Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals (26 page)

“Enough, Miss Croft.”

So, Lara was alive after all.

Kennard stood on the gutter ledge of the chapel, arms steady. He sighted Ares, and he sighted the Immortal. It was unlikely that anyone was going to spot him in the circumstances.

He watched the scene play out and listened to the conversation between Ares and Lara Croft. She was an impressive young woman.

Kennard was relieved when Karan stepped back from Lara, and he had a clear shot at the Immortal. He swung his weapon from Karan to Ares and back again, twice. He wanted to make sure that he could kill both men fast, reflexively, with two bullets and no repercussions. The Immortal appeared to be unarmed. Ares’s weapon fired only one bullet.

It was Kennard Montez’s lucky day.

Then, Kennard was amazed to see Ares stop pointing the gun at Lara to look at it. It was too good to be true.

Kennard Montez shot the Immortal standing behind Lara first. He couldn’t be sure the man didn’t have a gun, and he knew that all the Immortals were equipped to kill with their bare hands. Lara wouldn’t be able to hold him off for long. The second shot, the body shot to Ares’s back, was easy. Kennard fired it almost reflexively before his first target had gone down.

He didn’t fire a third shot.

Lara Croft had done exactly what she was supposed to do.

She had done exactly what Kennard Montez had hoped she would do.

Lara Croft had ducked.

Kennard Montez sighted his firearm again, but he could not see his third target, because she was below the line of the parapet wall.

He turned and scaled the chapel roof. He was right; the pitch was too steep, and the surface was too slick. While he was climbing, Kennard decided that it would be impossible to get a good enough stance anywhere on the roof to get a good shot at anyone on the chapel roof walkway. He decided to abort the attempt.

Kennard Montez would have to find another way to retrieve the ram statuette for Trinity, and he would have to find another way to dispose of Lara Croft. He had, at least, accomplished part of his mission. He had neutralised Ares, and the last of the Immortals.

Kennard allowed himself to slide down the far side of the chapel roof. He landed softly on the gutter ledge. There, he paused for a moment to put his hand over the chest of his jacket and feel the hard rectangular shape of the Queen Mary tin tucked in the inside pocket.

Trinity trained its agents well. They were very good. The Immortal waiting in the alley between Fellows’ Quad and Mob Quad to catch Lara’s tin wasn’t an Immortal at all. He was one of Kennard Montez’s men. He was Trinity, and he had done his job impeccably.

There were police stationed at every exit, and Lara’s only way out was to stay above ground. The chapel tower was the highest point in Merton College. Kennard guessed that was where she would go next. He hoped he was right.

Kennard holstered his gun, and walked the gutter ledge to the tower. He considered scaling the roof back to the walkway, but if she was there, she might flee across the rooftops again. He didn’t want to risk her falling. He didn’t want the police involved, and he didn’t want to fight her. If he was right and she made for the tower, he’d find another route.

Kennard looked up at the side of the tower. He found his first handhold, and he began to climb.

Chapter 36

I
t was quiet inside the tiny turret. Lara sat for what felt like a long time. She rubbed the scratches on her face from the glass and broken tiles, but the blood had gone and there was no pain. Her ribs didn’t seem to be hurting either, and when she flexed her elbow it didn’t appear to be as bad as she remembered.

Good,
she thought.
What’s
next?

“What’s next is you need to get yourself out of here, Lara,” she whispered.

Lara reasoned that the best escape was to get inside. If there was a gunman on the chapel roof, then she needed to get into cover, and she couldn’t stay in the turret cupboard forever. The roofs of Mob Quad wouldn’t be safe, either.

If he scaled the chapel roof and he can’t see me, perhaps he’s figures I escaped,
she thought.
I could wait it
out.

She thought through the architecture in her mind, visualising her view from the walkway. From below the parapet, she had only been able to see a portion of the chapel roof and the tower looming high above it.

If I can get to the tower without being seen,
she thought,
I’ll be looking down on
him.

The walkway was still a problem. It was long and narrow, and there was nowhere for her to hide. The shooter was a good marksman. He’d taken out Karan and Ares fast and accurately with two bullets. The first was a perfect head shot. Wherever he was on the roof, he’d get a shot at Lara at some point along the walkway. She had to assume he was still on the roof. She had to assume he was somewhere higher up on the roof.

Lara had fired a gun. She knew she could shoot, and she knew she could kill if she had to. She knew she wasn’t a marksman. She didn’t stand a chance of killing this man before he got a shot at her, and if he shot first she was dead.

