Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Lost Cult

by E. E. Knight

  Lara heard the aft door to the main cabin open. A woman in a sleeveless khaki vest, her red hair tied up off her shoulders in the heat, stepped out. “Glad you could join us, Lara.”

  Lara fought to hide her shock. Heather Rourke. The journalist she’d been avoiding. “What do you think you’re doing here, Heather?”

  “My job,” the reporter said. “One way or another, Heather Rourke always gets her story.”

  Lara glanced at Borg. “Is this your doing, Borg? Did you tip her off?”

  “I have never spoken to this woman before,” he said somewhat stiffly.

  “He’s blameless,” Heather interjected. “I called the publicist for his network. Asked a few questions. She was eager to inform me of where he was heading. Then it was just a matter of figuring out where a Tomb Raider might go after landing in this part of Peru. Ukju Pacha came up in my research. Short of parachuting into the jungle, this river is the only route to the ruins, so I took a chance on intercepting you here.”

  Lara turned to Williams. “Captain, I don’t know what this woman may have told you, but she’s no associate or friend of mine. I want her off the boat.”

  Williams shrugged. “Can’t do that. She’s already paid.”

  “You mean you won’t do it.”

  “She’s a paying customer, same as you two,” Williams answered.

  “You might as well accept it, Lara,” Heather said. “I’m coming along for the ride.”

  Lara considered picking her up and throwing her bodily off the boat, but that would only be playing into the journalist’s hands. Borg and she could hire a plane and get to Alex Frys’s camp by parachute drop, but for all she knew, it might take days to organize a plane trip, and Frys’s message had stressed the need for haste.

  The first few raindrops hit the deck of the boat. She could see the rain coming, a curtain masking the landscape.

  “Suit yourself,” Lara said. “But I’m warning you, Heather. It could get rough.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “If I was, you wouldn’t have to ask,” Lara said. “I’m trying to put some sense into your thick head, that’s all.”

  The reporter seemed offended. “I haven’t spent my career at a computer, Ms. Croft. I’ve covered stories from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Dictators have threatened to have me shot. I can handle myself.”

  “She could help, Lara,” Borg said. “The people upriver might fear the world press more than they fear the Peruvian government.”

  “Let’s get inside,” Lara said as the rain increased in intensity.

  ***

  Lara looked around the box-shaped main cabin as they brought the gear in. The Tank Girl worked for a living. The barge carried no amenities for passengers. The cabin had scratched plastic windows and duct-taped cushions on the storage benches lining the walls. Cubbyholes filled with what looked like mail covered the stem side of the big room; forward was a dirty combination of galley, chartroom, and machine shop. Beyond a paneled partition festooned with lad-mag pinups, Lara could see the main bridge. A radio squawked within, broadcasting the chatter like a talkative parrot.

  “Could I speak to you alone, Captain?” Lara asked. The rain hit with a roar. Water poured from the sky in torrents. A few drops found a way into the cabin.

  Williams shrugged and led her forward to the main bridge. A young man whose tattoos marked him as another Machinguenga was lounging in a hammock chair.

  “Francisco, take a hike.” Williams flicked his thumb at a side door. Without a word, the man stepped into the rain and moved off along the narrow freeboard running along the side of the main cabin.

  Lara decided to use her ass-kicking tone. The captain didn’t look the type to fall for a bright smile and batted eye-lashes. “What’s the journalist doing here?”

  “Like I said, she’s paying her way, same as you. Fares are the next thing to pure profit for me.” Williams took a milk jug half full of loose tobacco from a railed shelf. “Most places you keep your smoke where it won’t dry out. In the Madre you have to fight to keep it dry.”

  “So you’re bringing a journalist on a secret trip?”

  “Nothing secret about the Girl’s route. Unclench those tight little cheeks; your friend upriver knows about it. When I told him who wanted to tag along, he about stroked out.”

  “Did he?” Perhaps Frys had been in the cloud forest too long.

  “He wants a journalist around, especially one named Heather Rourke.”

