The Cradle of Life (18 page)

Reiss spun in his seat and scanned the square.

Which made him the first to see the dragon.

He had a second of total disconnect, when his mind was simply unable to process the information his eyes were presenting to it. There was a dragon—a purely mythological creature, for goodness sake, nothing like it had ever existed on the planet—rushing out of the sky toward them.

It was, Reiss saw, even spitting fire.

For a second he thought he was dreaming.

Then one of the windows next to him shattered and Reiss realized that the sparks of fire were gunshots. He took a second look at the dragon and saw that it was simply a metal sign, sliding toward them along a cable that traversed the square, and that there was a person riding that sign, firing at them, and that person was—

Lara Croft.

Another window panel shattered. Reiss hit the floor. The imager landed next to him—Reiss saw red dots moving every which way on the screen.

All hell was breaking loose.

“Get us out of here!” he yelled to the pilot, and the copter rose into the sky.

 

Lara ducked just in time.

As the dragon shot past the rising copter, the main rotors chopped off its head, sending a shower of sparks everywhere. The copter wobbled and lurched right. It took out part of a balcony.

The man on the skid jumped to the ground. Lara fired at him and missed. She looked for Xien and the Orb, but they'd already vanished from sight.

All around her, guns were blazing. She returned fire as best she could, vaguely aware of Terry running parallel to her, along the rooftops to her right, providing some degree of covering fire without which she would have been long dead.

But at least she'd managed to prevent the exchange.

So far.

 

Reiss had to wait several long rings for an answer. In the interim, he imagined worst-case scenarios: Croft had the Orb. The Orb had been destroyed. Xien had been killed, the Orb was somewhere on the ground below.

He forced himself to remain calm.

There was a click on the line.

“Yes?”

“Xien. You have it?”

“Yes, I still have it.”

“Good,” Reiss said. The copter was making long, slow circles of the square—right now, the helipad was directly beneath them. He was about to have Xien rendezvous with them there when his eyes fell on the flower pagoda itself. Set off by itself in the middle of the square. Impossible to reach without being spotted, no wires running near it, the steep pitch of its long, sloping tile roof…

“All right,” the doctor told Xien. “We tried it your way. Now listen carefully.”

 

Lara had come to the end of the line.

She and her dragon sign had reached the far side of the square and the end of the cable they'd been riding, which was fastened to an uncomfortably solid-looking brick building directly in front of them. Time to get off.

Lara saw only one option: ten feet to the right of the cable tether, there was another large sign. A white rectangle with black lettering, fastened lengthwise to the building. It looked solid enough.

Not like she had much choice anyway.

Lara gathered herself and jumped. She landed on the top of the sign just as the dragon slammed into the building.

The impact was tremendous—dust and pieces of brick, glass from the sign's shattered neon bulbs rained down on her. The building shook.

Metal groaned beneath her. Lara glanced down to see a rickety-looking fire escape slowly detach itself from the building and topple to the ground.

The bolts holding her sign began to pull free, as well.

The top one went first: Lara slid down the sign as the next one gave, and then the next, her weight pulling out each successive bolt.

Lara was lucky: the last bolt held. The sign toppled toward the ground, falling over like a ladder. She walked down it to the ground below, shaking her head in wonder as she went.

Safe at last.

Windows shattered in the pagoda across from her. Gun barrels poked out and began firing at her.

A Mercedes screeched across the square in her direction. More gunfire.

Lara ran.

 

Reiss's phone rang. It was Sean, wanting to know what had happened to the money. Wanting instructions.

“Don't worry about the money,” the doctor told him. “Don't worry about the Orb. I'll handle that end of things. Your job is to handle Croft.”

Sean asked for clarification.

“Kill her,” Reiss explained. “Slowly. Painfully.”

The doctor hung up and directed the pilot forward, toward their new rendezvous point.

 

Terry reached the ground and paused a moment, listening.

No chopper. Isolated gunfire and the sound of men running.

He risked a quick peek out the building's front door.

Shay Ling were falling back toward the flower pagoda. Reiss's men were moving across the square, toward another building. Some of Xien's people, he saw, were headed down an alley, moving parallel to them.

They were chasing Croft, he decided. Probably thought they had her cornered.

