Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals

  They were sitting together in companionable silence halfway through the story when a soft hum sounded somewhere in the room. Lara looked up at Menelaou.

  It sounded like a machine, a fan on a computer coming suddenly to life, but she saw no computer on his desk. The sound stopped after only a second.

  “Two visitors in one morning,” said Menelaou. “I should see who else wants to do business with this ancient Greek today.” He laughed at his own joke as he got up and made his way to the obstructed door.

  “Do you object to me locking the door behind me?” he asked.

  Lara shook her head, not thinking.

  “I shall send whoever it may be away with an appointment,” said Menelaou. “When your story is over, I shall be well paid for my little bit of immortality. Life has been good to me.”

  It was the key turning in the lock that brought Lara back to her senses. Then, the soft hum of the buzzer sounding again. She went to the window, opened it, and looked down on the street. She could see very little of the man standing in front of the building, just the curve of his shoulders and back, not even the top of his head. The woman standing behind him had long hair, tied in a ponytail.

  Lara did not see the firearm, and she did not hear a bang. What she heard was the soft spit of a shot being fired through a silenced gun barrel. She recoiled.

  Menelaou was dead.

  Lara jammed the lid back on Queen Mary’s Christmas gift tin and stuffed it into her rucksack. Then, she went into the little kitchen of Menelaou’s office. She couldn’t go out the way she’d come in, even if the door hadn’t been locked. She couldn’t go out of the window either. She was on the fourth floor.

  She heard feet on the stairs. The Immortals knew she was here. They had been staking out Menelaou.

  They were at the door.

  Lara remembered Menelaou’s words. “After that, I improved my security.”

  She rushed to his desk, bent down, and saw the newly-installed “panic switch” under it. She hit it.

  All the doors around her double-bolted with electric switches. A chain sheet slid down and locked out the office door. Menelaou’s apartment was far more high-tech than it seemed.

  The Immortals were pounding on the outer door. Lara feared they might use explosives to force their way in.

  There had to be a fire exit, and it had to be in the kitchen.

  She headed back into the kitchen. A hatch had opened. A secure escape. She got in.

  There was a ladder, tightly fixed to the bricks and running down a hidden shaft in the building.

  She pulled the safe room hatch shut behind her and scrambled down the ladder. From the room beyond, she heard a small charge blow the secure chain door open. People rushed in.

  Lara dropped the last six feet off the ladder, and emerged via a side door onto Rue Henry de Jouvenel. She quickly hailed a taxi. She began to say “Gare du Nord”, but remembered that Ares knew she had tickets for the Channel Tunnel back to London.

  “Charles de Gaulle,” she told the taxi driver.

  “Oui, mademoiselle,” he said.

  Chapter 16

  It was a long ride to the airport, at least forty minutes, and probably closer to an hour, depending on the traffic. Lara didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going, except that she had to get away from Ares, and from Paris.

  She knew that her quest for the Golden Fleece wasn’t over. Menelaou was dead, and she had a piece of his artifact, but somehow she felt further from helping Sam than ever. Where could she begin to track down the gold?

  She needed to make a decision.

  Lara took out her phone and risked turning it on. She’d turned it off when she’d landed in Paris. She didn’t have anyone to call. She’d had a job to do. She hadn’t turned it back on after meeting Ares, because she wasn’t sure what he was capable of. But she was leaving France, and she needed to make plans. She needed to decide whether to head back to London. She was nervous about heading back to the Gare du Nord and using her return half of the Channel Tunnel rail ticket, so she needed to book a flight.

  As soon as Lara turned her phone on, it pinged to let her know she had messages. She scrolled through them. There was a lovely one from Willow, and one from Professor Cahalane. The last one, sent only last night, was from Kennard Montez. Lara almost ignored it, but he’d given her the lead to Menelaou, and she felt partly responsible for the old man’s death. Besides, she had his portion of the Golden Fleece, if that’s what it really was. Maybe, just maybe, Kennard could provide her with a lead to the gold, or at least give her closure on Menelaou.

  The message read, “Leaving tomorrow to join a dig at Anafi. The guys are eight months in with promising outcomes. Join us?”

  Anafi, thought Lara. Why does that sound familiar? She couldn’t remember, but at least it was a location, a possible destination if she decided not to go home to London immediately.

  Lara thought for a moment and then texted back, “Anafi?” Then she realised that Kennard was probably already en route, and it was likely that he had switched his phone off. She pocketed her mobile and pulled the Book out of her rucksack. She was flicking through it, trying to find references to the location, when her phone pinged.

  It was a message from Kennard. It read, “At the airport. Anafi is in the Cyclades. The Argo’s first port after recovering Fleece. Meet me there?”

  Lara hesitated, but only for a moment.

  “Maybe,” she texted back.

  She felt a wellspring of excitement in the pit of her stomach. To be where the Argo had been, to follow in Jason’s footsteps, to track the journey of the Golden Fleece from Colchis, those things might put her on the path to finding the gold. She felt that she had her first lead.

  She still had questions. She still wanted to know who Ares was, what he was. She needed to know why he was so interested in the Golden Fleece and why he had wanted her dead when he found out that she couldn’t give him any new information. She wondered what he would have done with her if she had been able to tell him anything.

