Chapter 1 - Old Friends

Ok, I know this is wrong if you've read the book, if you have then just pretend for a few minutes.

India, 1993.

Lara Croft crouched down in the dirt and aimed upwards to get the perfect shot. She squeezed down gently with her finger. "Lara Croft?" She spun around at the sound of the familiar British accent. The owner of the voice had grey hair and a tanned, weather beaten face. "Mr Palmer!" she exclaimed, recognising the man as a colleague of her father's who she hadn't seen since his funeral eight years ago. Lara dropped the bulky camera she had been using to photograph an intricate temple and it fell heavily to her chest on the leather strap around her neck. "This is a remote spot to pick for a holiday destination" the man said, after kissing her on the cheek and insisting that she call him Robert now. They were in Dehra Dun, a city in Northern India home to the beautiful Muslim Temple before them. Lara laughed. "Oh, I'm not on holiday. I'm writing a travel book," she told him. "I take it you're not here to relax either?" "No, no. We've discovered what we think is the ruins of an ancient monastery a few miles from here. Some of the old structures seem to remain underground, but we haven't found a way in yet." "A Buddhist monastery?" Lara asked in surprise, "I thought all the ancient ones were in Tibet." "Yes, that's why we're so interested." "How fascinating," Lara said as they began to walk together towards the main part of town. "I would very much like to see it, and photograph it for my book if I may." "Of course you may, I'm going back there now if you want to catch a ride. I can even find you a place to sleep if you want to hang around until we get inside, it should be soon." Lara thought for a moment "thank you, that sounds wonderful," she said, instantly abandoning her plans to travel into Nepal the next day. After checking out of her hotel, Robert led Lara through the crowded streets to a battered looking jeep that seemed to be lacking more than just the roof. The archeologist laughed at the obvious distaste with which she regarded it. "It gets you there" he said, wrenching a door open for her. "Most of the time". Lara raised a brow and got in.

The site of the monastery proved to be more than a few miles out into the wilderness of Northern India. "I heard about the plane crash in February" Robert said as they thrashed through the undergrowth "I was astounded that you survived such a horrific ordeal." Lara shrugged. "Well it certainly changed a few of my priorities," she told him. The older man looked across at her. "Hence the travel journalism?" "Yes, I suppose. I couldn't bear the stuffy atmosphere, all those relatives trying to tell me what to do." Robert nodded, and they drove on in silence for a while. "Your father would be proud of you" he said eventually "he could never bear that either". Lara smiled at this, fingering the camera in her lap. Lara's father had died when she was thirteen, her mother when she was just three years old and for the last eight years she had been to a succession of boarding schools and most recently finishing school in Switzerland which she hated. After surviving a plane crash in the Himalayas, trekking for two weeks to reach civilization she had decided not to go back to the school, having recently come into her inheritance on turning twenty one. For the last six months she had been travelling the globe, getting material for her first book. Lara's father had been the centre of her universe, and to think that she was finally doing something that would have made him proud made her glow inside.

After an hour of driving they finally came out into a large clearing of dusty ground and pulled up by a large cordoned off area. One corner was covered by a white canvas structure which kept the sun off a group of people working on a section of ruined wall. Off to one side Lara could see a some tents pitched in a rough circle to form a camp. "Well this is it," Robert said, sweeping his hand over the area. "It's not much now, but when we find an entrance." he stopped as a young man stepped up to greet them, brushing dirt off his clothes. "Ah, West. Any luck yet?" the older man asked him. The reply was a shake of the head and Robert tutted with disappointment. "I'd like you to meet Lara Croft, her father was a good friend and colleague of mine." He turned back to Lara and gestured at the young man, "this is Alex West, he's helping me with the dig here." Lara shook hands politely, and made no attempt to wipe off the dirt he had transferred to her hand. The man appeared to be in his mid to late twenties, a few years older than her. Through the dirt smeared across his face she could see that he was rather handsome, and she guessed that the messy hair which hung over his eyes was supposed to be dark blond. He wore khaki trousers and a shirt rolled up to the elbows and unbuttoned to reveal a tantalising glimpse of his tanned and muscular chest, currently lightly beaded with sweat. "Croft." he mused. "Would your father by any chance have been Lord Henshingly Croft?" he asked in a distinctive American accent. Lara nodded in response. "It's a pleasure to meet you then, I'm a great admirer of his work." "So you're an archeologist?" Lara asked, fiddling with the end of her braid. Robert let out a laugh and Lara noticed Alex glare at him in annoyance. "He's a tomb raider," her friend said. Alex sighed and folded his arms across his chest. Lara cocked her head to one side and regarded him with interest. "What's a tomb raider?" she asked curiously. "I go into ancient sites, tombs mostly, to find artifacts." "How is that different to being an archeologist?" Lara asked in amusement. "Less digging, more breaking in," Robert explained and Lara smiled carefully, aware that Alex did not seem pleased with the description. "I seem to be doing a lot of digging at the moment," he muttered with barely concealed annoyance at the other man. "Well why don't you take a break and show Lady Croft around the site," his boss suggested peaceably. "She wants to get some snaps for a book," he said over his shoulder as he strode off to talk to the group of workers.