Free Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals by Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent

hear, except that she could tell it was in English, not French.
    She thought he adjusted his position so that he could see her.
    By the time the train pulled in at Strasbourg—Saint-Denis, Lara had decided to get off, but very few passengers disembarked at that point, and she wanted a crowd. She took a breath and resisted the urge to bolt. Windcheater glanced in her direction. He stayed on the train.
    Shortly after Réaumur-Sébastopol, while Lara was glancing over the latest passengers to embark, she spotted a young woman about two metres further up the carriage on the other side of her. She hadn’t been there when she’d got on the train at Gare du Nord, but she had been in the same carriage as Lara on the Channel Tunnel train. Lara distinctly remembered the ponytail pulled through the band of the baseball cap.
    Was that who Windcheater had been speaking to on the phone? Was she surrounded?
    Lara held her nerve. She was on a busy Metro train. There was nothing they could do to her, not here. She had to get rid of them. She had to get off the train and into a crowd, and she had to make sure she lost them before she got to her hotel.
    And who the hell are they? thought Lara. What do they want with me?
    Lara was well placed, close to the carriage doors. Windcheater would have to use the exit he was closest to, and Ponytail would have to follow her out. If she left the train at the busiest stop, she stood a chance of losing at least one of them, and maybe both.
    The train stopped again. The stations were barely a minute apart, hardly giving Lara time to think. As the train pulled up at the platform at Étienne Marcel, there were only a few people waiting. One or two people left the carriage. Although she could feel the sweat collecting between her shoulder blades, Lara stayed where she was. By her reckoning there were only four more stops before her station at Odéon. She had to get off soon.
    Lara tried to stay calm. She turned to look at Ponytail again as the train pulled out of the station. The girl dipped her head before their eyes met. Lara took it as a sign that she was being watched. She had to get off the train, and it had to be soon.
    Lara was relieved to see a lot of people on the train begin to move as the seconds ticked down to the next stop. This was it. There were people on the platform too. She tried not to telegraph her movements, but she quickly decided to get off the train at Les Halles, a busy market area at the heart of the city.
    She was off quickly, one of the first, and she didn’t look back. She simply walked confidently through the passengers waiting to board, and made her way through the station.
    She did not see the second man, had not seen him, was not expecting him. As he passed her on the escalator, she glanced up at him. She was moving quickly and was surprised that someone was moving faster than she was. He stayed right in front of her. She didn’t dare to slow down. If she was being followed, and she was sure that she was, she couldn’t risk slowing down.
    The place was busy. The underground station was below the Forum des Halles shopping mall, and it was crowded with people.
    Breathe Lara. Nearly there.
    Then, as Lara walked onto the main concourse among the shops and the milling people, the lean man with the crew cut, who had strode past her on the escalator, suddenly turned. He was smiling, as if he knew her. Lara was too startled to do or say anything as he took her arm and began to lead her across the concourse.
    Lara began to tug at her arm. The man gripped it more tightly.
    “Don’t struggle,” he said. “It’s pointless.”
    Lara swung her head around. No one seemed to be taking any notice. She pulled at her arm again, and looked around for Windcheater and Ponytail. She couldn’t see either of them. She pulled at her arm again and looked at the man holding on to her. He was still smiling, but they had almost come to a stop. Lara tried kicking out at his legs, but he did not