  “Why’s her name important?”

  Williams rolled a cigarette with tobacco-stained fingers. “An old river turtle like me has to tell you who Heather Rourke is?”

  “Apparently.”

  “She’s got connections with SNN. You have heard of Satellite Network News?”

  SNN was famous for providing free technology to developing nations. Internet access, dishes, fiber-optic networks even. She’d heard it lauded everywhere from The Economist to The Wall Street Journal. “Yes. I don’t travel with a dish, though.”

  “There’s even a little bar in Mal that has SNN.”

  Lara wondered why Heather had introduced herself as working for a magazine she’d never heard of. To get her off her guard? She’d certainly not recognized the face. Just her keeping a low profile was interesting, a rare thing for prestige journalists these days.

  “Don’t feel too bad about it,” Williams said, lighting the cigarette. “I was funnin’ you. Your friend Frys at the other end had to tell me who she was, too.”

  “You can get him on the radio?” She looked at the set, a military antique dating from the days of Che Guevara at least.

  “If he’s around.”

  She stepped away to give him room. “Do you mind?”

  He went to the radio, twisted the dial. “Mynah, this is Tank Girl. You on this channel? Over?”

  “English?” Lara asked.

  “His Spanish isn’t much. Makes him stand out more than his English does.”

  Williams tried again, and still didn’t get an answer.

  “What’s ‘Mynah’ for?”

  “He’s not using his name in case the radio is being monitored. He’s posing as a bird whachacallit.”

  “An ornithologist?”

  “Bingo.”

  Not much of a cover. The mynah bird was famous for using its voice to fake its identity to fool predators. Plus, they weren’t native to this part of the world. “And he trusts you because?…”

  Williams took a contemplative puff. “‘Cause I showed him the old canopy tower when he first came upriver. Perfect for his purposes. Plus, I had it in for that expedition up at Ukju. The guy who runs their supplies is an old rival, you might say.”

  “How big a rival?”

  “You know those movies where two sailing ships run out their guns and shoot at each other as they go past?” He gestured with his cigarette toward a scattering of bullet holes in the aluminum wall near the wheel. “Kind of like that.”

  “And are more bullets apt to fly on this trip?” Lara asked.

  Williams grinned. “Hard to say. If they do, just keep your head down.”

  Lara smiled back. “That’s not my style, Captain,” she said.

  ***

  It would be a two-day trip upriver. The passengers had a choice: they could either sleep in hammocks slung from the walls or on the narrow plastic cushions of the benches. The only privacy anyone would have on the catamaran would be in the washroom.

  And it wasn’t much of a washroom. The sink held the leavings of the captain and his mate’s shaves, the floor of the tiny shower was black, and flies crawled on the rim of the toilet. Lara hardly had room to change into cargo shorts and a brief black tank top. She strapped on her pistols and felt much better.

  The rain quit and a spectacular evening came on, the orange and purple of the sky turning the rain forest and the shadows it cast onto the river the deepest black. They didn’t have dinner until they anchored for the night. The plastic windows and scre
ens crawled with insects trying to get in at the cabin lights.

  “Two questions answered already without me opening my mouth,” Heather said over her plate of pork and beans.

  “What’s that?” Captain Williams asked, pouring a shot of gin into his water glass.

  “The real Lara Croft. Question one: Why the skimpy outfits? Question two: Why the ponytail? The answers are the heat and the humidity.” She lifted her own gorgeous ruin of a hairstyle from her damp neck and pulled her sweat-soaked shirt out from her chest.

  Borg wouldn’t fit at the table. He sat on one of the benches lining the cabin, next to Francisco the mate. Borg looked forward all the time, as if news of Ajay might come floating down the river.

  “How many stops before our destination?” Lara asked.

  “Three. Propane to the Macaw Lodge tomorrow, then more diesel for the Peruvian National Post at Delago. A diesel delivery to the Fitzcarraldo Gold Mine last. There’s a couple Brazil nut farms and another mine I visit now and then, too, but they don’t get anything but mail this trip. We won’t even tie up, just toss the sacks onto their docks as we go by.”

