by E. E. Knight
Lara waited until the guard picked up a magazine, rose from his chair, and disappeared into the WC at the back of the bunker. Then she ran over to the gatehouse and jumped up on the ledge in front of the window to get a look through the armored glass. While listening for the sound of a toilet flush, she noted that the gate-open button next to the window required a key. Then she saw her photograph on a clipboard.
Urdmann had gone so far as to do a few mock-ups of her in sunglasses, a hat, even a man’s beard and sideburns. In big letters at the bottom was a sum of rupees that would allow a guard to retire in style for spotting and apprehending her.
Why would Urdmann be expecting another visit from her? She’d told no one, not even Borg—whom she’d told to wait for her call—of her plans to return to Mauritius. No one except Dools, that is, and she knew better than to suspect that straight arrow of any mischief.
She’d entered the country quietly, under a fake French passport. At first she’d been tempted to simply call Urdmann and offer him a drink in the hotel bar. Perhaps the two of them could discuss Kunai and the Méne in a civilized fashion. After all, the bullet wound she’d given him—a scratch, really—had only settled an account that went back to her earliest days as a Tomb Raider.
Before the inheritance from her aunt, Lara had been supporting herself on a shoestring budget after her parents had cut her off for refusing to marry that awful prig, the Earl of Farringdon. Urdmann had offered to take a set of Aztec artifacts off her hands at a price she later learned had undervalued the Sun Stones of Quetzalcoatl by 20 percent. Nor had he turned them over to the Mexican National Archives as he’d promised.
But he’d taught her a valuable lesson. A brilliant mind and a first-class education didn’t automatically instill character; that had to come from a surer source. She later learned that archaeological relics weren’t the only things he traded; in those days, they were just a passion, and his real money had come from weapons.
Since then, their paths had crossed a number of times, and her respect for Urdmann as a human being had steadily dwindled … while her respect for his archaeological knowledge had, however grudgingly, grown.
Evidently, she’d taught Urdmann a lesson as well. His security, so lax on her last visit, was much improved now. Getting in wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d hoped. But she had to find a way, because she knew that the fat man wasn’t going to consider his wound anything but a fresh insult to be avenged.
***
The Tomb Raider lay still in her inflated cocoon, smelling the wood enclosing her and listening to the activity outside the crate.
“It’s a special delivery, sir,” the guard said after they’d set her box down. She heard a separate grunt, perhaps from the courier, perhaps from another of Urdmann’s employees.
“The dog didn’t signal for explosives or guns, but he’s interested in something. There’s a letter for you with it.”
Pause.
“Madame Tussaud’s.”
Pause.
“T-U-S-S-A-U-D-S, sir. London, England. The manifest lists a ‘Lara Croft statue.’ Yes, that’s right: Lara Croft.”
She heard the envelope open.
“A card, from the Croft House. It reads: ‘Sorry about the blood on the carpet. I thought you’d like a little reminder of me.’ It is signed. Of course, sir.”
The crate was lifted again, and carried for almost two minutes before it was set down again, heavily. A few seconds later, she heard a crowbar applied to the wooden crate. At least they’d paid attention to the “This End Up” markings.
“The boss told us to be careful with it.”
“0ui,” a second voice responded.
The Tomb Raider froze herself into the selected pose, gun up and face turned to the right. She’d had to do some quick work with her computer and the hotel printer to get the documentation right. A suitable payoff to the airport courier service that morning had ensured instant delivery, no questions asked.
The courier service was an excellent example of a Creole proverb of Mauritius: Si t’as du pognon, t’as du pouvoir—if you’ve got bucks, you’ve got power.
Of course, the philosophy operated everywhere. The Mauritians just phrased it more musically.
They got through the crate and used a blade on the cardboard. Lara forced herself to look at the light coming through the widening cracks so her eyes would be adjusted by the time they had it open. From her limited view, it looked like she was in a garage. She saw groundskeeping gear hanging from hooks, a workbench covered with tools, and the bonnet of an automobile.
