Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals by Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent Page B

the balcony. As she lowered her body so that she was hanging from the balustrade, she heard tapping on the bathroom door.
    “Now or never, Lara,” she said, and dropped.
    The window was on the side of the building, on a quiet cross street marked Rue Balzac, with mopeds parked below. The drop was sudden and frightening, but there were no obstacles between Lara and the pavement. She landed, keeping her knees soft, and fell forward, hard, onto her outstretched hands. She looked from left to right, but she had not been seen. She got to her feet, gingerly, testing her knees and dusting off her hands. Her ankle was sore, but she didn’t think she’d done any real damage. She straightened her jacket, took one long breath, and walked away from the Champs-Élysées.
    Ponytail knocked on the bathroom door. The retching had stopped, and the toilet hadn’t been flushed for a minute, but the water was still running.
    “What’s taking so long?” asked Crewcut, coming up behind her.
    “She was vomiting,” said Ponytail.
    Crewcut listened at the door.
    “Not anymore,” he said. He tried the handle, but the door was locked. “Shit.”
    Crewcut shouldered the door open.
    “Shit!” he said again as he saw the open window. “Get after her.”
    Ponytail sidled through the window and vaulted the balustrade in a handspring, landing on her feet, knees bent, on the pavement below. She looked left and right, but saw nothing. Lara had gone.
    “No sighting of subject,” she said. “Proceeding onto the Champs-Élysées.”
    Back in the building, Crewcut had taken the stairs to ground level, speaking all the way.
    “Ares wants Croft followed,” he said. “Lydia, stay where you are. Darius, start the car. If she’s on foot on the Champs-Élysées, stay with her. I’ll have coordinates in ten seconds.”
    Hydarnes entered a room on the right of the imposing entrance hall on the ground floor of the building.
    “Give me the tracker coordinates, now,” he said to a young tech sitting at a computer. “And punch up a display.”
    “Of course, Hydarnes,” said the woman, keying in a code and then getting up from her seat.
    Hydarnes sat. He relayed the coordinates, and looked at the screen.
    “Good work getting a tracker in Croft’s bag. No one thought we’d need it.”
    “Thank you, Hydarnes,” said the tech.
    “Lydia, do you see her? She’s heading along Rue Balzac towards Rue Lord Byron.”
    “Negative, Hydarnes,” said Lydia, but she jogged up the street towards the intersection, checking as she went. She saw no one.
    “Darius, drive northwest on the Champs-Élysées and join Rue Lord Byron at the intersection with Houssaye. Get in front of Croft.”
    The blip on Hydarnes’s screen moved, and he turned to the tech.
    “Where is she?” he asked.
    “She’s not taking the streets,” said the tech. “She’s in one of the buildings. There.” She leaned in and hit a key. “I don’t know.”
    “Best guess?” asked Hydarnes.
    “Cinéma Le Balzac,” said the tech.
    “She’s inside, Lydia,” said Hydarnes. “Cinéma Le Balzac.”
    Lara was surprised to be greeted in the lobby of the cinema by a dapper man in late middle age.
    “Pardon, monsieur,” she began. She held up her hands to show the grazes she’d suffered when she landed, falling from the balcony.
    “Dear mademoiselle,” he said. He placed a solicitous hand on Lara’s back and steered her towards the ladies’ bathroom.
    Not again, thought Lara. She was grateful nonetheless. In the bathroom, she took off her jacket and swapped it for a sweater from her rucksack. She also bundled up her hair and pulled a baseball cap over it. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but if they were looking for her, it might confuse them long enough for her to get away. She gave her hands a cursory wash. They stung, but other things were more important. She couldn’t believe her luck when she saw that the ladies’ loo had its own fire exit. She closed it behind her as she