Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals (19 page)

Rebekah gestured out of the kitchen.

“Follow me,” she said.

Lara picked up her rucksack and followed Rebekah into the large sitting room. Against one wall there was a piece of furniture covered in what looked like an old painted shawl. Rebekah threw back the cloth to reveal a beautiful old plan chest made in a highly figured dark golden wood. She pulled out a drawer, and Lara looked in to see a pile of maps.

“Anywhere in the Aegean Sea, the Thracian, the Sea of Crete, the Ionian, the Myrtoan will be in this drawer,” said Rebekah. “Below are maps of the Mediterranean. Below that, the Adriatic. If your coordinates are not in those places, Georgos will know where to look.”

Lara was only half listening. The map she was looking at was, by her estimation, at least two hundred years old. It depicted a series of islands with their coastlines and the seas around them, and it was hand drawn and coloured. It looked as if it had never been folded. Lara stepped across the room to put her glass down on a table at a distance. She wasn’t going to risk spilling anything on the maps.

“Give me your glass please, Rebekah,” she said. Rebekah handed her the glass, absentmindedly, and Lara placed it beside her own.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a beautiful map,” said Lara.

Rebekah laughed.

“A map is a tool,” she said. “True maps, family maps, remain on the land. They are copied for the boats as they are needed. A good map is a useful tool. It does not need to be new or beautiful.”

“Do you have more like this?” asked Lara.

Rebekah began to rummage through the drawer, pulling out maps and tossing them on top of the chest.

“Carefully,” said Lara. “Please be careful with them.”

Rebekah laughed again. The first drawer held about a dozen of the maps, all of similar age and all in wonderful condition, never folded or exposed to humidity, and stored in the dark.

“These are rare and very valuable,” said Lara. She wanted to touch them, but couldn’t bring herself to do it without wearing gloves. “Do they belong to you?”

“To me and to Georgos,” said Rebekah.

“You should have them appraised,” said Lara.

“They are just old maps,” said Rebekah, but she wasn’t laughing anymore.

“When I get back to London, I’ll speak to someone about them, if you’d like,” said Lara. “May I take some photographs, just on my phone?”

“Of course,” said Rebekah, bemused. “But don’t you want to know about your coordinates?”

Lara took her phone and her notes from the logbook out of her rucksack. She gave the notes to Rebekah and started to take photos of the maps.

“This is easy,” said Rebekah. “The first coordinates are right here in Anafi harbour. The second are in the Ionian Sea. I think it is Preveza. She slid the maps over each other until she found the one she wanted. “Here,” she said, stabbing the map with her finger.

“Is that far from Anafi?” asked Lara.

“A thousand kilometres, maybe more,” said Rebekah. “The other coordinates are close by. I think Kerkira.”

“Corfu?” asked Lara. “That’s east of the Greek mainland.”

“One hundred and fifty kilometres north of Preveza,” said Rebekah.

“
Alecto
hasn’t been in Anafi harbour for eight weeks,” said Lara, more to herself than to Rebekah.

“Your boat? With your diving friends?” said Rebekah. “Of course not. It was there two days when we first met.”

The exterior door into the sitting room opened, and the girls turned to see Georgos entering.

“Let’s make some food,” said Rebekah, “and we can tell Georgos about the maps.”

Chapter 24

R
ebekah and Georgos insisted on taking Lara to the ferry, and she was glad of the company. It made her more anonymous than if she’d been alone. She walked between them and listened to them talking to each other and laughing, clearly excited about the maps, even though neither one of them seemed to quite believe what Lara had told them.

Lara said her farewells and was soon safely installed on the ferry and on her way to the mainland to catch a flight back to London. She had an eleven-hour overnight journey to Piraeus, but the ferry wasn’t busy and she managed to upgrade to a berth on her own for an extra charge. Lara knew that she would need some sleep, but first she needed some time to think.

Lara got comfortable and took out the Book. She took the photographs out of the pocket in the back cover and looked at them again. It was the black-and-white photograph of the ram statuette that really interested her. Where had she seen that statuette before?

“Think, Lara,” she said to herself. “It was recently. You know you saw this recently.” She sat back for a moment and closed her eyes. She couldn’t remember. She reached into her rucksack for the bottle of water that she’d brought with her, and felt the cold, embossed surface of the Queen Mary tin. She pulled it out and put it in her lap. Then, she took out the bottle of water, thumbed the cap, and took a couple of long sips.

