogether pleased when she'd laid eyes on their plane – a small single-engined Russian

Antonov transport that was at least forty years old. And now that they were airborne, the vibration of the

lone engine travelling back through the worryingly flimsy seeming fuselage, she wasn't a whole lot happier.

            Perhaps understandably, given her experiences, she wasn't a particularly keen flyer. Tension

tended to fill her as soon as soon as she got onto an aeroplane – especially if it was as flimsy and rickety

seeming as this one – and she was never able to fully relax until the plane had safely landed and she was

getting out. She found it virtually impossible to sleep or rest whilst in the air. Even when she did manage to

drift off she tended to experience the kind of nightmares that made staying awake seem more restful – not

to mention less disturbing for her fellow passengers.

            Considering that travel was almost her entire life it could be something of a downer. Rationally

she knew that, statistically speaking, travelling by plane was just about the safest form of transport

imaginable. You tended to view things slightly differently though when – over the course of twelve years –

you had been involved in three separate crashes. Okay, so one was a helicopter, but still. . . It would make

anyone a little wary.

            When Emil had shown her this almost medieval looking contraption after they'd landed in Nairobi,

Kenya, she'd felt a strong, irrational surge of resentment towards him. Surely he knew how she felt about

flying and was doing this to her deliberately. . . It had taken a considerable effort to push that feeling aside,

but the reality was that to get from Geneva to Uganda quickly you had to take whatever means presented

itself. There wasn't much in the way of regularly scheduled airline routes – not in the time-scales they had

anyway.

            She glanced across at Emil. They hadn't spoken much since he'd got through to Youseff

Makhalouf in Morocco – had found out about the discovery of Garda's mutilated body.

            There had been one blazing row, ostensibly over whether he was fit to fly – concussions could be

extremely dangerous at high altitude, the possibility of a stroke or aneurysm leading to death or permanent

disablement becoming increasingly strong. In the same position as him, Lara knew, she would have insisted

on coming along, just like he had done. But from the outside, having to watch him take such a risk had left

her seething.

            Other than that though, they had both kept pretty much to themselves – conversation kept to a

minimum, and even that directed strictly towards the business in hand. Lara could tell that Garda's death

had hit him extremely hard. What the full extent of the relationship between them had been she didn't

know, but he was very obviously torn up with feelings of anguish, grief and guilt.

            She didn't know what she could do or say that could possibly improve things, and inside she was

feeling pretty lousy about it too. Though she hadn't known the woman for anymore than a couple of days

she had liked Garda a lot, and she couldn't help but lay the blame for what had happened squarely with

herself. No doubt he blames me too.

            He looked ill she thought, still feeling the effects of the concussion, his skin seeming almost

greyish as he stared at the roof above them – apparently oblivious to her scrutiny.

            She sighed softly, then gripped the side of her seat abruptly as the plane suddenly jolted its way

through a patch of mild turbulence. Relax for god's sake. She tried turning her thoughts ahead, to what they

would face very soon now – at least trying to use the duration of the flight in something approaching a

constructive manner.

            Unfortunately she knew all too clearly what she expected to find.

            Her thoughts strayed involuntarily back to the Great Pyramid – the hideous fusion of living flesh

with the very stonework around her; the ceaseless pulsing throb that reverberated through her entire being

like a colossal heartbeat; bloody, red tinged light and the ghastly slick, spongy feel of the ground beneath

her feet; vile hatching chambers that spewed forth streams of nightmarish, skinless abominations as she

crept through them. It had been more like crawling through the bowels of some gigantic living beast than a

structure made by the hands of man, and it was not an experience she cared to repeat.

            Of course the Great Pyramid had been active, the Scion sitting at its heart and powering the whole

infernal process. That wouldn't be the case with the storehouse. It would be long dead – or at least dormant.

            She paused. Or at least she assumed it would be. She felt a sudden nasty little jolt. What if it

wasn't?

            No, that was impossible. Natla had needed the Scion. If she could have managed to power the

mutant creation process without it then they would even now be buried under tides of new breed. Natla

would never have needed to go to all the trouble she had, hiring her and Du Pont to recover Qualopec and

Tihocan's pieces of it. No way could Natla's storehouse be active.

            Something nagged though. Something that wouldn't go away. What it Croag could find a way to

activate the place without the Scion?

            Up until now her major fear was that one of Natla's dormant mutants would fall into Croag hands

– that it would, eventually, allow scientists to reproduce some of Jacqueline Natla's nightmarish genetic

techniques and, given enough time, create mutants of their own – perhaps to use as weapons, or soldiers in

an army of freaks. Horrible enough, granted, but a fairly long term threat. She hadn't really considered the

possibility that Croag might actually manage to start up the breeding process straight away.

            But could he? It all came down to what the Scion really was and how big a part it had played in

Natla's work.

