by E. E. Knight
It turned out she had. The Pearl Breastplate ended up in the hands of Larson and Pierre, who’d followed her and done a more thorough job of investigating nooks and crannies. The only souvenirs Lara brought home were a Russian foot fungus and a dispirited partner.
Shortly afterwards, just prior to leaving on a trip to Peru, she’d taken Ajay to dinner at an Italian restaurant near Cambridge and did her best to explain why the two of them wouldn’t be working together in the field again.
“You’re being unfair,” Ajay said, pushing her spaghetti Bolognese away.
“Unfair? Because I care whether a friend of mine lives or dies?”
“It’s my life to risk.”
“You lost your head, Ajay. Just like you did in Mexico.”
“That was different.”
“Was it? Next time it could get us both killed.”
“Then I’ll work on my own, so I’m the only one in jeopardy.”
“Don’t, Ajay. You’ve so many talents that put you head and shoulders above the crowd. Above me, if you’re thinking this is some kind of rivalry.”
“Not a rivalry. Partners don’t compete.”
“There’s lots of places to do fieldwork safely. If you think you have to contribute by getting dirty, I can name—”
“I want the same thing you do. To know what no one else knows, to touch something no one else has touched since Pharaoh dreamed of his fat cattle eating the lean.”
Lara startled at that. “That was in my journal. You read my journal?”
“No … I—”
Lara’s eyes made her admit the truth.
“I’m sorry, Lara. After you pulled me out of the dark and started going back in without me … I needed to see what you thought of me. If you still respected me.”
“Chase your own dreams, Ajay. Chasing mine is”—Lara caught herself on the verge of accusing Ajay of a personality disorder—“dangerous.”
“You were about to use another word,” Ajay said. “What was it? Sick? Is that what you think of me, Lara?”
“I think it will be better for both of us if we work separately, that’s all.”
“Fine.” Ajay pushed back her chair and stood, throwing her napkin down on the table. “I know when I’m not wanted.” She turned her back and stalked out of the restaurant.
Lara hadn’t seen Ajay, or heard from her, since.
***
Lara drove into Soho and parked the bike in a Tottenham Court alley off of Frith Street. Borg parked in a garage nearby. They met outside a pair of glass doors that read “Little Italy.” As they entered, upbeat jazz came over the restaurant’s speakers.
“Lady Croft,” the maitre d’ said, beaming. A few patrons leaned to get a better look at the newcomers.
“The back room, Johnny,” Lara said.
“Of course.” He led them up a flight of stairs.
Little Italy’s close-walled back room looked as though it should have organized-crime wiseguys leaning over their plates of squid and pasta beneath the closely hung pictures of Italian landscapes and doorways. Instead, well-dressed couples chatted over savory-smelling dishes and bottles of wine. Beneath some of the tables, bags from London’s famous department stores bulged with holiday purchases.
“The tuna’s really good,” Lara suggested as they sat at a table tucked into a private corner. “The house Chianti is one of the best you can get in London … or so I’m told. I don’t drink alcohol myself.”
“Red Chianti, please,” Borg responded as their waiter asked if they would have anything to drink. The waiter cocked an eyebrow at Lara. She ordered a seltzer water and lime.
“Dinner is my treat,” she said, noting the look of alarm that had passed over Borg’s features as he glanced at the menu.
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “Ajay always said you were generous. Her parents thought a great deal of you.”
“I wasn’t the influence Lord Harfleur hoped I’d be.”
The waiter returned with their drinks and poured a taste of the wine into Borg’s glass. The big man took a sip, then nodded. “Very good.”
The waiter filled Borg’s glass. He took their dinner order, then left them alone.
“What’s happened to Ajay?” Lara asked. “What is it that you’re afraid of?”
Borg emptied his glass in one swallow and refilled it from the bottle; there was, Lara noticed, a rough but very real grace in the way he manipulated the mechanisms that served as his hands. “I met Ajay when she came to me for training. I was already in the papers; ‘extreme’ sports were becoming popular. I was known for climbing, base jumps, and some cave exploration. Die Welt did an extensive article. She found me through it. There I was, in Iceland, at a photo shoot for some hiking boots, and suddenly she is there.
