Lara sat in a black leather loveseat as Rene paced the floor of her master's suite on the yacht, and spoke aloud to the super computer Alistair as the AI reviewed the sum total of all information both gathered by Lara from her initial survey of the island, and the over five hundered fifty hours of information gathered through the shoulder cams of the two hundered and fifty men who joined her later.

"Alistair, replay helmet cam two hundered thirteen. Show twelve hours and thirty three minutes ago."

"The red eagle?" the young male British voice asked excitedly.

Rene shook his head, "I swear, Maurice is frightening," he all but whispered, "Just recall one thing Lara... THAT is an artificial intelligence... witha personality. Zip designed it because he was bored... and wanted to see Evan's reaction."

"Shits and giggles,"Carter added, interlacing his fingers with Lara's "the lads at Langley weren't amused. They fired him. Which gives me an idea."

"They found Alistair annoying," Rene stated flatly.

"ANNOYING!?, " Alistair shouted in a surpise, "Would you prefer I said it like this?," Alistair asked, then responded with the voice of 'Hal' from 2001 A SPACE ODESSEY, "What are you asking Rene?", then added "Will I dream?"

"Just do it." The Frenchman grumbled.

A massive screen before them came alive and the footage of an armed patrol of the remains of Himiko's palace was seen through the helmet cam of one of the lead soldiers. The chared remains of the Sun Queen's private chambers were seen through the flickering light of numerous gun and helmet mounted flashlights. As they approached a distant wall, the camera passed over a scene of Himiko greeting foreign dignitaries early in her reign.

"STOP!" Rene ordered.

The camera froze on a scene in which she was seated before a group of bearded men dressed in hooded white robes, their depiction was clearly of men from the west. Before them, a man dressed in an elaborate form fitted uniform; and beside him stood a man holding a a golden standard, upon which was a golden eagle.

"Romans?" Lara gasped in astonishment.

"The men in the front, yes, The group behind them? We believe, if you can imagine...Druids. Move ahead three seconds."The image changes to a depiction of the Storm Guard, standing behind her. "Note the uniforms... their shoulder armature. It is markless. Move ahead three more seconds." The image changed to a depiction of the two Roman's leaving, and the Storm Guard standing watch as a new ship arrives. Their uniforms now sported a red eagle emblem on their shoulder armature.

Lara sat up, her eyes staring at the image, her mind racing, "Where are the Druids?"

"Where indeed? But I think we know." Rene responded.

She turned her face from the screen for a moment, "The runic symbols on the reanimated corpses; the circle of stones... ."

"They may be the reason it all happened." Rene said with a nod, then turned back to the screen, "Alistair, go back to the image of Himiko as she greet the Roman, compair to the image of her just after they depart. " He turned to Lara, "Prepair yourself."

The screen was divided in half. On one side Himiko is represented resplendant in her regal attire, her face lovely, and serene, her skin almost gold in complexion; beside it, the image of her dressed in her robes, her face stern, and rays eminating from her face and head, a slight, almost cruel smile on her lips, her skin pale.

"It get's worse," Rene stated bluntly, "Iron Maiden image 34."

A newsreel - color - taken in Berlin in 1939, days before the invasion of Poland. A line black dress-uniformed S.S officers parade before cameras as they move toward an observation stand. the image freezes as an all too familiar pair stride before the cameras, a man, and a woman, both dressed in S.S uniforms, only she is wearing a male officers cap, and the eagle on her arm isn't silver... it's red. She glances at the camera briefly.

"Bathory," Lara whispers to herself as she recalled the day relived by her in Bathory's memories.

"The 'man' with her is Reichs Protector Reinhard Heydrich, a butcher, and an idiot, " the German member of the team added, he stared intently at her, "Where is her regimental insignia? Only that hat, a man's tunic and breeches, and her rank insignias... a colonel? How? She has no party medals; Just a party pin, and the only thing that stands out is the red eagle."

