Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals (13 page)

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 tension 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.

Frink disconnected his phone from the laptop and put a call through to his boss, Mr. Fife. Five minutes later he was back on the quay with his partner.

“We wait, Mr. Peasley,” said Mr. Frink, pushing his sunglasses up his nose.

“Christian Fife’s a movie star, man. He doesn’t like to wait,” said Mr. Peasley.

“Christian Fife’s a movie star who employed us to do a job,” said Mr. Frink. “If I say we wait, we wait. We take her when she’s alone. No fuss, no muss, no athletic white boy to get in the way.”

“Where do we wait?” asked Mr. Peasley.

“Wherever we need to wait,” said Mr. Frink putting one hand in his trouser pocket, and taking a few casual steps along the quay.

They waited on the quay, watching girls in bikinis, and drinking cherry cola.

They also watched
Alecto
. They watched the stationary trawler for several hours as divers got on and off the boat at intervals. They saw the girl several times moving around on the deck. They never saw her without the athlete.

“What’s she doing?” asked Mr. Peasley, twice.

The first time he asked, Mr. Frink said, “How should I know?” The second time, Mr. Frink lowered his sunglasses down his nose to expose his piercing blue eyes, the pupils pinprick small in the bright sunlight, looked at Mr. Peasley, and then pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. Mr. Peasley did not ask the question a third time.

As the afternoon wore on and there began to be movement on the beaches as the tourists gathered up their towels to make their way back to their hotels, Mr. Peasley turned to Mr. Frink once more.

“Is she ever coming back?” he asked.

“Look,” said Mr. Frink.

Mr. Peasley looked out into the harbour. He could see Kennard handing Lara down into the dinghy.

“OK,” said Mr. Peasley, crushing his cherry cola can in his fist without thinking. “What do we do?”

“We wait,” said Mr. Frink.

Lara stepped onto the quay and said good-bye to Kennard. She glanced around at the milling people. There were plenty of them. She didn’t see anyone she recognised. She looked up the slopes of the mountainous island at the cluster of white buildings on its crest, gleaming in the afternoon sun. It really was a beautiful place.

Mr. Peasley and Mr. Frink were still watching from the deep shadows of an arched porch. Lara passed within yards of them.

“She’s on her own,” said Peasley.

“So, now we take her,” said Frink.

Lara was more relaxed than she’d felt for a long time. She hadn’t had a panic attack in days. She felt calmer now that she had a purpose. She felt exhilarated when she thought about how she had survived in Paris and how she had escaped Ares’s clutches. She felt confident.

She also felt safe on Anafi. The sun was shining, the place was spectacularly beautiful, and she was surrounded by good archaeology. She felt closer to her quest than she had in Oxford or Paris. There was Kennard, too. He seemed dependable. She knew that he liked her more than she liked him. She knew that he was interested in her. It didn’t matter to her. He was friendly, and they had an interest in common. Besides, he’d given her the lead to Menelaou, and he’d given her some hope of finding the gold from the fleece. Maybe, just maybe, she was on the right path.

She was thinking about all these things when suddenly there was a man next to her. Then, his hand was on the top of her head, pressing down, and he was saying something.

“Lara Croft, get in the car,” said the tall white man in the linen suit. He was bigger than her, a lot bigger, and his actions were so firm and deliberate that she couldn’t resist him. He was calm, too, determined, commanding. It was like being spoken to by a soldier or a policeman. Worse than that, it was like being spoken to by an automaton.

Lara simply didn’t have the time or presence of mind to protest.

She found herself sitting next to the black man from the dig site. He was still wearing his sunglasses. She was conscious of the huge, hard presence of two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle in close proximity to her. Both men were clearly very dangerous.

“What is this?” she asked. “Where are you taking me?” She reached for the door handle and pulled on it, but it wouldn’t open. The white man had already got into the driving seat and was starting the car.

“Buckle up,” he said.

Lara did as she was told, expecting the car to rev up and burst away from the quay at high speed. It didn’t. It pulled away as if it was any ordinary car on any regular journey. It was utterly unnerving.

“I want to get out,” said Lara. “You can’t just kidnap me.”

“We’re not kidnapping you, are we, Mr. Peasley?” said the driver.

“Aren’t we, Mr. Frink?”