The Cradle of Life

by Dave Stern

  But what could he have told them before he died?

  That Reiss had something new. So MI6 would right now be looking in the usual places for clues as to what Reiss had found. They would corral scientists who’d worked with him before, visit facilities he’d utilized, countries whose stockpiles he’d raided…no, there was simply no way that MI6 could suspect what he was up to. They—like everyone else—thought the newest, most dangerous weapons would come from the development of new technologies. They were looking forward, keeping their eyes on the future. Where Reiss’s attention had been focused for the first two decades of his professional life.

  But the problem was, everyone was looking toward the future, exploring the same techniques, technologies, treatments, seeking the cutting edge. What he had said earlier was true—as fast as the new diseases were being developed, there was always a cure also being tested.

  Over the last few months, Reiss had been looking somewhere else entirely. The ancient, dimly remembered past.

  He’d gotten the idea from a book, of all things—which was more than a little surprising. Reiss was not a man who read frequently, not even within his chosen field of expertise. Scientists today published because the universities or corporations who employed them demanded it, and their conclusions were always predetermined matters, driven by the bottom line. Reiss preferred to do his learning in the laboratory—or through experience.

  Which is just what had happened, several months back, when the Gulfstream had been forced out of service for repairs. Reiss had been forced to fly a commercial plane out of London into the States. First class, of course, but still…a horrendous experience.

  A baby in coach, sneezing and spreading all sorts of God-knew-what germs throughout the plane (luckily, Reiss had taken a half-dozen immune-system boosters before boarding), a woman next to him—a taut, tense, business executive a few years older than him, late forties—who’d flirted shamelessly throughout the flight, and the way the flight attendant prepared his steak…

  Reiss shuddered, remembering how closely she’d leaned over his food, the minted scent of her breath, the stifling musk of her perfume—good Lord, there were no doubt traces of that horrible stinking liquid underneath her fingernails, all over her hands…

  He’d passed on lunch.

  He’d also passed on all the businesswoman’s attempts at engaging him in conversation, preferring instead to stare intently out the window, pretending to focus on the view but instead working a bit of third-level calculus, working out the diffusion matrix for a cannister of Tyrolean flu, delivered via a low-flying airplane—a skydiving school having just presented itself as the perfect cover for such an attack.

  And then at some point during the flight, he’d turned away from the window to find that his seatmate had picked up a book.

  Plagues and Peoples in the Ancient World.

  Reiss’s interest, of course, was piqued.

  He cleared his throat.

  “May I take a look at that?” he asked.

  The woman’s eyes flickered from the page to Reiss, and she shook her head.

  “In a moment,” she said absently, obviously no longer interested in engaging Reiss in anything.

  He reached into his pocket, and pulled out his billfold. Extracted a five hundred-pound note, and laid it on the woman’s tray, next to her drink.

  “Please give me the book,” Reiss repeated.

  She looked from the bill to Reiss, and shook her head.

  “Really.” She looked insulted. “I don’t see how you can simply ignore people and then expect—”

  Reiss pulled out another five hundred-pound note, and laid it next to the first.

  “The book, please.”

  She frowned. “This is quite ridiculous.”

  Reiss couldn’t help himself. He was getting angry.

  “Please don’t waste time,” he said. “Give me the book.”

  She opened her mouth to speak again, then saw the look on Reiss’s face.

  He saw the look on hers, as well, and smiled.

  Then he slid the book out of her hand, and settled it on his lap.

  “Honestly,” the woman said a moment later—after she’d picked up the bills and put them away. “What makes the book so—”

  Reiss held up a finger to silence her and began reading.

  The author’s position he gathered at once, it being identical to not only his but that of several other popular works. The idea that disease played a pivotal role in history—in allowing Cortés to take Mexico, the English to overrun the North American continent—none of this was new to him.

  What was new—and quite interesting—were the less-credibly documented examples the author drew on from ancient times. Rumors of what really caused the downfall of Minoan civilization, where the Anasazi had actually gone…

  What had stopped Alexander the Great’s march east.

  It had put Reiss in mind of a story he’d heard as a child, a story that had made quite an impression on him at the time. Over the years, while he hadn’t forgotten that story, he had tended, more and more, to dismiss it as apocrypha. Now, as he sat there on the plane, greatly intrigued by the book’s discussion of ancient catastrophes, he wasn’t so sure.

  Over the last several months, Reiss had followed up on those discussions. Several promising lines of research had developed.

  And now, through a serendipitous series of events, he was very close to reaping the rewards of that research. A thousand pounds well spent, he thought—and he was also convinced now that there was no way MI6 could have a clue as to his current plan of attack. Not from Monza, not from anyone, in fact. All in all, a very satisfactory state of affairs.

  His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a soft chime, followed a second later by Ms. Kelly’s voice at his door.

  “Landing in five minutes, Doctor.”

  “Thank you,” Reiss called back.

  He stood up, flicking the lights on to full, and checked his appearance in the mirror. Straightened his tie, dabbed water on his temples—there.

  That was satisfactory, as well.