Then, there was the problem of the bodies. There were two bodies sprawled on the narrow walkway. There was no way around them. Lara would have to climb over them. It would take time, and she’d be exposed. If she tried to run over them, she’d be above the parapet. If she crawled over them, she’d be slow and she’d be a bigger target.

The bodies were a big problem.

“What do I do with the wretched bodies?” she whispered. “Think, Lara.”

She didn’t have to think for long.

Lara stood up in the little turret. She squatted a few times to test the strength in her legs. She rotated her shoulders and flexed her elbows. She felt strong. She felt strong enough. Dead weight was heavy, but neither the Immortal nor Ares were big men, and she’d be on all fours.

Lara crawled out of the turret. She looked up at the section of chapel roof that was visible above the parapet wall, but could see nothing. Then, she shuffled over to Karan’s body. On all fours, she pulled the Immortal’s body onto her back, wrapped her right arm firmly around his shoulder, and pulled him onto her so that his head fell forward over her shoulder. Then, she started to crawl forwards, using his corpse as a shield. If she was shot, at least her injuries shouldn’t be fatal.

Karan’s body was heavy, but Lara was determined, and it didn’t take long before she reached Ares’s prone figure. She was relieved to find that he really was dead. She could see his face in profile. It was slack and awkward. His lips were blue and his skin ashen, and his eye was open and staring.

Lara was looking into that eye when her hand fell on the cold, hard barrel of the little Derringer. She didn’t know if she could hold Karan’s weight with one arm, but she was suddenly determined not to leave the artifact behind. If it was what he had claimed it to be, it should be returned to the Ford’s Theatre Museum. If it was merely an old Derringer, it was still the weapon that Ares had meant to kill her with.

Lara heaved Karan’s body against the parapet wall, hoping it would take some of his weight, and, as quickly as she could, shoved the Derringer into the waistband of her jeans towards the small of her back. She had to wedge her hand between her own body and Karan’s, and it took a few moments to secure the Derringer. She was breathing hard when she rolled back into position, and she almost slumped down onto Ares’s body when the full weight of the Immortal landed on her back once more.

She had to decide whether to ditch Karan and use Ares’s body, or crawl over the loathsome corpse.

Lara couldn’t stand it anymore. She heaved herself upright on her knees, sliding Karan’s corpse off her back. Then, she stood up fast and lunged forwards. She planted one foot on

Ares’s back and the next between his knees, and then she was down again, squatting between his feet. She crawled the last few feet of the walkway to the tower door.

It was a huge risk, but there was no gunfire.

Lara stood in the doorway to the chapel tower and breathed a sigh of relief. She had been reckless and she knew it, but the idea of touching Ares’s body had been too much for her. She wanted to take off the right boot that had made contact with his corpse’s back and toss it away. He appalled her as much in death as he had in life.

She glanced back at Ares, lying on his face with a hole in his back, and she was glad.

Chapter 37

K
ennard Montez looked through the pierced stone wall that surrounded the tower roof and onto the viewing platform.

Lara Croft wasn’t there.

Kennard hauled himself over the ornate balustrade and stepped onto the verdigris copper surface with its raised joints. He turned through 360 degrees to look out over the city of Oxford. It all looked remarkably peaceful. He wondered how much anyone would ever know about what had happened at Merton College that morning. It was his job to make sure that as few people as possible knew as little as possible. None of this must ever become common knowledge. The public must always be kept in the dark.

Kennard strode to the southeast corner of the tower and looked down on Fellows’ Quad, and then turned his head to look over at Front Quad. The emergency services were doing their jobs. Paramedics were attending to the needs of the students who had been hurt. There were quite a lot of them, but most of them had taken minor injuries, had been crushed or trampled, or had been elbowed in the stampede to leave the college. One or two had been caught in cross fire. Several had suffered trauma, shock or panic attacks. The police had not had to deal with bodies. There had been several, almost all of them Immortals, along with two or three Trinity agents. Trinity had people on hand to deal with them. They had been bagged and removed. The last had been taken away right under the noses of the emergency services. It was part of the job.

The rest was about misdirection. Something would be reported in the press about the incident at Merton College, a lone gunman, a mad man. Trinity agents had died that morning. One of them would sacrifice his reputation. It was one of the many things they all signed up for.

Kennard turned and looked down on Mob Quad. It was empty. There was no one in the quad or on the rooftops. He took a long look down at the chapel roof walkway. The bodies of Ares and Karan lay where they had fallen, but there was no sign of the girl.

