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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Man of Bronze [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe Reader 7]
eBook by James Alan Gardner
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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Science Fiction
eBook Description:  New Adventures Based On The World's Bestselling Video Game. After completing a near-fatal mission in the mysterious cloud forests of Peru, Lara Croft flies to Warsaw to tackle her next assignment--and finds herself in the middle of an epic battle for the ultimate power. Reuben Baptiste needs Lara Croft's help transporting precious cargo. But before Reuben can reveal any details, he is murdered--and Lara signs on with Reuben's employer, the mysterious Order of the Bronze, to avenge his death. The Order shares with Lara its greatest treasure: a bronze android, thousands of years old, with uncanny abilities. But the android is crippled, missing a leg, and whoever finds that leg will gain astonishing powers. Hot on the trail is Lara's nemesis, Lancaster Urdmann, now working for an unknown employer with strange abilities. As Lara jets from Siberia to Australia to Rio de Janiero, she is drawn into an age-old conflict of secret societies, intrigue, and death....
eBook Publisher: Random House, Inc./Ballantine Books
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2005
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Available eBook Formats [Secure eReader (recommended)/Mobipocket/Microsoft Reader/Adobe Reader 7 - What's this?]: SECURE MOBIPOCKET FORMAT (301 KB], SECURE MICROSOFT READER FORMAT (438 KB] - Requires Microsoft Reader 2.1.1 for PCs, or Microsoft Reader 2.2.2 on Pocket PC 2002 handheld devices. Some older Pocket PCs can be upgraded. Learn More., SECURE EREADER (RECOMMENDED) FORMAT (264 KB], SECURE ADOBE READER 7 FORMAT (1.1 MB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [540 KB]
Secure Adobe Reader 7: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
eReader (recommended) ISBN: 0345481925
Microsoft Reader ISBN, Adobe Acrobat Reader ISBN, MobiPocket Reader ISBN: 9780345481924
 
The Stare Miasto district of Warsaw is an illusion. It appears to be centuries old, with buildings dating back to the 1200s and a city wall erected to fend off the Mongol hordes. But the district's venerable appearance is false. Stare Miasto was leveled during World War II--not a stone left standing--and everything you see is a twentieth-century reproduction made to look aged using rubble that was left after Hitler and Stalin pounded the city into ruin.
In other words, Stare Miasto is a counterfeit antique: well built and lovely, but fake. I know about counterfeits. I've seen many. My name is Lara Croft, and I collect old things.
It was December--a clear cold night with the snow ankle deep. Warsaw's streets were empty, except for a few late stragglers whose breaths steamed ghostlike into the air. Their heads were probably full of Christmas: presents to buy, food to cook, decorations to string over the hearth. My thoughts, however, were elsewhere. I'd been called to Warsaw by a friend . . . and my friend was in trouble.
His name was Reuben Baptiste: born in Trinidad, educated at Cambridge, and a useful fellow for someone in my line of work. Reuben was a freelance research assistant. He had a knack for finding exactly the right paragraph in exactly the right book--often in dusty libraries where the books were uncatalogued and stacked in random heaps on the shelves. Reuben had a good eye for deciphering faded hieroglyphics and for spotting inscriptions so faint they were almost invisible. Above all, he could talk to people. He could talk to scientists of the Royal Society in their clubs off Piccadilly; he could talk to native shamans as they sat around smoky campfires; he could talk to people in rest homes and coax out the story of how they'd once seen something odd fifty years ago while strolling beside the Nile.
Of course, Reuben had his shortcomings--all his knowledge came from books and conversation, not from hands-on work in the field. He'd never entered an ancient tomb or even visited an archaeological dig. Still, he was excellent at what he did. Whenever I was too busy to do such chores myself, I'd hire Reuben to track down information for me. He, in turn, always sent a heads-up my way if he came across something of interest . . . so when he telephoned to say, "Drop everything and meet me in Warsaw," I hopped the first plane from Heathrow.
Before leaving, I did take a moment to ask Reuben what he'd found. He said he couldn't tell me till he got permission from his current employer . . . and, no, he couldn't say who that was. But if everything worked out, this unknown employer would be eager to sponsor me on a chance-of-a-lifetime expedition, and I'd be eager to go.
That's all Reuben would say. I didn't press for details. One reason I valued Reuben was that he never divulged the secrets of those he worked for.
When Reuben first called me, we'd arranged to meet at the Bristol, Warsaw's most exclusive hotel, so distinguished it's listed as a Polish national monument. Just after my flight landed, however--while I was queued up at customs, moving at a snail's pace because Ok(ecie airport was in the middle of a high security alert--I checked my messages and found a voice mail from Reuben, saying, "Forget the Bristol; meet me at Dr. Jacek's."
His voice sounded bad: breathless with pain. I pushed my way through customs with unladylike haste.
Dr. Jacek's clinic lay on the edge of Stare...
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