  Then she got to thinking about Menelaous’ office, about all the wonderful things he kept there. She wondered what value could be put on the objects in that room. Any one of the artifacts he had collected might be priceless. The collection must be beyond the reach of even Ares’s purse. Ponytail and whoever was with her would not find the fleece. They would not know what they were looking for. In the process of looking for it, how much damage could they do? How many objects would they destroy as they dismantled the room searching for the object in the little tin box nestled in among Lara’s clothes in her rucksack.

  Lara shook her head. She couldn’t think about it. Perhaps it was a good thing that Menelaou was dead. Perhaps he’d be better off not seeing the devastation of his property, of all the wonderful antiquities he had accumulated in his lifetime.

  Lara thought back over the couple of hours she had spent with the funny, warm man. She had liked him. Her father would have liked him too, and now he was gone. Lara put her hand in her rucksack and felt around until she clasped the Queen Mary tin box. She gripped it hard for a moment. It was ironic; the artifact inside was supposed to heal, was supposed to bestow immortality on its owner, not get him killed. Could it do that without the gold? Menelaou seemed to think it could. He had called himself a purist, but he had also laughed a lot, and enjoyed the stories. Perhaps he was a realist, a man with his feet firmly on the ground, a man of the world. Lara had touched the fleece and felt nothing.

  Lara made one more call before she came to her decision. She scrolled through the contacts in her address book and hit dial. The phone rang several times before it picked up.

  “Hello,” she said. “This is Lara Croft, calling for an update on Samantha Nishimura… Yes, I am listed as her next of kin contact… Yes, I will hold. Thank you.”

  Lara felt the tensi
on grow inside her as she waited in silence for someone to come to the phone. It felt like a long time before someone spoke to her again, and when they did it was a different voice.

  “Miss Croft?”

  “Speaking,” said Lara.

  “Miss Nishimura is stable and comfortable.”

  “Has her condition… changed?” asked Lara.

  “She is stable,” said the voice. “I can’t tell you any more than that.”

  “But she’s still undergoing her psychiatric evaluation?” asked Lara.

  “Miss Nishimura is still being assessed. Yes,” said the voice at the end of the line.

  Lara couldn’t think of anything else to ask.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” said the voice. There was a click, and the line went dead. Lara’s phone beeped as it hung up automatically. It was depressing.

  “I guess I’m going to Anafi,” said Lara to herself.

  “Charles de Gaulle airport, mademoiselle?” asked the driver, as if she had been speaking to him.

  “Oui,” said Lara. “Charles de Gaulle.”

  Chapter 17

  “Bring me up to speed,” said Lara. It was a sunny Wednesday morning, and she was standing on the beautiful island of Anafi at an open dig site. Half a dozen students were scraping away in trenches with trowels and brushes, under the instruction of a vigorous older man in a wide-brimmed hat, cut-down jeans and desert boots.

  The area was cordoned off from the public, but there wasn’t much interest from outsiders anyway. Most visitors came to Anafi for the beaches. Lara noticed only two men in linen suits standing watching, taking pictures on their smartphones. They were an odd couple. They didn’t look like tourists.

  Kennard was wearing a baseball cap and a Merton college T-shirt. He looked far too clean to be on a dig. Lara wondered who he was trying to impress. If he wanted to please the dig coordinator, he’d be on his knees in the dirt with everyone else.

  “I thought I’d show you this dig, because it’s winding down, but some great things have been found on the island. One of the temples was cleared several years ago. Part of the coast that was thought to be a mooring point was excavated, and some cave systems and a salt water lagoon three miles east of here threw up a few interesting finds. We’re here because of the Colchis wares uncovered at this site,” said Kennard.

  “Such as?” asked Lara.

  “Some Colchian pottery, but, notably, some coins and a small statue of a figure with gold adornments,” said Kennard. “And all from the period we’re investigating.”

  “That is impressive,” said Lara. She couldn’t hide her excitement when she heard that Colchis gold had been uncovered.

  “I’m with a team that started work eight months ago. We’re out in the harbour,” said Kennard.

  “Why there?” asked Lara.

  “The island’s small, and the authorities are somewhat resistant to digs run by foreign archaeologists. We’ve got good divers and better access to the coastline. It’s virgin territory, too.”

  “OK,” said Lara, “but I won’t be very useful.”

  “If you want to dig, you still can,” said Kennard. “We’ve got permission to work the shore up to the high tide mark. It means everything gets washed away every day, but it doesn’t have to stop us digging.”

  “Interesting,” said Lara.

  “Come out to the boat, and get a feel for what we’re doing,” said Kennard.

  Lara nodded.

  “She’s new, right, Mr. Frink?” asked the black man in the linen suit, looking at the photo of Lara on the smartphone screen.

  “Yes, Mr. Peasley, she’s new,” said the tall white man, looking intently at the picture of Lara. “Let’s find out who she is, shall we?”

  “Do you think she can help Mr. Fife?” asked Peasley.

  “I’m sure she can be persuaded,” said Mr. Frink.

