Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Lara knew that she could rely on him. She also knew that Calahane had disapproved of her father’s methods, his practices as an archaeologist. She already suspected that he’d take a very dim view of her quest for a cure for Sam, particularly if it involved something as mythical as the Golden Fleece.
    Late in the afternoon, Lara dressed for dinner and caught the Tube at her local station at Piccadilly Circus. She stepped further into the carriage when a man in his early twenties, wearing a baseball cap, came onboard, uncomfortably close behind her. She would have preferred to remain by the doors; it was only one quick stop to Oxford Circus where she’d have to change to the Victoria line. She looked around at the other passengers, as she always did. They were the usual collection of shoppers and tourists making their way around the city. She looked twice at a disheveled older man sitting in a corner seat, but he seemed to be asleep. He looked down on his luck, and the other passengers were giving him a wide berth. Lara glanced back at the man who had slipped through the doors behind her. He had pulled a magazine out of his pocket and was flicking through it, so perhaps he planned to stay on the train for several stops.
    You’re being paranoid, thought Lara. Get a grip.
    Four minutes later, Lara got off the train. She wondered whether she really was being paranoid when the man with the magazine got off too.
    She switched to the Victoria line for another one-stop ride to Warren Street. She stood as far back on the platform as she could, her back to the wall, and watched passengers coming onto the platform behind her. She held her phone at her hip, her thumb on the camera button. If he was there, she’d get a shot of him.
    As the air pressure in the tunnel changed with the arrival of the train, she spotted Magazine Man come onto the platform at the last moment, looking around. She snapped his photo. He was clearly looking for someone.
    As the passengers got on the train, Lara ducked out behind Magazine Man. She left, hidden among the last of the disembarking passengers. When she could no longer be seen from the platform, she stopped and waited, her back pressed against the wall just beyond the exit.
    If he got on the train, thinking she was already on it, she’d catch the next one. If he didn’t… Well, she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
    As Lara heard the train pulling out of the station, she walked the three steps back along the walkway, and darted a look along the platform. It was empty.
    She breathed a sigh of relief. Then, she walked briskly towards the exit and the tail end of the disembarking passengers. There was safety in numbers.
    Back among the crowds, Lara turned again at the first opportunity and made her way down to the platform with the next wave of passengers. She was on her guard, her phone in her hand, constantly on the lookout for anyone who might be tailing her.
    It hadn’t been her imagination. Magazine Man had definitely been following her. Hadn’t he? She was sure of it… almost sure. She remembered the panic she’d felt only a week before and her anxiety over Sam’s condition, and decided it was probably paranoia. Still, she couldn’t be too careful.
    Lara didn’t feel much more comfortable when she left the train at Warren Street.
    She knew Professor Cahalane’s hotel well; she’d visited it several times before. The Professor was world-renowned, and he was a regular lecturer at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. He always stayed at the Wesley.
    Lara didn’t walk her usual route.
    She had wasted several minutes dodging Magazine Man on the Tube, so she was likely to be late. A few more minutes wouldn’t make much difference.
    Lara normally walked along the Euston Road to the hotel. On this particular evening, she crossed it and walked north along Hampstead Road and then turned right to take the long route around Tolmer’s Square. At the junction with North Gower Street,