One of the guards let loose with a Hindi oath. Another pulled away the inflated plastic wrapping about her.
“Tussaud’s—of course! The wax sculptures,” the more garrulous of the guards said. They wore khaki shorts, with high white socks and Sam Browne belts. Neither had a weapon out. “They are very famous. Must have cost the boss a mint.”
“No, you’re wrong there. It was sent to him. Didn’t you see the manifest?”
It was hard not to move her eyes. One reached up to touch her.
She brought the gun down, pointing it between the two guards.
Their reaction was worthy of a photograph. One took a startled step back and tripped on the lid of her packing case, falling to the floor; the other flung up his hands like a soccer goalie blocking a ball kicked at his face.
The Tomb Raider flexed her stiff legs. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
“Y-you’re alive!” stuttered the guard still standing.
“Very observant.” She swiveled her gun barrel to the one on the floor, who had been in the process of pulling his own gun. “If you’re going to take out your gun, do it with thumb and forefinger. Grasp it by the bottom.”
He complied, placing the gun on the floor.
“Kick it to me.”
After the pistol had slid to her foot, her gun returned to the guard still standing. “Just like him,” she instructed him.
The pistol joined its twin.
“Now we can relax,” she said, holstering her gun and picking up the two pistols on the floor. “What are your names?”
“Dinesh,” the one on the floor said.
“Harbe,” the other said. “I don’t understand. The dog … he detected no firearm.”
“Because I wasn’t carrying one,” Lara said. “It’s a toy. Very realistic looking, though, wouldn’t you agree?”
With a growl, Harbe made a move toward her. She brought up the pistols. “Not so fast, Harbe. These are real enough. Whatever Mr. Urdmann is paying you, it’s not worth a bullet.”
Harbe wilted.
Lara grinned. “Now, Harbe, where’s Urdmann?”
“Say noth—,” Dinesh began.
Lara cut him off. “Quiet now.”
“Third floor,” Harbe said.
She looked around the garage, let her eyes linger on a beautiful Rolls-Royce, then looked further. The tool shelf held what she was looking for. The garage also had a pair of convenient support pillars, festooned with work lights and extension cords.
“Now, I’m only going to need a few minutes of your employer’s time. Gunfire really makes conversation difficult, so I can’t have you two running around setting off alarms. Dinesh, if you’d please get up and go to the column there. You both have handcuffs? Good. If you both would stand back-to-back.”
They complied, and she removed the handcuffs from their belts and carefully closed the bracelets so the pillar was enclosed in a ring of flesh and steel. She went to the workbench and returned with some clean rags and silver duct tape and went to work gagging the guards.
“As a reward for being so agreeable, I’m going to take care with the tape and make sure I don’t gum up your skin and hair too badly.” She wadded up two rags and stuck one into each of their mouths, then wrapped up their heads in duct tape.
“Breathing fine? Comfortable?”
Neither bothered to nod. Harbe had tears in his eyes.
“Worried a
bout your paycheck, Harbe?” She tucked a card in his breast pocket. “I’ve got friends on the Seychelles. Much more beautiful there, and the pay would probably be better. I’ll let Mr. Urdmann know you’re in here; you’ll be loose by teatime.”
She turned out the light.
***
Urdmarm’s house looked different with the sun shining. Antique bombe chests with expensive vases atop them stood at intervals in the hallway with suits of armor, statues, and even ancient farming implements. She heard a vacuum from somewhere down the marble-floored hallway. Women’s voices echoed from the other end of the house.
Lara’s memory of the layout of the house was perfect. Avoiding the museum, she found the servants’ staircase. She climbed to the first floor, looked out a window. The guard at the gatehouse was leaning out the window, chatting with a gardener working outside the walls. A third man, also a guard, rode up on his ATV and joined them, lifting a canteen from a gear bag at the front of the four-wheeler. It seemed that no one had yet checked inside the garage.
