The Cradle of Life

by Dave Stern

  The blade in his right hand went flying.

  Chen Lo looked surprised. No, not just surprised, shocked—as if such a thing had never happened to him before. Maybe it hadn’t.

  First time for everything, Lara thought, and thrust the bayonet at the end of the 303 down, toward the ground, and through Chen Lo’s foot.

  He screamed in agony.

  She twisted the rifle hard, snapping off the blade, and then, still holding the barrel of the weapon, thrust up, smashing the headstock into Chen Lo’s chin.

  He screamed again, the blade in his left hand flew up in the air as he dropped to the ground, writhing in agony.

  Lara caught the sword in midair. She tightened her grip on the hilt and held the point to the bare flesh of his neck.

  Jimmy, she thought. Gus. Nicholas.

  Lara pressed the blade forward. Chen Lo gasped involuntarily.

  And then she remembered Terry. And MI6, and Reiss, and Pandora, and she lessened the pressure on Chen Lo’s throat.

  “Where’s the Orb? Tell me and it spares your life.”

  Chen Lo gazed at her in fury. He spat and opened his mouth to curse her.

  Lara decided she would be happy to kill him and find the information elsewhere.

  Then suddenly, Chen Lo changed his expression. Almost smiled, and she could visibly see him swallow the curse on his lips.

  “The flower pagoda. Shanghai. Nine P.M.”

  Lara looked him in the eye. No way of being certain, of course, but she would bet he was telling her the truth, that she would find the Orb then and there.

  And to read it…

  She ripped the medallion from the Alexander statue away from his neck and placed it around hers.

  “Good luck, Croft,” Chen Lo sneered. “Reiss will have you for breakfast.”

  “We’ll see.” Lara paused a moment, looking down at him. She let a fraction of the contempt and hatred she felt for him show on her face.

  Chen Lo flinched.

  Gripping the hilt in both hands now, Lara raised the sword over her head and quickly brought it down, point first.

  She jammed the blade into the ground between his legs, missing his crotch by an inch.

  “Now we’re even.”

  Suddenly she heard a noise from behind her. Voices in the hall. Guards, no doubt coming to see what had happened. Damn.

  She pulled the machete up out of the ground again and darted back toward the maze of terracotta warriors, hoping to escape the newcomers, or failing that, cut them off.

  As she ran, she heard Chen Lo scrabbling on the ground behind her. Trying to get free. She wondered why he didn’t just yell out, let the guards know where she was. Ashamed to have lost to her? That could be it, although—

  Light glinted off the statue before her. Coming from behind, Lara realized instantly, and reacting on instinct, spun around.

  She took in the scene in a split second—

  Chen Lo, still lying on the ground, but now a few feet from where she’d left him, holding the gun she’d kicked out of his hands when they’d first entered the cave.

  He raised the weapon to fire—

  Lara threw the sword just as he squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet went wide. The blade didn’t.

  Chen Lo gasped once, shuddered, and lay still.

  Lara took a deep breath, and it was only then that she saw a trail of blood leading from the bayonet, still sticking up out of the ground, to where he lay.

  Chen Lo had torn through his own foot to get to the gun, she realized. He must have hated her almost as much as she hated him.

  The key word there being almost.

  Voices behind her made Lara turn. Guards, bursting into the cavern. Raising their weapons now.

  And she was out of swords.

  Here we go again, Lara thought, and began to run once more.

  It had been the longest three minutes of Terry Sheridan’s life and, unfortunately, it showed no signs of ending.

  All three of the Shay Ling that had been circling before were now taking turns kicking him. Now, that is, that he was lying on the ground defenseless. One would dash in and kick his stomach, then another his side (which side depended on which direction he rolled in, of course, they always attacked from behind), and finally he’d get a boot to the head.

  For a split second there, Terry missed Barla Kala. The thought put a smile on his face.

  “You won’t be laughing too much longer, Sheridan,” Lu Yao said.