  Reiss’s chief of operations—Sean O’Sullivan—was waiting for him on the runway. Three bodyguards—Reiss had made more than his fair share of enemies over the years—waited with him.

  Suddenly, Reiss was not happy.

  There was supposed to be a fifth man.

  “Where is Chen Lo?” he asked.

  In response, Sean handed him a piece of paper. A faxed photograph, Reiss saw.

  The Orb.

  “And?” he asked Sean.

  “Chen Lo got the Orb, but M-I-Six is on to him.”

  Reiss was stunned. “How…?”

  He had just gone over this, in all possible permutations. There was no way for MI6 to have known about the Orb. Or Chen Lo.

  “He doesn’t know,” Sean said. “But rather than risk bringing the Orb here, he’s waiting.”

  Reiss shook his head. This was unacceptable.

  “I just told a cabin full of people about Pandora. That clock cannot be reset. Tell Chen Lo to bring the Orb at once.”

  “Are we sure that’s wise?” Sean asked. “Let me find out more from him—what M-I-Six knows, check my sources, as well…”

  “No,” Reiss interrupted. If he had to gather those five again, ask for more time to make good on his promise to them…he would never get the money he’d asked for. Besides, the Gulfstream was gone, taking off behind them even now. Not that he couldn’t have told them to turn around, but…

  No. He had set his plan in motion. He would see it completed.

  “Have Chen Lo bring the Orb,” Reiss repeated. “Now.”

  Sean nodded, and took out his satellite phone, dialing even as he walked toward a waiting car. Reiss followed, so preocuppied with the impossibility of MI6’s knowledge that he accidentally dragged the cuff of his trousers against the side of the car as he climbed in.

  Grease. That would stain.

  Reiss frow
ned.

  At that moment, he was not a happy man.

  Five

  The funeral was to be in Merovigli—a week from today. Lara had already rescheduled her entire calendar so that she could attend. A single ceremony, for all three men.

  She’d heard from Miss Stehlik this morning, the first time in years, asking for transport down to the island. Lara hadn’t been able to face calling her back yet, risk a conversation that would certainly turn very emotional. She couldn’t do emotional yet, not now. She had things to do. Revenge.

  Hillary thwacked her on the arm.

  “Pay attention,” he said.

  It was midmorning. They were in Lara’s study, at Croft Manor, drilling with kenzai staves—wooden sticks five feet long. Hillary was wearing a padded vest and trousers for his safety. Lara was in a long flowing skirt.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Hillary asked. “Doctor Johnston said the only reason you’re still alive is because you’re in such good shape.”

  “No comments about my shape, please.” Lara feinted to her left—Hillary went for it, and she thrust to the right, hard.

  He took the blow square in the gut.

  “Whoof,” he said, and stumbled backward.

  Lara pressed the attack.

  Hillary righted himself, looking a little green, and blocked her next thrust. He thwacked her again, hitting her left forearm. Right where she’d cut herself yesterday. The wound sang with fresh agony.

  Lara smiled.

  This was exactly what she needed: action. To be moving, to get her blood flowing again so that when she tracked down the men who’d killed the Petrakis—

  She thrust forward again, propelling Hillary back through the study door and into the library—

  She would be ready.

  Lara pushed through the library doors. Hillary stood in the middle of the room, holding his stave defensively, waiting for her.

  Bryce was sitting in the red leather chair, fussing with her digicam, his laptop open on the table next to him.

  “Bryce. What have you got?” Lara asked.

  He snorted in frustration. “Well. I haven’t even finished loading the images from your camera yet.”

  Lara pursed her lips in frustration. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  She stepped forward and smacked Hillary good.

  “Hey!” Hillary looked at Bryce, sensing the reason for Lara’s attack. “Thanks.”

  He glared at Lara, and raised his stave once more.

  They started drilling again.

  Lara had to give him credit—Hillary had been practicing. A few months back, when he’d first volunteered to help with her training, she’d thought the idea preposterous. Hillary’s performance during those first sessions hadn’t convinced her any differently.

  Now, though…he’d improved tremendously. Enough so that she had to give him her full attention. Well, ninety percent of her attention anyway.

  “Bryce,” she called out as Hillary danced around her. “What about references to an Orb? If we find out what it was, it might help us find who attacked me.”

  “Shite,” Bryce mumbled, hunched over in his chair. “Damn camera.”

  “I took the liberty of checking,” Hillary interrupted. “What historical inventories there are of the Luna Temple do not list any Orb.”

  Lara frowned.

  Hillary smacked her on the side—hard.

  She looked at him and raised an eyebow.

  He smiled back. “I believe I was fairly thorough in my examination.”

  “Fairly thorough won’t cut it,” Lara said, deciding to devote her full attention to him. She stepped forward, raising the stave in front of her.

  “I want both of you to make a list of every Orb mentioned in Greek history.”

  “Every one!?” That from Bryce, behind her.

  “Every one,” Lara repeated.

  “But,” Hillary began, feinting forward, “that’s—”

  Lara, seeing his weight remaining on his back foot, ignored the feint and stepped forward herself, through his defenses, and struck his stave hard.