She thought about Herodotus Menelaou. She thought about his office, high up in the old building in Paris. She thought about all the wonderful things in his room. She thought about his stories. She thought about how he had allowed her to touch everything, about how alive she had felt, about the romance of it all.

He had been alive too, more alive than almost anyone she had met. He had been ancient and enormous. He had breathed hard, and he had sweated profusely, and he had talked and laughed with her as if they had been old friends. She would have liked to have known him for longer than the couple of hours they had spent together. The time had gone so quickly, and yet she hadn’t had a chance to properly look at more than two or three things in his room.

She wondered if he even knew what he owned, but only for a moment. Of course he knew; he’d known about the Fleece and about the gold. It hadn’t mattered what she’d picked up, he’d had a story about it, about its origins, where he’d found it, who it had belonged to before him, and any number of details surrounding its provenance. She wondered what would become of it all. She grasped the little tin tightly in her hands. For someone so alive to die like that...

Lara closed her eyes and cast her mind back to the room.

“Was it there?” she asked. “Were you in that room?” She opened her eyes and stared at the photograph of the ram statuette again.

It wasn’t there. It couldn’t have been there,
she thought.
I would have touched it. I would have wanted to know how it felt in my hands. It’s the perfect size to hold… the perfect
texture.

“You would have let me hold it,” she said out loud, as if she was talking to Menelaou.

And then she knew.

It was as if a light switch was thrown in her head. She could see it so clearly she wondered how she hadn’t seen it before.

She had seen the statuette. She had seen it shelved, carefully displayed. She had seen it in its rightful place among other objects from the same period and the same region. She could see the little statuette of the ram now, and she could hear his voice.

“There are some fine pieces, so I’d prefer you didn’t touch anything without asking first.”
That’s what he’d said to Lara. What’s more, he’d said it just as her eyes had fallen on the golden ram.

“It’s in Babbington’s office,” she said. “The gold from the Golden Fleece. Professor Babbington had it all along.”

Lara’s mind was buzzing. She had her lead. The last piece of the puzzle was in place. She had travelled all over Europe following Kennard’s clues. She had put herself in harm’s way in Paris, and she’d been tracked down to Anafi and even kidnapped. She had at least two factions following her, and she still had no idea what Kennard’s part was in the whole adventure. And all along, the final piece of the puzzle had been in Babbington’s office in Oxford.

There was nothing to be done until she could return to England, except to stay one step ahead of whoever was tracking her, to stay out of reach of Christian Fife’s henchmen and Ares’s Ten Thousand Immortals.

How were they able to find her so easily?

Lara’s main source of information was the Book. She used the Internet, of course, and her phone. Then, she remembered something that Christian Fife had said.

“I’ve scoured the Internet for information about you.”

Wasn’t that exactly what she’d done? If Ares really was as powerful as he said he was, wouldn’t it be simple enough for him to set up The Ten Thousand Immortals home page and then track anyone who checked the page? She’d visited the site several times. She’d bookmarked it on her laptop at the flat, and visited it again from the borrowed laptop in her hotel in St. Germain. He knew who her father was. He knew about Yamatai. She was a target for Ares.

It’s the technology
thought Lara.
That’s how they’re tracking my movements. That’s how they know where I
am.

Lara took out her mobile phone, turned it off, and removed its battery. No one could track her phone if it was disabled.

It was a long ferry ride, and there was nothing more that Lara could do, except sleep. So much had happened in the last few days, and she hadn’t slept at all the night before. Suddenly, she realised just how exhausted she was.

She put all her belongings back in her rucksack and made a pillow out of it. If it was under her head no one could steal it without disturbing her. The contents, the Book and the photos, were far too valuable for her to lose them.

Then, Lara slept. For the first time in two days, she slept.

Chapter 25

W
hen the ferry arrived at Piraeus, most of the passengers transferred to a bus for Athens International, and Lara went with them. She felt safe in a crowd, and all of the travelers were obviously tourists in family groups with luggage, or students, who resembled her, with backpacks. There were no suspicious looking men, or people travelling alone, and no one was travelling light.

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.