by Dan Abnett
Lara was well rested and alert, and it was another bright, sunny day. There was an air of anticipation and excitement among many of the passengers that buoyed everyone along. An hour and a half after docking at Piraeus, Lara was at the airport in Athens buying a one-way ticket for London Heathrow, leaving at 1:40 p.m. She had an almost three-hour wait at the airport. It could have been worse.
The airport was busy, and she stayed among the crowds. Lara was hungry, so she went into one of the many coffee shops for coffee and a pastry. She scanned the room all the time she was having her late breakfast. A small, neat man with close-cropped hair walked deliberately into the room, between the tables. He didn’t join the queue for the café. He was clearly looking for someone. He was wearing a zip-up jacket with a small man-bag held snugly to his body, the strap tight across his torso, and tight black jeans and flat shoes. He looked like no tourist Lara had ever seen. Man-bag was side-on to Lara and hadn’t seen her yet.
When a family at the next table got up to leave, Lara decided to leave with them. Then, she saw the second man. He was tall and athletic, with stubble, and he was wearing shades indoors. Shades was also wearing a jacket and didn’t have hand luggage.
There were two of them, and she was convinced they were looking for her.
Lara left the café, staying close to the family from the next table, hoping that she wouldn’t be spotted. The public bathrooms were only twenty metres away, on the opposite side of the narrow concourse. She headed for them at a brisk walk, weaving her way through the milling crowds.
The bathroom wasn’t busy, and there was a cleaning crew working. Two women were mopping the floor and polishing the basins, talking and laughing. Lara entered one of the stalls towards the end of a row. It was still more than an hour until her flight. Did they know which flight she was on? Would they intercept her before she could board? Were they Ares’s people? She was almost certain that they were.
Lara could hear the women speaking to one another, until they stopped suddenly.
“This is the women’s bathroom,” said one of them in English with a heavy accent. She sounded stern.
“My girlfriend is unwell,” said a man’s voice. “I was worried.”
“This is the women’s bathroom,” said the cleaner again.
“I wanted to—” the man began to say. His voice was assured, commanding.
“Shoo!” said another woman’s voice. “You cannot be here. I will call security.”
Lara heard another stall door open, and someone walked out.
“Is there a problem?” asked another voice, this time in perfect English.
“My girlfriend is unwell,” said the man again.
“That’s no reason to be here,” said the English woman, firmly. She sounded middle-aged or older, and was clearly used to taking charge. “I suggest you leave. We can deal with the young woman. Off you go.”
Then, Lara heard running water. A moment later, she stepped out of the stall.
“Thank you,” she said.
“That man wasn’t your boyfriend, was he?” asked the woman.
“No,” said Lara.
“Are you in trouble? Are you causing trouble?” asked the woman.
“Absolutely not,” said Lara. “That man is causing me trouble.”
“Then, I suggest you call security immediately,” said the woman. “Is there anything I can do for you? I speak a little Greek.”
“I will call security,” said one of the cleaning crew. The two women in overalls became excited and talked rapidly to one another. Then, one of them took out a walkie-talkie and spoke into it.
“There, you see?” said the English woman. “You’re all set.”
“It would appear so,” said Lara.
“Good luck,” said the woman, and turned and left the bathroom.
Shades made the smallest gesture to Man-bag as the English woman left the bathroom. They were standing several metres apart on the concourse, pretending to look in the shop windows, waiting for the opportunity to pick up Lara’s trail. She had to leave the bathroom at some point. Man-bag took half a dozen casual steps towards Shades.
“Do you want to try again, now the battle-ax is out of the way?”
“We’ll wait,” said Shades.
Then, his head tilted up a centimetre as he saw a security guard in a flak jacket and carrying an MP5, walking along the concourse towards them.
Most of security guards at Athens International were dressed in blue shirts and peaked caps and wore a sidearm. There were plenty of them.
Shades expected the security guard to walk past. He was surprised to see him walking into the ladies’ bathroom.
“Shit!” he said.
“What now?” asked Man-bag.
“We’re here to do a job,” said Shades. “It just got a bit more difficult.”
“What is the problem?” asked the security guard.
“Two men,” said Lara. “They were acting strangely.”
“Describe them,” said the security guard.
“One was short and lean, wearing tight black jeans and a black zip-up jacket and soft shoes. He had a small bag with a strap around his chest. No hand luggage. The other was tall and athletic, with stubble and sunglasses. He was wearing a black jacket, also fastened. No hand luggage.”
The security guard spoke rapidly into his walkie-talkie.
“What were the men doing?”
“They were following me,” said Lara.
She would have preferred to say something else, to be more vague, but she couldn’t lie in front of the cleaning crew. They were witnesses, and she knew that the security guard would ask them what had happened.
One of the cleaners said something in Greek to the guard.
“Do you know the men?” asked the guard.
“No,” said Lara.
“Are you sure?” asked the guard.
“I’m sure,” said Lara. “I do not know the men.”
“She says one of the men came into the bathroom. She says he claims to be your boyfriend,” said the guard.
