IN THE TIME WE HAVE, Chapter 9

Elsie recognized the escarpment up ahead - they'd followed its base shortly after setting out five days previously. The road where she'd parked the car would soon come within view.

The blonde was now seriously dreading the end of their hike; for one, it meant that Lara would undoubtedly be heavily engaged in all things archaeological in order to document their historic find in the little time remaining to her.

Okay, it had been a cool find, admitted the American grudgingly, if a rather terrifying one. They'd be rewriting history, after all. She found herself wondering how the scholarly types might explain the moving entrance stone, never mind the chamber's skeletal guardian.

So much for taking Lara's mind off things, mused Elsie sadly.

But all was overshadowed by the knowledge that she'd soon be bidding farewell to her friend. A farewell that she feared could well be permanent.

She kicked a rock dismally.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Hey," said Lara softly. "Don't be so down…"

The blonde stopped and cocked her head at her friend. "Am I that obvious?"

"A little, yes," answered the brunette. "Please don't think we'll never see each other again, okay?"

Elsie smiled sadly. "Lara…you and I both know this was an aberration," she countered. "You taking a holiday, there'll probably be people living on Mars by the time you take another – "

"Only if you never invite me," said Lara, smiling.

Elsie blinked. "But…I thought…really?"

The brunette drew close. "I can't tell you when, Elsie," she said. "But I promise you I'll be back one day." She wrapped her arms around the blonde's waist. "I know what I have here…"

Elsie felt a surge of energy course through her, tickling the back of her neck. Dare she hope?

"But…Sam…"

"It doesn't change anything," clarified Lara. "I love her, Elsie, and I always will. Sam might be a bit…possessive sometimes, but I think she'll understand this…"

"You'll tell her, then?"

"Yes," said Lara. Her expression turned contemplative. "But…I think she already suspected…"

Elsie's breath caught in her throat. "Wha—what?"

Lara shrugged. "Something she mentioned when she first suggested I holiday with you."

"That was…her idea?" asked the American incredulously. "But I don't understand, if she thought I…"

Lara tightened her hold around the blonde's waist. "When I got home from Maine last year she told me she felt she had her 'old Lara' back," said the brunette. "At least for a time, anyway."

She smiled at the American. "She said you were good for me."

"Really?" breathed the blonde, her heart surging.

Lara nodded slowly. "I think we're good."

"Gotta love that Sam," said Elsie, wrapping her arms around the brunette's neck and shoulders. She slowly nuzzled her way up the slender column of the Englishwoman's throat, planting delicate kisses as she went.

The brunette purred, raising her face skyward as she closed her eyes, the blonde's gentle pecks following the underside of Lara's jawline.

"So beautiful," cooed Elsie, slowly moving her kisses up Lara's cheek, pausing on the fresh gash extending along her friend's cheekbone. She gently licked along the tear in the skin, the faint sweet-salty taste of blood permeating her mouth.

Her friend was delicious.

She increased the pressure and pointed her tongue, the tip pushing into the broken skin and widening the tear –

"Ow!" exclaimed Lara, abruptly pulling back and staring at the blonde in shock as she pressed her hand against the now painful and freshly bleeding gash. "Bloody hell, Elsie!"

The two stared at each other in silence for several moments, the brunette's shocked expression slowly transforming into one of bemusement.

"You little vamp...!"

Elsie smiled sheepishly. "You taste so good, Lara," she whispered, drawing closer. "Here, let me show you…"

She pressed her lips to the brunette's.

-oOo-

Elsie could see the woods thinning up ahead. She caught a glimpse of her car, but what really drew her attention were two unmarked black commercial vans parked directly behind it along the side of the dirt road.

She stopped to observe the two strange vehicles; there was no sign of occupants, but their presence was odd…even unnerving. They were at the dead end of a long-abandoned logging road with no development for miles - there was no reason for them to be there.

Lara drew up alongside. Elsie noted a change in body language from her friend as the brunette's gaze fell on the two mysterious vans.

"I don't like this," said the archaeologist, fidgeting with her axe handle. "At all."

Normally Elsie might've chalked up Lara's comments to her underlying paranoia, but she was feeling apprehensive herself – something felt off.

"What do we do?" asked the blonde. "Do we wait? Do we make a run for it?"

Lara turned to her. "Are you up for a sprint?"

"Try and catch me," said Elsie with a smile.

The American unstrapped her backpack, Lara following suit. If there was a danger, she wanted to waste no time unbuckling their packs once they reached the car.

"Ready?" asked the archaeologist. Elsie took a deep breath and nodded.

"Go!"

They took off at a run, covering the fifty or so yards at a breakneck pace, the two young women arriving at Elsie's car at almost the same instant.

