Prologue
Lara Croft lit her thirtieth cigarette of the day and peered through the sight of her sniper rifle at the rotund figure of Luigi Russi, big-time mafiosi and her latest contract. Smoke curled in front of the sight as the unwitting gangster gorged himself on a pork roast. With the practised motion of a born killer she squeezed the trigger, sighing gently as red fountained from his broken skull and he slumped into the greasy remains of his lunch. Then she dismantled and packed away the gun, donned her dark glasses and long black trenchcoat, the thick material doing its best to hide the impressive swell of her bosom, and left the grotty apartment she had rented for the night.
A bus took her out of town, and through the dust-laden window skyscrapers gave way to ramshackle buildings, and then the rich Italian countryside, bathed in the last rays of the evening sun. Any charm the scene might have held was lost to Lara as she slumped in her seat, her gun-bag between her legs. She took out her phone, and dialled one of two numbers she had memorised to indicate that her mission was successful. The kill would be verified, and the next day several million Euros would be transferred into one of her international accounts. Not that she needed the money; the sale of Lord Henshingley Croft's estate had left her rich, very rich, for life.
No, she killed because she had always killed, because she was born to do so. Animals, men and monsters, creatures everyone thought were extinct (and, thanks to her, might well be) and some which she thought had never existed. But that was in her tomb raiding days, when the killing was part and parcel of a great adventure, when excitement and drama fuelled her spirit and drove her on, when risking her life actually felt like there was something at risk, and something worth surviving for. When Russi died she had felt nothing, just as she'd expected. Selling her father's house might have been the last time she really felt something, as she let go of the last grandiose symbol of her pampered childhood, but she was never there anyway, and the servants and maintenance had been a needless drain on her resources.
Now she lived in a series of plush but soulless hotels where available, camping out when her contracts took her to more remote locations. Tonight her lodgings would be a luxurious mountain cabin high at the Pila ski resort. The bus had been climbing for some time, and now a thick white blanket of purest snow stretched out to carpet the vast, heavens-splitting peaks of the surrounding Alps.
Suddenly the bus screeched to a halt, and there was a commotion from the passengers at the front. Lara's instincts told her something was wrong, and she quickly unzipped her bag, slipping twin magnums beneath her coat before creeping forward along the aisle, keeping low. The driver had left his seat, and was now opening the bus door, before stepping back with his arms raised in surrender. A man with cropped black hair and wild eyes boarded, his hands clutching a nasty looking sub-machine gun while he scanned the seats of passengers.
"Nobody has to get killed," he said clearly in slightly broken English. "I am looking only for Miss Lara --"
He never finished his sentence as two slugs from the magnums ripped his throat apart and he collapsed, blood fountaining across the aisle and spattering on the horrified passengers' shoes. Lara jumped over the slumping corpse, her next burst of fire shattering the large front windscreen and biting into the chest of another gunner. A third man returned fire and she quickly leapt sideways through the bus door, shooting in mid-air to take out the shooter before landing neatly in the snow. His bullet found the shoulder of the bus driver, who had lacked the good sense to duck when the carnage began. A fourth man had been frantically starting the car that the thugs had shown up in, and was just pulling away when he heard and felt three of his tires shot out in quick succession. The car skidded and slipped on the snow-laden road as Lara continued to put bullets into it, and finally the engine caught on fire. Its driver bailed out and began to run, but she was on him, kicking him to the ground and putting him in a headlock.
"One good reason why I shouldn't just snap your neck where you lie," snarled Lara.
"Please, miss! I am just a driver, I know nothing of what these men want! Please do not kill me!" The man began to cry as he begged pitifully.
"Wrong answer," said Lara, and pushed his head sharply into the ice, the man screaming as his nose shattered before passing out.
The bus pulled away and continued up the hill. Lara made no move to stop it; she could hardly blame the driver for leaving her behind. The car exploded, and she ducked, shielded her eyes from the blast. Then she searched the bodies. The one who had managed to shoot at her had a grainy black and white photograph of her face, and on the back was scribbled the name "Tomas Kreffner" and an address in Dusseldorf.
"Interesting," muttered Lara to herself. She put a bullet in the back of the wounded driver's head, and began the long walk downhill. "Looks like I might be paying Herr Kreffner a little visit."