  “They let you deliver mail?” Heather asked.

  “I’m a private contractor, you might say. The police only care that I don’t run coca or guns.” He screwed the top back on his gin. “I make enough to support my lifestyle.”

  Heather looked at Lara’s pistols. “Those don’t squirt water. The police don’t have a problem with your carrying them?”

  “I’ve got a lawyer who knows how to get me the right paperwork. A kidnapping by local guerrillas would be a terrible inconvenience.”

  “I’ve been in the mountains of Iran and Afghanistan with nothing but a tape recorder and some cameras. Never felt the need for guns.”

  Lara knew a double bid when she heard one. She redoubled. “Did you have a guide?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was armed.”

  “Yes. You know the men in that part of the world, I expect. Very attached to their rifles.”

  “Then the only difference between you and me is who would do the shooting.”

  “I didn’t fly three thousand miles to make you an enemy, Lady Croft. But I want your story. The real story. I’ve heard some strange things in London and Washington.”

  “I can’t remember the last time I heard something that wasn’t strange coming out of those two places.”

  Heather Rourke snorted. “Point taken. But that’s why I’m here. I came to get an accurate picture of your life.”

  “Why the interest? I’m not glamorous. I’m not political. I’m a scholar with a bent for adventure. You were at my lecture in London. You saw what I do.”

  The journalist picked up her plate and took it to the little sink. “My interest in you started in a house in Georgetown, of all places. A prominent senator was giving a party. The conversation got around to the most interesting man/most interesting woman you ever met. I listened to a Chinese businessman who’d served as an army officer in Tibet tell the most amazing story about you and some kind of underworld kingpin named Marco Bartoli. To hear him, you took down an entire syndicate single-handed.”

  “He exaggerated. I’d suspect anything a Chinese hatchet man has to say about Tibet.”

  Heather returned to the table. “It was an astonishing story, nonetheless. You made quite an impression on the local monks, apparently. One of them said something to this ex-army officer that he never forgot.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “The monk said that you were a spirit warrior, strong as a mountain but supple as a river. He said that determination like yours could topple the throne of a kingdom. Well, after hearing that, I decided I had to meet you for myself.”

  “The Chinese do know how to tell a story to the credulous. I’m surprised you fell for it. Americans are paying tens of thousands of dollars to have their sofas rearranged by anyone who can properly pronounce ‘feng shui.’ Here are the facts, if you’re interested. I was … involved with Bartoli. He was a thief and a smuggler, but it was the Chinese who smashed him. I just found the door, so to speak. I suspect the man you heard was Li Yuan, a Chinese Intelligence man who handled most of the arrests. I’d heard he’d gotten a private industry job in America as a reward.”

  Heather nodded. “That was his name.”

  “Li wouldn’t admit to achievement without a set of thumbscrews. Even then you’d only get ‘I was very fortunate to have arrested the criminal.’ Confucianism.”

  “You impressed him enough that he told the story the way a military man might describe serving under Patton. What the monks had to say made a deep impression on him.”

  “Some monks who haven’t seen a woman in twenty years have one drop in on a snowmobile, and you’re shocked that I made an impression?”

  Borg snorted.

  “Call it a draw, ladies,” Captain Williams cut in. “Let’s have one more drink and get to bed.”

  “Water will do, thanks,” Lara said.

  “I don’t like gin,” the journalist said. “I don’t suppose there’s any wine on board?”

  “This isn’t a cruise ship, lady,” Williams said.

  Lara leaned across the table and caught the mate’s eye. “Francisco, do you have any masato?”

  “Yes, señorita. There is some on board.”

  Williams grunted.

  “Then get it. Perhaps Heather would like to try a native drink.”

  Heather’s left eyebrow almost met a bedraggled bang. “Native as in—”

  “Local Indian. More of a beer. Very appropriate for an after-dinner drink.”

  “I’ll try anything once,” Heather said, emptying her water glass and pushing it toward Francisco, who was opening a jug.