“She was so upfront and brash. ‘Teach me to do everything you can do,’ she said. It was before my accident, when I could do what few others could. At first, I laughed. She asked so many questions. Rappelling, oxygen gear, altitude disorders, lighting for scuba cave dives.”
“Learning about a subject was never difficult for Ajay,” Lara said.
“Oh, but she worked hard.”
“So you took her on.”
“More than that.” His eyes became wet. “I fell in love. How many women travel to Iceland just to acquire a personal trainer? How many women show such determination to improve?”
Determination … or obsession? Lara wondered. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked herself this question with regard to Ajay. Of course, there were times when she’d wondered the same thing about herself.
“We became … treasure hunters. She determined … was determined to restore her family fortune through valuables found this way. I thought it was just a dream, but in my love for her said nothing.
“We did not meet with success. We could hardly cover our expenses, Lara. Though we had many good times together. Until…”
“Your accident?”
“We were on a climb in Bulgaria. She was convinced of the presence of a cliffside treasure trove from the days of Darius. I was in the lead; she was tied to me. She slipped. I anchored, pulled her up. She was winded, so I did something foolish. I unhooked from her, knowing that if I lost my footing on the next lateral we would both go down. I was driving another piton to help her across the lateral when I slipped. I landed badly, compound fractures in both arms. We abandoned the climb, but because of my injuries, it took us two days to get to help. The Bulgarian doctors … they meant well, but all they knew to do was remove the limbs. I did not know until I awoke.”
Lara could imagine what was left unsaid. The agony of walking with broken limbs, the smell of sepsis as the flesh died, waking up in some provincial hospital where they washed the dressings and reused them. Waking up without arms. And always wondering if Ajay could have said something. Done something. Stopped the doctors from performing the unnecessary amputations … if they were unnecessary.
There was a moment of silence as the waiter brought their food. Lara dove into her chicken piccata with an appetite. Borg filled his glass again, then continued. “I despaired, but Ajay helped me through it. The story made me more famous than ever in the media. A fund was started in my name. I had a job as a, what is it they say, color commentator for an American extreme sports cable channel. They paid for arms, special arms, as a stunt, and filmed me using them. I traveled and narrated other shows they did. They called me ‘the Borg.’ I saw less of Ajay, but I thought I could make enough money with television or a book to help her family. But while I did this, she became involved with them.”
“Them?” Lara’s psychic antennae quivered at the inflection.
“A group. Also treasure hunters, I think. Thought. Now I am not sure. I have had only one conversation with Ajay about them. She disappeared soon after. I think they first contacted her when I was back in Norway, in a special hospital for physical therapy. Or perhaps she contacted them. She sought out treasure-hunting jobs. I know she did some work
in the Mideast.”
“If my fiancé were in hospital, I’d stay a little closer,” Lara said, and instantly regretted it.
Borg averted his eyes, poured the last of the wine from the bottle.
“So she just disappeared?” Lara asked.
“Four months ago,” said Borg. “I tried to find her myself, but I failed. I quit at the cable channel to look for her; they now say ‘breach of contract’ and will pay me no more money. I know the name and reputation of Lara Croft—most of us in these sports do—and I know you once were a friend to Ajay, so I have come to you. You have perhaps contacts and sources I do not have. Also, there is one other door that is not open to me; I think you can get through it.”
“What door is that?”
“Lord Harfleur’s.”
Lara raised an eyebrow. “He did not approve of me,” Borg confessed. “He wished for Ajay to marry into money and society. I have little of either, by his measure, even with the television job. Our engagement is secret from him.”
“You think he knows where she is?”
“She wrote him always, wherever she went.”
“Then why not you?”