The idea was laughable.

But he decided to go help anyway, on the off-chance it was true.

He reloaded his guns and stepped out the door. Hugged the front of the building, hiding in the shadows until the facade ended and the empty street loomed in front of him.

As he prepared to dart across, one of the Shay Ling—a straggler, apparently—hurried by. Terry walked quickly up behind the man and snapped his neck.

Then he continued on his way.

A Mercedes blocked the entrance to the next alley over—two men stood on either side of the car, talking to each other in hushed tones.

Terry shot each with a single bullet.

Three bodies later, he turned a corner and saw Croft hiding underneath a sign that advertised the best hot and sour soup in Shanghai. She was watching Reiss's men and the Shay Ling surround the building she was supposed to be in.

Terry approached from behind and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I heard you two streets over,” she said without turning. “You move like an elephant.”

Terry was preparing an insult of his own when a low, rumbling noise from above made him look up.

Reiss's helicopter was descending toward the square again.

“They're going to try it again. Where this time, you think? The helipad?”

Lara shook her head and pointed.

Xien had just emerged from his truck and was now crossing the square, carrying the Orb case. Heading for the flower pagoda.

Terry frowned.

“The pagoda?”

Lara nodded. “The top. That's where they'll make the exchange.”

She was right. Even now Reiss's men were pulling back toward the pagoda, as well. Surrounding it.

Terry scanned the square and realized that there wasn't a building within fifty feet of the pagoda that they could use for cover.

“How in the hell are we going to stop them this time?” he muttered.

Croft shook her head. “See any more dragon signs?”

“Ha.” He kept scanning the square and the buildings around it. There was the fish market, there was the structure Croft and her sign had wrecked, and next to it, the building with the helipad, which would have been much easier for them to attack, sandwiched as it was between two equally tall structures. Good choice on Reiss's part to opt for the pagoda—even though Croft had disrupted their previous exchange, the incident in the square proved there was no need to actually land the copter, given the absence of any meaningful wind shears in the area. The windsock atop the helipad lay limp and still, fastened to the end of a long pole, which towered at least fifty feet above everything else in the square.

Fifty feet, Terry thought, and all of a sudden he had an idea. Crazy idea, but it just might work.

He turned to Croft, and by God if she wasn't looking up at the windsock herself. She turned to him and smiled.

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” she asked.

There was no direct route up to the helipad. So they had to improvise.

Under pressure, at times, because halfway up the side of the building a handful of Reiss's men caught sight of them and began shooting. Lara and Terry returned fire as best they could, all the while using whatever handholds they could find—signs, fire escapes, ridiculous midair jumps worthy of a trapeze act—to keep climbing up.

Finally, they reached the floor just below the helipad. The lip of the roof stuck out a good three feet from the face of the building. Lara was preparing to jump for it when she heard Terry curse under his breath.

She looked down and saw Shay Ling and Reiss's men pouring out of the pagoda en masse.

“Go,” Terry said, and Lara leapt.

Gunfire raked the side of the building where she'd been.

Her hands caught the edge of the roof and she used her momentum to swing herself up and over and onto the helipad.

Lara ran for the windsock. The gunfire behind her continued, though she was no longer in range. Terry, still providing a target for their attackers. Awfully sporting of him—she'd have to thank him later. In the meantime…

She surveyed the helipad as she ran. The facility was in an obvious state of disrepair—and just as obviously, someone had made very recent attempts to bring it back up to snuff. A coat of fresh paint on the tarmac, a new array of lights fastened to the far edge of the roof. Very,
very
recent attempts, she realized, spotting some supplies stacked underneath a plastic tarp right by the light array. An old furniture dolly lay turned upside down atop the tarp, placed there to keep it from blowing away.

She'd bet good money that the work had been done on Reiss's behalf, in advance of a planned landing here tonight. Well—for whatever reason the doctor had changed his plans. Not once, but twice. Now the exchange was set for the pagoda and that was where she needed to be.

Which was when she heard the roar of the helicopter and looked up to see it descending toward the square.

Reiss was going to make the exchange now.

Time was up. She had to move.