  Francisco poured some of the amber liquid for himself and a generous portion for the journalist. He offered it to Lara, but she shook her head.

  Borg turned it down. “I’ve given up drinking for a while. I had a wonderful dinner ruined by too much wine.”

  He and Lara shared a sympathetic smile.

  Heather sniffed the brew.

  “You’ll find it helps with digestion,” Lara said, suppressing a smile with an effort.

  Heather tasted it. “Not bad. Like a stout or a bock.”

  Francisco downed his and smacked his bare belly through

  his open shirt. Lara caught Heather stealing a glance at the tight stomach muscles. “What’s that blue tattooing under your eye, Francisco?” Heather asked.

  “I am of an ancient line. In my tribe, this means the blood of Incan kings flows in my veins. In the days of the Sun Empire—”

  “Cisco, give it a rest,” Williams said, slamming down his glass. “That act is fine for some piece of tail working on her master’s in environmental studies, but this woman’s a respected journalist. Give her the story straight.”

  Francisco showed no sign of embarrassment. “The mark is from the days when my people were taken by the rubber slavers. Those who were the best gatherers were tattooed by the rubber men to show they had a good eye. It became a symbol of status, and from there became a tradition.”

  “Believe it or not, the truth makes you more interesting, Francisco.” Heather took another swallow of the native beer.

  “What’s this made of? Sweet potatoes? Plantains?”

  Lara waited till Heather swallowed. “Manioc, fermented in women’s saliva.”

  Heather still choked. “What?”

  “Yes, the local women all use their saliva for fermentation,” Francisco said. “My mother sends me what she makes.”

  Heather’s eyes narrowed at Lara, but to her credit the journalist finished her glass. “Still tastes good on a hot night.”

  ***

  They awoke the next morning to a cacophony of screeches. Lara got out of her hammock and stretched as she went out by the tanks on the stern. Heather was atop the cabin, taking pictures of a sky full of birds.

  Lara went back into the cabin, unzipped he
r pack, which hung at the head end of her hammock, and got out a tiny pair of lightweight binoculars. She went back outside and took in the breathtakingly colorful birds. They weren’t really a flock, Lara noticed as she climbed the aft ladder to the top deck, just hundreds of groups of two and three and four birds rising and wheeling southeast.

  “Red-bellied macaws,” Captain Williams grunted. “Get under the awning unless you want to be dumped on.”

  Lara looked at the spotted deck and joined him at the wheel on the flying bridge. She saw Borg up forward with Francisco, gaping like the rest of them. Borg still wore a long-sleeved cotton shirt and gloves to cover his artificial arms.

  “Macaws?” Heather said, joining them. “Those are three-thousand-dollar birds.”

  “Not down here,” Lara said. “There must be a clay lick nearby.”

  “Yeah, in those hills there. We’re going around a bend in the river today, then into the hills near the Macaw Lodge. They get a lot of bird-watchers.” He inflated his lungs “Cisco,” he bellowed. “I’m not paying you to be a tour guide. Let’s make some river.”

  The Tank Girl sputtered to life as the anchors came up. Borg helped with the lines in his own stiff way.

  Lara enjoyed the clear-skied morning, and sat on the cool white propane fuel tanks with her research into Ukju Pacha. The others avoided the tanks as though they were live bombs, which, in a way, they were. If the tanks exploded, the whole boat would be reduced to matchsticks, but in the morning the metal was pleasantly cool against her skin. This time of year in the southern tropics, she would have to enjoy the air and the sun while she could before the inevitable afternoon rains came.

  When Williams and Cisco made their deliveries, she retreated into the cabin; no point advertising her presence to the locals. Kunai knew who she was, but whether he was baiting her in some fashion through the kidnapping attempt, and perhaps the actions of the young Frys, remained to be seen. She’d been baited before. The would-be trappers always forgot that both prey and trapper had to meet at the bait and that when they did, the roles could be reversed. In any case, she could do little about it until she got to the headwaters of the Manu River.