"You know the unifoms well," Lara said. Keeping her answers to his question to herself. Best not to frighten them with tales of spiritual communication with the tortured souls of mass murderers simly by touching a ruby... might not yet go over well.

Bathory had liked the cut of the men's tunics, as she had liked Heydrich's blood lust, which she encouraged and fed. The fear he induced fed her ruby and the fact she was seen with him, so brazenly by all, added to the fear of her. Yet all she knew of the red Eagle was that her 'teacher' insisted she wear it when in the company of certain like adorned soldiers; both in the SS, British, AND the Soviet military. She had her SS uniform altered to add the distinction - Himmler complained... Hitler allowed it. Himmler tucked his tale between his legs and licked his wounds.

"My grandfather was a Hitler Youth, obsessed with the SS. Then, after the war, when his friends all died fighting in the place of these mass murderers who defiled our nation, our history, then ran away, or died like simpering cowards with cyanide. He became a Nazi hunter. Needles to say, he made them sorry they brainwashed him."

"Did he find any?," Lara asked, genuinely fascinated

"Dozens. HE helped find HER," he said, indicating Bathory.

"Why the dramatic change?" she asked

"He was walked through the death camps by Patton's army. He understood they, his friends, the millions of innocent civilians, were all victims of these 'men'. When he found them - the ones who let children die in their place - he said they all, to a man, died as blubbering, pleading cowards, while the childeren they brainwashed died as men... if for a cause they never knew the were serving."

"He sounds like a real badass," she said with a smile

He smiled, "He'd be honored YOU called him that. He was a badass; and before he killed his first Nazi, he was a badass Jew - he converted to the faith after the war, as much as an insult to the Nazis, and as a act of reverence to their murdered masses: A Hitler Youth voluntering to replenish their ranks. and after all was said and done, joined the Israeli army. He helped form the Mossad. It is through him that we have contacts in Tel Aviv."

"Contacts that tell us," Rene interjected, "that they have found proof in the Holy Land of this symbol going back as far as the Crucifiction. If not further... a red eagle."

"Who are they?" Bathory never heard any definitive name given. She was an agent of terror, under the control and guildance of the man who told her to call him 'Jack'. She never moved higher than her place, just like so many countless others.

We have no idea. If they were in Nazi Germany as this film suggests, then they may have been disbanded: some psudo-religious SS sect? Also... if they were with the Nazi's why destroy their own operation? We have Alistair working on decifering the numeric code on those GPS tracers you found. We looked into that group you found reference to in that note... Trinity? No match - anywhere. We never found any where that name is refrenced as a group... at least not in modern times."

...

CROFT MANOR - SURREY, ENGLAND

"It will only take a moment, I promise," the black longshoreman's coat and cap clad man standing before the huge doors said through smiling eyes and an almost manical grin, "I just want to be sure that not one other person takes posession of these rare...personal items."

"We've got company at this moment," an older man's voice replied, "Fellow from the 'Home Office'. Asking about Lady Croft. He's brought quite a few well heeled friends."

The man in black looked about the drive, seeing only a late model Rolls and a taxi, both without drivers. He smiled even wider, "All the more the merrier," he all but hissed before turning back to the doors, "Very well then. I'll just leave these here. But let me repeat, they are for her... eyes only." He strode away, humming happily.

WITHIN CROFT MANOR

Albert Winston Carter stood behind the main entrance, a sawed off shotgun in his hand, to his left, ten feet away, Andria stood holding a HK assault pistol. On the stairs, the seer sat shaking his head, "Don't even think about it," he said, a tone of dismay in his voice, "The second you get the door unlocked you will both be dead... before you turned the knob. Call the police, and THEY will ALL die."

"You, he'll leave..."

"He'll find it amusing," the seer finished,"a blind deaf man, the only one left alive. The only living witness."

"Who is he?" Albert asked.

"He doesn't even know anymore. He was lost long before this group found him... but he has flourished in their embrace, so to speak."

"How do we stop him?," Andria asked, the gun dropped to her side.

"WE don't."