She left the stairway at the third floor and turned down the hallway that ran to the center of the house. Carpeting silenced her footfalls. A cleaning cart stood outside Urdmann’s suite; a faint splashing echoed from the open door.
“Hew, hew, hew, hee,” she heard. A masculine giggle.
The Tomb Raider felt her face tighten into a tiger’s grin. She trotted down the hallway toward the splashing.
She walked past some simple black-and-white smocks and white crepe-soled shoes, discarded on the floor of Urdmann’s bedroom.
She didn’t bother with guns this time, just stepped through the doorway and stood in front of the phone next to the loo. Bubbles hid most of what was going on in the master bath—a mass of stone and porcelain and mirror larger than some London hotel rooms. Urdmann shared the tub with two bronze-skinned women who, combined, probably didn’t weigh as much as his hairy torso.
“Diddling the help, Lancaster?” she said.
“Croft?!”
The cleaning women squawked, slid around behind Urdmann’s bulk. He was large enough to hide both, head to toe.
She offered him a towel and one of his wispy robes. “I was hoping for a quick chat.”
“You’ve got to be fu—”
“Language, Urdmann. There are ladies present. I’m prepared to trade. Down in your museum I noticed you had Akhenaton’s crook. How would you like the flail as well?”
The red left his cheeks and went into his eyes.
“The flail? I thought it was lost. Early grave robbers getting into the first tomb, or some such.”
“Can we talk without the staff around?”
Urdmann without bubbles looked a little bit like a soused orangutan. She was relieved when he put on the robe and squelched across the floor to his bedroom.
“Excuse us, ladies,” Lara said, shutting the door on the two maids, who clung to each other amid the bubbles of the bath. She followed Urdmann across the bedroom and into his office.
“Rumor has it you’ve left more than a dozen children scattered about the globe,” she said, interposing herself between Urdmann and his desk, the stolen pistols casually displayed in her hands.
“What’s the matter, Croft? Jealous?”
“Try disgusted.”
“You can be as high and mighty as you like. The fact remains, I’ve got something you want, haven’t I? What is it that’s worth the flail of Akhenaton?”
“Everything you know about Tejo Kunai. What he was looking for, what you told him, any associates you met—”
“Kunai?” Urdmann sank into a papa-san chair by the window. Rattan crackled under his weight. “That CIA snoop who was working with you?”
“He’s not CIA. He was here on his own.”
“Toss me a smoke, won’t you? In the box on top of the desk.”
“And set off a radio alarm?”
“Croft, I want Akhenaton’s flail. I’m not tricking you.”
The top of the lacquer box was painted with a Taoist picture of Chinese philosophers tasting vinegar. The Tomb Raider opened it, extracted a cigarette and a book of matches, and tossed them to Urdmann.
“Better,” Urdmann said, lighting up. Jets of smoke poured out of his nostrils. He held his cigarette between thumb and forefinger. “My heart can’t take these sudden appearances, Croft. You keep popping up over my shoulder like a guardian angel. If I didn’t know better, I might think you were obsessed with me.”
“I’m a born bear baiter,” she said.
“I really should take you by the ear and toss you out the window, Akhenaton’s flail or no. But you’re armed, I see … and with two pistols that look suspiciously like the make and model I issue my guards.” He fingered the suture swellings on his arm with his free hand.
“Yes, quite a coincidence, that.”
He sighed. “And the statue from Tussaud’s?”
“You’re looking at her. But about Kunai…”
“Kunai … nervous fellow. High laugh. Kept toying with a little monocle. I must say I liked him, even though I suspected his story from the first. But nervous. Always seemed to be listening over his shoulder. He had some rubbings he wanted translated. Pre-Zoroastrian rubbish. The Méne. I assume you’ve heard of this myth from the mouth of your late teacher.”
“I’m still learning. Werner Von Croy didn’t think the Méne ‘rubbish.’”
Urdmann shrugged. “Kunai’s rubbings were some sort of decree. Seems the Méne upset the Babylonian king.”
“What were they? A cult?”