The blonde quickly unlocked the driver's door, throwing both her and Lara's packs into the back seat as the brunette ran to the passenger side. Elsie jumped down behind the wheel and unlocked the right hand door.

She turned the key just as Lara dropped into her seat.

Nothing. Not even the sound of an engine turning.

"Fuck!"

"Try again."

Elsie did - there might as well have been no engine under the cowl. She slammed her first against the steering. "It should at least be trying!"

"Let's get out of here," said Lara, the brunette's tone sending a chill running down the blonde's spine.

The American had just barely exited the car when she found herself face to face with a levelled submachinegun.

"Shit," she swore, holding her hands up with palms facing outward. She turned her gaze to see Lara standing on the car's opposite side in a similar position. "Let me guess…"

"Trinity, yeah," said the brunette darkly.

"Ah, Miss Croft."

Elsie turned to see a man in a beret and wearing a leather bomber jacket approaching them, with a bespectacled man in an English-style tweed jacket at his side. Two heavily armed thugs wielding submachineguns followed closely behind. From the looks of things they'd just exited the nearer van's rear doors.

Aside from the two thugs training guns on her and Lara, two others had emerged from the woods to join their companions. The one watching Elsie grabbed her by the collar and roughly shoved her around the car to stand side by side with her companion.

The man in the beret was wiping his hands with a towel as though he'd just finished a meal. He stopped in front of Lara, looking her up and down with a surprisingly genial smile on his stubble-shadowed face – he looked to Elsie more like an art gallery curator than some secret society thug. She noticed that five of the six goons had their guns levelled at Lara; only the one that had escorted Elsie had his rifle trained on her.

"I was beginning to think you'd led us on a wild goose chase," said the man in the beret.

"Then I'll have to disappoint you," replied Lara neutrally as one of the thugs removed her climbing axe.

"Secure them," said the scholarly type, who seemed to Elsie to be the beret's second in command by the way the thugs readily obeyed, tying both hers and Lara's wrists together behind their backs.

"Ouch!" cried Elsie as the thug drew the rope painfully tight.

"Purely precautionary, of course," said the beret. "I've read your file, Miss Croft. I'd prefer not to be the one hundred and fourteenth member of our organization to perish at your hands. I'm sure you understand."

Elsie glanced sideways at the brunette. Holy shit…

"If you'd like to play it safe," returned Lara, "I might suggest retiring to Florida."

The beret smiled. "One day, perhaps," he said. "But for the present, I'm tasked with recovering the Ogham stones you recovered last year. Frankly we were beginning to think you'd never come back for them."

"And she didn't," interjected Elsie.

The man in the beret turned his attention to her. "Ah, Miss Trainor," he said. "Until recently we were under the impression you were a purely social acquaintance of Miss Croft's. It appears our intelligence was mistaken."

"She is," said Lara. "She's not involved in any of this."

"Indeed?" said the beret. He looked back to Elsie. "Odd that you accompanied your friend on a supposed social occasion to the same area where the Ogham stones were found, is it not?"

"But…that's thirty miles from here," said Elsie.

The man smiled.

Shit.

"I told her about it," said Lara. "That's all. She had no part in any of that."

"Search their bags," ordered the tweed-clad man. Two of the thugs pulled the backpacks from car's rear seat and proceeded to dump their contents on the ground.

"How the hell do you know who I am, anyway?" queried the blonde. "Who are you?"

The beret adopted a pensive air. "I'm afraid the exchange of information will have to be one way, Miss Trainor," he said. "As for who I am, well, it really isn't relevant to the exercise."

"Fine," said Elsie. "I'll call you Belloq."

The man smiled again. "As you wish."

"Nothing here, sir," one of the thugs announced, kicking the packs' contents around in the dirt.

The beret turned back to Lara. "Now, Miss Croft," he said, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us where you stored the stones? It would greatly simply things for us and avoid any…unnecessary complications."

The archaeologist stared at him silently.

Belloq pursed his lips. "No," he said solemnly, "I didn't suppose you would."

He pulled a pistol from his jacket and pressed the barrel to Elsie's temple in one smooth motion.

"NO!" cried Lara as the blonde's heart skipped, every fibre of her consciousness focused on the steel barrel pressing against the side of her head.

The beret turned his gaze back to Lara. "You said something, Miss Croft?"

"Don't hurt her," said Lara. "Please…she really has nothing to do with this…"

"It's not a question of what your friend knows, Miss Croft," said Belloq. "It's simply a question of whether or not you're willing to sacrifice her life in order to keep the location of the stones a secret."

"No," said Lara quickly. "I'm not."

The beret pulled his pistol away from Elsie's temple. The blonde's heart rate slowed to a less dangerous level.