Where was Lara Croft?

Kennard Montez walked the perimeter of the tower two or three times. He decided that he must have been wrong. He must have missed Lara. She must have taken a chance and gone down into the college via the chapel.

Kennard left the roof. He went down the tower and back out to the policeman that had let him into the chapel.

“You can’t leave, sir,” said the policeman.

“I need to get to a tutorial,” said Kennard.

“But this is your college, sir,” said the policeman. “There won’t be any tutorials today.”

“I wasn’t here during the incident, officer, so I can’t tell you anything,” said Kennard. “Besides, you let that other girl leave.”

“No, sir, I can assure you that no one has left this building, and you are the only person I’ve allowed inside. I’m rather beginning to wish that I hadn’t, sir.”

“Nobody’s left?” asked Kennard.

“Nobody,” said the policeman. “Not so much as a sausage has passed this threshold, sir. Not since you, that is.”

“Thank you, officer,” said Kennard, and turned back into the chapel. Lara wasn’t there either.

He heard the policeman tut, and he was aware that he was being watched again, so Kennard bided his time. His charm could only get him so far, especially in an emergency situation.

Three minutes later, he was climbing the tower steps back up to the roof.

Lara climbed up to the tower roof and knelt on the platform, looking out through the pierced balustrade over the college. There was order below. The police and paramedics had taken charge. She assumed that they were searching the buildings for the final shooter, the man who had killed Ares and Karan. She hoped they found him soon. She could wait.

I suppose they’ll find me, too, eventually,
she thought.

Kennard stepped into the doorway onto the chapel roof walkway and looked along it. He knew that it was empty, apart from the two bodies, but he had been taught to be thorough. Kennard blinked and looked at the bodies again. He closed his eyes briefly and ran through the shooting in his mind. The two men, Ares and Karan, had been standing several metres apart when he had shot them. They had been lying several metres apart when he had looked down on them from the tower.

Now, the corpses of Ares and Karan were lying very close together.

Kennard opened his eyes and looked again. He estimated that Ares’s body was where it had fallen. Karan’s body had been moved. Lara Croft was the only person who could have moved the body. Kennard wondered where she had disappeared to when he had looked for her the first time. He looked along the walkway to the turret. He had assumed it was solid, ornamental. Clearly there was space inside. He should have known it. He was supposed to know everything.

Kennard made a mental note never to make a similar mistake. Then, he wondered why Lara had moved Karan’s body, and he wondered how. She must have had a reason.

Kennard was suddenly very sure that he had been right all along, that Lara was on the tower roof. He ducked back through the doorway and climbed the last of the stairs up to the viewing platform.

As Kennard Montez emerged onto the tower roof, Lara Croft made to pull her gun. He was faster. It was a standoff.

“Shall we put these away?” asked Kennard.

“If I do that, I know you can pull a gun faster than I can,” said Lara.

“I can get a kill shot off faster than you can, too,” said Kennard. “Who do you think killed Ares and Karan?”

“It was you on the chapel roof?” asked Lara.

“Yes,” said Kennard.

“Who
are
you?” asked Lara. “No… don’t tell me, because if you tell me, then you’ll have to kill me.”

“Something like that,” said Kennard.

They were still pointing their guns at one another.

“Can we just put the guns down and talk for a minute?” asked Kennard.

“Talk about what, exactly?” asked Lara.

“We could start by talking about what’s tucked into that gun holster,” said Kennard, pointing his gun at Lara’s belt, “because it clearly isn’t your firearm.”

“Or we could start by talking about you,” said Lara. “We could start by talking about why you lied about the dig in Anafi harbour. I know the
Alecto
only arrived there two days before I did. Or we could talk about why Greg followed me across London on a Tube train. We could talk about why a post-grad student at Merton College Oxford carries a gun, and why he’s such a damned good shot.”

“I like you,” said Kennard.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” asked Lara. “You’re an idiot, and you’re not to be trusted.”

“And you’re a clever, brave, extraordinary woman. I wish they’d let me recruit you for Trinity instead of using you,” said Kennard.

“What’s Trinity?” asked Lara.

Kennard hesitated.

“You might as well tell me,” said Lara. “You’re going to kill me anyway. You know you are.”

“Trust me when I tell you that the last thing I want to do is kill you,” said Kennard.

“Didn’t I just say you’re not to be trusted?” said Lara.

“And you’re right,” said Kennard. “Put down the gun, and we’ll have that conversation. Otherwise, I’ll shoot.”