“More like a full-blown religion of some kind. Kunai’s record was a list of proscribed glyphs. Anyone found with one of the symbols on the walls of his dwelling, inscribed onto any device, or uttering one of a list of forbidden prayers was to be tortured and killed. Oddly enough, old King Bashphet of Babylon wrote into the law a codicil declaring that even a pardon from the king himself couldn’t reverse the sentence. Perhaps he was getting senile and worried he’d be talked into reversing his own laws.”
“The Babylonians had translations of the symbols?”
Urdmann smoked and looked skyward. “Yes Let’s see, there was seawater, freshwater, ice, mountain, cave, crops, animals, sacrifice, cataclysm, something called a ‘judge god,’ ruling man, supplicant man, slave man, wealth property ... some astrological stuff as well, havmg to do with the sun and stars and moon and comets and so forth. That list is by no means complete.”
“You kept a copy?”
“No I tried to get one, but Kunai wanted the translation done right there and then. His check was good—I called the bank—so I translated as best as I could over the course of an afternoon.”
“How about the death-sentence prayers?”
“Mumbo jumbo. One oddity, though. Most religions have their worshippers lift their eyes up. This one had them cast their gaze down, within to the depths. Don’t know if they meant their souls or the earth itself: lots of ‘in deep places of the heart, beneath still waters…’ That sort of thing.”
The Tomb Raider drew something on a sheet of Urdmann’s cotton-pulp stationery. The Greek letter omega, only thickened at the middle, with the ends turned up.
“Recognize this? And don’t try to tell me it’s just an omega.”
“The Babylonians had that one first and last on the list. Don’t know why they repeated it. It stood for ‘god.’ Or possibly ‘gods.’”
The Tomb Raider felt a chill. “Anything else?”
“He asked if I’d ever come across any platinum panels in my dealings. I was curious by then, acted as though something about platinum panels jogged my memory, and asked. He said they would have come out of South America, pre-Columbian. A little under a meter square. Thin, etched closely.”
“Have you?”
“No. I told him I’d never heard of that sort of thing. And if I had, that sort of thing tends to get melted down by grave robbers. He didn’t seem happy at the idea.”
“Thank you, Lancaster. You�
��ve done me more good than you know.”
“Only by accident, Croft. Won’t happen again.”
“Send me the hospital bill for the bullet wound.”
“I’d rather have the flail.”
“Yes, well, so would I, for that matter.”
Urdmann’s face purpled. “You said!…”
“I never said I had the flail. I just asked if you wanted it.”
“You little bitch!”
She brought up a pistol sharply. “Now, now, Lancaster. I’m sure you don’t want another scratch to go with the last one, do you?”
“I’ll get you for this, Croft!”
“Very original. Now, before I tie you up, you’re going to place a call down to the front gate and let them know that I’m about to be driving out of here.”
“Driving out?” Urdmann looked close to a heart attack. “In what?”
“I saw a fine Rolls in your garage. I thought I’d borrow it, take it for a drive. Don’t worry; you’ll get it back in one piece … unless your guards try something stupid, that is.”
PART TWO
7
Underground, finally at the Whispering Abyss, and his Tomb Raider wasn’t up to the task. Even weighted with responsibilities as he was, the irony of it brought a smile to the Prime’s face.
The Prime had been putting off that conclusion for a week now. Facing facts meant he had to act on them, and acting on them meant hurting Alison.
But the Méne Restoration was worth a few emotional bruises.
Now enlightenment—the explanation of his new dreams and desires—was finally within reach. Though his reach had been into the right part of the earth, the grasp had failed—repeatedly. Alison told him she’d seen the Panels of the Prophecies in the light of her torch, but every time she tried to pry them away…
The Prime could see Alison better now, making her way up the stairs. Relief washed down his spine. The breeze coming up from the Abyss smelled of gunfire, and his sensitive nose detected blood. From here the climb would be easier for her. He turned from the Whispering Abyss and paced around the room.
