Crown of Utama Chapter 10
With the help of Ahmad and his SOF superiors, Alex and Lara were granted permission to leave Singapore. And not a moment too soon, Lara thought morosely. What was meant to be a routine excavation and a rare public appearance for the Countess ended up in her and Alex nearly being killed three to four times. Lara gazed out the window of her executive jet, a state-of-the-art Gulfstream V. The city lights glowed beautifully in the late evening. Now that there would be some peace and quiet for a change, Lara could piece everything together.
And if her suspicions were right, this was all about the unassuming crown in the pack she was cradling in her arms. "In the lap of luxury…this is more like it!" Alex smiled as he stretched his legs and reclined in the multi-position seat. He sipped chilled Moet et Chandon champagne from a flute, clearly enjoying himself. "Pity they don't have martinis up here," he sighed, reaching for the controls to the 42-inch plasma television mounted on the cabin wall. The theme from 2006's "Casino Royale" began to play in the background of the DVD menu page.
Sitting across from him, Lara pulled out her PDA and made a list of what she had gathered so far. After that, she made a call to Rose Well Shipping's head office in Bangkok. "Yes, Vesper Ryder from 'The Businesswoman' magazine. I'd like to schedule an interview with your CEO Ms Tan…is tomorrow available? My editor plans to put her on the cover of next month's issue… No, I will be coming with my photojournalist colleague Sean Dalton…we'll be at the Peninsula Hotel…thank you very much sir." Lara stowed the phone away. Alex turned to her.
"So pretending to be a journalist again?" Alex asked. That was Lara's alibi the very first time the two met in the Himalayas. Lara nodded, smiling slightly. "All business and no pleasure, Croft," Alex sighed in mock contempt.
"If you think that line is going to help you join the mile-high club, Alex, you're gravely mistaken." Lara replied, straight-faced.
"Who ever said anything about that?" Alex shrugged half-innocent.
A short while later, the wheels of the Gulfstream touched the tarmac at the new Suvarnabhumi International Airport. The architecture was modern and astounding, but Lara found the internal layout of the airport bare and nothing to shout about. Lara and Alex quickly cleared customs and immigrations and were out of the airport in no time, a privilege Lara's status afforded her. Once in the arrivals hall, Lara and Alex blended in with all the farang tourists, barely distinguishable. The City of Angels was, in fact, as hectic and noisy as any modern metropolis, no thanks to the humid air. The weather was similar to that in Singapore, only slightly heavier.
A limousine marked with the logo of the luxury Peninsula hotel pulled up outside the terminal, standing out like a sore thumb amongst the run-of-the-mill tuk-tuks and taxis that crowded the area, hoping to pick a tourist to a hotel in the city. The limousine driver stepped out. He was casually dressed, young and had slicked-back black hair. The placard he held bore Alex and Lara's aliases: MS VESPER RYDER AND MR SEAN DALTON. "Sounds like us," Alex smiled, casually walking towards the limousine. The equipment Ahmad had given her much earlier in the day was well-concealed in a hidden compartment in her backpack, along with the precious artifact.
The limousine cruised through dimly-lit streets, passing shabby apartments and modern office buildings squashed side-by-side. Telephone pylons and satellite towers were everywhere, as cluttered as the cityscape itself. Lara noticed a large building with a portrait of a bespectacled man wearing an open-necked yellow shirt – the Thai King – on the facade. Everyone wore yellow on Monday in honour of the King. The car then squeezed down a ramp, brushing past food stalls and shrubs in a dense, chaotic part of town. Traffic police tried desperately to maintain order, but the shrill shrieks of their whistles made the atmosphere worse.
The limousine turned a corner, leaving one side of the city and entering the rich, opulent district where the Peninsula Hotel was situated. It was as if they had stumbled through a looking glass. "Here we are," the driver announced in heavily accented English.
"Nice," Alex said, his eyes scanning the façade. It was tall and majestic, in many ways completely different yet very much the same as the Fullerton Hotel. As they drew up at the entrance, half a dozen men in immaculate white uniforms hurried forward to help. "Michael Jackson's backup dancers," Alex quipped, as Lara frowned. The man doesn't know the meaning of respect, she thought to herself. The chilly environment created by the air-conditioning added to the welcome. Alex and Lara crossed a wide marble floor towards the reception area, "Diamonds Are Forever" tinkling on the piano somewhere in the background. The smiling receptionist handed Lara and Alex two garlands, as she bowed in greeting. Lara bowed in return, and Alex followed suit.
The lift they entered was about the size of a room itself, and when they left the lift they were on the twenty-first floor. A few minutes later, Lara stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, taking in the vista spread before her. Alex was taking a bath in the luxury bathroom. The city was spread out on the other side of a wide river, its brown colouration slightly off-putting. Skyscrapers towered in the far distance, among them the main office of Rose Well Shipping International. Nearer by, there were hotels, Buddhist temples, well-preserved ancient palaces with perfect grassy lawns and – standing right by them – slum houses, shacks and long-forgotten warehouses in all manner of dilapidation. Lara sighed, wondering what this uncertain land would hold. She glanced over to the bedside table where she had placed the Crown of Utama. Earlier on, she had taken photographs of it from every imaginable angle, allowing Zip to create a 3D reconstruction of the object.
Whilst waiting for Alex to finish, Lara quickly set up shop. The internet connection was not exactly affordable, but that was of little concern to Lara. She hooked up the web-cam and waited for Zip to get online back at the manor. Zip's image flashed onscreen, as Alex emerged from the bathroom, a low-slung towel wrapped around his waist. "Hello Zip," Lara began. "Do you have the data?"
"As always, Lara," Zip replied. He tapped on the keyboard in front of him and the image on Lara's laptop monitor was replaced by a slowly rotating, high-resolution diagram of the Crown of Utama. "I've checked your reference material on Ancient Arabic and it seems the glyphs don't say anything too special. They just spell out his name, Sri Tri Buana."
Alister's voice was soon audible in the background. "Sri Tri Buana is Sang Nila Utama's birth name. The way I see it, this crown was the one that was finally able to satiate the water spirit."
"So, anyone who gets a hold of it can control the weather!" Alex said. "I was darn right all along."
"That is a tad far-fetched, Alex…even by my standards," Alister considered.
"But with all this business that's been happening so far, especially this shipping company, it may just be the truth…" Lara said.
On the other side of the river, atop a skyscraper hundreds of yards away, a black clad figure stood, looking though a powerful scope. He adjusted the focus until the image of Lara and Alex bent over the laptop was crystal clear. "See if you can get what they're viewing on that computer," a voice said through the headset he wore.
"chai," the man spying on them replied. He was hardly noticeable, a small silhouette dwarfed by the building which was his temporary base of operations. He flipped open a laptop and tapped on the keyboard, skillfully hacking into Lara's network. He was able to catch a brief glimpse of the crown diagram before Lara went offline.
"Yaawt," the voice in his ear chuckled. The man smiled. His boss was pleased, and he would be receiving a decent sum soon. As he packed up, he wondered why he had not been asked to kill the targets. He shrugged and disappeared down the roof access.