  One of the others spoke in Mandarin then—Terry didn’t catch all of it, but it sounded to his ears like a slur on his manhood, his fighting ability.

  Which was almost enough to get him on his feet and putting a fist down the speaker’s throat. Then he remembered what he was supposed to be doing in this fight.

  Lingering. For three minutes.

  Lu Yao kicked him in the stomach. Terry doubled over and rolled to his left. One of the others kicked him in the back. He felt a boot in his face.

  Terry rolled over and looked up at Lu Yao. Glared.

  The giant spit on him.

  “You’re nothing, Sheridan,” he said.

  Terry smiled.

  Lu Yao frowned. “What?”

  Terry got to his feet and winked. Not at Lu Yao, but at Lara Croft, who had suddenly appeared behind the giant, hidden in the shadows of the cave, a smile of her own fixed firmly in place and a gun in each hand.

  If it had escaped him before, Terry was beginning to remember why he liked her so much.

  “Remember what I said before—how I could kill you any time I wanted?” Terry asked Lu Yao.

  The giant laughed—Terry heard the two other Shay Ling behind him join in.

  “Ha, ha,” Terry said, the smile gone from his face. “You don’t remember?”

  “I remember,” Lu Yao choked out between laughs.

  “Well,” Terry said. “Told you.”

  He took a deep breath then and moved—the way he’d been trained to, first by the marines, and then the Kon-shari, the way he’d practiced, in Afghanistan with Al-Hassari, and then by himself in his cell at Barla Kala for the last five years.

  Terry Sheridan moved like the killing weapon he was.

  He exhaled and snapped the rope holding his hands together, spun and broke the wrist of Shay Ling number one, and struck that same man’s femoral artery with his clenched fist. As that guard toppled, Terry attacked the second man behind him, flooring him with a fist to the Adam’s apple. He picked up the rope from the ground and wrapped it around the man’s throat. Twisted tight, and heard his neck snap.

  As that man fell, Terry looked up at LuYao.

  “Next?” he asked.

  The giant, to his credit, didn’t run.

  Not that he would have had time.

  Even as he spoke, Terry kicked out Lu Yao’s right kneecap. Kicked again, and snapped the man’s left Achilles. As the giant crumpled, face twisted in agony, Terry punched up, thrusting underneath his ribs. Something cracked.

  Terry stepped behind him and snapped his neck.

  The other Shay Ling, who’d hung back while Terry was lying on the ground, allowing himself to be kicked, looked at him now in open-mouthed surprise, their minds still trying to process what had just happened.

  The entire fight—such as it was—had taken three seconds.

  Lara sprinted forward from the shadows. Terry started after her and a second later heard the Shay Ling following them.

  Gunfire sounded. Terry dodged to his right. Lara went left.

  “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming!” he shouted after her.

  “Sorry!” she called back, as they zigzagged again. “Chen Lo was harder to deal with than I thought!”

  He caught up to her and they ran together, sprinting full out for the main entrance. Terry saw half a dozen coffins scattered in front of them—loaded with terracotta statues like the others, no doubt—waiting to be lowered to the ground below.

  He bounded over one.
Lara, a step behind now, did the same.

  The cavern entrance loomed ahead of them, twenty feet away. Through the opening, Terry saw the rocky face of the mountain due opposite them, lit up by the midday sun. He felt a cool breeze on his face, smelled the fresh air.

  “Nice work back there,” Lara said, and as she jumped another coffin, flipped him one of the guns she was carrying.

  “I thought there was a rule—me and guns,” Terry said. The cavern entrance was five feet away.

  “I reconsidered!” Lara yelled.

  And then she dove out the entrance into the open air beyond.

  Eleven

  The cliff face whipped by her.

  Three meters down, Lara reached out and took hold of one of the ropes the Shay Ling had used to lower the coffins.

  Next to her, she saw Terry do the same.