“That’s true,” said Lara. “He did, but I don’t know him. He isn’t my boyfriend.”
“It is a serious crime to waste my time,” said the guard.
“I understand,” said Lara.
“You will need to come with me,” said the guard. Then, he spoke again to the cleaning crew. In another moment, Lara and one of the cleaners were being escorted from the bathroom by the armed security guard.
Lara didn’t know whether to feel relief that she was safe from whoever had tracked her down or horrified at the position she was in. She looked around the concourse as they walked briskly away, but she saw neither of the men.
Man-bag took off his bag and his jacket. He put the bag back on and turned the reversible jacket inside out, switching from black to a pale grey. He put it back on over the bag and didn’t fasten it. Shades pulled a beanie hat out of his pocket and put it on. He took off his shades and unbuttoned his jacket. Shades joined the queue in one of the coffee shops, and Man-bag went into a newsagent’s to look at magazines. They both had good views of the concourse when the security guard emerged with Lara and the cleaner.
It became clear very quickly that the interview was going to take longer than an hour. Lara was going to miss her flight.
“Passport,” said the interviewer. She was a petite woman in a skirt suit who took a very formal, unsmiling attitude. Her badge said that her name was Marina Kasapis.
Lara handed over her passport and answered questions about where she was travelling to and from. She answered questions about her latest visit to Paris. She tried to explain why she had so little luggage. She talked about being a student of archaeology and explained how she was able to afford to travel.
Someone had taken her passport away. She was se
arched. Her luggage was searched. They wondered why she had disabled her phone. She claimed it was broken and that she didn’t want to put the battery back in it in case she made things worse. When they asked why she hadn’t thrown the battery away, she just shrugged.
The Book was difficult to explain. She talked about it being a study aid, but it was clear that she had not made it herself, that some of the notes were old and in several different hands. It did, however, back up her claim to be an archaeologist.
The Queen Mary tin was more difficult.
“What is this?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“It’s a Queen Mary tin,” said Lara. “They were given as Christmas gifts to serving soldiers in 1914.”
“Why do you have it?” she was asked.
“It was a gift,” said Lara. “Given to me in Paris by a friend.”
“Is there anything inside?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“Yes,” said Lara. “There is an ancient piece of wool. A piece of a fleece from Colchis in Georgia. It’s wrapped in silk cloth.”
“What does it mean?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“It’s an antiquity,” said Lara. “In Georgia, gold was mined from streams. Instead of using pans, the miners used fleeces that they laid in the streambeds. The gold collected in the wool, and when the fleeces dried, the gold was combed out. This is a piece of one of those fleeces.”
“It is an antiquity?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“Yes,” said Lara.
“Do you have a license for it?” asked Ms Kasapis.
“No,” said Lara. “I brought it from Paris. It was a gift given to me by a friend there. It originates in Colchis.”
“You claim it is not a Greek antiquity?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“It is not,” said Lara.
“The box is not Greek?” asked Ms. Kasapis.
“It is English,” said Lara. “It is not an antiquity.”
“Please open the box,” said Ms. Kasapis.
Lara opened the Queen Mary tin and drew back the silk covering the piece of the fleece.
Ms. Kasapis peered at the matted grey scrap of wool. She drew on a pair of latex gloves and pulled the piece of the fleece out of the tin with her fingertips. She felt it for a moment and then placed it back in the tin.
“You can verify its provenance?” she asked.
“No,” said Lara. “It was a gift from a friend. I know only what he told me.”
“Close the box,” said Ms. Kasapis.
Lara covered the scrap of wool with the silk and put the lid back on the tin. It was taken away.
Two hours passed.
“Have you found the men?” Lara asked.
“No men answering your descriptions have boarded any flights from the airport,” said Ms. Kasapis. “We are preparing to show you CCTV footage of the concourse for you to identify them.”
“OK,” said Lara.
Lara was able to identify the men with ease. They were exactly as she remembered them, and exactly as she had described them.
“I am going to show you some more footage,” said Ms. Kasapis. “I want you to identify any individuals that look familiar. Try to disregard clothing. Appearance might be altered.”
Lara watched footage of a newsagent’s for two or three minutes. There was something familiar about one of the men who left the shop and walked along the concourse before disappearing after two or three seconds. The man was wearing a grey jacket that was open, and he wasn’t carrying a bag, but there was something familiar about him. She asked to have the film replayed.
“That’s him,” she said. “That’s the man with the bag and the zip-up jacket. It looks just like him.”
“Good,” said Ms. Kasapis. “And now, this piece of footage.”
Lara looked at a second piece of film, and she spotted Shades immediately. It was the stubble and the line of his jaw. The jacket was the same, too.
“That’s him,” said Lara, pointing at the monitor. “That’s the other man.”
“Thank you,” said Ms. Kasapis. “If you’d like to wait here.”
