The boxing bag came swinging back and forth like a pendulum from Lara's kicks to the bag. The bag was well worn but held together from Lara's routine of kicks and punches. Lara felt sweat running down her forehead, she paused and wiped it off with her elbow. Lara the felt urge to continue, to push past her pain barrier. Her mobile rang breaking her focus, she threw her gloves off and grabbed her phone out of her shorts pocket. Breathing sharply, then slowly breathing out, she answered the phone.
"Hello, Lara speaking"
"Heya Lara, Jonah here, I didn't catch you at a bad time?"
Lara relaxed; it was only Jonah.
"Hey Jonah, not really just practicing some Muay Thai"
"Ha, awesome, going to keep up the rep's aye, you got a minute?
Lara picked up her towel and patted the sweat off.
"Yea definitely, what you need"
"Well, you know how we were tracking the remaining trinity cells."
Lara noticed Jonah hesitating.
"Have you found something out of place?"
A few moments of silence, Lara imagined Jonah mulling over what to say.
"Something odd, one of the remaining cells in Europe has put out a call for freelance mercs and trackers."
Lara dropped her towel into a washing basket and walked towards the gym door.
"Where are they finding the money for that, most of the main funding cells we've shut down."
More hesitancy from Jonah, Lara felt a well of emotions stirring in her, why was Jonah so worried about discussing this?
"Lara, we don't know for sure, the only lead we have is the signed Initials on the recruitment posts"
Yet more hesitation, Lara was getting impatience, she had done too much work undermining Trinity for them to bounce back now.
"Come on Jonah, what's the initials".
"Stop it Lara, this is working you up too much".
"Stop what, Jonah?"
The line when quiet for a moment, Lara didn't like getting angry at Jonah but her frustration was starting to get to her.
"Lara, I know how invested you've been in stopping trinity at every turn but you need to take a break".
Lara stepped away from the door, she didn't think she'd been pushing herself that hard, but for Jonah to say something.
"Sorry Jonah, thank you for caring about me, but I feel once I have found more out about this, I promise to take a break I can't stop just yet".
Jonah laughed lightly.
"Ok, I trust you, the initials are J.G.H. we have an informant from Europe sharing this information with us if you'd like to speak to her further about it".
Lara looked out the gym window towards the drive way going out of the Manor towards the road.
"Set up a dash call with her, text me when she's ready to be contacted".
"Ok, I'm on it".
"Thanks Jonah, for everything".
"Anything for you little bird".
Lara heard the warmth in his voice, at least Lara still had someone to trust.
Ending the call, Lara decides to go back and train some more. The process of training always sharpens the mind. Lara pulled her gloves on and started going around the bag. Trinity always had backdoors and fail safes it seems, supposedly been paranoid had its advantages. Lara imagined what mind state a person would have to be in to willingly chase that level of paranoia. Lara looked at her feet, she had stopped moving around the bag and how was just standing in front of the bag, this mystery with trinity was completely distracting her. Throwing her gloves down she headed for her office.
There had to a clue of some sort among all the intel she and her team had dug up about the trinity cells in Europe. Lara looked around her library, walls of collected knowledge from both herself and her father. Going behind the desk she reached into the chair cubby and pulled out rolled up maps of trinity cells and laid them all out on top of her desk, pushing aside empty cups and unfinished transcripts. The maps showed a complete picture of the trinity cells in Europe. Lara looked over the list of removed cells, everyone was either finished or under operation. Europe had been a stronghold of trinity and Lara made it a priority to clamp down on them immediately. Nothing was there to be worried about, why had this just come up now, what had she missed? Lara looked over everything again and still came to the same conclusion. All she could now was wait to see what Jonah had to say.
Finally accepting she had done everything she could in her library she when to her office to wait for the call. The minutes droned on and eventually became an hour. Still no call, Lara was now sitting her chair rocking side to side. Lara heard her computer ping, quickly she checked it and saw Jonah had set up a call with the Informant, who would be calling anytime soon. Lara takes a deep breath and waits. The Dash Call starts ringing, Lara answers. A young woman with a darker complexion and deep black hair tied up into a bun appears on the screen. She is no one Lara has had dealings with before.
"Hi, I'm not sure if we've met before, I'm Lara Croft and I head the trinity cleanup Operation in Europe."
The woman on the screen just smiled at Lara.
"No, we haven't' met before, you can call me Umbra."
Umbra was using a codename, also she had a thick African accent, Lara pondered why she chose to use a codename. Was she scarred of Trinity or her? Lara continued.
"I trust Jonah has spoken to you what Information we need?"
Lara watched as Umbra reached out of frame and pulled a notebook into frame, opening it and reading from it.
"There is new Trinity cell in Hamburg, Germany, this cell has been extremely quiet only now making a recruiting call for mercs."
Umbra stopped reading and looked up at Lara, looking intently to see her response. Lara was partly surprised at the news of a new cell, but she had guessed that there must have off-shoots of the main cells in Europe that had escaped their operations. Lara looked back at Umbra.
"Please continue."
Umbra checked her notes and resumed.
"All candidates that are accepted have to report to an Individual only known as J.G.H for a further vetting process."
This was the initials that Jonah had mentioned to Lara before, she needed to find out more information about this person.
"Umbra, have you met this J.G.H.?"
Umbra put her notebook back out of frame.
"No, I haven't, as far as I can tell he does background checks on everyone he meets and I don't think my cover is strong enough and quite frankly I don't want to get that involved further with your group Miss Croft. "
Lara nods, she'll have to investigate this J.G.H. herself, possibly she could find more out by interrogating one of the candidates that is accepted and pasts J.G.H. vetting tests.
"Thank you for this information, Umbra, I wonder if it would be possible to have you send me a list of candidates that applied?"
Umbra nodded and looked around her for something, finding it she looked at Lara.
"This will be the last thing I do for you, Miss Croft."
Lara nodded and checked her messages and saw Umbra had send the list to her.
"Truly thank you Umbra, till next time."
Umbra smiled at Lara and then ended the call. Wasting no time Lara sends the list to her phone and starts ringing Jonah on her phone as she gets up and goes to her bedroom down the hall. Jonah answers the call and Lara begins relaying everything Umbra just told her to Jonah. Finally, Lara asked Jonah to book her a flight to Hamburg, Germany. Lara gets into her bedroom hanging up the call with Jonah and begins packing her bags.