  They continued to drop like stones, their fall guided by the hands they kept loosely on the ropes. It was delicate work—if she squeezed the rope too tightly, she would slow her smooth descent, turn it into a somersaulting tumble that would end up with her dead, either pancaked into the cliff wall or splattered on the ground below. Without the rope at all, though, she’d have no control over her descent, and end up just the same way. Done correctly, though, it was almost like being in free fall. Exhilarating.

  Gunfire took out a chunk of the rock next to her.

  Lara looked up and saw Shay Ling hanging over the cliff edge, firing down at them. She squeezed tighter with her left hand, removed her right, and unholstered one of her Colts. Which she’d recovered, along with the pack on her back and the other gun strapped to her leg, when she overpowered the last of the guards chasing her through the cave of the terracotta warriors.

  She fired up at the Shay Ling. One man screamed and fell off the edge. A second crumpled.

  The cliff emptied. But the gunfire continued—coming from below now. Lara looked down and saw more Shay Ling. Before she could shift and bring her weapon to bear, she became aware of Terry at her side, drawing his weapon and firing straight down.

  One, two, three shots. Three dead men.

  Time in Barla Kala hadn’t cost Sheridan any of his firearms skills, either. Even hanging upside down.

  Lara made a mental note of that as she squeezed off a couple rounds of her own toward the ground—which, she realized with a sudden start, was hurtling toward them very quickly.

  She dropped her gun and squeezed the rope tight with both hands. With a jolt, her fall stopped. Lara held herself straight up and down, hanging upside down, and looked around.

  The ground was inches away.

  She was staring straight into the vacant, glassy eyes of one of the men Terry had shot.

  And speaking of Terry…

  Lara looked up and saw him hanging upside down in midair, as well…a full meter above her.

  “Losing your nerve?” she chided him, flipping over and somersaulting to her feet.

  “The altitude must be affecting me,” Sheridan said, as he did the same. “Where to now?”

  “Shanghai.” She wondered for a moment how they were going to get there—then saw that the Shay Ling, considerately enough, had left them a Jeep. Keys and all, Lara discovered as she jumped in. Terry climbed in, as well, and she started the engine.

  She did a series of rough calculations in her head as she drove—time, her best guess at their distance from Shanghai, the condition of the roads they were likely to hit, how fast the Jeep was. After about ten seconds, she stopped calculating.

  Shanghai was near the coast, and south. They were going to have to drive like a bat out of hell to get there by nine P.M. and meet the Orb.

  And speaking of the Orb…

  Lara had set her pack on the seat next to her—she reached into it now and pulled out her sat phone. Keeping one hand on the wheel, she keyed in a text message to Bryce and Hillary, letting them know she’d found the key to deciphering it.

  As she hit the send button, she became aware of Terry staring at her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He adjusted the rearview mirror.

  “Someone coming?”

  Terry shook his head. “We lost them.”

  He was silent a moment. Lara recognized the look on his face. Terry was stewing about something.

  “What?” she repeated.

  He made a show of taking out his gun, checking to see how many bullets he had left.

  “Look,” Terry said, tucking the weapon into the waist of his pants. “You said get you to Chen Lo and I did. For me this is over.”

  Christ, Lara thought. Same old Terry.

  She slammed the Jeep to a stop.

  “Of course it is.”

  She set the emergency brake and waited for him to climb out.

  Terry stewed a moment longer. Then he erupted.

  “Tell me what this is about, Lara. Tell me what you’re looking for—or where it is. Do that, trust me, and I’ll help you.”

  She snorted. “For another five million pounds?”

  “Will I even live to see the first five?” He shook his head. “Jonathan Reiss, for pity’s sake? Come on, Croft, I’m involved now. Up to my neck. At least let me know what’s going on.”

  Lara wavered. He had a point.

  But he had a history, as well. And that history said that Terry Sheridan couldn’t be trusted.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Thank you.”

  Terry stared at her, disbelief and anger warring on his face.

  “You’re welcome, Croft. See you around.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he opened his door and got out. Slamming it shut behind him, Terry walked off down the road, kicking and cursing every few feet. Looking for all the world as if he was actually, honestly, upset with Lara for not trusting him.