"University of Massachusetts," said Lara dispiritedly. "Department of Historical Archaeology."

"There," said the beret as he slipped his pistol back into his jacket. "That wasn't so hard now, was it, Miss Croft?"

Lara gave him a look of disgust.

He turned to his bookish second-in-command. "Liquidate Miss Croft, if you please."

"What? No!" blurted Elsie, her sudden movement surprising the thug behind her as she broke free from his grip and fell to her knees. "NO! Please don't – I beg you, please, don't do this – "

Belloq turned to look at her. "It's nothing personal, my dear," he said with unanticipated civility. "I do not have a heart of stone, as surprising as that might seem to you. However allowing Miss Croft to go free would simply be…bad for business."

"I'll make up for it!" blurted Elsie is desperation, her grey eyes welling with tears. Please, I'll give you everything I have, just…please…DON'T KILL HER!"

The beret glanced at Elsie's car and turned back to the blonde. "It is a noble gesture, Miss Trainor, truly," he said. "But if that is a measure of your material wealth, I'm afraid we can't do business."

One of the goons moved towards Lara.

"I can get you millions!" cried Elsie, shuffling forward on her knees, tears flowing freely down her face. "Tens of millions! PLEASE!"

Belloq looked at her with a dubious smile. "And how, might I ask," he asked, "Would you manage such a feat?"

"I work at the Paddington Gallery in Portland," said Elsie in a quivering voice. "We specialize in books, rare books…I have all the security codes, I can get you and your men in at night, you can take anything you want, there'd be no alarms, many of them are worth hundreds of thousands…please…"

The beret appeared thoughtful. "Interesting," he mused. "But of course such valuable tomes would undoubtedly be thoroughly catalogued. Attempting to resell such unique items would be…problematic."

He looked at her in seeming sympathy. "For what it's worth," he said, "It was a valiant effort, my dear. However financial gain is not an overriding concern for our organization, but merely a means to an end."

"PLEASE!"

"It's all right, Elsie…" said Lara softly.

"No!" barked the American. "I won't let you fucking die, Lara!"

"Ah, such devotion," said Belloq. "Almost brings a tear to the eye."

"You like screwy artifacts, don't you?" said Elsie to the beret, desperation evident in her voice. "That's what you guys get your kicks from, right? Well I can get you a doozy…"

"Elsie, no!" interjected the brunette.

The brunette's reaction seemed to pique the beret's interest. "Go on, my dear."

The blonde was breathing heavily. "How's the Stone of Destiny sound?"

Belloq turned to the bespectacled man.

"That's in Ireland," said the bookish second-in-command dismissively. "And hardly in her possession. And in fact worthless, as it was determined long ago to be nothing but an unremarkable stone with no apparent properties."

"It's here!" cried Elsie. "The real stone! I have proof!"

"Elsie, no!" countered Lara. "If they can't use it they'll destroy it!"

"It's a freaking rock!" snapped the blonde.

"You mentioned proof, Miss Trainor?" interjected the beret.

"In my trouser pocket," said Elsie, "My phone…we took pictures…"

The beret nodded to the bespectacled man, who drew forward and retrieved the American's phone.

"You can unlock…one seven seven six…" said Elsie. "Just look at the most recent pictures…"

The tweed-clad man handed the phone to Belloq. The Trinity leader proceeded to flip through the images, an eyebrow raised in surprise.

"These were taken two days ago," said the beret, mulling. He turned to Elsie. "Where might we find this structure, Miss Trainor?"

"You expect to get that information for free?" replied Elsie.

Belloq smiled. "In fact, I do."

He pulled his pistol and pressed it against Lara's skull; the brunette closed her eyes.

Elsie's heart jumped; she tried not to show her underlying panic – she knew she had to play it cool or else all was lost.

"You've already given orders to kill her," she said, trying her best to keep her voice on an even keel without betraying her almost overwhelming fear. "That's hardly leverage."

The beret gazed at her curiously; he re-holstered his pistol.

"You're adept at the game, Miss Trainor," he said. "Very well, what would you propose?"

"Lara's life," she countered. "I show you were those pictures were taken…and you let her go free."

The beret looked to his second in command, who simply shrugged. He stroked his stubbly beard pensively.

"All right…I agree to your terms, Miss Trainor," said Belloq.

"I want your word on that," said Elsie. "And as a word of warning, I'll know if you're lying…and I'll lead you and your men around these woods till you've worn through your insoles."

The man looked at her with something approaching respect. "I believe you," he said. "You have my word, Miss Trainor. I will honour our agreement."

Elsie scanned him for any sign of duplicity and found none. Her ability to detect untruths in people had never led her astray – and she fervently hoped it wasn't this time.

"Deal."