His artificial thumb and forefinger clicked closed on the stem of the wine glass again. “Her mind has been turned against me by this … group. Not a religion, not a political society. They are, what is the word … theosophists. Mythologists.”
“I thought you said they were treasure hunters.”
“That, too.”
“Do they have a name?”
“I heard her call them the ‘Many’ once.”
“The Many?”
“That is what she said.”
“So that’s what the Scientologists are calling themselves these days.”
“No. The ‘Many’ is an old”—it took him a moment to find the word—“cult.”
“I’ve never heard of them, and I know a lot about old cults.”
Borg shrugged. He emptied his glass. “I was away too much. Perhaps if I had seen her more, she would have confided in me.” A maudlin tone had crept into Borg’s voice, and he was beginning to slur his words.
Lara tried to keep things on subject. “You still haven’t explained why you think she’s in danger.”
“The Many have done something to her, Lara. Brainwashed her. Or perhaps kidnapped her. The Ajay I know would not just disappear.”
The Ajay Lara knew had done exactly that. But she didn’t tell Borg. Instead, she said, “Suppose I go to see Lord Harfleur, and it turns out that Ajay has written to him after all, and those letters are perfectly normal? Suppose they show that she joined the Many of her own free will and is happy to be there? What then?”
“Then I will leave her in peace,” Borg said, though Lara could see the pain it cost him to say so. “But I do not think you will find that.”
“The ‘Many,’” Lara mused, leaning back in her chair. She was tired, sore. “It’s late, Borg. After midnight.”
He stirred a bit at that. “I did not mean to keep you out so late. I have talked too much. Please, if you decide to help, contact me at my hotel.”
“Not so fast,” said Lara. “You’re in no condition to drive anywhere. When I’m in town this late, I usually stay overnight at my office. It’s nearer than your hotel, and there’s a couch you can use.”
***
A near-freezing mist flowed through London’s streets, creating halos around the streetlights. Lara pulled her motorcycle into the alley behind the Mayfair Croft Trust offices and parked it at the back. Borg unclasped his arms from about her waist and dismounted from the bike. He’d actually apologized outside the restaurant as he’d clasped his prosthetic limbs around her, as though they were something to be ashamed of.
Lara unstrapped her hard-sided case from the back of the bike and steered Borg, who was unsteady on his feet, out of the alley. A taxi crawled along the street, its headlamps slowly sweeping by as Lara guided Borg along the elegant iron railings that lined the sidewalk and the small front yards of the townhomes that had stood here since the eighteenth century.
Coping with her case, keys, and a slightly drunk, melancholy dinner companion prevented Lara from noticing anything amiss until the last second. She heard the click of a car door, and suddenly two men appeared from the clipped shrubbery to either side of the white-painted entrance to her office.
“Someone wants to speak to you,” a pockmarked man said in a heavy Russian or Eastern European accent. He held a gun close to his side, pointed right at Lara. Next to him, a bronze-skinned man, spindly as a chimney sweep’s brush, gripped a pistol tightly, as though afraid it might jump out of his hand.
Lara heard a step behind her and turned her head. A black, classic-style London taxi was waiting at the curb. A good-looking man, face pale and strained, held the door open. Lara looked inside the cab, saw handcuffs resting on the seat. The driver was a large but indistinct shape.
“Lara Croft,” the pale man said. Like the others, he, too, held a gun. His grip on it was ominously shaky. “Please get into the car. And your friend.”
Borg sagged against the rail, breathing hard and gulping. Lara wondered for a moment if he was having a heart attack.
“We don’t need him. Put him down,” the pockmarked Russian said.
Time slowed as the spindly man raised his gun. Lara readied herself to spring on him, wondering if the bullet from the Russian’s gun would kill her before she reached him.
The Russian struck aside the gun barrel with his free hand. “No, zjelob. Knock him. In the head. With your gun.”
The spindly man took a bowlegged step toward Borg, gun raised high to strike the sagging Norwegian.