  “Liable,” Hillary continued, fending off her assault. “To—”

  She whapped his right hip.

  “Be—” He stepped back, and she brought her stave forward again, then jabbed out.

  “Thousands!” he finished, stumbling backward to avoid the point of her stave.

  She changed the forward motion to an upward one, sending his stave flying out of his hands. Hillary continued to move away, till his back was pressed up against a wall of books and he could move no farther.

  “Then we’ll read thousands.” Lara drove her sharpened stave just past Hillary’s ear, into the spine of a volume whose title had caught her eye. Greek History by Biester and Conant.

  She pulled the book off the shelf with her spear, and flipped it to Hillary.

  “You can start with that one,” Lara said, lowering her stave. “I’ll be in my office, making a call.”

  On the way out of the library, she whapped Bryce across the back of the head.

  “Ow,” he said. “What was that for?”

  “Speed it up,” she told him. “You’ve got a lot of reading ahead of you.”

  Lara wasn’t able to make her call right away though. She had to wait almost an hour—time needed for the embassy not only to locate her party, but to set up a secure line. She had time to shower, change into her riding clothes, and sort through the day’s correspondence before her phone rang softly.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Lady Croft?” The voice was clipped and very upper-crust.

  “Yes.”

  “We have your call.” A moment’s silence, then a click over the line, and then—

  “Lara?”

  “Kosa. My God, it’s good to hear your voice.” Lara smiled, thinking of the man on the other end of the line, at the British Embassy in Nairobi. Kosa Maasai—one of the chieftains of that near-legendary African tribe, the Maasai. Tall, elegant, skin as black as night, and a sense of humor just as dark.

  “And yours,” Kosa said. “I’m so sorry about the Petrakis.”

  “Not as sorry as whoever did it is going to be. You received my fax?”

  “I did, yes.”

  Lara had woken early this morning, with the sudden knowledge of what it was that the petroglyphs in the Luna Temple had reminded her of. She’d had Bryce (who’d finally finished downloading the images from her digicam) print out the relevant shots, and faxed them off to the British Embassy, for Kosa’s attention.

  “I appreciate the look, Kosa. The drawings reminded me of work you showed me in Kenya.”

  “The Gloman exhibit? Yes, they are reminiscent. And I am happy to help.” He chuckled. “Any excuse to give your diplomats a scare.”

  She laughed, too—the first genuine laugh she’d had since what had happened in the temple. She could just picture Kosa, prowling the halls of the embassy, wearing traditional robes and headdress, the bureaucrats scurrying by him, trying not to look fearful, while keeping a respectful distance.

  “I’m looking at the fax now, Lara,” Kosa said. “Page three.”

  Lara picked up her copy, flipped to the third page. It was an image of the mosaic of Alexander’s journey across Asia—specifically, the scene that had puzzled her, the one of Alexander’s army, lying dead on the battlefield.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  There was silence for a moment. As Lara waited, she opened a drawer in her desk, and pulled out her hunting rifle. To call it hers was perhaps inaccurate, it was a family heirloom, an Enfield full-bore, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. Originally the property of Lord Winston Croft, her great-great-grandfather. Made an even more satisfying recoil than her Colts—when you fired the Enfield you knew whatever you shot was going down, and was staying down. Winston had used it to hunt boar—specially freighted in for the occasion on the grounds.

  Lara was planning on using it for a litt
le target practice of her own.

  “I’m looking at the glyphs beneath the drawing,” Kosa finally said. “The symbols are a primitive version of Ol Maa. They read: ‘with life comes death.’”

  “Ol Maa?” Lara thought for a second she’d misheard. “I’m sorry, did you say Ol Maa?”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes no sense.” Ol Maa was the Maasai language—scant wonder the drawings from the temple had reminded her of the ones Kosa had shown her in Kenya.

  But why were there Ol Maa inscriptions in a temple built by Alexander the Great? Yes, his triumphal march through Egypt had included a brief visit to the African continent, but history recorded no contact between Alexander and the Maasai, or any other African peoples. He had stopped there for all of three months, at most, and then headed eastward, never to return.

  “I can’t explain it, either,” Kosa replied. “I can only give you the translation. Now. Turn to the next page of the fax.”

  She did. It was an image taken while she was suspended high above the temple floor, trying to get at the Orb.

  “The figure on the floor is a shadow guardian. A mythical creature brought to earth to protect the treasures of the gods.”

  “This is from Maasai mythology?”

  “Maasai, Chagga, Hadzabe—all tribes in this part of the world have legends pertaining to the shadow guardians.”

  “What are they guardians of?” Lara asked, turning the Enfield in her hand while she did so. The barrel shone, and the stock had been recently oiled, as well—Hillary had obviously been taking care of it.

  “I don’t know. I’m sorry, that’s all I can tell you.”

  She sighed. “Well. It’s somewhere to start. Thank you, Kosa. Try not to scare anyone on the way out.”

  “I’ll do my best, Lara.”

  He hung up.

  Lara stood there a moment, phone in hand, frowning.