            The theory she had was that the Scion had been a. . . well, sort of an Atlantean supercomputer.

            The most well known of its powers – the ones the legends all spoke of – was its ability to shape

and manipulate the genetic sequences of living things, and even to imbue the spark of life. The power of

creation itself. As well as Natla's hideous abuse of this power, which she had got to experience first hand,

she suspected that Qualopec had used it to restore extinct species to life – in particular the dinosaurs she

had discovered in and around his tomb.

            There was obviously more to the Scion than that though. Alone, the ability to create life – however

magical and miraculous it may seem – would not have been enough to explain the cataclysm that enveloped

the entire Atlantean people, seemingly directly as a result of Qualopec and Tihocan being forced to remove

it from its housing in the Great Pyramid and then dismantle it.

            That had got her thinking.

            One possible explanation was that the timing of the cataclysm had been pure coincidence, and

nothing at all to do with Natla's abuse of the Scion. She didn't buy that though. Granted, coincidences

occurred every second of every day, but one of this magnitude just didn't feel right.

            An alternative that had occurred to her was that together the Scion and the Great Pyramid had

formed a gigantic engine. A sort of huge reactor that had been the power source of the entire Atlantean

civilisation. The Great Pyramid had certainly been built directly on top of a hot-spot in the earth's crust,

what with the huge lava well that sat right at its heart, and the numerous other lava vents on the island

where it had been built. Perhaps – in conjunction with the Scion – the pyramid became an endless source of

geothermal energy, tapping directly into the heat of the earth's core, with the Scion regulating and

controlling the whole process.

            After all, when she had shot and damaged the Scion it had not exploded directly. Instead it had

triggered violent earth tremors and volcanic eruptions, eventually leading to a monumental chain reaction

that had shattered the Great Pyramid from within.

            Maybe the Atlantean's had been able to take the process she had witnessed a step further still, not

just tapping into the energy of the Earth's core, but actually controlling the reaction of the Earth's core

itself. They could have been able to use this power to prevent earthquakes and volcanoes from endangering

their people when it was switched on – perhaps even to control their own climate.

            And there – if she was correct – came the rub. As soon as you turn the engine off, all of the tension

that has been built up, previously controlled and channelled by the Great Pyramid, suddenly has nowhere to

go. You get cataclysmic earthquakes and eruptions all over the world at once as the energy releases itself

uncontrollably through the Earth's crust. Land-masses crumble and subside beneath the sea, and millions

upon millions die in the span of a few awful minutes. Then, in the aftermath – the infrastructure of the

civilisation irrevocably shattered, everywhere flooded and in ruins – the starvation and disease come, and

even more millions succumb in the terrible months that follow.

            Once Natla had corrupted the Great Pyramid – turning it into a breeding house to churn out her

mutant killers in endless supply – Qualopec and Tihocan had probably felt they had no choice. To leave the

Great Pyramid up and running was to let their people be slaughtered, and Natla's vision of the future

succeed. It was just a terrible, tragic irony that the action which had been intended to save their people from

disaster may ultimately have ended up destroying perhaps the greatest civilisation the world had seen.

            It was all speculation of course, but Lara thought it fitted what she knew quite neatly.

            So, where that left her with Croag and Natla's storehouse.

            To look on the positive side first, she was fairly certain that without the Scion Croag wouldn't be

able to create any new creatures entirely from scratch, even if he found examples from which to copy. So,

if all the storehouse contained was a collection of specimens it wouldn't be so bad. She wouldn't want such

things to fall into his hands of course, as ultimately it could result in the science of genetics being taken

down some incredibly dark and nasty paths. But it wasn't instantaneous disaster.

            Now for the downside. And it was a pretty damned big one.

            If the storehouse contained an intact hatching chamber she didn't think he would need the Scion to

make it work. All that would be required was a compatible energy source. She had a very nasty feeling that,

once created, a hatching chamber could function as a self-contained unit with no further creational input

from the Scion. As long as the right sort of energy was flowing through the egg cells she suspected that

they would go on producing ad infinitum – growing and hatching and growing again, over and over and

over.

            She suspected that Croag, with the resources of both the CIA and this Organisation that Emil had

mentioned to back him, wouldn't have much difficulty in coming up with a compatible energy source.

            That slightly begged the question as to why Natla hadn't got the place up and running years ago.

For a few moments Lara managed to draw some optimism from that thought. But it quickly faded as

unwanted explanations wormed there way into her head.

            First, people – even ancient rulers of Atlantis – tended to stick with what they knew best. Natla

knew the Scion, and while there was a viable chance of retrieving it she probably wouldn't have felt the

need to look for an alternative. Second, and even more telling, Natla wouldn't have been content to just

churn out the same old mutant over and over. She had a grand plan – a vision. Lara remembered the titanic

horror that Natla had hatched at the top of the great pyramid with a shudder. Her work had still been

incomplete, and only the Great Pyramid and the Scion working in unison gave her the grand canvas she

required to experiment on.