 

Xien had done as he was told without a word of complaint or even suggestion, which at this point in the evening Reiss was thankful for. Not that the man had much choice in the matter—Reiss's operatives on the ground outnumbered the Shay Ling by more than three to one. On top of which, Sean had already given Xien the suitcase containing payment for the Orb.

But still…

Reiss appreciated a smooth transaction.

He intended to make his appreciation known to Xien shortly, but for the moment, the doctor was focused on completing the exchange—and making sure that Croft did not interrupt him this time.

He punched up Sean's number on his cell.

“O'Sullivan.”

“Where is she?”

“The helipad. We have her and Sheridan pinned down on the top floor.”

Reiss glanced across the square at the tall building, and frowned.

“I see movement on the roof, as well.”

“Understood,” Sean said. “We will redeploy.”

“See that you do—and don't forget your previous instructions. Once I have the Orb—” Reiss glanced down, and saw Xien waiting on the roof of the pagoda “—I will be taking it directly back to Hong Kong. Follow me when—and only when—your task is completed.”

Without waiting for a reply, Reiss hung up.

“Take us down,” he told the pilot.

 

Lara ran for the pole with the windsock. She looked down: the anchors holding it to the roof were rusted almost clean through. One good push and that pole would fall.

She looked up, judged its height and the distance to the pagoda, and then frowned.

Not quite long enough. The little brainstorm Terry and she had shared—repeating her accidental stunt with the sign from before, when it had fallen and made a ladder for her to climb down the side of the building—wasn't going to work.

Time for Plan B. Only problem was, she didn't have a Plan B.

She watched the copter descend and realized she was not going to be able to stop Reiss. He was going to get the Orb—there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

On the plus side, she still had the medallion. If her instincts were right, and that was the key, Reiss would need it to read the Orb. Making the exchange would bring him no closer to Pandora.

If her instincts were right.

If the key wasn't on the parts of the Orb that she hadn't been able to photograph.

If Reiss wasn't able to find some other way to read it.

Hell
, Lara thought.

Plan B it was.

Her mind raced. The pole. The dolly. One of the nifty little gadgets Shumei had given her.

She put the pieces together in her head as she ran.

 

The copter slowed its descent, leveling off a few feet above the roof of the pagoda. Xien stood there, holding out the Orb in its case.

Reiss slid open the copter door and leaned out to take it from him.

Down in the square, someone began setting off firecrackers.

As he took hold of the case, the doctor paused to look down. Odd. He didn't see anyone but his men. Most of them, as Sean had said, were gathered around the building with the helipad atop it.

They were all pointing up at something.

The copter, Reiss thought at first, but then he turned and saw what had drawn their attention.

The pole atop the helipad was falling right toward them.

And riding atop it, guns blazing, was Croft.

 

All of a sudden, Reiss's men stopped firing.

Terry wondered what had happened, but while he was wondering, he ran. No sense in looking a gift horse in the mouth, not in his situation. Which up until a split second ago had seemed quite bleak.

After Croft had leapt for the roof, he'd made a leap of his own—a jump back inside the building, into an office of some kind. He had no chance to look around, however, because hot on his tail came several hundred rounds of ammunition. He took refuge behind a metal desk, but the gunfire continued so hot and heavy that the walls themselves began to cave in around him. So he'd made a break for a window clear on the other side of the room, climbing out onto a balcony on the back of the building and what he thought was safety. For about two seconds—until the strafing started again, even heavier than before. He'd managed to slide down a fire escape ladder to the building next door, getting himself another momentary respite, and was just about to make another move when the gunfire had stopped.

Puzzled, Terry looked out the window. Reiss's men were still down there, all right, only they were all looking back toward the building he'd just come from. Toward the helipad.

Terry looked up and saw the pole with the windsock falling and smiled. Croft was heading for the pagoda. She'd need help when she got there.

Holstering his guns, he'd headed for the street.

 

The dolly she'd used for a skateboard.

The pole like a ski jump.

And the little gadget Shumei had given her…

Well, what were little gadgets for, after all?

Lara had grabbed the dolly from off the tarp and jumped on it with both feet, running full out. She built up speed with a circuit around the building's outer ledge, then jumped the board smack into the pole. The anchor bolts popped right away and the pole began falling. She rode it as best she could, sliding down the smooth steel surface toward the pagoda.