  Lara watched as he stalked away and remembered Hillary’s words to her.

  A leopard doesn’t change his spots.

  But something seemed different about Sheridan—he seemed to honestly want to help.

  Though there was that crack he’d made to Chen Lo, about selling her and the Orb back to the British. Was it a crack?

  Only one way to find out, she decided.

  She drove up alongside him and stopped the Jeep.

  “We need to be in Shanghai by twenty-one hundred,” she said.

  Terry stopped walking. The beginnings of a smile crossed his face.

  “I knew you’d miss me,” he said.

  Lara reached across and opened the door for him.

  He climbed in and opened his mouth to speak.

  “I have some questions for you,” Lara began, her face grim. “But first, I want you to listen.”

  And she began to tell him of the map Xien was bringing Reiss, and what the doctor hoped to use it to find.

  Twelve

  Reiss tapped his foot impatiently. The bodyguards on either side of him—Sean’s men, he couldn’t be bothered to learn their names, there were so many of them—shifted positions, scanning the surrounding buildings, their weapons at the ready. Off to the west, the sun was setting over the mainland.

  Reiss looked at his watch: 7:03. They should have been in the air already. Sean knew better than to keep him waiting, he didn’t understand what the holdup was here, he—

  Suddenly the door leading onto the building roof slammed open and Sean raced out. From the expression on his face, Reiss knew it was not good news.

  “Chen Lo is dead,” Sean said simply.

  Reiss shut his eyes and took a minute.

  This was not a problem. It was not inherently a bad thing that Chen Lo was dead—he had been planning on doing just that himself. The only bad thing was how that death now might affect his timetable for obtaining the Orb.

  He opened his eyes. “It was Croft, I suppose?”

  “And Sheridan. They killed twenty Shay Ling, give or take.”

  “Impressive.” And it was, but Reiss didn’t give a damn about the Shay Ling. “Did she get the Orb?
”

  “No. Xien has it. He’s on his way to Shanghai. Croft is, too, I’ll bet.”

  “Of course she is.” Reiss rubbed his forehead. Given her background, Croft alone would be fully aware of the magnitude of the threat Pandora represented. She would never stop until she had the Orb.

  He was beginning to get a migraine. He was beginning to wish he’d never heard the name Lara Croft.

  All thoughts of turning her to his side had vanished. He wanted her dead now—almost as much as he wanted that Orb.

  “We have to change the location of the rendezvous,” Sean said. “We—”

  “No.” Reiss climbed aboard the copter. Sean followed, a confused look on his face. Both men strapped in.

  “But if she comes to Shanghai—” Sean began.

  “Oh, there’s no if. Croft will be there waiting for us. So we will be there waiting for her.” He leveled a thin smile at Sean. “In force.”

  Sean nodded, and pulled out his cell. “I’ll get on it right away.”

  “Please have a contingency plan in place, as well, Sean,” Reiss added as his security man began to dial. “Let’s not underestimate Croft and Sheridan.”

  “No sir, I won’t.” Sean turned away then and began talking into his phone. Guns, personnel, diversionary operations to keep the local authorities occupied—Reiss listened with approval, then looked to the pilot and gave a curt nod.

  Sean’s men slammed the door behind them and the copter rose into the air.

  Three fill-ups at gunpoint, one run-in with local authorities, and a frantic chase along the railroad tracks leading into Shanghai later, Lara and Terry were on the roof of a fish market overlooking the flower pagoda. Directly beneath them was a market square crisscrossed with a maze of handmade signs, banners, and rickety-looking telephone wires. The few scattered farmers and shopkeepers that remained in the square were hurriedly closing up their stalls for the night—almost as if they knew something bad was about to happen.

  Lara checked her watch and realized they were right.

  It was 8:58.

  She checked her guns, reloaded courtesy of the local authorities she and Terry had encountered earlier, then crouched down next to Terry at the roof’s edge. He lay flat out on the roof, scanning the area.