            Lara shook her head. In a sense it wasn't worth worrying about. They would find what they would

find. And she would try to stop Croag, or be killed in the attempt. It didn't really matter if the threat to rest

of the world was minimal or huge – both herself and Emil were too far involved to back out now and go

home.

            They hit another patch of turbulence, and Lara's thoughts were jerked away from such abstract and

nebulous thoughts by the juddering vibrations all around her. For the time being her only concern became

whether they would manage to make it to the ground intact.

* * *

Mark Aguilera couldn't sleep. This was nothing new. He hadn't been able to sleep properly for days.

            He was wandering through the forest along the lake shore, carrying no light though the darkness

was almost total. Earlier he had slipped out of his sleeping bag and tent as soon as he judged those near him

to be asleep, ghosting through the security perimeter without effort. Why, he wasn't sure. There was just a

need to be on his own, away from the noise of the excavation work and away from the intrusion of his

fellows. It got to the point where he just couldn't stand being around other human beings.

            A part of him was aware that what he was doing was stupid and dangerous. He couldn't see where

he was going and the chances of becoming lost, or running into some less than friendly creature were high.

The rest of him didn't care – would almost relish the end of the empty void his life had become.

            Around him the jungle was almost eerily quiet. There was the strange sense that it watching him

simultaneously with a thousand eyes, observing to see what he would do next before deciding what to do

with him.

            Then his mind was back in the recent past, replaying the scene that haunted him endlessly. He was

standing in a dead end alley in Rabat, gun raised and pointed at the woman he'd been chasing, caught dead

in his sights as she tried to clamber over the top of a high wall.

            'Stop right there or I'll shoot,' he heard himself order, his palms sweating and his finger

uncomfortable on the trigger. She ignored him as always, glancing over at what was on the other side of the

wall. He willed himself to shoot – to drop her body, twitching and bleeding to the dirt at his feet. Again, as

always he didn't.

            'I mean it'. He hated the way his voice quavered – if he had been stern and commanding maybe it

would all have turned out differently.

            She was smiling that mocking little smile. Shoot the bitch in the face! The part of him still in the

present was screaming. But of course he didn't do that either. 'Maybe some other time'. That wry British

accent pounded into his skull like a nail being driven by a hammer. Then she dropped from view and all

hope that somehow, miraculously, it would be different this time died. I'm sorry Connie. So, so sorry. When

you most needed me I let you down.

            He found himself on his hands and knees in the mud and mulch of the forest floor, his breath

coming in ragged gulps, his cheeks wet and streaked with tears. Slowly the grief and loss hardened into a

core of white hot hatred and rage, and he pulled himself back to his feet.

            He hoped – truly hoped – that the cleaner Croag had sent after Lara Croft failed in his task. Then –

either if she dared to follow them here, or afterwards, when he had the opportunity to hunt the bitch down –

he would be able to extract full and total revenge for what had been done to his poor, sweet Connie.

            This time, she would find, there would be no hesitation.

* * *

"I hear that you are looking for a guide?"

            Lara and Emil both looked up together at the speaker from the collection of maps they were

pouring over.

            They were seated on either side of a low table, at what had – in better times, before the

mercenaries and guerrilla fighters had started crossing over from neighbouring Rwanda and made the place

too dangerous – served as a nightly stopover for touring safari groups. Outside of the open balcony at the

front of the building, rain was falling in great horizontal sheets, transforming the trail that served as road

into a sea of thick red mud.

            "That is correct," Lara stated quickly, before Emil could say anything, gazing up at the speaker

over the tops of her red-tinted sunglasses.

            They had been debating – well arguing might have been a more accurate description – over that

point right up to a few minutes before this man had approached them. Emil had been of the opinion that,

since they knew the exact point they were heading for, possessed detailed maps of the terrain, and were

both experienced travellers, they didn't need a guide. He'd argued that they would only be putting another

innocent party at unconscionable risk, and for minimal gain – that he didn't want another person's blood on

his hands, and on top that didn't know if they should be putting trust in a complete stranger considering

what was at stake.

            Inwardly Lara had agreed with some of what he said – especially about putting somebody else's

life at risk. But she also had a lot more experience than Emil when it came to traversing jungle terrain, and

knew that there was absolutely no substitute to local knowledge garnered over the course of a lifetime.

They could be in there for days, trying to hack their way through the shortest seeming overland route, when

someone who knew all of the trails and little features that didn't show up on even the most detailed of maps

could get them where they wanted in less than a third of the time.

            And time was absolutely of the essence. She knew what she expected to find up in those jungle

covered hills – the magnitude of the threat that lay there. She wasn't convinced that Emil, despite