Disclaimer: I do not own nor profess to own any part of the Jurassic Park Franchise, nor do I see this story as Canon. I only claim credit for the ideas and OCs in this story.
To Collect My Fee: Returning to the Lost World
Chapter 1: Remembering Old Friends
April 16th, 2000
A lone man with a small gold earring and Khaki shorts and a white collared short-sleeve shirt, sat on a barstool in a Mombasan bar downing a shot of Jameson before turning it on its rim and setting it down. He sighed as he motioned for the bartender not to pour another round. He closed his eyes and lowered his hat as memories flooded his mind's eye. Memories of an Island off the coast of Costa Rica, a failed expedition, blood, screams, death, earth-shaking footsteps, and thunderous roaring. Roland Tembo stood up abruptly, paid for his drink and made his way up the dirt path to his home.
Roland looked back to the bar remembering nearly 3 years past, when his best friend and hunting partner Ajay Sidhu sought him out at that very same bar.
A/N: (Deleted Scene from The Lost World: Jurassic Park I CLAIM NO RIGHTS TO THIS!)
FLASHBACK
Roland Tembo, late sixties, skin like leather and the diamond hard look of a cobra, sits at a table in the middle of an Kenyan bar in Mombasa.
It's daytime and the place is half full, mostly with locals, but there are a few obnoxious tourists as well, Americans on safari who somehow found the local hangout.
They're a noisy bunch, but Roland tunes them out, calmly eating his lunch and drinking a beer while he reads a book, eyeglasses hanging low on his face.
Roland suddenly stops reading and furrows his brow. He looks up. He sniffs the air once, then smiles and calls out a name.
"Ajay?"
He turns around. Ajay Sidhu, a wiry East Indian in his late forties, is standing behind him, caught trying to sneak up.
Ajay asks delighted, "How did you know?"
Roland taps his nose, "That cheap aftershave I send you every Christmas, you actually wear it. I'm touched. Sit down, sit down, what brings you to Mombasa?"
Ajay smiles and points to Roland, "You!"
Behind them, the group of tourists, call men, laugh loudly. One of them, the most obnoxious tourist, berates the waitress.
Ajay answers, "I got a call from a gentleman who's going to Costa Rica, or thereabouts. If he's to be believed, it's a most, uh, unique expedition. And very well-funded."
Roland replies, "Well, I'm a very well-funded old son of a bitch. You go."
The most obnoxious tourist bellows for the waitress. His buddies laugh. Roland throws a glance, annoyed.
"But alone? We always had great success together, you and I." Ajay asks in surprise.
Roland sighs and replies, "Just a little bit too much, I think."
"How do you mean?"
"A true hunter doesn't mind if the animal wins. If it escapes. But there weren't enough escapes from you and me, Ajay. We were a firing squad, don't you think?"
"I have good reason to believe you'd find this challenging." Ajays smirks in the I Know Something You Don't manner.
"Then it's probably illegal. These days, it's a more serious crime to shoot a tiger than to shoot your own parents. Tigers have advocates."
The Waitress comes to the Tourists' table and the most obnoxious tourist actually paws her rear. Roland is out of his chair in a second.
"Excuse me." Roland tells Ajay.
Roland walks over to the Tourists' table, says something to the waitress in the local dialect, and she walks away, behind him. He stares down at the most obnoxious tourist.
"You, sir - - are no gentleman." Roland states firmly as he stows his eyeglasses in his left breast pocket.
"Is that supposed to be an insult?" the smirking Tourist asks.
"I can think of none greater."
The Tourist looks at his buddies and laughs.
"Buzz off, you silly old bastard." the Tourist says as he casually spits.
"What do I have to do to pick a fight with you? Erm… bring your mother into it?"
"Are you kidding? I could take you with one arm tied down." the Tourist attempts to brush him off.
"Really?" Roland smiles challengingly
They move to the middle of the floor.
The bartender finishes tying Roland's wrist to his belt in the back of his pants with a napkin. He pulls the knot tight. The Tourist stands across from him.
The Tourist laughs, "I meant my arm."
Roland punches him square in the jaw in a split second. The Tourist reels, stunned. Enraged, he lunges at Roland, swinging with both arms.
Roland bobs, neatly ducking the punches, waits for the tourist to turn around, and POPS him in the face. The Tourist recovers and lunges at Roland.
This time Roland doesn't punch, he waves to the left and throws a hip, augmenting it with a foot sweep.
The Tourist loses his balance and sails into a table, flipping it over and wiping out an older couple's lunch. He lands hard, the table on top of him.
A cloud of sawdust and loud CHEER from the locals rise up in the bar.
Roland drops the napkin on the table and sits back down with Ajay. In the background, the Tourist's Buddies hurriedly carry their fallen cohort out of the bar.
"Sorry. We were saying?" Roland apologizes.
Ajay, turning away from the spectacle of the Americans accidentally smashing their cohort's unmentionables onto a wooden post, while attempting to carry him. "You broke that man's jaw for no reason other than your boredom. Tell the truth, Roland. Aren't you even interested in knowing this expedition's quarry?"
Roland scoffs, "Ajay. Go on up to my ranch, take a look around the trophy room, and tell me what kind of quarry you think could possibly be of any interest to me."
Ajay just smiles.
END FLASHBACK
Roland sighed, "And that is how it all began, the beginning of the end." he muttered to himself.
He continued his walk to his ranch, thinking about the Island of Isla Sorna. The Hunting Party that he'd led, the Hunting Party that never made it out of the elephant grass, including Ajay.
Another memory of the remains of his second in command, a brutal man, Dieter Stark. How a ruthless man such as he died alone and in from what Roland could make out, a very painful fashion, was all it took for Roland to realize that there were some things, man was never meant to tamper with.
Roland walked into his trophy room, his Searcy .600 Nitro Express Double Rifle laying idly next to a large empty plaque. It read, "The Greatest Predator Who Ever Lived" Roland clenched his fist, his moral code warring with his urge to truly hunt the King of Beasts, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The Buck.
Not a night passed in his sleep where he didn't hear the massive snoring of the mighty animal, after he'd been forced to tranquilize it.
"Damn that Earth First bastard, Van Owen!" Roland thought.
Had he not sabotaged Roland's weapon, the Rex would've been brought down, honorably, not caged like a common pet and shipped off to a zoo. Nor, would it have broken free killing dozens of innocents in San Diego. Roland felt no small amount of guilt for the role he played in the death toll stemming from his foray to InGen's Island of Monsters.
If Van Owen hadn't sabotaged his weapon, Ajay and the hunters might still have been alive, no way to tell now of course. It's strange how such small things can have the largest consequences.
Roland pondered. He wanted his shot. His time and his sorrows went unpaid on Isla Sorna. His fee was yet to be collected.
This time, there would be no others. Just him, only his life to risk, his life to lose, the Rex or Roland. That is what he decided, that is what he knew.
He would return the Island, and he'd get his trophy, the "Greatest Predator Who Ever Lived" or die alone…
A/N: Hope you all enjoy this brief prologue but I wanted to set the stage for what Roland is actually going through, he's not looking for vengeance or justice. But he feels that he never got his chance to hunt the Buck T-Rex, there was always a complication. That is the loophole in his strict moral code that allows him to return to island. READ & REVIEW (please ideas are welcome and appreciated. I have a beginning and an end but the middle is mucky at the moment help is always found in the readers!)