Lara was left in the interview room with a security guard. She was wearing the standard uniform of a blue shirt and a peaked cap, and was much less threatening than the guard who’d escorted her to her interview. Another half an hour passed, and Lara was brought a bottle of water and some food on a tray. She took the water, but she was too tense to eat. They had taken her passport and Menelaou’s fleece, and she didn’t know if she’d be allowed to travel. She was desperate to get back to London, and she was fearful that Ares’s people or Kennard’s, or even Christian Fife’s henchmen would get to Babbington before she did. She was afraid for his safety, but she also wanted to secure the Golden Fleece statue before it could be taken away from her.
If I know where it is, the others won’t be far behind me, she thought.
Ms. Kasapis finally returned.
“You will be allowed to leave on the 7:30 flight to London Heathrow,” she said, handing Lara her passport.
“And the men?” asked Lara.
“They have been detained and are being interviewed,” said Ms. Kasapis. “That is all I can tell you.”
“Can I have an escort to my flight?” asked Lara.
“We insist upon it,” said Ms. Kasapis.
“My tin?” asked Lara.
Ms. Kasapis produced the tin.
Lara opened it and checked the contents. She looked at the scrap of fleece carefully and held it in her hands for a moment.
“It was photographed and the details recorded and checked by an expert,” said Ms. Kasapis by way of an explanation. “It was found to be of no interest. It is an offence to export artifacts without the proper authorisation. There are rules and regulations, Miss Croft.”
“Of course,” said Lara.
“There are forms to fill in. An incident report for our records,” said Ms. Kasapis.
The paperwork was completed, and, finally Lara was escorted to her flight. It was a strange and disconcerting experience, and she had no doubt that Ares’s men would walk out of the airport free men in much less time than it had taken her to board her plane for London. She had no idea whether they had been able to call in reinforcements in the meantime.
No matter what it took, she was determined to get to Oxford tonight. There was no more time to waste.
Chapter 26
Lara’s plane arrived on time at Terminal 5 at 9:15, and she headed straight for the Heathrow Express for a train to Paddington. She knew it would be late when she finally reached Oxford, but there was nothing she could do about that. She’d get to Babbington first thing in the morning.
She bought a ticket with ten minutes to spare for the 9:57, and decided that this was her best chance to use her phone. If Ares was tracking her, he probably already knew she was heading for London; a railway station wouldn’t tell him much about where she was going from there. She put the battery in her phone, checked her contacts, and wrote Willow’s number on the back of her hand. Then, she took the battery out of her mobile again and headed for a public phone.
“Hello?” said Willow when she picked up. Her voice sounded cautious.
“Hi, Willow. It’s Lara… Lara Croft,” said Lara.
“Hi, Lara. How lovely to hear from you,” said Willow. “I almost didn’t answer my phone.”
“I’m using a pay phone,” said Lara. “I’m coming to Oxford tonight, and I wondered if you could possibly do me a favour?”
“Anything,” said Willow.
“Would it be OK if I crashed with you?” asked Lara. “I won’t get there ‘til about midnight, and I know it’s inconvenient.”
“A sleepover?” asked Willow. “That’d be lovely. I can’t wait!”
“Good,” said Lara, smiling. “Where shall we meet?”
“Do you know the Tu
rf Tavern?” asked Willow.
“It’s just off Catte Street,” said Lara.
“That’s right,” said Willow. “I’ll bring some of the guys and wait for you there.”
“Wonderful,” said Lara. “See you later.”
Lara was as vigilant as always on the platform, checking the passengers. Terminal 5 was the terminus for the train, so she was able to walk along the platform and see into the carriages. She checked who was sitting where and joined a carriage with several small groups of people. No one was travelling alone, and everyone had some sort of luggage. She couldn’t see anyone who looked like they might be one of Ares’s men or women. She was the last to enter the carriage. Lara sat down in the aisle seat of a pair, closest to the doors, and put her rucksack on the seat next to her. She could see down the full length of the carriage at all the other passengers. Six minutes later, the train stopped to let in more passengers for the other Heathrow terminals, but only one more family joined her carriage. Sixteen minutes after that, the train pulled in at Paddington station without making any more stops.
Lara was grateful that she didn’t have to travel across London on the Tube. She vividly remembered the ride to Cahalane’s hotel and her encounter with Magazine Man… with Greg. She still didn’t know how Greg and Kennard fit into the story. She still didn’t know whether they were connected to Ares. She had no reason to believe that they had anything to do with Christian Fife. She wondered whether they had their own agenda. She was sure there were things she still didn’t know.
Someone had spent a good deal of money setting up the pretend dig in Anafi, if it was a total hoax set up for her benefit. If it wasn’t a hoax, then what was it?
There were very few people on the 10:48 from Paddington. Lara didn’t want to sit in an empty carriage, but she was wary of joining a carriage where there were people sitting alone. She opted for a carriage where a young couple was sitting together. Again, she took the aisle seat of a pair, closest to the door. The station had been busy, and she’d been able to buy a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the Costa on the main concourse. She hadn’t eaten on the plane. She hadn’t eaten anything for twelve hours, and the stress of the day had made her hungry.