A torrent, a waterfall, a tsunami of Chianti-scented vomit poured out of Borg and splattered across sidewalk and the splindly man, whose face took on a look of sheer horror.
Grimacing, the Russian stepped back to keep Borg’s vomit off his shoes. Lara acted. She bowled her case at the Russian with a quick underhand throw. His gun fired with a bang and a flash. The case deflected the bullet, then bowled into the shooter’s stomach, knocking him off balance. Lara was right behind.
She got a grip on the Russian’s gun hand, encouraged him to let go by bringing her booted heel down hard on his instep. She caught a glimpse of the spindly figure turning his gun toward her before Borg clubbed him across the back of the head with a sweeping blow from his right artificial limb.
A knife appeared in the Russian’s other hand, sprouting from his sleeve like a magician’s trick flower. He slashed for Lara’s throat, but she brought her shoulder up, and the motorcycle jacket absorbed most of the blade.
Lara twisted the pocket automatic, trying to wrest it from the Russian’s hand. A muffled pop sounded between them, and the pockmarked man grunted. Then Lara was holding the gun, and the Russian was slowly falling to the ground. Judging by the blood that was pumping from his chest, the wound was fatal. In any case, she had neither the time nor the inclination to render assistance. Pivoting on one heel, she dropped to a crouch and pointed the gun at the pale man by the taxi door, who was trembling so badly that he looked as though raw electrical current was coursing through him. He closed his eyes and fired his gun. The crack of Lara’s pistol came a split second later.
She heard his bullet whiz by her ear.
Hers struck him in the thigh.
He cried out, dropping the gun and gripping the leg as it collapsed under him.
The taxi roared off, its door hanging open, but not before Lara had memorized its license number.
Lara glanced at the spindly victim of Borg’s strength, who lay stretched out on the sidewalk. His eyes gaped open, lifeless and dry.
“He is dead,” Borg said, his voice no longer slurred.
“This one, too,” Lara said as she quickly checked the Russian. Then she walked over to the man with the leg wound, who lay whimpering and writhing on the sidewalk. She kicked his dropped gun away, though he seemed in no condition to make a grab for it.
“Was that Urdmann behind the wheel?” she asked.
“Who?” the man groaned.
There were no witnesses to what had happened … at least no visible ones. Lara wondered if any eyes were peeking out through drawn curtains. A siren began to wail in the distance.
“Lancaster Urdmann.”
The man turned so that his weight didn’t rest on his injured leg. “Never heard of him, Croft. Three men with pistols … You would have done better to just get in the taxi. We’d have made it worth—” He reached into his suit coat pocket.
“Drop it,” Lara ordered, aiming her pistol at his right eye. She felt blood running down her arm from where the Russian’s knife had cut through her leather jacket.
“Take it easy, okay?” He produced a leather-covered notepad to which a pen was attached by a leather loop. “I’m going to write down a phone number.” He removed the pen and clicked it open, but instead of writing, he stabbed downward suddenly and poked himself in the thigh with the point.
Lara kicked out, knocking the pen away.
“Too late, Croft.” He looked up at her and gave an incongruous giggle. “At least the headaches will stop now.” He stiffened, eyes bulging. His body jerked in one terrible spasm, spine arching above the pavement. Then he fell back and lay still.
***
Lara usually preferred to let dead bodies lie. The less involvement with police, inspectors, and prosecuting attorneys, the better. At least, such had always been her experience, and the recent business with Von Croy, as much farce as tragedy, hadn’t exactly changed her opinion.
But this time the corpses lay on her doorstep. And there must have been eyes peeking out from behind curtains, because it wasn’t long before the police arrived. As crime scene technicians and uniformed police hovered about the bodies and set up yellow crime scene tape all around, a constable escorted Lara and a sobered—if not completely sober—Borg off the sidewalk and into the Croft Trust offices: two tiny rooms and a WC, and one larger room with tall, thin windows, a cavernous old fireplace, and a long leather couch, into the comfortable embrace of which Lara and Borg gratefully sank … but not for long.