  “You do like to persuade people, Mr. Frink,” said Peasley. “You’re good at it.”

  “That’s why it’s my job, Mr. Peasley.”

  Lara glanced around to check on the suits. They had gone. Then, she saw them by the entrance to the site. She’d have to pass them on her way out. They were both big men, physical, but one was a foot taller than the other, and very pale skinned, possibly Irish. He appeared to be texting on his smartphone. The other was black. Both wore sunglasses.

  “Jason and the Argonauts landed here first on their voyage home, after leaving Colchis with the Golden Fleece,” said Kennard. “Apollo used his bow to shed light on the island so that the Argo could find safe harbour in a storm.”

  “I thought you were a student of Colchis,” said Lara. “You’re beginning to sound as if you know an awful lot about Jason’s voyage.”

  “I’ve done some reading,” said Kennard, smiling.

  It was a short walk down to the harbour, and Lara was beginning to feel relaxed. The island was small and sunny. The beaches were beautiful, and the dig site was fascinating.

  “Tell me more about the island,” she said as they stepped into the dinghy for the ride out to the boat.

  “I haven’t had a chance to explore it yet, but its geography is interesting. Mountainous, rocky, lots of cave structures that have strong ties to the archaeology. We should investigate it together.”

  “Why not?” said Lara.

  “There’s a temple to Apollo, and the lagoon’s beautiful if you don’t mind a bit of crawling around. There’s a lot of interest to historians and archaeologists,” said Kennard. “I hope this isn’t going to be all work though. I hope we can have some fun.”

  “Work is fun,” said Lara. “And I’ve still got Sam to think about. I won’t be staying long.”

  “No, of course,” said Kennard. “How is she?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Lara. “Physically, she’s recovering. She’s undergoing psychiatric assessments.”

  Kennard said nothing.

  With that, the dinghy came alongside the boat, a converted fishing trawler called Alecto. It wasn’t large, but it was big enough to accommodate the eight-man crew and their equipment.

  Kennard spent a couple of hours talking Lara through their diving protocols and the logging procedures for mapping the site underwater and for collating finds.

  “Can I look at anything? Something you’ve dug up?” asked Lara. “How do you store finds on board?”

  “We don’t keep anything here,” said Kennard. “Everything is shipped out immediately for preservation. Once it comes out of the water, everything is very time sensitive. Once artifacts hit the air after being in water for any length of time, the corrosive effects of the exposure to oxygen are very damaging.”

  “So you have nothing here?” asked Lara.

  “Not a thing,” said Kennard. “It’s a pity. It would’ve been nice to be able to show you something.”

  Lara thought it was strange, but she had too many other questions to dwell on it.

  “Digging underwater is pretty specialist,” said Lara.

  “That’s why we rely on Christian and Dave,” said Kennard. “Our dive team.”

  “Is it rewarding?” asked Lara. “Is there much down there?”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Kennard. “The busiest ports and harbours, especially in these old island groups, inhabited for millennia, are full of all kinds of archaeology and artifacts. There are lots of reasons for that. Weather is a factor. Boats, even the biggest, best ships, broke up in storms with the loss of life and cargoes, as well as the loss of the ships themselves. Ships were scuppered. Invading armies were sometimes attacked before they landed.”

  “So the sea is a good source of all kinds of archaeology?”

  “Absolutely,” said Kennard. “There’s as much archaeology in a cubic metre of the seabed around here as there is in
a cubic metre of dry land.”

  “And we’re following in Jason’s footsteps,” said Lara.

  “Exciting, isn’t it?” asked Kennard.

  “It is,” said Lara. She checked her watch. “But I’ve taken up enough of your time, and I want to do some more research. I might just head back to the dig and check out some of their finds.”

  “I’m sorry I haven’t got anything here to show you,” said Kennard. “I’d love you to stay.”

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” said Lara.

  “Or I could meet you later for something to eat,” said Kennard. “You’ve got my mobile number.”

  “I have,” said Lara, noncommittal.

  “Well, if you’re sure,” said Kennard, “I’ll take you back.”

  “Thanks,” said Lara. “I want to check in with the hospital, and the dig will be finishing for the day soon.”

  “We’d better go then,” said Kennard.

  Mr. Frink sat in the passenger seat of the car and lowered his sunglasses to expose pale golden eyebrows and then startling blue eyes lined with eyelashes so pale they were almost white. He pulled a laptop onto his knees and connected his smartphone to it to download the photograph of Lara.

  He ran the facial recognition software. He didn’t expect to get a hit straight away. He didn’t expect her to be famous. A twisted smile skewed his mouth.

  The face in the photograph he had uploaded belonged to Lara Croft. She was English nobility and the famous daughter of a famous archaeologist. Mr. Fife would like that.

  Frink did a web search and found out Lara’s connection to Yamatai. She had form. She had previous. When it came to archaeology, she had a rap sheet. Mr. Fife would like that, too. She also had no obvious connection to Kennard Montez. Mr. Fife didn’t like Kennard Montez. He couldn’t find anything out about Kennard Montez or any of his crew, and when you couldn’t find anything out about a man, that made him trouble.