She fired as she went, but her aim was way off, distracted as she was by trying to maintain her balance. The gunfire caught Reiss's attention though—she was close enough to see him turn away from Xien and fasten his gaze on her. It was the best look she'd had at him yet, and the expression on his face was priceless. Equal parts disbelief and anger—or was that annoyance? Lara fixed the image in her mind—she looked forward to savoring it in the days to come.

For right now, it was the Orb she was interested in.

 

Good God, was there no stopping her? Was he surrounded by idiots and incompetents? Was he going to have to kill Lara Croft himself?

The answer to all three questions, unfortunately, appeared to be yes.

The case with the Orb was at his feet, just inside the copter door. Keeping one foot in front of it to prevent it from falling, Reiss reached back into the copter for his gun. Bullets pinged off the copter skids and he looked up just in time to see Croft flying toward him. Actually flying. The sight so unnerved him for a moment that he forgot to bring his weapon to bear.

Then he saw that her flight was actually a free fall, and that the pole she'd used to vault across to him was tumbling away behind her toward the ground below.

Croft was about to join it when she reached out and grabbed the bottom of the helicopter skid. I've got her now, Reiss thought, and raised his gun to fire.

She raised hers first and fired, and he had to duck away.

When he looked back, she was hanging from the copter door, with a hand on the case holding the Orb.

Reiss pulled the trigger. Behind Croft, he saw Xien's gun spit fire, as well.

She flinched—Reiss couldn't tell if she'd been hit or not—and fell.

He leaned out the copter door and watched her hit the pagoda roof and slide down the slick tile surface toward the edge.

Reiss pulled the Orb the rest of the way into the copter.

“This has been a messy business, doctor,” Xien said. “I'm glad it's over.”

“The mess has just begun, I'm afraid,” Reiss said. “My regards to your brother.”

Xien's eyes narrowed in confusion.

Reiss shot him in the heart.

Xien toppled backward onto the roof and plunged toward the street below.

Reiss, watching him fall, smiled for the first time in what seemed like days.

Then he saw Croft, hanging onto the edge of the roof, dangling over the alley, and his face fell.

“Up!” he yelled to the pilot. “Up!”

 

She couldn't hold on for more than another few seconds, Lara realized. Her grip was slipping on the slick tile surface already.

The trick was going to be deciding where to fall.

Unfortunately, the pagoda's isolation didn't work to her advantage in this instance, either. The paved surface of the market square looked like her only option, unless you counted Xien's truck, which had a nice soft canvas roof, but was parked a good twenty feet away from the pagoda. That roof might be reachable if she could get up some momentum and do a flip, but if she failed—

A body slid just past her right then and plummeted to the street below, smashing into the decapitated head of her dragon sign with a loud crack that made her wince.

It was Xien. Correction—it had been Xien.

Happy as she was to see him dead, the killing sent her dislike for Reiss shooting up another notch. And sent an extra jolt of adrenaline through her body.

She took a second look at the truck and decided it was within reach after all.

Lara swung her legs back and then lunged forward, kicking out with all her might. At the height of her swing forward, she let go of the roof and soared out into space.

Her legs continued their backward motion, swinging out over her head.

She completed the flip, landing feet first atop the canvas, and immediately jumped down to the ground.

Reiss's men had seen her and were on the move again.

She took a step forward and then froze.

Someone was inside the truck.

She drew her gun and ripped the back flap open.

Terry hopped out and handed her another gun.

“Fresh clip,” he said. “And how are you?”

Before she could answer, gunfire ripped through the canvas. They both dove to the ground.

“We've got to get out of here,” Terry whispered. “They've got cars blocking all the alleys.”

Lara pressed her back up against one of the huge rear wheels. Terry was right—if they didn't break through the cordon Reiss's men had set up, that cordon would tighten, and despite the faith she had in her abilities and his, they were outnumbered thirty to one. They would be killed and she wouldn't get to use Shumei's little gadget.

She leaned out from behind the tire and scanned the square, looking for a way out. Terry was snaking his way along the ground to join her.

“Bull,” she said when he got there.

He misunderstood her. “What do you mean, bull? Look for yourself—every street is covered—”

“No,” Lara interrupted. “Bull!”

She pointed across the square.